"That's ten-four, sir. Squadron leader has acknowledged the drop order."

"G.o.d have mercy on any prisoners left alive in that city," Ben muttered. He shook his head.

"And G.o.d have mercy on me," he said under his breath.

In the burning and smoking city, creepies had left their cover and crawled out of bas.e.m.e.nts and buildings as soon as the bombs had stopped falling on them, some hours before. They stood in the ruined streets and wondered what was going on.

Over the crackle of burning wood, they heard the droning of approaching aircraft and ran for shelter.

But no bombs fell, only canisters that did not explode as they impacted with ground. The canisters hissed out an invisible and slightly sweet odor.

Within seconds, the throats of the Believers began closing and their nervous systems began shutting down as paralysis seized their bodies. They lay on the rubbled streets and in their filth-covered lairs and huddled in bas.e.m.e.nts and died as the gas silently touched them.In the communications center of the cannibalistic sect called the Believers, a dying radio operator got off one last message that chilled those monitoring south of the city, and especially those in the Los Angeles area.

"Gas!" The creep gasped his last message.

"He's killed us all. Ben Raines is using poisonous gas. There is no one left. The gas ...".

The speaker went silent. As silent as the once-great city by the Bay.

The Judges, the rulers of the cannibalistic order called the Believers, were advised of Ben Raines's latest move. They cursed him while they dined on strips of fresh human flesh just cut from screaming prisoners. When they had vented their spleens and filled their bellies, they called for a meeting of all gang leaders who operated in the sprawling area of southern California. There were some seventy gangs in the area, ranging in size from fifty to a thousand or more. They were different only in dress, the headbands or the clothing denoting each gang.

This was the last bastion of creepies and their followers or sympathizers in the lower forty-eight. Thousands of perverted degenerates whose territory ranged from the Pacific east to the state lines of Nevada and Arizona and south to the border of Mexico. They were well-armed, with heavy machine guns, mortars, rockets, flamethrowers, artillery, and just about anything the Rebels had with the exception of tanks and extremely long-range artillery.

This was their territory, from Los Angeles down to Tijuana and east to what was known as the zone, a region where force was the ruler and brutality the order of the day. The punks were going to defend it.

They had nowhere else to run. Ben Raines and his Rebel army had managed to bring some degree of law and order and stability to all the other states.

Ben's intelligence on the population in this area was sketchy at best, for no outsider had ever managed to penetrate the area and live for very long. There were gang-run and Believer-run slave and breeding farms all over. There were drug manufacturers, drug dealers, and drug users. There were slavers and slaves. Pimps and prost.i.tutes. The entire area, from Los Angeles south and east, was one huge criminal operation. From the Pacific Ocean to Nevada and Arizona and south to Mexico was a gigantic outlaw land, where violent death, rape and perversion, slavery, and cannibalism came as easily as breathing.

And those who called it home were preparing for war.

At the staging area in Hollister, Ben ordered flyovers of what remained of the city by the Bay, using heat-seekers. The word came back: There was nothing left alive in the city.

"Napalm it," Ben ordered. "For however long it takes to burn the bodies. Blanket the city with fire. Destroy it. Bring what remains down."This time, every plane that could be bomb-equipped was put to use. The pilots spent all that day and the following night dropping napalm on the already burning city until they were certain the flames would spread and eventually destroy anything left. From China Basin to Great Highway, from San Jose Avenue to Jefferson Street, there was nothing but fire and smoke and death. After twenty-four hours of relentless bombing, the pilots flew down to the old Lemoore Naval Air Station, some one hundred and seventy-five miles to the southeast.

There, they would carefully go over their planes, refuel, and wait for the next call from Ben Raines. A platoon of Rebels had secured the old station and cleared the runways. They reported back that the air station had been deserted upon arrival.

The next morning, the long Rebel columns began winding their way south toward Los Angeles. Ben took Highway 25 out of Hollister, a route that would abruptly end some sixty miles to the south. From there, it would be a state road down to the Sierra Madre Mountains. One long, slow pull from Hollister.

Ike took a route that put him commost of the time -- between the coast and 101. That route would end at San Luis Obispo. From there, he would work his way down through Santa Barbara, Ventura, Beverly Hills, and into Los Angeles.

Georgi and West would travel east to the middle of the state before cutting south. They would split up just south of the China Lake Naval Weapons Center, with the Russian taking 14 down to the city, and the mercenary taking route 395 into, eventually, San Bernardino.

All of the Rebels expected many, many delays and detours before they reached the City of the Angels.

Ike hit his first obstacle just west of the Sierra de Salinas Mountains. His column had to backtrack and then take an unpaved road through the Los Padres National Forest.

Ben hit his first detour about twenty-five miles south of Hollister. The creeps had blown a bridge, forcing Ben to get off the secondary highway and traverse a dry riverbed. That little move cost him most of a day.

Cussing in half a dozen languages, Georgi Striganov and his forces. .h.i.t a pocket of resistance between Highways 5 and 99 and were held up most of the day while dealing with them. The Russian and the mercenary dealt with them very harshly, and before late afternoon began to cast long shadows, they left the dead Believers and their outlaw cohorts behind them, their bodies still smoking after being torched.

Cecil was attempting to parallel comz much as possible -- Interstate 5. He and his troops could exit just north of the city in the Angeles National Forest.

To keep love interest as widely separated as possible, Ben had a.s.signed Tina to Ike'sgroup, doing so after discussing it at length with West.

The mercenary had thought it to be a wise move.

Buddy and his Rat Team were Ben's constant shadows, and Dan and his Scouts were also attached to Ben's direct command.

The bikers, named the Wolfpack, and several platoons of forward recon people ranged out in front, spread over half the state, slowly working their way south, the long-range eyes and ears of the Rebels.

Ike found several pleasure craft, with fibergla.s.s hulls, that had been hoisted up out of the water for repairs at a marina. He had them lowered into the water, checked them out, and crewed them with ex-Navy men, with the orders to get down to Santa Catalina Island, take it comquietly, if possible-and set up a listening post there.

The island lay some twenty miles out from the L.a.

metropolitan complex and could possibly be a great a.s.set in the taking of what was soon to be a sprawling battleground.

"Wouldn't those islands be used by the thugs and creeps in the city?" Linda asked.

"I doubt it," Ben told her. "Those types of people aren't inclined towards work of any kind and they don't have much imagination. Keeping a large-sized pleasure craft up, so I'm told, is a time-consuming operation. Oh, after the Great War, some of them probably used boats as pleasure toys.

Then when the boats started sinking, or the engines quit, they lost interest. It would surprise me if anyone is living on those outer islands."

Beth walked up, a notepad in her hand. "We made forty miles today, General. General Ike is bivouacked in the Los Padres National Forest. General Cecil made about forty miles, and General Striganov is bivouacked near the Sequoia National Forest."

"Thank you, Beth. Have you any word from the forward recon teams?"

"Ike can expect trouble at the south end of the old Hunter Ligget Military Reservation.

General Cecil will have a fight in Coalinga, and we'll have a pretty good sc.r.a.p when we hit Highway 46. All units have been advised."

"Thank you. Get some chow and relax."

Linda studied Ben in the fading light of late afternoon. So far he had kissed her, and that was that. She didn't know what her reaction would be when, or if, Ben tried to take matters further-although she had a pretty good idea how it might turn out.

She had heard rumors about Jerre, and about their stormy relationship, and how she had died. She knew Jerre had borne Ben's children, and that they were back at Base Camp One. She had also heard about the many other women in Ben's life, and that he had really loved only one of them: Jerre.

Ben was smoking his pipe, sitting in a camp chair.

Linda got the impression that his mind was a thousand miles away. Or more specifically, about fourhundred miles away, in the general area of Los Angeles.

She walked away quietly, thinking that Ben probably would not notice her departing. It would not take her long to learn that Ben missed very little that went on around him.

Buddy came to his father, opened a camp chair, and sat down.

"Where have you been, boy?"

"Talking with some Woods Children who came out of the deep forests across the state."

"How'd you find them?"

"I didn't. They found me."

Ben thought about that, sensing something was up. "It must have been very important news for them to leave the woods."

"They thought it was. Father, Sister Voleta is still alive."

The young man almost never spoke of the woman as his mother.

Buddy had long ago realized that she was the epitome of evil and would have to be destroyed. But destroying Voleta, founder and ruler of the savage and vicious cult known as the Ninth Order, was proving to be very difficult.

Ben fought back a quick surge of rage. He calmed himself and said, "G.o.dd.a.m.n that woman!

The Woods Children are certain of this?"

"Yes. Absolutely. Their network reported that she had both legs amputated and was horribly burned and disfigured, but that she is alive, gaining strength, and filled with more hate than ever before."

"d.a.m.n! Where is she, son?"

"Michigan, unless she has shifted her headquarters recently. And her followers are growing in number."

"Well, we have an outpost in Michigan. What do they report?"

"They report nothing and they never will. They have been destroyed."

"By Voleta?"

"Yes."

Ben sighed heavily and knocked the dead ashes out of his pipe. "Son, I am becoming awfully weary of that woman. She is like an albatross hanging around my neck."

"The Ancient Mariner.

Yes. I read it. I understand what you mean. But getting to her is not going to be easy. According to the report I received, she is in the process of rebuilding her empire and is constructing numerous hiding places, all of them underground in deep woods. Michigan, Kentucky, Missouri, Maine. Probably more than that, but those were the ones told to me."

"Estimated strength?"

"Several thousand, and growing."

"So are we.""Yes, fortunately. I am told that Seven and Eight Battalions will be ready for the field in approximately six months."

"That's correct. When we sail from this country, we'll leave behind four battalions of field troops, plus the battalion in place at Base Camp One. How are things over in the Woods Children sector?"

"Stable." He smiled. "It's difficult for me to keep referring to them as "children" since many of them are now young men and women. They have schools and medical facilities and are doing quite well. They asked me if you wanted them in this fight for southern California?"

Ben shook his head. "No. They'd be totally out of their element in this fight. In the woods they're awesome fighters. But this is going to be urban warfare. Have their dreams to become as one with the animals materialized?"

"To a large degree. They are not flesh-eaters and the animals seem to sense that. They are also united with the Underground P. Together, they make up quite a force. Thugs and outlaws have tried to overwhelm them several times. I don't think that any of those who entered the woods with hostile intentions ever came out.

Neither have trappers," he added dryly.

Ben grunted. He had always felt comeven as a boy comt most trapping was unnecessary and very cruel. He had never particularly given a d.a.m.n what happened to trappers. "Are you going to have a second meeting with the Woods Children?"

"Yes."

"Tell them I wish them well and thank them for this information."

Buddy rose from the chair.

"Son?"

Buddy turned to his father.

"Who, or what, do they worship?"

Buddy smiled, knowing what his father had on his mind.

"The Almighty. A great spirit in the heavens."

"That's a relief. Thank the Lord they've stopped building altars to me."

Buddy slipped away into the darkness. He did not tell his father that those who lived in the timber and under the ground still held Ben Raines in the same awe and adoration as they did the invisible Almighty.

His father just could not understand that all over the nation comand according to what Buddy had learned, and had not shared with his father, in pockets all over the world comp felt that Ben Raines was slightly more than a mortal flesh-and-blood man, very close to being a G.o.d -- or at least a man who had caught the attention of the G.o.ds above and had a pipeline to them.

Ben Raines just could not understand that it had become his dream to take a shattered nation and rebuild it. The young man knew that his father considered himself to be a soldierstphilosopher and nothing more than that. Many others had had the same dream, but it was Ben Raineswho'd actually formed the army of Rebels and put them on the march. It was Ben Raines who'd taken the nation, state by state, and reclaimed it from the outlaws and thugs and punks and warlords. Ben Raines who was the driving force behind the rebuilding. Ben Raines who had physically jerked up the nation from the ashes and held it there until he could get the props under it.

And it was Ben Raines who would not be satisfied until the entire world was free and safe and once more a productive place.

Ben Raines just did not understand that he had dreamed an impossible dream and brought it to light and made it reality.

Buddy shuddered at the thought of anything happening to his father. For if the unthinkable happened, the entire load would quite possibly be placed on his shoulders, and the young man knew he was not ready for that. Not for a long, long time.

If ever.

Chapter Ten.

Ike reported that he had hit his first skirmish since leaving the city, and would be tied up for several hours at the south end of the old Hunter Ligget Military Reservation. Cecil was hanging back about a thousand meters north of the town of Coalinga, using artillery to bring the defenders to bay.

"We'll push on down to the crossroads and see what's in store for us there," Ben said. "From here on in, main battle tanks take the point.

Corrie, what do the Scouts report about this unpaved road straight through to Parkfield?"