Corrie broke into his thoughts.

"Take the southern route," Ben ordered.

"Won't work," Anna muttered, just loud enough for her adopted father to hear. "Nutso Border wants a fight. We might as well give it to him."Ben pretended not to hear her comments, knowing that none of his team really knew what a religious war would do to the already torn-apart nation. North America could well turn into another Northern Ireland, with various factions fighting each other for centuries.

Ben shook his head. He couldn't allow that. He just couldn't.

He sighed. But damned if he could figure out how to prevent it.

He certainly couldn't allow Ray Brown and his dope-producing crowd to continue making their poison and spreading it all over the nation. Ben was firm about that. Back in the '80s he was one of many citizens who openly and often supported the death penalty for drug dealers. For all the good it did, he remembered sourly.

Miles later, Corrie said, "Scouts have found an ideal place to bivouac."

"Go a few miles further," Ben ordered. "Let's put as much distance as we can between us and Border's people."

"And if they follow?" Anna asked the question Ben had suspected was surely coming.

"We'll deal with that should it happen. I can't believe Simon's commanders would be that stupid."

A few miles further: "Scouts report that Border's troops 239.

have left the outskirts of the city and are following us," Corrie told him.

Ben twisted in the front seat and looked at Anna. She was smiling at him. The rest of his team managed to keep straight faces.

"You find diis amusing, I suppose?" Ben asked.

Anna shrugged her shoulders noncommittally.

"Yeah, right," Ben grumbled. To Corrie: "I thought Tom told us everything south of 1-40 was out of Border's territory?"

"That's the way I understood it. But he also said that the resistance forces scattered throughout the area weren't strong enough to tangle with Border's people head-on, remember?"

Ben nodded. "Yeah, I remember. Any word from Mike Richards?"

"Nothing."

"All right," Ben said with a sigh. "Have the scouts find us a defensive position and prepare to make a stand."

Anna laughed. Ben ignored her.

"Do you people have a death wish?" Ben radioed the long column of Border's people.

"We are the Reverend Simon Border's Guards of God," came the reply."Oh, my word!" Beth sighed.

"Guards of God?" Ben blurted over the air.

"That is correct."

"Why are you following us?"

"To engage you and destroy you."

"Confident son-of-a-bitch, isn't he?" Ben muttered. He keyed the mic.

"On whose orders?"

"We are acting under the orders of our Supreme Com- 240.

mander here on earth, the Reverend Simon Border. You have unlawfully invaded our territory."

"Supreme Commander Reverend Simon Border," Cooper muttered. "I guess we'll have to salute the nut before we shoot him."

Ben broke up with laughter at the serious expression on Cooper's face.

"Let's try not to go that far, Coop."

"I will give it all my attention," Anna said.

"I'll sure you will, dear," Ben said, very drily. He lifted the mic. "We are not here to make trouble for you people. We are after dope manufacturers. Once we deal with them, we'll leave your territory."

"You will never leave our territory, Ben Raines. You will be buried here."

"Enemy convoy steadily closing," Corrie said. "Range, ten miles."

"Get the tanks in position." He keyed the mic. "Don't be a fool, mister.

Don't tangle with us. There is no need for it."

"Prepare to meet God, Ben Raines, and answer for your sins."

"He's broken off, boss," Corrie said.

"They are really, by God, going to meet us head-to-head," Ben said, astonishment in his voice.

"Range, nine miles."

"Let them get close," Ben ordered. "Tank commander take over now."

Corrie looked at him. "You want our tanks to mix it up with theirs?"

"If that is what the tank commanders choose to do."

"Their tanks are pieces of shit, boss," Corrie pointed out "Nothing but death traps."

"I am fully aware of that."Simon's tanks looked to be restored Korean War vintage, probably taken from various military museums ... al- 241.

though Ben found it hard to believe that any commander would put such dilapidated equipment out in the field for men to die in. He also wondered where in the world Simon found so many of the old-and Ben meant really old- Patton tanks. The approaching tanks appeared to be gasoline powered, and that made them nothing more than rolling bombs up against Ben's ultra-modern tanks.

"Fools," Ben muttered moments later, when the first of the enemy tanks came into view through binoculars.

The Rebels waited.

"This is going to be a shooting gallery," Coop said.

"They picked the midway, Coop," Ben replied.

"That they did, boss," Coop agreed. "I hope they enjoy the show, 'cause it's gonna be die last one most of them will ever see."

"Range, three miles," Corrie said.

Ben's tanks waited, diesel engines softly grumbling.

"Range, two miles."

Ben's tank commanders opened up with their main 120mm guns, using armor-piercing ammunition. The terrain below where Ben and his team waited and watched blossomed in puffs of fire. The infantry coming up behind the tanks were left wide open to Ben's mortar crews, who were busy dropping the lethal surprises down the tubes.

It was bloody carnage before the Rebel eyes and Ben did not call a halt to it until diere was nothing moving on the bloody battleground before him.

"Let's see what we have left," Ben said.

"Damn little," Beth muttered under her breath.

"Enemy soldiers are retreating," Corrie said. "Those few that can still walk, that is," she added.

"Let them go," Ben told her. "Simon's army is not as well-trained and certainly not as well-equipped as we were led to believe. This defeat just might convince him to leave us alone. But I doubt it."

242.

The wind shifted, bringing with it the odor of charred human flesh.

"Do we bury the enemy dead?" Corrie asked.

"No," Ben said softly. "We do not. But let's go see what kind of equipment they have."

When Simon Border received the news of the defeat of his Guards of God,he sat for a moment, too stunned to speak. Border was not a military man. He knew very little about tactics or equipment. He had millions of followers, and they were well-armed with modern rifles and machine guns and mortars, but nothing to even remotely compare with Raines's Rebels.

Contrary to what had deliberately been put out Border's people had few tanks (a hell of a lot fewer now).

Border's police had subdued and whipped into submission those who at first resisted and refused to follow his wacky doctrine by sheer force of numbers, not because of superior equipment and armament.

Simon never dreamed that Ben Raines would actually fight him. He always felt that Ben would back off when push came to shove.

Simon really didn't want to fight Ben Raines and the Rebels. He was fully aware that no one had ever waged a successful war against the Rebels, and that was something Simon just could not understand.

What did the Rebels have that made them so seemingly invincible? Simon knew they were a godless bunch; their society was very nearly wide-open, and so permissive he was surprised God had not destroyed it just as He had done with Sodom and Gomorrah. Simon had prayed fervently for God to destroy Ben Raines and all his followers, but then he realized that God was leaving that task up to him. He and his followers must destroy Ben Raines.

243.

Simon sighed heavily. Oh, how he wished he could speak to his idols: Harry Falcreek and Raldo Reeves and Clute Gingsing and Flush Bambaugh.

They would know what to do. But they were long gone, probably gone during die first few days of the Great War.

Simon rose from his desk chair to pace die huge study of his mountain home. He didn't care how he got rid of Ben Raines and the Rebels, just as long as it got done. In his mind, die end certainly justified the means.

If he had to use punks to accomplish diat, so be it. He'd use die criminal element and dien dispose of them when die job was finished.

"Oh, me!" he sighed. Doing God's work sure was tiring.

"Stupid," Ben said, looking over die slaughter. "Most of diese tanks were pulled out of service years before the Great War. Deadi traps. Look at diese rounds diat were blown clear from diat hulk. Poorly made. Hell, diey might have blown up in die barrel when diey tried to fire them."

Cooper was inspecting a cache of rifles taken from die dead. "Their M-16s are in good shape, though," he said. "Plus a mixture of AKs."

"I wonder if die Guards of God are die elite of Border's Army of the Democratic Front?" Jersey asked.

Ben shrugged. "If diey are, and diis is die way he's equipped his army, they're in deep trouble."

"Cecil on die horn," Corrie said, walking up. There was a faint smile on her lips. "He has some bad news for you."

"In addition to die attempted coup?""You might say diat."

Ben took die mic. "Go, Cec."

"Emil Hite should be approaching your position shordy, Ben."

244.

Ben sighed. "I thought I assigned him to ... where did I assign him?"

"He's been bouncing around from battalion to battalion, Ben. The proverbial bad penny, so to speak. Everybody likes him, but no one wants him."

"What happened?"

"He asked Thermopolis for permission to take his, ah, company of followers and visit friends up in Arkansas. Therm didn't think anything was amiss, so he gave permission. That was two weeks ago. Emil just reported in. He's approximately a hundred miles east of you as we speak."

Ben shook his head and tried to hide his smile. Whatever else Emil Hite might be, he was a resourceful little bastard .. .that was probably why he'd been a reasonably successful con artist before the war. "All right, Cec. Thanks for the info. We'll wait for him."

"Everything else is calm here, Ben. We've ferreted out the traitors and dealt with them."

Nice way of saying Cec had ordered the turncoats either shot or hanged.

"Have you had any word from Mike Richards?"

"Not a peep, Ben."

"Ok, Cec. We'll be on the lookout for Emil and his people. Thanks for the warning."

"Oh, there is one more little item, Ben ..."