That war had not been as final as everyone predicted. The mistake was leaving Ben Raines alive to organize another military force against her. Raines and his ragtag army of Rebels had been thorns in her side ever since, and there seemed to be no way to stop them.

  “Harlan Millard to see you, Madam President,” a voice said over the intercom.

  Good, she thought. I need a man tonight, even a man as inept and weak as Harlan. “Send him in,” she said, pushing a button on a box beside her bed.

  “Should I perform the usual security measures?” Knoff asked.

  “Not tonight, Herbert.” She’d slept with Herb any number of times, and anyone else who dared to call him Herbert was not likely to do so a second time, at least not with all of his teeth still in his mouth. “Just send him in. We have business to discuss and it ... can’t wait.”

  The business was the heat between her thighs. It had been worse over the past few days, and she craved satisfaction, even from a wimpy little man like Harlan Millard, who allowed his bitch of a wife to dictate to him.

  At the sound of an electronic door moving back on steel rails and then footsteps, Claire felt the heat growing deep within her groin.

  The door closed, making a metallic noise when its heavy locks engaged.

  “Where the hell have you been?” she demanded before he came into the bedroom.

  “First, I was at the infirmary, having the wound on my arm looked at, then at security headquarters. Claire, I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

  “What sort of bad news? I didn’t order you down here to give me news of any kind. You know what I want—”

  “One of General Maxwell’s crack Black Shirt assault units was wiped out this morning.”

  “Wiped out?”

  “A batch of Rebels were waiting for them in the north Pennsylvania woods. They were the Soviet mercenaries Max was so damn proud of, the unit led by Captain Federov, and some of the Germans.”

  “They cost us plenty of money, Harlan,” she said, as he came around a corner into the bedroom. “Tell me what the hell happened to them.”

  “Raines had minefields all over the place. Some of General Maxwell’s men went up in smoke when they tried to run. The Black Shirt unit was eliminated completely.”

  “The idiots,” Claire snapped, tossing back the last of her brandy, taking only brief note of the rounding of her belly where she’d gained a considerable amount of weight. Her breasts had begun to sag from her added bulk, more than they ever had in the past, as she recalled.

  Harlan stopped near the foot of the bed. “I’m afraid these Soviets were not idiots, Claire. They were some of the best European mercenaries we had.”

  She sighed, frustrated by news she didn’t care to hear at this hour. “So, tell me the rest of it. Bad news travels in bunches. I’m sure there’s more.”

  Harlan looked down at the floor. “The commanding officer, he was flying one of our helicopter gunships. The one we captured down in Georgia.”

  “So?”

  “It was shot down. The ship was destroyed, according to our latest surveillance reports.”

  She stiffened in the bed, raising up off the pile of pillows behind her. “We lost the goddamn Apache?” she spat.

  “I’m afraid so, Claire. They hit it with some sort of SAM rocket.”

  Claire threw her brandy snifter into a corner of the room. The tinkling of breaking glass kept Harlan silent, frozen at the foot of the bed for a time.

  “Ben Raines is a bastard,” she hissed, her jaw clamped so tightly that it made the fat below her chin quiver. “A lucky bastard, at that.”

  “There are more problems,” Harlan continued, his voice so soft she could scarcely hear him.

  “What the hell else has gone wrong? I told you to come down here to make me feel good, not to give me nothing but bad news about our war with the Rebels.”

  “Some of Ben Raines’s Rebel Scouts have been reported to be on the ground north of the compound, this compound, by less than fifty miles.”

  “Fifty miles? How the hell did we let them get that close without being detected?”

  “Some sort of nighttime air drop.”

  “Why the hell didn’t our radar pick up the goddamn plane when they flew in?”

  “I can’t explain it, Claire. I’m just sifting through the day’s reports.”

  “You make it sound like we’re getting our asses kicked on all fronts, Harlan. I goddamn sure don’t want to hear that, not tonight, and not from you.”

  “I’ve always told you the truth, Claire. I’ve never lied to you.”

  She reached for the bottle of brandy and drank straight from it. “Get your clothes off!” she demanded. “I want to forget about Ben Raines and his goddamn stupid Rebels tonight. I want you to make love to me.”

  “Make love?”

  “Call it whatever the hell you want. Get your clothes off and get in this bed with me. I’m going to hump your brains out tonight. Your wife won’t have anything left for her by the time I’m done with you.”

  “I told Ellen I’d be working late.”

  “You will be, Harlan. You’ll be working late keeping the president of the USA happy. And don’t you dare disappoint me. I’m not in the mood for excuses. Get your clothes off and get into bed. You’d better be good tonight. I need a man!”

  “Please, Claire. You must understand that I have a wife at home. These repeated demands of yours—”

  “Did she want you to do her before you came over to see me tonight?”

  “Not exactly . . . but I did spend some time with her before I arrived.”

  “So did you do the bitch?”

  “Ellen isn’t a bitch.”

  “The hell she isn’t.”

  “She’s my wife. We have two children.”

  “I don’t give a damn how many rugrats the two of you have! If I wanted children, the little curtain-climbing bastards, I have alternatives. I can order any one of my bodyguards to come in here and give me some.”

  “I know, Claire. It’s just that I don’t want Ellen to suspect anything.”

  “Who gives a shit what she might suspect? I could have her shot, if I wanted to.”

  Harlan was sweating. “I sincerely hope you won’t do that, for the sake of our children.”

  “I don’t give a good goddamn about your children. Take your clothes off. I’m rapidly losing patience with you.”

  He sat on the edge of her king-size mattress and began to pull off his shoes. “I’ll do the best I can, Claire. I’ve always tried to please you.”

  “Shut up and get undressed, you wimpy little bastard. You make me madder every time you open your mouth. You’ll live a lot longer if you don’t say another damn word.”

  “This is hardly a sexually exciting thing, to hear you say that.”

  Claire scowled. “You’d better get it up for me, or I’ll have it cut off.”

  “Cut off?”

  “You heard me. I’ll have it amputated.”

  “Dear God, Claire. There are times when you can be so cold. I hardly recognize you.”

  “Shut up, Harlan. And don’t mention God to me. God is dead. If He wasn’t, He’d have let us kill Ben Raines a long time ago.”

  “I happen to believe there is a God, Claire. I believe it with all my heart.”

  “Then why would God leave Raines alive to murder citizens of the USA?”

  Harlan swallowed, more sweat forming on his brow. “This is war, Claire. God has never intervened in wars made by men. Not that I’m aware of.”

  “You idiot!” she growled, losing the warm feeling between her legs after listening to Harlan’s empty logic. “War can be made by women. I’m the Commander In Chief of the forces of the USA.”

  “I didn’t mean to be ... gender-specific about it,” he stammered. “It was a generalization.”

  “You’ve pissed me off tonight, Harlan Millard. Put your clothes back on. I’d rather sleep with an alligator than with you, you little bastard.”

  “I’m sorry, Claire.” He glanced down at his shriveled genitals.

  “Get out! Get out, or I’ll have you shot! I want a real man in my bed tonight!”

  Harlan dutifully put his underwear, slacks, and shirt back on, and then his socks and shoes. “I really am very sorry,” he muttered as he backed away from her bed.

  “Get out!” she barked again.

  He bowed politely and turned to go, hesitating before he left her bedroom. “What orders do you want me to give General Maxwell regarding the assault troops north of the compound, Madam President?”

  “That’s a stupid damn question, Harlan. Tell Max to send out enough soldiers to wipe them out. Make damn sure they don’t get close to the compound.”

  “But our reports said they were already close . . . less than fifty miles away.”

  “Goddamn it, Harlan! Just tell Maxwell to get rid of the sons of bitches! I don’t give a damn how he does it, but make sure he does it soon.” She hesitated a moment, then held up her hand. “Just a minute. Didn’t we get a report from one of our spies that Ben Raines was in upstate New York last week?”

  “Yes, ma’am, but that report wasn’t confirmed. We haven’t had time to verify it yet.”

  “I don’t give a shit. I’ll teach that bastard Raines to bomb my houses. Tell Maxwell to send a squad of Black Shirts along with a trained assassin up to New York. I want Raines’s head on a platter.”

  “But Madam President, there’s an executive order forbidding assassination of political figures,” Millard began.

  Claire picked up a book from her bedside table and threw it at him, grinning as he almost fell over trying to dodge the missile. “Don’t you dare quote executive orders at me, you wimp! I’m the chief executive around here, and I said send someone to kill Raines, and do it now!” Harlan bowed again without answering and hurried out of her bedroom.

  Claire reached for the intercom button. She would have Herb Knoff in bed with her tonight, even though she would have preferred a slow screw. Knoff hammered her every time they made love, and she knew she would be sore in the morning. Perhaps thinking of Ben Raines’s death would make the experience more enjoyable.

  Thirteen

  Former Navy SEAL Sergeant Gerald Enger listened to the air whisper through his black parachute, guiding it down with the aid of hand stirrups toward a starlit, vacant field near the Hudson River. Eleven highly skilled assault troops came from the inky skies above him as their cargo plane, a C-130, swept back to the north at low altitude, staying off Rebel radar as much as it could, flying just above the New York treetops at dangerously low levels after the chutists made their jump from higher altitudes.

  Enger hit the ground rolling, gathering his chute cords as soon as he came to his feet. All around him, men in black shirts with blackface greasepaint hit the meadow, tumbling, making as little noise as possible despite heavy packs, automatic rifles, and explosives.

  “Down safe, so far,” he heard Corporal Bill Moody whisper, collecting his parachute only a few yards from where Enger landed.

  “Yeah. So far, so good. Get the men in those trees at the edge of this clearing. Make sure everybody’s got his chute, so there’s no telltale signs of our landing. Any son of a bitch who drops so much as a hanky, I’m gonna kill him myself. Pass the word around. The Rebels may have patrols out. We can’t let ’em find a goddamn thing.”

  “Right, Sergeant.” Moody hurried off into the night to get the assault team together.

  Enger gathered his black chute, dragging it from the meadow to a stand of oaks. They were on a special assignment for Max, General Maxwell, to hit Ben Raines personally at his headquarters, or so the reports went. No one seemed quite sure where General Raines was, despite the best intelligence the USA could gather. They’d gotten word he was recruiting so-called Freedom Fighters in upstate New York, near some of the old national parks. Enger’d been told they had a spy in the area, and he was warned not to harm the operative if he could avoid it. He pulled a picture from his pocket and stared at it for a moment, fixing the spy’s face in his memory.

  Enger had only heard about Raines . . . he’d never seen him in the flesh. But if all went as planned he would get his first glimpse of Raines as a dead man, a bullet-riddled corpse—or a pile of pulpy flesh and bone, if an RPG got him first. Enger’s team carried enough firepower, RPGs, rocket launchers, and other explosives, to blow Raines out of a bunker dug halfway down to China. While other assault groups had failed recently to get Raines, Enger harbored no doubts he could accomplish his objective, and he’d said so to General Maxwell and the President herself—even though he harbored a lingering dislike for Claire Osterman. She was the kind of ball-busting woman any man could hate, a real bitch. But the pay was good, working for the USA.

  His men were veterans of other wars, regional conflicts, some as far back as Viet Nam. Older, seasoned, experienced, they would not make the same mistakes made by the younger mercenaries President Osterman seemed to prefer. The hotshot Russians had been particularly stupid in Pennsylvania, allowing a Rebel band to close a circle around them, blowing them to bits in less than ten minutes when Black Shirts under Captain Federov walked into a deadly trap. Word was the Rebel Scouts were really good . . . good and merciless, sort of like the LURPs in Viet Nam had been—men picked to work behind enemy lines with little or no support. Well, if all went well, he’d soon find out just how good they really were.

  A figure came dashing toward him. As a reflex, Enger swung the muzzle of his AK 47 up, ready to blow the man away unless he identified himself with a code word.

  “The men are in position, Sergeant,” Corporal Martin Davis said, out of breath. “We’re waiting for orders.”

  “Your forgot the goddamn code word, Davis!”

  “Bluebird! Bluebird!”

  “The Rebel stronghold is over that eastern ridge. Fan out in a line, Davis. Pass the word down the line, and this time, remember the goddamn code word!”

  “Bluebird, Sergeant.”

  “A mistake like that can get you killed, Davis. Don’t make it again.”

  “Should I leave two men back as a rear guard, Sergeant Enger?”

  “Of course, you damn fool. How many times have we been through this drill? Send McKinney and Jones back. They know what to do.”

  “But Sergeant,” Davis stammered, “Bill McKinney can’t see a damn thing in the dark.”

  Enger turned back on Davis with his jaw clenched. “Corporal McKinney can smell an enemy at a hundred yards. Never question my orders again. I picked Bill McKinney myself, because he doesn’t make dumb mistakes. . . like forgetting the goddamn password on a mission.”

  “Yes, Sergeant. Sorry. I’ll pass the word down the line right away.”

  Enger forced himself to relax. Davis was right . . . Mckinney’s eyesight was failing some. But a soldier with experience didn’t need to see like an eagle to know who to kill, or when. Davis was too young, too green, to understand. Davis had been his last choice for the Black Shirt mission, when no more experienced men were available.

  Corporal Moody came back with his automatic rifle slung from his shoulder on a leather strap. “The men are ready to advance, Sergeant.”

  “Move out. It’s an abandoned-looking farmhouse, not an underground bunker, according to our intelligence reports. It’ll look perfectly ordinary, except for the communications equipment. Look for radar installations, and listen for the sound of the motors. They make just enough noise when they rotate, on a quiet night like this, so we should be able to hear them moving. And tell everyone to be on the lookout for tracks on the roads. They’ll be using vehicles to move back and forth, and those leave tracks.”

  “Do we take them out, Sergeant?”

  “No. Not until the other explosives are in place. They will have perimeter guards. We don’t know how many of them to expect, or how well-armed they are. Expect landmines and electronic sensors. We take out the guards first. And tell every man it has to be done quietly. No goddamn noise, unless there isn’t a choice.”

  “I’ll get the word down the line, Sergeant. But landmines are gonna be a problem. We don’t have any sweepers, to keep our backpacks as light as we could. Maybe we should have brought at least one.”

  “We have no choice but to gamble, Corporal. If somebody steps on a mine, then all hell’s gonna break loose. We will have lost the element of surprise.”

  “What about dogs, Sergeant?”

  “They’ll be our biggest problem . . . if they have the right kind of dogs. Add this to the orders—if you hear a dog, kill its handler and the animal. Use the silencers. Once the shooting starts, we’ll launch RPGs into the air vents and blow Raines out of his hole in the ground. I’m gonna enjoy watching him sprout wings.”

  “Right,” Corporal Moody said, swinging off at a trot to deliver Enger’s instructions.

  The night in the upstate New York woods was as black as any Gerald Enger had ever seen. Not a breath of air moved among the trees. A man could be heard sneezing or farting at five hundred yards, an advantage for his men—and a disadvantage, if one of them made a mistake.

  He waved a silent signal across the grassy meadow. In the blackness of shadows below the oak forest canopy, darker shapes began to move toward the crest of a wooded hillside, hard to see in the night, harder to hear because these men were well-trained in the art of night combat. Enger would allow no greenhorns on his hand-picked assault force. Davis had been a necessary exception.

  A ripping explosion sent Martin Davis into the air like a wounded buzzard, flapping his useless arms like broken wings, his AK 47 erupting in a spray of gunfire.

  Dogs began to bark. Someone shouted, “It’s a goddamn pair of Dobermans! Shoot the bastards.”

  The chatter of an AK 47 filled the night. A dog snarled in the distance, then a man began screaming—“He’s got me by the damn throat! Shoot the son of a bitch!”