Clark Hill Lake. When we get close I’ll contact them by radio as to exact location. Full combat contingent, Cec. And keep teams out looking for Ike.” “Long as you stay out of it, Ben.” Ben ignored that. “You have any idea who ambushed Ike and his party, or the reason behind the ambush, Cec?”
“Yes. But it’s getting complicated, Ben. Abe Lancer-he’s the unofficial spokesman for the mountain people of this area-says he got word it was the Ninth Order who grabbed Ike. He says they were working hand in hand with some of Willette’s people. Now try to make any sense out of that.””
“I figured as much, Cec.” He told his second-in-command about the trucks of armed men they had seen and of the teams he had following them.
“Curious, Ben. Very curious. You think they’re tied in with Willette?”
“It’s a possibility we have to take under consideration. What about Abe Lancer and his people? How do they stand?”
“Abe is solidly with us. None of the mountain people trust Willette or any of his followers.”
“Cec? Keep in mind this coup attempt might get bloody. And that we may have to fire on some of our own people.”
“I try not to think about that, Ben.”
“I know the feeling. OK. I’m about to read the riot act to the Ninth Order. Tell me, what new intelligence do we have, if any, on this punk named Tony Silver?”
“Not much new. Runs a paramilitary organization out of north Florida. Rapidly moving into south Georgia. Strong-arm stuff, slavery, forced work camps, prostitution. The whole filthy bag.”
“We settle matters with Willette, we’ll see about punching Mr. Silver’s ticket, too. And it wouldn’t surprise me in the least to find him mixed up with Willette and the Ninth Order.”
“You getting your dander up, Ben?”
“Damn well better believe it, buddy.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Got some survivors in Macon, General,” the radio operator told Ben. “Scouts report they’re in bad shape.”
“Diseased?”
“No, sir. Susie didn’t say that. Ragged, dirty, down on their luck. That type of bad shape.”
“Losers.”
“Yes, sir. I guess that’s about it.”
“We going to meet any resistance?”
“Negative, sir. Silver’s bunch was there, on a fishing expedition, but they left after taking some of the women.”
“Jesus Christ!” Ben said. “You mean the men just stood back and allowed Silver’s bunch to kidnap women and girls?”
“That about it, sir. Silver’s bunch took their pick and left.”
“Too bad,” Ben said with a grin. “I’m in the mood to kick some ass.”
The radio operator flashed Ben a smile. She said, “Me, too, General.”
Ben laughed. “That’s the spirit. Christ, I wonder what happened to the men’s guts?”
Gale stood by silently, listening. She had stopped
trying to convince Ben that all men did not have his will to survive, did not possess his skills at fighting, did not have his knowledge of weapons, had not spent time in one of the roughest military units ever formed.
Ben would look at her and reply, “What stopped them from learning the same things I know? Lack of guts, maybe?”
She would throw up her hands and walk away, knowing that to argue further would be futile. Once Ben Raines” mind was set, it was next to impossible to change.
“Who is in charge of this team of Scouts?” Ben asked the radio operator.
“Susie.”
“Tell her to hole up. We’re on our way.”
The convoy approached Macon on Highway 129. The once-thriving city was no more than a hollow shell of what it had once been. Out of an original population-circa 1987 roadmap-of more than one hundred thousand, the Scouts were reporting perhaps no more than six to eight hundred people were left.
“Oh, Ben!” Gale said, upon sighting the first survivors.
They were a pitiful bunch, ragged and dirty.
“I feel so sorry for them,” Gale said.
“Why?” Ben asked. “It’s their own fucking fault. There is no excuse for them to walk around dressed in rags. I don’t feel a damn bit sorry for the adults. It’s the very young and the elderly who get my sympathy-and no one in between, who doesn’t have some physical infirmity.”
Her eyes were hot on him. “That’s a pretty damned
selfish and arrogant attitude, Ben.”
“I don’t think so,” Ben said, unruffled at her condemnation. “Gale, there were many of us over the years- before the bombings-who saw all this coming. We wrote about it; we yelled about it; we talked ourselves blue in the face advocating compulsory military training. Nothing came of it. I defy you, Gale-I challenge you to find one man in that bunch of losers who ever did time in a hard military unit. Odds of you finding one are very, very slim, my dear. And I challenge to find one, just one hard-line conservative in that pack of rags. I challenge you to find just one person, male or female, who practiced-before the wars-the art of survivalism. You won’t find one, Gale.”
She sat silently. It was at moments like these she experienced pangs of dislike for Ben, overriding her true feelings for him. No one likes to be told they are wrong. And Gale was no exception. What made it so bitter-tasting was the fact that she knew Ben was right.
“Honey, people who shared my feelings-male and female-beat their heads against the wall, verbally speaking, against the creeping cancer of liberalism. We tried to tell people in positions of power not to bend to the misguided whims of those pressure groups who favored gun control-for criminals wanted gun control. All gun control did was work in favor of the lawless and against the law-abiding citizens. We saw it all coming. We were laughed at and ridiculed.
“So-called comic movies and TV shows were made, belittling and ridiculing those who
even slightly practiced any type of survivalism. It was all great fun, Gale. See the funny people stockpiling food and weapons and other survival gear. Big joke. The nation’s press showed us as ignorant buffoons and nuts. We expected that, since the national press was controlled and run by liberals. Print and broadcast. But we did try, Gale.”
Ben sighed. “And we were laughed at. Probably by some of those very people right over there.” He pointed. “Those sad, sorry, naive bitches and bastards called us right-wingers, fascists, war-mongers, to mention only a few of the titles that were hung on us. We were laughed at, insulted, belittled and humiliated. The press had a field day with us. And you want me to feel sorry for those sacks of shit over there, Gale? No way, dear. Just no damned way!”
Totally liberated woman that she was, free-spirited and quick to speak her mind, Gale remained silent for this round, for she knew the ring of truth when she heard it. Like many reconstructed liberals, the truth had reached up and boxed her ears too many times for her to ignore it.
Ben pulled off the highway and drove up to a clump of unwashed citizens.
“Who is in charge here?” he asked.
“Nobody in charge,” a man said. “I don’t take orders from no one. Who are you people?”
Ben bit back an impulse to tell the man they were Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. In drag. “If no one is in charge, how in the hell does anything ever get done?”
“What is there to get done?” the man challenged Ben. “We’re getting by. Isn’t that all that matters?”
“Beautiful,” Ben muttered. “What a bunch of losers.” He raised his voice to a normal speaking level. “All right, tell me this: How are you people living?”
“Still lots of canned food left. We scrap around. What business is it of yours?”
Ben’s eyes found a small knot of ragged and dirty kids, most of them very young, standing in a weed-filled lot, staring at the uniformed Rebels. “Where are the parents of those kids?”