"Ben. Just Ben. Yes, they do, Ralph. I would have died fighting before I would have allowed myself to become what West made of you people."

"I won't become angry at that, Ben. Some people might, but I won't. I was quite a fan of yours, Ben. Not during your short tenure as President, mind you; but when you were writing books for a living."

"I did my best to warn the people what was coming dead at them."

"Yes, you did. You and a dozen other writers.

But we just wouldn't listen, would we?"

"Sure as h.e.l.l wouldn't," Ben muttered.

"And now the great, indomitable, long-suffering Ben Raines, with a long sigh of resignation, will gather upall his hundreds of survival experts, and travel the battered nation, setting up little outposts of civilization, kicking the civilians in the b.u.t.t, jerking them out of their doldrums, saving them from themselves.

Right?"

"You're the one talking, Doctor. But you're in a pretty sorry state for a man who has all the answers."

"Oh, you're right. But you enjoy it, General."

"What?"'

"Stop running from the truth, General. You wouldn't have conditions any other way. You see, it's always easy for men like you. I envy you: you and those that follow you."

"Barnes, I don't know what in the h.e.l.l you're talking about."

The doctor studied the man for a long moment.

"Maybe you really don't, General. I have all your books, Ben. I really do. St. You could have been a great writer, but you chose to write pulp.

Oh, it was good pulp-contradictory statement, yes."

"Doctor, get to the point of this, will you, please?"

"You're an idealist, General. You refuse to take into account the many weaknesses of human beings.

You took what you considered to be the cream of the crop and built your Tri-States-was "It worked, Doctor," Ben cut him off. "You can't deny that."

"I won't try to deny it. Yes, it worked. How could it fail when you gathered the best around you?"

Ben smiled. "Here it comes. After all that's happened, you're still a liberal at heart." .

"To some degree," Barnes admitted.

"There is no middle ground with you, Ben. Everything is either black or white. No gray in-between."

"Doctor," Ben said patiently. "One can train a dog to obey basic rules. Now if a dog can be taught the difference between right and wrong, it should be very simple to teach a human being."

Barnes shook his head. "You're a hard man, Ben Raines. But," he sighed, "perhaps it's time for hard men. One philosophy, right, Ben? No taking into account different cultures, backgrounds, early upbringing-anything like that, right?"

"You stick to healing, Barnes," Ben told him.

"Leave the rest for people who have the stomach for it."

"General Raines, you want what never was and never will be: a perfect society. But you cannot build a perfect society when the architects are imperfect human beings."

Ben smiled again. "The man said, quoting Ben Raines."

The doctor's smile matched Ben's. "That's right, you did write that, didn't you? I'll live in your society, General. But I'll do so because of thesafety it affords me, not because I agree with its basic philosophy."

"Then that makes you a hypocrite, doesn't it, Mr. Barnes?"

The doctor chose not to reply. He studied Ben for a moment, then walked away.

Ben noticed the seat of the man's jeans had been crudely patched with a piece of canvas. For all his education and lofty thoughts, the man could just barely keep his a.s.s from showing through.

Chapter 5.

"Still angry at me?" Ben asked Judy.

"Mad!" she said.

"Very well. When you get your rabies shot, let me know. I'll be around."

She grabbed his arm with surprising strength and spun him around as he turned to go. "Ben, these people were beaten down-whipped. Now they've had a small victory and they're happy. And you think it's funny."

"Judy ..." Ben stepped closer. "I'm amused, but not in the way you think. My Rebels have played out this same scenario for years. Has it occurred to you that we just might be weary of it?"

"Then why don't you and your people just quit?" she asked hotly.

"We can't. For our own sake, we can't.

It's never-ending for us. I see that now. If I- we comh a destiny, this is it."

"Yeah, you said that-something like it-back in the truck.

But you don't have to act so ... so smart-a.s.sed about it!"

He laughed at her and took her hand. "Come on, fireball. We've got to start setting up a defense line against West and his people."

"And it annoys you that you have to remind the people to do it, right, Ben?"

"Oh, not really. I guess it's second nature for me." He smiled. "Just one of my many talents."

Judy muttered something extremely profane under her breath.

"You don't know the exact location of West's base camp?" Ben asked.

"Not his main camp," Leigh ton said. "We know where most of his work camps are, though."

They were taking a break from setting up a first line of defense on the north side of town.

"After we arm ourselves better with the weapons taken from the next contingent of West's people, we'll hit the first labor camp and free your friends. By that time, my Rebels should be here with some heavier stuff."

Barnes looked horrified. "You plan to fight West's people before your troops get here?"'

"Sure," Ben said.

"Are you mad or just insufferably arrogant?" the doctor asked.

"Neither one, I hope," Ben said with a smile. "Look around you, General!" Barnes almost shouted the words. "You have thirty people armed, and not well-armed, at that. West has between four hundred and six hundred well-armed and trained men."

"But he can't send all of them at once," Ben said gently. "That would leave his labor camps unguarded. He can't leave his base camp unguarded; that's probably where he stashes his weapons and ammo. Warlords down through history share many things in common, one of which is a monumental ego.

I'm counting on this West person to fit the mold.

He will find where we ambushed and killed his people. I'm counting on that. It's kind of hard to miss a half-dozen hanging bodies," Ben added drily.

"That's going to make West either awfully angry or awfully cautious. I'm betting on angry. We're going to let him bust through this first line of barricades with very little resistance. See how they're placed close to deep ditches so we can jump into their protection and run screaming and frightened away from the Big Bad West? You notice I have the other teams working just around that curve, one mile down the road. Row after row of drums filled with water, concrete blocks, old junked cars. No way he can get through. When his column grinds to a halt, what's going to be directly over and behind him, Doctor?"

The doctor smiled grudgingly. "An overpa.s.s, General. And you and Leighton and Canby and Morris will be up there with automatic weapons and bombs, right?"

"You're learning, Ralph. I'll make a fighter out of you yet."

"I'll stick with medicine," the doctor replied, turning away.

"That man does not have much use for me," Ben told Dot.

"He resents the ease with which you handle things,"

the woman told him. "We've been plotting and scheming for a year around here, trying to come up with some solution to our problem. Then you walk in and take over. And get it done," she added.

Ben looked at the woman. "Dot, no nation whose citizens were fully armed was ever conquered by an outside force. I might get some argument on that, but in the main it's true. Just as it's true that many nations went from right-wing dictatorships to a democratic form of government. But no nation ever went from a communist form of government to a democratic form of government. The people who control the guns control it all."

She smiled at him. "I'm old enough to remember that the writer Ben Raines was a liberal hater in print. A liberal hater in person, too, it appears."

Judy came to Ben's side, two cups of what currently pa.s.sed for coffee in her hands. More chicory than anything else. But at least it was hot, and if enough honey was added, not too bad. "Thank you," Ben said, not sure if Judy was still angry at him, for whatever reason.

"You're welcome." She handed the second cup to Dot. A quiet peace offering from woman to woman. "The lookouts are reporting everything is quiet. No sign of West."

Dot sipped her coffee. "They'll be here.

What worries me is what happens if West and Campo join forces?"

"We fight them," Ben said. "My people will be here in the morning; possibly late this evening. Campo doesn't have artillery and no one here has seen any type of artillery in the hands of West. There'll be a mortar crew with my Rebels and at least two .50-caliber machine guns-maybe four of them.

That, plus our discipline and experience, will make up the difference."

"Here they come!" the excited call was pa.s.sed down the line. "A whole great line of them."

"Get into position," Ben ordered. "You all know what to do. Do it, and we'll come out of this alive.

f.u.c.k up, and we're dead."

Ben and those with him, all armed with M-16's, crouched on the overpa.s.s and watched and waited. Ben saw the twenty-odd vehicles of the column slow, then stop. Using binoculars, Ben watched the lead vehicle, a van. A man got out and stood with hands on hips, surveying the flimsy barricade that stretched across the road. The bearded man laughed at the obstacle and pointed toward it.

Ben handed the binoculars to Leighton. "Is that West?"

Leighton looked. "That's him." He counted the vehicles in the column. "Figuring five men to a vehicle, I make it about a hundred twenty-five men we're up against."

"Yes," Ben said. He lifted his walkie-talkie. Judy was behind the second, as yet unseen, barricade around the curve. "Judy?

Everybody in place and ready?"

"Ready, Ben," she radioed back. The young lady had never seen a walkie-talkie before meeting Ben.

"Stay loose," Ben said.

"One guy got too loose," Judy radioed back. "He messed his pants."

Ben grinned and rehooked the walkie-talkie to his chest harness. "Here they come."

A few desultory shots were fired at the advancing column by those behind the first barricade. They then jumped into the ditch, running and yelling as if in mortal fear.

A bob truck with a steel grate welded in front of the hood was waved on past West's van. The bob truck slammed through the barricade, the column following.

"So far, so good," Ben muttered.

When the last vehicle had pa.s.sed the wreckedbarricade, people ran out from the thick weeds and brush on both sides of the highway. They carried concrete blocks, wooden planks with long nails driven through, sacks of broken gla.s.s. Others rolled water-filled fifty-five-gallon drums. Still others unrolled barbed wire, securing the ends on both sides of the highway.

They quickly and effectively closed the highway to West and his people.

Rounding the curve, the second barricade looked at first glance to be as flimsy as the first. The bob truck picked up speed, preparing to ram right through the barricade. The bob truck's right front tire struck a series of concrete blocks, tipped to one side, and rolled over, spilling the men riding in the back. The men were shot down before they could rise to their feet. From behind the barricade, men and women darted out, grabbed up weapons and ammo belts, then raced back behind the shelter.

In the van, West realized he had driven right into a well-thought-out trap. He spun the steering wheel, the van slewing around, facing the direction he'd come. On the overpa.s.s, Ben leveled his scope-mounted, .30-06, lined up West's ugly face in the cross hairs, and pulled the trigger. The slug slammed through the windshield, deflected upward several inches, and struck West on the side of the head. The slug blew off the man's ear, taking a thick patch of hide and hair with it. He jumped out of the van, howling in pain, one hand to the side of his b.l.o.o.d.y head, and tried to run.

Ben shot him in the knee, almost blowing the lower part of the leg off. If he could do it, he wanted West alive.

West's men found themselves trapped in an increasingly b.l.o.o.d.y box. There seemed to be no way out. The rage of the men and women they had brutally subdued and abused and oppressed howled to the surface, erupting like a savage trapped beast.

When the men attempted to surrender, they were hacked to pieces by axe- and machete-wielding men and women.

The blood and gore slicked the old highway.