The cassette recorder was rolling, taping it all.

  “Good question, Raines. I've given it a lot of thought, and reached this conclusion: beats the shit outta me.”

  “For a fact, General, the truth: Russia and China?”

  “Gone. Hell, boy—you don't think we actually destroyed all those nukes, do you, back when the final SALT was signed? No way. There is nothing left, sonny. Human, that is.”

  “Fallout?”

  “We'll be getting some—but don't worry, you won't be taking any of it. We won't be taking much. Too many clean bombs used.”

  “You men in on the general's plan to be part of the master race?” Ben asked the trio.

  “All the way, partner,” the captain said. The sergeants nodded.

  Ben pulled the trigger of the M-10, working the weapon from left to right, clearing the room of all living things in front of its stuttering muzzle.

  He rose from his half-crouch to look at the carnage he had wrought. They were all dead. He got into his truck and drove to the communications center of the base. He stood for a moment looking at the maze of electronic equipment. None of it looked familiar. He finally managed to turn on what he hoped was a radio transmitter and set the dial to 39.2. He keyed the mike and watched the VU meter jump with needle action.

  “Here goes nothing,” he muttered, then took a deep breath. “This is Ben Raines,” he spoke slowly. “I hear you people have been looking for me.”

  “How do we know you're Ben Raines?” a voice jumped back at him. “We've had two dozen crank callers.”

  “How do I know you're who you claim to be?” Ben challenged.

  “The Bull told us about the last time you two saw each other. He shouted something to you as he stood in the door. We know what he said. And if you're Ben Raines, so will you. Do you remember those two words?”

  “Bold Strike,” Ben said.

  “Sorry, General Raines, sir. But we had to be certain. Lot of snooping going on.”

  "General!" Ben blurted. “Man, I'm not a general.” “Yes, you are, sir. Begging your pardon.”

  “I'd like to know just who in the hell told you that!”

  “Colonel Dean, sir.”

  “A colonel can't make anybody a general.”

  “The Bull can—and did, General.”

  Ben released the mike button. “Shit!” he said. “Now what?” He pushed the mike button. “How ... ah ... do I scramble this thing?”

  “On which end, sir?”

  “Both ends!”

  “What is the number on the transmitter facing?”

  Ben looked, found about forty-eight different numbers. He settled on the largest number that seemed permanent.

  “Look to your left, sir,” the voice told him. “A switch with the word ‘scramble’ just above it. Flip the switch.”

  Ben looked. There it was. He felt like an idiot. “Some general I am,” he muttered. Keying the mike, he said, “Am I scrambled?”

  “Repeat, sir.”

  Ben repeated.

  “Scrambled now, sir.”

  Ben informed the voice of what had just transpired in the service club.

  “Yes, sir. We know Logan is planning worldwide power play under the guise of a good-neighbor policy. But our immediate concern is: what do we do?”

  “Are you people nationwide?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Can you handle explosives?”

  “We can do anything with explosives, General.”

  “I am not your general!”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ben sighed. He waited.

  “General Raines? Are you still there?”

  “Oh, for Christ's sake!” Ben punched the mike button. “You wanna know what you can do? I'll tell you: you can order your people to slip onto every military base in this nation and destroy every goddamned plane they find.”

  “Yes, sir, very good, sir. That will prevent Logan from getting the jump on us. We have men among us who can fly those planes, sir. Shall we take some for our use?”

  “What use!” Ben yelled.

  “For the defense of our nation, sir.”

  “What fucking nation!” Ben screamed.

  “The one the Bull told us you had planned. The one you used to talk about in ‘Nam.”

  Ben's sigh was long and frustrated. “By all means ... ah ... to whom am I speaking?”

  “Lieutenant Conger, sir.”

  “Fine. All right, Conger. If you people have places in ... ah...” He closed the mike switch and thought for a few seconds, then said, “Idaho or Montana, take them there. Pick up anything you feel you might need along the way. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  With the mike closed, Ben said, “Goddamned yo-yo. That ought to keep them busy.”

  “General Raines?” The voice popped and snapped.

  “What!”

  “Where are you, sir? I need your location so I can send some personnel to guard you until you link up with us.”

  “Guard me? Goddamn it, I don't need anyone to guard me!”

  The voice was silent for a few seconds and Ben was sure he had broken off transmission. “Yes, sir. You said General Ruther, sir? That'd be Shaw AFB. We'll have our South Carolina contingent pick you up as soon as possible. I—”

  Ben began shouting into the mike, not knowing whether the man called Conger was off the air listening or still jabbering his nonsense. “Now, you listen to me!” Ben roared. “I am not—repeat— NOT your commander. I hereby appoint you, Conger, as commanding officer of the army of the Rebels, or whatever in the hell you're called. Do you understand that?”

  “Affirmative, sir. But you can't make me commander.” “Why the hell not?”

  “Because Bull Dean was my uncle. He gave his life for this country, and he said you were to command after his death. And, sir, that is that.”

  Ben knew when he was whipped. “Fine, Lieutenant, dandy. You have my orders. Carry them out. I'll be in contact ... sometime.”

  He cut off the transmitter before Conger had the time to object. He looked at the radio and said, “I am not your commanding officer, son. Period. Good-by. Good luck.”

  Ben prowled the base until he found the ordnance hut. He broke open the building and began picking through the explosives. He was too rusty to trust himself if he used any type of timer, so he chose several crates of incendiary grenades and began the job of filling five-gallon cans full of high- octane jet fuel and pouring some around the line of jets on the tarmac. He then began the job of destroying the aircraft.

  When he had finished, he was covered with soot and hard of hearing from the booming explosions. This was one runway that would be a long time getting cleared and repaired.

  He then drove around the base, tossing grenades into every other building, and setting the base ablaze. He drove out the main gate, smiling. He said, “Fuck you, Logan.”

  Ben took highway 601 down to Orangeburg, then picked up highway 21. He spent the night in a home by the side of Interstate 95, about fifty miles north of Savannah. In the morning he would drive close enough to listen to CB chatter, then decide if he was going into the city.

  The next morning, after reviewing the talk on the CB, he decided he most definitely was not going into the city.

  He skirted the city, between Savannah and Fort Stewart, on Interstate 95. South of the city, he picked up highway 82 and once more began checking towns along the way, making notes into his recorder, and letting Conger and his band of reactionaries slip from his mind.

  Just a few miles outside of Jessup, at a roadside picnic area where he had stopped to eat a can of C- ration, Ben heard a growling. He turned slowly, picking up the M-10 with his right hand.

  At first he thought it was a wolf sitting in the bed of the truck, on a tarp-covered crate, and peering over the side at him. Ben took a closer look and could see its upturned tail. This was not a husky, he concluded, but a malamute, the largest of the breed. The dog looked to be about thirty-two inches high, about eighty to ninety pounds. Big. It was wolf-gray with a black mask area around its almond-shaped eyes.

  The animal yawned, exposing teeth that could tear a man to painful chunks of meat very quickly. Then the malamute closed his mouth and looked at Ben. It was neither friendly nor hostile, just curious. Ben dumped what was left of his C-ration into a piece of paper and placed it on the ground beside him.

  “Come on,” he said.

  The dog jumped from the truck and walked to the food, eating it in two bites. He looked up at Ben, as if asking, but not begging, for more. Ben opened another can and dumped that on the paper. The animal ate, then walked to the ditch beside the small park and enjoyed a noisy drink of water. His thirst quenched, he walked back to the truck, jumped up into the bed, and lay down, closing his eyes as if he had been doing that, on this truck, all his life.

  Probably belonged to someone who rode it around in a pickup truck, Ben thought.

  “Well,” Ben said, “if you want to ride, you can damned well ride. I'm not going to tell you to move.”

  The dog opened its eyes, looked at Ben, then went back to sleep.

  Ben policed the area, dumped his trash into a container, and got into the truck. He opened the sliding glass of the rear window, cranked up, and pulled out. After a few miles, the animal stuck his head through the window, looked at Ben, who was holding his breath; then licked Ben on the cheek. Ben rubbed the animal's head and the dog barked happily, then settled back on the canvas.

  “Looks like I found a friend.” Ben grinned.

  So Ben and his new friend, whose name, Ben discovered, when he checked the tags on the collar, was Juno (probably, Ben thought, a shortened version of Juneau, Alaska), spent the day and the evening getting acquainted. And Ben and the dog took to each other. He had not had a pet since his boyhood days in Illinois and, after spending a little time with Juno, he wondered why he had not. He found Juno to be alert, probably no more than three years old, and seemingly intelligent.

  Ben's sleep that night was deep and secure, for the animal was attuned to the night's every noise. During the night, Juno had snuggled up to Ben's sleeping bag, the closeness and warmth comforting to both man and beast.

  Lost a girlfriend and found a dog. Ben smiled as he drifted off.

  The next morning, however, Ben discovered he was crawling with fleas.

  Juno met his new master's reproachful scratching with a look of doggie disgust, as if saying, “What the hell? Lay down with dogs, what do you expect?”

  At the first town they came to that morning, Ben picked up a supply of flea powder and spray, and several flea collars. Then he bathed both Juno and himself and that solved the problem of fleas.

  Ben headed southeast out of Callahan, having no desire to travel through Jacksonville. He had seen a few people. They were, for the most part, silent and withdrawn, but some were openly hostile. He picked up talk on his CB, but none of it was friendly. He had stopped along the highway several times to look at bodies. They were all no more than two or three days old and they had been shot.

  A few miles down the highway, Ben found a body hanging from a tree alongside the road. A crudely lettered sign hung around the neck read: NIGGER.

  Further on, he found the body of a white man hanging from a tree. The sign around his neck read: JUSTICE WILL PREVAIL.

  “Wonderful,” Ben remarked. “I am so happy to find our judicial system—inadequate as it was—is still flourishing.”

  He drove quickly out of that part of the state. Even Juno seemed relieved to be on the move.

  At Raiford, Ben followed the signs to the big prison, but long before he saw the wire and the walls he smelled it and turned around, heading back. A huge flock of buzzards circled in the sky.

  He wandered the northern part of the state, all the way over to Hampton Springs, seeing a few people, some friendly, some hostile. He saw signs of looting and violence everywhere he went.

  Then, while turning the dial on his portable radio, he heard the music. He was so startled he pulled off the road and turned up the radio. The music faded and a voice sprang out.

  “Yes, sir, folks, it's a bright, beautiful day here in the city with the titties. Temperature in the midseventies and you're listening to the SEAL with the feel, Ike McGowen, watchin’ the records go ‘round. Are you listening, world? If so, and you're the friendly type, just head on down to the coast to Yankeetown and be received. But if you're hostile, just carry your ass on, brother.”

  Ben laughed and wondered if SEAL meant Navy SEAL—sea, air, and land—or was just a nickname. He decided to find out. As he drove, he kept looking for a radio tower. He didn't spot it until he got to the water's edge, and it was the crudest looking tower he had ever seen, leaning precariously to one side, looking as if it might topple over at any moment. Ben pulled into the drive of the large, oceanside house and got out.

  A gaggle of bikini-clad young ladies, bouncing and jiggling, came racing out to meet him. They were all armed with automatic weapons. Kind of took away from the beauty of their bare skins. A man with a CAR-15 walked behind them.

  “I'm peaceful,” Ben called. “I really can't speak for the dog—only known him for a few days, but I think he's friendly.”

  “What's your name, friend?” the man called.

  “Ben Raines.”

  “I'm Ike McGowen. What's the dog's name?”

  “Juno.”

  “Well, Ben and Juno, come on into radio station KUNT and set for a time.”

  Ben laughed at the old joke of call letters. “KUNT?”

  Ike returned the laugh. “Yeah—it's a little fuzzy around the edges but mighty fine, man. Mighty fine.”

  In the sprawling house, Ike introduced Ben. “This one here is Tatter, and that's June-Bug, and that one there is Space-Baby, and that one is Angel-Face. The blond is Honey-Poo. That dark one all sprawled out on the floor, too goddamned lazy to get up is Bell-Ringer. She claims to be a black person of the Negroid persuasion, but I think she's just been out in the sun too long.” Bell-Ringer smiled and gave him the middle finger. She smiled at Ben, then went back to reading her book. Ike said, “We got all the conveniences, friend. Generator for electricity which gives up light, music, and hot water. So fix yourself a drink and let's talk. Then we'll vote.”

  “Vote? Vote on what?”

  Ike grinned. “To see if you'll stay with us for a time—or leave.”

  “Well, I wasn't planning on staying, but I'll take your offer of a drink.”

  “Aw.” Ike waved off Ben's idea of leaving. “You look like an O.K. sort of guy. Hell, hang around awhile. Tell us your story and we'll vote.”

  Over his bourbon and water, Ben told them what he was doing—and had done. He told them about the general at Shaw AFB, about Logan, the Rebels.

  “I wondered if you were the writer. Yeah, I've heard about the Rebels; talked to them a couple of times on 39.2. I don't know much about them—what they're all about—but they sound pretty straight. Hell, Ben, we can't throw a general out of here.”

  Ben grimaced and they all laughed.

  “You don't strike me as the DJ type,” Ben said to Ike.

  Ike grinned, his boyishness coming through. “I'm not, really. But I always wanted to be. No,” he said, sighing, “I'm—was—in the Navy. SEAL. We were doing some training at Fort Walton Beach when the balloon went up. Talk about confusion, man. Jesus! Nobody knew their ass from peanut butter. I got sick as a dog.” He looked at Juno. “No offense, pooch. And wandered around in a daze for about a week. Ran into Bell-Ringer; she was in the process of gettin’ raped by a bunch of rednecks—so I sorta jumped in and did my survival bit on her behalf, since her below was all filled up, so to speak.”

  Bell-Ringer shot him the bird.

  “You killed them.” It was a statement on Ben's part, not a question.

  “I damned shore did.” Ike grinned. “Me and my little ol’ CAR-15. Then, the next day, we ran into Tatter and June-Bug and we all sorta migrated down here. The others just wandered in when I got the station on the air.” He looked at the ladies. “Let's vote. All in favor of Gen. Ben Raines stayin', raise your hand, or your foot, or lift a tit—do somethin'.”

  All hands went up.

  Ike's grin widened. “You're home, General. Let's get you unloaded.”

  Juno was cuddled up to June-Bug. He had already made up his mind to stay.

  Ben couldn't blame him for that.

  Chapter 11

  “Have there been many visitors around?” Ben asked. It was dusk on the coast and the gulf was as beautiful as the Prussian blue eyes of Jerre; it gleamed softly, bathing the sand with a peaceful glow. For a moment Ben thought of Jerre and he was saddened.

  Honey-Poo picked up on the gentleness in his voice and stirred. Ben was conscious of the vibes from her, and she of the vibes from him.

  Ike looked at both of them and grinned knowingly. “Yeah, several have tried to come in here and take over; throwin’ their weight around, runnin’ off at the mouth. But I've taught all these gals about weapons, and they won't hesitate to blow the ass off a troublemaker. Those guys didn't last long. We buried ’em right over there.” He pointed. “The other side of that house way down yonder. I guess the word spread after the last shoot-out; hasn't been any more rednecks or trash comin’ around. But we hear it's really tough up in the north part of the state, and really bad down in Jax and Tampa. Some of the other cities, too.”

  Ben spoke of the bodies he'd seen hanging by the side of the road and he elaborated on what was about to happen—if it hadn't already occurred—in Chicago and some of the other cities around the nation.

  “Right and wrong on both sides,” Bell-Ringer said; then rose from her chair and went inside.

  Ike followed her.

  “They got a thing for each other,” Honey-Poo said. “I think they're gonna get married here pretty soon.”

  Suddenly, without any warning, Ben thought of Salina. “She's a beautiful woman.” And she was.

  “Smart, too. Was going to college in Gainesville, working on her Ph.D. in something or the other. Doesn't talk much about it, though. Guy she was going with—not steady or heavy—was killed two or three days after the war, or whatever the hell it was that happened.”