The Last Rebel: Survivor

by William W. Johnstone

  THIRTY

  An hour after the firefight with the Rejects, Kindhand and Garrett’s Rebels crossed over into Montana and hooked up with over two hundred Rebels, men who had come from all over the country. The occasion was just as festive as when Kindhand and company met the first group of Rebels at the diner, and the news was all good.

  They decided to stop for the night. The Rejects would never risk an attack of so formidable a force and, anyway, the chances of finding them were very slight, though Jim, for one, was not too happy that they were still not able to come up with an explanation of how they had been found.

  The leader of the large contingent was General Thomas Bradley, who, with his gray hair and handsome features looked like a fifties general from Hollywood Central Casting, confirmed what Kindhand had heard about the plague from Rosen. The plague was now history. Though Bradley had not heard anything about the Believers and the Rejects colliding in a big war, the idea did not surprise him.

  “It’s been coming,” he said. “Doesn’t surprise me at all.”

  Kindhand and Bradley, who as generals were at the same rank in the Rebel army, had much to discuss about the future government of the Rebels, though they certainly had a model: the principles employed by Ben Raines when he formed the SUSA.

  Kindhand also introduced Jim and Bev to Bradley, who said: “I understand we’ll be losing you, Jim.”

  “Yeah, Bev and I are going up north and from there who knows? Hopefully, there’s a preacher somewhere who could marry us.”

  “Really?” he said. “How about if you could get married right now?”

  “Are you kidding?” Bev asked.

  “Not at all. One chief medical officer, Ray Lownbes, is a minister, and I’m sure he’d be glad to marry you. I do agree that it might be difficult finding someone up north.”

  Bev looked at Jim, and she at him. It was crunch time, and though both were deeply in love with each other the idea of getting married was still scary. It was a big step, something both had dreamed about their whole lives, and if they wanted to, they could get married.

  There is, of course, only one thing stronger than fear, and that’s love.

  “Let’s do it, Jim.”

  “Absolutely,” he said. “It’s an odd place and time to get married, but that’s okay. Just as long as I get you out of circulation!”

  Everyone laughed.

  “Actually,” Bradley said, “this is not the first time that Ray has performed the ceremony in circumstances like these. He’s performed at least a half dozen in the ten years that I’ve known him.”

  “Good,” Jim said.

  “So,” Bradley said, “do you have a ring?”

  Bev stuck out the hand with the ring on her thumb.

  “Good. Beautiful ring.”

  “Thank you.”

  “How about a best man?” Bradley asked. Jim looked at Kindhand.

  “How about you, Duke?” he said.

  “Sure,” Duke said. “Be happy and proud to.”

  “I guess we’re going to have to live without a maid of honor. I think any of the troopers here would be reluctant to get into a dress, even if we had one.”

  “That’s okay,” Bev said. “I do have a dress for myself.”

  “You do?” Jim asked.

  “Yes, and a white one.”

  “A white one? Where’d you get that?” Jim asked.

  “At one of the houses we stopped at.”

  “What would ever possess you to take a white dress?”

  “I’m optimistic,” Bev said. And all the men laughed very hard and appreciatively, including Jim.

  “How about you, Jim?” Bev asked. “Are you going to wear a tuxedo?”

  “I doubt it. But I will put on clean clothes. How’s that?”

  “Perfect.”

  “I’ll go get Reverend Lownbes,” Bradley said.

  “We going to do this right now?” Jim asked.

  “No time like the present.”

  “I have to leave you for a little while,” Kindhand said. “I have to get dressed too, and rustle up a band.”

  “A band?” Bev asked.

  “Sure,” Kindhand said. “What do you think, this outfit is cheap? Only the best for our friends Jim and Bev.”

  Jim and Bev went back to their HumVee, which was parked in a sort of motor pool near the edge of the road.

  “Okay,” she said, “following tradition, this is the last time I can see you until we’re married.”

  She was about to get up into the HumVee when Jim stepped over and grabbed her by the shoulders.

  “May I say something to you?”

  “Sure.”

  “I feel so, so lucky to have found you. I mean who could have predicted in this crazy world that one day I would look under a house and there you would be?”

  Bev laughed and looked up at him.

  “God,” Jim said, “your eyes kill me. I just want to . . . uh, suck you down inside me.”

  “Suck away.”

  He leaned down and kissed her with an open mouth, and she responded in kind. Then she pulled away from him.

  “Hey, we better stop. We’ll never make it to our wedding.”

  “I wouldn’t miss that for the world.”

  Jim and Bev took bags out of the back of the HumVee. Jim went off into the woods and Bev got into the cab. Reb wasn’t there, having previously been taken out and released around where most of the troopers were clustered and who were having great fun with him.

  Everything was ready within a half hour. Bradley had decided to become Bev’s father for the event to “give her away,” so he, too, put on a fresh uniform and wore just a few of the many medals he had been awarded by Ben Raines over the years.

  Duke Kindhand followed suit, changing into a fresh uniform, and he did indeed round up a band, two guitarists and a banjo player, who, of course, had their instruments with them.

  While all this was going on, there were an unlucky few: the troopers who had to act like pickets in case the Rejects somehow paid them another visit.

  Then they were ready. Most of the Rebels had come out to experience this most unusual event. They formed a flanking path in the field, a path that Bev would follow, accompanied by General Bradley, to join Jim and Duke Kindhand.

  Jim and Kindhand then waited by the preacher, Ray Lownbes, who had a book from which he would read the passages that would make Jim and Bev one. Lownbes was in religious garb, including a collar.

  “How you feeling, Jim?” Kindhand asked, and then looked toward the trooper-flanked path down which Bev would come.

  “When I was a little boy I adopted a piece of a blanket that I called my ‘blankie,’” Jim said. “And I always held on to it as a security blanket. I wish I had that now.”

  Kindhand laughed, and before he could say anything else a kind of hush fell over the group and the music started, the two guitars and a banjo playing the familiar “Wedding March,” and then Bev, Bradley holding her by her arm, appeared and started to walk toward Jim.

  It wasn’t a wedding dress, he thought, but it was surely a dress and the first time he had even seen her in one.

  He felt his breath go away. He smiled inwardly. Everyone, he knew, thought of him as a tough guy. It surely wouldn’t do to faint!

  As Bev approached, Jim saw that she had pinned some local flowers in her hair. That, plus the simple white dress—which had a plunging neckline—was just spectacular, and he thought that of all the beautiful sights he had seen in his life—the mountains and the froth-white rivers and the births of animals and all the rest—nothing could beat this, the image, the magic of this beautiful woman in a white dress, looking at him, in love with him, and he knew what the phrase the “luckiest man alive” meant.

  She came up and, released by Bradley, was guided by the preacher to join Jim.

  Then the familiar words that preachers and priests had uttered for time immemorial started to be said by the preacher. . . .

  “Do you take
this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife . . . “

  And all the rest, and then it was over and they were kissing, kissing to the cheers of the Rebels, and they walked down the path, the guitars and banjo playing them out, and the battle-hardened veterans of the Rebels waving and wishing them luck, and some of the Rebels had tears in their eyes. They too had loved ones, and a ceremony like this was a cruel yet wonderful reminder of what once was, or still was, but they were not part of. Not now. It was a tremendously moving moment for all.

  Later, a number of bottles of wine appeared, lots of dancing was done—including, to the great amusement of all, Rebels with Rebels, and many of the Rebels also danced with Bev. It had been a long, long time since many of them had been with a woman, and to be close like this was just wonderful.

  Then tents were set up and the night petered out and Jim looked at Bev and said, “Well, while you were dancing with everyone I set up our honeymoon tent.”

  “Honeymoon tent?”

  “Sure. You perhaps expected a condo?”

  Bev laughed hard, the laughter going deep inside her.

  “Actually,” Jim said, “I set it up in a more private area of the forest so that, well, we could have more privacy.”

  “I like that,” Bev said. “The idea of being alone with you has merit.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Jim and Bev bade everyone good night. As arranged, they were to leave in the morning, just heading north. The troop was scheduled to get up at dawn and start to look for a base camp with Jim as their guide.

  Jim had set the tent up perhaps seventy yards from the other Rebels so it would ensure plenty of privacy. For the occasion he had left all his weapons in the tent, and gathered up Bev’s, which she had left in the HumVee before she left for the wedding ceremony.

  Five minutes after they told everyone good night, they were in the tent, the flap fastened.

  Inside, Bev didn’t say a word. She was standing up, and then she said. “Undress me.”

  Jim kissed her softly on the mouth and then turned her around. The back of the dress was fastened by a few buttons on top, and he unfastened these, then reached down and grasped the dress by the hem and slowly peeled it off her.

  “You smell wonderful,” he said.

  Bev did not respond.

  Under the dress she had a brassiere and panties and he unlaced the back of the brassier, her breasts free, but so firm that they hardly sagged at all.

  He needed to keep calm, but it was very difficult. Bev could hear his breathing coming in a slightly labored way. Then he reached down and peeled her panties off, his hands brushing against her buttocks as he did. His breathing got more labored.

  Then she was nude.

  “Now,” she said, “let me undress you.”

  It was Jim’s turn: he couldn’t talk too well either.

  Slowly, deliberately, she unbuttoned his shirt, then pulled down his pants and then his underwear.

  He was already almost fully erect and when she touched his penis he instantly became as a hard as a rock.

  Then, very carefully, they knelt and lay down, kissing and hugging and fondling, being very careful to satisfy each other in the way they approached and then engaged in intercourse.

  After the first coupling had been completed, they rested, but they both knew that this was going to be a long, wonderful night.

  They lay side by side silently for a while, and then Jim said: “Happy wedding day, Mrs. LaDoux.”

  “Oh, Jim, I so love the sound of that.”

  “So do I,” Jim said. “So do I.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  Szabo explained the plan to the two volunteers, Wilson, the black guy, and Atkins, as they sped down the highway in a black jeep. Wilson was driving.

  “Obviously,” he said, “this pipsqueak has taken off someplace. What we have to do is find out where that someplace is.

  “What we have to do is grab one of the Rebels and, shall we say, persuade him to give us that information? It’s my guess that everyone will know. Once we get the information, we will find him—then terminate him and anyone else who knows our inner working. And I got everything we need when we dropped back to the compound.”

  Wilson and the other soldier had questions about Szabo’s plan, but they did not want to discuss it. They were worried that discussion might be translated by Szabo into criticism. That could be dangerous, not so much on the way to the job as coming back.

  The main question, of course, was how he planned to, in effect, kidnap one of the Rebels with all the other Rebels around. And what were they going to do? Just drive into camp, grab someone, and take off?

  The how was shortly to be answered.

  As they drove, Szabo had the portable monitor on his lap, and he watched it intently, watching the blue and red dots get closer and closer. It was a short drive, and Szabo had all the equipment he needed on board.

  “We’re getting close,” he said. “I would say we’re no more than five miles away. Go until I tell you to stop, then find a place where we can turn off into the woods.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Wilson.

  They sat in silence for the next mile, the only real sounds that of the jeep moving along the narrow asphalt road and the steady blinking of the monitor on the UGPS. Szabo checked his watch: 0300. They should have plenty of time to complete their mission before dawn.

  Szabo kept close watch on the monitor, and gradually the transmitter’s beacon and his location got to the point where they were almost merging. Now Szabo started to look for a spot in earnest.

  “Slow down,” he said. “I’m looking for a spot to pull in to. And douse the headlights; running lights only.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The driver slowed the jeep to about twenty-five. Then up to the left they spotted what looked like an opening.

  “In there,” Szabo said, “in there.”

  Wilson pulled the jeep into an open area of the woods and parked.

  “Lights out,” Szabo said. He checked his watch: 0334.

  He got out of the vehicle. The moon was three-quarters full, but if you stood in the woods it was, because of the canopy of tree branches above, like standing in a darkened room. It was only when you were in an open area that the moonlight was any good at helping you find your way. But there was no open area here, just dense woods, very little natural light.

  But Szabo was prepared, in more ways than one.

  “Okay,” he said when the two soldiers had exited the jeep. “Take off your clothing.”

  He noticed a moment’s hesitation.

  “No,” he said, a smile on his face, “I’m not a fag. I have uniforms for both of you. Rebel uniforms, or something approximating them, as well as for myself. We’re going into the lion’s den dressed not as lambs but lions.”

  “Great idea,” Atkins said.

  “That’s not the only one I have,” Szabo said.

  Szabo went to the back of the jeep and extracted a suitcase. He opened it up and handed Wilson and Atkins uniforms then took out one for himself. He had thought of perhaps eliminating himself from the raid because of his distinctive physical appearance. Not many soldiers were of his size and musculature, and any of the Rebels seeing him would automatically question who he was.

  But he had another thought. When a picket stopped him—and it was likely that one would—all he had to do was to say that he was coming in from another area to join the others. That might be questioned, but that was fine. All he needed was enough time to get close to the picket or pickets, and then he would have a chance to kill him—or them—quickly and silently. Now, he thought, he would show the volunteers how to kill, and with what. Silently, so as not to alert the other Rebels.

  He reached down into a bag and withdrew three small spray containers.

  This is for close-quarter combat,” he said, “such as for use on the picket. It’s small enough to store in your jacket pocket. If we spot someone we want to terminate quickly and silently, you
arm the can by taking it out and twisting the nozzle 180 degrees toward the front. To use it, just point it a short way from the picket’s face and press the plunger. Its contents will spray out and kill the picket instantly.”

  “Why?” Wilson asked. “What’s in it?”

  “Cyanide spray. Very effective at close range. But be sure not to do it if the wind is blowing your way!”

  Wilson and Atkins did not laugh.

  “Ideally,” Szabo said, “we will not have to kill the picket. In fact, we can take him with us. And this will allow us to do that.”

  To each, he handed a hypodermic needle.

  “You’ve been trained to use these. Just jab and press. Unconsciousness comes almost instantly.”

  “Are we taking guns with us?” Wilson asked.

  “Do bears defecate in the woods? Absolutely, AK-47s and stun grenades, which, if we’re pursued by a force, will come in handy. Also take your sidearm.”

  With that, Szabo handed each of the men four stun grenades. Both men had been extensively trained in the use of grenades, and were happy to have them. They had proved their worth down through the years. While their detonation produced few offensive fragments, the flash, noise, and shrapnel tended to stun, blind, and generally bewilder the enemy. They had a tried-and-true track record in situations where the taking of prisoners was the objective, or in situations where hostages were involved. They were unparalleled for creating confusion and sheer terror.

  Szabo was well aware that this assault assumed that Rosen had left the Rebel force for some reason. Maybe he hadn’t. Maybe he was still among them. Then what? Szabo didn’t know. But he knew that he would figure out something. That’s what great commanders did. They solved problems.

  And what about the bitch? There was no way to get her. That would come on another day, and he had something very special planned for her. Something, in a way, worse than death.

  Finally, Szabo distributed the night-vision equipment.

  “Let’s put it on now,” he said.

  The men put the night-vision equipment on their faces, which tended to make them look like aliens. But, abruptly, the world they were in was not one of darkness but of light. While not as good as a cat’s eyes in darkness, they were very good.