“Shut up!” Ben roared at him. He turned to a lieutenant. “How many children were found?”
“Twenty-two, sir. The rest of the kids are up at some sort of special school, run by the IPF.”
“They are being brainwashed,” Katrina spoke. “Depending on the time they have spent there, it is very probably too late to save them.” She looked at one man who appeared better fed and in better condition than the others. “How long have the children been at the school?”
“Long enough,” the man said with a smirk on his thick, wet lips. “I know you-was he stared at her-“you was here some months ago.”
“That is correct,” Katrina replied.
“Yeah,” the man said. “I heard about you. You’re the turncoat. Sorry goddamn traitor to your people.”
Katrina lifted her AK-47 and pulled the trigger once. The single shot took the man in the center of the chest. He flopped on the ground and died.
“He was a pig,” Katrina said. “He made some very filthy comments to me one day. Exposed himself to me and asked me to lick his … asked me to lick it.” She looked at Ben. “Am I to be punished for shooting him?”
“Hell, no,” Ben said.
“Katrina,” Colonel Gray said. “Would you be interested in joining my little group of men and women?”
“The scouts and LETTERRP’S?”
“Indeed.”
“I would be honored.”
Dan smiled. “The little bird has sharp claws, General.”
“Quite,” Ben agreed. “How old are the children you found?” he asked the scout.
“Very young. Infants, mostly.”
“Take them back to the convoy. We’ll raise them. I won’t have these bigots preaching hate to young children.”
“You ain’t got no right to take our kids.” A man stepped toward Ben.
Ben butt-stroked the man under the chin with his Thompson. Teeth and jaw cracked and popped under the impact. Blood flew from the man’s shattered mouth. He dropped to the ground like a stone and was still.
Ben looked at Colonel Gray. “I don’t care what you do with them, Dan. I do not wish to ever see any of them again.”
“Yes, sir.” He looked around him. “Sergeant Cummings?”
“Sir?”
“Take care of this little matter, won’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” the black sergeant said. “I will give it my immediate and personal attention.”
“I rather thought you would,” Dan said.
The Jewish Rebel stepped forward. “Like a little help, Mac?”
“Join the party,” Mac replied.
“Dan,” Ben said. “Roll the convoy on through. We’ll stop up the road at Vienna.” He looked at Sergeant Cummings. “We’ll see you and your squad in about an hour, Mac.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I wonder what is going to happen to those people?” Nancy whispered to Gale. “Don’t even think about it,” she was told.
“Hello, sweetmeat,” Hartline said to Peggy.
She whirled around, her eyes wide with fear as she gazed up the basement steps to the open door. Hartline’s bulk filled the doorway. She looked around for a weapon-anything. But there was nothing. Her heart was pounding so heavily she thought she might faint.
“I told you I’d find you, baby,” Hartline said, a cruel smile on his lips.
“How?” Peggy managed to gasp out the one-word question.
“How?” Hartline smiled the question. “How was easy, sweet pussy. This is how.” He stepped down into the basement and waved his hand. A human form tumbled down the steps, bouncing sickeningly on the steps. Lois Peters. Or what was left of her.
The woman was naked. Her toenails and fingernails had been ripped from her. Her fingers had been broken. Her feet had been burned black-lumps of seared meat. Her teeth had been savagely pulled out. Her breasts had been mutilated. Peggy looked at the woman’s pubic area and was sick at the sight. Lois looked as though she had been raped by some sort of huge monster. Blood streaked her thighs.
She was dead.
Hartline’s eyes were cold and savage-looking. The smile hadn’t left his lips. “Before I’m through with you, sweetmeat, you’ll be begging me to go ahead and kill you.”
Peggy rose to her full height. She spat in Hartline’s face. “I’ll never beg to you, you son of a bitch.”
“Oh, I think you will, pretty thing. I really think you will.”
Two years before, Sam Hartline and his men, backed by FBI agents with warrants charging several newspeople with treason for refusing to cooperate with the congressional mandate to submit all news copy for review and censorship before airing, entered the Richmond offices of NBC. This was to be the test network.
Hartline, carrying an M-10 SMG, shoved the elderly security guard away from the doors, knocking the man sprawling, and marched into the executive offices. Hartline jerked one startled VP of programming to his feet and hit him in the mouth with a leather-gloved right fist. The man slammed against a chair and fell stunned to the floor.
A news commentator rushed into the room. “Here now,” he shouted, ““feu can’t do that.”
One of Hartline’s men socked the man with the butt of his AK. The man’s jaw popped like a firecracker. He was unconscious before he hit the carpet, blood pouring from the sudden gaps in his teeth.
“Where is the bureau chief?” Hartline said. “Or whatever you call the boss. Get him in here, pronto.”
A badly shaken young secretary stammered, “It isn’t a him-it’s a her. Ms. Olivier.”
“Well, now.” Hartline smiled. “That’s even better. Get her for me, will you, darling?”
Before the secretary could turn, a voice, calm and controlled, spoke from the hall. “What is the meaning of this?”
Hartline lifted his eyes, meeting the furious gaze of Sabra Olivier. He let his eyes drift over her, from her eyes to her ankles and back up again. She felt as if she had been violated. “You’re kind of a young cunt to be in charge of all this, aren’t you, honey?” he asked.
“Get out!” Sabra ordered.
The words had just left her mouth when Hartline’s open palm popped against her jaw, staggering her. She stumbled against the door frame, grabbing at the doorknob for support.
“Dear,” Hartline said, “you do not order me about. I will tell you what I want, then you will see to it that my orders are carried out. Is that clear?”
“You’re Sam Hartline,” Sabra said, straightening up, meeting him squarely, no backup in her. “Vice President Lowry’s pet dog.”
Hartline never lost his cold smile. He faced the woman, again taking in her physical charms: black hair, carefully streaked with gray; dark olive complexion; black eyes, now shimmering with anger; nice figure; long legs.
Sabra turned to a man. “Call the police,” she told him.
Hartline laughed at her. “Honey, we are the police.”
Sabra paled slightly.
The man on the floor groaned, trying to sit up, one hand holding his broken and swelling jaw.
“Get him out of here,” Hartline ordered. “Toss him in the lobby and have that old goat down there call for an ambulance to come get him.” He looked at Sabra.
“We can do this easy or hard, lady, it’s all up to you.”
“What do you want?”
“For you to cooperate with the government censorship order. And no more taking the Rebels’ side in this insurrection.”
“No way I’ll submit to censorship,” Sabra said.
“Then you want it hard,” Hartline said, the double meaning not lost on the woman, as he knew it would not be.
Her dark eyes murdered the mercenary a dozen times in a split-second. Her smile was as cold as his. “I never heard of anyone dying from it, Hartline.”
“Oh, I have, Sabra baby. I have.”
Hours later, Sabra Olivier’s spirit shattered. “All right,” she said to Hartline. “Stop it-stop your men. I’ll cooperate.”