“You’re a fucking idiot!” Juan blurted.
“I thought you were my friend,” one of Juan’s troops said from the open doorway. “But I’ve seen the medical reports on General Raines-all of us have seen them.”
“What fucking medical reports?” Peggy Jones screamed. She was being held by two of Willette’s men. “What in the name of God is happening around here?”
“Get them out of here,” Willette said.
The room emptied. Cecil, Mark, Dan and Juan were taken to a detention building and locked in separate rooms, with a heavy guard placed around the building. Chances of escape were almost nil.
“You have Raines’ position pinpointed?” Willette tasked a radioman.
“Yes, sir. They’ve been trying to reach Base Camp since before dawn. The coordinates place them on the west side of this lake, right here.” He pointed.
“Clark Hill,” Willette said. “Get all troops up and rolling. They’ll meet with Silver’s bunch. Blow Ben Raines to hell.”
But blowing Ben Raines to hell had been tried
many times in the past. By better people than Willette had under his command.
Ben and his small contingent were moving within the hour. The column turned east on the junction of Highways 378 and 47 and rolled across the bridge into South Carolina a half hour later. At Bakers Creek, Ben halted the column and dismounted his people.
“What’s happened, General?” was the question or everyone’s mind and asked by a young Rebel.
“I still don’t know for certain,” Ben told the hundred-odd Rebels gathered around him. “But would imagine a coup or a coup attempt has gone down. And so far, I have to assume the attempt has been successful. If they- whomever they might behave taken over the entire communications operation, then they’ve got the camp firm as well.” He looked around him. “I want five volunteers to head northwest, find out exactly what has happened.”
The entire group raised their hands.
Ben laughed aloud. He felt better for that show of loyalty. He thought: These people are solid, behind me 110 percent. He pointed out five people.
“You five get outfitted as quickly as possible and shove off. For God’s sake, though, be careful. I’m not sure what we’re up against. Someone will be on the radio at all times, monitoring. Remember, I don’t want any of you risking your life needlessly. Get in and get out as quickly and as silently as you can. OK. Take off. And good luck.”
Standing by the pickup truck, Gale said to Susie,
“And all I wanted was a nice, safe, uneventful life. You believe this?”
The young Rebel, Susie, veteran of a hundred firefights and major battles since joining Ben Raines’ Rebels at age thirteen, smiled at Gale. “But would you trade what you now have for that?” she asked.
Gale smiled. “Hell, no!” she said quickly. “That is, for as long as I get to keep him.”
“You’re wisin’ up, Gale. No woman keeps General Raines for very long. Not since Salina.”*
“He loved her that much?”
“He liked her that much. Rumor is, the general’s not capable of loving-not anymore. Maybe he had a bad love affair long time back. I don’t know.”
“He stayed with her a long time, though, didn’t he?”
“Ten years, I think. He’s told you about the other women in his life?”
“Bits and pieces. I kid him about repopulating the earth single-handedly. But I don’t think Ben is a womanizer in the classic sense of the word. I think he’s just got so much on his mind and feels he has so little time in which to do it all, settling down in one spot just never enters his mind.”
“That’s a pretty good guess, Gale. I think that just about sums it all up.” She sighed. “We had the good life back in Tri-States. No crime, no unemployment, good medical programs and fine hospitals, fair and equitable working conditions, without unions. I mean, we had it all, Gale. But the central government just couldn’t take it. That goddamn no good President *Out of the Ashes
Hilton Logan. He hated General Raines. Despised him. I think part of it was because General Raines used to screw Logan’s wife, Fran.” She laughed. “I bet that really galled Logan. Well … Logan succeeded. He killed a dream come true by destroying Tri-States. Now General Raines is fighting to rebuild at least a part of it. But he’s tired. And who the hell can blame him for that?”
CHAPTER TWO
It was a clumsy circling attempt by those left behind. And those men of the Ninth Order left behind were not very good at their jobs. They were not woodsmen. They made too much noise in the brush, they were awkward, and they were amateurs, Ike concluded. And he waited patiently with his knife.
When the first pursuer got close, traveling by himself, Ike quietly took him out by cutting his throat. He left him propped up beside a tree, a large, grotesque, bloody smile under the man’s chin. The front of his field jacket was soaked with his own blood.
The man had a canvas pouch hanging by a strap. Ike opened the flap and smiled. Several meals of military rations. And no green eggs.
“Now we go on the offensive, Nina,” Ike said, returning to her side. “Now we’ll see how good you are with that rifle.”
She looked at him, questions in her eyes.
“Start killin’ the dogs.”
“With pleasure,” Nina said with a grin. She dropped to the prone position, thumbed the .270 off safety, and made herself comfortable.
Ike watched her handle the rifle. She handled the
weapon with the ease of an expert. Must be a story behind that, Ike thought. Have to ask her about it when we’re in a better position for chit-chat.
After the first man did not return, those of the Ninth Order remaining called in the dogs. Ike watched through binoculars as the men held a hurried conference, with several of the men pointing in Ike and Nina’s direction.
They called for the man. Only the silence of the deep woods greeted them.
Scared, Ike thought. Nina read his thoughts.
“They’re frightened, aren’t they, Ike?” she asked. “All of them frightened of just two people. That doesn’t say much for their courage.”
“Those types of people aren’t courageous, honey. They’re little people, mentally. They feel secure in a mob. Yeah, they’re scared shitless, I’m betting. I’m also betting they pulled their best people out. Why or for what reason … I don’t know. But I’m guessing it has something to do with Ben. I wish I knew what in the hell was goin’ on. Damn this bein’ in the dark.”
“Whatever you say, Ike,” Nina said. She pulled her attention back to the front. “Well, now, would you look at that.”
Ike watched her line up the stalking black form of a Doberman in the open iron sights of the .270. It will be an interesting shot, Ike thought. The slow-stalking Doberman was about 250 yards away.
She lost sight of the animal for a couple of seconds as it slipped behind a tree, then once more got it in gunsights as it reappeared. She took a deep breath and exhaled, slowly squeezing the trigger, allowing
the weapon to fire itself. The slug caught the dog perfectly, directly behind the right shoulder. The force of the bullet lifted the Doberman off his paws and dumped it, dead, some five feet away from impact.
“Damn good shootin’,” Ike muttered. And it was not a mechanical sentence of praise. It was damn good shooting.
A man appeared beside a thick tree trunk. Nina chambered another round, sighted in, and shot the man in the stomach. He fell to the ground, kicking and howling and clutching at his bloody stomach.
“That’s one of the bastards who felt me up,” Nina explained. “And he said some pretty disgusting things to me.”
“That he was goin’ to do to you?”
“Yes.” She chambered a fresh round.
“Remind me to always ask permission,” Ike said with a boyish grin.
He spun around as a snarling black shape came at the pair from out of the timber behind them. The dog’s
