Ashes - Wind In The Ashes Part 30

They left the landscape littered with dead and dying members of the IPF.

The westernmost column of Rebels split up at Hoopa, taking a secondary highway and meeting the IPF troops just north of Highway 299.

Using sappers, they blew the bridge over the Redwood River and blocked Highway 299, trapping several platoons of IPF troops. The IPF troops could do nothing except retreat back to the south.

Leaving only a small force of heavily armed and well-dug-in Rebels north of the Redwood, the remainder of the motorized column headed east on 299.

With tanks spearheading, the Rebels blasted and smashed through the thin lines of already confused and demoralized IPF troops; those IPF troops now leader less and in a panic.

The IPF troops, neither trained nor skilled in guerrilla warfare, found that whatever direction they turned, they faced some new hideousness from the Rebels.

Those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds and b.i.t.c.hes that made up Ben Raines's Rebel army just simply did not play the game of warfare fairly.

And what in G.o.d's name-G.o.d's name?-were children doing in war?

G.o.d's name?

That thought seared through the minds of many IPF troops as they ran in panic, searching for someone to tell them what to do.

But there was no one.

So the IPF ran and sweated and died. Ike's team knocked out the small force of IPF personnel and stormed across the battle lines. All up and down Highway 20, from Fort Bragg on the coast to Nice, the Rebels surged across the line and into IPF territory.

Ike stepped around a corner and came face to face with a young Russian. Lifting his submachine gun, Ike sent the Russian into the arms of that shrouded bony gentlemen.

Swinging his weapon, on full auto, Ike cleared the street of all living things and waved his team forward, ejecting the empty clip and slapping home a full, fresh one.

He grabbed his radio operator and told him to get Ben on the horn.

"Ben! I'm going to skirt the heavy timber and ram up the coast on 101. Can you pull Cecil's bunch in?"

"Affirmative," Ben radioed back, the sounds of gunfire and explosives loud in Ike's ears through the headset. "Pull all your civilian fighters up from the valley and spread them along Highway 20. That'll close off the south end of the box. I'll have Cecil's gang spread along the edge of the wilderness, closing off the eastern escape hole. I'll put Dan in charge of everything up north and we'll start the squeeze. You copy this?"

"Ten-four, Ben. Ou."

"I copy your transmission, General," Dan radioed in. "Carrying out orders."

"Ten-four, Dan."

"I'm moving now, Ben," Cecil radioed.

"We'll plug it up from this end."

"Go!" Ben spoke into the mike. "Go, Go, Go!"

"Now I see why you wanted out," a mercenary said to Sam Hartline.

The men sat monitoring a radio. They could not understand any of the Rebel transmissions-they were all scrambled-but they could understand the frantic radio messages from IPF.

"Yeah," Sam said. "Striganov flipped out.

I've been watching him over the months; especially the last few months. I could see it coming.

Striganov is finished. Raines waited him out and he's going to win." He reached over and flipped off the radio.

"f.u.c.k him!" Sam said. "Khamsin may be a G.o.dd.a.m.ned wog, but at least he's stable."

"But can he be trusted?"

"No," Sam said, then smiled. "But then, neither can I."

They all got a good laugh over that.

"How about the kid your patrol just captured?

What's his name?"

"Rich is all I know. I think he's a f.a.g."

"The girls got away?"

"Every one of them. One of my boys said one youngchick had an a.s.s and a set of t.i.ts you wouldn't believe. But looked to be just a kid."

"Shame," Hartline said. "Good-looking, young, tight p.u.s.s.y is getting hard to find. Bring the kid in."

Hartline watched as Rich was shoved into the room.

He could go either way, Hartline thought. Just a little push and he's queer all the way.

"Has he been searched?"

"All the way, Sam."

"He's clean?"

"Right."

"You guys leave us alone. I wanna talk to Rich."

Sam and the boy were alone. Rich refused to meet Sam's knowing eyes."

"Get naked, boy," Sam told him.

Rich stripped and stood before Sam. He had a slight erection.

"I thought so," Sam said. He unzipped his trousers and exposed himself. "You ever seen a c.o.c.k this big?"

Rich shook his head.

"Come here, boy. You give me some good head.

And then you and me are goin" to have a little chat.

Aren't we, Rich?"

"Yes, sir."

"Come here, boy. Let's get to know each other."

Chapter.

Twenty-seven.

Ben called a halt to it at five o'clock. His Rebels had the IPF on the run, and it was a near rout.

Ike and his people had advanced more than sixty miles up Highway 101. With the IPF on the run, Ben's forces had driven all the way through the wilderness area and linked up with Ike's troops at what remained of a town called c.u.mmings, about thirty miles from the coast. Cecil and his troops had begun the dangerous job of mopping up behind Ben.

Dan Gray and his troops had driven down and retaken towns all the way down to Highway 36. His people had taken two of Striganov's research centers.

"How do they look?" Ben had radioed.

"Disgusting. Sickening," he was told. "What do you want done with the IPF medical people we captured?"

Ben's first thought was to shoot them. Then he realized that they might best be kept alive. They were the ones who had done this to the humans they'd captured. He wanted to talk with them; see what kind of people would do-whatever it was they had done-to another human being.

"Keep them alive," he ordered. "I want to talk to them."

"Yes, sir."

"What do the ... those experimented upon look like?"

"It's ... they're babies, sir. The doctors told us they were perfecting a worker race.They aren't human, but they aren't animal, either.

Sir, what are we going to do with them?"

"I don't know, son. I just don't know."

"Sir?" Dan's voice broke out of the speaker.

"Go ahead, Dan."

"The woods-children tell me the underground people will take the ... ah, babies. Care for them.

Raise them."

Ike sat looking at Ben and listening, sucking on a pipe stem. When Ben looked at him, Ike lifted his shoulders in a "don't ask me"

gesture.

"You're a lot of help," Ben good-naturedly b.i.t.c.hed at him.

"Beg pardon, sir?" Dan spoke.

"Not you, Dan. Ike."

"Oh, yes, quite. Fatso."

Ike almost swallowed the pipe stem.

Ben signed off quickly.

Vasily Lvov had ordered the loading of those patients-so-called-and the babies from the two medical centers close to Striganov's command post.

Then he went to see the general.

"It's over now, Georgi," the scientist said softly but bluntly.

"No," Striganov said. "I shall defeat Ben Raines."

"Sometime in the future, I am certain of that,"

Lvov said. "But not now. Georgi, we only have two full battalions left us."

Striganov looked at the doctor, inner pain visible in his pale eyes. "Two?"

"Two."

"But I had eight full battalions, Vasily. And two in reserve."

"Yes, I know. And it's very doubtful Raines's Rebels destroyed them all. But they are in a panic; a rout. When we get settled, they'll join us. Just like before. Remember, Georgi?"

Striganov sighed. Yes, he thought. Just like before, when Ben Raines and his Rebels slapped us down to our knees.

G.o.dd.a.m.n the man!

G.o.d?