Don't get any of it on you. Bring it back to me. Judy, when he gets back, you find a pot and boil that battery acid until white fumes appear. Then remove it from the heat and don't inhale any of the fumes."

Ben prowled the station until he found several cans of antifreeze. "Good enough," he muttered.

"Mister Campo, you are about to experience one h.e.l.l of a lot of big bangs."

When Ben had all the materials at hand, he began measuring carefully. Judy watched him intently. "Ben, what are you doing?"

"Making methyl nitrate dynamite, dear.You're old enough to remember the United States Army Rangers, aren't you?"

"Yes. were you one?"

"Yes." Before you were born, Ben thought sourly.

"Get some shotgun sh.e.l.ls out of my truck and pour out the powder in a dry container. I've got to make some blasting caps."

"You're a strange man, Ben."

"I'm a survivor, honey. Do unto others before they do unto you."

She laughed at that and went off to get the powder Ben needed.

"Wally, prowl the town and find me some iron or steel pipe that has one end capped off. Get a hacksaw- I saw one in the office-and cut me half a dozen. No smaller than an inch. Take off."

With the brother and sister out of harm's way, Ben checked the gla.s.s containers. The mixture had settled and separated. Ben carefully removed the top layer and very carefully placed that in another jar.

This was the explosive. He added an equal amount of water and began swirling the mixture. He set it aside and once again allowed the mixture to separate. The highly volatile explosive was now the bottom layer in the jar. He removed the top layer and threw it away- carefully. Ben had shredded some cloth and placed that in an old pan.

He slowly added the mixture until the cloth had absorbed it and was damp. He now had a form of dynamite.

It took him only a few minutes to construct blasting caps.

"What are you going to use to detonate those things?"

Wally asked.

"I'll make regular fuses for some of them,"

Ben explained. "For the others, find me some clothespins."

"Clothespins?" Judy asked.

"Clothespins," Ben repeated. "Wally, you get me some copper wire and the finest, darkest wire you can find. We'll b.o.o.by-trap some of these buildings and lay down a false trail."

Muttering, Wally went in search of material.

Ben stripped the copper wire and wrapped one wire around the top jaw of the clothespin, another raw wire around the bottom part. He took a small, flat piece of wood, punched a hole in one end, and clamped the wire-wrapped jaws of the pin to the other end. He secured one end of the tripwire through the hole.

He talked as he worked, conscious of Judy standing very close to him. "I'll have two wires running from the explosives. One wire is connected to the positive terminal of a battery; the other wire runs to the top jaw of the pin. The wire running from the bottom jaw of the pin is connected to the other terminal of the battery. This piece of wood between the jaws prevents contact from being made untilsomeone trips it. When the exposed wires come in contact- bang!"

"I don't think I'd want you for an enemy, Ben Raines," Judy said.

Ben looked up at her and smiled. "Then let's be friends."

"I'd like that."

Ben worked the rest of that morning on his bombs and b.o.o.by-trapping several buildings on the main drag of town. The buildings he rigged with explosives were located in the center of town, on both sides of the street. After rigging each building, the tripwire located several feet inside the doorway, Ben would clear away the debris that littered the doorway, making it appear that someone had recently used the doorway several times.

"Tell me about this Campo b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Judy,"

Ben said.

"He's a big hulking brute of a man. A giant. Probably six feet, seven or eight inches tall. Three-hundred-plus pounds.

While I was a captive of his, several of his men mentioned that he was somehow tied in with a man called Sam Hartline. What do you know about Hartline?"

Ben stopped working and looked at Judy. "That son of a b.i.t.c.h! Will I never be rid of him?"'

"You know him?"

"Unfortunately. Sam Hartline is the sorriest b.a.s.t.a.r.d G.o.d ever put on the face of the earth."

"Well, Campo doesn't work for him any longer. Campo turned out to be too brutal for even your Mister Hartline."

"That's going some. But please. He isn't "my Mister Hartline." I'd like nothing better than to kill that perverted filth."

"Why don't you, then?"

Ben smiled. "He's about as hard to kill as I am, Judy."

"Then make friends and team up with him."

"If you can't beat "em, join 'em? Would you try to make friends with a rattlesnake, Judy?"'

"No. But that's not the same. Hartline is a human being."

"So was. .h.i.tler," Ben countered.

Judy c.o.c.ked her head to one side. "Who's that?"

Judy, Ben learned, was twenty-five years old-she thought. Her parents were killed during the initial wave of nuclear and germ warfare back in '88. That would have made her eleven years old at the time.

She had "taken up with an ol' boy," when she was seventeen. He'd been killed two years later by Hilton Logan's Federal Police. Judy hated and feared cops- of any kind.

"Chances are, Judy," Ben told her, "you'll see very few cops from here on out."

"Good," she said. Ben had posted Wally on top of a building. He knew that trucks like his-in such good shape and equipped with several antennas-would be extremely rare. And he felt sure Campo would have spies throughout his territory.

Ben was ready. The three of them had worked hard and swiftly for several hours in preparation for Campo and his creeps. Now all they could do was wait.

"Why did we pile all that junk around those

fifty-five.

gallon drums of gasoline, Ben?"

Judy asked, pointing to the carefully piled materials at each corner of the block.

"Because when I get as many of Campo's people within this one-block area as possible, I'm going to turn this street into an inferno. We toss a c.o.c.ktail into the debris, then, when it's burning, shoot into the drums of gas. The fumes ignite."

"Where are you going when this is over, Ben?"

"Just wandering. How about you?"'

"Wally wants to stay in this area and start up another church."

"And you?"'

"I don't want to stay. I'd like to see the country. I'll bet I haven't been three hundred miles in any direction from this point. Not in my whole life."

"How did you avoid Logan's resettlement plans?"'

"Paul and me hid out, then we went to live with kin up in Kentucky. That's when I started back to school. Then the rats came."

Ben had learned that most people did not care to discuss that period of their lives. The memories were just too horrible. Those rodents had almost been the final blow against humanity.

"Well, I'm certainly going to ramble around when this is over, Judy. You're welcome to come with me."

"No strings attached?"'

"None whatsoever."

"Here they come!" Wally shouted. He scrambled down from the building and took up his position. Ben watched him through worried eyes.

Wally had pointed toward the east.

"You don't think Wally has his share of guts, do you, Ben?" Judy asked.

"I'm sure he is a very brave man, Judy.

But being a brave man and being a survivalist are two entirely different things. Wally has a reluctant trigger finger, that's all. And at times like these, that is a drawback to those who might be depending on his reactions."

"He's killed before," Judy defended her brother.

"When absolutely pushed to the wall and then only after putting his life, your life, or somebody else's life in jeopardy." It was not posed in question form.

"How'd you know that?" "Wally's about ten years older than you, right, Judy?"

"How'd you know that?

Yeah, that's right."

"Wally remembers when a person could call a cop. His formative years were in the late '60's and '70's. He probably feels guilty just at the thought of picking up a big, bad gun to defend himself against all these poor misguided souls that roam the country, raping and killing and stealing."

She laughed softly at the expression on his face. "You ever been married, Ben?"

The sound of labored engines was growing louder.

"Yes. A long time ago." Long ago and far away, the line came to the one-time-writer-turned-warrior. "Here they come.

Stay very still, Judy."

"Campo won't come in with his men," Judy said.

"He always lays back until it's clear. I've watched him do it a half-dozen times."

Ben nodded and watched the lead vehicle turn the corner, its ugly, squat nose poking arrogantly around the corner. The truck was not a one-ton truck but a heavier bob truck. The front and sides had been fortified with steel plate. Gun slits bad been cut into the steel plate. The muzzles of automatic weapons stuck out of the slits.

Ben watched as two more fortified trucks pulled around the corner. "They're going to strafe first," Ben whispered. Whispering was not really necessary. The trucks had no m.u.f.flers and were making enough noise to almost cover a gunshot. "You climb down into that bay there.

I'll join you very soon, believe me."

Then Ben was alone as the woman scampered into the protective old bay. He heard the metallic sounds of radio speakers barking out their static.

Another truck pulled around the corner, then another. He watched as the muzzles of the guns on his side lowered. He slipped into the concrete protection of the bays just as the machine guns opened up, the slugs tearing great jagged holes in the old wooden doors of the service area. Bits of broken gla.s.s sparkled in flight, showering Ben and Judy with shards of gla.s.s. Several of the big .50-caliber slugs struck the inner frame of the sliding door and knocked the door ajar.

The strafing stopped. "Remember, Jake wants that c.u.n.t alive. Fan out and search both sides of the block. They got to be here. They didn't make it to McKinnon and they ain't on the east side of town. Most out."

Ben had tucked his truck into a ravine a half-mile out of the town proper and covered it with brush. The ravine wound around and connected with a dry creek bed that ran just behind the old station. That would be their escape route.

They hoped.

Boots crunched on the broken and litteredstreet and sidewalks. Ben and Judy tensed as the boots stopped in front of the service station.

"s.h.i.t!" they heard a man mutter. "Ben Raines ain't nowhere around these parts. And if n he was, I don't want no truck with him."

"You better not let Jake hear you say that,"

another man said. "Jake hates Ben Raines."

In the darkness of the bay, Ben felt Judy's eyes on him, asking silent questions. Ben shrugged.

So far as he knew, he had never met Jake Campo.