Part 30 (1/2)

It's been raining, as if you didn't know. These county roads are impa.s.sable. We'd have to stick to hard surfaces. And they're blocked. This means the city of Los Angeles has fallen, and probably San Diego as well comor it will soon be obliterated from the face of the earth.”

”Will you G.o.dd.a.m.nit speak Englis.h.!.+” Junkyard yelled at him. ”What the h.e.l.l does all that mean?”

Brute looked at him. ”It means, you ignorant oaf, that we are dead!”

”They ain't attackin, queer-boy!” Junkyard shouted at him. ”So how come you figure we dead?”

Brute had seen the dots in the sky long before anyone could hear the drone of engines. Ben had ordered up anything that could fly. Brute drew himself up to attention and snapped a salute to the south. ”I salute you, Ben Raines, we who are about to die!

You won, you ... son of a b.i.t.c.h!”

”Planes!” a punk shouted.

The old fighters came in first, machine guns yammering as they strafed the valley. The bombers dropped their payloads of napalm, the fiery liquid spreading for hundreds of yards when the bombs blew. Ike had found several old Forest Service planes, tankers that were once used for water drops. He had ordered the tanks filled with kerosene. The misery spread as the kerosene ignited. The flames seared the valley and cooked the punks as plane after plane roared in and dropped their loads of napalm.

The old fighter planes were circling as the bombers did their work, then they returned, making pa.s.s after pa.s.s, machine guns howling and spitting.

The vehicles of the punks exploded as the flames reached them. The ammunition belted around the waists and shoulders of the punks began popping as the fire touched them.Cash of the Surfers stood on a boulder and screamed curses at the fighters, firing a pistol at the planes. The .50-caliber guns of a fighter st.i.tched him, knocking him off the huge rock and separating his head from his shoulders.

Ishmal of the Boogies ran screaming from the inferno, his eyes wide with fear. A napalm bomb exploded directly in from of him and the flames dissolved the gang leader.

Chico of the Swords had been thrown to the ground by an explosion, and had just staggered to his feet when a fighter plane came roaring in on a low pa.s.s. The .50-caliber machine guns tore him apart.

Junkyard made it out of the inferno and got to his car coman old Cadillac painted pink comand was trying to get the aged engine to turn over. Rich appeared at the window, a pistol in each hand.

”I never did like you, so I'd rather do this myself,” Rich said. He shot Junkyard in the head just as a fighter roared in, machine guns howling. The slugs sent Rich on a wild dance into death.

Bobby lay on the ground, both legs gone, and watched as his blood poured out. He died calling for his mother.

The long narrow valley had been turned into a blazing, screaming crematorium. Charred bodies lay in every grotesque shape imaginable. Punks staggered through the carnage, blind from the intense heat, and called out for help. They begged for mercy just as their many victims over the years had begged for mercy. And just like their victims, the punks received only pain and the dark laughter of the grim reaper.

Bull and part of his gang made it clear, as did Sally, Fang, and Brute and a few of their followers.

”Dear G.o.d in Heaven!” Sally panted, as she lay on the ground a mile from the smoking valley.

”I'll change my ways if You'll just give a chance. Please, G.o.d, I don't want to die!”

Bull laughed at her. ”How many times have you heard that last bit from the people you ordered tortured to death, you stupid c.u.n.t?”

”Screw you!” Sally spat at him.

”Not now, b.i.t.c.h. We ain't got time. We got to hunt us a hole and stay put.”

”We have no food, no water, and we can't build a fire to get warm,” Brute said with finality. ”We've had it.”

”I can't believe we're the only ones who made it out,” Fang said, looking at the small band of survivors. ”There's less than a hundred of us.”

”A bunch made it out,” Bull said. ”Several thousand, I'd guess. But we don't want to hook up with them. We're better off in small groups.

We hole up during the day and move only at night. They's a river to the northwest of us. We can go a couple of days without water. If we can make the river, we're home free. Let's get in that little bit of timber over yonder and keep out ofsight.”

For the first time in years, Sally put her head to the ground and began weeping at the sheer hopelessness of it all.

Ben watched the destruction of the city through binoculars.

He watched until the smoke became so thick he could no longer see what was taking place. But then he didn't have to see comhe knew.

The few planes he had kept for himself were making pa.s.s after pa.s.s, first dropping napalm into the heart of the city, and then working out in three directions. Those attempting to flee the flames were cut down by the troops positioned outside the buffer zone.

General Payon had moved his men forward, sealing off the south end and swinging some troops around to help the Rebels more effectively cover the southeast corner of the territory. General Payon and Ben Raines met for the first time.

The men shook hands and sat down for a cup of coffee.

”It's a terrible, terrible thing we are forced to do, General Raines,” Payon said. ”But when is war ever nice? But this business” comhe nodded toward the burning city com8is especially repugnant.”

”Yes. I investigated every other avenue. My medical people said it had to be this way. But that doesn't mean I have to like it.”

”I put thugs up against the wall in my country,”

Payon said, his words soft. ”They were killers, thieves, rapists, every kind of lowlife. They begged me not to shoot them, promised to G.o.d they would chance their ways. At first, when my army was small and the good people were still very disorganized, I listened to them beg and my heart was so heavy. I turned them loose, took them at their word. The next day they were back stealing and raping and killing.” He shook his head.

”I had to become hard comz you did. I had to think of the ... larger picture, of the future. The leopard does not change its spots, as the saying goes.”

”Were you always a soldier?” Ben asked.

Payon smiled. ”Oh, no. I was a TV broadcaster. A reporter of news. I served my time in the armed forces years ago, as a paratrooper.

I was with my family on a vacation when the Great War came.

Thugs killed my small son, and then raped and killed my wife and daughter, while they were torturing me. They left me for dead. They made a very bad mistake in not killing me.”

”Have you found them all?”

”All but two. I will find them. Eventually. were you always a soldier, Ben Raines?”

”No. I was a writer. I ... sort of got elected, unwillingly, to this job.”

Payon chuckled softly. ”Ah ... as did I.

The people came to me, said they needed a leader. I told them to go find one. Leave me alone. Go find a general or a colonel or something. A sergeant even. I went into the jungles for a year, to getaway. The people found me. Hounded me. I started out with a hundred people. Then a thousand, then ten thousand. I was suddenly, and without my permission, named El Presidente. For life. I told them I did not want the job. The people said I had it anyway. You're smiling comour lives parallel?”

”Very much so. General, what do you hear from Europe?”

”Very little. Scattered radio broadcasts from ham operators. It is very bad over there. Very, very bad.

All social order has broken down. I hear talk that you are going overseas. Is it true?”

”Yes.”

”It will be dangerous.”