learn how to use those weapons—and use them!”
“So you think we have a chance of pulling this off without open warfare?” General Krigel asked.
The COs of Ben’s four brigades sat in a tent in Base Camp One, almost in the dead center of the Great Smokies.
“With Lowry gone I believe the rest would be downhill,” Ben replied.
“What does Levant say about it?” Conger asked.
“He hasn’t replied to our message as yet. Maybe he rejected it right off; maybe he’s quietly sounding people out. I don’t know.”
General Hazen placed his coffee mug carefully on the camp table. He said, “If Levant says it’s no-go, for whatever reason, we still have an option.”
Ben looked at him; waited.
“Gray’s Scouts,” Hazen said. “A suicide mission. One team of handpicked Scouts. It’s something to think about.”
Only Krigel knew of Tina’s joining the Scouts. Ben had discussed it with him just the day before. Krigel looked at Ben for any sign of outwardly shown emotion. He saw none.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Ben said. “But if it does, that’s the way we’ll go. All right, let’s talk about the troops. How ready are they?”
“My people say if you’ll give them the green light, they can kick Hartline’s bunch right in the ass and be back home in time for lunch,” Hazen said with a grin.
“I gather morale is high,” Ben said dryly.
“I’m having trouble keeping their feet on the ground,” the general replied.
“My people are ready,” Colonel Ramos said. “This rest period is what they needed. They’re hot to mix it up.”
“Same here,” Conger said.
Krigel nodded his head. “We’re all honed fine, Ben. How much longer do we wait?”
“I’ve deliberately let the word out we wouldn’t strike before the first of the year at the earliest. Preferably not until midsummer of 2000. I was afraid many of the civilians would back off from helping themselves; reports coming in say that is true. I keep forgetting that even though many of the people have served in the military, in their hearts, they’re civilians. Hartline’s men crushed a small town up in Ohio; just stood out and shelled it and then shot the survivors.”
“Haven’t any of these goddamned people ever heard of flanking tactics?” Hazen growled. “Damnit, are we going to have to wet-nurse the entire nation?”
“Steady, trooper,” Krigel laughed at his friend. “You seem to forget that for a decade and a half before the war of ‘88, we didn’t have a draft and the country was not what one could call pro-military…”
Ben let his commanders rattle sabers at each other as his mind took him back thirty years, back to the words of one of the greatest guerrilla fighters the world had ever known: Colonel Bull Dean.
They had been waiting to lift off from Rocket City, heading into North Vietnam, to HALO in: high altitude, low opening. They would jump at twenty thousand feet, their chutes opening automatically when they got under radar.
“We’re losing this war, son,” Bull had said. “And there is nothing that guys like you and me can do about it —we can only prolong it. Back home, now, it’s gonna get worse—much worse. Patriotism is gonna take a nose dive, sinking to new depths of dishonor. There is no discipline in the schools; the courts have seen to that. America is going to take a pasting for a decade, maybe longer, losing ground, losing face, losing faith.”
How true his words had been.
A month after Bull had spoken those words, and had supposedly been killed, Ben was wounded and sent home. To a land he could not relate to.
He found he could not tolerate the attitudes in America toward her Vietnam vets. He was restless, and missed the action he had left behind. He had been sent home to a land of hairy, profane young men who sewed the American flag on the seats of their dirty jeans and marched up and down the streets, shouting ugly words, all in the name of freedom—their concept of freedom.
Ben spent two years in Africa, fighting in dozens of little no-name wars as a mercenary. Then he had returned and found, to his amazement, he could write, and make a living at it. He had lived in Louisiana for fifteen years. Until the great war of 1988.
He remembered that strange phone call he’d received that night so long ago. Those two words: Bold Strike. The words Bull Dean had told him to remember. He recalled his confusion.
That man who had visited him back in ‘84 with the ridiculous idea that Bull Dean and Carl Adams were still alive; that they were covertly heading some underground guerrilla army; that they were going to take over the government.
Ben had sent the man packing; had laughed at him.
Then, only a week before the world exploded in nuclear and germ warfare, Ben had called the CO of his old outfit, the Hell Hounds. Sam Cooper had told Ben to “hunt a hole and keep your head down, partner.”
Then the connection had been broken.
Five days later the world blew up.
“…about this Hickman woman, Ben?” he caught the last of Colonel Ramos’s question.
Ben shook himself back to reality; broke the misty bounds of memories of things past and people long dead and gone. He looked up and smiled.
“Sorry, Hec. I was long ago and far away.”
“We all do it, Ben,” Hector said. “I sometimes have to fight my way back from memories. When my wife and I were stationed out at Huachuca. The kids…” He trailed it off, then cleared his throat. “Never did find them. Finally gave up hope about five years ago.” He shook his head. “What I was saying, Ben: Have you and this Hickman woman worked out any code?”
“No. That’s Cecil’s department. I never was much for secret handshakes and codes. Personally, I wish this Olivier woman had never dreamed this up. I think she’s playing a game that is going to get her killed.”
Hector nodded. “You know I soldiered with Sam Hartline, don’t you, Ben?”
Ben’s head came up, eyes sharp. “No, I didn’t, Hec. When was this?”
“Seventy-nine. We were stationed at Bragg together. He was prior service and reenlisted. I think he’d had about three or four years in Africa—this was right after ‘Nam—and came back stateside and went Special Forces. He got kicked out of the Army; a rape charge that was never proved. But we all knew he did it. Young girl. ‘Bout twelve or thirteen, as I recall. He’s
“Beginning this Friday,” Hartline told Cody, “I want your cryptography section to videotape all shows that have anything about me or Raines on them. Go over them from top to bottom for coded messages.”
“Olivier is playing games?”
“Why, hell, yes. Whole goddamn thing is a game. One day she hates me so badly her eyes are like a snake; next day she’s inviting me to her house and lickin’ my dick like it’s peppermint candy—doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.”
“And…?”
“So we’ll let her play her little games. If she’s sending codes to Raines—and I believe she will—I’ll give her all the false information she can use; let her play her games. Raines isn’t going to buy it. He’s an ol’ curly wolf that’ll puke up the poison soon as it hits his stomach. Wish I could figure out some way to kill that son of a bitch.”
Cody let that slide. Lots of people would like to figure out a way to kill Ben Raines; lots of people had tried to kill him—for years. Cody was beginning to think the man was untouchable. And he wasn’t alone in that. He had heard of those who felt the man was God-touched; that even some in his command were viewing him as if he rested on some higher plane than mere mortals. Some of those he had seen broken under torture went out calling Raines’s name. Not Jesus Christ. Not the Holy Mother. Not God—but Ben Raines.
