"Paul's 17 Batt?"

"They're still in Burkina. About seventy-five miles from the border of Nigeria. They're reporting no trouble."

"Mike's 16 Batt?"

"Waiting at the Mali/Niger border. Taking a break. No trouble."Ben was silent for a moment. He rolled a smoke and lit up. A couple of minutes pa.s.sed before he spoke. "Get 194.

a link set up, Corrie. I want a report from every battalion."

The portable satellite was set up and Corrie spent the next half hour talking over hundreds of miles. Then she reported to Ben.

Ben sat for a moment by the side of the road, which had been swept for mines and cleared. "For several days, every battalion stretched across Africa was under either full attack or hit and run actions. Then suddenly, nothing. We know there are small patrols out watching our movements, Scouts from every battalion have seen them. It's a coordinated effort; you can bet with certainty they are not acting independently of each other . . ."

The rains came thundering down in a gushing torrent, preventing Ben from finishing his thought. Tents and tarps had already been set up and Rebels scrambled for cover. Ben and team, Dr. Chase with them, ran for the squad tent that had been set up for him. Corrie set up her equipment on a folding table and sat down. Portable generators were cranked up and the coffeepot was filled up and turned on.

"Tell the cooks to set up and get busy," Ben ordered. "We're going to be here for at least the night."

Ben did not have to order guards out. That had been done within seconds after the column had halted. Now tanks began moving into position around the camp and several hundred yards away from the center of the encampment, perimeter bangers were being strung and claymores carefully placed.

Within minutes, the camp was as secure as human hands could make it.

"Scouts are five miles inside Benin," Corrie said, raising her voice to be heard over the drum of heavy rain on the canvas above their heads.

"Nothing. And the road just stopped. They're facing brush and forest."

"s.h.i.t!" Ben cussed. "We're going to be forced to cut 195.

195.

south and take the coast road. Exactly what I didn't want to have to do.

Or else cut north for a hundred or so miles and take the highway over to Savalou. If we're attacked by any kind of force along the coast highway, we could be in serious trouble. We could be forced back, or surrounded on three sides with the Atlantic at our backs and no place to run. We would then have to be evaced by sea, leaving all our equipment behind.

And that just might be what the guerrillas have in the back of their minds and to h.e.l.l with Bottger's orders."

"But we don't know for sure, right?" Dr. Chase asked.

"We sure as h.e.l.l don't, Lamar.""About fifty or so civilians approaching from the Benin side," a guard called. "About a third of the bunch are kids."

"Check them out carefully for weapons," Ben said, walking to the flap and pulling it back.

"Time to go to work," Lamar said, rising from the camp chair.

"Get a translator in here," Ben ordered. "Pump them for information."

For once Lamar didn't argue with Ben about bothering his patients.

Ben walked out seconds behind Lamar and looked up the road, Benin side.

He knew after only a glance there was nothing to fear from this bunch.

They were some of the most emaciated looking people he had yet seen in Africa. And he also could tell, even from this distance, that several of the kids being carried in the arms of their mothers were dead.

Ben stepped back into his squad tent and returned to his portable desk.

Anna remained at the opening of the tent, looking at the pitiful sight.

Ben studied her in the dim rainy light. There was no expression on her lovely face. She had not only seen it all before, she had lived with it for years, struggling for survival in the old 196.

country, before Ben picked the little waif out of a lineup of street hoodlums and took her under his wing.

Anna stepped out of the tent and slogged away through the mud, heading away from the border crossing. Ben thanked Beth for the mug of steaming coffee she placed in front of him and turned on the lamp, powered by the portable generators. He opened a map case and selected a map.

He suppressed a groan as he studied the route along the coast. Then he laid the map aside and shook his head. They would not take it. Too risky. They would head north to Savalu, then south to Da.s.sa-Doume, northeast to Save, and enter Nigeria that way. If, and it was a big If, the bridge over the Oueme River was intact. If it had been destroyed? .

. . Well, they would find out in a few days, or a week, it all depended on the roads.

"Refugees coming out of the brush by the droves now," Cooper called from the flap of the tent. "Several hundred of them."

Ben again walked to the open flap of the squad tent and looked out into the rainy afternoon. Cooper was sure right about the numbers of people: hundreds of them, probably about a third of them children.

Ben turned away from the open flap, then hesitated for a couple of heartbeats before looking back. Something had caught his eyes, something that aroused suspicion in his mind. But what? Ben looked more closely.

He could see nothing in the knot of ragged people that would present a danger.

The knot of ragged people.

The knot of ragged people . . . that thought nagged at him. Yes, that was it. Why were they all so bunched up? He'd never seen starving, sick people so tightly bunched."Something is wrong here, Coop," Ben said. "I don't 197.

197.

really know what it is, but something is very wrong about that crowd of people."

"They sure are bunched up tight, boss," Beth said, peering around Ben from inside the tent.

Corrie had heard the exchange and was alerting the company.

To the untrained eye, it would appear that nothing was happening within the compound. But plenty was happening. Tanks were slowly swinging their turrets and gunners were taking their places, manning .50 and 7.62 machine guns, inside and out of the ma.s.sive MBTs. Rebels were quietly pulling back bolts on their weapons, chambering rounds. Cooks were laying aside large spoons and ladles, removing huge pots from the fire, and moving closer to their weapons.

"If my bread burns, I'm gonna be p.i.s.sed," one cook mumbled irritably.

"Give that stew another stir or two," another cook called from across the mess tent. "I don't want it sticking."

Ben had cleaned his M-14 and put it away, back into its hard-sh.e.l.l case.

Anna had seen what was going on and slipped in the back flap of the tent. She handed her adopted father his CAR and a canvas magazine pouch.

"This tent is likely to be shot all to pieces," Ben said. "Everybody back out of here and head for good cover. I'm pretty sure the center of that knot of refugees is filled with guerrillas."

"Gonna be a lot of dead civilians," Cooper muttered.

"I hate people who use innocents for cover," Anna mumbled darkly. "They are sorry excuses for human beings."

"I agree, baby," Ben said. "Now get your b.u.t.t out the back of this tent.

Move!"

Ben and team exited out the back and circled around, 198.

William W. Johnstone away from the border crossing. They took cover in a ditch that was half filled with water.

"s.h.i.t!" Jersey said, bellying down in the muck and the water.

"You could always come live with me, my pretty little horned toad,"

Cooper said. "And we could retire from the army and raise little Indians."

"Horned toad!" Jersey exclaimed. "I can't believe you called me a horned toad. bu have sunk to a new low. Cooper, have you ever seen a horned toad?""Can't say that I have."

"Come to think of it, you remind me of one."

"Handsome devils, aren't they?"

Jersey made a gagging sound and dropped the subject. Cooper just could not be insulted.

The refugees had crossed the border and were still all bunched up. The Rebels at the crossing were herding them toward the MASH tents. But the MASH tents had been evaced of all medical personnel and those civilians who had been lined up had been pushed aside, the Rebels getting them out of harm's way as best they could.

"Combat boots," Anna remarked from her position next to Ben. "I can see some of those in the center of the refugees are wearing combat boots."

"We can't do a d.a.m.n thing until they break from the civilians and open the fight," Beth b.i.t.c.hed.

"Steady," Ben cautioned in a low voice. "They've got about fifty or so yards to go before they can do anything. If they broke free now, the damage they could do to us would be minimal."

"It's gotta be a suicide team," Cooper said. "Nothing else makes any sense."

"I have to agree with Cooper," Jersey said. "Will wonders never cease."

"They're all clear of the old checkpoint now," Corrie 199.

199.

said. "They'll be near the center of the compound in a few seconds."

Ben could see those fifty or so guerrillas-perhaps more than that-in the center of the frightened refugees, now pushing them into a faster pace.

One woman carrying an obviously starving child fell and those behind her moved to one side to keep from stepping on the woman.

Suddenly there was a burst of shouting from the center of the refugees and about seventy-five men leaped from the now disorganized groups and began running in all directions, frantically pulling weapons and grenades from under their ragged coats and shirts.

The men and women and children who made up the refugees began screaming in fear and shouting in their own tongues and running in all directions, preventing the Rebels from opening up with any type of effective fire.

"Select fire and pick your targets carefully!" Ben shouted, pulling himself up onto one knee in the muddy ditch. "Watch for human bombs.

This is a suicide run."

Anna reached up and grabbed hold of Ben's web belt and pulled him back down into the cover of the ditch. "That wasn't too smart, General Ben,"

she chided him. "You trying to get shot up so you can go back home?"Ben glanced at the young woman and smiled. "Thank you, Anna. I have been properly chastised."

"Look out!" Corrieyelled, just a second before a half-dozen guerrillas jumped into the ditch.

One landed beside Ben and Ben clubbed him with his CAR. The clubbing seemed to have no effect on the man. The guerrilla's eyes were wild-looking. Ben jammed the muzzle of the CAR into the man's open mouth and pulled the trigger, blowing out the back of the man's head and splattering Jersey and Cooper with blood and brain and bits of bone.

200.

Another guerrilla had wrestled Anna down into the ditch and was trying to drown her in the foot or so of water. The man suddenly screamed and lost his grip on her throat, both hands going to his belly. He arched backward and Ben could see the upward rip in his belly where Anna had used her razor-sharp knife to get the man off her.

In the split second Ben observed all this, Anna came sputtering to her knees in the muddy water, the obscenities flying from her mouth. "I lost my f.u.c.king weapon!" she shouted, and began groping in the water for her CAR.

Ben did not have time to see if she located the weapon. Another guerrilla jumped on his back and rode him down. Ben could not understand why the men were not using their weapons, but didn't have time to contemplate that question. He reached up and grabbed the man's neck and twisted and jerked, throwing the infiltrator off him.

Corrie turned at just that second and shot the guerrilla fighter in the head with her 9mm. Things had gotten so close-in pistols were more practical than rifles.

Somewhere in the circle that made up the Rebel compound there was a terrific ground-rattling explosion and seconds later a b.l.o.o.d.y part of a man's shin and ankle and booted foot landed near the edge of the ditch.

One of the guerrillas, rigged as a human bomb, had set himself off.

Parts of the man had dropped all over the compound. Ben did not have time to a.s.sess the damage done, if any, but judging from the sound of the explosion, the man must have had a ma.s.sive amount of explosive wired to his body.

Ben had pulled his 9mm from leather and holding his CAR in his left hand, not wanting to lose it in the muddy waters of the ditch, was picking close-in targets and pouring the lead to them. He did not have to look far for the 201.

201.

enemy, for they were all around him, with more guerrillas pouring out of the brush all around the compound.

Those who had been hidden in the brush, probably in tunnels, didn't get very far, for they were running smack into claymore kill zones, the deadly anti-personnel mines set up all around the compound. Those lucky enough to escape the claymores were running into machine-gun fire from Rebel posts set along the outer defense perimeter. But enough guerrillaswere making it through.

"It's gonna get nasty," Ben panted the words.

"It's done got nasty, boss!" Cooper yelled, pulling himself off a dead guerrilla he had killed with a knife.

"Enemy troops approaching from the road!" Corrie yelled. Her headset was still working, although it was twisted and the microphone dangling. "I can hear but can't communicate," she added.

There was no time for Ben to worry about who might be coming up or down the road, for half a dozen guerrillas were making a suicide run toward the ditch, one of them very bulky around the chest and waist. Ben suspected the man had wrapped explosives around himself. Even at a distance of many yards, Ben could tell the man was hopped up on something: a powerful local brew or some sort of dope to give him courage. Didn't matter which, he was running straight for Ben and his team.

Ben leveled the 9mm and started putting rounds into the running man. Ben put round after round into the bomber, but the slugs didn't seem to faze him. Finally one of the slugs must have hit the detonator, for the last thing Ben would remember for a long time was a tremendous flash of light.

Then . . .