By late afternoon, it was apparent to all that Sam Hartline's mercenaries were no more. Those remaining were running in wild-eyed panic from the troops of Ben Raines. Panic because they knew they could not surrender; fear because they knew there was no place to run; terror because they each knew death was all that awaited them.
They engaged the Rebels in spotty combat, and died. Even though the mercenaries and the Rebels were just about equal in numbers, the Rebels were fighting for a just cause, with a definite goal in mind; the mercenaries fought only for booty and rape and torture and joy in killing.
And they died for it.
Ben left the camp and walked the battleground, his usual complement of Rebels surrounding him. He could still find grim amusement in all the attention paid him.
Better get used to it, Ben, he thought. This is the way it's going to be-from now on.
The rain had put out most of the fire; some trees still smoldered and smoked. And the Rebels were soon filthy from the soot and ash.
Ben removed his camo headband, poured water on it from his canteen, and washed his face and neck, retying the camo bandana around his forehead. His Thompson was on sling.
Broken bodies littered the forest. Some had died from gunshot wounds, others from the heavy shelling of the night before, still others had no marks on them. Either smoke got them or they died of fright.
Ben's walkie-talkie crackled. "Go," he spoke into the mouthpiece.
"Ike made it back across the border, General.
Nina is okay. Reports are that Khamsin got shot in the ass."
"Good," Ben laughed the reply.
They walked on, their boots making little noise in the ashes of fire and war. A slight noise turned Ben's head. He waved the patrol quiet and down. Ben walked toward the source of the small noise. Crouching down near the mouth of a hole in the ground, Ben could hear the sounds of someone climbing up, clawing at the rock and dirt beneath the surface of the earth.
Ben signaled for his patrol to remain where they were. He squatted and waited.
Sam Hartline's head popped out of the hole, his eyes darting left and right.
Like a large rat.
Sam turned in the hole, and Ben placed the muzzle of his Thompson between the man's eyes, the metal pressing against flesh.
"Hello, Sam," Ben said. "I can't tell you how I've looked forward to this day."
"Wish I could say the same, Ben."
"Very slowly, Sam-very slowly, pull yourself out of that hole. And there better not be anything in your hands except skin." "I'm not a fool, Ben." Hartline pulled himself out of the hole to stand before Ben. "You going to give me a fighting chance, Ben Raines?"
Ben laid his Thompson aside and smiled.
"Oddly enough, Hartline, I am."
"You're a fool, Raines! You can't take me with your hands."
"We're about to find out, Sam."
"Mind if I limber up a bit, Ben? It's been sort of cold and cramped sleeping on rock."
"Help yourself, Sam. I'm feeling rather magnanimous this morning."
Neither man noticed when a Rebel lifted his walkie-talkie and spoke very quietly. Since neither man took his eyes off the other, they did not notice the woods filling with Rebels until several hundred had gathered silently.
Sam stretched and did several deep knee bends, flexed his arms, and shadowboxed for several seconds.
"How's it going to be, Raines?" Hartline asked.
"Rough-and-tumble-anything goes, barehanded."
"And if I win?"
"You won't," Ben said flatly.
"Let's assume."
"One of those Rebels will shoot you dead."
"Well, goddamn, Raines! You're giving me a hell of an option, aren't you?"
"I've giving you a last chance to do something you've never been able to do before."
"What?"
"Best me in anything."
That stung Hartline. He flushed, then grinned.
"Rani had some good gash, Raines. You should have heard her scream when I took her like a dog."
Ben did not change expression.
"I heard another of your women turned on you, Raines. Made a deal with the Libyan. What'd you do with her, slap her on the wrist and tell her she's been bad?"
"I shot her between the eyes-personally."
Hartline narrowed his eyes.
"You shot her, Ben? You killed a broad? I thought you were the last of the great romantics ... women on a pedestal and all that shit."
"You pays your money you takes your chances, Sam."
Hartline grinned. "Yeah, I guess you're right, Ben." He studied Ben for a moment. "You'll never beat Khamsin, Raines. I know him from years back. He was Abu's right hand. Until the world blew up."
"I'll beat him, Sam."
Hartline nodded his handsome head. "Maybe. We gonna talk all the damn day, Raines?"
"No," Ben said, then took a quick step forward and hit Hartline flush on the jaw with a hard rightcross. The blow knocked the man backward and down into the soot and ashes. Ben stepped forward and kicked Hartline in the side with his boot, sending the man rolling on the sooty earth.
Hartline sprang to his booted feet quick as a big cat. He grinned at Ben, the blood leaking from a cut somewhere inside his mouth. "Sneaky bastard, aren't you?"
"Yep," Ben agreed, and ducked a roundhouse swing from Hartline. He grabbed the man's arm and flipped him. Hartline landed on his back on the earth, sending great clouds of ash and soot billowing.
Just as he was getting to his feet, Ben kicked him low, just above the left kidney. Hartline squalled in pain and rolled, coming up on his hands and knees.
Ben stepped in to give the mercenary a knee in the face and Hartline grabbed Ben around the knees and dumped him to the ground. Sam was immediately on top of Ben, straddling him, pounding at Ben's face with both fists.
Ben worked one arm out from under Sam's leg and grabbed Sam's genitals in one strong hand, clamping down hard and twisting with all his strength.
Hartline screamed like a panther and dropped both hands to Ben's wrist.
Ben rolled over, still holding on, and worked his way to his knees. He lifted Hartline's buttocks and legs off the ground and then suddenly released his hold and stood up. Sam was huddled on the ground, in a painful ball.
Ben stood for a moment, blood leaking from his mouth and nose. He caught his breath just as Sam slowly got to his booted feet. The two men went at each other with fists, hammering at each other, all thoughts of their many skills in the martial arts forgotten.
This had once been known-back when the nation was whole, before-as Oklahoma oilfield, bare-knuckle, slug-it-out type of fighting.
Hartline hit Ben in the wind with a solid left that staggered Ben. Ben responded with a vicious hook to Sam's jaw, the punch driving the man back.
Ben stepped in and hit the man in the face with both fists, a jumping type of punch. Hartline went to the ground, spun, and kicked Ben on the knee with a boot.
Ben fell to the earth and rolled, narrowly missing Sam's boot aimed at his face. Ben grabbed up a handful of ash and soot and flung it into Sam's face, momentarily blinding the man.
Ben got to his feet and went to work, slashing at the man with both fists, left and right combinations, to the body and to the face. Sam was staggering now, his eyes glazed. He backpedaled, shook his head, and came up with a knife in his hand, jerked from the sheath on his web belt.
Ben stepped back and pulled his own Bowie-type blade. He feinted with his left hand and Hartline swung his blade in that direction. The bladesclanged and echoed through the charred woods. Each man was as good as the other with the blade, and it did not take either of them long to realize that.
Sam stepped in close and tried for a gut cut.
Ben sidestepped and swung his heavy knife, cutting Sam from temple to point of jaw. Sam yelled and dropped his guard for just one second.
That was all Ben needed.
Ben drove the point of his knife into Sam's stomach, driving it into the hilt. Ben stepped back.
Sam's fingers opened, his knife dropping from suddenly numbed fingers. Sam Hartline sank to his knees, his eyes mirroring his disbelief that this could happen to him.
"You ... you killed me!" Sam said, blood pouring out of his mouth.
"Sure looks that way," Ben panted.
Sam tried to pull the blade from his mangled stomach and guts. But he did not have the strength. He lifted his eyes to Ben. "You gonna bury me right, Ben?"
"Nope."
"You owe me that much. We're ... soldiers and all." His voice was getting weaker.
"You're a disgrace to the profession, Sam.
I'm just gonna let the buzzards have you."
"You ... to was Sam never got to finish it. He fell forward on his face and chest and stomach, the force of his fall-driving the knife blade deeper into his guts.
His fingers dug into the soot and ash, clawing as life began leaving him.
"You ... to was Sam once more whispered.
Ben waited.
Sam Hartline never spoke another word. His legs trembled and his body jerked in spasms of pain. Blood poured from his mouth, staining the dirty ground.
Ben walked to Dan, standing by Tina. He winked at his daughter and shifted his eyes to Dan. "Give the orders, Dan. Let's go home."
Chapter Forty.
"You people don't have enough numbers to sway what will happen one way or the other," Ben told the civilian freedom fighters from California. "So it would be best if you stayed out here. But that doesn't mean I might not call on you."
"We'll roll as soon as you call, General,"
John Dunning assured Ben.
Some of the materials taken from the Russian and from Hartline were given to the new Rebels in the west.
Much of it was tied down on trucks and readied for the trip back east, to Base Camp One.
Ben ordered the miles-long column out in sections, with ten miles between each section. It was an awesome sight in the early morning mist, this eastward trek of Raines's Rebels. Thousands of men and women, hundreds of trucks and Jeeps, APC'S, tanks, gasoline transports, motorized artillery. In Utah, Ben ordered the column to halt for repairs and rest. The newest vehicle among the many was fourteen years old; that was the last year the United States of America had ever produced anything. Parts for the vehicles were no problem, millions of them lay all over the nation; but the vehicles did break down often.
Ben set up his command post in what remained of a motel, after having it cleaned free of rat shit and other debris. He ordered his radio operator to make contact with Base Camp One and got Ike on the horn.
"Ike? Congratulations. How's Nina?"
"She's fine, I think. The IPA used her pretty badly, Ben. Physically, she's okay."
"What are we going to be up against, Ike?"
"More than we've faced since the government assaulted the Tri-States, Ben.* The IPA are all seasoned fighters. From what I got out of prisoners, fighting is all they've been doing for ten to twelve years."
"Do you have any hard intel on the warlords and outlaws still alive?"
"Only that they've pulled in their horns and are somewhere up in the midwest, gathering strength.