He also knew who had ordered the buildup: Ike. He had taken several squads from each 304.
battalion and sent them in to beef up Ben"s 1 Batt. Ben elected to say nothing about it. But it amused him.
Several Rebel battalions had reached the easternmost French border, and Ben ordered them to halt and hold at the line until all of southern France was clear. Antwerp and Brussels had been cleared, and those battalions had moved to the German border. Ike and his 2 Batt had occupied Geneva and Dan and his 3 Batt had moved in to seize and clean up Lausanne. Other Rebel battalions, beefed up by French, Belgium, Dutch, Italian-Swiss, Luxembourg, and Free German Resistance fighters, were holding at Luxembourg, Metz, Nancy, Epinal, Besancon, Chambery, Gren.o.ble, and Gap.
Ben had not seen Mike Richards in more than a week when the man strolled into his CP for that night and poured coffee and picked up a sandwich, then flopped down in a chair in front of Ben"s makeshift desk.
"The gangs of punks under the command of Tony Green have been supplied, quite mysteriously, it seems, with heavy machine guns, rocket launchers, and mortars. They"re waiting for you at Cannes and Nice."
"Bottger supplied them?"
"That"s my guess. And they"ve been beefed up with the dregs of society.
A fairly sizeable force, Ben. And they"ve also destroyed the runways."
"The runways can be repaired. But we need those ports." Ben frowned and drummed his fingertips on the desk. "So far, this has been a milk run.
Ma.r.s.eille and Toulon are clean. But a suspicion keeps nagging at 305.
305.
me that we"re heading into a set up of some sort. It"s just been too d.a.m.n easy so far."
"I feel the same way but have no concrete evidence of it. What"s your thinking on it?"
"The punks have made some sort of alliance with the creeps, and they"re dug in deep, waiting for us to walk in before they spring the trap."
"I wouldn"t argue with that philosophy, Ben. But if that"s the case, they"ve done it smooth."
Ben nodded. "Very smoothly, Mike. And that makes me think the creeps did it. Those punks don"t have enough sense to plan something that complex."
He looked over at Corrie. "Get some of Buddy"s special ops people to go in and give me a recon of Nice and Cannes and surrounding areas. We"ll continue moving eastward a few miles each day so as not to tip off the creeps and punks that anything is wrong."Mike stood up. "I"m going to grab a few hours of sleep. See you, Ben."
Ben smiled as he watched Mike leave. He might see the man in a few hours ... or a few days or a few weeks. With Mike, you just never knew.
Ben leaned back in his chair. Buddy would have his people in place within hours. In a couple of days, Ben should have some idea of what the creeps and the punks had in mind for him. Ben had no way of knowing that Buddy was going in himself.
Buddy and his special ops people jumped into hostile country a couple of hours after receiving the request from his father. Buddy"s team slipped through the 306.
night until they were within easy distance of the city, slept for a few hours, and were in position on the outskirts of Cannes just after dawn, while the other team was closing in on Nice.
Buddy"s team studied the scene for several moments before what lay hidden in buildings became visible to them, and only then because one of the tanks farted to life and poked the muzzle of its main gun out a window.
"s.h.i.t!" Buddy said. "They"ve pulled in armor."
"You can bet the punks aren"t manning those MBTs."
"Creeps. We"ve run into them utilizing high-tech equipment before. And since the movement started in Europe, years ago, this bunch is a lot more savvy than any we"ve encountered stateside."
The special ops teams watched and noted everything that moved before them in the two cities. Later that afternoon they pulled back and sent their findings by burst transmission.
Ben read the communiques and told Corrie to get Georgi Striganov on the horn.
"Georgi, start moving your 5 Batt down from Digne. We"ll hit Cannes and Nice from the north and the west. Those cities are not on the list of cities I was requested to save if at all possible."
Miles north and slightly east of Ben"s position, the Russian chuckled.
"So our pilots finally get into action, eh, Ben? They"ve been complaining to the high heavens."
"They can stop complaining. Now they can show me their stuff."
307.
307.
In the cities of Nice and Cannes, and at Bottger"s headquarters deep in Germany, the mood was jovial and somewhat smug. The creeps and punks and men and women of the MEF were sure that the Rebels were about to get the surprise of their lives when they launched their a.s.sault against Cannes and Nice.
Somebody was about to get surprised, but it wasn"t going to be the Rebels.Georgi moved his 5 Batt over to Col St. Martin, and Ben moved his 1 Batt to the coastal town of Frejus. The highly modified P-51E"s came roaring in at dawn, squadron after squadron, flying right on the deck at over five hundred miles an hour.
After dropping their payloads of HE and WP, the pilots kicked the rudders, did a chandelle, and came screaming back over the cities, machine guns and cannon yammering and booming. They made pa.s.s after pa.s.s, until they had exhausted their ammo. They left behind them burning and smoking cities, the streets littered with dead creeps and punks and a.s.sorted dregs of humanity. Before the stunned occupiers of the cities could recover from the initial attack, the smoky skies were once more filled with the second wave of P-5 lE"s, roaring in from their base at Nimes. While the enemy was taking their second battering from the skies that morning, Ben and Georgi were rolling toward their objectives, MBTs spearheading the columns, traveling as fast as road conditions would permit.
Before the sounds of the P-51E"s had faded into memory, two heavily supported battalions of Rebels launched their a.s.saults against Nice and Cannes. For an hour long-range artillery softened the towns with 308.
rounds weighing up to 230 pounds. Buildings collapsed and buried crews and machinery before the tanks hidden in the old sh.e.l.ls of brick and mortar and wood could lurch themselves free.
Before the last rounds had impacted, ground troops were storming the outskirts of the two cities. Ben and his 1 Batt hit the western edge of Cannes and began butchering their way toward the heart of the city.
"The law-and-order son of a b.i.t.c.h is not taking prisoners!" Tony Green screamed into the ear of his new ally, a robed and hooded creep.
"You were warned," the creep said, then turned and began fleeing for his life.
But there was no place to run except toward the sea. Ben had ordered Buddy"s 8 Batt, the special ops battalion, to jump in between Nice and Monaco and also to fill the gap between Highways 85 and 202. Helicopter gunships and PUFFs were in the air, patrolling outside the cities, and they turned lawless living flesh into dead smoking and burned meat as the creeps, malcontents, and thugs tried to escape the burning cities.
Those who offered to surrender were taken prisoner, but few of them elected to give up. These were the hard core of the nation"s criminals, facing the final certainty of a hangman"s noose. They chose a bullet, and Ben and the Rebels were more than willing to accommodate their wishes.
Ben and team, fighting their way up Rue Felix Faure, toward the Casino des Fleurs, found themselves cut off from Bonelli"s company and momentarily on their own.
"I swear you did this deliberately," Jersey panted, 309.
309flopping down beside Ben under the sill of a blown-out window.
"Not guilty this time, little Bit," Ben said, ejecting an empty magazine and locking a full one into place. "What the h.e.l.l is happening to Bonelli?"
"A pocket of creeps ambushed them," Corrie called. "They"re pinned down tight. Just like us," she added.
"We got the b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" The shout came over a lull in the fighting. "Ben Raines is in that building right there. I seen the son of a b.i.t.c.h!"
"Bloop that group," Ben said.
Cooper and Jersey started lobbing 40-mm grenades toward the sound of the excited voice. Jersey put one right through the smashed remains of a window, and the explosion blew an arm out the opening. The severed arm lay on a pile of bricks, the fingers clenched into a fist.
"G.o.dd.a.m.n you, Ben Raines!" a furious shout erupted from the building directly in front of Ben and team.
"Now he"s going to tell us about his deprived childhood," Jersey said, sticking a piece of gum into her mouth.
Ben smiled. He didn"t know much about Jersey"s background, but he did know that she came from a grindingly poor family in the Southwest and never had a store-bought dress until she joined the Rebels as a teenager. But all that did not propel her into a life of crime. Jersey had even less use than Ben for those who blamed society for their problems.
Ben had once heard Jersey tell a minority gang member taken prisoner, "You think you had a hard 310.
William W. Joknstone time, a.s.shole? I grew up on a G.o.dd.a.m.n reservation in the desert. My playmates were rattlesnakes, Gila monsters, and scorpions. I didn"t know what running water and indoor plumbing were until I was ten years old.
So f.u.c.k you and the horse you rode in on-p.r.i.c.k!"
"Two rockets about to be fired," Corrie called from across the room.
"Armbrust."
The bottom floor of the building housing the punks exploded in flames as the rockets impacted.
"Tell Bonelli thanks," Ben said.
"Not Bonelli, boss," Corrie replied. "Free German Resistance fighters."
"Then tell them danke schoen." Ben stood up. "Let"s take this d.a.m.n city."
Mop-up is always the worst job. It means dealing with snipers and mines and b.o.o.by traps and the fanatical hard-core enemy. But this time when the Rebels found a sniper hidden in a building, they called up tanks and poured on the artillery. A .30-06 is no match for a 105 mounted on the turret of a main battle tank. But two of the gang leaders got away: Tony Green and Tuba Salami. They took with them about 150 members. But nearly4000 others lay buried in a ma.s.s grave between Cannes and Nice.
Cannes and Nice not only broke the back of the punks in France, it also astonished the h.e.l.l out of Bruno Bottger and lit a fire under him. He had been sure the ambush would work. He was positive that the Rebels would drive right into it and that would have been the end.
311.
311.
Bruno Bottger had a lot to learn about Ben Raines.
Bottger gathered his generals and listened to their plans and theories about how to deal with Ben Raines and the Rebels. Bottger listened and then made up his own mind as to what strategy would be best.
"The Rebels are weary of the cold. So I believe Ben Raines will split his Rebels into two forces. One force will leave immediately, attempting to take the southern route through Italy, staying to the south until spring. Then they will cut north and attack Germany from the east, while the second force will push through from the west." Bottger stood up and walked to a huge wall map, picking up a pointer. "The push from the west will, in all likelihood, be on three points. They will jump off from Brussels, Luxembourg, and France. I am certain that Raines himself will be in command of the troops attacking Germany from the east. That attack will be two-p.r.o.nged. They will attack from these two points: Salzburg, and drive toward Munich, and Pa.s.sau, staying north of the Danube, and push toward Regensburg. I am convinced that this is the way Raines will think."
He was met with enthusiastic applause.
Bottger tossed the pointer to the table and glared at his people. "And then again," he said, his voice thick with sarcasm, "Ben Raines might do none of those things." He placed both hands on the polished table.
"Listen to me, gentlemen. There is one thing about Raines that we must all acknowledge. He is unpredictable. No one, no one, can second guess the man. I can"t, you can"t. None of us will know what Ben is going to do until he puts his plans into action." Bottger sighed 312.
heavily and sat down. "That means we must be ready on all fronts. We must be ready to defend our homeland from the north, the south, the east, and the west."
"We can do that, General," one of his younger commanders said. "For we have something that Raines does not."
"Oh?" Bottger questioned, arching one eyebrow. "And what might that be?"
"G.o.d is on our side."
Bottger stared at the young officer for a moment, his eyes mirroring total disbelief at such an absurd statement. "s.h.i.t!" he said.
313 For several weeks Ben let his troops relax. His engineers repaired the airport, and transport planes began flying into Nice and Cannes day and night. Ben ordered that each Rebel, and each member of the variousresistance groups fighting with the Rebels, was to be given three days of R&R in the warm clime of the south of France. They relaxed on the beaches under the sun, swam in the warm waters of the Mediterranean, read, slept, ate three hot meals a day, and let the war be only a memory for a few days.
During that time, Ben met with his field commanders to map out strategy for the spring campaign: Van-derhoot of the Free Dutch, Rene Seaux of the FRF, Matthies of the German Resistance, Roche of Belgium, Plaisance of Luxembourg, de Saussure of the Swiss Resistance, Randazzo of the Italian Freedom fighters.
Mike Richards and some of his people had wandered back in after a two-week absence, and the chief of intelligence was sitting in on the meeting. Mike had reported ma.s.sive troop movements inside Bottger"s 314.
claimed territory, which included much of Switzerland, all of Germany, all of Northern Italy, and parts of what used to be known as Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Austria, and Yugoslavia. Mike was not sure just how far eastward Bottger claimed as his own.
"Too d.a.m.n far," Ben had said with a grunt.
At the meeting Ben said, "Bottger has no idea where we"re going to attack. He"s shifting troops all over the d.a.m.n place. And I am sure he is fully aware that by his doing so, he is weakening vital cross-points.
But he has no choice in the matter." Ben pointed to General Roche of the Belgian Resistance, who had stirred restlessly in his chair.
"We must not forget that Bottger has thousands of civilian fighters aiding him, General. There are that many people in the countries he occupies who wish a return to the old ways ... or at the very least, a change from the present. We"re going to be outnumbered fifty to one."
Ben smiled. "The Rebels are always outnumbered, General Roche. I can"t recall a campaign when we weren"t. The trick to defeating our enemy is to be smarter, tougher, meaner, and twice as ruthless."
Roche smiled and said very dryly, "So I have noticed, General."
"So where do we launch our offensive, General Raines?" General Randazzo of the Italian Freedom fighters asked.
Ben shrugged. "I haven"t the vaguest idea," he admitted.
315.
315.
Stateside, Cecil Jefferys, president of the SUSA, smiled at the latest domestic news. The economy of the SUSA and those western states who had aligned with the SUSA was booming; they were hard-pressed to fill the many jobs that were being created daily. A few companies had tried the Rebel philosophy-but had found it either too open or too harsh to suit them or too mystifying in its simplicity for them to comprehend- and had pulled out, heading back to Blanton"s crum-bling-around-the-edges-quasi-socialistic rule. But for every company that pulled out, ten stayed and ten more wanted in.Blanton"s Justice Department had, of course, informers within the SUSA, reporting to their superiors. Cecil was well aware of that and didn"t particularly give a d.a.m.n ... as long as they did not try to stir up trouble. It was amusing to Cecil that the informers were scared to death every minute of the day and night that they might be found out.
Cecil looked at the men and women seated in his large office. They had come to the SUSA to look it over and try to understand what made it so attractive to other companies, and why so many people were flocking to it in droves, and some were frantically leaving.
"Mr. President," a lady from one of the newly emerging Fortune 500 companies said, "I don"t understand your system of health care here. I spoke with a woman who was taking her family and moving out of the SUSA.
She told me she had been refused medical care.
"I"m not familiar with the case, but I find it difficult 316.
to believe that any resident of the SUSA was denied medical care."
"She had a cut finger."
Cecil blinked at that. "A cut finger?"