Advance cautiously, came the order.
The recon teams moved out. And out. They encountered nothing human. Birds were singing and squirrels were chattering and barking happily in the timber. And that was a sure sign no Rebels were about. The recon teams began to relax a bit.
But human eyes watched them, watched them from bunkers and deep brush and heavy timber. The Rebels remained motionless, breathing shallow, eyes unblinking. They waited.
From the north the recon teams came, encountering the same thing as the teams who came in from the west.
Nothing. And as their comrades had done, they radioed back to the staging area for instructions, not understanding the nothingness of the deep timber.
Striganov smiled as he turned to Sam Hartline. "Ben Raines has become what I knew he would, Sam."
"Oh?"
"Overconfident. I knew it would happen. The man has had things go his way for too long. His people have become lack; discipline has softened. They think we're still falling for the garbled transmissions."
Hartline agreed with the Russian, but damned if he'd give Striganov the satisfaction of knowing it. "I'm ordering my people in."
"It's time," Striganov agreed. He nodded at an aide. "No prisoners. Kill them all.
Wipe them from the face of the earth."
The orders were given and the combined forces of Sam Hartline and the Russian moved out. One force from the north, one force from the west.
But Ben had suspected a trick, and he ordered his people to hold their fire and keep their positions, their heads down. Remain silent and unseen.
Lora stood with Sylvia in Ben's bunker, watching the man.
"What's the hang-up, Ben?" Sylvia asked.
"What are we waiting for?"
Ben listened to his headset for a moment, not immediately answering. "I thought as much," he spoke into his mike. "Let them come on."
He turned to Sylvia, conscious of Lora's unblinking eyes on him. "Striganov and Hartline have committed only about twenty-five percent of their troops. They're holding the others back."
He smiled a warrior's smile; the smile of a hunting tiger about to taste the hot blood of prey.
"We'll let them come; play their game. They'lllearn a hard lesson about me. And I think a very decisive one in our favor."
"You knew the enemy was going to do this?" Lora asked.
"I suspected it," Ben replied, looking down at the child.
"You knew," she said flatly.
"All right; have it your way, then. I knew."
"How?"
Ben softened his hunter's smile as he looked at the child. "I'm an old soldier, Lora. There are things one learns over the years."
She nodded her head. He knew, she thought. He looked through all the silence and knew. She would tell the others about this.
Ben's headset crackled. "The underground people have halted their advance, General. How in the hell did they know to wait?"
"I don't know," Ben spoke into his mike. "They sensed it, probably. How many of them have you spotted?"
"Fifty, maybe. If I've seen fifty, there are probably five hundred more I can't see."
"I agree. Stay with it. Ike?"
"Here."
"Cecil?"
"Here."
"Dan?"
"Here, sir."
All were on scramble, on a high-band frequency. "Let those few companies come on; let them get deep. When they meet no resistance, the others will be forced to follow. Striganov and Sam know better than to permit too much distance between their forces. Or I'm betting they do, at least. Hold what you've got."
The commander of the point company of IPF men radioed to Hartline's point company, advancing from the north. "I have heard no gunfire."
"Hell, there isn't anything to shoot at!"
Hartline's company commander radioed back, knowing both Sam and the Russian were monitoring the transmissions. "So far as I can tell, all of Raines's men are in the compound area. What in the fuck are we waiting for?"
Sam turned to Georgi. "We can't let much more distance between companies."
"I know. I believe your point man is correct. Raines has made a fatal mistake by bunching up his men. Commit your troops." He turned to his radio operator. "Go! Go! Go!"
And the rear companies surged forward.
"Let them come," Ben said, after receiving the message from his forward observers. "Let them get deep and link up with the forward company. Steady now, people. Keep it steady and cool. Just hold what you'vegot."
"My people are getting edgy, Ben!" Ike radioed.
"Tell them I'm calm and confident, Ike.
To all company commanders and section leaders, this is Raines. I'll personally shoot the first person who opens fire without my direct orders to do so. Is that understood?"
Perfectly. And they all knew Ben Raines meant every word.
The Rebels waited. The woods-children waited. The underground people waited.
"West angle clear and free," a forward observer radioed to Ben.
"North angle free and clear," Ben was informed.
"Close it off," Ben ordered. "Plug it up."
"IPF and Hartline's men about a mile from the compound," Ben was informed. "Destroy them," Ben ordered. And Lora looked at Ben, love in her eyes.
Chapter Fourteen.
Electrically controlled Claymores were activated, filling the air with explosions that maimed and killed. Mortar rounds were dropped down the tubes, thunking into life, popping up and out, fluttering their way to death-creating explosions. Artillery began pounding the IPF and Hartline's men. 152mm, 155mm, and 8-inch howitzers began spewing out their lethal rounds. They were joined by 81mm mortars.
Parts of once-living human bodies were flung high into the smoke and noise-shattered air of the living wilderness.
Fifty-caliber machine guns began hammering out death for those who escaped the initial onslaught of mines, mortars, and heavy artillery.
For those men and women of the IPF and Hartline's mercenaries who staggered through the torn earth and smoky, hellish air where they had been trapped, the woods-children and the underground people were waiting in the bush and deep timber, with knives and axes and bows and arrows and guns.
Caught by the totally unexpected, the IPF and mercenaries ran, not so much in fear, as in confusion and panic. They ran to escape the exploding and yammering fury and ran right into booby traps. Swing traps with sharpened stakes, tripped by wire or cord, slammed into bodies, chest-high, the stakes driving through, bloody tips protruding out the back.
Knees and ankles were broken when running feet stepped into punji pits. The pits were filled with sharpened stakes, the stakes jamming through boots or shoes, or puncturing the flesh of calf, leaving the victim pinned, unable to move. Those trapped remained there ... until they were found and shot.
The cool earth of the wilderness, shaded by tall trees and flowering shrubs, was now littered with the dead and the dying and badly wounded. Screams of those in more pain than they could endure ripped the charged air;pleas for mercy were abruptly ended by pistol or rifle shot.
The rules of this battle and any upcoming battle were being laid down by the Rebels. They would give no quarter to the enemy, and they expected none.
"Cease firing all artillery," Ben ordered, from his deep bunker.
The big guns fell silent.
"All mortar crews down," Ben ordered.
The last of the projectiles fluttered to earth and exploded. The mortars fell silent.
"Search and destroy," Ben ordered.
The hunters became the hunted as Rebels left their holes and bunkers and locked in combat with the mercenaries and the IPF.
It was a tribute to Ben's planning that not one enemy made it out of the Big Lake area. Ben had so carefully placed his people that any who tried to escape found themselves facing not one, but three, lines of Rebels to cross, each circle of Rebels forming a smaller loop from the outside of the perimeter in.
And not one enemy made it to within a mile of Ben's bunker.
Long before the mopping-up was concluded, Ben stepped out of his bunker for a visual. Smoke still clung close to the ground and a few fires had been started by the exploding rounds.
"Get people working on putting those fires out," Ben ordered. "Watkins was a smoke-jumper, wasn't he?"
"Yes, sir," an aide said. "Up in what used to be Wyoming."
"Contact him and put him in charge. Who is he with?"
"Second Battalion."
"Get moving."
"Yes, sir." The young man disappeared into the bunker, to contact the ex-firefighter.
Ben walked down the slope to level ground, causing Sylvia and his aides no small amount of nervousness, even though most had seen Ben walk calmly into the heat of battle many times before, seemingly unconcerned.
Ben stood for a moment, his old Thompson submachine gun in his right hand. The sounds of gunfire could still be heard around the smoking battlefield. A scream of anguish cut the air, ending with a gunshot for punctuation.
Ben began walking toward the nearest battle area. A dozen Rebels, in lizard camo, ran to join them, forming a protective box around him.
"Don't you have anything better to do?" Ben asked a young sergeant.
"No, sir," he replied.
Ben let it slide. He knew these Rebels had probably been ordered to him before the battle, either by Ike or Dan or Cecil. To order them away would only get them in trouble with one of the three. He walked into the body-littered, smoking battle area, stopping often to look at the uniforms of the dead and dying. A mixture of IPF and Hartline's mercenaries. Something was wrong, but Ben could not immediately dredge it up to visual mental light.
He walked on, stepping around or over the gorier messes made by parts of human bodies: still-steaming twisted ropes of intestines; a severed human head, the eyes wide open in pain-filled shock; a boot, with the foot still encased within the leather; a hand, just a hand, still gripping an AK-47; a torn-open torso.
He walked on, still trying to figure out what was wrong-if anything.
But he knew something was.
Then it came to him. He turned to a Rebel with a radio. "Contact the other commanders. Ask them if they've seen any of the warlord's men mixed in with these regulars. Our intelligence stated their dress was oftentimes bizarre. They don't wear any type of standard uniform."
None of the others had seen anything other than regular troops.
"What does it mean, Ben?" Cecil radioed.
"It means, I think, that while we won this battle, one of our recently taken outposts, I'd guess Youreka, was hit by the warlords."
"We only left a squad there, Ben," Ike radioed, the sounds of gunfire mingled in with his words.
"Striganov pulled a fast one," Dan said.
Someone screamed in pain in the background of his words.
"Not the Russian; he's too conceited," Ben said. "This was Sam Hartline's doing. Bet on it."
"Then our people at Youreka are in for a very bad time of it," Dan opined.
"To say the least," Ben signed off.
Sonny Boy walked up and down the thin line of Rebels he and his men had taken at the Youreka outpost. Sonny Boy and his men looked like a scriptwriter's nightmare of a twenty-first century motorcycle gang. They dressed in whatever suited their personality.