William W. Johnstone (9 page)

“Is that right?” Mac asked. “You look like you’re big enough to kick ass and take names. Why didn’t you?”

Harris smiled bitterly. “I’ve got about seventy-five people in my group. Seventy-five out of three thousand. That tell the story?”

Mac was sorry he had spoken so sharply. But while he knew what the Rebels were doing was necessary, he, like so many Rebels, including Ben Raines, was getting damn tired of fighting other peoples’ wars for them.

“Yeah, Harris. It does. Sorry I popped off at you.”

“I understand. Believe me, I do. Many times I’ve had to just grit my teeth and walk off before I shot some of the roll-over crybabies around here.”

“Many sympathizers around?”

Harris spat on the littered, dirty sidewalk.

Mac and his partner got the message.

“What do you want me and my people to do?” Harris asked.

“Lay back and stay out of it. When we’re finished, I imagine General Raines will put you in charge. Then you can deal with matters the way you see fit.”

“With pleasure.”

Mac and his partner waited on the outskirts of Redding, waited with Harris in the looted shell of the drugstore in the small shopping center … or what had once been one. Mac and his partner were just one of many two-person teams scattered in a loose circle around the airport. If any IPF people managed to escape the initial attack on the airport, they would be cut down by the Rebels encircling the area.

“You speak any Russian?” Mac asked Harris.

“Some. I’m no expert. But I picked up some while a prisoner of the IPF.”

“How’d you get away from them?”

“Broke and ran one night. They shot me.” He lifted his shirt; his stomach was pocked with bullet scars. “They thought they’d killed me. Left me and took off chasing the other guy who broke out with me. I managed to crawl into a ditch before I passed out. My people found me before morning. I just made it. Charlie didn’t. He died pretty damned hard, so I was later told. Never again will I allow my freedom to be taken from me. Never!” the word was spoken hard. “And I’ll kill any person who tries.”

Mac smiled through the gathering gloom at his partner. Harris would do to ride the river with. “Any weak links in your group?”

“None. But there was … for a long time. I kept wonderin’ why the IPF knew every move we were gonna make. We’d change hideouts; they’d be right there. Lost a lot of people durin’ that time. Better than twenty-five percent of my group bought it. That’s how I got captured. After I got on my feet, I started some hard checkin'. I found out who it was and killed him. We’ve had no more leaks. But it was a damned hard thing for me to do.”

It was a story the Rebels were accustomed to hearing. “Friend of yours, huh?”

Harris looked at him. “Yeah. He was my brother.”

Like silent ghosts in tiger-stripe and lizard camo, the Rebels moved along the buildings of the Redding airport. Those IPF personnel who happened to be on foot patrol, or just unfortunate enough to be outside while the Rebels were moving into position, met silent, abrupt death with black wire or darkened blades. Their bodies were dragged out of sight and dumped.

Swiftly and softly, the Rebels took their positions, all of them just a bit nervous about this raid. For the general was personally leading this attack.

“Damned fool!” Sylvia whispered to him, as they crouched inside the tower, on the tarmac. “You’ve got men and women thirty years younger that you and Ike personally trained to do this sort of work. What are you trying to prove?”

Ben’s smile flashed in the night. He leaned close and whispered, “Are you trying to tell me I’m over the hill, kid?”

Sylvia flushed and blushed. She knew damn well Ben was far from being over the hill. In more ways than one. Then her eyes widened in shock as Ben leaned closer still and blew softly in her ear.

“Ben! Quit! Shit!” she whispered. “You’re insane!”

Ben kissed her cheek and chuckled softly. “Are you trying to tell me this is not the place for romance, kid?”

Sylvia could but shake her head and sigh. All her life she had heard stories about how totally unpredictable General Ben Raines was.

She could damn well believe it now.

Ben looked up at the tower. “Into the jaws of death, Into the mouth of hell, Rode the six hundred.”

“What’d you say, Ben?”

“Tennyson. You ready?”

She looked at him. “For
what?”

He chuckled. “My daughter, Tina, is fond of quoting something she says she read in one of my books. Kill a commie for mommie. I swear I don’t remember
ever
writing anything like that. But it’s a good phrase for this night.”

Ben and Sylvia looked up as footsteps sounded on the stairwell above where they crouched inside the tower building. A man had stepped out of the tower area to have a smoke. His lighter flashed in the darkness, for a moment illuminating his face. His face was cruel-looking. He wore the insignia of a major on his collar points. He turned his back to the stairs and stood looking out a small window.

Ben handed Sylvia his Thompson and drew his long-bladed knife, the edge honed to razor-sharpness. Ben had shaved with it more than once.

He slowly climbed the stairs toward the Russian.On his hip, for this mission replacing his.45 caliber Colt Army automatic, he carried a Colt Woodsman automatic.If he missed any of his targets in the tower, his repair people might be able to fix what a.22 slug caused. But with a hollow point.45 slug? …

And he was not going to give the Russian any chance to struggle during the conventional hand-over-the-mouth, knife-across-the-throat business.

Ben swung the heavy knife, decapitating the man. Blood splattered on the walls and floor as the man’s head struck the floor with a sticky thud. Ben grabbed the body and slowly lowered it to the floor.

He motioned for Sylvia to stay put. Ben removed a gas mask from its container and slipped it over his face, checking it. It worked. Ben had never liked the damn things. He slipped a combination irritant gas and smoke grenade from his web belt and glanced down at Sylvia. He nodded at her. She returned the nod and lifted her walkie-talkie, speaking just one word: Go!”

Ben pulled the pin, released the spoon, and jerked open the door, tossing the grenade inside with his left hand. His right hand was full of Colt Woodsman. He shot one IPF man in the chest and another in the face, then stepped inside, closing the door behind him.

The room was filled with smoke and the shouted alarms of the IPF personnel. One blindly bumped into Ben and Ben stuck the muzzle of the Colt into the woman’s throat and pulled the trigger.

There had been four people in the tower when Ben had stepped inside. Two had been shot before the gas and smoke erupted, he had just shot the third—now where was the fourth?

Ben heard choking cries from across the room. He inched his way toward the source. The man was trying to operate the radio, but he was blinded by the irritant, tears streaming down his face. Ben spun him around and shot him between the eyes.

The tower was secure.

Ben shot each of the four in the tower in the head, making certain they were going to stay down, then began opening all the windows. He stepped out onto the stairwell and removed his mask, closing the door behind him. He stood in the thickening blood from the Russian major and grinned at Sylvia.

She glared up at him. “You worry the hell out of me, you know that? You … you …
asshole!”

Ben laughed at her.

A few of the IPF personnel got away from the wrath of Raines’s Rebels, fleeing into the night. Safe, but only for a very short time.

No matter which way they ran, they ran into more Rebels, lying in ambush.

Mac, after listening to Sylvia, and only then, turned to Harris and said, “Take out the rest of the IPF in town.”

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“Because I didn’t trust you,” Mac’s reply was blunt.

“Believe me,” Harris said, “I know the feeling.”

It had taken them years to reach America, for America had not been their destination of choice. Just the thought of America still left a bitter, ugly taste in their mouths. They had traveled first to France, or what was left of it, and then to Spain, there again, what was left of it. They had lingered for a couple of years in each place, gathering their own, recruiting others, accepting them into the Faith, then moving on, always moving on.

And always gaining strength.

They had moved to the island of Corsica, finding it and overwhelming the small garrison of French Foreign Legion troops still there. They had tortured and mutilated and raped and killed, leaving behind only a lonely, blood-stained reminder of a place that had virtually escaped the horror of the final war that very nearly wiped out earth.

From Corsica they had traveled to South America, finding some areas hot from radiation, others reverting back to barbarism. They had found recruits in every place they visited. And ships.

They had traveled around the Horn and back, looking, always looking, but never really satisfied with what they found.

Then they looked toward the United States. They set sail for Florida. But Miami was a mess. They had no desire to dock there.

They sailed north and reached the Georgia coast. They anchored off Wassaw Island and sent teams into Savannah to look the situation over.

They found the city almost deserted.

A week after they landed, the city was totally deserted.

Any Americans found there were killed. Outright, if they were lucky. The unlucky ones were tortured and raped. And then killed.

“We shall travel no more,” the leader of the thirty-thousand-plus-strong force said. “I find it darkly amusing that we have come full circle and now find ourselves here in the most hated land in the world.”

His fellow officers agreed.

The Islamic Peoples Army, the IPA, was made up of the survivors of every terrorist group known to exist before the world blew up. The PLO, Baader-Meinhof, Rengo Sekigun (Japanese Red Army), YPR, Black September, Al Fatah, PFLP, Dev Gench, TPLA, the Liberation Front, the Socialist Patients-Collective, the DGI, the Red Cell, German Action Group, and others.

As maggots tend to gather on the unattended dead, terrorist groups have a way of gathering like lice on the unwashed.

The commander of the IPA was a Colonel Khamsin. His idol was Muammar Kaddafi.

The gunfire had long died away; every member of the IPF stationed in the Redding area had been accounted for. No prisoners had been taken.

Harris and his people were now in control of the city.

And not all of the citizens liked it.

A fat, obviously well-fed and well-cared-for man was shoved in front of Ben. “John Stoggen,” Harris informed him. “Big buddies with the local IPF major.”

“Would you like to see your buddy now?” Ben asked him.

“Yes,” John said. His voice trembled. He stank of fear.

“All right,” Ben said. “Excuse me for a moment. I’ll be right back.”

Ben returned in a moment, carrying something in his left hand. He held the dripping head of the major up to John. “Here’s your buddy, now, Stoggen. Say hello.”

John Stoggen fainted on the tarmac.

Ben tossed the head to one side.

Harris swallowed hard. He had heard that General Ben Raines was one hard-assed man. Now he knew for certain. “Stoggen was responsible for the deaths of a lot of good people, General. Men and women. And a couple of young people, as well.”

“Do what you want to with him,” Ben said. “I’ve spoken with several people about you, Harris. They seem to think you’re a good man. I’m putting you in charge. We’ll outfit you with our tiger-stripe or lizard cammies. I’ll meet with your people in the morning.”

“Yes, sir.” Harris saluted and left.

“General,” a Rebel approached Ben. “We’ve just been in contact with Base Camp One. They want to know if you’ve ever heard of a Colonel Khamsin?”

“Khamsin? No. Why?”

“Well, sir, it’s kind of confusing and not, as yet, confirmed, but a small group of people came to Base One a couple of days ago. They’re from south Georgia. They claim that a large force landed in Savannah about a month ago. They’re commanded by this Colonel Khamsin.”

“How large a force?”

“About forty to fifty thousand men.”

Ben stood stunned for a moment. “Forty or fifty
thousand!”

“Yes, sir.”

“They must be mistaken. Do you have any idea how many ships it would take to transport that many men and supplies?”

“No, sir.”

“I don’t believe there are that many ships still seaworthy, anywhere. Khamsin,” Ben said.

“Yes, sir. The people said it means a hot wind.”

“Wonderful,” Ben said drily. “Back in 1941, it was a divine wind. Now sixty years later we have a hot wind to contend with.”

“Divine wind, sir?”

“Pearl Harbor, son.”

“I … don’t know that I ever heard of that place, sir.”

Ben smiled. “Well, believe it or not, I wasn’t born then either, son. But I do know a little something about history.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Get Base One on the scrambler. Tell them I said to send out some recon teams; try to find out what in the hell is going on down in Georgia.”

“Yes, sir.” He saluted and left.

Ben looked for his XO. “Let’s get this airport cleaned up and the bodies disposed of …”

A shot cut the darkness.

Ben had a hunch that John Stoggen had collaborated his last.

“… Get Cecil on the horn and have him get our pilots back here to ferry these planes out. Let’s start inventorying supplies and moving it out for shipment back and caching in this part of the country.”

“Yes, sir.”

Sylvia came to stand by Ben’s side. “A hot wind, Ben?”

“That’s what the man said.”

“Forty or fifty
thousand
troops, Ben?”

“That’s what the man said.”

“Ben, we can’t fight that many troops.”

“Something tells me we’re going to have to do it, kid.”

Once again, Raines’s Rebels had lucked out, in more ways than one. They had uncovered several tons of supplies: food, clothing, guns and ammo, walkie-talkies, and planes.