Part 29 (1/2)
”Give me that bullhorn,” Ben said.
A man wearing two pistols got out and stood on the cracked old highway.
”What's the trouble here? We're not lookin' for no fight, mister.”
”You won't have a fight if you just turn those jalopies around and head on back where you came from.”
”You just ain't got the right to tell us where we can or can't go.”
”I've got over twelve hundred heavily armed Rebels that says I can,”
Ben's voice boomed over the yards between them. ”You people just turn around and head on back where you came from and there won't be any trouble.
313.
But I can a.s.sure you of this: you are not going to go west to join Hoffman and his n.a.z.is.”
The man waited just a couple of heartbeats too long before he replied.
”What's that you say? h.e.l.l, I ain't never heard of n.o.body called Hoffman.”
”His face is flus.h.i.+ng,” Beth said, looking at him through binoculars.
”Mister,” Ben said flatly. ”You're a liar.”The man opened his mouth to return an angry protest. He bit off the protest as his eyes swept the hundreds of rifles pointing at him. ”We got a right to choose the type of government we want to live under, Ben Raines. And yeah, General, I know who you are.”
”The n.a.z.i movement will not flourish in this country, mister,” Ben told him. ”Not now, not ever.”
”We got a right to live decent!” the man shouted, his anger boiling over.
”Who is stopping you from doing that?”
”You are, you son of a b.i.t.c.h!”
”How?”
”By forcin' us to live under rules that we don't want to live under.
That's how.”
”And you think Hoffman will be an improvement, right?”
”It'll d.a.m.n sure be better than the rules you people enforce, that's for sure.”
”Boy, has somebody fed him a line of c.r.a.p,” Jersey said.
”Teams are attempting to flank us,” Corrie said. ”Left and right.”
”This guy's going to open the dance any second now,” Ben replied. ”Get ready to roll for the ditches.”
314.
He lifted the bullhorn. ”n.o.body is forcing any of you to live under Rebel law, mister.”
”That's s.h.i.+t!” The man started to lift a hand.
”Don't do this, Roy!” a man's voice called out from among the movers'
vehicles. ”Hear him out.”
”Shut up, Tom!” the spokesman said, turning his head. ”How come you and your people want to argue with me every step of the way?”
”Because you're wrong!”
”Mister,” Ben spoke through the bullhorn. ”Call back your teams trying to flank us. They haven't got a chance.”
The man's hand shot up into the air. ”Now!” he screamed. ”Kill the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. All of them.”
Ben and his teams dropped to the old road and rolled to the shoulders, then behind APCs. The Rebels opened fire. They just got out of the line of fire as the main battle tanks and Dusters opened fire with cannon and heavy machine guns. For several hundred yards eastward, the lines of cars and trucks erupted in a seemingly endless wall of flame as the gas tanks exploded. Parts of vehicles and pieces of humans were sky-rocketed into the air by the thunderous explosions.Ben came to his knees, lifting his Thompson to fire, but lowered it when he saw there was nothing to fire at. The Rebels had kept their fire away from the last half of the column, in order to spare the women and kids.
Those women had now grabbed up their kids and were running for the safety of the fields, left and right of the road and the inferno. Bodies and pieces of bodies were sprawled in death on both sides of the old highway. Only a few were moving and moaning in pain.
”Cease fire,” Ben called. ”Shut it down. It's over.”
315.
The movers had been able to fire only a few rounds before the Rebel wall of death collapsed on them. Ben lifted the bullhorn to his lips. ”Stand up with your hands empty. Do it, people.”
Slowly those movers still alive-most of them to the rear of the column-began getting to their feet. All were careful to keep their hands in plain sight, without weapons. Many held their hands over their heads.