“Let’s ask Captain Willette. He’s pretty sharp. He’ll know what to do.”
Ben stopped the small convoy in Monroe, Georgia. After some searching, a windshield was located, popped out, and the bullet-shattered glass in Ben’s pickup was replaced.
“No safety inspection,” Ben joked. “I’m likely to get a ticket.”
“Beg pardon, sir?” a young Rebel looked at him, not understanding what Ben said.
“Never mind, son,” Ben said. “All that was before your time.”
A lot of things were before your time, Ben thought. He looked at the young Rebel and shook his head. They will never be the same. From now on, it’s pure survival.
“Let’s head for Monticello and the Oconee National Forest,” Ben said, after looking at an old map of Georgia. “We’ll hole up there for a few days. Keep our heads down and out of sight. Gee is supposed to contact me tomorrow, at noon.”
James Riverson, the huge ex-truck driver from Missouri, spoke his mind. “I don’t know about this move, General. Personally, I’d like to go back to the convoy and kick the ass off Willette and his bunch. This move could backfire on us.”
“He’s right, General,” Buck Osgood expressed his opinion.
Some Rebels agreed with Buck, others weren’t sure. While Ben demanded rigid discipline from his people, anyone could express an opinion. When Ben was in the active U.s. military, he had detested chicken-shit units. In his outfit, officers pulled their weight just like everyone else.
Surprising James and Buck, Ben agreed with them. “I know that, boys. But I’ve got to know how many of our people are with Willette and his crew. Let’s face it: None of the three, Carter, Bennett or Willette, or anyone aligned with them, has said anything treasonous about me. If I confronted them now, what would I confront them with? This is the best way, I’m thinking. There is an old adage about giving a person enough rope to hang himself. That’s what I’m doing.”
All the Rebels knew that when Ben made up his mind, that was it. End of discussion.
They would lay low for a couple of weeks, see what developed.
Monticello contained a half dozen survivors. They had survived, but though they were survivors-in one sense of the word-they were pitiful in Ben’s eyes. No one appeared to be in charge. No organization. No one had planted a garden or done anything else constructive. The people just seemed to be existing. Their children were dirty and ragged. There was no type of school. The adults had worked out no plan of defense against the many gangs of thugs and outlaws and paramilitary groups that now roamed throughout the land.
Ben dismissed the families in Monticello from his mind. They might have survived thus far, but not for much longer. They would be easy prey. God alone knew what would happen to the children when that occurred-and Ben knew it would happen. For the scum-who for some reason seem to survive any holocaust-were surfacing, to rape and ravage and kill.
“Wind it up,” Ben ordered. “We’re moving on. Losers don’t impress me.”
The convoy moved a few miles down the road, to what was left of a small village. The Rebels had what was left of the hamlet to themselves. Only a few scattered bones lay in white, silent testimony to that which once was.
The Rebels began setting up camp, first cleaning out a few stores and homes. Ben waited by the communications truck for Cecil’s call.
When the radio crackled, Ben answered the first signal.
“How’s it going, Cec?”
“We’re in place and setting up,” Ben’s second in command replied, his voice popping from the speaker. “Now the rumor is you are suffering from a mental disorder; you need a long rest. Even gods get tired. So on and so forth.”
“So the power play is firming up?”
“It’s beginning to have some consistency, yes. But nothing of any real substance. Willette is very smooth and very intelligent, Ben. He’s shifted many of his people around. Has them in every unit except HQ’S Company and Dan’s LETTERRP’S and Scouts. Dan and I have seen to that exclusion. Speaking of Dan, he’s plenty miffed at you. I settled him down by telling him why you did what you did, and that you tried to find him to tell him yourself.”
“That’s fine, Cec. How are our people being received by the mountain people?”
“Very well. Captain Rayle says the incidents of terrorism and brutality by the gangs of thugs and slime along the borders-all borders surrounding us-have picked up dramatically during the past month. The country is really going to hell in a bucket, Ben. I don’t have to tell you to be careful out there in the boonies.”
“I heard that, Cec. When do you want the next voice contact?”
“Day after tomorrow. Noon. We’ll use the same frequency. Ben? You people keep your heads down out there.”
“Ten-four and out.”
Ben turned to Gale. “You heard him. So don’t take it in your head to go out picking wildflowers. It’s dangerous out there.” He looked at the group of men and women gathered around the communications truck. “That goes for all of you. Travel in pairs and go armed at all times.”
“You trying to give me orders, Raines?” Gale stuck out her chin.
“Let me put it another way; maybe I can get through to you that way. How would you like to get gang- shagged by a dozen men?”
“You just have to be the most tactful, literate person I have ever met, Raines.”
“Thank you. I’m cute, too,” Ben said with a grin.
Gale choked back a reply.
CHAPTER THREE
He had been christened Anthony Silvaro in New York City. That was in 1970. When he was fourteen years old, he left his parents’ very comfortable apartment and became a street punk. Sociologists and psychologists had nothing tangible to blame for Tony’s behavior. In this case they could not fall back on their universal catch-all and blame Tony’s behavior on society. Tony’s parents were both college educated, both professional, successful people who made a good living, loved their kids, and would not dream of anything even remotely close to child abuse. Their combined incomes placed them in the upper, upper middle class. Tony’s two brothers and one sister were nice, normal, well-behaved young people. They made good grades in school, usually obeyed their parents, and all had plans to attend college. Tony-as he had been a good-looking boy-turned into a strikingly handsome man. He had never suffered the “embarrassment” of pimples, had no physical infirmities, had never been “picked on” by his teachers or by anyone else, and was very athletic.
Any streetwise cop knew Tony’s problem. Perhaps there is some chemical imbalance in the brain? the shrinks said, clutching at what few straws remained them.
The streetwise cop’s reply was predictable. “Horseshit.” Dyslexia, then.
“You have to be joking.”
The shrinks swelled up like a puff adder. They knew what was coming.
“He’s a punk. Period. He was born a punk. He will be a punk all his life. He will die a punk. He’s just no good.”
Tony was eighteen when the balloon went up in ‘88. He had been busy running his string of teenage whores and mugging old ladies and terrorizing old men over in Brooklyn when the rumors of war began. Tony didn’t know from jack-shit about survival outside the concrete canyons of the Big Apple, but he figured he’d damn well better learn. He also figured he’d better head for the wilderness.
He went to Paterson, New Jersey. I mean, Christ! How far out in the boonies do you have to go to be safe from The Bomb? Paterson, for Christ’s sake.
It wasn’t far enough, and Tony got out with only minutes to spare, driving a stolen car. He left the owner of the car dead in a puddle of blood. Just an old fart. Who gives a shit about old people, anyways? He got lost down in southern New Jersey, in the fucking swamps. He managed to cross over into Wilmington, Delaware, just before the bridge became hopelessly jammed up with stalled cars and trucks.
He got on the JFK Memorial Highway and almost blew it with that move, only at the last possible exit veering off to the north before touching Baltimore. He was in southern Pennsylvania when the lid blew off the pot.
Tony sought refuge in a barn, coming face to face with a black angus bull. The first bull he’d ever seen up
