"Yeah! Very G.o.dd.a.m.n funny.""Corrie," Ben said. "Contact General Payon. Advise him of this ... disease. Tell him that he has my permission to cross over the border and sweep the zone. Advise him to be very careful."

"Yes, sir."

"Buddy, bring in a prisoner, please."

The man was a burly specimen, but his color was bad, and he had a racking cough. The normally white of his eyes was a muddy color. He stared defiantly at Ben.

"My name is Ben Raines. What's yours?"

"I'm known as Eightball."

"Do you have a proper name?"

"Why? You gonna carve it on my headstone?"

"Probably not, since we usually shoot the prisoners and burn the bodies."

That shook Eightball, right down to his shoes.

"Ah ... well, I might be able to help you, General. What is it you want to know?"

"What are we going to find in San Diego?"

Eightball chuckled, but it held no humor.

"Pimps, wh.o.r.es, dopers, warlords, outlaws, street gangs, cannibals. You name it, and you'll find it in the city."

"You must like that kind of life."

Eightball shrugged. "Beats the h.e.l.l outta jo*' up with you people and havin' to work."

"That's all there is in the city?" Ben asked.

"That's it. You done run everybody outta the zone and the no-man's-land. I "spect them G.o.dd.a.m.n greasers south of the border will be comin" up to join you "fore long."

"You're a very sick man, Eightball. Are you aware of that?"

"I knew somethin" was wrong with me. Cain't find no medicine to help me neither. Lots of sickness in the city. Folks dyin' ever' time you turn around."

"How do you dispose of the bodies?"

"Haul "em out to the dump. Rats eat them. I seen rats out there big as dogs."

Ben closed his eyes and silently cursed. He opened his eyes and pointed to the wall map. "Where is this dump?"

"South of Spring Valley. Just north of the old reservoir."

"Do you still get water from that reservoir?"

"Sure."

"Get the planes up," Ben ordered. "Napalm that entire area. Blanket it with fire. Advise General Payon of this."

Ben was silent for a moment. "When you've done that, Corrie, advise Doctor Chase of this development." He turned his attentions to Eightball. "How well are the people armed, Eightball?"

The man sighed. What the h.e.l.l, he thought, making up his mind. I ain't got nothin" to lose now no ways, and I sure don't owe n.o.body nothin' inthe city. "Rifles, pistols, shotguns, grenades. Machine guns. No artillery of any kind. They's some there, but don't n.o.body know how to work the d.a.m.n things. Got plenty of rounds for them on all the old military bases, though."

They all smiled at that news.

"Slaves?" Ben asked. "Prisoners?"

"Not many. Most of them was turned loose out in the zone as the folks was comin' into the city. They just was more trouble than they was worth."

"You're a middle-aged man, Eightball. What did you do before the Great War?"

Eightball shrugged. "Whatever I wanted to.

Spent about half my life in prison." He lifted his eyes to stare at Ben. "And I don't need no G.o.dd.a.m.n sermon. I wouldn't change much."

"What would you change?"

The man grinned, exposing blackened and yellowing stumps of rotting teeth. "I'd kill them people I robbed so's they couldn't testify agin me in court and put me in the bucket."

"Get him out of here," Ben ordered.

The street punks in the rubble of Los Angeles tried to break through just after dark. The Rebels had placed sound-sensors in those areas that seemed the most likely escape routes and when the alarm was triggered, flares went up, catching the punks trying to bust out.

Heavy machine-gun fire raked the harshly lighted night and mortar crews pounded the smoking ashes with HE rounds. b.o.o.by traps ripped the night, the Claymores turning flesh and bone into b.l.o.o.d.y rags. The punks. .h.i.t dark trip-wires and had about two seconds to contemplate where they had gone wrong and perhaps say a silent prayer for forgiveness. Then their world went dark. About a third of the punks make it past Rebel-held territory and headed north. About ten percent of those who broke free silently vowed to change their ways and go straight. They did not want to ever again incur the wrath of the Rebels.

The slithering shapes of the Believers were the easier for the Rebels to spot, and they were the most hated. Rebel snipers, their high-powered rifles equipped with night scopes, relentlessly and savagely picked them off as the cannibals tried to break free of their smoking prison that had once been known as the City of the Angels.

"He's a-comin' right up alongside 405," a very scared punk told Cecil. "Leroy knows you and him is brothers, so he's countin' on you to let him pa.s.s."

Cecil looked startled.

"Brothers!"

he said. "That misbegotten, ignorant bag of s.h.i.t actually thinks that because we are of the same race I would let him go?""Yes, sir. I reckon he made a mistake, din he?"

"Yes," Cecil replied. "I reckon he did." He turned to his XO. "Let him come on. Ill be down by 405."

"Sir," the XO said. "That's ..."

"... all," Cecil finished with a frosty look.

"Take command here."

"Yes, sir!"

Cecil picked up his M-16 and walked out of the room and to a waiting vehicle. He could not help but notice as a full company of Rebels, in deuce-and-a-halfs and armor, fell in behind him. Like Ben, he had grown used to it.

"A convoy of cars and trucks coming up north on La Brea, General," his radio operator told him. "Headlights on like they know they're not going to be stopped."

"They're in for a very large surprise," Cecil said. "Is that them up ahead?"

"Yes, sir."

"Pull over." Cecil got out and waved his troops into position in the rubble of the area. Cecil moved over into the shadows. "Give that lead vehicle some .50-caliber juice in the radiator," he ordered.

A hastily set up machine gun yammered for a couple of seconds. Both headlights were knocked out of the truck and steam hissed from a shattered radiator. Men piled out of the cab and out of the bed of the truck. Those in the vehicles behind the crippled truck bailed out and sought cover.

"Hey!" Leroy called out, crouching behind a pile of bricks. "Is y'all troops of the African-American's command?"

"African-American?" A young sergeant looked at Cecil. "Is he talking about you, sir?"

"Yes, Smith. So if we all followed that ancestral nonsense, you would be English-American. Swenson would be, probably, Swedish-American. Mac would be Irish-American, and so on and so forth until it became mind-boggling with its complications. Can you imagine writing a book with a dozen nationalities involved? The writer would spend half his or her time typing words that had nothing at all to do with the plot. Not to mention having to read the dreary mess."

"Hey, Bro!" Leroy called. "Brother General! Is you there?"

"Brother General," Cecil mused. "Now there is one for the record." He cleared his throat and yelled, "This is General Jefferys. And I am not your brother, thank G.o.d."

"Course you is, man. We brothers. We got a lot in common," Leroy yelled.

Cecil, total disgust in his voice, lifted the bullhorn a Rebel handed him. "You and I, idiot, have absolutely nothing at all in common."

"Huh! Sh.o.r.e we do, man-we brothers. Letme pa.s.s on through, brother."

"Just the thought of that biological impossibility makes me nauseous, Leroy."

"You an uppity mother-f.u.c.ker, ain't you, General?"

Cecil smiled. "No, I don't think so. But I know what you are."

"Why don't you tell me then, Uncle Tom."

"I shall. Right before I kill you."

Leroy started hollering and cussing. Cecil turned to an aide. "Mortar crews in place and grenade launchers ready?"

"Yes, sir."

"Cream them."

The early evening was shattered by the howling of rockets and the exploding of mortar rounds. Machine guns yammered and snarled. The vehicles of the street punks exploded and the flames lit up the ruined buildings on either side of the battleground.

Street punks tried to run, but Rebels with flares were ready for them. The flares were shot into the air, the brilliant harshness illuminating the punks. The Rebels cut them down.

Cecil called for a cease-fire. The sounds of moaning filled the smoky air.

"This is the way we're going to finish it," Cecil said. "Order all units forward. Search and destroy. All units into the city. Now!"

Cecil walked out onto the b.l.o.o.d.y battleground, searching for Leroy. He found him lying on his back, both hands holding his bullet-punctured belly.

Leroy cursed him. "You a traitor to your kind, Tom!" he spat at Cecil.

"One of us is, that's for sure, and I think we both know who that person is."

"You jive mother-f.u.c.ker!"

Cecil was not by nature a mean or cruel person.

The son of a psychiatrist and a college professor, he'd spent his formative years listening to Brahms and Mozart at home, and soul music in the streets. He was highly educated, and had never run into much prejudice from educated people of any race. He was an ex-Green Beret officer who'd joined the army to see some action and, as he put it, "got shot in the a.s.s in Laos."

He tried very hard to understand people like Leroy, but he was the first to admit that he could not.

"I never cared much for jive, Leroy. I preferred Beethoven."

"That ain't what I mean, white-a.s.s-licker!"

"I've never kissed the a.s.s of any white, Leroy. But I have sure kicked some white a.s.s in my time."

"Huh?"

"You wouldn't understand, Leroy. All you know is hate. And maybe you have a right to hate-or think you do, as Thermopolis says. But it's all moot, now, isn't it, Leroy. You're dying. What'd you do with your slaves?"

"Killed "em."Cecil shook his head. "Did you really think that because I am a black person, I would let you go free?"

"African-American!"

"No, Leroy, I was born in America. So that makes me an American first, and a black man second. I have no ties with Africa.

I've never been there. Wouldn't you much rather be talking about something else in the time you have left before you meet the Devil?"

Leroy spat at him and cursed him. "You said you knew what I was. What am I?"

Cecil smiled and told him.

The Rebel planes began napalming the area around the dump on the outskirts of San Diego just as Cecil committed all his forces into the center of Los Angeles. The move caught the punks and the creepies by surprise and many died with shock written on their dirty faces.

The Rebels pushed forward a dozen blocks that night, before Cecil called a halt to the drive.

He would resume it at first light.

At first light, Ben ordered his people across the Soledad Freeway and forward into San Diego. Black smoke was still spiraling into the sky from the burning dump as the Rebels charged across the Freeway.

Those now inhabiting the San Diego area were at first stunned by the ferocity of the attack, then began running in fear as the Rebels charged into the outskirts of the city, burning and destroying everything they came in contact with. Like those punks who had once controlled Los Angeles, these dregs of humanity had no central leader, and no plans for any type of counterattack. They found they had but two choices: stand and die or run.

For the first day, they ran.