"Alaska."

"What about it?"

"Oil. I know that everything was shut down after the government fell . . . for the second time. That area needs to be reopened."

"I agree with you. And I've given it a lot of thought. Are you volunteering to settle up there?"

Thermopolis smiled. "No. Emphatically, no.

But I wouldn't mind a short visit."

"Neither would I. All right. Let's do some thinking on it. Tell you what: why don't you pick some people and start prowling the city's libraries during this lull in the fighting. One thing about looters: they seldom steal books. See what you can find concerning Alaska."

"Me and my big mouth. I might have known you'd give me a d.a.m.n job."

"Your idea."

"We all make mistakes." But it was said with a smile. He drained his coffee cup and stood up.

"I'll get right on it." He started for the door.

"Thermopolis?"

The man turned around. "A lot of buildings have not been one hundred percent checked. You people go in armed and careful.

Another reason for that is I don't know when Voleta is going to strike. We've got to be ready at all times."

"I understand."

"Tell Corrie to get you some trucks, and some help rounding up crates." Ben smiled. "I always take books wherever I find them."

"I will admit, Ben Raines, that you do have some redeeming qualities."

"All right, boy," Ben said to Buddy. "Let's have it."

Buddy had been hustled to his father's CP before his feet were firmly on the ground.

"My team destroyed one full platoon of Villar's men about twenty-five or so miles inside Iowa."

"That's not what I mean."

"We saw no other signs of the enemy on our move south."

"That's good to know. But not what I wanted to hear from you."

"General Striganov and Five and Six battalions are in place."

"I know that, boy! I am in radio contact with them. Why in the h.e.l.l did you pull out from Dan's group and come here?"

"To help you fight my mother."

"You know I deliberately sent you away from this fight."

"Yes. I know. But my place is here. I sense it. So here I am."

"And you are going to do what?"

"Take over your personal security."

"I appreciate the thought, boy, but I don't need a G.o.dd.a.m.n nanny! I've been taking care of myself for a good many of my fifty years. Oh, h.e.l.l!" He waved his hand. "Go get something to eat."

Buddy turned to leave.

"And close the d.a.m.n door."

"Yes, sir." Smiling, Buddy stepped out of the office and closed the door behind him.

"That wasn't too bad," Beth said.

"Not as bad as I thought it was going to be. He didn't try to spank me."

They all got a laugh at the mental image of Ben with Buddy over his knee, applying a belt to the young man's b.u.t.t.

Buddy looked at Jerre. She and Cooper and Cor-rie were playing cards. "There has been no word from my mother?"

"No. We know she's going to strike. We just don't know when. Ashley has left her, though.

He and his men were seen in Western Missouri."

"They'll be linking up with Malone, then. And we don't have a large enough force west of here to stop them."

"Your father doesn't seem to be too worried about Ashley" Beth said. "He just wants this business with your mother over and done with."

"She's hard to kill," the heavily muscled young man said. "But she's evil and must be stopped. She is past redemption."

"What do you mean, Buddy?" Jerre asked.

He sighed and rubbed his chin with a big hand.

He needed a shave and wanted a shower. He and his Rat Team had been pushing themselves hard on the drive south, stopping only when absolutely necessary.

"I mean, Jerre, that I think if Voleta is to be stopped, I will have to be the one to stop her." "I hope it doesn't come to that, Buddy."

"It's already come to that, Jerre. I know it." He walked out of the room.

"Still no contact with Grumman and his platoon?" Villar asked.

"No, sir" the radio operator told him. "And I've tried repeatedly."

"They've bought it. We can scratch them off the roster." He lifted a map and studied it closely. His forward recc teams had radioed back distressing news. Raines had shifted his people, stretching them all the way to the Canadian line. The Rebels were thin, very thin, but still a force to be reckoned with. Splitting his people up into small groups had seemed, at first, to be a good idea. Now he was having second thoughts. Villar sighed heavily and shook his head. "We've got to mount an offensive and punch through. That's all we can do."

Again, Villar studied the map. Finally he nodded his head. "We'll start pulling all units in Wisconsin to our position. They'll move only at night, using slit headlamps. That will be slow, but will lessen the danger. We won't cross into Minnesota here. That's the first route in north of the river and that would be too obvious. We'll make our crossing just south of Duluth. Well punch through and do it fast and hard. Cutting north, we'll hit Highway Two and stay on it. Karl, tell all units south of the Wisconsin line to cut east for a hundred or so miles, then drive south just as fast as they can. Get under the Rebels' position and cut west. We'll make the link in Idaho. Or in h.e.l.l," he added grimly. "Whichever comes first."

The morning after Buddy's return, he stepped out of his quarters, relaxed and refreshed after a good night's sleep. He could not feel his mother's pre-sense so he concluded the Rebels had bought yet another day of waiting. No one laughed when Buddy talked about his being marked. The Rebels knew that even Ben Raines believed there was some truth in it.

And they all knew why Buddy had returned.

After breakfast, Buddy got in his Jeep and drove to the westernmost section of the city under Rebel control and parked, getting out.

"Yo, Buddy!" a sentry called, looking around his sandbagged position. He was not there to die if Vo-leta attacked. Just radio in and get the h.e.l.l back to friendlier lines.

Buddy called him by name and walked over to the position. "Anything going on?"

"Dead, man. Coffee?"

"Yes, that would be nice."

Buddy took powerful binoculars and scanned the sentry's perimeter. The terrain leaped into his view. There was nothing out of the ordinary anywhere he looked. He lowered the binoculars.

"Did my father Claymore the area?"

The Rebel smiled. "General Raines didn't do nothin," man. That area is as clean as a needle.

If Voleta attacks, I got orders to call in and bug out."

"He wants her to attack," Buddy muttered.

"He wants this to come to a head so he can pinch the boil and expel the corruption."

"That's why he wanted you out of here, Buddy. Aw, he isn't p.i.s.sed 'cause you came back-and I got that from close to him. He just wanted to spare you the . . . you know."

"I know. The death of my mother. She is meaningless to me now. She is a cancer that must be cut out and destroyed. I knew that even before I left her."

"Did you?" The sentry shook his head. "No.

Forget I even said anything."

"Ever think of killing her when I had the chance? Yes. Yes, I did. It was the Old Man, my grandfather, who prevented me from doing that.

More than once. And I have never admitted that to anyone." "It won't go any further, Buddy."

"It's all right if it does. It's time for me to be truthful. G.o.d knows I'm going to have to face up to it all very soon. Tonight. Tomorrow night. The next night.

But soon." He faced the young sentry. "When they attack, you get out very quickly. Use the radio in the Jeep to call in. Don't waste time staying and playing hero. And above all: don't let any of them take you alive. The Old Man shielded me from most of what those people are capable of doing, but I saw enough to know it would be an insult to a rabid dog to call them that."

"I can just imagine what they would do to a Rebel."

"No, you can't," Buddy told him. "Not in your wildest screaming nightmares. My mother likes fire, and sharp knives. And she can make the act of dying much more preferable to living. She has kept many prisoners alive for days, slowing skinning them. She is pure evil comif that connection is grammatically acceptable. Her brain is pus and her heart belongs to Satan."

The young sentry shivered as chill b.u.mps covered his flesh, although the day was very warm. "This Old Man you talk of ... he helped you get away?"

"Yes."

"What happened to him?" "She tortured him to death, so I later found out."

"What kin was he to her?"

Buddy's eyes turned cold. "He was her father."

The scattered men of the terrorist armies made their night runs to the north with much caution, taking back country roads, avoiding any town that might be populated with anyone with a radio who could call into Ben Raines. And that was getting very nearly impossible to avoid.

"The b.a.s.t.a.r.d has outposts all over the f.u.c.king nation," Villar cursed Ben. "He's stuck up a clean zone everywhere a hog roots."

"And it's just as bad in Canada," Khamsin told him. "The d.a.m.n Canucks put a gun in a child's hand practically at birth."

"Blame that on Ben Raines," Kenny said.

"That's the one thing he and my father agreed on."

Villar consulted a map. They had miles to go and it looked like everybody that was coming in, had arrived. It was obvious that more than half of the terrorists had elected to push south. With a sigh of frustration, he flung the map to the floor and began cursing Ben Raines until he was breathless.

Kenny read the man's anguish accurately. "We don't have the men to punch a hole, do we?" "I don't think so. Not without losing more than we can afford to lose."

Khamsin spoke softly, and no one in the room doubted him for an instant. "I will never surrender to Ben Raines. I will die fighting him. Allah be praised!"

Villar looked at him, a faint light of amus.e.m.e.nt in his eyes. "How in the h.e.l.l do you justify calling on your G.o.d when you've spread unnecessary death and destruction all over the d.a.m.n world, Khamsin?"

"I am a believer, that's why?" The man seemed surprised he would even be asked such a question. "There is a place in heaven for me."

"Horses.h.i.t!" Kenny said. "People like you fry my a.s.s. At least me and Lan aren't hypocrites about what we do and what we are. I got a spot in h.e.l.l reserved for me, and so does Lan. And if the truth be known, so do you, Khamsin. So do you."

The outburst didn't startle or upset Khamsin. He merely shrugged them off as words out of the mouth of an infidel. Like so many people of all faiths, Khamsin was smug about his convictions. He felt in his heart that when he died he would follow the golden path to sit by the side of Allah. What these two nonbelievers thought meant absolutely nothing to him. And he certainly wasn't going to debate his beautiful religion with anyone who boasted that after death they would have a seat next to Satan.

"I will lead the a.s.sault against the lines of the Rebels," Khamsin said. "Show me where you wish to break through, and it shall be done."

Villar studied the man for a long moment, then slowly nodded his head. The fool believed he could do it, so maybe he could. Let him lose his men trying or succeeding. Villar pointed to the map. "Right here, Khamsin. Right here."

The Hot Wind looked at the spot. "It shall be done. Praise Allah!"

"When nothing is heard from that b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Villar"

Dan spoke to Georgi Striganov, "brace yourself. He's certainly up to something."

"I agree," the Russian said. "He's had me worried ever since he dropped out of sight."

"The bridges are covered on the west side and wired to blow. Villar will have guessed that. He won't try the bridges. We have people all along the river and they report no sign of the man. My guess is that he his ll try to punch through between these two spots." He pointed them out on a map. "Probably just south of Duluth. That will give him good access to this highway."

"That is by no means our strongest spot," Georgi said.