Part 22 (1/2)
He had wiped out crime simply by not tolerating it.
The underground people squatted and lay silently in the deep timber, watching the young people. They were curious now as to what they planned to do.
The girls had the information they had been sent to find. Now what were they going to do?
”Do we go on?” Judy asked.
”Let's vote on it. That's the way I'm told it used to be,” Kim said.
”When was that?” Judy asked.
”Before.”
”Ah,” she said.
They voted, agreeing to continue; they might pick up more information useful to the general.
The girls picked up their weapons and packs and moved out.
Into the unknown and the ashes of what used to be.
Before.
Chapter.
Nineteen.
”The man's plan might have some merit,”
Khamsin's aides told him.
”Perhaps,” Colonel Khamsin said. ”It is for a fact that Ben Raines must be removed. With him out of the way, we will have no opposition; nothing standing in our way of total takeover.”
”Do you suppose the man is telling the truth?”
”Yes,” Khamsin said after a moment of thought.
”I think he is. I believe him. But”-he heldup a warning finger-”we must move slowly and with much caution. We must think this out very carefully.”
”Perhaps it would be best to wait,” another aide suggested.
”Why?” Khamsin asked.
”Let the fight go uninterrupted in the west.
Let Raines and the Russian thin their ranks during the war. That would help us.”
”Yes,” Khamsin agreed. ”But we need to have people out there, watching. Have you sent out patrols as I requested?” That was directed to a young woman.
”Yes, sir. They reported back that they are halfway to their objective.”
”Very good. Keep the man in camp. Give him new clothing and food and lodgings. Give him a woman for entertainment. Watch him at all times.
Be friendly, but firm. Let's move on to more pressing matters. How are the farms looking?”
”Excellent, Colonel.”
”The people working them?”
”We've had ... ah, some trouble with a few of them.”
”And? ...”
”We shot them.”
”And now?”
”The rest seem to have accepted their fate and are falling into line quite well.”
”Resistance groups?”
”A few. We're eliminating them one by one.”
”See that you get them all. Quickly. Do not let them spread,” Khamsin ordered. ”Rebellion must be crushed brutally and swiftly.”
”Yes, sir.”
”Dismissed.”
But Khamsin, along with the other terrorists who made up his army, forgot one little item: This was America. Battered, bruised, on her knees, but not yet down for the count. Americans have always been stubborn types, slow to anger, but when angered, many Americans have a tendency to shove back when shoved; to reach for a gun when all else fails-or sometimes before anything else is tried.
More resistance groups than the Islamic Peoples Army thought were forming. They were forming along the borders of Georgia and Florida and North Carolina.
Under the direct command of teams of Rebels from North Georgia. From Ben Raines's Base Camp One. They were getting training in guerrilla warfare and the use of automatic weapons.
And their ranks were growing; slowly, but steadily.
They were not yet strong enough to make any major moves against the IPA. But soon, they hoped.
Soon.
Striganov stood before a wall map of territory controlled-or once controlled-by his people.
d.a.m.n! he silently cursed.