get moving!”
“Right-o, General,” Colonel Gray said with a smile. “All right, lads and lassies, get cracking, now. Step lively. You civilians over there.” He pointed.
Ben turned back to Gale. The baby reached for the woman and Ben let him slip into more familiar arms. “Mrs. Roth…”
“Ms.,” she quickly corrected.
“I never would have guessed,” Ben muttered, “Ms. Roth, I will not apologize for coming down hard on men who will not fight.”
“They don’t have any guns!”
“Then they should have killed those who did have access to guns and then fought.”
“Now how in the hell does one go about that?” Out came the chin.
“One goes about that, Ms. Roth, by the use of booby traps, Molotov cocktails, dynamite, punji pits, C-4, rocks, clubs, bottles, chains, wire, ambushes….”
Awright awready-enough!”
“But first one must possess enough guts to do the deed with any or all of the aforementioned articles. And where are you from? Awright awready?”
“I was born in New York City. Moved to St. Louis with my parents when I was thirteen. I’m twenty-nine years old and this isn’t my kid. He belonged to someone else.”
“Is Gale your real name?”
She smiled. She was very pretty. Reminded Ben of an NBC correspondent he used to enjoy watching. Rebecca something-or-another. He couldn’t remember her last name.
“Of course not. It’s a nickname.”
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
“What is your real name?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Oh, forget it. Leave it Gale. It certainly fits. You said the baby belonged to someone else?”
“She’s dead.” Gale did not elaborate.
Ben let it slide. “How’d you get hooked up with this bunch of losers?”
Out came the chin. She glared at him for a few seconds. “Mr. President, sir, General, whatever in the hell you’re called, has it ever occurred to you that not everyone in this world is as tough as you?”
“Ms. Roth, there are varying degrees of toughness. There used to be a football player, a giant of a man called Gorilla Jankowski. Gorilla could have, on any given day, without working up a sweat, broken me in about thirty- seven different and separate pieces, and then kicked my head the length of a football field-providing he could catch me. That’s one degree of toughness. But put us both on a jet on a HALO/SCUBA mission, where we had to drop in from about thirty-five thousand feet, free-falling down to seven
hundred before our “chutes opened in order to avoid radar, use tanks and wet suits to swim ashore from about three or four miles out, crawl ashore on an unfriendly beach, slit a few throats, blow up a bridge or two, then successfully complete a silent op-a body snatch … all without being detected by the enemy. That is another degree of toughness. Do you understand the parallels I’m drawing?”
“He was trained to do one thing, you were trained to another.”
“Right on target, Ms. Roth.”
“But those men I was-am-traveling with, they weren’t trained to do …” She paused, a slight smile touching her lips. “Ben Raines-sure. You wrote a book one time-one of your best, if not the best, I think-called When the Last Hero Is Gone. In it you advocated compulsory military training, for everyone, male and female, starting immediately upon completion of high school, and you would have made a high school education mandatory. The length of service would have lasted three years. After the military, the government would then finance a four-year college plan, picking up the tab for all expenses for those who went into math, science or English, and stayed with teaching for a minimum of ten years. You maintained that in ten years the nation would no longer have a shortage of those teachers. I did a book report on that novel in the tenth grade. I got a C on it because the teacher didn’t like the other books you wrote.”
“My apologies. Doctor Carlton is motioning for you to come over to that aid station just set up. He’ll check you out and also the baby. I’ll see you later.”
Gale seemed hesitant to leave. Something about the man exuded confidence and safety. “Those … animals from up at the lake sent word to us that they might be back tomorrow to … get the women. What are you going to do if that happens?”
“You mentioned a gang of motorcyclists that had been bothering you?”
“Yeah.”
“We killed them all about ten o’clock this morning. Just west of the St. Francis River. Does that answer your question?”
She blinked. She had very pretty eyes now that the anger had vanished. Eyes that looked as though they could dance with mischief. “I guess you are as tough as people say.”
“I guess so, Ms. Roth.”
He stood and watched as she walked away. She looked exhausted. Colonel Gray walked up.
“What are we going to do with them, General?”
Ben shook his head. “I can’t leave them to be killed, Dan. We could arm them, but without proper training, they would still get killed. Those civilian men aren’t exactly man-hunters.”
“I will certainly agree with that, General.”
“Send out a team to round up some vehicles. We’ll outfit them and take them with us.”
Dan smiled. “Yes, sir.”
Ben looked at the Englishman. He could not understand the smile. “What are you smiling about, Dan?”
“Nothing,” the colonel said innocently. “Nothing at all, General.” He walked away, chuckling softly.
“Crazy Englishman,” Ben muttered.
Had he but noticed, everyone in his command was grinning.
Eight more ships from Iceland had put ashore personnel and equipment: two ships every four days. The IPF troops based on American soil now numbered ten thousand, and they had spread out into Wisconsin from northern Minnesota.
The IPF teams used no force in dealing with the survivors they found. They left food, clothing and medical supplies; they worked with the people in repairing equipment and restoring such services as electricity and running water. The doctors with the IPF treated the sick and consoled the elderly and despondent. They promised that conditions would soon get better. They promised they would restore order and a government. They promised they would have jobs for everyone. They promised proper medical treatment and better living conditions. If one had been a farmer before the holocaust, then you could again be a farmer; if you had been a mechanic or a carpenter or a teacher or whatever, that job would soon be opening for you. They promised a lot. They did it all with a smile and a gentle pat on the arm. They were such nice people. So considerate. They never fussed or snapped or became angry or upset. They never used force.
They didn’t have to.
Yet.
Lenin would have been so proud.
Ben stood on the outskirts of Poplar Bluff and stared out into the darkness, his thoughts busy. Gale
had told him her group was not the only group of survivors in the small city. She said there were others, but their numbers were smaller, and they were much more elusive. And they were well-armed. She didn’t know where they got the weapons.
Ben didn’t have the heart to tell her guns were easy to find.
Being a curious sort, Ben had prowled through what remained of the local library, his heart sore at the sight of the books ripped and rotting and torn and gnawed by rats and mice. He had located a World Almanac-circa 1987 -and looked up Poplar Bluff, Missouri. Population 17,139.
Gale had told him that maybe-maybe-there were a 150 people left in the small city. There had been more, but about 50 had died during the winter. Mostly old people, she said.
