by William W. Johnstone
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
PROLOGUE
The bullet spider-webbed the windshield and knocked a hole in the interior of the truck before exiting out the rear of the cab. Gale screamed and ducked to the floorboards, her hands over her ears. She said some very unladylike words, just audible over the rattle of gunfire.
From the direction the slug took in entering the cab of the pickup, Ben knew it had been fired from his right, from the south side of the highway. Ben spun the steering wheel.
A six-wheeled V-300 roared up beside Ben’s pickup. It passed the truck and wheeled about in the cracked and pitted highway, its twin Browning M2 .50-caliber machine guns yammering, spitting out death, clearing the thick underbrush by the roadside of all living things. An APC had rolled up beside Ben’s pickup, on the south side, a buffer of protection for the general and his lady.
Rebels sprang into action. They were Gray’s Scouts, and they knew their jobs, performing
without any wasted motion. Small arms fire rattled over the thick timber.
A few screams were heard. Then a quiet settled over the area. The screaming ceased.
Ben’s radio crackled. “All clear, sir. We got them all.”
“Stay in the truck, sir,” Colonel Dan Gray said, appearing by the driver’s side of the pickup. “I’ve got teams working the north side of the highway.” Gunfire came from the north side. “I suspected as much. Very sloppy ambush. Not professional at all.”
Ben smiled. Dan was an expert at ambush. “Who were they, Dan?”
“Just another band of rabble and outlaws, sir,” the Englishman said quietly. He was very calm. This was his job. “More and more of them appearing as conditions continue to deteriorate. I think it’s going to get much worse.”
“Yes,” Ben agreed.
“We’re under attack and you guys sit there discussing fucking politics, for Christ’s sake,” Gale said, crawling back on the seat. “What a bunch of characters.” She looked down at Ben. “I’m hungry.”
“She’s pregnant,” Ben explained.
“Yes, sir,” Dan said blandly.
“It’s a desperate time, Dan,” Ben said. “What’s left of the nation is reeling, with no direction, no leadership, no organization. The scum of humanity is surfacing.”
Dan smiled. “Quite, sir. A strong man needs to take over.”
BOOK ONE
CHAPTER ONE
The long convoy bivouacked between Lebanon and Cookeville, Tennessee, near a small town named Buffalo Valley. It was a dead town, with no sign of any living beings. Only the scattered bones in the streets gave testimony to that which once was.
Many of the towns the convoy had either driven through or bypassed on the interstate appeared dead, but Ben had detected a definite air of hope in the men and women and children in the long column that had snaked and threaded and picked its way from southern Missouri. Other columns were on their way to north Georgia, coming from Louisiana and Arkansas.
Yet another move for Raines’ Rebels.
Hopefully, Ben thought, as he lay beside Gale in their tent, the last move.
But as he lay waiting for sleep to take him, Ben pondered over what he considered to be the somewhat mysterious behavior he had detected from his close circle of friends: Ike, Cecil, Doctor Chase, Juan, Mark and Colonel Gray. Something was in the wind. But what?
“Are you asleep?” he whispered to Gale.
Silence from her side of the double sleeping bag.
But her breathing had changed. Ben knew she was awake.
“I asked if you were asleep,” Ben persisted.
She sighed, turning to face him, dark eyes shining in the dim light filtering through the open flap of the tent. “I was,” she said sarcastically. “Despite your tossing and turning and snorting like a water buffalo.”
“I do not snort like a water buffalo! Have you ever seen a water buffalo?”
“What’s that got to do with it? Ben, what do you want?”
“Do you get the impression that Dan and his people are becoming a bit overprotective lately?”
“You woke me up to ask me that? Good God! And I was having such a nice dream. Do you wanna hear about it?”
“No. I am not in the least interested in hearing about your slumber-time sexual fantasies. Just answer the question.”
“Sexual fantasies! I was dreaming about a hot roast beef sandwich, with mashed potatoes and lots of gravy. How in the hell can you make anything sexual about that?”
“Just answer the question.”
“Yes, master. They’re just trying to keep you alive, that’s all. You’re such a klutz.”
Ben smiled in the darkness. “Wanna play?”
She looked at her watch. “At two o’clock in the morning?”
“Well, there is that old saying. I forgot about that.”
“What old saying?”
“Warmed up coffee and woke up pussy.”
“Good God! How crude.” She rolled over and went back to sleep. But she was smiling.
Ben thought: I wonder if she knows more than she’s telling? Whatever it is, maybe she’s in on it, too? Damn! What I don’t need is a mystery. Not at this time.
He put his arms around her and she turned to face him.
“He’s not going to like it,” Juan Solis said. “I can tell you all that right up front.”
The group of men were meeting not far from the main bivouac area. Dan Gray, Cecil Jefferys, Juan Solis, Mark Terry, Ike McGowen, Doctor Chase.
“I think he’ll see his way to do it,” Ike said. “Once we lay it out for him. But Ben’s gonna take off for a while before he does it. He wants some time alone on the road.”
“He said it himself,” Dan said. “This morning after the firefight. “The nation is leaderless, with no direction, no organization.””
“Ben is tired,” Dr. Lamar Chase said. “Not to imply his health is bad,” he quickly added, catching the alarmed looks on the faces of the men around him, “for he’s in better physical shape than most men fifteen years younger. He’s just tired. Good God, people, the man has been building and rebuilding nations for more than a decade. That would tell on a god. And he’s worried about many of these new people that have joined us. And I am too.”
“Yes,” Cecil spoke. “Ben has talked with me about them. Captain Willette and his bunch especially. We
have no way of checking their stories, no way of knowing where their true loyalties really lie. Ben is leery of many of them. But they’ve done nothing out of line.”
Ike said, “I’m with Ben about these new people. Some of them rub my fur the wrong way. I get the same
