Hatred in the Ashes, page 19
"It's him!" the second man shouted, grabbing for a holstered pistol.
"And his kid. Take them, dead or alive! Who gives a damn as long as we get them?"
Anna shot him in the belly just as Ben jerked out his 9mm and began banging.
The other agent went down, several holes in his chest. He did not move.
Another suit and sunglasses burst out of the service station, a shotgun in his hands. Anna and Ben both fired at the same time, and their bullets stopped the FPPS agent cold and knocked him backward. The shotgun dropped from his hands and discharged as it hit the concrete curb in front of the building, blowing out the front glass. The FPPS
agent sat down on the ground hard, and then toppled over.
Ben and Anna separated, Ben going to his left, Anna to the right as soon as she had tossed him his 9mm spitter and a canvas magazine holder, full up with five mags. Anna had grabbed a CAR from the backseat, one taken from the safe house, and she opened up, the weapon on full auto. She blew out the back window of the FPPS car parked on the south side of the building just as the vehicle was emptying of agents and sent them yelping and hollering for cover. Anna ran behind a tow truck and crouched there.
Ben gave the second FPPS car a burst that flattened both back tires, some of the lead howling off the concrete drive and parking lot.
"Get that damn cunt!" a man yelled. "She's the one who used a knife on Jackson-bet on it."
Anna stood up for a couple of heartbeats. ?You got that right, asshole!"
she yelled, then gave the shouter a burst of 5.56 rounds. His legs flew out from under him and he hit the concrete hard.
Ben made it to good cover behind a car and crouched there, his spitter with a full mag and ready to snarl.
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"Call the state patrol!" an FPPS agent yelled to the gas station attendant. "Get them out here pronto! You hear me?"
Ben put a burst through the front plate glass window, broken glass showered the inside of the small front office. The attendant hit the office floor and stayed put.
"You call 'em if you want 'em!" the young man shouted. "I ain't movin'."
"By God, I'll put your yellow ass in jail!" the FPPS agent hollered.
"Better than bein' dead," the attendant called.
"Son of a bitch!" the FPPS agent yelled.
"Yore mama!" the attendant shouted.
Ben ended the conversation by laying a burst of 5.56 rounds on the concrete just in front of the car the agent was crouched behind. The rounds ricocheted and flattened and several of them hit the agent in his legs and knees. He was knocked to the concrete and began screaming in pain.
"Get him, Becky!'' he bellowed. ?My knees are all busted up. I can't move."
"Yeah, Becky," Anna whispered. "Come on, you bitch. Just give me a target."
The FPPS agent called Becky popped up and triggered off four fast rounds in Ben's direction. The shots missed and Anna gave her a burst from her CAR. Anna missed, but the slugs put the FPPS agent belly down on the ground.
"You damn little whore!" she squalled at Anna. "I'll get you for that."
"Go sit on it, bitch!" Anna yelled. She followed that comment with another burst from her CAR. Anna didn't hit anything, but the howling lead caused Becky to let out with another squall and a string of cuss words.
Anna cussed the woman while she changed mags, Ben hearing the clink of the empty as it bounced on the concrete.
"Did anybody call for help?" an agent hollered.
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"The goddamn gas boy won't call!" another woman yelled.
"I ain't no gas boy!" the attendant yelled. "And this ain't my fight."
"Get up off the floor and use the phone!" the second woman shouted.
"That's your ass, too, lady!" the attendant hollered. "I ain't movin'."
"Bastard!" the woman shouted.
"Bitch!" the attendant yelled.
?You get up off that floor right now!'' a male FPPS agent yelled. "By God, that's a direct order from the FPPS. Call the state highway patrol."
"Fuck you!" the attendant yelled.
"Shit, Jerry," an agent called. "We're on our own out here in the boonies. That hillbilly turd isn't going to help us."
"Use the goddamn radio, Don!" Jerry shouted.
"Mine's busted," Becky said. "It took a burst from that little Rebel whore."
"Mine's busted, too," Don called.
"Whore!" Anna yelled. "You're a fine one to talk, you damn federal cunt!" she exploded.
?Somebody shut that Rebel bitch's mouth! "Jerry yelled.
"Try shutting mine!" Ben shouted.
Jerry jumped up and started to trigger off a burst from an M-16 he'd retrieved from the trunk of his car. Both Ben and Anna nailed him before he could pull the trigger. Ben's rounds took him in the stomach and chest. Anna's rounds caught the agent in the throat and face. His head exploded, showering the FPPS agent crouched next to him with brains, blood, and bits of bone and fluid.
"Oh, shit!" the agent yelled. "Jerry's head just blew up all over me!"
"Wipe it off," Becky called. "You all right, Linda?"
"I'm OK How about you, Bob?"
"I'm hit in one leg and the other knee, but I'll live. Hurts like hell.
Is Jerry dead?"
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"Dead?" the agent with flesh and blood all over him called. "Hell, yes, he's dead. Half his head is missing. Shit, it's all over me."
While the agents were yakking Ben made his way back to the car and took a grenade from a canvas rucksack. Anna watched him and smiled.
Ben pulled the pin and tossed the pineapple. It rolled under the car where the agent with Jerry's brains all over him was hiding then blew.
The gas tank on the vehicle didn't explode, but the grenade sure made a mess out of the car and the agent hiding behind it. It blew just in front of the agent's legs and mangled him.
When bit and pieces of the car and the agent stopped falling, Bob called, "That's it, people! OK, Raines? We're through. We've had it."
?Slide your weapons out where I can see them and stand up, your hands in the air," Ben said.
"You sure about this, Bob?" Becky called.
"I'm sure," the agent replied. "Hell, what choice do we have? Raines? I can't stand up. One knee is busted, and the other leg's got a bullet it."
"Then the other agents can help you," Ben told him. "Do it, ladies."
"You won't shoot us?" Linda yelled.
"Not if you behave and do what I tell you. Make up your minds."
"OK, OK," Becky called. "The weapons are coming out."
Pistols and shotguns came sliding out on the concrete. The women stood up, hands in the air and very sullen expressions on their faces.
"Now, now, girls," Ben said, knowing that the term 'girls' would irritate the oh-so-politically correct, feminazi type women. "Don't look so dejected. It isn't that bad, girls. You're alive. You'll live to marry some nice man and have lots of healthy babies."
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Anna laughed at the sudden and very disgusted expression on their faces.
"Bitch!" Becky said to Anna.
Anna gave her the middle finger.
"Be nice, now," Ben told them, as Anna gathered up all the weapons and Becky and Linda helped the wounded Bob to a wooden bench by the side of the service station. Bob was in a lot of pain, and made no effort to hide it. He groaned in agony as he sat down on the bench.
"Check his wounds," Ben told the women. He looked up and down the old highway. There had been no traffic from either direction during the wild shoot-out.
Ben wondered if local supporters of the SUSA had something to do with that. Probably, he concluded. More than likely he would never know for sure.
"The bullets didn't hit any big veins or arteries," Linda said after quickly checking Bob's legs.
The service station attendant had wandered out and was watching.
"You have a storeroom that can be locked?" Ben asked him.
"Sure do. Around back."
"Help your friend to his feet and move," Ben told the women. "Around to the back."
Ben put the three agents in the storeroom and broke the key off in the heavy padlock.
"It'll take a better man than me to get that padlock off there after that, mister," the attendant remarked.
"That's the general idea, friend," Ben told him. "Wait a few minutes and then call for help, OK?"
"If the phones work," the attendant said with a definite twinkle in his eyes. ?They can get a little ornery out here, if you know what I mean."
Ben smiled. "I sure do." He looked at Anna. "Let's roll, kid. We're only a couple of hours from home."
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Chapter Twenty-one
Ben took the wheel and headed south, staying on the back roads. He would remain on county roads until he crossed over into SUSA territory... if he could successfully dodge Federal patrols and find a place.
They had been listening to the radio off and on since Indiana, and knew the war between the USA and the SUSA had begun. So far the Federal troops had taken quite a beating, but Ben knew that could change in the blink of an eye.
One thing the democrat/socialist government now ruling the USA had not done was pour a great deal of money into a military buildup. The military had lots of manpower-to the feminazis: people-power-but was short on modern equipment. And they had air force to speak of. Big Brother government was spending billions of taxpayer dollars making sure the residents of the USA behaved in a politically correct manner, and toed that strange mixture of democrat/socialistic liberal line in all other matters.
But they couldn't fund their military.
Which was certainly all right with Ben; it made the 224
Rebels' job a lot easier. But the Rebels still had a hell of a task ahead of them.
"Are we going to try to drive across our borders?" Anna broke into Ben's thoughts.
"No. I would guess that every road will have a Federal patrol somewhere on it. If they didn't before your escape, they sure do now. We'll ditch the car a few miles north of the border and walk in."
She looked at him. "You have a radio, Daddy?"
Ben smiled. "Now, what do you think?"
She laughed. "I would say you do."
"You'd be right. But there's no point in using it until we get close. I don't think the Federals have the capacity to unscramble our transmissions yet, but I don't want to take that chance."
"We'll booby trap the car, right?"
"You have a very sneaky mind, Baby."
"Of course, I do." She grinned at him. "I learned it all from you and the team."
Ben smiled at that. When Anna was just barely in her teens she had headed a band of young guerrilla fighters in her home country in Europe
... several years before Ben and the Rebels arrived and Ben took the dirty-faced little waif in as his own. Ben had legally adopted the girl, according to SUSA law, and her name was now Raines.
Ben pulled off the highway and onto a gravel road. He took out a map of Southern Missouri and studied it, finally settling on an approximate spot where they would leave the car and hoof it the rest of the way.
"Find it?" Anna asked.
"Close enough for government work. The USA's government, that is. In the SUSA we get it right the first time."
Anna was still laughing as they pulled out onto the blacktop.
Two miles later they almost ran into a roadblock. Ben saw the car about a quarter of a mile ahead of him brake suddenly, and he pulled off the road and down an old
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road to his right. The road had not been used in so long it was nearly all grown over with grass and weeds.
"I think we might have more walking ahead of us than we planned on, Kid," Ben said.
"So we walk for a few miles in the country and then find a car and steal it," Anna replied. "Suits me."
Ben feigned great surprise. "Heavens! Steal a car? Have you no shame?"
"Not when it comes to saving my butt." She opened her door. "Let's get gone from here.!"
"Just hold on for a few minutes. Let's check this situation out before we do anything that might prove later to be real stupid."
"OK. What's our move, Pops?"
"Pops?"
She grinned at him, and at that instant she looked more like a fourteen-year-old tousle-headed kid than a combat-hardened veteran of several major Rebel campaigns. "Where's your sense of humor, General?"
Ben reached out with a big hand and ruffled her hair. "Pops is fine.
Let's go reconnoiter this situation."
It didn't look good, and Ben whispered as much to Anna as they knelt in the timber and brush and looked at the roadblock about a hundred yards away. Traffic was now backed up all the way to the road Ben had turned down. Cars were being searched very thoroughly, the occupants forced to stand away from the vehicles, guns pointed at them.
"Place is crawling with troops and those damned FPPS turds in, black jumpsuits," Anna whispered. "I hate those miserable, goddamned people."
?They've sure changed from the old FBI I grew up reading and watching movies about years back, for a fact. And it was all done practically overnight. All while we were in Africa."
"Looks like you were right about the walking."
"Looks like."
"How far is it to the border?"
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"Too damn far to walk, that's for certain. We'll clear this hurdle and worry about the next one when we come to it. Let's get back to the car and gear up."
The compartment concealed under the trunk and backseat held lots of equipment but did not contain backpacks, and that's what Ben and Anna needed right now. They stowed what gear they could carry comfortably in several small rucksacks, hooked web belts around their waists, rolled a couple of blankets tightly, and took off through the timber. They carried more ammunition and grenades than anything else.
They spent the first night in an old deserted barn behind the blackened ruins of what was once a house. Their supper was cold field rations that tasted terrible, even after being saturated with hot sauce. A small bottle of the fiery stuff was included in every accessory pack ... to help kill the awful taste.
"This crap is even worse than the old stuff," Anna bitched. "It's awful!"
"No it's not. I had some recently. And this is good for you. The doctors and the lab people all say so."
"Do they ever eat it?"
"I doubt it."
"That's what I think, too."
"They test it on troops in the field."
"The more the troops bitch about it, the better for you the lab people think it is, huh?"
"Go to sleep, Anna."
"Can I throw up first?"
Ben went to sleep with a smile on his lips. It was good to have Anna back.
The next morning the outskirts of a small town came into view, and Ben and Anna knelt at the edge of a small stand of timber and observed the goings-on for a few moments. "Pops," Ann said, "I really would hate to steal a car that belonged to a SUSA supporter." She paused and smiled.
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"But it wouldn't bother me at all to swipe a car belonging to a New Democracy supporter."
Ben lowered the compact binoculars and nodded his head. "I don't think we're going to get a chance to steal anything out of that town." He handed her the long lenses. "Take a look. The place is crawling with Federal troops."
Anna looked for a few seconds and then lowered the binoculars. "It looks like a staging area."
"I think the Federals have pulled back this far to regroup. They got a good ass kicking from our people. We'll head west for a few miles before cutting south. That area is scarcely populated."
Ben and Anna were footsore. They were both wearing low quarter shoes, not-suited to long hikes through rough country.
By noon of that day they were ready for a long rest by a tiny creek.
They soaked their aching feet and washed and dried their socks. Then they forced themselves to eat some field rations, and it was a real effort as usual for both of them getting the mess down and keeping it down.
"This stuff is the pits," Ben said. "When we get back I am ordering the lab people to destroy this crap and come up with something edible."
"Good, Pops. That is wonderful. I assure you, you'll be revered forever for that single act of compassion." Anna began digging a hole in the ground with a stick. "I just can't eat anymore of this hog slop. I'm gonna get sick if I do." She dropped the containers in the hole and shoved the dirt over them. "Rest in peace," she said.
"I'd rather we returned to C-rats," Ben said. "Some of them were pretty damn good."
They walked on, staying in the timber whenever possible, which was most of the time, for this part of Missouri had never been over-populated, even before the Great War and the collapse. Most of the land was rocky and difficult to farm. They met a few dogs. They all were friendly and didn't bark much, and after a pat they ran off, playing and having a good time.
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"I would give them some of these field rations," Anna said. "But I like dogs, and feeding them this crap would be cruelty to animals."
By approaching nightfall they had covered only a few more miles over some very rough country and decided to call it a day. Their shoes were just about shot, and they had been forced to take cover several times when helicopters flew over.
"They seem to be working a search pattern," Ben observed. "I think our abandoned car has been found."
"They're going to pay a hell of a price if they find us," Anna said.
"I'm not going to be taken prisoner again. And I mean that, Pops."
Ben said nothing. But he had no intention of being taken alive, either.
"How many miles until we reach our lines?" Anna asked.
"Still too many for us to walk, Kid, and make it. If we stay on foot, we're going to get caught... trapped somewhere. And that will be the end for us. It's just a matter of time. We're going to have to find some transportation."
"But I bet there are many roadblocks between here and the border."
"I'm sure, but I'm working on that little problem. Right now, let's get some sleep."
"I need some boots."
"So do I. Got any suggestions?"
"I could go alone into the next town and buy some. You have any money?"
"And his kid. Take them, dead or alive! Who gives a damn as long as we get them?"
Anna shot him in the belly just as Ben jerked out his 9mm and began banging.
The other agent went down, several holes in his chest. He did not move.
Another suit and sunglasses burst out of the service station, a shotgun in his hands. Anna and Ben both fired at the same time, and their bullets stopped the FPPS agent cold and knocked him backward. The shotgun dropped from his hands and discharged as it hit the concrete curb in front of the building, blowing out the front glass. The FPPS
agent sat down on the ground hard, and then toppled over.
Ben and Anna separated, Ben going to his left, Anna to the right as soon as she had tossed him his 9mm spitter and a canvas magazine holder, full up with five mags. Anna had grabbed a CAR from the backseat, one taken from the safe house, and she opened up, the weapon on full auto. She blew out the back window of the FPPS car parked on the south side of the building just as the vehicle was emptying of agents and sent them yelping and hollering for cover. Anna ran behind a tow truck and crouched there.
Ben gave the second FPPS car a burst that flattened both back tires, some of the lead howling off the concrete drive and parking lot.
"Get that damn cunt!" a man yelled. "She's the one who used a knife on Jackson-bet on it."
Anna stood up for a couple of heartbeats. ?You got that right, asshole!"
she yelled, then gave the shouter a burst of 5.56 rounds. His legs flew out from under him and he hit the concrete hard.
Ben made it to good cover behind a car and crouched there, his spitter with a full mag and ready to snarl.
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"Call the state patrol!" an FPPS agent yelled to the gas station attendant. "Get them out here pronto! You hear me?"
Ben put a burst through the front plate glass window, broken glass showered the inside of the small front office. The attendant hit the office floor and stayed put.
"You call 'em if you want 'em!" the young man shouted. "I ain't movin'."
"By God, I'll put your yellow ass in jail!" the FPPS agent hollered.
"Better than bein' dead," the attendant called.
"Son of a bitch!" the FPPS agent yelled.
"Yore mama!" the attendant shouted.
Ben ended the conversation by laying a burst of 5.56 rounds on the concrete just in front of the car the agent was crouched behind. The rounds ricocheted and flattened and several of them hit the agent in his legs and knees. He was knocked to the concrete and began screaming in pain.
"Get him, Becky!'' he bellowed. ?My knees are all busted up. I can't move."
"Yeah, Becky," Anna whispered. "Come on, you bitch. Just give me a target."
The FPPS agent called Becky popped up and triggered off four fast rounds in Ben's direction. The shots missed and Anna gave her a burst from her CAR. Anna missed, but the slugs put the FPPS agent belly down on the ground.
"You damn little whore!" she squalled at Anna. "I'll get you for that."
"Go sit on it, bitch!" Anna yelled. She followed that comment with another burst from her CAR. Anna didn't hit anything, but the howling lead caused Becky to let out with another squall and a string of cuss words.
Anna cussed the woman while she changed mags, Ben hearing the clink of the empty as it bounced on the concrete.
"Did anybody call for help?" an agent hollered.
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"The goddamn gas boy won't call!" another woman yelled.
"I ain't no gas boy!" the attendant yelled. "And this ain't my fight."
"Get up off the floor and use the phone!" the second woman shouted.
"That's your ass, too, lady!" the attendant hollered. "I ain't movin'."
"Bastard!" the woman shouted.
"Bitch!" the attendant yelled.
?You get up off that floor right now!'' a male FPPS agent yelled. "By God, that's a direct order from the FPPS. Call the state highway patrol."
"Fuck you!" the attendant yelled.
"Shit, Jerry," an agent called. "We're on our own out here in the boonies. That hillbilly turd isn't going to help us."
"Use the goddamn radio, Don!" Jerry shouted.
"Mine's busted," Becky said. "It took a burst from that little Rebel whore."
"Mine's busted, too," Don called.
"Whore!" Anna yelled. "You're a fine one to talk, you damn federal cunt!" she exploded.
?Somebody shut that Rebel bitch's mouth! "Jerry yelled.
"Try shutting mine!" Ben shouted.
Jerry jumped up and started to trigger off a burst from an M-16 he'd retrieved from the trunk of his car. Both Ben and Anna nailed him before he could pull the trigger. Ben's rounds took him in the stomach and chest. Anna's rounds caught the agent in the throat and face. His head exploded, showering the FPPS agent crouched next to him with brains, blood, and bits of bone and fluid.
"Oh, shit!" the agent yelled. "Jerry's head just blew up all over me!"
"Wipe it off," Becky called. "You all right, Linda?"
"I'm OK How about you, Bob?"
"I'm hit in one leg and the other knee, but I'll live. Hurts like hell.
Is Jerry dead?"
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"Dead?" the agent with flesh and blood all over him called. "Hell, yes, he's dead. Half his head is missing. Shit, it's all over me."
While the agents were yakking Ben made his way back to the car and took a grenade from a canvas rucksack. Anna watched him and smiled.
Ben pulled the pin and tossed the pineapple. It rolled under the car where the agent with Jerry's brains all over him was hiding then blew.
The gas tank on the vehicle didn't explode, but the grenade sure made a mess out of the car and the agent hiding behind it. It blew just in front of the agent's legs and mangled him.
When bit and pieces of the car and the agent stopped falling, Bob called, "That's it, people! OK, Raines? We're through. We've had it."
?Slide your weapons out where I can see them and stand up, your hands in the air," Ben said.
"You sure about this, Bob?" Becky called.
"I'm sure," the agent replied. "Hell, what choice do we have? Raines? I can't stand up. One knee is busted, and the other leg's got a bullet it."
"Then the other agents can help you," Ben told him. "Do it, ladies."
"You won't shoot us?" Linda yelled.
"Not if you behave and do what I tell you. Make up your minds."
"OK, OK," Becky called. "The weapons are coming out."
Pistols and shotguns came sliding out on the concrete. The women stood up, hands in the air and very sullen expressions on their faces.
"Now, now, girls," Ben said, knowing that the term 'girls' would irritate the oh-so-politically correct, feminazi type women. "Don't look so dejected. It isn't that bad, girls. You're alive. You'll live to marry some nice man and have lots of healthy babies."
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Anna laughed at the sudden and very disgusted expression on their faces.
"Bitch!" Becky said to Anna.
Anna gave her the middle finger.
"Be nice, now," Ben told them, as Anna gathered up all the weapons and Becky and Linda helped the wounded Bob to a wooden bench by the side of the service station. Bob was in a lot of pain, and made no effort to hide it. He groaned in agony as he sat down on the bench.
"Check his wounds," Ben told the women. He looked up and down the old highway. There had been no traffic from either direction during the wild shoot-out.
Ben wondered if local supporters of the SUSA had something to do with that. Probably, he concluded. More than likely he would never know for sure.
"The bullets didn't hit any big veins or arteries," Linda said after quickly checking Bob's legs.
The service station attendant had wandered out and was watching.
"You have a storeroom that can be locked?" Ben asked him.
"Sure do. Around back."
"Help your friend to his feet and move," Ben told the women. "Around to the back."
Ben put the three agents in the storeroom and broke the key off in the heavy padlock.
"It'll take a better man than me to get that padlock off there after that, mister," the attendant remarked.
"That's the general idea, friend," Ben told him. "Wait a few minutes and then call for help, OK?"
"If the phones work," the attendant said with a definite twinkle in his eyes. ?They can get a little ornery out here, if you know what I mean."
Ben smiled. "I sure do." He looked at Anna. "Let's roll, kid. We're only a couple of hours from home."
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Chapter Twenty-one
Ben took the wheel and headed south, staying on the back roads. He would remain on county roads until he crossed over into SUSA territory... if he could successfully dodge Federal patrols and find a place.
They had been listening to the radio off and on since Indiana, and knew the war between the USA and the SUSA had begun. So far the Federal troops had taken quite a beating, but Ben knew that could change in the blink of an eye.
One thing the democrat/socialist government now ruling the USA had not done was pour a great deal of money into a military buildup. The military had lots of manpower-to the feminazis: people-power-but was short on modern equipment. And they had air force to speak of. Big Brother government was spending billions of taxpayer dollars making sure the residents of the USA behaved in a politically correct manner, and toed that strange mixture of democrat/socialistic liberal line in all other matters.
But they couldn't fund their military.
Which was certainly all right with Ben; it made the 224
Rebels' job a lot easier. But the Rebels still had a hell of a task ahead of them.
"Are we going to try to drive across our borders?" Anna broke into Ben's thoughts.
"No. I would guess that every road will have a Federal patrol somewhere on it. If they didn't before your escape, they sure do now. We'll ditch the car a few miles north of the border and walk in."
She looked at him. "You have a radio, Daddy?"
Ben smiled. "Now, what do you think?"
She laughed. "I would say you do."
"You'd be right. But there's no point in using it until we get close. I don't think the Federals have the capacity to unscramble our transmissions yet, but I don't want to take that chance."
"We'll booby trap the car, right?"
"You have a very sneaky mind, Baby."
"Of course, I do." She grinned at him. "I learned it all from you and the team."
Ben smiled at that. When Anna was just barely in her teens she had headed a band of young guerrilla fighters in her home country in Europe
... several years before Ben and the Rebels arrived and Ben took the dirty-faced little waif in as his own. Ben had legally adopted the girl, according to SUSA law, and her name was now Raines.
Ben pulled off the highway and onto a gravel road. He took out a map of Southern Missouri and studied it, finally settling on an approximate spot where they would leave the car and hoof it the rest of the way.
"Find it?" Anna asked.
"Close enough for government work. The USA's government, that is. In the SUSA we get it right the first time."
Anna was still laughing as they pulled out onto the blacktop.
Two miles later they almost ran into a roadblock. Ben saw the car about a quarter of a mile ahead of him brake suddenly, and he pulled off the road and down an old
225
road to his right. The road had not been used in so long it was nearly all grown over with grass and weeds.
"I think we might have more walking ahead of us than we planned on, Kid," Ben said.
"So we walk for a few miles in the country and then find a car and steal it," Anna replied. "Suits me."
Ben feigned great surprise. "Heavens! Steal a car? Have you no shame?"
"Not when it comes to saving my butt." She opened her door. "Let's get gone from here.!"
"Just hold on for a few minutes. Let's check this situation out before we do anything that might prove later to be real stupid."
"OK. What's our move, Pops?"
"Pops?"
She grinned at him, and at that instant she looked more like a fourteen-year-old tousle-headed kid than a combat-hardened veteran of several major Rebel campaigns. "Where's your sense of humor, General?"
Ben reached out with a big hand and ruffled her hair. "Pops is fine.
Let's go reconnoiter this situation."
It didn't look good, and Ben whispered as much to Anna as they knelt in the timber and brush and looked at the roadblock about a hundred yards away. Traffic was now backed up all the way to the road Ben had turned down. Cars were being searched very thoroughly, the occupants forced to stand away from the vehicles, guns pointed at them.
"Place is crawling with troops and those damned FPPS turds in, black jumpsuits," Anna whispered. "I hate those miserable, goddamned people."
?They've sure changed from the old FBI I grew up reading and watching movies about years back, for a fact. And it was all done practically overnight. All while we were in Africa."
"Looks like you were right about the walking."
"Looks like."
"How far is it to the border?"
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"Too damn far to walk, that's for certain. We'll clear this hurdle and worry about the next one when we come to it. Let's get back to the car and gear up."
The compartment concealed under the trunk and backseat held lots of equipment but did not contain backpacks, and that's what Ben and Anna needed right now. They stowed what gear they could carry comfortably in several small rucksacks, hooked web belts around their waists, rolled a couple of blankets tightly, and took off through the timber. They carried more ammunition and grenades than anything else.
They spent the first night in an old deserted barn behind the blackened ruins of what was once a house. Their supper was cold field rations that tasted terrible, even after being saturated with hot sauce. A small bottle of the fiery stuff was included in every accessory pack ... to help kill the awful taste.
"This crap is even worse than the old stuff," Anna bitched. "It's awful!"
"No it's not. I had some recently. And this is good for you. The doctors and the lab people all say so."
"Do they ever eat it?"
"I doubt it."
"That's what I think, too."
"They test it on troops in the field."
"The more the troops bitch about it, the better for you the lab people think it is, huh?"
"Go to sleep, Anna."
"Can I throw up first?"
Ben went to sleep with a smile on his lips. It was good to have Anna back.
The next morning the outskirts of a small town came into view, and Ben and Anna knelt at the edge of a small stand of timber and observed the goings-on for a few moments. "Pops," Ann said, "I really would hate to steal a car that belonged to a SUSA supporter." She paused and smiled.
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"But it wouldn't bother me at all to swipe a car belonging to a New Democracy supporter."
Ben lowered the compact binoculars and nodded his head. "I don't think we're going to get a chance to steal anything out of that town." He handed her the long lenses. "Take a look. The place is crawling with Federal troops."
Anna looked for a few seconds and then lowered the binoculars. "It looks like a staging area."
"I think the Federals have pulled back this far to regroup. They got a good ass kicking from our people. We'll head west for a few miles before cutting south. That area is scarcely populated."
Ben and Anna were footsore. They were both wearing low quarter shoes, not-suited to long hikes through rough country.
By noon of that day they were ready for a long rest by a tiny creek.
They soaked their aching feet and washed and dried their socks. Then they forced themselves to eat some field rations, and it was a real effort as usual for both of them getting the mess down and keeping it down.
"This stuff is the pits," Ben said. "When we get back I am ordering the lab people to destroy this crap and come up with something edible."
"Good, Pops. That is wonderful. I assure you, you'll be revered forever for that single act of compassion." Anna began digging a hole in the ground with a stick. "I just can't eat anymore of this hog slop. I'm gonna get sick if I do." She dropped the containers in the hole and shoved the dirt over them. "Rest in peace," she said.
"I'd rather we returned to C-rats," Ben said. "Some of them were pretty damn good."
They walked on, staying in the timber whenever possible, which was most of the time, for this part of Missouri had never been over-populated, even before the Great War and the collapse. Most of the land was rocky and difficult to farm. They met a few dogs. They all were friendly and didn't bark much, and after a pat they ran off, playing and having a good time.
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"I would give them some of these field rations," Anna said. "But I like dogs, and feeding them this crap would be cruelty to animals."
By approaching nightfall they had covered only a few more miles over some very rough country and decided to call it a day. Their shoes were just about shot, and they had been forced to take cover several times when helicopters flew over.
"They seem to be working a search pattern," Ben observed. "I think our abandoned car has been found."
"They're going to pay a hell of a price if they find us," Anna said.
"I'm not going to be taken prisoner again. And I mean that, Pops."
Ben said nothing. But he had no intention of being taken alive, either.
"How many miles until we reach our lines?" Anna asked.
"Still too many for us to walk, Kid, and make it. If we stay on foot, we're going to get caught... trapped somewhere. And that will be the end for us. It's just a matter of time. We're going to have to find some transportation."
"But I bet there are many roadblocks between here and the border."
"I'm sure, but I'm working on that little problem. Right now, let's get some sleep."
"I need some boots."
"So do I. Got any suggestions?"
"I could go alone into the next town and buy some. You have any money?"
