Ben replied. "Forget about them. They"ll make it or they won"t." Helooked at Ike. "Why this trip, Ike?"
"We think Hoffman and Brodermann are holed up somewhere in the northwest. Intell has narrowed it down to that location. They believe that the troops have spread out over a couple or three states, taken wives, probably with children, and settled in while their leaders recruit new members. There has been quite an exodus of sorry-a.s.sed people from all over the nation. All heading west."
"What states?" Beth asked, sitting at the table with her notepad.
"Washington, Oregon, Wyoming, Montana," Ike said, looking over at her.
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She nodded. "That"s almost half a million square miles."
"Did you just add all that up or do you keep those facts in that head of yours?" Ike asked.
Beth smiled sweetly at him.
"And you have a plan on how we might ferret them out?" Ben asked.
"No," the ex-Navy SEAL admitted. "Intell thinks they speak nothing but English, have become solid citizen types, helping all others around them, thereby making themselves a valuable part of a hundred or more communities. And there is not a way in h.e.l.l we could prove they aren"t what they claim to be. And here is something else: Some senior general, a Frederich Rasbach, an uncle or great uncle to Hoffman, apparently slipped out of Texas weeks ago and returned to South America. There, he and his people destroyed all records of the NAL. Right down to the last sc.r.a.p of paper. Our allies down there report there is nothing left to link anybody with the NAL."
"This General Rasbach?"
"Vanished. He"ll probably live out the remainder of his years in some remote part of South America."
"Well, you can bet your boots on one thing: If Wink Payne and Moi Sambura made it clear of Alabama, they"re heading that way to join the new movement. s.h.i.t!" Ben added.
"One conflict after another," Therm said softly. "It just never ends. I swear to G.o.d, I don"t see how you people have kept your sanity all these years."
Ben looked at him. "By not just believing that we"re in the right, Therm. But knowing we"re right."
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"I could argue that, Ben, but I don"t feel like it right now. So what are you going to do?"
"Try to stop the flood of crud and c.r.a.p from joining up with Hoffman."
"And how do you propose to do that, Raines?" Lamar Chase asked.Ben smiled broadly and winked at Jersey, sitting across the room. She knew immediately something big was in the works, and muttered under her breath, "Oh, s.h.i.t!"
"Why, Lamar," Ben said. "By doing what I do best. Going out and getting into an argument."
Knowing that Ben would not be dissuaded, Ike offered only a token verbal resistance, and quickly gave that up. Chase just cussed for a few minutes, then set about adding to the medical personnel going with Ben.
Then he said he was going with Ben.
"What?" Ben shouted.
"You heard me. And don"t shout. There is nothing wrong with my hearing."
"Why, you old fart! You"d get in the way."
Lamar smiled sweetly. Very sweetly. Ben braced himself. "I don"t go,"
the chief of medicine said. "You don"t go. It"s just that simple."
"That"s blackmail, Lamar!"
"You d.a.m.n right it is. Pure and simple. Now what is your answer?"
"Oh, all right. But I don"t want to hear a lot of b.i.t.c.hing from you about the field."
"Me? Complain?" Chase attempted to put a very innocent look on his face.
He managed to look like a satyr 306.
trying to slip into the back of a church with s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the organist on his mind. "I never complain, Raines."
"Everybody make sure your boots are laced up tight," Ben called. "The s.h.i.t is getting deep around here."
"I resent that," Chase said.
"Get your duffle packed, Lamar," Ben told him. "We pull out in the morning. Early."
Lamar started to say that he"d be up before Ben. But he checked that.
n.o.body got up before Ben Raines.
"Therm," Ben called. "You"re sure Emil is still up in Iowa?"
"Right. The extreme eastern part. I spoke with him last night."
"Good. Keep him up there and out of trouble. We"ll head for the Kansas-Colorado line and start stretching out. Corrie, have our people in Texas and Oklahoma stop any westward movement. They know the types to stop and turn around. Have Buddy, Dan, and Jackie start moving their battalions north. We"ll all intersect... here," he pointed to the map.
"And I want full battalion strength. Make sure they double the artillery that normally travels with each battalion. We don"t have any way of knowing how many of the crud and c.r.a.p have migrated west to joinHoffman-probably thousands, the way those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds network-but we can d.a.m.n sure put a stopper in the bottle. We"re out of here in the morning.
0500 hours."
"How does he know which types will join with this Hoffman," Dr. Sessions asked Therm. "Does he think he possesses some magical powers?"
Therm ignored the sarcasm. "He knows. Believe me, he does."
"That"s impossible!" the doctor snorted.
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"I thought so too. Until I spent some time with him. He"s a very unusual man."
"I"m sorry, Thermopolis. But I have to disagree. He"s a right-wing savage. My wife can"t stand to be around him and quite frankly, neither can I. As gentle a man as you are, I find it incredible that you are a willing part of the Rebel movement."
Therm smiled. "Ben Raines is a walking contradiction, Doctor. That"s what he is. And hard-headed as a goat. But if this nation is ever to be whole, he"s the man who"ll do it. Five years ago, you would have had a most difficult time convincing me of that. But I believe it now."
"If he doesn"t kill half the population first."
Therm looked at him and then shocked the doctor and astonished himself when he said, "Did you ever consider that perhaps half the population might need killing?"
Therm walked out to the long lines of vehicles grumbling and snorting and farting in the predawn darkness. He knew he"d find Ben at the head of the column.
The two men stood shoulder to shoulder for a silent moment. "Dr.
Sessions and wife are considering leaving us," Therm broke the silence.
"His option." Ben didn"t give a good G.o.dd.a.m.n what the doctor and wife did.
Thermopolis smiled in the darkness. He knew how Ben felt and he pretty much felt the same way. At first, he and Dr. Sessions and wife had gotten along well. But Thermopolis had been too long with the Rebels. He had learned that the Rebels did not crave war; they were not 308.
bloodthirsty savages, but rather just flesh and blood and caring and feeling men and women who had a very ugly job to do, knew that there was no one else around to do it, and so were doing it. Every army throughout history has drawn its share of homicidal maniacs, and the Rebels were no exception. But they were always quickly discovered and booted out. Many of the Rebels were family men and women, whose spouses were the home guard back at Base Camp One. To a person they longed for the war-days to be over. But until that day, they would fight.
As for the new doctors, to put it bluntly, they were getting on Thermopolis" nerves.Standing by Ben, he said as much.
"Run them off," Ben told him. "It"s your command."
"We need them."
"Then put up with them, Therm."
"G.o.dd.a.m.n it, Ben! Everything is black and white to you. Life isn"t that way."
"It is if that"s the way one chooses to see it," Ben replied, hiding his smile.
"s.h.i.t!" Therm said, and stalked off. He stopped and turned around and yelled, "You are a very exasperating man, Ben."
"Right," Ben called.
"You be careful out there."
"Will do."
Ben made his slow walking tour of the column. Heavy weapons had been beefed up, with the battalion carrying nearly twice the artillery they normally carried. Each squad carried an additional heavy machine gun and mortar. More M249s had been a.s.signed to each squad, giving each squad awesome firepower. Any band 309.
of outlaws or malcontents who attacked this unit would be in for a very unpleasant surprise.
"Let"s roll," Ben said, climbing into his Hummer. "Head west, Coop."
Ben and battalion left Therm"s HQ and headed west, toward the Oklahoma state line. Long before they reached the Arkansas" western border, they cut north, up toward Missouri. For the first several hours, their journey was uneventful. They saw many people; more than most felt they would. But the people showed no more than a pa.s.sing interest in the long Rebel column. Ragged kids watched with more interest than the adults, looking at the towed artillery and the tanks that rumbled along the old roads. The kids grinned and waved at the Rebels. Most of the adults did not. Soon, the Rebels contented themselves matching the civilians"
unfriendly looks stare for stare.
"What the h.e.l.l"s wrong with these people?" Jersey asked. "They act like ... well, I don"t know what the h.e.l.l they"re acting like. Stuck up, I guess."
"They don"t need us," Ben replied. "So they think. They"ve lived isolated for years and like it that way. Intell said there were a large number of religious fanatics beginning to surface all over the country.
Many of them accepting what has happened as G.o.d"s will. Let them think what they want. I don"t give a d.a.m.n about the adults. It"s the kids that bother me. They"re being denied medical care because of the beliefs of their parents and that"s wrong."
Ben stopped it there. He just didn"t know what to do about the kids.General Jahn and his people would take as many as they could. When they could handle no more ... ? Well, Ben didn"t like to think about that. Ben 310.
knew there would be thousands more kids, just like these, in the years to come. The Rebels would try to help the little ones. But the Rebel homes were already very nearly overwhelmed.
The Rebel column hit a stretch of country where they saw no humans. No signs of life except for plumes of smoke, coming from homes or camps set well back off the road.
"They don"t want any part of us," Cooper said, gesturing toward the smoke. "It"s gonna be like I read in books written before the Great War.
The haves and the have nots. Many of those people will begin to see what we have, and then look at what they don"t have, and they"ll revolt."
"Yeah," Jersey said. "And what makes me mad is they"ll blame us for what they don"t have. I read those books too, Coop. They don"t want to work for anything. They want someone-meaning us-to hand everything to them.
p.i.s.s on them."
Ben smiled secretly, letting them talk. There were no free rides in the Rebel society. Everybody who could work, did so. Refuse, and you were kicked out and n.o.body gave a d.a.m.n what happened to you. Those people who lived in the camps and houses where the smoke was originating could step forward and join the Rebel movement, and they would be welcomed. But if they expected a free handout, they were sorely wrong. And if any group tried to take by force what the Rebels had, they would die. There were no pseudo-sociological excuses here. The Rebels did not give a d.a.m.n for color or how a person was raised. One was either a part of the Rebel movement, or one was out in the cold. As Therm had pointed out: the Rebel philosophy was black and 311.
white, with no gray in the center. And until conditions returned to some sort of normalcy, that was the way it had to be.
"Order everybody to b.u.t.ton up and make certain all body armor is on,"
Ben told Corrie. "This is sniper country. And we are not the best-loved group of people in the world."
"Putting it mildly," Beth said drily.
"Scouts report a large number of people, men, women, and children, moving west on Highway 160," Corrie said. "Estimated six or seven hundred of them, four or five to a vehicle. Too many for the Scouts to stop."
Ben lifted a map. "We"re almost at an intercept point. Tell the Scouts to keep them in sight and us informed. As soon as we"re in position, have the Scouts fall back and join us. Step on it, Coop. Corrie, tell the tankers and supply vehicles to catch up with us."
The column reached the intercept point and set up roadblocks. The Scouts joined the main body and reported verbally. After the report, Ben stood in the center of the highway, cradling his Thompson. He waited for the first forward units of the civilian column. He felt he knew what hewould initially see, and he was not disappointed.
Main battle tanks, Dusters, and APCs were behind him and on both sides of him, forming a U-shape, vehicles staggered, with all guns pointing toward the east. Rebel units had taken up defensive positions all around Ben and his personal team. It was quite an impressive sight. And the sight was not lost on the rattletrap cars and trucks that soon came chugging and rattling up the road, many of them belching smoke. Ben could see that 312.
only about one out of every three vehicles was in fairly good shape.
From hidden vantage points, Scouts reported in. "Kids are all at the rear of the column. Only armed men and women at the front half of the column."
"Millions and millions of spare parts all over the nation," Jersey said, disgust in her voice. "New cars and trucks everywhere, and these clowns show up driving this c.r.a.p."
"Dr. Sessions and his kind say we should pity these people, Jersey," Ben said with a smile.
"Sessions and his kind haven"t been out here fighting these sorry types for years," she retorted. "He"ll get a bullet up his b.u.t.t one of these days and that might change his mind."
"You really believe that?" Cooper called from the other side of the road.
"h.e.l.l, no," she said. "It hasn"t proved true very often in the past."
The convoy of movers stopped several hundred yards from the roadblock.