and legal minds and upper-echelon executives. At the third level, the farmers and ranchers and foremen and supervisors, people of that ilk. The fourth level will be the workers. The fifth level, the really menial jobs. Am I close, General?”
“V. But you left out the top level, Sam.”
“Why… that’s us, General.”
“Yes.” The Russian smiled. “Go on.”
“We need to purge the races. Make the races pure, so to speak. Niggers, spies, Jews, Indians, Orientals-we can dispose of them.”
Georgi Striganov laughed, a big booming laugh. “I think, Sam Hartline, we are going to get along very well. Very well, indeed. Oh my, yes.”
June, 2001
Ben longed for the day when Cecil would take over the reins of responsibility so Ben could just roam. But for now he was leaving Cecil in charge only temporarily. As Ben made ready to pull out on Sunday, June tenth, he felt better than he had in weeks. He drove a Chevy pickup with four-wheel drive capability if needed, and all the vehicles in the column had PTO
winches on the front. Four deuce-and-a-halves carried spare parts, ammo, food and other equipment. Ben had planned very carefully, leaving nothing out: medical supplies, walkie-talkies, bull-horns, clothing and dozens of other small but likely-to-be-necessary items.
Ben had cut his platoon down to forty for mobility purposes, but the forty were, for the most part, all combat vets, and all of them 110 percent loyal to Ben Raines and his desire to rebuild from the ashes.
James Riverson, the ranking NCO in the Rebel army, and a longtime member of Ben’s recon team, sent out two of his people to take the far point. They would range several miles in front of the column, always staying in radio contact.
Although everyone was against Ben’s leading the column-directly behind the point vehicle-no one dared say anything about it.
Except Lt. Mary Macklin.
“Pardon my impudence, sir,” she asked, standing by his pickup truck, driver’s side, moments before pulling out. “But are you trying to prove something?”
Ben looked at her, blinked. Tried to place her. Then it came to him.
Back in Tri-States after racing to escape the plague, arriving there in a raging blizzard, Ben had slept a few hours in the motel Ike and his people had prepared for the Rebels from the east, then had walked downstairs for breakfast.
Over bacon and eggs and a huge stack of flapjacks, Ben asked, “How’s it looking, Ike?”
“Fifty-eight hundred, Ben.”
Ben could not believe it. “What the hell happened to the rest? We had more than ten thousand six months ago.”
“They just didn’t make it, partner. Word is still pretty sketchy, but from all reports, we lost a full battalion of people coming out of Georgia. We were in contact one day … next day, nothing. A couple of companies were ambushed up in Michigan. We lost a full platoon of people in Wisconsin, and we don’t know what killed them.”
“What do you mean, Ike?”
“Just that, Ben. We don’t know what happened. The two people who survived died on the way here without ever regaining consciousness. They were, well, mangled all to hell and gone. I got the pictures if you got the stomach for it.”
Ben thought he knew what the pictures would reveal; he had seen something very similar to it on a lonely, windy highway in Illinois.
He said as much.
Ike toyed with his coffee cup. “And?”
Ben shook his head. “We deal with it if or when we see whatever killed those people with our own eyes.”
Ike grunted softly. “Probably be best. Keep down the horror stories, I reckon.”
The large dining room was silent, only a few of Ben’s Rebels from the east up and about. It had been a harrowing and dangerous journey, with nerves stretched tight most of the way.
Ike mentioned that Jerre would like to have her babies as soon as possible. He suggested a chopper.
Ben agreed.
Ike motioned for a uniformed young woman to
come to the table. Lt. Mary Macklin. After receiving her instructions, she saluted smartly and left.
Ben smiled. “Getting a little rigid on discipline, aren’t you, Ike?”
“That ain’t my idea,” the ex-Seal replied glumly. “It’s hers. She was regular army “til about six months ago. I can’t get that damned salutin” out of her. Drives me up the wall.”
“I beg your pardon, Lieutenant?” Ben shook himself back to the moment.
“I do not mean to be out of line, General, or to overstep any chain of command. But all concerned would feel much better if you were in the middle of the column instead of leading it.”
Ben smiled at her. He took a closer look with a man’s eyes. Light brown hair, hazel eyes, about five-seven. Nice figure. Erect military bearing.
“Thank you for your frankness, Lieutenant. Noted and appreciated. Your name?”
“Lieutenant Mary Macklin. I was a rigger with the Eighty-second Airborne prior to OCS:”
“After that?”
“ASA, sir.”
“Well. Lieutenant, if you’re so concerned with my well-being, why don’t you ride with me and protect me?”
“Is that a joke, sir?”
“Not unless you want to take it as such.”
She met his eyes. “Then may I take it as an order, sir?”
This lady was all military, Ben thought. “No. But if
you like I can make it an order.”
“That won’t be necessary, sir. I’ll just get my gear and put it in the bed of your truck.”
Ben watched her walk away, his eyes on her reflection in the side mirror. Might be an interesting trip in more ways than one, he thought.
Hard eyes, Mary thought as she walked away. She knew, with a woman’s awareness, that General Raines was watching her. She tried very hard to walk with a military bearing. She failed miserably.
The column pulled out shortly afterward. They skirted Little Rock and picked up Highway 67, taking that all the way to the northeast corner of Arkansas. They stopped for the night in Piggott, Arkansas, a small town just a few miles from the Missouri line.
The town had been looted, but as in most cases of looting, the looters did not take essentials such as food, clothing and medicine.
“Another reason I have always advocated looters being shot on sight,” Ben muttered, driving around the courthouse square.
“Beg pardon, sir?” Mary asked.
“Muttering to myself, Mary. Nothing of importance, I suppose.”
“Looters, sir?” she guessed, for she knew how Ben Raines felt about lawbreakers.
“Good guess, Mary. Yes, looters. Two-legged animals.”
“And you feel that they should be?”
“Shot on sight.”
She stirred beside him and Ben hid a smile, knowing a full-scale debate might be only moments away. He nipped it short.
“Hemingway lived here for a time, did you know that, Lieutenant?”
“Ernest Hemingway? Here?”
“Yes.” Ben laughed at her expression. But he was thankful that at least one person of her generation had heard of the writer. All was not lost, he supposed. “We’ll get the people settled in and I’ll try to find the
