Tina Raines had trained and seen combat with Gray’s Scouts. And Col. Dan Gray had given her the highest compliment one soldier could give another: “That lady,” said Colonel Gray, “is no lady.”
Ben was at the site in half an hour. The barricade had been torn down. Dan quietly and succinctly brought the general up to date.
Ben listened, the anger in him growing as Dan spoke. “Thank you, Dan.” He turned to the young man who had headed up the LETTERRP’S into Rolla. “Are
the people united in there?” he asked, jerking a thumb toward the distant town.
“Yes, sir-all the way. They told us they wanted a pure race of people, free of color. There is a Jewish girl hanging by the neck just down the road. We asked them about it; they admitted doing it. Said she got uppity with some of their women. We asked them what they meant by “uppity.” Said the Jewish girl was unhappy about being a servant. So they hanged her. Real nice people, General.”
“Yes. Just lovely,” Ben said. “How about the minorities that used to live around here?”
“They were either handed over to the IPF, run out or killed.”
“I see.”
“General,” the young LETTERRP said. “They, ah, the men in there-they took turns raping the girl before they hanged her.”
“They told you that?”
“Yes, sir. Seemed proud of it. Said she had real good pussy.”
Ben was profoundly glad that Gale was not present during this conversation. He turned to his artillery officer. “Shell it,” he told the man. “Shell and burn it. Blow the goddamned town off the map.”
“Yes, sir,” the officer said. He began speaking into his headset.
Down the highway, the rumble of tanks and mortar carriers getting into position reached the men by the once-barricaded highway. First to whistle and part the air overhead were the 152mm and 155mm cannon shells. 81mm mortars joined the barrage, the projectiles humming overhead. Ben’s big self-propelled howitzers
began pounding the small city with HE and incendiary rounds. The earth began to shake as the explosions ripped the town. Unit commanders began synchronizing the attack; there was not one full second free of the blasts of artillery, not one full second when an explosion was not rocking and pounding and burning and destroying the coordinated areas.
The limited skyline of the small city was now reduced to burning skeletons of buildings. After five minutes, Ben shouted the order to cease firing.
“Tanks in,” he ordered, his voice quiet in the shocked hush after the rolling thunder. “Infantry behind. Roll it.”
Gale and Nancy stood beside Ben’s pickup truck. Neither of them had ever heard anything to match what they had just experienced. War movies were OK, but this had been the real thing. Both their hearts were pounding furiously. Their mouths were dry. Nancy was the first to speak.
“He doesn’t believe very much in diplomacy, does he?”
“Only the final kind,” Gale replied, removing her fingers from her ears.
“I’m certain there were probably young children in that town.”
“Probably so.”
“That doesn’t bother you?”
“Sam Hartline was once a child.”
Nancy closed her mouth.
Heavy tanks rumbling past them stopped any further conversation for a time. Soon the rattle of automatic weapons drifted through the still air as the mopping up began.
Gale took this time to observe Ben, something she did often, and enjoyed doing. The man was as calm as a professional gambler with a royal flush in a high-stakes poker game. Nothing ever seemed to rattle him. Ben sipped at a cup of coffee-or what now passed for coffee-and munched on a biscuit. He seemed so relaxed he could be watching a croquet match on the greens in England.
Black, ugly smoke from the fires set by the incendiary rounds began pouring into the sky, the flames licking close behind the clouds. With no fire department, the town would soon burn itself out, destroying the ugliness the IPF had spawned.
After an hour, the gunfire had ceased, the tanks had rumbled back to position within the convoy. Far up the highway, Rebels were walking prisoners back to face Ben Raines.
The prisoners did not look overjoyed at that prospect.
They were a beaten and sullen bunch, with no fight left in them. They faced Ben-twenty of them-with downcast eyes. Their hands were behind their necks, fingers interlaced. There was one woman with them, a rather attractive woman. She looked at Ben with frank eyes.
“I give great head, General,” she said. “Let me live and I’ll do anything you want. I like it up the ass, too.”
“Shut your fucking mouth,” Ben told her.
“You dirty whore!” snarled the man beside her. “This is one time your pussy won’t get you out of trouble.”
She laughed and spat in the man’s face.
“I ought to hang every one of you,” Ben told the
group. “Slowly. If torture was my forte, that is what you deserve-then I should hang what is left of you.”
A man lifted very frightened eyes. “General…”
“Shut up!” Ben roared at him. He turned to a lieutenant. “How many children were found?”
“Twenty-two, sir. The rest of the kids are up at some sort of special school, run by the IPF.”
“They are being brainwashed,” Katrina spoke. “Depending on the time they have spent there, it is very probably too late to save them.” She looked at one man who appeared better fed and in better condition than the others. “How long have the children been at the school?”
“Long enough,” the man said with a smirk on his thick, wet lips. “I know you-was he stared at her-“you was here some months ago.”
“That is correct,” Katrina replied.
“Yeah,” the man said. “I heard about you. You’re the turncoat. Sorry goddamn traitor to your people.”
Katrina lifted her AK-47 and pulled the trigger once. The single shot took the man in the center of the chest. He flopped on the ground and died.
“He was a pig,” Katrina said. “He made some very filthy comments to me one day. Exposed himself to me and asked me to lick his … asked me to lick it.” She looked at Ben. “Am I to be punished for shooting him?”
“Hell, no,” Ben said.
“Katrina,” Colonel Gray said. “Would you be interested in joining my little group of men and women?”
“The scouts and LETTERRP’S?”
“Indeed.”
“I would be honored.”
Dan smiled. “The little bird has sharp claws, General.”
“Quite,” Ben agreed. “How old are the children you found?” he asked the scout.
“Very young. Infants, mostly.”
“Take them back to the convoy. We’ll raise them. I won’t have these bigots preaching hate to young children.”
“You ain’t got no right to take our kids.” A man stepped toward Ben.
Ben butt-stroked the man under the chin with his Thompson. Teeth and jaw cracked and popped under the impact. Blood flew from the man’s shattered mouth. He dropped to the ground like a stone and was still.
Ben looked at Colonel Gray. “I don’t care what you do with them, Dan. I do not wish to ever see any of them again.”
“Yes, sir.” He looked around him. “Sergeant Cummings?”
“Sir?”
“Take care of this little matter, won’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” the black sergeant said. “I will give it my immediate and personal attention.”
“I rather thought you would,” Dan said.
The Jewish Rebel stepped forward. “Like a little help, Mac?”
“Join the party,” Mac replied.
“Dan,” Ben said. “Roll the convoy on through. We’ll stop up the road at Vienna.” He looked at Sergeant Cummings. “We’ll see you and your squad in about an hour, Mac.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I wonder what is going to happen to those people?” Nancy whispered to Gale. “
Don’t even think about it,” she was told.
“Hello, sweetmeat,” Hartline said to Peggy.
She whirled around, her eyes wide with fear as she gazed up the basement steps to the open door. Hartline’s bulk filled the doorway. She looked around for a weapon-anything. But there was nothing. Her heart was pounding so heavily she thought she might faint.
“I told you I’d find you, baby,” Hartline said, a cruel smile on his lips.
“How?” Peggy managed to gasp out the one-word question.
“How?” Hartline smiled the question. “How was easy, sweet pussy. This is how.” He stepped down into the basement and waved his hand. A human form tumbled down the steps, bouncing sickeningly on the steps. Lois Peters. Or what was left of her.
The woman was naked. Her toenails and fingernails had been ripped from her. Her fingers had been broken. Her feet had been burned black-lumps of seared meat. Her teeth had been savagely pulled out. Her breasts had been mutilated. Peggy looked at the woman’s pubic area and was sick at the sight. Lois looked as though she had been raped by some sort of huge monster. Blood streaked her thighs.
She was dead.
Hartline’s eyes were cold and savage-looking. The smile hadn’t left his lips. “Before I’m through with you, sweetmeat, you’ll be begging me to go ahead and kill you.”
Peggy rose to her full height. She spat in Hartline’s face. “I’ll never beg to you, you son of a bitch.”
“Oh, I think you will, pretty thing. I really think you will.”
Two years before, Sam Hartline and his men, backed by FBI agents with warrants charging several newspeople with treason for refusing to cooperate with the congressional mandate to submit all news copy for review and censorship before airing, entered the Richmond offices of NBC. This was to be the test network.
Hartline, carrying an M-10 SMG, shoved the elderly security guard away from the doors, knocking the man sprawling, and marched into the executive offices. Hartline jerked one startled VP of programming to his feet and hit him in the mouth with a leather-gloved right fist. The man slammed against a chair and fell stunned to the floor.
A news commentator rushed into the room. “Here now,” he shouted, ““feu can’t do that.”
One of Hartline’s men socked the man with the butt of his AK. The man’s jaw popped like a firecracker. He was unconscious before he hit the carpet, blood pouring from the sudden gaps in his teeth.
“Where is the bureau chief?” Hartline said. “Or whatever you call the boss. Get him in here, pronto.”
A badly shaken young secretary stammered, “It isn’t a him-it’s a her. Ms. Olivier.”
“Well, now.” Hartline smiled. “That’s even better. Get her for me, will you, darling?”
Before the secretary could turn, a voice, calm and controlled, spoke from the hall. “What is the meaning of this?”
Hartline lifted his eyes, meeting the furious gaze of Sabra Olivier. He let his eyes drift over her, from her eyes to her ankles and back up again. She felt as if she had been violated. “You’re kind of a young cunt to be in charge of all this, aren’t you, honey?” he asked.
“Get out!” Sabra ordered.
The words had just left her mouth when Hartline’s open palm popped against her jaw, staggering her. She stumbled against the door frame, grabbing at the doorknob for support.
“Dear,” Hartline said, “you do not order me about. I will tell you what I want, then you will see to it that my orders are carried out. Is that clear?”
“You’re Sam Hartline,” Sabra said, straightening up, meeting him squarely, no backup in her. “Vice President Lowry’s pet dog.”
Hartline never lost his cold smile. He faced the woman, again taking in her physical charms: black hair, carefully streaked with gray; dark olive complexion; black eyes, now shimmering with anger; nice figure; long legs.
Sabra turned to a man. “Call the police,” she told him.
Hartline laughed at her. “Honey, we are the police.”
Sabra paled slightly.
The man on the floor groaned, trying to sit up, one hand holding his broken and swelling jaw.
“Get him out of here,” Hartline ordered. “Toss him in the lobby and have that old goat down there call for an ambulance to come get him.” He looked at Sabra.
“We can do this easy or hard, lady, it’s all up to you.”
“What do you want?”
“For you to cooperate with the government censorship order. And no more taking the Rebels’ side in this insurrection.”
“No way I’ll submit to censorship,” Sabra said.
“Then you want it hard,” Hartline said, the double meaning not lost on the woman, as he knew it would not be.
Her dark eyes murdered the mercenary a dozen times in a split-second. Her smile was as cold as his. “I never heard of anyone dying from it, Hartline.”
“Oh, I have, Sabra baby. I have.”
Hours later, Sabra Olivier’s spirit shattered. “All right,” she said to Hartline. “Stop it-stop your men. I’ll cooperate.”
The moaning and the screaming of her female employees had finally broken her reserve. As Hartline had known it would. And he had not touched Ms. Olivier-yet.
The students at the University of Virginia, after hearing of the takeover of the NBC offices and studios in Richmond, had marched in protest. But this was not the 1960’s and 70’s, with constitutional guarantees protecting civil disobedience. Now all police were federalized, and the FBI was nothing like that old and solid organization of the past.
The students were met with live ammunition and snarling dogs. Many were killed. Hundreds more were arrested, and in the process, beaten bloody. VP Lowry ordered the university closed.
Hartline smiled and nodded to a man standing by the door to the office. Within seconds, the screaming and sobbing ceased.
“You see.” Hartline smiled at her. “That wasn’t so difficult, was it?”
If looks could kill.
Sabra watched, a curious look in her eyes, as a mini-cam was brought into her office, carried by an agent. She did not understand the smile on Hartline’s lips.
Hartline pointed to a TV set behind her desk. “Turn it on,” he told her.
A naked man appeared on the screen. One of her anchormen. She knew with a sudden start this was live action, not taped. “What is the meaning of this?” she demanded. “I told you I’d cooperate.”
“Insurance, Sabra baby,” Hartline replied. He picked up a phone from her desk and punched a button. “Do it,” he ordered. He looked at Sabra. “Watch, darling.”
She swung reluctant eyes toward the screen. A cattle prod touched the man’s naked buttocks. His scream chilled her. The prod touched his thigh, then his genitals.
“Stop it!” Sabra shouted.
The man screamed and ground his teeth in pain. Several teeth broke off, bloodying his mouth.
“Goddamn you, Hartline!” Sabra yelled. “Stop it.”
“You’ll cooperate with us?”
“I said I would, Hartline.”
“Anything I say?” “Yes!”
“I have your son ready to perform for us. Would you like to see that?” “Goddamn you!”
Hartline laughed. He spoke to the mini-cam operator. “Start rolling it.” He unzipped his pants. His flaccid penis hung out. “Come here, Sabra baby. This one is for VP Lowry. And if you ever fail to obey an order, if you ever let any copy air without government approval, this tape gets played-in its entirety-on the six o’clock news.”
“You goddamn low-life, miserable son of a bitch!” Sabra cursed him.
“Strip, baby. Take it all off while facing the camera. Let’s give Lowry a really good show. That’s it. Play with your puss a little bit. Good, good, now you’re getting into the spirit of things.”
Naked and embarrassed and trembling with anger, Sabra faced the mercenary.
He hefted his penis. “In case you have it in mind to take a bite of me, Sabra baby, bear i
n mind your son is now bent over a table just down the hall. You get kinky with me, he gets gang-shagged. Understand?”
She nodded.
“Kneel down here, baby. On your pretty dimpled knees. You know what to do. You probably sucked cocks getting to where you are in the network anyway.”
She took him as the camera recorded it all.
Just as Hartline climaxed, the semen splattering the woman’s face, Hartline laughed. “It’s just so fucking easy when you know how. Just so fucking easy.”
The tiny hamlet of Vienna was deserted, completely void of any type of life, human or animal. “Strange,” Ben muttered, conscious of Gale’s eyes
on his face. “I don’t recall ever seeing anything like this.” He ordered scouts out to give the place a quick once-over.
Gale put her hand on Ben’s thigh. “This place scares me,” she admitted.
Ben, as usual, kept his emotions in close check. At least outwardly. Inside, he felt a little shaky. This place was, he concluded, a place of death-but somehow much different from all the other towns he had seen.
A Rebel jogged toward the pickup, his words breaking into Ben’s deep thoughts. “You gotta see this, General. It’s unreal.”
Ben, with Gale in tow, followed the Rebel on foot to a weather-beaten old frame church. The church had once been painted white. Now the paint was almost gone, the wood rotting from years of abuse from the harsh elements of sun and wind and cold.
“The door is locked, sir. From the inside. I looked through the window around here at the side. But you both better brace yourselves for what you’re about to see. It’s tough, sir.”
The scene grabbed at Ben’s guts. Fifty or so people-or the skeletons of what had once been people-filled the pews. Many of the ladies still had rags of what had been their Sunday hats perched on their white, bony skulls. About half of the worshippers still sat upright, grinning grotesquely and staring through sightless eyeholes at the bones of a man who sat in a chair directly behind the rotting pulpit. He would wait forever to deliver his Sunday sermon.
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