Part 24 (2/2)

”Go, Ben,” Cecil said, coming on the horn.

”Cec, I spoke with General Payon. They had the same problem with their politicians down there that we had up here. Just one ma.s.sive network of misinformation. Mexico City is gone. It took a direct hit and will be hot for centuries. That much is fact. But the rest of the country is all right.

General Payon is temporarily in charge and ispatterning the laws after ours. They've been busy with punks and thugs and crud and Night People, and they're dealing with them the same way we did: with extreme prejudice.”

”Ike informed me the Mexican gunboats are offsh.o.r.e now, in force, and have been in touch with him. They're prepared to stay for as long as it takes. It looks like we've finally got a handle on this situation.”

”For a fact, Cec. I'm going to shove off in the morning and start an easy push west. General Payon says his people are dug in and ready for a fight.”

”That's ten-four, Ben. Central Los Angeles is burning. Ike is in control of the old Los Angeles airport. There is nothing left between Manchester Avenue north to the mountains. Everything else has been put to the torch. My bunch, Ike, Georgi, Therm, and Dan's command, is stretched out along I-10. West and Seven and Eight Battalions are spread out north to south along I-110. We're closing the pincers, Ben.

There is no place left for the punks to run.”

”Then they've got to pull a desperation move, Cec. They have no choice in the matter. Be alert for that. How about the creepies? Have they linked up with the street punks?”

”What's left of them, yes. And speaking of what's left, Ike reported finding what appears to be the HQ of the creepies comthe Judges' chambers, so to speak. There must have been quite a pocket of methane directly under the building. An HE round hit it and the whole d.a.m.n block went up. It was a pretty good bang. Ike's people found a lot of bodies, but no way for us to know how many of the Judges died.”

”Do you have any kind of overall body count?”

”Adding what we guesstimated just before you left, Ben, I'd say close to twenty thousand have died.

I would guess that between two and three thousand have slipped out and split.”

Ben paused for a moment. ”Cec, do you want to try another attempt at surrender terms for them?” Ben could feel the weight of twenty thousand shot, burned, and blown-apart bodies on him, and he knew that his other commanders were experiencing the same emotion.

When Cecil spoke, there was a weariness in his voice. ”And do what with them, Ben?

Rehabilitate them? How? Where would we house them? Weeks before we hit southern California we offered them surrender terms. They refused. We got on the edge of the city and offered them terms again.

They refused. To h.e.l.l with them, Ben. I wouldn't believe anything these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds said if they were standing in the middle of a bible factory.”

”All right, Cec; then that's the way we'll play it. We won't offer them surrender terms again, but if they throw down their guns and walk out under a white flag, we'll honor it on the spot and try them.””All right, Ben. But I'm going to wait a few minutes before pa.s.sing the orders. You might change your mind.”

”Eagle out.”

Jersey was looking at him when Ben turned around.

”We've given them half a dozen chances to surrender, General. That's ten more than they would have given us.”

Ben looked around him, his eyes touching each member of his personal team, and also his son. ”Say what's on your mind, people.”

”No surrender,” Buddy said.

”They're sc.u.mbags, General,” Beth said.

”They're slave traders, drug dealers, murderers, and cohorts of cannibals. They'll not surrender to me.”

”Me neither,” Cooper said, in a rare moment of standing up to the general. ”I'll shoot every d.a.m.n one I see, armed or unarmed. They're worse than the n.a.z.is I've read about.”

”I see,” Ben said softly. ”Is this the sentiment of everyone in this command?”

”Yes, Father,” Buddy said. ”It is.”

Ben nodded his head and looked at Linda. She shook her head. ”A small part of me says to show them some mercy. But a much larger part of me says that I could never trust one of them. Not after hearing what all of the ex-prisoners have to say about them.”

”All right,” Ben said, his words soft. He looked at Corrie. ”Take it off scramble and patch me through to all commanders, please.”

She handed the mike to him. ”This is Ben Raines.

Take no prisoners. Repeat: take no prisoners. That is a direct order.” He handed the mike back to Corrie. ”Let's get packed up, people. We shove off at first light in the morning.”

Ben's orders made it, in some respects, much easier for the Rebels on the line. No one ever disobeyed a direct order from Ben Raines.

In the ever-shrinking area controlled by the street punks and the creepies, the battle halted for a few moments after Ben had spoken. There, among all, it was a time for much retrospection and what-ifs. But after a few moments, most of the street punks reached the usual conclusion that what they were was somebody else's fault comn theirs. It was society's fault that they were not made chairpersons of the boards of large corporations the instant they dropped out of school.

They shouldn't have been sent to jail just because they raped or mugged or killed. The women should have given up that p.u.s.s.y on demand; the people should have handed over their money on demand; if they'd done that, then they wouldn't have been killed. Hurt, maybe, but what the h.e.l.l?

That's the breaks.

The street punks had arrived at this juncture of their lives not because of anything they had done, but because of society. After all, in the words of a less than logical song of decades past, during oneprotest period or another, they hadn't asked to be born, so society sure as h.e.l.l owed them something-right?

It had never occurred to most of them that society had offered them all a great many things: free schooling from K through 12 comand in many cases through college comif they had the drive to see it through. The right to choose their own paths. The right to vote. The right of free speech. They all had the same rights as anyone else. They were just too G.o.dd.a.m.n sorry and lazy and worthless to take advantage of it.

”It ain't right,” Jimmy of the Indios said. ”They ain't gonna give us another chance.”

Brute of the White Men and Gash of the Surfers looked at each other and smiled. Cash said, ”We had our chances, Jimmy. Zillions of them. But we blew them all every time one was offered to us. There ain't no point in whining about it now. Now all we got to do is die.”

The area controlled by the street punks and the creepies had shrunk dramatically. The Rebel commanders had reached the point where the danger to their troops had lessened considerably; most of the work was up to the artillery. On the three landlocked sides of the area, gunners pumped in round after round, on a twenty-four-hour basis, the rolling and killing and burning thunder never ceasing. Fires from hundreds of out-of-control blazes lit up the night sky and smoke was so thick even during the day it was difficult to see. The last major bastion of lawlessness, perversion, cannibalism, and horror in the lower forty-eight was only a few days from being destroyed.

The leaders of the street gangs and a representative from the Believers called for a last-minute meeting.

Even Rich was in attendance.

”We got to bust out,” Leroy said. He was calm and in control of himself, even though he still despised Rich. He spread a map on the table. ”Right up here is the Rebels' weakest point-at least from what I could see. Brute, your plan was a good one.

We got to take it. I ...” He paused as the artillery stopped.

”What the h.e.l.l?-was Fang of the Hill Street Avengers said, the sudden silence loud in the room.

A radio operator answered the frantic calling on his radio, then turned to the gang leaders. ”Our forward people say the Rebel planes is warming up.

You know what that means.”

”Gas” Stan said. ”The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds is gonna drop gas in on us like they done in Frisco.”

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