"You folks want to come along?"
88."That"s why we"re here," one of the men in the group said.
It seemed to the victims that the rape and sodomy and degradation would never stop. Ms. Smith-Harrel-son-Ingalls-along with the other women in the group-had been pa.s.sed from punk to punk so many times they lost count of the number of men who raped them. Ralph Galton had gotten very indignant and quite lippy, at first. That stopped when he was bent over a table and repeatedly b.u.g.g.e.red. Another man was forced to have oral s.e.x with his captors.
"But we"re here to help you!" Ms. Smith-Harrelson-Ingalls cried. "We love you!"
"Yeah?" Tony Green, a.k.a. Big Stomper, said. "Well, we love your a.s.s, Ms. Big t.i.ts. Like, literally, baby."
Ms. Smith-Harrelson-Ingalls began screaming as Big Stomper sodomized her. Her cries were lost in the thunder of the artillery barrage.
Later, when the punks had s.e.xually exhausted themselves, Ms.
Smith-Harrelson-Ingalls heard one of Big Stomper"s lieutenants ask, "Do we take them to the Night People?"
"Naw," Tony said. "They"re bunkered in underground. No way to get to them."
"Wanna give them to the n.i.g.g.e.rs?"
"h.e.l.l, no! Just burn all their clothes and leave them here. We gotta get ready to fight." He looked at Ralph Galton, huddled naked in a pain-filled ball on the dirty floor. "But first I"m gonna teach that big-mouth over 89.89there a lesson." Tony then proceeded to show the others why he was called Big Stamper. He stomped Ralph Galton to death.
The punks then vanished into the explosive night.
Gina Zapp found a rag and began wiping the blood from her thighs. "Nice people," she said sarcastically. "Really worth saving." She looked over at Eighty-Pockets, who was sobbing in a corner of the darkened room.
Eighty-Pockets had taken several d.i.c.ks up the a.s.s. "Oh, stop your whimpering, Greg! Women get sodomized all the time, and you men sit on juries and won"t convict. So just shut up!"
"Look around for some rags or cardboard to cover ourselves with," a man said.
"And something to defend ourselves with," Ms. Smith-Harrelson-Ingalls said, a hard note in her voice. "Clubs or bricks or boards or something.
I"m going to bash that son of a b.i.t.c.h"s brains out if he comes back here."
"Has anybody got any mouthwash?" another reporter asked.
Ben entered the eastern edge of the city just behind the first wave at 0730. Georgi"s people were pushing in from the north, and Ike was advancing from the west.
"Recon"s found the group who went in last night, General," Corrie said.
"Alive?"
"Oh, yeah. Some punks grabbed them and raped them-men and women. Two blocks ahead, on the left."
90.William W. Johnstone A angry group of reporters and human rights representatives met Ben.
They were dressed in a mishmash of spare Rebel clothing from the Rebel"s packs.
"I want you to find that G.o.dd.a.m.n Tony Green, General Raines," Ms.
Smith-Harrelson-Ingalls squalled in Ben"s face. "I want you to castrate that slimy son of b.i.t.c.h with a dull knife and then shoot him!"
"I was under the impression that you didn"t believe in capital punishment," Ben said. "Did something happen to change your mind?"
Julie Petti stood off to one side and listened to the exchange.
The blood drained from the woman"s face and she glared daggers at Ben.
"f.u.c.k you!" Ms. Smith-Harrelson-Ingalls said, then marched off toward a waiting team of medics.
Ben glanced at Nick Stafford, sitting in a Hummer, looking at him. "I haven"t started going to church, so don"t worry about that. And I"ve abused too many women in my life to tell you that you should have been a bit more understanding with her, Ben," Nick said. "But I will anyway."
Nick put the Hummer in gear and drove on down the debris-littered street.
Ben looked at Julie Petti, who was watching him. "You have anything tosay about it?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "What rape does to a woman is something that men will never fully understand, Ben."
"Perhaps I was a bit cold, at that. But she had no business coming in here unarmed. But then, you were coming in here unarmed, weren"t you?"
91.Julie and the men with her smiled. The men opened their jackets, showing Ben their sidearms nestled in shoulder holsters. Julie reached into her purse and hauled a big 9-mm Beretta, model 92S.
Ben said, "Those would have helped . . . but not much." The Red Cross people had told him at supper the night before that this was their first real outing since the Great War. Mostly they had been helping provide food and medical care to civilian survivors, not criminals.
"Got a real firefight shaping up about four blocks ahead," Corrie said.
Ben outran the others in getting to the Hummer.
Rebels halted the HumVee a block from the sounds of very heavy gunfire.
"No vehicles past this point, General. We"ve got at least a thousand punks stretched out along a five or six block line, and at least that deep. They"re dug in hard, and they"re well armed. Machine guns, rocket launchers, and mortars."
"Park over there, Coop," Ben said, getting out of the Hummer. He looked back at the Red Cross vehicle. "Stay here," he told them. "Come on, gang."
The Rebel MP had the authority to stop any vehicle from pa.s.sing his checkpoint, but he sure as h.e.l.l wasn"t about to tell the general he couldn"t proceed on foot.
Lieutenant Bonelli was frantically waving people forward, several of them carrying M-60 machine guns and ammo cans. They were trying to keep up with Ben and his team.
Exasperated, Lieutenant Bonelli finally yelled, "G.o.dd.a.m.nit, General, slow down!"
92.William W. Johnstone Ben grinned and ducked into an old apartment building, his team right behind him.
Two blocks away Julie was watching through binoculars. "Does he do this often?" she asked a Rebel sergeant. "My G.o.d! That"s the commanding general of the entire army!"
"As often as he can, miss. n.o.body has yet figured out a way to keep him from it."
"Incredible," she said.
"Yes, ma"am."Ben could hear the rattle of machine-gun fire coming from the room directly above him. He could hear the clink of expended bra.s.s bouncing off the floor. Ben pointed toward a door and Cooper nodded. He pointed toward another door and Beth nodded and got into position, covering it.
Ben walked around the room until he was certain he was directly under the machine-gun crew. He lifted the Thompson and perforated the ceiling with .45-caliber slugs. The firing abruptly ceased, and the sounds of badly wounded bodies flopping on the floor was clear. Dust rained down on those on the ground floor, just as drops of blood began leaking through several of the holes.
The sound of a heavy metal object bouncing down the stairs was loud.
"Grenade!" Ben said.
Cooper reached out and slammed the door closed and hit the floor with the others just as the grenade blew. The door disintegrated, blowing splinters and bits of paneling all over the ground-floor room.
"That was unkind of them," Beth said, just as Cooper stuck the muzzle of his M-16 around the door 94.93.jamb and gave the second floor landing a full clip. There was a scream of pain, and a body came rolling down the steps to sprawl dead at Cooper"s feet.
Just as Ben was moving toward the blown open door, Lieutenant Bonelli yelled that he was coming in. A half dozen Rebels burst into the room.
Bonelli quickly surveyed the scene and said, "We"ll take care of this now, General. The Red Cross people want to see you back at your Hummer."
Ben hesitated for a few seconds. He was very weary of having nursemaids around him twenty-four hours a day. "I have a better idea, Lieutenant."
"What"s that, sir?"
"Follow me!" Ben yelled, and charged up the grenade-shattered stairs.
95 Sofa President Homer Blanton was furious at the suggestion from the UN Security Council. He had regained his composure after leaning out of the window and cussing the demonstrators and had ordered hamburgers to be cooked on the White House Iftwn every day at noon and fed to the demonstrators.
Now this . . . insanity from the UN.
Name Ben Raines and the Rebels as the group to go in and stabilize governments around the world? Ridiculous!
"No G.o.dd.a.m.n way will I go along with that," Homer said bluntly.
"You"re outvoted," the secretary-general of the UN said. "And sinceAmerica is, for the first time, paying only its fair and equal share of the bills, majority rules. Raines and the Rebels will be the stabilizing force of the United Nations."
"Over my dead body," VP Harriet Hooter said.
The Korean diplomat smiled. His reply sounded 96.very much like a man clearing his throat and getting ready to hawk snot.
"What"s that?" Homer asked.
"You have been advised of our decision. Ben Raines will be notified in due time." He walked out of the Oval Office.
"s.h.i.t!" Homer Blanton screamed.
Ben was on the second-floor landing, his team right behind him, before Lieutenant Bonelli could react. For a middle-aged man, the general could move d.a.m.n quick.
Ben kicked open the first door he came to and sprayed the room with .45-caliber slugs, sending several oddly dressed men to that great punk heaven in the sky ... or wherever it is. The rest of his team was busy kicking open doors and letting the lead fly. By the time Bonelli and his people had reached the second floor, the hall Ben was in was clear of unfriendlies.
"Check that one," Ben said, pointing to a hall that angled off.
On this run Ben had opted for clips instead of drums, not so much as to lessen the weight but to make the weapon easier to handle. He ejected one clip and slipped another in.
"Clear!" Bonelli yelled.
Corrie said, "Counterattack, boss! We"re cut off."
"Now it gets interesting," Ben said. "Bonelli! Take the ground floor.
We"ll take this one. Leave one of those M-60"s with us."
Without having to be told, Cooper laid aside his 97.97.M-16 and took up the M-60 and a can of ammo and moved to a window. "Look at them come," he called, bi-podding the weapon.
"Give them a squirt, Coop," Ben said, picking up Cooper"s M-16, for its range was better than his Thompson.
Cooper braced die stock and held the trigger back. Ben watched a line of charging punks kiss the ground as the 7.62 rounds tore the life; from them.
Ben sat down behind a shattered window and began picking his shots, watching the advancing punks fall with each shot. The line broke underthe unexpected barrage and then took to the ground, hiding behind junked and rusted old cars and trucks, and mounds of rubble and debris.
Ben eyeballed the range for a moment. "Corrie, call in two hundred meters from this building. Somebody else can calculate the distance from this building back."
"Negative, boss," Corrie said a moment later. "They say it"s too close to use."
Ben crawled over to her and took the phone. "This is General Raines.
Start dropping those eggs down the tubes right now, or I will personally get all up in somebody"s face so long and so hard their hair will look like they stuck their finger in a light bulb socket. Mow, G.o.dd.a.m.nit!"
Fifteen seconds later the rounds began dropping in.
"Nick on the blower, boss," Corrie said.
"Go, Nick."
"You do have such a nice way of giving orders, Ben. I had forgotten how eloquent you can be."
"Yeah. Right. What"s your situation?"
98.William W. Johnstone "Bogged down. The punks are really throwing everything at us. I"m waiting for Buck and West to get into position, and then we"ll crash through."
"That"s ten-four. Keep me informed. Eagle out."
The mortar rounds stopped the line of advancing punks cold as the crews went to work, creating a wall of death between the building the Rebels were trapped in and the street punks. Then they began dropping them in right on the punks" heads. The line broke, and those punks who were not too badly injured quickly retreated back to the looted and trashed buildings on the far side of the clearing.
"Nick says 15 and 4 Batts are in position to push in," Corrie called.
"Tell them to hold what they"ve got and call for artillery and mortar to soften up the punks" position up and down the line," Ben said. "Tell our people to have smoke ready to pop at my signal."
From three sides the artillery once more began to boom, with those capable of doing so hurling in incendiary rounds and willie peter. There was no place for the punks to go except back, cursing as they retreated.
By late that afternoon the Rebels were firmly entrenched, well into the suburbs of the city, and Ben called a halt to the advance.
Ben was sitting in the den, in an old chair in a reasonably clean home, reading what was left of a yellowed and tattered years-old copy of a Toronto newspaper, when Chase strolled in."Anything interesting in there, Ben?" the doctor asked.
99.99."We"re bringing our troops home from Somalia and sending them into Bosnia and Haiti."