Ben looked at Dawn and Rosita. “Death. Pestilence. Plague. I wonder when the locusts are coming?”
TWO
Richmond was burning.
Ben stood in the bedroom of his private quarters and watched the first flames lick at the white-dotted air. He was dressed in field clothes, his feet in jump boots. He wore a .45 belted at his side. His old Thompson lay on a nearby table, the canvas clip-pouch full of thirty-round clips.
He turned as James Riverson stepped into the room. Steve Mailer was with him; several other Rebels. All were dressed in battle clothes, armed with M-16s.
Ben had slept for several hours, his aides taking the ever-grimmer messages from the field. The situation had been worsening hourly: the nation was in a panic, people fleeing in a blind stampede of crushing humanity, rolling over anyone who stood in their way. Young, old, male, female—it made no difference.
And none of them realized they were racing straight into hell, away from the vaccines and medicines that could possibly save them. It was a grim replay of the events of 1988, just hours preceding the first wave of missiles.
“Fools,” Ben muttered. “Blind panicky fools.”
He turned to the men and women he had known and trusted for years.
“Anyone get hold of Hector?”
“He’s on his way to the Tri-States,” Rosita said. “We’re pulling all our people in,
“How many of our people have we lost—that anyone knows of?”
“Bobby Hamilton and Jimmy Brady bought it,” Cecil said, stepping into Ben’s quarters. “Carla Allen made it out; she’s with the first contingent to leave our base camp. They’re rolling. Ike and Dan and all their people made it across the borders. Lynne Hoffman, Tina, and Judy Fowler left with the second convoy. The third convoy should be pulling out within the hour.”
Bob Mitchell stepped into the room. The first tint of ashen light was appearing in the east. “We’d better get out of here, Mr. President,” he said. “The rioters and looters are getting closer.”
“Got your wife and family, Bob?” Ben asked.
“Yes, sir. But I feel like a traitor pulling out while so many are stuck.”
“Don’t feel that way, Bob. I’ll tell you like I told Doctor Lane: it all comes down to survival. How about the other fellows?”
“A few are going with us. Most said they’d take their chances in the timber. I wished them good luck.”
“They’ll need it,” Ben said tersely. He looked at the small group. “Everybody been needle-popped and got their pockets stuffed with oral medication?”
All had.
Sam came running into the quarters. He paused for a moment to catch his breath. “Sir! Mobs just hit the airfield. Most of the planes have been destroyed or damaged. We won’t be flying out.”
If the news affected Ben, he did not show it. He picked up his Thompson and jacked a round into the chamber, putting the weapon on safety.
“No reason why we should expect our luck to change at this date,” he said. “I think our best bet will be trucks and buses. We’ll fill some tankers with gasoline and diesel; won’t have to risk pulling off the road. There is a truck-and-bus terminal just on the outskirts of the city.” He looked at Riverson. “James, you take some people and get out there. Pick the best ones of the lot. Make sure the floors and sides are in good shape. We’ll reinforce them with sheet metal if necessary.”
The big ex-truck driver from Missouri nodded his understanding and left.
Ben looked at Cecil. “How many of our people were staying, flying out with us?”
“One company, Ben. They’re downstairs.”
“Let’s roll it.”
On the morning the United States of America began to die, one hundred of the richest men and women in America were being bussed to various airports around the nation, all heading for one central location: a long- abandoned Air Force base in West Texas. There, four 747s were being made ready for flight.
Only the best of food and drink were carefully being loaded aboard the huge jets. Copies of the best movies spanning fifty years. Books of the best and most famous authors (although the latter does not necessarily symbolize the former), were lovingly and carefully packed away and stored in compartments.
Behind the big 747s, two dozen transports were being loaded with almost anything anyone could imagine for luxury living: portable generators, air conditioners, mink and sable coats, crates of bottled water (Perrier, of course), wines and liqueurs and whiskey. The sweating men loaded grand pianos, fine china and crystal, crates of gold and silver and cases of precious gems and boxes of paintings.
Then came the children of the rich; the special friends of the rich; the servants of the rich; the bodyguards of the rich; and finally, the rich.
They were jubilant. They had made it. These rich men and women (many of whom had not paid a dime’s worth of personal income tax in years, due to what is commonly known as the world’s most inequitable tax system ever devised, thank Congress for that) were going to live!
They were going to sparsely populated and untouched by germ or nuclear warfare areas of the world. There, with their wealth intact, they would live out their days.
And the manicured, pedicured, coiffured, diamond-hung ladies brought their poodles with them.
And the poodles brought fleas.
And had they been very quick of eye, the rich might have noticed the scurrying of creatures darting under the planes, leaping into open cargo doors. But they didn’t see them.
The doors were slammed shut and the planes roared off into the cold blue, leaving the workmen on the ground. Who needs ‘em?
So, amid the clinking of champagne glasses and the tinkling of lounge pianos (every court needs a jester), the rich roared away.
Carrying into areas, which might have been spared the plague, fifty-eight huge mutant rats and about ten thousand fleas.
And the plague, known in its pure form as the Black Death, spread.
Worldwide.
As thick, greasy smoke lifted up into the snowy skies over Richmond, Ben and his party stood in the deserted terminal and picked their vehicles. Fronting the column would be a pickup with a covered bed, twin-M-60s sticking out the front of the rear. The same type of vehicle would be at the rear of the column. In the center of the column, two new Greyhound buses the company had ordered and never picked up. Ben would be in a pickup truck directly behind the lead vehicle with Cecil in a vehicle at the rear of the column, the distance deliberately wide to prevent both of them from being killed in the same attack. If any.
Two tankers were spaced front and rear. Trucks with bottled water and food also widely separated. Communications people worked feverishly installing radios in all the vehicles.
A hard burst of gunfire spun the Rebels around, weapons at the ready. A mob was trying to break in and climb over the high chain-link fence surrounding the terminal. The first dozen to try now lay in bloody piles on the snowy blacktop.
Ben looked at the two women who had volunteered to look after the twins: the wife of Bob Mitchell and the wife of another agent. He smiled at them, silently calming the ladies.
“Get in the buses,” he told them. “All of you not needed out here, in the buses and trucks. Get ready to pull out.”
