"How much time?"
"Our radio contact was brief, Colonel. That was not discussed."
"Very well. What else?"
"Our scouts' report confirmed any fears we may have had concerning Ben Raines and his Rebels.
They are well-trained, highly disciplined, extremely well-armed, motivated, and quite large in numbers."
"How large?"
The aide sighed. Dealing with Khamsin was, at times, difficult. "The Rebels are spread out over a large area, Colonel. There are several thousand Rebels in the west. At least a battalion left in reserve up in what was once known as Georgia. About a company of Rebels helping to train resistance fighters on the borders that surround our territory.
Four or five thousand Rebels in all. And that is not counting the underground people and various other civilian groups aligned with Ben Raines. We have no way of knowing how many those might be."
"What else did Hartline have to say?"
Khamsin did not fully understand these underground people or what they represented. But he felt that anyone who lived in caves and tunnels could not amount to very much.
So he dismissed them.
"He laughed a lot, so our scouts reported."
"That would be like Sam."
"Is the man a fool?"
"Hardly. Just very arrogant."
"Hartline said he could put Ben Raines in a box anytime he wanted to. He refusedto elaborate on that."
"That also would be like Sam. And it also might mean he does not have any plan. With Sam Hartline, one must always be very careful. He can speak with glibness out of both sides of his mouth."
"The mercenary is demanding a great deal, Colonel."
"Now we get to it. Well, speak."
"A state."
"Hartline wants an entire state!"
"Yes, Colonel."
"What state?"
"He says he'll think about that and let you know.
He said to tell you to ..." The aide hesitated.
"To tell me what?"
"To keep your britches on. He'll get back to you." The aide waited for Khamsin's explosion.
Khamsin leaned back in his chair and laughed.
"How very much like Sam. It is good to know he has not changed over the years. He is still an unscrupulous bastard."
"Can he be trusted, Colonel?"
"No. But in this particular matter, he will do what he says."
"How can you be sure?"
"Because there is no other force on earth, that I know of, larger and stronger than ours. Sam Hartline fell in with the Russian because he believed the Russian had the manpower to defeat this Ben Raines. Hartline obviously now believes that Raines will defeat the Russian. Hartline always wants the winning side. As long as we remain victorious, Hartline will keep his word."
"Hartline, it is reported, has a very powerful group of mercenaries behind him."
"No doubt."
"We wait?"
"What else can we do?"
"We can kick the ass off that bunch of pussies," Skinhead said. He lowered his binoculars and looked at the other warlords.
"Sure looks that way," Popeye said, his eyes bugging out. He flapped his crooked arms like a vulture.
Grizzly and Sonny Boy exchanged glances.
"Maybe not," Grizzly said.
"What'd you mean?" Popeye asked.
"Looks too easy," Sonny Boy told him.
"I think it's a setup," Grizzly stuck in his two cents' worth. Some native warning device alarmed within him.
"Shit!" Popeye said. "Sam said there was a nigger commandin' this bunch of Rebels. I can't believe you guys is scared of some goddamn sambo." "That nigger down yonder was Vice-President of the United States," Sonny Boy reminded them all. "And he's Ben Raines's second-in-command. That makes him have some smarts."
"I don't like it," Grizzly said, once more looking through binoculars at the Rebel camp located in the small valley below the ridge. "And there's something else, too."
"What?" Popeye asked.
"How come Sam was so goddamn anxious to get rid of us? I never have trusted that slick bastard, noways. I'd like to know what he's got up his sleeve."
"I agree," Sonny Boy said. "We left in a big rush all hepped up and rarin'
to go. Now we've all had some time to think about it."
He glanced at Popeye. "Some of us have thought about it, that is. And I don't like what I've been thinkin." his "So what are we gonna do?" Skinhead slobbered the question.
"Back off," Grizzly said, his voice low.
"To where?"
"Let's head back an" link up with Piano and his boys. We'll compare notes about Sam Hartline."
"How many guys is Piano got?" Popeye asked.
"Three, four hundred. Buck's runnin' about two fifty or so. If we was to link up with them, that'd give us more'n a thousand men. Nobody could stop us then."
About five hundred meters away, two Rebels lay in the timber, watching the warlords through binoculars. They waited until the outlaws had pulled out. Picking up her walkie-talkie, the Rebel pressed the talk button.
"They're not buying it," she spoke softly.
"They're pulling back."
"Keep them in sight and wait until our forward team reports back," she was told.
They waited in the timber for fifteen minutes.
They listened as the forward team, located some five miles east of their position, radioed in.
"They're all leaving," the forward team reported.
"Heading straight east. Must be five or six hundred bikers and chopper riders and dune buggies and pickup trucks. Never seen such a mess."
"They're leaving no one behind?"
"No. They appear to be riding with a destination in mind."
"They made us," Cecil said. "They smelled a trap and bugged out."
"Shit!" his XO summed up all their feelings.
Cecil laughed at his XO'S disgusted one-word summation. "There'll be plenty of fighting in the near future," he said.
"I guess so, sir. But when is GeneralRaines going to do something?"
"Only Ben knows that. And so far, he's not talking. But bet on this: he's worrying ideas around in his head like a dog with a bone."
"Goddammit!" Ben said, looking at his bare hook. "Stole my bait again."
Lora looked up as they sat on the bank of a small creek. She smiled at him. "It's easier to catch them with your hands."
"For you, maybe. But this is so relaxing. And fun."
Lora thought about that for a moment, watching as Ben put a fresh worm on the hook. "If it's so much fun, why do you cuss?"
Ben stuck his pole into the ground and lay back on the bank, laughing.
"Now you're having fun," Lora said. "Laying down. But not fishing."
Ben ruffled the child's hair. "You think too much, Lora. Be a kid for a while."
A Rebel stationed some distance behind Ben, in the brush, cleared his throat. A reminder to Ben that no matter where he went, he was never alone. A full squad of Rebels accompanied him whenever he stepped out of the house he was using for a command post.
Worse than being a damned king, Ben thought.
"I don't know how to be a kid, Ben," Lora said. After several weeks of Ben trying to get her to call him by his first name, she had finally agreed.
"Yeah, I know, Lora. Someday the fighting will be over. At least, this fighting. And when that's over, you young people are going back to Georgia. There, you'll learn to read and write and have fun. That sound okay to you?"
"Whatever you say, Ben."
Ben could tell she felt some degree of excitement about that, but would not let her feelings show.
She'd been through too many disappointments in her young life.
"I promise you it will get better, Lora. I promise."
"Okay, Ben. Ben?"
"What?"
"There's a fish on your hook and your pole is out in the middle of the crick."
Ben jumped up, and in his haste slipped down the bank and fell into the creek, face first. A dozen Rebels came rushing from all directions, weapons at the ready.
Lora sat on the bank and clapped her hands, laughing at Ben's antics. "Now we're havin'
fun, Ben!"
Chapter Twenty-four.
"What's he waiting on?" Georgi Striganov muttered, more to himself than to his officers gathered at his command post. "Perhaps he's afraid of us?" a young IPF lieutenant suggested.
Striganov looked at the fresh-faced officer.
There, he thought, stands a fool! But Striganov did not like to dress down fellow officers in the presence of brother officers, so he said nothing.
"The man is like an old lobo wolf," a senior officer said. "He can sense many things the younger wolves have yet to learn." He looked at the young lieutenant as he said the last.