She carefully folded it and replaced it in her duffle. “Another time, another place,” she said, adding, “Shit!”
Doctor Carlton took several Rebels with him right after breakfast. Said he wanted to prowl around a bit, see what he might discover. The others took the two-day lull to wash clothes, lounge about, rest or sightsee. Ben and Gale visited the many landmarks in that part of Missouri: Hannibal’s Cardiff Hill; Lover’s Leap, overlooking the Mississippi River; the old lighthouse, built in 1935 as a monument to Mark Twain.
“I don’t understand,” Gale said, as she and Ben sat eating lunch, “how one town could be virtually destroyed by those… things, mutants, and another town could be almost untouched.” She looked at the can of Cration and grimaced.
“I can’t answer that,” Ben said. “Maybe a scientist could, but I don’t know of any in this area. I don’t know of any scientists-period. So much has been lost, and it doesn’t appear that too many people really care. I can understand it, but I don’t have to like it.”
“Explain then, please. Take my mind off this horrible food.”
Ben laughed at her. “I lived off that stuff for months, Gale.”
“No wonder your disposition is so rotten.”
Chuckling at her, Ben said, “I think many who survived the bombings of “88 somehow found the strength to bounce back. Maybe the world would have survived if the rats had not brought the plague. Just seems like it knocked the props out from under most who made it through that sickness.”
“It didn’t knock the props out from under you,” she observed.
“No, it didn’t. But we’re different, the Rebels and me.”
“I.”
“Are you sure?”
“Damn, Ben-you’re a writer!”
“Me still sounds correct.” “Ben!”
“Whatever. We had a goal, we were organized, we had a dream of a better society. Maybe we were just stronger people. Sometimes I wonder if it’s all worth it.”
“Hitting those new lows you told Mary Macklin about, Ben?”
“No, not really.” Ben shook his head. “The fact the IPF is here shows that we have survivors from around the world, shows that somebody other than myself is going to try to pull this world out of the ashes. Even if it’s just a small part of the world. Walk before you run,” he quoted the old saying.
“If you don’t mind, Ben.” She looked at him, putting her hand on his thigh. “I’d rather it be us than them.”
“So would I, Gale.”
“Then let’s do it, Ben Raines.”
He met her gaze. “All right, Ms. Roth. Let’s do it.”
“It was only a matter of time,” General Striganov spoke to Sam Hartline. “But Ben Raines need not disturb us all that greatly. Neither he nor us is strong enough to mount any type of sustained attack against the other. Perhaps, really, we might never need to fight. If he will keep to the south, and we to the north, perhaps we could work out some kind of peaceful coexistence
plan. I think that would behoove both of us.”
“Don’t count on it,” Hartline said. “Raines is a communist hater out of the old school. And he is one tough bastard.”
“I do not want a fight at this time.” The Russian was adamant. “Let us attempt to converse with President-General Raines. During the meeting-if he agrees to it-we shall attempt to work out some dividing line that would separate his form of government from ours-a physical line.” He turned to an aide. “Have leaflets printed and order a team sent out to find General Raines. No contact at this time. Later we shall have a pilot do a fly-by and drop the leaflets. Raines is slowly progressing northward, taking his time, according to our people just in from Rolla.” A look of disgust passed quickly over his face at that thought. The general had already seen to Mikael. “Iowa would be a good place to locate him and for us to meet, I believe.” He studied the map on his office wall. “Yes. Ask Mr. Raines to meet me at, ummm, ah, Waterloo.” He smiled. “Yes, Waterloo, Iowa. That should be a very appropriate place, don’t you think, Sam?”
“For one of you,” Hartline grunted his reply. The Russian did not know Ben Raines as well as Sam. Ben Raines would never permit a communist form of government to exist alongside his own. At least Hartline didn’t believe he would.
Not for any length of time.
But… maybe it was worth a shot.
On the morning of the third day in Hannibal, the column pulled out, rolling northward on Highway
61.
Ben had cautioned his people to be careful, for he remembered only too well the incidents last year, when the Rebels were moving west out of Richmond, when the government collapsed.
The scouts had failed to report in at their given time. Ben and the convoy waited impatiently on the cold, wind-swept highway. The bridge at Fort Madison had been plugged up tight with stalled and wrecked cars and trucks. The scouts had radioed back they were going on to Hamilton, taking a secondary road. Ben waited a long half hour past the time they were supposed to have radioed in. He turned to Cecil.
“I’m taking a patrol,” Ben told him. “I’ll call in every fifteen minutes. Anything happens, you’re it.”
“Ben…”
“No. It’s my show. Maybe the radio conked out. Could be a lot of things. I’ll be in touch.”
Back in his pickup, Ben looked at Rosita. “Out,” he told her.
She refused to leave.
“Do I have to toss you out bodily?”
“That would look funny,” she calmly replied.
Ben closed the door and put the truck in gear. “Your ass,” he told her. He pulled out, leading the small patrol.
Rosita smiled at him and said something in rapid-fire Spanish. It sounded suspiciously vulgar.
“Check your watch,” he told Rosita.
“Ten-forty-five.”
“Call in every fifteen minutes. It’ll take us forty-five minutes to an hour on these roads to get to Fort Madison. That was their last transmission point. Whatever happened
happened between there and Hamilton. You’ve got the maps. What highway do we take?”
“96 out of Niota.”
At Nauvoo they found the pickup parked in the middle of the highway. One door had been ripped off its hinges and flung to one side of the road.
“What the hell?” Ben muttered.
Rosita’s face was pale under her olive complexion. She said nothing. But her eyes were frightened.
Ben parked a safe distance behind the pickup and, Thompson in hand, off safety, on full automatic, walked up to the truck. Thickening blood lay in puddles in the highway.
“Jesus Christ!” one of Ben’s Rebels said, looking into a ditch. “General!”
Ben walked to the man’s side. The torn and mangled body of the driver lay sprawled in the ditch. One arm had been ripped from its socket. The belly had been torn open, the entrails scattered about, gray in the cold sunlight.
A Rebel pointed toward an open field. “Over here!” he called.
The second scout lay in a broken heap, on his stomach. He was headless. Puddles of blood spread all about him.
“Where’s his head?” the man asked.
“I don’t know,” Ben answered. “But we’d damn sure better keep ours. Heads up and alert. Combat positions. Weapons on full auto. Back to the trucks in twos. Center of the road and eyes moving. G.”
Back in the warm cab of the truck, Ben noticed Rosita looking very pale and shaken. He touched her hand. “Take it easy, little one. We’ll make it.”
He radioed in to Cecil. “Cec? Backtrack to Roseville and 67 down to Macomb. Turn west on 136. We’ll meet you between Carthage and Hamilton. Don’t stop for anything. Stay alert for trouble.”