William W. Johnstone (27 page)

“Well, if I were in his shoes, I’d order a bust-out. Question is, where and when.”

Tina waited, knowing her dad had given this considerable thought.

Ben said, “Sam’s got a battalion to the west, one to the east, and one that’s pulled back into Yreka. He’s got his battalion and one other dug in. Now, he could do any number of things. He could retreat back to Yreka and bust through Cec’s lines, linking up with that battalion. But he’ll quickly reject that because of those blown bridges.

“Sam could bust out to the south, then swing around and join the western group. But that would put his back to the sea. He won’t do that. If he moved both his battalions to the east, that would mean he’d sacrifice the western battalion. And he won’t do that because he needs those people.

“If I were Sam, I’d split my forces, one battalion to the west, one to the east, link up, and begin retreating back toward the Oregon border.”

“Then you think he’ll be coming straight out of the chute, heading south, then split east and west?”

“That’s what I’d do.”

“And you want us to do? …” She left the question open-ended.

Ben grinned. “Why, open the gate, dear. Just give him all the space he needs.” Ben’s smile broke into a wide grin.

“Until he splits his forces, that is,” Tina said. “And then we hit them hard.” “That’s it, dear.”

“But you don’t know for certain when he’ll try to bug out, do you, Dad?” “No, not for sure.”

“But you have a feeling it’ll be soon, right?”

“Like … tonight, daughter.”

“What else do you have up your sleeve, Dad?”

Dan Gray had joined the group, standing quietly and listening. The Englishman began to smile.

Ben looked at Dan. “You finish it, Dan.”

“I never presume to know what is in another man’s mind,” the ex-SAS man said primly.

“Horseshit!” Ben replied.

“You’ve been hanging around Ike too long, General. How crude. Very well. I would draw the Rebels back several hundred meters; put them deep in the timber. Then just as soon as Hartline’s people passed, and I mean within seconds, I would move the Rebels into the abandoned bunkers, reposition the mortars and other artillery, and use the mercenaries’ own weapons against them. That’s what I’d do.”

“But suppose Hartline has booby-trapped his bunkers and artillery and tanks?” Tina asked.

“No time,” Ben said. “This would be a snap decision on Sam’s part. I know he called a meeting early this afternoon. In his bunker. I ordered a double bino watch. Those behind the long lenses report no unusual activity. Any type of behavior other than what we’ve grown accustomed to would be a dead give away on Sam’s part. Dan, start pulling the Rebels back. Give Sam a chute to use. He may fall for it, he may not. I’m betting he will.”

“Yes, sir.”

Nina fought away her feelings of suicide. She had been a survivor all her life; she was not going to quit now.

She had thought once Khamsin had his way with her—how long had it been?—a week, she guessed—then he would leave her alone.

It was not to be.

The man was worse than a goat. She had endured the assaults as silently and stoically as humanly possible.

The only thing about her that had improved was her feet. Most of the pain was now gone, but her tortured toes were still very tender.

She heard footsteps in the hall. A guard knocked on her door. Nina swung her feet off the bed and carefully slid her feet into house slippers. “Yes?”

“The colonel is ready for you, woman.”

“Charmed, I’m sure,” Nina muttered. Ike! she thought. Where are you, Ike? Please, Ike—hurry!

Ike was less than two miles away. He and his team had been in the Columbia area for several days. They had slipped in at night, moving carefully, and just as carefully mapping out Colonel Khamsin’s headquarters, where Nina was being held.

The last member of the IPA patrol that Ike had questioned had broken under Ike’s knife, spilling his guts—literally.

Ike and his team had moved out for the Columbia area before the terrorist’s body had cooled.

“Okay, gang,” Ike said. “It has to be tonight. We’ve already pushed our luck too hard. One more recon of the area is not only useless, but risky. We go in at midnight.”

Ike and his team were on the second floor of an old warehouse. Ike knew how they were going to get Nina out; but then getting away was quite another matter.

Ike looked at his radio operator. “You got the other teams on the horn, scrambled?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Tell them at
exactly
midnight, on the dot, I want diversion strikes all along the borders, as many as possible. I wanna shake Khamsin’s people up. For fifteen minutes, minimum, get our people on the borders to throw everything they’ve got into South Carolina. That’s all the time we’re gonna have, people. Fifteen minutes to get in, grab Nina, and get out.”

Ike glanced at his team. “Let’s take it from step one, people.”

“I’m at the gate,” a Rebel said.

“I drive the truck,” the second Rebel said.

“I carry Nina,” a big Rebel said. “In case she’s been tortured and can’t walk.”

“I start the fires,” a woman Rebel spoke quietly.

“And you and me,” Ike said, looking at another Rebel. “We bust her out.”

The radio operator was busy transmitting Ike’s orders.

Ike glanced at his watch. “Let’s go.”

Ben glanced at his watch, then at Tina. “Everybody pulled back, girl?”

“Yes, sir. Hartline’s got a hole wide enough to stampede cattle through.”

He should be making bug-out any second.”

His walkie-talkie crackled.

“Speak,” Ben said.

“Bugging out, sir,” came the whispered report. “And traveling pretty light.”

“Keep your head down,” Ben ordered.

Up and down the lines of pulled-back Rebels, the scouts radioed in to Ben. Sam Hartline and his men were bugging out.

Ben looked at his daughter. “It won’t take Sam long to realize he’s been had. But by then, I’m hoping, he’ll be past the point of no return. But either way, we can still kick the shit out of him.”

“Gonna finish him this time, Dad?” Tina asked.

“I’m going to give it my best shot, girl.”

“Too easy,” Hartline whispered to his aide. “That goddamned Ben Raines is up to something. But damned if I can figure what it is.”

“I feel like I’m being watched,” one of his men whispered. “And I heard something move behind me about a mile back.”

“Yeah, me, too,” a mercenary said. “But it sounded like they, whatever it was, was movin’ back the way we come.”

Then the light bulb of full understanding clicked on in Sam’s head. “That sneaky son of a bitch!” he growled.

He halted the snakelike column and stood for a moment, listening. He could just detect the sounds of breeches opening and closing; the sounds of tank-mounted howitzers being raised.

And Sam Hartline
knew,
Ben Raines had bested him—again.

“Matt?” Sam called softly.

“Right here, Sam. What’s up?”

“Every man for themselves,” Sam Hartline gave the orders. Gave them with a bitter, copperlike taste in his mouth. The taste of defeat.

And Sam Hartline took off running, running as if the hounds of Hell were snarling and biting at his ankles.

Ben Raines lifted his walkie-talkie. “Guns facing east?”

“Yes, sir,” came the quick response.

“Guns facing west?” Ben asked.

“Yes, sir. Locked and loaded.”

“East and west,” Ben said. “Have your forward observers pinpointed your targets?”

“Yes, sir,” came the dual reply.

“Commence firing.”

Ike’s team hit the gates of Khamsin’s command post fifteen seconds after midnight. They had slapped C-4 onto doors and buildings and operational vehicles as they made their way to the compound.

The charges began blowing just as Ike and his team opened fire and began tossing firefrag grenades about the compound.

The news of the attacks along the border had just been rushed to Khamsin when Ike’s team began their assault. The compound erupted in confusion and smoke and explosions and gunfire.

A team member had driven two deuce-and-a-half trucks into the only street that had not been blocked off. The Rebel backed off, rolled a grenade under each truck, then ran like hell back to the compound to join in the fight. The transport trucks blew, blocking the street with fire and hot metal and smoking glass.

The attack had been so sudden, so totally unexpected it had caught the IPA with their pants down—or off, as the case was, with many of them sleeping.

Ike tripped a running IPA troop. With the blade of his knife against the man’s throat, he snarled, “The woman prisoner? Where is she?”

The man spat in Ike’s face.

With the point of his knife, Ike dug out one of the man’s eyes. Ignoring the screaming, Ike repeated the question.

With his eyeball dangling down the side of his face, and the blood spurting, the IPA troop answered Ike’s question.

“Shoulda told me that in the first place, stupid!” Ike kicked the man on the side of the head, knocking him out, but allowing him to live. For a time longer.

Ike ran up the outside stairs of what had once been a walled office complex and kicked in the door. He grinned at Nina.

“Hello, baby! Ready to go home?”

Ben hated to do it, knowing that unless his people set backfires to check the burning woods, half of California might well be wiped out. He hesitated, then called for WP rounds.

The night sky erupted in flames as the white phosphorus rounds exploded, as the fires caught, the sap in the trees ignited, burned, and exploded. And Hartline and his men were caught smack in the middle of the raging maelstrom, with absolutely no place to run.

Sam literally stumbled into a lifesaving hole in the ground. The soft earth under his boots gave way and he fell about five feet into a slanting cave. He slid another twenty-five or so feet before reaching bottom. He carefully put out his hand, feeling the rocky surface beneath him. No bat shit. Good. Sam hated bats. Filthy fuckers.

Using his flashlight, Sam inspected the cave. About ten feet high at the widest point, perhaps eight or ten feet wide at the widest point, narrowing down to no more than several inches wide.

One way in, one way out. Fine with him.

Then he wondered why the smoke from the fires was not entering the cave. He crawled as far as he could deeper into the cave. Air fanned his face, coming out of the small crack. That explained that. The updraft kept the smoke out.

Sam curled up on the floor, making himself as comfortable as possible, and went to sleep.

Khamsin had hurled himself to the floor when the first explosion sounded. When automatic-weapons fire began raking the compound, he crawled under his desk. But he left his ass exposed.

A grenade blew just outside his main office, sending ragged shards of glass flying in all directions.

A long jagged piece hit Khamsin square in one cheek of his buttocks, penetrating several inches. Khamsin howled in pain and rage and frustration. When he reached back to pull the glass out, he sliced his hand open, to the bone.

On his knees, the Libyan cursed America, Americans, and especially Ben Raines.

By everything that was holy, Khamsin swore to someday kill Ben Raines.

But the pain in his ass overrode his prayers and he wondered where in the shit his medics might be hiding.

“You won’t want me no more, Ike,” Nina said. “I’ll leave and let you find yourself a whole woman when we get back.”

“Girl,” Ike said, looking at her. “What in the holy billy-hell are you talking about?”

“That camel-humpin’ bastard used me pretty bad, Ike.”

Ike grinned at her in the darkness of the canvas-covered bed of the truck. “You reckon he wore it plumb out, baby?”

“Ike!”

“Then don’t worry about it, baby. Tell you what. When we get back, how’s about you and me gettin’ hitched?”

“Ike?”

“Yes, baby?”

“I love you.”

“Is that a fact? Well, dip me in shit and call me stinky!”

“If you folks will quit all that romancin’ up there,” a Rebel called from his post by the tailgate. “Here comes a whole bunch of those camel-jockeys.”

“Ridin’ camels?” Ike called.

“I wish!”

Ike picked up his CAR-15 and joined the guard. “How about us start rollin’ out some surprises for them folks, Ed?”

The Rebel grinned and held up both hands full of firefrags. “Like these?”

“How did you guess?”

“Cease fire!” Ben ordered. “Cease fire!”

The night became eerily quiet, except for the popping of trees as the sap exploded. Fires ringed the interior of the battleground.

And the cloudy skies cracked just a bit and a light mist began falling. After only a few moments, the mist changed into a sprinkle, then a downpour. Ben looked up, the rain streaking his face, and smiled.

“Thanks,” he said.

Dan Gray came to Ben’s side. “I’ve ordered the troops to start mopping up, General.”

“Fine. Have you any prelims on troop loss?”

“We lost no one. It appears that Hartline suffered approximately ninety percent loss of his battalions. We’ll probably never know for sure.”

Ben nodded. “I’m going to get some rest. Take over, Dan.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Englishman watched as Ben walked away, back to his command post for some much-needed sleep. A Rebel approached Dan. “Sir?”

“Yes, son?”

“General Jefferys was just on the horn. He reports that his people are kicking ass north of here. Your people have engaged the other battalion and have them on the run. Looks like we won, sir.”

“Thank you. Keep me informed and don’t disturb the general.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Carl?” Dan called.

“Here, sir!” the batman said.

“A bit of tea would be nice. Perhaps a cracker or cookie to go with it.”

“Right away, sir.”

Dan sat down on a log and rested, waiting for his early morning refreshment. He wondered how Ike was doing?

“Sir!” the shout came from the cab of the truck. “Go ahead!” Ike hollered.