Liberty is a beloved discipline. George Homans

Chapter One.

In the battered and burning area of Los Angeles, Leroy looked at the messenger and felt a churning in his guts. If what the man reported was true, they were all screwed and about to be kissed during the s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g ... by the kiss of death.

The Rebels were slowly and methodically closing in on them. Each new dawning brought the law and-order b.a.s.t.a.r.ds and b.i.t.c.hes another block or two or three closer, on all sides. The smoke was thick and choking all around them. And it seemed like the thunder of artillery and the booming and crashing of incoming sh.e.l.ls never stopped. A lot of the street punks were folding up mentally under the constant attack. Some had committed suicide, others had surrendered, still others had gone crazy as the pressure got to them.

"Let's go see Junkyard and Ishmal," Leroy told his bodyguards. "We got to figure out something, and we ain't got a whole lot of time left to do it."

The punks still held a lot of territory. But it was shrinking day by day. Rebels were stretched out west to east along Interstate 10 and north to south along Interstate 710. The south and the west were still open, but Ben Raines and his people and the Mexican Army lay to the south, and to the west was the Pacific Ocean, and now that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Raines had covered that too.

Most of the street punk leaders were in attendance.Most of those who were not in attendance were dead.

Ruth of the Macys said, "Some of my people seen boats this morning. Big boats lay in' off sh.o.r.e."

"Yeah, they're there, all right," Cash of the Surfers said. "Mexican gunboats. Big ones. They come up and got into position last night."

"We're screwed!" Hal of the Fifth Street Lords said. "And I ain't gonna surrender. Too many freed prisoners would be happy to testify against me. I'm dead either way it goes."

"Yeah," Jimmy of the Indios agreed. "We're dead if we stay here, and dead if we surrender.

The Rebels overran my turf and grabbed the slaves I had. You know they're singin' like birds.

I wouldn't last five minutes."

"None of us would," Sally of the Mixers said. "So let's don't even talk about surrender. But G.o.d-d.a.m.nit, I don't want to die! It ain't right what Ben Raines is doin'!"

"Sure ain't," Josh of the Angels said. "What Raines is doin' is agin the law."

Brute looked at him, disgust in the gaze.

"Idiot! Ben Raines is the law. He's the only law in the United States."

"So what do we do?" d.i.c.ky of the Silvers asked.

"That's why we're here," Leroy said. "To come up with a plan."

Rich was not in attendance. But he did have a spy present. He would know everything that went on. And if he could do it, he was going to toss Leroy, Ishmal, and Junkyard to the lions ... in this case, the Rebels.

Artillery started booming after an hour's respite, the sh.e.l.ls creaming another two-block area to the north and to the east. Cigarettes were lighted with trembling hands. The bombardment was getting to them all.

Everybody started coming up with plans. But none of the plans were worth a d.a.m.n.

Finally, when everyone had wound down, Leroy said, "The Rebels have to have a weak spot. It's up to us to find it and do it d.a.m.n quick."

"The Rebels ain't got no weak spot,"

Carmine of the Women said, pointing out what she felt to be the truth. In fact, the Rebel lines were so thin they had plenty of weak spots. "But what they got is a system that's workin'. And it don't look like we got any defense against it.

"There is one way," Brute of the White Men said softly, his words just audible over the crashing of artillery rounds. "Maybe it would work." He outlined it, and most of the street punk leaders turned down the suggestion.

"It would work," Stan of the Flatrocks said. "But I don't like it."

"I don't like it either," Bull said. "But we may have to do it anyways. Now tell me this, Brute.

If we got out, where would we go?""Where Raines would least expect us to go. North into Canada and maybe on up into Alaska."

"Alaska!" Leroy shouted. "That's your a.s.s, blue-boy.

I ain't carryin' my a.s.s up there to freeze off."

Brute faced the gang leader. "To tell you the truth, Leroy, very few of us really give a d.a.m.n where you go. You're crude, ignorant, and a racist."

"You don't talk to me like that, f.a.ggy."

"I just did, Leroy," Brute said with a smile.

"And if you don't like it, come on and take your best shot."

Bull watched it all with a smile. He'd known Brute for years, and knew the man was just as tough as any among them. His s.e.xual preferences were a little weird, but no one with any sense would sell him short on courage ... not and live to tell about it.

"When this is over, I will," Leroy warned the man.

Brute put one hand on his hip andwiththe other hand, gave him the finger.

That made Leroy so mad he picked up a chair and threw it out a window. He and his bodyguards stormed out of the meeting. Leroy stood outside and calmed down. Problem was, he thought, what Carmine said was right. There just didn't seem to be a way to stop the d.a.m.n Rebels. They just kept on coming. They would sh.e.l.l and burn two or three blocks, and then lay back and wait to see if anyone tried to punch through.

Then they would move forward, and do it again and again.

Slowly, slowly, the noose was tightening around the necks of those inside the burning city.

Now the whole Mexican Army was stretched out from Mexicali to Tijuana, blocking that southern escape route. Too bad, Leroy thought.

Mexican p.u.s.s.y was good. He sighed. And now Mexican gunboats were out in the Gulf of Catalina, and the d.a.m.n Rebels were everywhere else.

Leroy cursed Ben Raines.

So maybe that d.a.m.n f.a.g had a good idea. But Alaska?

That just didn't appeal to Leroy at all.

"General Payon's army is in place,"

Corrie informed Ben. "All roads leading into Mexico are blocked and heavy patrols are at other strategic locations. A few punks and creepies might get away, but not many are going south."

"Thank you, Corrie. Now patch me through to Cecil, please."

"Go, Ben," Cecil said, coming on the horn.

"Cec, I spoke with General Payon. They had the same problem with their politicians down there that we had up here. Just one ma.s.sive network of misinformation. Mexico City is gone. It took a direct hit and will be hot for centuries. That much is fact. But the rest of the country is all right.

General Payon is temporarily in charge and ispatterning the laws after ours. They've been busy with punks and thugs and crud and Night People, and they're dealing with them the same way we did: with extreme prejudice."

"Ike informed me the Mexican gunboats are offsh.o.r.e now, in force, and have been in touch with him. They're prepared to stay for as long as it takes. It looks like we've finally got a handle on this situation."

"For a fact, Cec. I'm going to shove off in the morning and start an easy push west. General Payon says his people are dug in and ready for a fight."

"That's ten-four, Ben. Central Los Angeles is burning. Ike is in control of the old Los Angeles airport. There is nothing left between Manchester Avenue north to the mountains. Everything else has been put to the torch. My bunch, Ike, Georgi, Therm, and Dan's command, is stretched out along I-10. West and Seven and Eight Battalions are spread out north to south along I-110. We're closing the pincers, Ben.

There is no place left for the punks to run."

"Then they've got to pull a desperation move, Cec. They have no choice in the matter. Be alert for that. How about the creepies? Have they linked up with the street punks?"

"What's left of them, yes. And speaking of what's left, Ike reported finding what appears to be the HQ of the creepies comthe Judges' chambers, so to speak. There must have been quite a pocket of methane directly under the building. An HE round hit it and the whole d.a.m.n block went up. It was a pretty good bang. Ike's people found a lot of bodies, but no way for us to know how many of the Judges died."

"Do you have any kind of overall body count?"

"Adding what we guesstimated just before you left, Ben, I'd say close to twenty thousand have died.

I would guess that between two and three thousand have slipped out and split."

Ben paused for a moment. "Cec, do you want to try another attempt at surrender terms for them?" Ben could feel the weight of twenty thousand shot, burned, and blown-apart bodies on him, and he knew that his other commanders were experiencing the same emotion.

When Cecil spoke, there was a weariness in his voice. "And do what with them, Ben?

Rehabilitate them? How? Where would we house them? Weeks before we hit southern California we offered them surrender terms. They refused. We got on the edge of the city and offered them terms again.

They refused. To h.e.l.l with them, Ben. I wouldn't believe anything these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds said if they were standing in the middle of a bible factory."

"All right, Cec; then that's the way we'll play it. We won't offer them surrender terms again, but if they throw down their guns and walk out under a white flag, we'll honor it on the spot and try them.""All right, Ben. But I'm going to wait a few minutes before pa.s.sing the orders. You might change your mind."

"Eagle out."

Jersey was looking at him when Ben turned around.

"We've given them half a dozen chances to surrender, General. That's ten more than they would have given us."

Ben looked around him, his eyes touching each member of his personal team, and also his son. "Say what's on your mind, people."

"No surrender," Buddy said.

"They're sc.u.mbags, General," Beth said.

"They're slave traders, drug dealers, murderers, and cohorts of cannibals. They'll not surrender to me."

"Me neither," Cooper said, in a rare moment of standing up to the general. "I'll shoot every d.a.m.n one I see, armed or unarmed. They're worse than the n.a.z.is I've read about."

"I see," Ben said softly. "Is this the sentiment of everyone in this command?"

"Yes, Father," Buddy said. "It is."

Ben nodded his head and looked at Linda. She shook her head. "A small part of me says to show them some mercy. But a much larger part of me says that I could never trust one of them. Not after hearing what all of the ex-prisoners have to say about them."

"All right," Ben said, his words soft. He looked at Corrie. "Take it off scramble and patch me through to all commanders, please."

She handed the mike to him. "This is Ben Raines.

Take no prisoners. Repeat: take no prisoners. That is a direct order." He handed the mike back to Corrie. "Let's get packed up, people. We shove off at first light in the morning."

Ben's orders made it, in some respects, much easier for the Rebels on the line. No one ever disobeyed a direct order from Ben Raines.

In the ever-shrinking area controlled by the street punks and the creepies, the battle halted for a few moments after Ben had spoken. There, among all, it was a time for much retrospection and what-ifs. But after a few moments, most of the street punks reached the usual conclusion that what they were was somebody else's fault comn theirs. It was society's fault that they were not made chairpersons of the boards of large corporations the instant they dropped out of school.

They shouldn't have been sent to jail just because they raped or mugged or killed. The women should have given up that p.u.s.s.y on demand; the people should have handed over their money on demand; if they'd done that, then they wouldn't have been killed. Hurt, maybe, but what the h.e.l.l?

That's the breaks.

The street punks had arrived at this juncture of their lives not because of anything they had done, but because of society. After all, in the words of a less than logical song of decades past, during oneprotest period or another, they hadn't asked to be born, so society sure as h.e.l.l owed them something-right?

It had never occurred to most of them that society had offered them all a great many things: free schooling from K through 12 comand in many cases through college comif they had the drive to see it through. The right to choose their own paths. The right to vote. The right of free speech. They all had the same rights as anyone else. They were just too G.o.dd.a.m.n sorry and lazy and worthless to take advantage of it.

"It ain't right," Jimmy of the Indios said. "They ain't gonna give us another chance."

Brute of the White Men and Gash of the Surfers looked at each other and smiled. Cash said, "We had our chances, Jimmy. Zillions of them. But we blew them all every time one was offered to us. There ain't no point in whining about it now. Now all we got to do is die."

The area controlled by the street punks and the creepies had shrunk dramatically. The Rebel commanders had reached the point where the danger to their troops had lessened considerably; most of the work was up to the artillery. On the three landlocked sides of the area, gunners pumped in round after round, on a twenty-four-hour basis, the rolling and killing and burning thunder never ceasing. Fires from hundreds of out-of-control blazes lit up the night sky and smoke was so thick even during the day it was difficult to see. The last major bastion of lawlessness, perversion, cannibalism, and horror in the lower forty-eight was only a few days from being destroyed.

The leaders of the street gangs and a representative from the Believers called for a last-minute meeting.

Even Rich was in attendance.

"We got to bust out," Leroy said. He was calm and in control of himself, even though he still despised Rich. He spread a map on the table. "Right up here is the Rebels' weakest point-at least from what I could see. Brute, your plan was a good one.

We got to take it. I ..." He paused as the artillery stopped.

"What the h.e.l.l?-was Fang of the Hill Street Avengers said, the sudden silence loud in the room.

A radio operator answered the frantic calling on his radio, then turned to the gang leaders. "Our forward people say the Rebel planes is warming up.

You know what that means."

"Gas" Stan said. "The b.a.s.t.a.r.ds is gonna drop gas in on us like they done in Frisco."