Part 27 (1/2)

”We'll hold our fire until we see what they're going to do. Pa.s.s it along, Corrie.”

The street punks paused at the intersection, and they all got out of their cars and trucks and off their motorcycles to stand in the middle of the road and argue about what to do next.

Ben settled it for them. ”Fire!” he yelled, and held back the trigger on the Thunder Lizard.

”Ambus.h.!.+” Jimmy of the Indios screamed. It was his last scream. Fire from a Gatling gun cut him to b.l.o.o.d.y ribbons and flung him in chunks out of the road and into a ditch.

Dee Dee of the Pocos and several dozen of her gang were caught in a cross fire and died in the middle of the road.

The tanks of the Rebels opened up and the high-explosive sh.e.l.ls exploded the gas tanks of the punks' vehicles, setting dozens of punks on fire. They ran screaming in agony, running blindly in circles until Rebel bullets cut them down and silenced them forever.

Josh of the Angels, dressed all in white, very dirty white, charged Ben's position, cursing insanely. Linda sighted him in and cut him down, doubling him over with a three-inch-magnum round of double-ought buckshot.

Carmine of the Women and Stan of the Flat Rocks made it to cover. It didn't do them much good. A main battle tank swiveled its turret and blew them both to h.e.l.l with one round of high explosive.

What was left of Stan was flung high into the air, in pieces, and fell back to earth with a b.l.o.o.d.y plopping sound.

Manuel of the Mayas and most of his gang ran for their lives, running back down the road. The Scouts on the high ground chopped them up with M-60 fire.

Several miles back, those punks in the rear heard the gunfire and the booming of cannon and stopped, backing up and heading in the direction they'd come from. They ran right into Buddy and his Rat Team.

The Rat Team blocked the road as two rounds from their rocket launchers turned two cars into burning, smoking piles of junk, cooking those inside.

Ruth and her Macys and Hal and his Fifth Street Lords were about to run out of time. They jumped off the road and into the timber, right into the guns of the Rat Team on the other side of the road. Ruth and Hal and most of their gang members died cursing Ben Raines and his Rebels.

In West's section, the mercenary and his men were choppingup the street punks like so much liver. They had waited until the long convoy of cars and trucks and motorcycles had stretched out on the highway, and opened up with mortar and heavy machinegun fire.

Since West had a full battalion, unlike Ben's short section, the fight was just as brutal, but not nearly so time-consuming.

The d.y.k.es were gone, wiped out to the last person. The Discos were still and silent, sprawled in death. The Rappers had been among the first to be cut down. A few of the Santees escaped, wild-eyed and running in fear into the brush and timber of the hills.

The Temple Street Gang was wiped out to the last punk. And so on. The highway was slick with blood, and moaning drifted to the men behind the guns on the ridges.

”Spray them,” West ordered. ”No prisoners.

That's what the man said.”

The gunfire resumed, briefly. The moaning stopped.

”Do we pursue them into the brush?” one of his men asked.

”No,” the mercenary said. ”They're all washed up.

The L.a. street gangs, this bunch of them anyway, are history.”

Ben rose up on one knee and looked out at the carnage.

After a moment, Cooper said, ”Prisoners, General?”

Ben looked at him. ”No,” he said softly.

”They had their chance. They blew it. Let's go visit a museum.”

Chapter Three.

For reasons known only to G.o.d and to the pack of ignorant jerk-offs who did it, the telescope at Mount Palomar-the world's largest-and the museum on the ground had been vandalized. The telescope was pocked with hundreds of bullet holes. The museum had been destroyed.

”Ignorant b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!” Ben said.

”Do the Rebels find this to be common?” Linda asked.

”Vandalism?” Ben looked at her. ”Yes. The libraries are almost always vandalized and destroyed.

As are the museums and art galleries.”

”I don't understand that. But then, I've been secluded for a good many years.” She smiled. ”From reality, I'm sure you would say.”

”That's correct. The why of the destruction?

Stupid, petty, ignorant people are afraid of knowledge.

Most certainly have the mental capabilities to absorb knowledge-they're just too d.a.m.n lazy to make the effort.”

”And few of those people are part of the Rebel movement, right, Ben?”

”Correct.”

”It seems I'm always playing devil's advocate with you. So here I go again. You and the majority of Rebels obviously don't care what happens to those people, Ben, even though they probablynumber in the hundreds of thousands. What happens to them?”

”Oh, some Rebel patrol will eventually roll into their sectors. We'll appraise the situation, and if they don't have schools, libraries, clinics, proper health facilities, we'll take the children and raise them ourselves.”

She looked at him, disbelief in her eyes.

”G.o.dd.a.m.n, Ben. You don't mean that!”

”Oh, but I do. If we're going to pull this country out of the ashes, Linda, we can't have a nation of superst.i.tious, shortsighted, small-minded illiterates. The kids are the hope, Linda.

They're the future. They've got to be schooled, taught, and guided. We're not doing anything that child-welfare people didn't do back before the Great War.

We're just not as subtle about it, that's all.”

Ben winked at her and walked off, to see if anything salvageable could be found among the rubble.

Linda looked around her, saw Jersey and Beth and Corrie and Cooper smiling at her. Coop said, ”Close your mouth, Linda, before you swallow a bug.”

She walked over to the team. ”Sorry, gang. But what he just said came as a shock.”