“Sounds good to me, General.”

  “Simon Border?”

  “He’s being prepared to meet you now, sir.”

  “Prepared?”

  “You’ll see what I mean very soon, General. You, ah, wouldn’t have a smoke on you, would you?”

  Ben smiled and handed the man bag and papers. The colonel deftly rolled a tight cigarette, licked it closed, and held out the bag. “Keep it, Colonel.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Trucks began rolling in and mess tents were quickly set up. Moments later, the wonderful aroma of hot food was wafting through the air.

  “Line your people, up, Colonel,” Ben said. “Breakfast is now being served.”

  Simon Border’s last front collapsed with not a shot being fired.

  After breakfast, Colonel Morrison walked over to an old home Ben was using for a CP and was waved to a chair. Ben poured them both coffee and set out the sugar and milk.

  Colonel Morrison sipped and smiled. “It’s been a long time since I tasted real coffee, General.”

  “The pot is full. Help yourself. Tell me about Simon Border, Colonel.”

  “He’s insane, General. A few of us saw the signs months ago. But we couldn’t convince others that it was actually happening. Now he’s . . . well, completely around the bend.”

  “Did you know about his sexual appetites, Colonel?”

  “No. I was never a part of the inner circle. Probably no more than twenty-five or so people ever knew of his tastes for . . .” The colonel grimaced. “. . . young boys and girls. Had that ever been widely circulated, his followers would have deserted him very quickly. I learned of it only a few weeks ago, and then by accident.”

  “The people who did know of it? What happened to them?”

  “They fled like frightened rabbits when the army began collapsing.” The colonel sighed. “It all sounded so good in the beginning.”

  “Most socialistic programs do, Colonel. They all look good on paper, in theory. In practice, they quickly begin to stink like three-day-old fish.”

  “First the medicines ran out, then the food was rationed. Except for the leaders, that is.”

  “That’s the way it always works. What will you do now that it’s over, Colonel?”

  “I’m going back to farming.”

  “Around here?”

  “Oh, no. I’m from Indiana originally. I’ll go back to the home place and have a go at it there.”

  “Have you thought about the SUSA?”

  The colonel laughed. “As a matter of fact, I have, General. If it doesn’t work out back at the homeplace, I just might be asking for residency there.”

  “Come on. We’ve got plenty of room. So you weren’t always a soldier?”

  “Oh, no. Farmer first, soldier second.”

  An aide stuck his head inside the door. “Simon is ready now, Colonel.”

  “Fine. Thanks, Bernie. As soon as I finish my coffee we’ll be along.” He lifted his eyes to Ben. “This is not going to be pretty. I want to warn you of that. Sometimes he’s quite lucid, but most of the time, not.”

  “He has to be cleaned up by others?”

  “Several times a day. And he’s getting worse. You have a place for him in the SUSA?”

  “Oh, yes. We have institutions there.” Ben pushed back his chair and stood up. “You ready, Colonel?”

  “I guess so. Might as well get this over with. The quicker we do, the quicker we can start picking up our lives.”

  “Nobody ever said it was going to be easy, did they, Colonel?”

  “They damn sure didn’t, General. And it damn sure hasn’t been.”

  SEVENTEEN

  Ben could hear the ranting and chanting and wild raving all mixed in with profanity as he was getting out of the HumVee in front of the house. He looked at Colonel Morrison. “Simon Border?”

  “Yes.”

  A man who looked to be on the point of exhaustion was sitting on the porch. He did not make any attempt to rise at Ben’s approach. Ben felt it was not disrespect on the man’s part: he was just tired.

  “What happened, Doctor?” Colonel Morrison asked.

  “Who knows?” the medical man answered wearily. “He was fine twenty minutes ago. That’s when I sent word over to you. Bathed, shaved, all dressed up, lucid. Now he’s a raving mad man again.” He looked at General Raines. “You’re General Raines. I’ve seen your picture. And this gentleman? . . .” He cut his eyes to the third man to get out of the HumVee.

  “Dr. Goldsmith,” Ben said. “Major Goldsmith of the Rebel Army.”

  “Well, Doctor” the seated man said. “I hope you’re a shrink and can tell me what’s happened to Simon Border. I was OB/GYN before I foolishly joined the flock of Simon Border.” He smiled. “By the way, I’m Dr. Schnider. Call me Tom.”

  “I’m Josh,” Dr. Goldsmith said with a smile, extending his hand. “But I’m no shrink.”

  “Pity,” Tom said, shaking hands with all the men. “I guess I’ll never know what happened to the Lord of All Living Things, the Pouty Pedophile, his Majesty the Fruitcake in there.” He jerked a thumb.

  A chuckle slipped past Ben’s lips. “Aren’t you one of the faithful, Tom?”

  “Hell, no, General! I am a very unwilling conscript. And personally, I hope the pecker on that lunatic son of a bitch in there rots off.”

  Ben cut his eyes to Colonel Morrison. Even the colonel could not contain the twinkle in his eyes. “We need doctors in the SUSA, Tom. Lots of babies being born down there.”

  Dr. Schnider slowly, wearily, got to his feet. “Where do I sign up?”

  “Just be ready to go sometime today. Hell, take a nap, man. We’ll wake you.”

  “Thank you, General. But who can sleep with all that howling?” Again, he jerked a thumb toward the house. “I’ll just wait out here for you. That’s my duffle bag sitting just inside the front door.”

  “Were you planning to slip away regardless, Dr. Schnider?” Colonel Morrison asked.

  “Damn right, I was. The very first chance I got.”

  Ben stepped up to the front door and pushed it open, Doctor Goldsmith behind him. The stench hit them first. A foulness that permeated the closed room.

  “I am the Lord Jesus Christ on Earth!” Simon shrieked.

  Ben and Dr. Goldsmith exchanged glances.

  “Fuck you all!” Simon shouted.

  A man appeared in a hallway and motioned to the men. “This way, gentlemen. We’ve had to put Reverend Border in a straitjacket for his own protection.”

  “I want some pussy!” Simon shouted.

  Dr. Goldsmith arched one eyebrow.

  “Somebody come suck your God’s wangdoodle!”

  “Was that the cue to bring the bastard a young boy or girl?” Ben asked the guard, his voice filled with sarcasm.

  “I knew nothing about that side of him, sir. I was assigned to Reverend Border two weeks ago. After I got out of the hospital.”

  Ben gave the guard a very hard look; hard enough to back the man up a few steps. “If you ever again refer to that perverted son of a bitch as ‘reverend’ in my presence, I will personally shoot you stone dead.”

  “Yes, sir. Just a habit, sir.”

  “Break it.”

  “Yes, sir. Consider it done, sir.”

  “Glory, gory, hallelujah!” sang Simon. “Mine eyes have seen the beauty of a tender young twat! . . .”

  Ben pushed open the door to Simon’s room and stood for a moment, staring at the man.

  “Ben Raines!” Simon screamed. “The anti-Christ in person. Somebody kill the son of a bitch. Take his head. Dismember the heathen. That is an order.”

  “Screw you, Simon,” Ben replied.

  Simon stank of his own excrement. Slobber leaked from his lips. Snot dripped from his nostrils. He had pissed in his trousers. He lunged and flung himself about on the mattress covered floor. He howled like a rabid animal. He snapped his teeth together so hard Ben did not know what prevented them from breaking.

  “Tell my driver to bring that small suitcase in here,” Ben told the guard.

  “Yes, sir. Right now, General.”

  “I’m a turd burgler, I’m a turd burgler!” Simon sang. “Got my religion at my mammy’s knee.”

  “What’s in the case, General?” Colonel Morrison asked.

  “A tranquilizer gun. I felt that might be the safest way to knock him out.”

  “I wish we had access to one,” Morrison said. “He’s bitten a dozen people.”

  “I shall rise from the ruins and be proclaimed King of the Gentiles. Fuck all Jews and niggers!” Simon shouted. “Run ’em all off. Send them over the cliffs of salvation to their deaths on the rocks below. So saith the Lord of All Living Beings. His Majesty Simon Border! All praise the pussy hound!”

  “I think he’s slipped from grace somewhat,” Dr. Goldsmith said.

  “It would certainly appear that way,” Ben replied.

  “I know you, Ben Raines!” Simon screamed. “You are the devil and I am the light of truth and beauty.”

  “No kidding?” Ben said.

  “My way leads to the gates of Heaven,” Simon howled. “To follow you leads to the fiery pits of hell and damnation.”

  “War is hell, isn’t it, Simon?” Ben replied.

  “You think you’re such a know-it-all smarty-pants, don’t you, Raines!” Simon slobbered. “You nigger-lovin’, Jewhumpin’ fuckface!”

  “Is he genuinely nuts, Josh?” Ben asked. “Or just a damn good actor?”

  “I don’t know, General. My guess would be a little of both.”

  “Onward Christian Soldiers, marching off to war!” Simon sang, decidedly off-key. Then he fell over on the stinking mattresses and began howling and kicking.

  “Has the van to transport this screwball to the airport arrived yet?” Ben asked Colonel Morrison.

  “Not yet, sir. But it’s on the way.” The colonel took off his sidearm and offered it to Ben.

  “Keep it,” Ben told him. “You might need it. Probably will need it.”

  “Shoot the infidel!” Simon squalled. “KillhimKillhimKillhim. I order you to kill him!”

  “Oh, blow it out your bunghole,” Colonel Morrison muttered.

  “I heard that!” Simon screamed. “I shall have my faithful draw and quarter you, you traitor!”

  “I’m going back to Indiana, General,” Morrison announced. “Do you need me here?”

  “No. Good luck, Colonel.”

  Morrison shook hands with Ben and Josh and walked out of the house.

  “Come back here, you farthead!” Simon yelled.

  Without turning around, Morrison flipped Simon the rigid digit and kept on walking.

  Ben looked up as a Rebel came walking swiftly down the hall. “General, Scouts have found a house filled with dead kids. It’s about twenty miles west of this location. They took one adult prisoner and threatened to hang him on the spot if he didn’t talk. He talked. The kids were Simon’s private, ah, harem, so to speak. Those few who remained loyal to Simon wanted to get rid of all the evidence. The kids ranged in age from about eight to twelve. They were all machine-gunned. All dead.”

  “Good God!” Dr. Goldsmith blurted.

  Ben nodded. “I expected something like this. Well,” he sighed. “Here’s the trank gun. Do your stuff, Josh.”

  “Where do you want me to shoot him, General?”

  “I don’t care if you shoot the son of a bitch in the head,” Ben replied. “Just knock him out and get him gone. Before I decide to end it permanently.”

  “Doesn’t anybody want to see my weewee?” Simon asked. “Then take a good look at this!” He crawled to his hands and knees, showed his butt to Ben and the others, and farted.

  The newly arrived Rebel put a hand on the butt of his sidearm. Ben stopped it there. “I do understand your feelings, Sergeant. And sympathize with them. But, no.”

  “The van is here, General,” a Rebel called from the porch.

  “Good,” Ben said. “Pop him, doctor.”

  Goldsmith lifted the trank gun and fired. The dart hit Simon in one cheek of his ass, burying to the hilt, and the man howled and jerked.

  “How long before the juice takes effect?”

  “Not long, General. A few minutes max.”

  “I’ll be outside.”

  Ben sat down on the edge of the porch, leaving the steps clear, and watched as the medics took a stretcher out of the van and entered the house.

  “If you wait until they’re eight it’s too late!” Simon yelled.

  Ben frowned. In the SUSA, pedophiles had a very short public trial and were promptly hanged.

  Ben rolled a smoke and waited.

  Moments later, Buddy drove up and got out, walking up to the porch. “Is it over, Father?”

  “Just about, son.”

  “. . . Where is my crown?” Simon called, his voice much weaker as the knock-out drug took effect. “Why are you doing this to me? You can’t treat me in such a manner. I am the King of the Gentiles.”

  “Are you all right, Father?” Buddy asked. “You don’t look well.”

  “My stomach is a little queasy, Son. Other than that, I’m all right.”

  “I forbid this!” Simon yelped.

  “Idiot,” Buddy muttered.

  “You sure have that right, son.” Ben stood up and brushed the dirt off the seat of his BDUs. “I’m heading back to the SUSA, boy. This campaign is all over.”

  “Going to be on the same plane with Simon, Father?”

  Ben looked closely at his son. There was a definite twinkle in the young man’s eyes. “You’ve been hanging around Ike too long. You ought to watch that. You’re likely to catch a bad case of the smart ass.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of doing that.”

  “Ummm,” Ben said.

  “Tell Uncle Cecil hello for me.”

  “I’ll sure do that, boy.”

  Cecil Jefferys was the President of the Southern United States of America. The first black man in America ever to be elected to such a high office.

  “We should be through here in a couple of weeks,” Buddy said. “Then three weeks to get back to Base Camp One. And I imagine we’ll be sailing shortly after that.”

  “If all goes well, yes. I plan on giving everyone ten days leave to see family.”

  “After we’ve set sail, any stops planned along the way?”

  “No. At least not at this time.”

  “Straight through?”

  “Straight through.”

  “Are we taking everyone?”

  “At least ten battalions. Maybe more. I don’t know for sure yet. It’ll all be worked out by the time all the battalions are back home.”

  “See you back at Base Camp One, Father.”

  Buddy walked away from his father and got in his HumVee. As he drove away, he lifted his hand in a salute. Ben smiled and waved a hand in acknowledgment. He turned as the screen door banged open. Ben watched as the now unconscious Simon Border was carried out to the van and loaded inside. Dr. Goldsmith climbed in and the van pulled away.

  “Strange way to end a war, General,” the Rebel who had driven Ben over said.

  “Yes, it is,” Ben agreed.

  “But it really wasn’t much of a war, was it, General?”

  “Those who died fighting it might not agree with you.”

  “No, sir, I guess they wouldn’t. Never looked at it quite that way.”

  “Which way did the Colonel go?”

  The young Rebel pointed. “That way, sir. He said he was going to find him the nearest creek and take off his boots and soak his feet for a time, then he was going back home.”

  “You ready to go back home for a few days and see friends and family?”

  “No family, sir. And my friends are all right here in 8 Batt.”

  “I see. Well, I do know that feeling. A soldier’s life is not an easy one, is it?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, sir. I lied about my age and joined up when I was fifteen. The army is the only real home I’ve ever known.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-two, sir.”

  “So you’ve been fighting for seven years.”

  “I’ve been fighting since I was old enough to remember, General. Lost my folks when I was about six, I think it was. Bused around until I was about ten, livin’ on scraps of food and so forth. I looked up one day and this big Rebel was lookin’ at me. He said, ‘I do believe that under all that dirt, there just might be a little boy.’” The young man laughed. “He picked me up and toted me down to a creek and scrubbed me until I was pink. I rode in the back of a truck for a long time after that, until he could arrange to send me down to Base Camp One. The placement folks found a foster home for me and they were real nice people. We lived up on the northern border of what is now the SUSA. They treated me just like I was really their own. Punks slipped over the border and killed them when I was fourteen.”

  “And you joined the army right after that?”

  “After I tracked those bastards who killed my adopted parents all the way to Illinois and finished them off. One by one,” he added grimly. “I been with special operations ever since I got out of boot.” The driver looked up at the sky. “I better be gettin’ you back, sir. It’s gonna rain pretty soon.”

  “All right. I’m ready when you are. There certainly isn’t anything left to do here.”

  Thirty minutes later, Ben and his team were airborne, heading bask to the SUSA.

  Cecil was waiting on the tarmac when Ben’s plane touched down. His team scattered, anxious to start their leave, and Ben got in the car with Cecil.

  “Well, Ben,” Cecil said. “I’ve had conversations with the Presidents of the WUSA, the EUSA, and the NUSA.”

  “So the nation is now officially broken up into four smaller countries?”

  “For a time, yes. You know as well as I do a couple of them won’t last. We’re the only section that will endure and prosper. Maybe the WUSA. That’s up for grabs. And . . . I’ve also had lengthy conversations with the Secretary General of the UN.”

  “Let me guess: the Eastern United States of America—that bunch of head-up-their-ass liberals wants us to go to Africa as peacekeepers?”

  “Right.”

  “I hope you told them to forget it.”