"Can you comprehend and speak English?" Ben asked one young man. Like the others, he wore a denim jacket, with one sleeve shorter than the other.
"Yeah, I can talk, Pops," the punk popped off. "You got your hearin" aid plugged in?"
Ben gave him the b.u.t.t of his M-14 to the mouth.
A short, brutal stroking. Rotten teeth shattered and lips were pulped. The punk lay on the street and looked up at Ben, this time with real undisguised fear in his eyes.
"You would perhaps like to try this conversation one more time, a.s.shole?" Ben asked.
"Yes, sir." The punk had managed to push the words past swollen and b.l.o.o.d.y lips.
"That"s good. Much better. You will have to learn to respect people of my advanced age. We get testy at times. Now then, the name of this misbegotten bunch of d.i.c.kheads is?"
"The Bandits, sir. My mouth sure hurts somethin" awful ... sir."
"That is one of life"s little tragedies, boy. How many in your gang?"
"Couple of hundred. Was. Sir. I guess you cut us down some."
"I guess we did at that. Do you know who I am?"
"I reckon you must be General Ben Raines. Can I get a rag from my pocket and wipe my mouth?"
"Why, sure you can!" Ben said, knowing d.a.m.n well the punk was going to try for a gun.
The c.r.a.phead came out with a derringer and Ben shot him in the belly with the M-14."How ... did you know?" the punk gasped, both hands clutching his shattered stomach.
"Magic," Ben told him. He kicked the derringer away and turned to a medic. "Get a blood sample. Let"s see what he"s carrying, other than the obvious fleas and head lice. Be careful with these c.r.a.pheds."
Ben walked over to stand staring at another Bandit. This one was not nearly so smart-mouthed and defiant after watching what had happened to his fellow Bandit.
He had p.i.s.sed his dirty jeans. "My name"s Jimmy, sir. Whatever you want to know, you just ax me. I"ll tell you."
"That"s very good, boy." Ben pointed. "Five blocks that way-what are we going to run into?"
"The Rats, sir."
"The Rats?"
"Yes, sir. You see, to get to be a Rat, you got to eat a dead rat."
"Why would anybody want to be a Rat?"
was "Cause they bad, sir."
"So is their breath, I"m sure," Ben muttered.
He winked at Jersey. "How"d you like to kiss one of those guys, Jersey?"
She grimaced. "Barf City, General!"
"And the Rats control how much territory?" Ben asked.
"The rest of the town till you get to the barricades.
They run east and west. Then the d.i.n.ks take over."
"The d.i.n.ks?"
""Yes, sir. They"re worser than the Rats.
You"ll be able to smell their territory a long time afore you ever get to it."
"And why is that? I"m quite sure they don"t bathe regularly, but it must be more than that. You don"t bathe either, but fifty feet away and I couldn"t smell you."
Jimmy"s smile was very thin. He knew there was no way on G.o.d"s green earth that he was going to leave this area alive. Everything he"d ever heard about the Rebels was true. "The d.i.n.ks drags their kills back to their home turf and hang them up so"s they can rot. It kinda lets people know they"s about to enter an area where they ain"t welcome."
"I would certainly get that impression," Ben said.
"I"ve hanged a few outlaws up myself to let them swing and rot."
"Did you torture them a long time before you swung them?" Jimmy asked with a sneer.
"No," Ben said softly.
"You a real candy-a.s.s, ain"t you, General?
Torturin" is fun. I like to hear people scream and beg for you to kill them."
"Yes, I bet you do," Ben agreed.
"Jesus Christ!" Lamar said. "Lawlessness is one thing. But this is a total breakdown of values, morality, decency ... everything!"
"You think it"s bad here, wait until you getinto Los Angeles," Jimmy warned them. "You people ain"t seen a d.a.m.n thing yet. Dead bodies left to rot in the streets and be et by dogs and cats and rats. Screamin" of them bein" tortured all the time. Some chick has a kid she don"t want, she just tosses it out in the gutter and lets it die.
You"ll see. This is paradise compared to what"s further down south. And they gonna kill all you candy-a.s.s soldier boys and girls." He cleared his throat to spit on Ben and Ben knocked the punk to the ground.
Ben looked at his son. "Get rid of them all, Buddy."
"Yes, sir."
Ben walked back to his vehicle and got his kit.
He poured a cup of water and brushed his teeth and rinsed out his mouth. He had developed a very bad taste in his mouth while listening to Jimmy.
"I knew it was going to be bad," Jersey said.
"But nothing like this." Her stomach rumbled. "I got to get me something to settle my stomach after listening to all that garbage."
Ben rummaged around in his kit and handed her a pill.
"Try that. Corrie, find out where everybody is and give me a report. We don"t want to get too far ahead."
"Right, sir."
"Burn everything in our sector, Dan," Ben ordered. "Leave nothing standing."
"Right away, sir." The Englishman trotted off, yelling for his people.
Four quick shots split the air. Linda walked up a few moments later, her face pale. "Your son just shot those young men, Ben."
"Yes, I know. I told him to."
She opened her mouth to speak, and Ben spoke first.
"We don"t take many prisoners, Linda. And we"ll take none in this area, at least not for very long. Everyone in this area, everyone who belongs to a gang, joined knowing what they were getting into. They knew we were coming months ago. They were warned comby us -- repeatedly. They could have left.
They chose to stay and fight. We have neither the time, the facilities, nor comand I"m speaking for myself here comthe patience to jack around with a bunch of no-goods.
I"m not a social worker, Linda, although there are several in the Rebel army who were before the Great War.
That should tell you something. Now does that answer any other questions you might have?"
"I guess that pretty well sums it up, Ben."
"Believe it, Linda."
"General!" Corrie called. "West reports a lot of overpa.s.s and bridge damage, and so does General Cecil."
"All right. Acknowledge it. I antic.i.p.ated that.
Where is Ike?"
"On 101 around Westlake Village."
"Tell everyone to hold what they"ve got. Stand by for a change in plans. I"m going to take achance."
"This is something new?" Jersey muttered.
Ben heard her and grinned.
Dan and Buddy gathered around Ben as he carefully spread an old map of Los Angeles out on the hood of a Jeep. "Once Ike has established a secure position in his sector, he"ll begin advancing and neutralizing the Pacific Palisades area. We"ll make very slow advances until Ike gets a toehold in Santa Monica. Then we"ll start pushing down to the Ventura Freeway while Cecil drives through Glendale down to the Hollywood Freeway.
We just don"t have the personnel to effectively cover such a ma.s.sive area, so it"s back to taking chances.
"When Ike, our bunch, and Cecil begin pushing toward a secure position to operate out of, Georgi will be swinging around and covering from here at Pasadena south down to just north of where West will be setting up with the Long Toms. I want West to take all of our long-range artillery -- every piece of our self-propelled -- and his tanks and get into position along this line. Burn out a five-block area in front of them for security, and then start lobbing in sh.e.l.ls around the clock; the rest of us will be doing the same. Tanks spearhead each drive and this is a put-to-the-torch operation all the way.
"Corrie, get in touch with Base Camp One and get me Seven and Eight Battalions in here. Start them coming right now! Fly them in around the clock, with heavy equipment following them in trucks. Roll them, Corrie. They"re about to get some real AIT"-CALL it on-the-job training. I want them pulled in close to protect the backs of West"s people."
"There are a lot of green troops in there, Father,"
Buddy said.
"They won"t be for long," Ben told him.
"We"ll hold up any major advances until Seven and Eight are in position. Corrie, have Georgi send some people east to secure this airport at Upland. Seven and Eight will deplane there and move into position."
"Right, sir."
"All right, people. Right now, let"s take a few more blocks just to keep in practice. We"ll launch the main push as soon as Seven and Eight are on the ground and moving. Send those orders out on scramble, Corrie."
Ben turned to find Doctor Lamar Chase"s finger in his face. "I want that extra MASH unit from Base to come in with those boys and girls, Ben. Those are green troops and they are going to get bloodied."
"You took the words right out of my mouth, Lamar."
"That"s bull-dooky, Ben, but it sounds good. Just do it."
"No sweat, Lamar. Look, we"re going to bepushing hard when we kick this off, so for a time, you won"t have a secure central receiving hospital.
Everything, everything, is going to be up to your MASH people."
Chase nodded his head. "We can handle it. Ill advise my people. We"re going to need lots of whole blood, so I"ll start yelling for volunteers.
Take care of him, Linda. See you around, Raines."
Ben said, "Let"s take a couple of blocks, people." The Rebels spread out, with tanks spearheading, and began hammering their way south. An hour before dark, they had clawed and scratched their way to within a block of the San Fernando airport.
Bodies of Bandits and Rats and d.i.n.ks, sprawled in grotesque postures of death, littered the trashy streets. Ben had felt all along that this campaign was going to be a tough one, and the afternoon"s battles had proved him to be correct.
The street punks knew they were literally fighting for their survival. It was stand-or-die time.
Ben Raines was not going to take prisoners, and was not going to have programs of reeducation and rehabilitation for them. He was going to destroy them to the last person and then burn the city to ground level and stir the ashes so they could never flame again.
"It ain"t right," a Rat b.i.t.c.hed during a brief lull in the fighting. "We done run up surrender flags. Ben Raines oughta honor them."
Carlo Mendez, a man who had been a Los Angeles street punk even before the Great War, laughed at the Rat. "Why should he? We had our chance to give it up. Ben Raines is no sobbing hanky-twister. He knows he"s got our backs to the wall, and that if he takes our surrender now, as soon as they pulled out, ninety-nine percent of us would go right back to what we were doing before he came.
We got us maybe a fifty-fifty chance of winnin" this fight. And pal, we"d better win it.
"Cause we just ain"t got no place else left to run.
Ben Raines is gonna wipe the earth clean of everyone like us he can find."
"He"s a devil!"
Carlo laughed. "Naw, he ain"t.
He"s just a man who don"t like punks, that"s all.