from a half dozen states. They had been ambushed in transit, only a hundred and fifty had made it out alive.
Ben stood on a manmade podium in a natural outdoor amphitheater about a mile from Base Camp One.
“All right, people,” his voice jerked them to mental attention, eyes forward. Three hundred eyes studied the human legend standing before them. A shade over six feet, one hundred and eighty pounds, hair streaked with gray, blue eyes. Hard looking. “Welcome to Base Camp One. You have now reached the point of no return. From here on, there are but two ways to leave the Rebels: we win the fight, or you die. Those are your only choices.
“To my left is Colonel Ike McGowen, to my right is Colonel Cecil Jefferys. Colonel McGowen is your training officer, so get ready for the roughest time of your life. Colonel Jefferys is my XO. Now let’s get to it.
“Guerrilla warfare is a dirty business. Several of you men fought in Vietnam; you know firsthand what I’m talking about. For you inexperienced people, guerrilla warfare is this: hit hard and run like hell. For the enemy, guerrilla warfare is fear, confusion, disorganization, distrust, and terror. No great thundering land and sea-battles. No clearly defined battle lines. Guerrillas pop up anywhere, do their jobs, and get out. The enemy doesn’t know where they come from or where they’re going when they’re through.”
A hand went up from the ranks of the new people. Ben nodded his acknowledgment and said, “Name, please?”
“Steve Mailer. How much time will we have, General?”
“Hopefully, six months. It’s enough time, for you’ll be mixed with combat-experienced men and women when the full unit is formed.” Ben smiled. “I read about your… incident. You seem to be well-versed in firearms. Pistols, at least.”
“When I saw how our government was… the direction it was taking, I began giving myself lessons in firearms.” For a moment the slender young man was flung back in time…
The agents had entered his office and faced him, smiling and arrogant. “Where’s the old broad?”
Steve gritted his teeth. “Mrs. Rommey took the rest of the afternoon off. I trust that meets with your approval?”
“Watch your smart mouth, schoolteacher. Turn around, face the wall, and spread your feet.”
Steve had smiled. “Man’s rapidly dwindling individuality will someday end with an act of frightened, submissive obedience, groveling at the feet of near-cretins. I have no intention of being a party to that final fall of the curtain.”
“Huh?” one agent asked.
“It means, fuck you!” Steve said. He raised the pistol and turned. The angle of his body had prevented the agents from seeing the .38. He fired twice into each man’s chest. He fanned their bodies, taking their weapons, then ran out the rear door…
“…you all right?” Steve caught the last of Ben’s question.
“Oh. Yes, sir. I was recalling the… incident in my office.”
“First time to kill a man?” Ike asked.
“Yes, Colonel.”
“It won’t be the last,” Ike told him.
A very blond-haired lady put up a hand. Ben realized then where he’d seen the woman. In
“Bellever. Dawn Bellever.” She couldn’t believe the general was as old as people said he was. Except for his gray-streaked hair, he looked… well, kind of boyish. “What’s to prevent the president from sending in the Air Force and bombing us here in the park?”
“The president is not our enemy,” Ben said. “President Addison is a good, fair man—even if he is a liberal…”
That brought a roar of laughter from not only the new people but from Ben’s seasoned Rebels.
When the laughter had died down, Dawn asked, “I don’t understand, sir. Are you saying that all the rumors we’ve been hearing; by we, I mean the press—about Vice President Lowry really being the man in power, are true?”
“That is correct, Ms. Bellever.”
Ike and Cecil looked at Ben, then at each other. In all their years of association with Ben, neither had ever heard him use Ms. toward any lady.
“Would you explain, sir?” she asked.
“Gladly,” Ben smiled.
“Oh, shit,” Ike muttered. He ignored the look he received from Ben.
“Poor Jerre,” Cecil muttered.
Ben looked at him. “What is this, a conspiracy?” he asked softly.
Both men looked straight ahead, in strict military fashion.
“We must maintain military decorum, General,” Cecil said with a straight face.
“Comedians,” Ben muttered. He turned his gaze to Dawn. Very easy to look at. “Yes, we have proof that VP Lowry was really the man behind President Logan. That should not be difficult to believe—the man was a fucking idiot.”
Again, roars of laughter from the troops.
Ben said, “After Logan’s death at the hands of one of my Zero Squad members—Badger Harbin—Lowry, with the help of selected members of both houses of Congress, wormed his way into the second spot, and the second phase of Lowry’s power play was complete. Unfortunately for the American public, we have a number of people in Congress who are interested only in looking out for themselves and the devil with the citizen. It is my intention to dispose of those so-called ‘public servants’ when the government is wrested from the hands of those now in power and restored to the people.”
“What do you mean, General?” Steve Mailer asked. “Dispose of them?”
“I intend to try them for treason and shoot them,” Ben replied.
“Jesus,” someone among the ranks of the new people muttered.
A young man stepped forward and faced Ben. The young man—no more than a year or two out of his teens—had the look of a boy born into poverty and never finding his way out of it.
“Jimmy Brady, sir. Tennessee. When do our trainin’ start?”
“It’s started right now, son.”
“No, sir—I mean the killin’ part.”
Ben smiled. “You want to explain that, Jimmy?”
Jimmy spat a brown stream of tobacco juice on the ground. “Hartline’s men come to my momma and daddy’s house once they learned I was a part of the Rebel underground. They raped my momma and dragged her off. I still don’t know whether she’s alive or dead. My little sister, Lou Ann… well, was only eleven. They raped her, too. She bled to death in the dirt where they throwed her down when they finished. They tortured my daddy and then hung him. That tell you what you want to know, General?”
“Yes, Jimmy, it does. You a good shot, Jimmy?”
“As good as any man in this camp, sir. I can knock the eye out of a squirrel at a hundred yards.”
Ben looked around and found a sergeant. “Sergeant, take this man and see what he can do with a sniper rifle.”
Questions were hurled back and forth for another hour. Ben finally called a halt to the session. “You people take it easy for the rest of the day—get something to eat. P.T. and field training begins tomorrow, at 0600. I’ll see you then.”
Ben walked back to his bunker and opened a can of field rations. He ate slowly, his thoughts many. He thought once of Jerre, and again wondered why she had refused to accompany him east. She’d been moody and irritable of late.
“Probably needs to meet someone her own age,” he muttered. He could not help but think of her as a kid, even though a decade had passed since their first meeting. “God knows, the kid hasn’t had an easy time of it.”
He lay down on his bunk and closed his eyes. He was asleep in two minutes.
