Buddy had called back the locations of the hidden pockets of creepies behind machine guns. The 90mm cannon of the Piranhas and the 105's of the MBT'S left the machine-gun nests tangles of smoking metal and bits of torn flesh.

"General!" the driver of the Piranha yelled over his shoulder. "Your radio operator says that Buddyis on the tarmac and meeting heavy resistance."

"Pour on the juice" Ben yelled. "Get us there."

The spearheaders reached the airport and Ben bailed out, M-14 in hand, waving for Cooper to follow him as he ran on the edge of the tarmac, heading for the protection of a group of buildings. Unfriendly fire began kicking up dirt at his heels as he ran.

A 90mm gunner got the range of the machine gun tracking the general at the same time another Piranha, equipped with a Bushmaster 25mm cannon, did. Between the two of them, not only was the machine gun silenced, but the whole front of the building was torn with cannon fire.

Ben ran in through the back entrance of an old building, the M-14 set on full auto.

Creeps spun around, firing automatic weapons, and Ben hit the deck as the lead howled over his head and punctured the wall behind him.

He rolled quickly and grabbed a grenade from his battle harness, pulling the pin with his fingers -- he'd seen men lose teeth attempting to Hollywood-it-up by jerking the pin out with their teeth-and chunked the Fire-Frag in the direction of the Believers.

The mini-Claymore blew, and seconds after the explosion sent shrapnel flying, Ben was on his knees, the old Thunder Lizard bucking in his hands.

Creepies were knocked back, b.l.o.o.d.y, smoking holes in their chests, the dust popping from their garments as the slugs impacted.

"Comin' in, General!" Jersey called. "From the rear!"

"Come on in!" Ben called, ejecting the empty clip and filling the belly of the M-14 with a full one.

His team set up positions near the center of the building and began clearing the place of creeps.

"Corrie," Ben called. "Tell the tank and APC commanders to set up left and right of this building. There is a heavy concentration of fire coming from directly across the tarmac."

The front of the building cleared of all living creepies, Ben ran forward, Linda by his side.

They plopped to the floor and Ben bi-podded the M-14 and looked at the woman. "Do you wish for the tranquility of your little valley, Linda?" He grinned at her.

"I'd be lying if I said I didn't."

"Someday, Linda. Someday future generations will be able to live without wars, without fear of thugs and punks. But it won't be in our generation, I'm afraid."

There was that sudden, silent, and usually nerve-tightening lull in the battle that almost always meant a counterattack was in the works.

"But it will be because of what you and the Rebels have done, won't it, Ben?"

"I pray so, Linda. When I pray, and I do pray, I pray for guidance and -- hisLong bursts of automatic weapons fire cut Ben's statement short and sent them both hugging the dirty floor, belly and face down. The slugs kicked up bits of splintered wood and punched holes in the walls.

Ben raised his head and spat out dust from the dirty floor. "G.o.dd.a.m.nit! I guess I haven't prayed enough lately."

That statement and the expression on Ben's face caught Linda just right and she burst out laughing. It was infectious, and Ben started laughing as what he had just said came home to him.

Jersey, crouched behind an overturned and battered old desk, looked over at where the pair lay.

She smiled and shook her head in amazement.

Corrie and Beth and Cooper laughed and grinned at each other and winked.

It had been a long, long time since Ben Raines had really laughed.

Ben had finally buried Jerre in his mind.

Ben looked at Linda and said, "That remark was rather stupid, wasn't it?"

"Let's just say I needed a good laugh."

"Me too, Linda. Me too."

Tanks on either side of the building opened up with cannon and machine-gun fire, and that made conversation impossible as the rounds began creaming the building across the expanse of the body-littered tarmac.

Other Rebels began arriving at the airport and setting up, filling the air with lead.

Corrie was studying the other side through binoculars.

"The creepies are bugging out, General!" she called.

Neither Ben nor Linda heard her. They were too busy kissing each other while the battle raged all around them.

Chapter Eight.

The San Carlos airport was secure and Ben had set up a CP in another building, after Rebels had scooped out the debris and fumigated the place.

The Believers did not take the practice of personal hygiene very seriously. If they bathed at all, it was no more than once a year. Any building previously occupied by the creeps smelled like an overflowing cesspool.

Because of the knowledge that attempts on Ben's life would certainly be made, security around him had tightened. The area around the airport had been cleared for two thousand yards in all directions, all buildings burned to the ground and bulldozed level.

Ben halted the ground advance for that day, but the old prop-job planes continued their relentless drops on the city throughout the night. The thunder of bombs impacting rumbled almost constantly. The city was burning out of control and the Believers trapped inside could do little except die.

The creepies cursed G.o.d, cursed the fates, cursed each other, and most of all, cursed BenRaines ... then died. But they weren't dying in large enough numbers to suit Doctor Chase and his medical people.

Tanker trucks carrying water rolled in and the troops took a bath comalbeit a cold one comforthe first time in several days. It had reached that point -- well known to any combat veteran -- where the Rebels could smell themselves. It was past being merely odious comx was downright rank.

Hot food was brought in (heated MRE'S, but that was better than nothing), and the Rebels relaxed for a time.

Cecil and Ike were mopping up in San Jose and putting the city to the torch. The winds had shifted, now blowing from west to east, and that gave the Rebels on the ocean side of the battle some relief from the smoke.

Lamar Chase had joined Ben in a drive-through of the secured area, and later over dinner, he voiced his approval of the Rebels' method of disposing of the bodies by fire.

Chase took a bite of his own lab people's concoction, grimaced, and grabbed for the hot-sauce bottle.

"What's the matter, Lamar?" Ben asked. "I thought you told me this slop was good."

"I never said it was good. I said it was nutritious.

You want a shot of hot sauce?"

"Please."

The hot sauce was used by nearly everyone to mask the sometimes awful taste of the pre-packaged meals.

"Any qualms about destroying the city, Ben?"

Lamar asked.

"No," Ben was quick to reply. "No more than any other city we've put to the torch."

Ben had read the casualty reports: seventeen Rebels dead, more than a hundred wounded; many of those wounded had minor wounds and would not require evacuation back to Base Camp One. But with the danger of infection from the creepies running so high, anyone with wounds, no matter how minor, would be placed on rear-echelon duty and kept off the line.

"It's firm, Ben? You have decided not to enter the city?"

Ben nodded his head. "Los Angeles is going to be a bad one, Lamar. There is a chance, a slim one, that we can gain a hold fast enough that will enable us to use artillery to bring it down. But even with that, we're going to have to enter that city and take it block by block, street by street. Those gangs down there are much better armed than anything we've faced in a long time comn counting Villar and his bunch. I've got a hunch those punks down there have shoulder-fired rockets capable of bringing down planes, so our air force just might be grounded. That's after we get there. Scouts report a lot of barricades in our way, all the major bridges are blown, so it's going to be a problem just getting down to Los Angeles."There was something else on the doctor's mind, and Ben knew it. But Chase would get to it in time. The doctor asked, "What is your estimate of time for wrapping up here?"

"Four to five more days. We're going to push as far as Daly City and stop there. Let the big guns take it from that point. When we feel the city is gone, as we backtrack, we'll blow bridges and overpa.s.ses and exchanges. We won't be able to kill all the creeps, but those left will be d.a.m.n few."

The doctor shook his head. "No, Ben. No.

You've got to kill them all. You've got to eradicate this scourge right down to the last person.

They're walking time bombs, disease factories.

You should see blood samples under a microscope.

It's the scariest thing I have ever witnessed."

"I'm going to ask a layman's question," Ben said.

"Why then don't they all just drop dead?"

Linda took it. "Because for whatever reason, and we don't know the answer to it, they seem to have built up an immunity. It may, probably does, work on the same principle as a person who has been stung by bees so many times or bitten repeatedly by poisonous snakes. They either get so much venom in their system they die, or they grow immune to it."

"I suppose we could grab enough of them to take their blood and reduce the levels of whatever it is in there and then start experimenting and ..."

Linda sighed and Lamar waved a hand, silencing Ben. "Leave the medical side of this campaign to us, Ben. You stick with soldiering. I thank you for the suggestion, but it doesn't work ... quite that way."

Ben shifted his gaze from Linda to the doctor.

"Okay. Then drop the other boot, Lamar."

"Chemicals, Ben. You know how I hate it, but in a case like this, it's the only way to be sure."

"I said after the last time I'd never use them again,"

Ben reminded him.

"I know. I know. It's not an easy thing to live with. But we didn't know then what we know now."

"They would work here, Lamar. But the Los Angeles area is just too big. It would take months -- working around the clock comto produce enough gas to neutralize that entire area. We're talking about hundreds of square miles down there."

"Then we're going to have to be d.a.m.n careful when we a.s.sault that city, Ben. There is no vaccine for what the Believers carry in their bloodstreams. Our researchers and technicians down at Base have thrown up their hands in frustration. And we have the best people in the known world. It's worse than trying to come up with a cure-all for cancer. There are hundreds of types. Same with this"-Lamar lost his temper and his professionalism com8G.o.dd.a.m.n s.h.i.t!"

Ben had lost his appet.i.te. He pushed the plate from him and rolled a cigarette, very much aware of Doctor Chase's look of disapproval at hissmoking. Ben secretly thought that Chase's idol of years back must have been the Surgeon General C.

Everett Koop. Ben smoked about five cigarettes a day: one after a meal, and usually one after some very tense situation. He sighed as he lit up, hating even the thought of chemical warfare.

But he knew Lamar was right. Any person with an ounce of compa.s.sion would certainly feel sorry for a rabid dog. But no one in their right mind would try to comfort the animal by petting it. One put it out of its misery by destroying it.

"All right, Lamar," Ben said. "I'll give the orders. But d.a.m.ned if I have to like doing it."

So those in the city would not be tipped off that anything other than conventional warfare was in store for them, Ben continued his push at 0600 the next morning.

He ordered Dan Gray to hold what he had in Pacifica, then sent part of Ike's troops up to seal off the road linking Interstate 280 with the spur that fed south of the city. He left Cecil the unenviable job of torching and mopping up south, and pulled Ike up to his location for a powwow.

"Depending on the winds, we're going to slow-push up until we're even with Dan's position," he told Ike. "That will put us just south of San Francisco. We'll take our time doing this so the transport planes can get the chemicals and our vaccine for them to us from Base Camp One. On the morning of the drop, providing the winds are right, we'll begin a pullout just at dawn. I want easterly winds to blow this out to sea. I will not okay a drop until that happens. And I don't give a good G.o.dd.a.m.n if that takes a month."

Ike didn't argue that point. He shared Ben's concern with wildlife and the environment. The smoke was a nuisance, but it did very little, if any, lasting damage.

Ben said, "Our next staging area will be at Hollister. All major bridges are blown on the coastline highway, 101, and all Interstates east of us. So we'll have to take secondary roads down to the Los Angeles area. It'll be slow going. Cecil has already sent troops down to Hollister to secure it and clear us a bivouac area."

Ike studied a map and shook his head.

"Man, it's gonna be a b.i.t.c.h getting down to L.a.

We're gonna have to take more twists and turns than a nest of snakes."

"Yes. I've already begun ordering non-combat personnel and non-essential vehicles out of this area, heading them south toward the staging area.

Planes carrying chemicals left Base Camp One this morning."

Ike nodded his head. "Lamar is pretty shook up about this plague, as he calls it."

"More so than I've ever seen him," Ben agreed.

"But something else, Ike. If it's this bad here, what in the h.e.l.l are we going to be facing inEurope?"

"Whatever it is, we've got to beat it," the ex-Navy SEAL said. "We've got to stop it before it spreads. And that means the cities will probably have to come down; and what a blow to future historians that will mean. Maybe we can avoid it. I don't know. But I imagine it's the same over there as it is here. The rural areas are clean while the cities are cesspools. We'll know next year, won't we?"

"Yes. Hopefully." Ben walked to a wall map of the world thumb-tacked to a wall. "If there are ships seaworthy after we finish the Northstar campaign, we'll sail from there and go through the Panama Ca.n.a.l comif it's still open. If not, we'll have to go cross-country and sail out of the East Coast." Ben waved those thoughts away. "Use this down time to go over all vehicles, Ike. Scouts report these secondary roads we'll be using are real axle-breakers in spots."

"What's the ETA on the chemicals?"