"I'll slap you!" Rich hissed.
"I'll kick your ass, too!" Lisa backed him down. "He'll get tired of you, Lisa, if you don't start being nice to him. Then he'll give you to his men. You'd like that, wouldn't you, bitch?"
"No, I wouldn't, Rich." Her smile was not nice, filled with knowing. "But you would."
"God, I hate you!"
"Rich, if we worked together, we could get out of here."
"Why should I? I've got it made here. I have plenty to eat, nice clothes to wear, I can bathe every day in hot water and good-smelling soap. Sam likes me."
"Sure, Rich. Just as long as you suck him off, that is."
"I know you hate me."
"Rich, I don't hate you for what you are.
That's your business. Your right. You can stay here or leave. That's up to you. I'm just asking you to help me get out. Will you?"
They both heard Hartline enter the fine house.
Rich jumped up and ran out of the room.
"Sam! Sam!" Rich yelled. "Lisa's trying to get me to help her escape!"
Sam walked into the room and looked at Lisa.
"You stupid bitch. You don't know what side your bread is buttered on, do you?"
Lisa sat on the floor, looking up at him.
Sam slowly removed his belt. "Strip, baby. I guess I'm going to have to break you like a goddamned horse."
Lisa made up her young mind. "I'll die first," she said.
"That's a distinct possibility, baby," Sam told her. "But if I can't break you, then I'll give you to my men. And if you think I'm kinky, you haven't seen anything yet."
Lisa jumped from the floor and tried to run out the door. Rich tripped her, sending her sprawling.
She felt her jeans being ripped from her and Sam's laughter ringing in her head.
"I gave you a chance, pretty thing," Sam said.
"I guess you were born to like it rough."
She was jerked to her knees and the leather began singing and popping against her flesh.
"We get to ambush a convoy of wounded Rebels," Piano said to Grizzly.
"They'll be here in a couple of days. And they're headin' right for us."
"How many?"
"Hell, what difference does it make? For chris-sakes, they're all shot up. Piece of cake."
"Any women with "em?" Big Luke asked.
"Sure. And about a platoon of Rebels escortin" them. Let's start gettin' set."
"I'm gonna enjoy this," a biker said. "That goddamned Ben Raines has been a pain in the ass for years. I was down in Arkansas when him and them Rebels rolled in. Run me and my boys out. Didn't even give us a chance. I'm gonnareally like this."
"Did they fall for it?" Ben asked James.
"Scouts report they did. They're getting into ambush position." He pointed to a spot on a map of Colorado. "Right there."
"How many?"
"About three hundred of them. The others have spread out north and south."
"They picked a pretty good spot for it," Ben conceded. "Have they mined the road?"
"Negative, Ben. They've got some dynamite and grenades, but no mines that our observers can detect."
"Straight bang-bang, shoot-"em-up ambush, huh? They must think we're idiots."
"I don't know what they think, Ben. I would imagine most of them are very stupid and very arrogant. And that's a bad combination."
"Lucky for us, though. All right, James.
Send First Platoon to the north, Second Platoon to the south.
How about those vehicles we found?"
"They'll run long enough to get the people there."
"That's all that matters. Tell our teams to skirt the outlaws north and south and get into position on the east end of the highway. Wait for our signal."
"Why are you doing this, Ben?" James asked.
"Why the bikers first?"
"Saving the best for last, James. Hartline is going to be a tough nut to crack."
"You really want to kill him, don't you, Ben?"
Ben nodded. "Hartline doesn't know it. But he's a walking-around dead man."
Chapter.
Thirty.
The outlaws had indeed chosen a fine place for an ambush. If the person they wished to ambush had not been Ben Raines, that is.
Ben was often referred to by his enemies as being a sneaky son of a bitch. The latter was totally incorrect. The former summed it up quite well.
The outlaws and warlords and their motley crews had gathered on both sides of the interstate, carefully hidden among the rocks and brush on each sloping side of the carved-through mountain. They lay in wait with automatic weapons and grenades.
They had only one small problem: Ben Raines wasn't about to drive through the ambush site.
Ben had halted the column less than two miles from the ambush site and ordered his people out to have lunch. Sitting by the side of the road, in the shade of the trucks.
"Of all the stupid, shitty times to stop and eat!" an outlaw leader named Flash said, looking at the halted convoy through binoculars. "Jesus Christ! Here we sit up here, sweating our balls off in the sun, and them fuckers iseating!"
"It ain't fair," another biker said. "We didn't bring no food with us."
"Well, that ain't my fault!" Flash said irritably. "How the hell did I know we was gonna be up here this long?"
None of them could hear or see the Rebels high above them, quietly getting into position. None of the outlaws could see or hear the Rebels who had circled around and were now getting into position on the east side of the interstate, about five hundred meters east of the ambush site.
The outlaws were now, unknowingly, in a deadly box. And the lid was just about to explode.
Literally.
Ordering his people to not so much as glance in an easterly direction, Ben sat by the side of the road and ate lunch. James Riverson sat beside him.
The walkie-talkie between the two men clicked twice, then clicked twice again.
"First Platoon is in place and everything is go," James said.
Ben nodded and chewed his food carefully.
The walkie-talkie clicked three times, then repeated the signal.
"Second Platoon ready," James said.
Ben finished his lunch and buried the trash in a hole dug with his knife blade. No Rebel dumped trash indiscriminately; the land was littered enough without adding to the mess.
"Start the fireworks," Ben said softly.
James lifted the walkie-talkie and said, "G.".
The tops of the cut-into mountain exploded as high explosives were detonated. Tons of rock were lifted up and dropped down on the ambushers, crushing the life out of those caught in the rocky onslaught.
Ben carefully rolled a cigarette-one of the few he allowed himself daily-and listened to the panicked screaming of the outlaws who survived the initial blast and rolling boulders as they ran from the reverse ambush, running for their bikes and dune buggies and choppers.
But the Rebels had been there first, and had done a little work on the vehicles.
The first chopper to be cranked exploded in a massive fireball, hurling chunks of hot metal and fried parts of human bodies high into the air. The exploding vehicles touched off other fuel tanks, and soon the depot was an almost-solid area of flame.
Outlaws ran from the raging inferno, their clothing and flesh on fire. They ran howling and shrieking, rolling on the rocky ground, attempting in vain to put out the fire that covered their unwashed bodies.
They screamed their way into the darkness of death.
And Ben Raines sat by the side of the road and calmly smoked his hand-rolled cigarette. His hard facial expression did not change as he slowly puffed.
Those outlaws who had elected not to run toward their cached vehicles escaped the hideous burning death of their buddies.
They were shot to death by Rebels lying in ambush, blocking all avenues of escape. They were shot from the front, the back, or the side.
The Rebels offered no quarter, and expected none.
One unwashed outlaw, the stink and stains of a recent rape and murder still on his clothing, threw up his hands and hollered, "I quit! I give up."
He was shot between the eyes.
Let me get out of here! another panicked outlaw thought, his breath ragged as he ran from planned murder and assault and rape. I'll be good! he thought. The same thought that thousands of others like him had thought back through the years.
And few had ever carried out once safe from whatever dilemma had faced them.
He rounded a bend in the rocky path and came face to face with a woman Rebel, a CAR-15 in her hands.
Good-lookin" cunt, he thought.
"I surrender, baby," the outlaw said.
She smiled at him and hope filled the outlaw.
He wondered if she'd be any good in the sack?
He wondered if she liked it up the ass?
Those were the last thoughts he ever had.
She lifted her CAR and shot the outlaw twice in the chest. She spat on the rocky ground and trotted off.
Ben sat on the ground and yawned. He had seen the outlaw carefully edging his way toward Ben's location. Ben had clicked his Thompson off safety and waited as the outlaw made his approach.