Part 2 (1/2)

Ben smiled. ”Yes,” he said drily. ”So can I, Ned.” The Rebels all knew the type. Their numbers were made up of people of all colorss who, before the Great War, blamed everyone except themselves for the problems facing themselves and the nation. Whites who hated blacks. Blacks who hated whites. People of all colors who wanted something for nothing.

Give me money for doing nothing. I demand this and I got a right to that. All n.i.g.g.e.rs is lazy, they stink, and they're cowards. All honkies is racist and out to get us brothers and sisters. The only good Indian is a dead Indian. We were here first, the land belongs to us and by G.o.d we want it and to h.e.l.l with everybody else. I demand more social services from the government but I want big government to stay out of my life. I got more bills than I can pay, I done it knowin' I was doin' it, I had a fine time doin' it, so now I'll just declare bankruptcy and to h.e.l.l with my creditors. I got a right to party down and screw anybody I wants to screw, and if I get pregnant, the taxpayers can just d.a.m.n well pay my medical bills and support my child'en from cradle to grave and give me welfare. I got a right to eat, I got a right to have proper housing, I got a right to have money in my pocket, and you can't make me work if I don't want to. Give me money, money, money. For if you don't, I'll boycott, I'll picket, I'll disrupt services, I'll blow up your house or 32.your store, I'll burn a cross on your lawn. I demand government subsidies for this, that, and the other thing. I ain't gonna send my kids to school with no G.o.dd.a.m.n n.i.g.g.e.r or spic or Jew. I don't want my kids to a.s.sociate with a lot of racist honkies. All n.i.g.g.e.rs is bad. All whites is good. All Blacks are good. All whites are bad. You're picking on me. I'll sue you. Just 'cause you caught me breakin' into your home, that don't give you the right to use force against me, and if you do, I'll sue you and there are sure as h.e.l.l a lot of lawyers around who'll take my case and win it. On and on and on.

Oh, yes. The Rebels knew the type well.

Ben leaned back in the chair and closed his tired eyes for a moment. He wished there was a place he could take his Rebels and to h.e.l.l with everybody else. A place where they could live and prosper in peace.

But he knew there was no such place.

He knew that wherever they went, they would have to fight for their right to exist. He smiled at that. Our right? he thought. Let's don't be hypocritical, Ben. Don't start sounding like all those protesters of years back, demanding this and that. What you and the Rebels are doing is attempting to rebuild a nation. Moral issues can be hashed out later.Ben opened his eyes. ”If those groups out there, which we all know comprise hundreds of thousands of people, would put aside their hate for one another and band together, they'd have a d.a.m.n good chance of defeating us.”

”They won't do that,” Tina told him. ”They hate each other more than they hate us. Our best hope is that they wind up killing each other.”

Ben stared at the Rebels crowded into the room.

33.”We're not going to wait for Hoffman and his goose-steppers to get a firm toehold in America. Corrie, order all units to immediately launch a full-scale guerrilla action against the Blacks.h.i.+rts. Coast to coast. Get geared up, people. We're taking the attack to them!”

General Payon, the commander of all Mexican forces, ordered teams of skilled guerrilla fighters to head back into Mexico, swing around, and attack the Black-s.h.i.+rts from the rear, stinging them and then quickly withdrawing.

From Texas to California, all along the border, Ben's Rebels began quietly getting into place to raise some h.e.l.l with Hoffman's Blacks.h.i.+rts.

”Lovely night,” a Blacks.h.i.+rt commander said, stepping out of the abandoned house along the New Mexico border. ”I love this climate here.”

He smiled and breathed deeply. ”I shall ask to be permanently a.s.signed here once we have defeated Raines' Rebels.”

Those were the last words he would ever say as three fire-frag grenades bounced on the patio and blew, spreading him and two others all over the rear of the house.

His personnel ran onto the blood-slick patio and began firing wildly in all directions. They hit nothing. The dark shadows melted into the night.

In a once lovely home just south of Tucson, along Interstate 19, two squads of top-notch battle-hardened Blacks.h.i.+rts had just finished their supper. Their last supper. They were looking forward to a group of ladies coming over for a little entertainment. The ”ladies” were from a Ben Raines-hating group who called themselves 34.c.r.a.pO. The Committee for the Removal of All Political Opposition. The ladies would come over, but the two squads of Blacks.h.i.+rts would be in no condition to entertain them. Not after three rockets from Armbrusts tore into the house and blew it to b.l.o.o.d.y bits.

Fifteen miles away, a ten-man Blacks.h.i.+rt patrol in two trucks pulled up behind a man working on his old pickup truck along the side of the highway.

”What's the problem, friend?” the team leader asked.

”Worn out,” the man replied. ”Everything is just worn out.” He smiled at the men, his teeth flas.h.i.+ng in the night. ”Forgive. I forget my manners.

I have fresh fruit in the back. Apples and oranges and melons. I would be honored if you would take my small offering.””We couldn't take your food, senor.”

”Please. I would be offended. Nothing is too good for the people who would finally relieve us of the yoke of oppression placed on our necks by that d.a.m.nable Ben Raines and his filthy followers.”

Hiding in the ditches alongside the highway, the battalion commander of Thirteen Battalion, Raul Gomez, stifled a groan. Amelio was a natural born ham and on this night he was really putting on quite a show.

”Ah,” the Blacks.h.i.+rt team leader said. ”We were told this area had a lot of people who were sympathetic to our cause.”

”Oh, my, yes, patron. Many, many of us welcome your coming. Words cannot express my true feelings,” Amelio added with just a touch of irony.

The Blacks.h.i.+rts slung their weapons and flipped back the tarp over the bed of the truck. They stood dumbfounded, for the bed was empty. They looked for Amelio. He was gone. The last thing they would experience 35.on this earth was the pain as bullets from M-16s ripped into their bodies.

The Rebels took their weapons and what uniforms could be patched up, tossed the weapons in the Black-s.h.i.+rt trucks, and headed out into the desert, leaving the bodies for the buzzards.

It was only the beginning of what was to be a very, very b.l.o.o.d.y night.

36.Chapter Three.When the news of the night's work reached Jesus Hoffman early the next morning, the man very nearly lost his composure. He forced himself to be civil to the messenger and sat back down at his table, looking at his breakfast. He pushed it from him; his appet.i.te was gone.

They had not yet penetrated forty miles into North America and already the losses were unacceptable. And casualty reports from the b.l.o.o.d.y night just past were still coming in.

It was impossible, but yet it was happening. Then Herr Hoffman said what people had been saying for years about the commander of the Rebel Army.

”I hate that G.o.dd.a.m.n Ben Raines!”

Hoffman bathed and shaved and splashed on cologne. He dressed in a field uniform, tan pants, and black s.h.i.+rt, and stepped out of his trailer to face his most senior commanders, gathered at his orders. He had prepared a speech in his mind, but looking at his commanders, found the speech not what he really wanted to say. He waved his people to follow him to where a large canvas had been stretched to offer protection from the 37.elements; it was open on all sides. Under the canvas, he turned to face his people. Following a decidedly discouraged sigh, he began to speak.”You all know that Raines' Rebels struck last night. Reports are still coming in. Many of our most forward units have been virtually wiped out or bloodied badly. I have ordered those still functioning to bunker in until further orders. Now then, certainly none of us expected the taking of North America to be easy. But none of us ever dreamt the offensive would start on such a dour note.” Jesus Hoffman paused for a moment, then blurted, ”Gentlemen, I am open for suggestions.”

The hundreds of small teams of Rebels scattered all over the country didn't need any suggestions. They knew what to do: Kill Blacks.h.i.+rts and anyone who supported them, overtly or covertly. And those many hundreds of citizens who were on the side of Hoffman learned this very quickly and vacated Texas posthaste. They knew better than to waste time trying to explain to the roaming Rebel patrols why they chose to support Hoffman and his Blacks.h.i.+rts. The Rebels were not interested. The Rebels had a nasty habit of hanging or shooting collaborators. On the spot.

They also knew all the ways of extracting information from recalcitrant suspects. The Rebels did not use physical torture-under physical torture, the suspect will tell his or her questioners anything to stop the pain. Instead, the Rebels used polygraphs, Psychological Stress Evaluators, drugs, and hypnosis. It was unpleasant.

John Masters was the leader of one such group of people who dreamed of the day Ben Raines would die 38.and the Blacks.h.i.+rts would rule. He fantasized of a world free of blacks.

And free of Ben Raines and his G.o.dd.a.m.n Rebels. John believed that everything bad that had happened to him and America could be traced right back to blacks. His followers numbered just about ten thousand and they lived in a town in North Texas.

Luis Carrero was of Spanish descent (although he was fourth generation American), and Luis dreamed of a world free of everyone except Spanish speaking peoples. He hated people like Ben Raines. And he hated the Rebels. Everyone around him hated Ben Raines and the Rebels. Luis's followers numbered about ten thousand. And Luis dreamed of the day Jesus Hoffman and his Blacks.h.i.+rts would take power.

Moi Sambura hated everyone who was not black. Moi (real name Charles Was.h.i.+ngton) held sway over a following of about ten thousand spread over several counties in what used to be Eastern Mississippi and Western Alabama. Moi and his followers had caused no trouble and managed to stay clear of the Rebels over the years, even though they were well aware the Rebels knew of their presence. General Cecil Jefferys, himself a black man and second-in-command of all Rebel forces, detested Moi and everything he and his followers stood for. Cecil had bluntly stated for years that someday the Rebels would have to go in and wipe that bunch from the face of the earth. Ben had held him back.

”They're not causing any trouble, Cec,” Ben had cautioned.

”The h.e.l.l they're not,” Cecil would reply. ”They've either run off or killed every white person in eight counties. They're in a constant squabble with Wink Payne and that bunch of white trash that follow him.”

39.”We'll get to them all in time, Cec,” Ben would say.Now was that time.

”General Jefferys on the horn,” Corrie told Ben. ”He sounds unhappy about something.”

”Moi Sambura and Wink Payne,” Ben said, walking across the living room of the house in Texas, about seventy-five miles north of Hoffman's command post. ”He's found out they both have linked up with Hoffman's Blacks.h.i.+rts. G.o.d, what an unholy alliance that must be.”

”Go, Cec.”

”Ben, we've got to move against Moi and Wink. They've both linked up with Hoffman-for totally different reasons-and having them at your back is unacceptable.”

”And what do you propose, Cec?”

”Leading my forces against them. All-out ground and air a.s.sault and wipe them clean once and for all.”

”Cec,” Ben said patiently. ”You are still recovering from heart surgery.

How many pacemakers do you want installed in your chest? And even if you were a hundred percent, your pulling out would leave Base Camp One unprotected. No. We'll deal with these splinter groups when the time comes.”

”You're making a mistake,” Cecil warned.

”Cec, we're spread too thin as it is. I've got eyes and ears on Moi and John Masters and Wink and Luis. And that silly-a.s.sed c.r.a.pO bunch in Arizona. They're a threat, but not much of one. They all have high numbers of followers, but they're all too lightly armed to pose much of a threat. We've got our hands full dealing with Hoffman.”