"Nothing?" Ike asked, standing in the door of the communications building.

"Nothing, sir," the young woman told him. "But for some reason, the static is not as bad as it was yesterday." She looked at a chart. "It's down by twenty percent."

Gale and Tina entered the room.

"What's the word on Dad?" Tina asked.

Ike shook his head.

"Ike," Gale said, "you look like an old hound dog. Come on! You've known Ben for years. You know he's an expert at getting out of tight spots."

Ike grinned. "Gettin'

into them is a speciality of his, too."

"Why does this Mississippi redneck always have to make something s.e.xual out of everything people say?"

Gale asked, winking at Tina.

"What'd I say?" Ike asked, rolling his eyes. "What'd I say?"'

"Uncle Ike," Ben's adopted daughter said, "you're impossible."

Cecil stepped into the room. "We have a revival in here?" the black man asked.

"Yeah," Gale said. "With preachin" and singin' and dinner on the grounds. That'd be a first for me, let me tell you."

Ike put his arm around Gale's slender shoulders. "I'll make a Baptist outta you yet, darlin'."

Gale looked at him, feigning great horror. "Do I look like a yold to you?" she asked him.

"Say that in American, darlin'," Ikegrinned. "My French never was very good."

Ben opened his eyes and looked at the luminous hands of his watch. Four o'clock. He could not believe the night had pa.s.sed without an attack from the outlaws.

He rolled from his blankets and pulled on his boots.

He climbed upstairs and relieved Kathy at her lonely lookout, sending her to bed.

Ben checked the dark terrain surrounding the house.

He could not see any movement in the inkiness, but his senses were working overtime.

Something, or somebody, was out there. Waiting.

Watching.

He didn't need anyone to step down from the Mount to tell him who it was and what they were about to do. He waited and watched until five thirty.

He shook Rani awake. "We have company,"

he told her. "Get up and very quietly wake the kids. Get them to their posts. I think they're going to hit us-for some reason-at first light."

The last thing Ben had done before calling it a day the afternoon before was to take the belts from some of the dead men and rig suspended harnesses for the M-16's. From the ceiling, the harnesses would hold the M-16's at the right height for the young people manning them; from the floor, the harnesses would prevent the weapons from jumping out of their young hands on full auto, and still keep the weapons aligned-more or less.

The gun slits Ben had built had been constructed with each young person in mind; just to the right height to afford the maximum protection from bullets.

Now, each person, with Ben being the exception, had twin M-16's suspended and ready to go.

Ben was ready with his homemade bombs, his RPG launcher, and his stack of fully loaded automatic shotguns taken from the dead men; along with several automatic weapons and, of course, his old faithful .45-caliber Thompson.

Rani joined him on the ground floor with a cup of steaming hot tea. Together, they sipped tea and watched the horizon begin to lighten in the east.

Ben was impa.s.sive as the sky grew brighter, allowing them to view what lay before them.

Rani sucked in a hard gulp of air and let it out with a hiss. She clutched at his arm.

"I see them," Ben said.

They were totally surrounded. Cars, trucks, vans, and motorcycles lined the area around the ghost town. What seemed to be hundreds of men stood quietly in a circle, facing the house from all conceivable directions.

"I've tracked you across five states, Raines," Jake spoke through a bullhorn, his electronically magnified voice booming out of the dawn.

"Four states," Ben calmly corrected.

Rani looked up at him. "Please excuse him," she said sarcastically. "But I'm open to a deal," Jake said.

"I can just imagine what it might be," Ben muttered.

"Yes," Rani said.

"You hear me, you skinny son of a b.i.t.c.h!"

Jake roared.

Rani looked Ben up and down andwitha smile, said, "You could stand to put on a few more pounds."

"I'm very comfortable the way I am, thank you."

"You hear me, you a.s.shole!" Jake roared.

"Yes, I hear you, fatso!" Ben yelled. "No deals."

Some of Campo's men giggled and Jake frosted them silent with a hard look.

"I'm gonna skin that son of a b.i.t.c.h alive!"

Jake growled. "After I make him watch while I f.u.c.k his woman and all them kids, right in front of his eyes. Boys and girls."

"Jesus, Jake!" one of his men yelled. "Them ain't sandbags he's got piled around the house.

Them's dead bodies."

West lifted his binoculars and looked, as did Texas Red and Cowboy Vic. The three of them exchanged uneasy glances.

Even Jake swallowed hard after viewing the scene through field gla.s.ses. He shook his head. "Some people just ain't got no cla.s.s at all," he said.

"That's unholy. He'll go to h.e.l.l for that."

Even Crazy Cowboy Vic looked at Jake oddly after that remark.

Many of the outlaws standing in the circle around the house shuffled their feet and exchanged glances of indecision. It would not take much for some of them to split the scene and say to h.e.l.l with Ben Raines.

"Your life for them kids and the woman!" Jake lied.

Ben looked at Rani. "I wish I had a 81-mm mortar," he said. "I'd give that larda.s.s an answer he'd never forget."

"Without taking anything away from your request, Ben," Rani replied. "I'd like to see that platoon of your Rebels come riding up."

"Well, yes. I suppose I'd settle for that."

Those Rebels of Ben's were on the way, but about half of them were in no condition for a fight.

Using a range-finder, Ben plotted the distance at nine hundred yards. He picked up his bolt-action rifle and thumbed it off safety, adjusting the huge scope. Campo stood with an open van door in front of him. At this range, a head shot would be nearly impossible to make.

But one outlaw, with more guts than sense-or maybe he was just plain stupid, that was probably it- was standing on top of the cab of a pickup truck. Bensighted him in.

"If you make that shot, Ben," Rani said, "I'll give you a present."

Ben looked at her and waggled his eyebrows.

"Oh?"

She grinned and patted him on the arm. "Calm yourself, old man. Heavy breathing will throw off your aim. Besides, are you sure you can handle me?"

Ben gave her his best lewd grin.

"Uh-huh," she said.

Ben propped the rifle on the sill for support, took aim, and gently squeezed the trigger. The outlaw flew off the top of the cab, a b.l.o.o.d.y hole in the center of his chest.

"Now come and get us," Jordy yelled from the top floor. "You fat-a.s.s!"

Chapter 23.

The circle of outlaws moved as if controlled by one mind. The outlaws were growling and snarling like the animals they were. They were shouting obscenities at the house and its occupants.

"Hold your fire!" Ben called just loud enough for the kids to hear.

The bolts of the twin M-16's were pulled. The kids gripped the pistol grips, pressing the stocks against young shoulders, getting ready for the jar and slam of double-16's on full auto.

The circle drew nearer.

Ben noticed that Campo, West, Texas Red, and Cowboy Vic had stayed back, well out of conventional rifle range.

"True leaders of men," Ben muttered.

He picked up his .30-06 and clicked it off safety, lifting the stock to his shoulder and sighting in one particularly ugly outlaw.

The part of the circle that had gathered at the rear of the old town had vanished into the ruins of the ghost town.

Ben smiled, thinking: Only a few more seconds before one of them takes that one last long step.

A hideous scream cut the air as an outlaw stepped into a mine shaft and went tumbling into eternity, howling as he fell.

Ben pulled the trigger and blew off a man's jaw. The man was flung backward, landing on his a.s.s in the sand.

"Fire!" Ben yelled.

Twelve M-16's, all older models, all fully automatic, began singing their death songs, yammering and spitting out lead.

Ben was firing an AK-47 on full auto, the 7.62 ammo cutting great holes in the now-broken circle of outlaws.

A man stepped into a punji trap, the sharpened stake driven through his foot, trapping him on the sands. He howled and beat his fists on the ground, all the fight gone from him.

Ben let him howl.

Behind Ben, on the other end of the first floor, Rani was manning her twin 16's, the 16's jumping in their harness, the floor around her twinkling withbra.s.s.

Over the rattling and cracking of gunfire, the pinging of bra.s.s bouncing off the floor, Ben heard the faint screams of another man as he stepped onto the thin covering over a deep shaft. The man went howling into his frightened death.

The circle of outlaws broke, splintering like an egg sh.e.l.l, leaving a half-dozen men trapped on the porch, their hands slick with the gore from the bodies they were forced to climb over getting to the porch.

Ben dropped the empty AK and jerked up a sawed- off shotgun, an automatic that held nine three-inch magnums.

Ben cleared the porch of all living things, the shotgun roaring in his hands.

"Cease fire!" Ben yelled.

The house fell silent. Now, only the moaning and crying and cursing and screaming of the wounded outlaws could be heard.

"Sound off!" Ben called.