Part 28 (2/2)
”A convoy of cars and trucks coming up north on La Brea, General,” his radio operator told him. ”Headlights on like they know they're not going to be stopped.”
”They're in for a very large surprise,” Cecil said. ”Is that them up ahead?”
”Yes, sir.”
”Pull over.” Cecil got out and waved his troops into position in the rubble of the area. Cecil moved over into the shadows. ”Give that lead vehicle some .50-caliber juice in the radiator,” he ordered.
A hastily set up machine gun yammered for a couple of seconds. Both headlights were knocked out of the truck and steam hissed from a shattered radiator. Men piled out of the cab and out of the bed of the truck. Those in the vehicles behind the crippled truck bailed out and sought cover.
”Hey!” Leroy called out, crouching behind a pile of bricks. ”Is y'all troops of the African-American's command?”
”African-American?” A young sergeant looked at Cecil. ”Is he talking about you, sir?”
”Yes, Smith. So if we all followed that ancestral nonsense, you would be English-American. Swenson would be, probably, Swedish-American. Mac would be Irish-American, and so on and so forth until it became mind-boggling with its complications. Can you imagine writing a book with a dozen nationalities involved? The writer would spend half his or her time typing words that had nothing at all to do with the plot. Not to mention having to read the dreary mess.”
”Hey, Bro!” Leroy called. ”Brother General! Is you there?”
”Brother General,” Cecil mused. ”Now there is one for the record.” He cleared his throat and yelled, ”This is General Jefferys. And I am not your brother, thank G.o.d.”
”Course you is, man. We brothers. We got a lot in common,” Leroy yelled.
Cecil, total disgust in his voice, lifted the bullhorn a Rebel handed him. ”You and I, idiot, have absolutely nothing at all in common.”
”Huh! Sh.o.r.e we do, man-we brothers. Letme pa.s.s on through, brother.”
”Just the thought of that biological impossibility makes me nauseous, Leroy.”
”You an uppity mother-f.u.c.ker, ain't you, General?”
Cecil smiled. ”No, I don't think so. But I know what you are.”
”Why don't you tell me then, Uncle Tom.”
”I shall. Right before I kill you.”
Leroy started hollering and cussing. Cecil turned to an aide. ”Mortar crews in place and grenade launchers ready?”
”Yes, sir.”
”Cream them.”
The early evening was shattered by the howling of rockets and the exploding of mortar rounds. Machine guns yammered and snarled. The vehicles of the street punks exploded and the flames lit up the ruined buildings on either side of the battleground.
Street punks tried to run, but Rebels with flares were ready for them. The flares were shot into the air, the brilliant harshness illuminating the punks. The Rebels cut them down.
Cecil called for a cease-fire. The sounds of moaning filled the smoky air.
”This is the way we're going to finish it,” Cecil said. ”Order all units forward. Search and destroy. All units into the city. Now!”
Cecil walked out onto the b.l.o.o.d.y battleground, searching for Leroy. He found him lying on his back, both hands holding his bullet-punctured belly.
Leroy cursed him. ”You a traitor to your kind, Tom!” he spat at Cecil.
”One of us is, that's for sure, and I think we both know who that person is.”
”You jive mother-f.u.c.ker!”
Cecil was not by nature a mean or cruel person.
The son of a psychiatrist and a college professor, he'd spent his formative years listening to Brahms and Mozart at home, and soul music in the streets. He was highly educated, and had never run into much prejudice from educated people of any race. He was an ex-Green Beret officer who'd joined the army to see some action and, as he put it, ”got shot in the a.s.s in Laos.”
He tried very hard to understand people like Leroy, but he was the first to admit that he could not.
”I never cared much for jive, Leroy. I preferred Beethoven.”
”That ain't what I mean, white-a.s.s-licker!”
”I've never kissed the a.s.s of any white, Leroy. But I have sure kicked some white a.s.s in my time.”
”Huh?”
”You wouldn't understand, Leroy. All you know is hate. And maybe you have a right to hate-or think you do, as Thermopolis says. But it's all moot, now, isn't it, Leroy. You're dying. What'd you do with your slaves?”
”Killed ”em.”Cecil shook his head. ”Did you really think that because I am a black person, I would let you go free?”
”African-American!”
”No, Leroy, I was born in America. So that makes me an American first, and a black man second. I have no ties with Africa.
I've never been there. Wouldn't you much rather be talking about something else in the time you have left before you meet the Devil?”
Leroy spat at him and cursed him. ”You said you knew what I was. What am I?”
Cecil smiled and told him.
The Rebel planes began napalming the area around the dump on the outskirts of San Diego just as Cecil committed all his forces into the center of Los Angeles. The move caught the punks and the creepies by surprise and many died with shock written on their dirty faces.
The Rebels pushed forward a dozen blocks that night, before Cecil called a halt to the drive.
He would resume it at first light.
At first light, Ben ordered his people across the Soledad Freeway and forward into San Diego. Black smoke was still spiraling into the sky from the burning dump as the Rebels charged across the Freeway.
Those now inhabiting the San Diego area were at first stunned by the ferocity of the attack, then began running in fear as the Rebels charged into the outskirts of the city, burning and destroying everything they came in contact with. Like those punks who had once controlled Los Angeles, these dregs of humanity had no central leader, and no plans for any type of counterattack. They found they had but two choices: stand and die or run.
For the first day, they ran.
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