Part 21 (1/2)

But I'm not surprised that you'd come up with something this half-c.o.c.ked.”

”I might go along with it only if I could accompany you,” Dan said.

”You'll be in command of my section here,” Ben told him. ”And Cecil will be in command overall.”

The yelling started anew.

Ben poured another cup of coffee, petted Smoot, who was laying on the desk, and waited it out.

”Ridiculous!” General Georgi Striganov snorted his disapproval. ”If anyone at all goes, it should be me.”

”I'll take two companies, a complement of armor, and Buddy and his Rat Team. We'll pull out in twenty-four hours.”

”You will, by G.o.d, take a platoon of my Scouts!” Dan stood up. ”And that is something Iinsist upon, General.”

Ben knew to argue with the Englishmen, who was as hardheaded as Ben was, would be futile. He nodded his head in agreement. ”All right, Dan. Fine.”

Ben was going out into the foreboding and mysterious area called the zone.

”I'll put together a medical team for you,” Chase said, knowing the brief argument was over. Once Ben made up his mind, there was no turning him around.

”Well, s.h.i.+t!” Ike said, disgust in his voice.

”I'll order flyovers to start immediately.”

Ben nixed that. ”Keep the planes on the ground,”

he said, scratching Smoot behind the ears. The husky rolled over on her back and grumbled in contentment. ”We don't know whether or not the warlords out there have rockets capable of bringing a plane down. Let's don't risk it.”

”Ben,” Georgi said, trying one more time. ”I wish you would reconsider. That area called the zone is hundreds and hundreds of square miles of hostile territory. None of us really knows what is out there.”

”That's why I'm going,” Ben replied. ”To find out. We do know that there are slave and breeding farms out there, and I'm going to put a stop to them. It's something that will have to be done at some point in this campaign, so let's get it done now. Dan will take over for me here. Cecil is Forces Commander. That's it, people.”

The unit commanders filed out, to a person b.i.t.c.hing and grumbling and cussing, but all knowing there was no point in arguing further with Ben.

Ben smiled at Linda. ”Well, how about it?

Ready for a little adventure?”

She returned the smile. ”Oh, sure, Ben. I mean, it's been so d.a.m.ned dull around here.”

Ben walked the line, inspecting his command just moments before pullout. Five main battle tanks, five Dusters, five M113's, five LAV-25 Piranhas. A line of tankers and supply trucks. Two full companies of Rebels, a platoon of Dan's Scouts, and Buddy's Rat Team.

It was a lot more personnel and equipment than Ben wanted to take with him, but it was better than having to put up with several days of argument from the others. And Ben also knew that his days of just taking off and lone-wolfing it were gone. Too many people depended on him; he had too many decisions to make. This was about the closest that he was going to come to being a lone wolf in search of action.

”The first good-sized town we come to,” Ben told Dan, ”I'll secure an airstrip for supply planes. Providing there are no surface-to-air missiles out there. I have a hunch we're going to be taking a lot of people out of the zone. And they are not going to be in very good shape.”

”You know that I should be leading this expedition,” Dan said, trying one more time.

Ben smiled and ignored the statement. ”Keep the home fires burning and the feet of the punks in theflames, Dan. I'll be in radio contact. Good luck.”

”Good luck to you, sir.”

”Mount up!” Ben yelled. ”Let's go.”

The column headed north, driving through all the still-smoking devastation they had earlier wrought. They cut east until they found a winding two-lane highway that ran through the San Gabriel Mountains.

The Rebels bivouacked that evening in the mountains, and were all both pleased and somewhat spiritually moved at the serenity of their surroundings, untouched by all the hideousness and suffering that lay only a few miles to the south.

At dawn, they were rolling eastward, and soon picked up Interstate 40.

”How far do we take it, General?” Cooper asked.

”All the way to Needles, Coop. We'll stop at every town and look it over. Beth, did the vehicles' water tanker fill up last night at that stream?”

”Yes, sir. Filled to capacity.”

”That's good. Because it's about to get dry up ahead.”

Bone dry. ”Like in a desert,” was Jersey's comment about the country they were pa.s.sing through.

Barstow had been destroyed. Little remained of it except for burned-out buildings, and the walls of those structures were pockmarked with old bullet scars.

Barstow had been a thriving community of nearly twenty thousand. Now there were no signs of life.

”h.e.l.l of a battle fought here,” Cooper remarked.

”Several years ago, I'd say.”

The convoy had stopped in the center of the burned-out town. ”Scouts out,” Ben ordered. ”Look it over.”

No signs of human habitation, they reported back.

The convoy rolled on.

There was nothing left worth salvaging in the tiny towns that had once existed alongside the Interstate. They had all been destroyed and picked over countless times. Carrion birds and rats had picked the human skeletons clean of flesh, leaving the bones to bleach in the sun and be eventually scattered by the desert winds. The Rebels inspected the towns and then rolled on. They made a very dry camp at the southern edge of the Bristol Mountains. Since leaving the northern edge of the sprawling city of L.a., none of them had seen any sign of a living human being. They had seen the fleeting shapes of coyotes darting, seen tracks of wolves once more returning to their rightful place in the scheme of things, and had heard the screams of pumas at night. But no signs of humans.

”It's eerie,” Linda said over a second cup of coffee as they all sat around a campfire. ”It's like we were suddenly transported to a new world, void of life.””And technically,” Buddy said, warming his hands over the fire, for the nights were cool, ”we're not even in what is referred to as the zone.”

”I believe that this is called a no-man's-land,”

Ben said. ”And I can certainly see why.”

”Tomorrow, Father?” Buddy asked.

”We'll have us a look at Needles, and then cut south, on Highway 95. We'll take that down to Blythe, and from there we'll head on down to Yuma.

From Yuma to Calexico. There, we'll have to figure out a route.”

”Do we have any intelligence on what we might find there?” a Rebel asked.