"Recon," Beth said. "They"re clearing out a place for a MASH unit and communications. They"re doing the same in three other locations. We"ll take some casualties," she added.
"You say that very matter-of-factly," Kathy said.
"Can"t make scrambled eggs without breaking the sh.e.l.ls," Beth said.
"Better drink your coffee. We"ll be shoving off in a few minutes, I think. Did you fill your canteens?"
"Yes. Both of them."
Beth nodded and walked off.
Kathy looked at her watch and turned to Cooper. "It"s past 0600. What"s the delay?"
"The boss is waiting for good light. It"s going to be bad enough when we do push off; streets slick as goose s.h.i.t."
"The Rebels have a healthy respect for these Night People, right, Cooper?"185 185.
"You bet we do. They don"t surrender. Ever. They fight to the last person. They"ll rush you carrying fifty pounds of C-4, or Molotov c.o.c.ktails, or whatever they can get their hands on. Just as long as they can take one of us with them."
Ben gazed up at the gray sky for a moment and then took a final drag on his hand-rolled cigarette. He toed out the b.u.t.t with his boot and muttered something under his breath that no one could hear and then glanced at Corrie. He lifted his right hand and began making a circular motion with his index finger up.
"Get to your vehicle," Cooper said to Kathy. "The boss is gettin" this circus on the road." He glanced at her. "Secure that body armor and fasten the chin strap on your helmet. It"s gonna get real mean, real quick." He walked off toward the Hummer and opened the driver"s side door. Ben"s voice stopped him.
"On foot, Coop. Corrie, order the tanks to spearhead." Before Cooper could respond, Ben was off and running through the mist and rain and fog.
"I knew it, G.o.dd.a.m.nit!" the driver of the vehicle Kathy was in said, opening the door and jumping out just as Lieutenant Bonelli was yelling for his people to follow the general.
Kathy jumped out of the backseat and went running off toward Ben and his team, almost losing her footing on the slick street and busting her a.s.s before she caught up with them.
Ben was squatting down behind a house. He glanced at her and grinned.
"You sure you don"t want to stay in the rear?"
"I"m sure."
186.
William W. Johnstons He nodded and was up and running toward another house before Kathy caught her breath. Saying a few very choice words under her breath, Kathy followed, staying with Beth.
"That area is not secure!" a scout yelled, as Ben angled off and went running up another block.
"Then let"s secure it!" Ben yelled over his shoulder just as unfriendly fire started yammering from a house. Ben hit the wet gra.s.s and slid on his belly for a few feet before coming to a stop behind a tree. Beth and Kathy took to ground and belly-crawled to a low stone fence.
"Is he always like this?" Kathy asked, as heavy machine-gun fire clipped bits of stone from the fence just a couple of feet over their heads.
"Yes," Beth said, setting the fire selector on her M-16 to full auto.
"But you haven"t seen anything yet."
"I can hardly wait," Kathy muttered.Ben tossed a grenade toward the open window of the house where the heavy machine gun fire was coming from. The grenade fell about a foot short, but the explosion caused the old bricks to collapse and when they did, part of the roof fell in. Ben was over the fence and running toward the rear of the house. Beth was over the fence and running toward Ben before Kathy could react. Wisely she decided to stay right where she was for the time being.
The back door flew open just as Ben reached it, and a familiar stench reached his nostrils. Ben leveled his Thompson and held the trigger back, sending the knot of creepies that crowded the back entrance into that long sleep.
187.
187.
"Teams left and right of me!" Ben yelled to Corrie. "Let"s clear this block and do it right the first time."
Ben cautiously stepped over the stinking bodies of the creepies and into the house. One of the creeps was still alive and moaned. Ben shot him in the head. His eyes penetrated the gloom of the dark interior and found the body of a young woman-or what was left of the naked being. The creepies had been eating on the carca.s.s.
Ben glanced over his shoulder. Corrie and Cooper were right behind him.
"Get Kathy and that film crew up here," Ben said. "Now. Have other batt corns pull reporters in and do the same."
Rebels were working the block, quickly clearing the houses of creepies.
Kathy and a network reporter and film crew came to the rear of house and looked for a moment at the dead creepies piled in a stinking heap at the back door. "
Ben stepped to one side and motioned them all inside. He pointed to what was left of the naked and eaten-upon young woman. "Film it," he said, and his tone warned them all they had better do it. "The people we"re fighting eat other human beings alive. They keep them alive as long as possible. They say the flesh tastes better that way."
The top-gun network reporter gasped and stepped to the door, barely able to hold his vomit until he reached the outside. There he lost his breakfast, almost puking on the boots of several other reporters who had gathered ... or had been herded over to the house.
Ben said, "From this moment on, I don"t want to hear another G.o.dd.a.m.n word about offering these peo- 188.
William W. Johnstone pie pity, or compa.s.sion, or mercy. The first time I hear any of those words, or similar words, in conjunction with the Night People, the reporter who says them will be out of this country so fast it will take his or her breath away. Does everybody read me loud and clear?"
"We have only your word that all Night People commit these atrocities,General," a man said.
Ben did not hesitate. He pointed to two Rebels. "You and you. Escort this person to the airport at Rouen and make d.a.m.n sure the officer in charge there gets him on a plane for the States. Pull his entry papers.
He is not to be allowed back on this Continent without authorization from me. And that is not likely to happen."
The reporter flushed in anger and opened his mouth. "Now you see here, General. You can"t-"
Ben stepped forward and hit the man on the mouth with a gloved fist, splitting his lips and loosening several teeth. The reporter"s b.u.t.t bounced on the blood-slick floor, and before he could recover, the two Rebels a.s.signed to escort him had jerked him up and tossed him outside.
The other reporters present wisely kept their mouths closed and their opinions to themselves.
Ben pointed to the naked, half-eaten human carca.s.s on the floor, the last horrible grimace of unbearable pain frozen in death on her face.
"Film it!" he roared. "And from this moment on, until I feel I can trust you people to tell the truth and not slant your reports, all copy, all film, will first be submitted to our censors for 191.
189.
evaluation before being sent back home. Is that understood?"
It was. Perfectly. Loud and clear. The reporters didn"t like it, but the order was understood.
Ben turned away from the knot of print and broadcast reporters to look for a moment at the stiffening young woman on the dirty floor. "Bury her," he ordered. "Burn the bodies of these G.o.dd.a.m.n creepies."
The reporters quickly stepped to one side to allow Ben through to the outside. The rain had picked up. But it could not cleanse the earth of the stench of death and depravity and horrible perversion.
"I hate these G.o.dd.a.m.n people," Ben said, stepping under the dubious protection of the barren limbs of an old tree to roll a cigarette.
"The creepies or the reporters?" Jersey asked with a straight face.
192 My opinion is that the northern states will manage somehow to muddle through.
-John Bright 193.
"General Raines has thrown several reporters out of France," an aide told President Blanton.
"Lucky him," Homer muttered.
"Sir?""Nothing." Homer looked down at the pile of papers on his desk and pushed them away.
"Some coffee, sir?" the aide asked.
"That would be nice. Yes. Thank you." Homer waited until the aide had brought his coffee and exited the room and then rose from his desk to stand by the window overlooking the street. Despite the weather being as cold as a witch"s t.i.t, the demonstrators were still walking up and down in front of the new White House, carrying their placards and chanting about one thing or another. "Screw you," Homer said, and closed the drapes.
Homer Blanton"s thinking had changed dramatically since his first encounter with Ben Raines. Had it really been such a short time ago?
Yes. Seemed much longer. The Southern United States of America and 194.
William W. Johnstone those other states that had aligned with the SUSA were running smoothly.
Roads and bridges being rebuilt. Factories moving in and opening up. The strongest economy anywhere in the world. And what was left for Homer and his administration to govern was in ruin. Liberal versus conservative.
Same old story. It was worse now than back when Homer first took office.
Now there were no bargaining chips. h.e.l.l, there wasn"t anything left that wasn"t rusted, worn out, broken, demolished, or burned. Ben Raines and his Rebels had seen to that. Years back Ben Raines had sworn he would smash the liberal-run government of the United States; grind it into dust under the heel of his boot. And he had done that.
All things taken into consideration, Homer should hate Ben Raines. But he didn"t. He felt a grudging admiration for the man. Raines told people to go to work and they went to work. Raines said to build a bridge and the G.o.dd.a.m.n thing got built. The Rebels could build five bridges in the time it took Homer"s people to drive the pilings for one. For every mile of highway that was repaired outside the SUSA, the Rebels overlaid fifty. The USA was rampant with crime. The SUSA had no crime.
Unemployment was 70 percent in the USA. Unemployment was zero in the SUSA.
"s.h.i.t!" Homer said.
"Rita Rivers and VP Hooter to see you, sir," his secretary buzzed him.
"Jesus Jumping Christ," Homer muttered. "That"s all I need. All right.
Send them in."
One bad thing about this job, Homer thought. There is no place to run!
195.
195.
The Rebels fought for every inch of ground they covered that cold, wet day in France. The creeps slowly backed up under the Rebel a.s.sault, but they did so reluctantly and did not mind paying for it in blood . . .
almost always their own. And they did not take their prisoners with themwhen they retreated. They hung them up on meat hooks and left them to die a slow, horrible death: men, women, and children.
"General Striganov"s found another bunch of prisoners," Corrie said. She nodded her head at the silent questions in Ben"s eyes. "All dead or dying."
Ben turned his head to look into the eyes of a network reporter. The man"s eyes were bleak. "You don"t have to belabor the point, General. I get the message. I hope you kill every one of these savages."
"I plan to do just that," Ben said. "And you may quote me."
"Rest a.s.sured I will."
"I never doubted it."
"But Duffy and his men and women are quite another matter."
"In your view. Not in mine."
"May I quote you on that?"
"Be my guest."
The rain continued to fall, mixed with tiny bits of sleet. At three o"clock that afternoon, with the weather worsening, Ben told Corrie to radio all batt corns to call it a day and to secure their positions for the evening. "Get me Greenwalt on scramble, Corrie," Ben said, accepting a canteen cup filled with steaming black coffee.
196.
William W. Johnstone The commander of 11 Batt came on. "Go, Eagle." "Give me a situation report, Greenie." "Duffy"s people aren"t putting up much of a fight in my sector, Eagle. But they"re not surrendering, either. Intelligence believes they have a definite plan, but d.a.m.ned if I can figure out what it is."
"Buddy has some of his people working behind the lines, Greenie. They"ll do some s.n.a.t.c.hing, and we"ll find out. I"ll be back with you."
Ben had set up his CP in a long-abandoned old home. A fire was crackling in the fireplace, and the smell of coffee was pleasant in the home. All Rebel batts were still at the very edge of the city. But they had a toehold. And once the Rebels secured even the tiniest of toeholds, they were like a bulldog; not likely to give it up.
Mike Richards, Rebel chief of intelligence and a former CIA station chief in Argentina, sat quietly in a chair by the coffee pot. Two of his people sat with him, the three of them waiting for Buddy"s special ops people to bring in some prisoners. The only reporter present was Kathy Bonham. She could not remember ever being so tired. She marveled at the Rebel ability to gain ground without suffering a single fatality. They had several wounded but no deaths. On the other hand they had killed several hundred Night People. As they advanced, Rebel combat engineers welded shut manhole covers. Other teams of Rebels came in behind the main body to search each home, each building, for creepie escape holes.
They either pumped them full of tear gas and pepper gas and drove themout and shot them, or sealed the hole with explosives. Ben Raines 197.
197.
left nothing to chance. Even those reporters who openly despised him had to respect the man"s genius at waging war.
"There is no way we"re closing all the holes," Ben told Kathy. "But we"re getting quite a number of them."
"Buddy"s coming in," Cooper called from the front porch. "They"ve got a half dozen punks with them. Jesus! What a crummy-looking bunch."
"I would like to watch this interrogation, Ben," Kathy said.