A mixed group of young people-a few more than Ben expected-rose and walked to where Ben stood. Denise said, “We’ll listen, General. But we’ll make no firm commitments.”
“That’s all I ask, young lady.”
Denise looked at the man. She was standing beside a true living legend and it filled her with strange, unexpected emotions. She had thought President-General Raines would be an old man. But he looked to be in his mid-forties. But he had to be older than that. Maybe, more than one person in the group thought, there is something to his being more than a mere human. There just had to be.
Roy and Judy came out of the building. Both of them appeared to have been roughed up and then hurriedly patched up.
They stopped beside Mikael. Ben called, “Mikael and his buddies hammer on you two?”
“Yes, sir,” Roy called. “And Judy was raped.”
Ben looked at her.
“I’ll be all right, sir,” she said grimly. “Much better, in fact, in about a minute.”
“What happens then?” Ben asked.
“This,” Judy said. She spun, driving her elbow into Mikael’s stomach. He doubled over, gagging. She brought her knee up into his face, smiling with satisfaction as his jaw popped like a gunshot and teeth rolled and bounced on the concrete steps. She
brought the knife edge of her hand down hard on the back of his neck, and Mikael dropped to the steps, bleeding, hurt, and out of commission for a time.
Judy stepped back and, stone-faced, drew back her right foot and kicked the Russian squarely in the balls with the toe of her heavy combat boot.
A dozen IPF members appeared on the steps, automatic weapons at combat ready.
“Now, now, boys and girls,” Colonel Gray’s voice rang from the top of the building. “We don’t want this situation to turn into a sticky wicket, now, do we?”
The IPF members looked up into the muzzles of M-16’s and AK-47’S. They heard the roar of engines racing up the broken blacktop. Jeeps swung around, .50-caliber machine guns leveled at them, the muzzles menacing.
“Holster or sling your weapons,” Ben told the IPF troops.
They did as ordered, handling the weapons gingerly.
“One more person I have to get, General,” Roy said. “Give me a minute?”
Ben nodded. “G.” He was curious as to the third person.
A number of young women had gathered around Judy, asking her questions, their distaste for this newly discovered side of the IPF very evident. And they were all curious as to how she had learned how to fight like she did, and if they could learn it.
She said they could, just join up with Raines’s Rebels-if they thought they could cut it.
Roy reappeared, a very pretty young woman with him, holding onto his hand. The young woman had
obviously been beaten. There were bruises on the side of her face and her hands were swollen from her wrists being tied too tightly.
Ben looked at the crowd of young people. “Any of you young folks want to leave with us? Don’t worry, the IPF won’t try to stop you.”
Almost half the crowd silently made up their minds to pull out.
Ben ordered a team to escort them to the edge of the campus and to arrange transportation for them. He smiled at the young woman called Denise; she seemed to be some sort of spokesperson for the young people.
“I think it best that we hold our discussions some miles from this place, don’t you, miss?” Ben said.
She returned his smile. “Yes, I do, General. And that’s ms. if you don’t mind.”
“Right,” Ben said dryly. “What else?”
One young member of the IPF allowed courage to override training and common sense. He grabbed for his pistol and leveled it at Katrina. “You traitor!” he screamed at her.
Ben stitched him from belly to face, left to right, with a short burst from the Thompson. The young man’s feet flew out from under him and he slammed back against the brick wall, bloodying the old bricks as he slid slowly downward, his brains leaving a gray trail edged with crimson.
“James?” Ben called.
“Sir!”
“Gather up all the weapons and ammunition you can find. Take as many people as you need to do it in a hurry. Search all the buildings. I don’t believe these
people represent all the IPF personnel here. If your team comes in contact with any armed men or women, shoot first and ask questions later.”
“Yes, sir.”
Colonel Gray yelled from the top of the building. “You IPF people! Down on your bellies, hands behind your head, fingers interlaced. Move!”
The dozen young people obeyed instantly. Ben thought: well-trained and well-disciplined. The Russian equivalent, of the German Herrenvolk may consider themselves to be the master race, but they damn well want to survive in order to prove it.
Ben motioned Judy, Roy and Katrina to his side. “What was done to you?” he asked the young Russian girl.
“They beat me,” she said softly, her accent giving her voice a pleasing lilt. “They made me take off my clothes and then beat me. They were going to rape me but they were afraid of what might happen to them should they do that. Tell your men they are wasting their time looking for more members of this contingent of the IPF. They are gone. At the arrival of your people, they would have assessed the situation, decided they could not defeat your troops, and pulled out. Do not construe it as any act of cowardice, it is merely good sense.”
“Mikael is the leader?” Ben asked.
“Yes.” She looked at the unconscious young man. Blood streamed from his broken mouth and from one ear. “What is left of him, that is.” She added, “He is a pervert.”
The young people who had elected to remain at the school with the IPF, who had decided to adopt the
philosophy of the IPF, now sat sullenly, defiantly, silently. Katrina gave them little more than a quick glance of dismissal.
“They are what we call hard-core recruits. They needed very little persuasion. You could not reconvert them now, no matter what you said. So far, we have found many like these.”
Ben suspected as much. “All of them young?”
“Oh, no,” the girl replied. “Many people, of all ages.”
“And you?” Ben asked her.
“I have not been content with General Striganov’s views of matters since I found books,” the seventeen- year-old said. “I read books. In them I found a much different world than my superiors described. I began to think- and that is something our leaders and cell coordinators do not like for us to do. They do not like for us to think about anything other than what we are told to think.”
“Education, then,” Ben prompted, “is what swayed you?”
“Oh, my, yes. As much of a broad education as I could give myself with the crate of books I found in Reykjavik.” She smiled. “And some of the books were authored by you, President-General Raines.” She met his gaze. Even badly bruised, the girl was beautiful. Her pale eyes held one.
“And how do you know I am the same Ben Raines, young lady?” Ben smiled at her.
“Two reasons, President-General. One: When I mentioned the name to Roy, he smiled. Two: Your picture was in one of the books. It was, I believe, taken some years ago, but it was you.”
“Don’t compliment him too much,” Gale said, standing just outside the group. “It’ll go to his head and he’ll be more impossible than ever to live with.”
Katrina shifted her pale eyes. “You live with President-General Raines?”
“God, no!” Gale said. “That’s a figure of speech.”
Katrina smiled. “Bot kak!”
Walking away, Gale asked Colonel Gray, “What did that girl say to me back there?”
Dan smiled; he spoke some Russian. “Let’s just say she questioned the validity of your statement.”
“I wonder why?” Gale asked innocently.
