Part 3 (2/2)
”Is Dan in position, Corrie?”
”Yes, sir. He reports sitting on go.”
”Are you in communication with those in the city?”
”No, sir. They will not respond on any frequency.”
”Order a main battle tank with loudspeaker capability up to tell the outlaws to surrender.
Advise them that they are completely surrounded and they have no chance of survival if they choose to fight us.”
The tank clanked into position and advised those in the small city to give it up.
The reply was small-arms fire and a rifle-fired grenade that missed the tank and exploded on the ground.
”The rocket was fired from that white house just behind that old service station,” the forward observer told Corrie, and she relayed that to Ben.
”Destroy it,” Ben ordered.
The cannon on the tank lowered, the turret moved, and the cannon roared twice, fire and smoke leaping from the muzzle. The small house on the edge of town exploded as the first sh.e.l.l impacted. The second round was napalm and a burning body was hurled out of the house. The body bounced once off the ground and lay still, the odor of charred flesh drifting on the morning air.
”Tell the tank commander to repeat the surrender message once more,” Ben ordered.
The message was repeated and once more the reply was unfriendly fire.
”Take the town” Ben said.
Four main battle tanks, turrets reversed, rammed through the barricades and drove straight into frame houses, totally demolis.h.i.+ng them and crus.h.i.+ng anyone inside. The tanks swiveled their turrets and cut loose with cannon, 7.62, and.50-caliber machine-gunfire.
Rebels quickly followed the tanks in, and one block of the town was taken.
The Rebels did not take any prisoners.
”Tell Dan to move in,” Ben ordered. ”Plug up all the escape holes he can.”
If those in the town thought Ben Raines's initial attack was brutal, they quickly found that running up against Gray's Scouts was like swimming in a small pond filled with alligators. No matter where one turned, all they saw was hungry jaws filled with deadly teeth.
The leader of the thugs who occupied Redding got on the radio and called his counterpart thirty miles south in Red Bluff. ”Get gone!” he shouted into the mike. ”We've had it up here.
Raines is not takin' no prisoners. Head for L.a. and link up with them down there. It's worser than we was told. Ben Raines and the Rebs don't got no mercy in them. They's out for blood and they don't give a d.a.m.n for laws or courts or lawyers or nothin' like that. ”He-was The transmission ended abruptly as a Rebel-held rocket launcher burped and the house exploded in flames.
A squad of Rebels found what was once a lovely home that now contained about a dozen women and twice that many children, ranging in age from runny-nosed infants in filth-encrusted diapers to boys and girls nine or ten years old.
A Rebel looked at a woman, scarcely able to contain his anger and his contempt for her. ”Get up,”
he said through clenched teeth.
”Don't take the babies from us!” one woman yelled. ”They's good for trade.”
”What?” a Rebel woman snapped at her.
”Trade? Don't be stupid, you b.i.t.c.h.
Trade?” Then it came to her who the women traded the babies to. ”You G.o.dd.a.m.n slime!”
”You ain't got no rat to talk to me like ”at,” the woman said. ”Times has been hard.”
”I wonder if these people have ever heard of soap was another Rebel said. ”Jesus, it's rank in here.”
The women and kids were escorted to the edge of town, where Ben's CP had been established. The children were taken from the women and turned over to Doctor Chase's medical people for exams and blood work.
”You cain't take my kid!” a woman screamed.
”I done got me a trade set up.”
She stopped wailing when she looked up into the very cold and unfriendly eyes of Ben Raines. She sensed instantly who he was, although she had never seen him before in her life. No Rebel wore insignia, and this one didn't have to.
”Shut up,” Ben told her. ”Did anyone hold a gun to your head and make you join outlaw gangs?”
The woman cringed and refused to answer.
”Answer me, G.o.dd.a.m.n you!”
”No. They didn't.””Then why did you?”
”I got to eat!”
”Plant a garden. Join a group of survivors and live decently.”
”Under rules? No way.”
”You were going to trade your baby?”
”He's sickly.”
”How many have you whelped?”
”One a year. I got a right to have fun!”
”I heard that on a newscast one evening, years ago, when a reporter interviewed a woman who had never been married and had five or six kids running around-kids that the working taxpayers paid for. It was bulls.h.i.+t then and it's still bulls.h.i.+t. Hit the road, lady. Hit it running and don't look back. Move, you G.o.dd.a.m.n worthless piece of garbage.”
The woman jumped to her feet and took off running.
She did not look back nor did she inquire about her ”fun” baby.
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