"Who ... ?" Judy gasped on the way back to the last manhole cover.

"I don't know. Maybe punks the creeps waylaid over the past few weeks.

The bodies haven't been there long. Maybe there are more survivors in die ruins than you think. We'll never know, Judy, so put it out of your mind."

"I hate those damn uglies!"

"You're at the end of a long list, dear. Move!"

Two of the younger survivors went up the ladder and out the manhole cover. They were gone for a couple of 126.

minutes before one called down, "It's all clear. Come on and be quick about it. The men carrying the kids up first. Untie the ropes and pass them up, then follow. Head for the ruins to the east. It's what's left of a church, I think."

The words had no sooner left his mouth when the unmistakable sounds of mortars came to those in the tunnels.

"It's started," Ben said. "That's why there are no punks around here.

They've all massed around the park for the final assault. They'll probably soften up the park for an hour, concentrating first on the areas they know are rigged with booby traps. Then they'll hit the park.

It won't take them long to discover we're gone." Ben reached out in the dim light and brushed several large roaches off Judy's back.

"What was that?" she asked.

"Very large, ugly roaches, Judy."

She shuddered in revulsion as Ben picked another roach out of her hair.

"There are roaches on the island of Madagascar that grow to four inchesin length and stand up on their hind legs and hiss and spit," he said.

"Now, I really could have done without that knowledge!"

Ben chuckled.

"But so far they're found only on that island."

"Unless you're just trying to make me feel better, thank God for small favors."

"Kids are clear and in the ruins across the street, Judy!" Greg called.

"The elderly next," she returned the call. "Then we go as we're lined up."

"A squad of men out, Judy," Ben gently corrected. "Throw up a defensive line. Then the elderly."

"You're right, Ben. I'm not thinking." She corrected her orders.

127.

"dear!" The word was called after a few moments, as the defensive line got into place street-level.

"I'll go last," Ben said.

Ben waited until the last man had climbed up the ladder, then, took a final look at his surroundings. Several dozen rats had left the huge mound of rotting cadavers and they squatted along the sides of the tunnels, glaring hate at him, their eyes glowing wickedlyl in the gloom.

Topside, he breathed in and out deeply, several times, clearing his lungs if not his nostrils of the dreadful stench of the tunnels. Then he moved over to the ruins of the old church and squatted there behind cover, listening to the punks' bombardment of the park. He lifted his handy-talkie.

"We're clear of the park," he radioed. "To the east side as planned.

Four blocks east Start dropping them in, people, and good shooting."

Across the Hudson River, Rebel gunners manning 105s and 155s began lobbing in a variety of rounds with deadly accuracy and effectiveness.

The 155s were using anti-personnel rounds, each shell rilled with from 36 to 60 high-explosive anti-personnel grenades. Some of the 105s were using a mixed bag of rounds, from HE to anti-personnel. Whatever they used, the rounds were foiling dead on with devastating results, and it stopped the punks' advance into the park cold.

Ben climbed up on top of a building that had, miraculously, remained virtually intact during the Rebels' assault several years before. Using binoculars, he peered over the several blocks of ruins and rubble and began calling in rounds. Ben smiled, thinking, You might call me an RO, for rear observer.

Judy climbed up to join him. "You thought of where you might take us?"

Ben asked.

"No. Wherever we go on this rock, we're still going to128 be within mortar range of those bastards." She jerked her head toward the park.

"Yes, but when my people are through today, there will be considerably fewer of the species known as punk, you can be assured of that."

"That will help us right now. But the question is-can we survive until your people take this damn rock?"

"Oh, we'll survive, Judy. Put any doubts about that out of your mind.

Even if we have to go down into the old subway system to do it."

"More of that remains than you might think, Ben. I'd say at least a hundred or so miles. Your people wrecked about half of it"

"And only God knows how many miles of other long forgotten tunnels are under the city."

"Hundreds of miles of them, Ben. But what uglies are left live down diere. And the rats."

Ben grimaced. "Well, we'll go into the drainage tunnels only as a last resort. But the subways ... that might be our salvation."

She shuddered. "I don't like the underground."

"Neither do I. But the prospect of getting captured by punks appeals to me even less."

"You do have a point."

"Is anyone in your group familiar widi what remains of the subway tunnels?"

"Oh, yes. Several of the men."

Ben looked at her for a moment, neither of them speaking. Finally, Judy nodded in agreement. "We don't have much choice in the matter, do we?"

"Not a whole lot."

"I'll get Mike, see what he says about it. I honestly don't know where the nearest entrance is. I do my best to avoid those places."

Ben stood alone on the roof for a time, watching the 129.

129.

Rebel gunners blast the punks on the west side of the park. He sensed Mike coming up to stand quietly beside him and turned.

"Judy says you're thinking about moving us into the tunnels, general."

"You have a better plan?"

"Not really, sir. We've got emergency rations to last us for a time but water is going to be a problem.""You know where there is some seepage?"

"Yes, sir. But I sure as hell wouldn't want to drink that stuff."

"We can boil it and then purify it with tablets. Believe me when I say my people have drunk water that at first glance would gag a maggot."

Mike smiled. "All right, sir."

"How far are we from a subway entrance?"

"About two blocks."

"Then I guess we'd better do it, Mike. It'll be uncomfortable, but we'll be alive. And my people are gearing up to once more assault this rock. A few more days, and we'll be home free." / hope, Ben silently added.

"Then I'll get the people ready to move, sir."

"Send a patrol to check out the subway entrance first, Mike. Use the walkie-talkies from the drop. The punks don't have the equipment to intercept any transmission from them."

"Yes, sir. Sir?"

Ben cut his eyes.

"Is it true that there is no crime down in the SUSA?"

"It's true, Mike. We have zero tolerance for crime and criminals."

"What a wonderful place that must be to live and raise a family."

Ben smiled. "You'd be surprised. I figure about half of your group could make it down there."

130.

"This bunch? Are you kidding?"

"Not at all. It takes a very special person to live down there, Mike.

When your people are out of this box and free to make choices, you'll see."

"Well, count me in as one who will make it, general."

"Oh, you will, Mike. I have no doubts about that."

"I'll send that patrol out now."

"We don't have much daylight left," Ben reminded the man.

"Where we're going, general," Mike replied grimly, "that won't make a bit of difference."

131.

Ben waited topside and stood guard with a small team of survivors while the others disappeared into the darkness of the old subway system. Ben waved the others down until he was alone at street level."All right, Ike," he muttered. "We can last about a week if we're both careful and lucky. So get it in gear, boy."

Ben stood up and took one last look at the outside world, then walked down the rubble-littered steps, being careful not to disturb the war-torn look of them.

"This way, general," a man called. "To your right."

Ben joined the man and together they walked past the turnstiles and out to the platforms, where over the years millions of people had waited for transportation to and from home and work-back when the world made a little sense.

Ben hopped down to the tracks and began following the bobbing beam of the survivor's flashlight as the man walked deeper into the tunnel.

132.

"I don't like it either, general," the man called over his shoulder, as if reading Ben's mind. "Nobody in their right mind likes the tunnels."

As he walked, Ben sniffed the air. There was not the slightest whiff of creepie. He said as much.

"They're spotty throughout the city," the man replied. Ahead of them, Ben could see the darting beams of flashlights. "As you know far better than me, there used to be thousands of uglies in the city. After you people got through with them a few years back-before any of us got here-there were only about a thousand or so left... at least that's how we figure it. But they had done a lot of work down here in the tunnels.

You'll see. Some of us, before we banded together, used to hide out down here."

They caught up widi the main group just as a man stuck his head out of a large vent of some sort, about six feet off the tracks and about three feet up from a concrete walkway. "All clear, folks," he said. "Hand the kids up." The iron grate to the vent lay off to one side, propped up on the ledge.

One by one, the kids began disappearing into the side of the tunnel.

Once during a rest break, Ben stepped up onto the ledge and looked inside. He stood for a moment, astonished. There was a walkway about six feet in diameter that opened up into an enormous cavern. The room was as large as a gymnasium.

The man who was helping the kids and the elderly into the cavern smiled at the expression on Ben's face. "There are places like this all over Manhattan, general. This big rock is honeycombed with natural caves and tunnels. I don't know when this air vent was put up, but I'll wager this cavern has been long forgotten."

"Probably," Ben said, climbing in and relieving the man helping the odiers inside. He looked behind him and was startled to find that he could not see the cave.

133.

133The others around him laughed. "It's like one of those trick rooms you used to find in carnivals along the midway, general," one said. "You can only see the entrance when standing in one narrow spot. Anywhere else you stand, it's blocked."

"Well, I'll be damned," Ben muttered, angling around several times and still unable to see the second entrance to the huge cavern.