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  “My LETTERRP’S say Striganov is staying above the line, Juan. What do your patrols report?”

  “Same thing. But, Ben-we can’t allow this to continue. My wife has just about stopped speaking to me, and Al said Mark’s wife has closed the door on him, if you know what I mean. I think that’s next with me. How about you?”

  Ben knew exactly what he meant. Gale had turned decidedly cold. But Ben could live with that; he understood-or thought he did-how she felt. This was the 1930’s and “40’s all over.

  Ben felt sick every time he thought about the IPF and their selective breeding program. But he was realist enough to know even with the three forces combined, they were not strong enough to smash Striganov’s people, not without committing all free forces in an all-out war. And if they did that, leaving only a token force behind, the Russian could-for he had enough people-pull an end-around their flanks and come up from behind, putting them all in a box with no exit.

  But Ben knew the free forces had to do something. The time for waiting was over.

  “Juan, you know how I feel. Whatever you and Mark decide is OK with me.”

  “We’ve got to talk, Ben. Nose to nose.”

  “To keep Al happy, let’s meet in South Carolina. You fly in here and we’ll fly east together.”

  “Done. When?”

  “Next week. How about … Friday, August second?”

  “I’ll see you then, compadre.”

  “Tri-States, out.”

  Ben turned to Ike. “Feel like traveling?”

  The ex-Navy SEAL nodded. “We’ve got to do something, El Presidente, even if it means running the risk of destroying everything we’re attempting to build. My wife says she’s sick and tired of me pacing the floor at night. And Gale says you’re getting hard to live with.”

  “Yeah,” Ben said. “I keep remembering pictures I saw of Dachau and Auschwitz and Buchenwald.”

  “Yeah, I’ve seen those same pictures. And it’s going to come to that, isn’t it, Ben?”

  “If it hasn’t already and we just don’t know about it.”

  “I thought about that, too.”

  “The survivors are telling us that Striganov and Hartline have instituted a new program of I.d. papers. Person doesn’t have papers is in serious trouble.”

  Ben nodded. “Yeah, I heard that, too. How about the young people who returned?”

  “You were close on that, Ben. Close enough to scare me. “Bout sixty-five percent made it back. But those who died saved the lives of several thousand.”

  “I wonder how many died hard?”

  Ike shrugged. “And how many just quit.”

  Again, Ben nodded. “Denise?”

  “She made it out. She’s all right. Reminds you of Jerre, don’t she?”

  “In a way.” Ben stood up, stretched. “What is the mood of the people?”

  “Ready to go, Ben.”

  “They understand this could destroy everything we

  have managed to build?”

  “Yes.”

  “They understand we are going to take heavy losses?”

  “Yes. But they love freedom that much, Ben. They know Striganov has to be stopped-whatever the cost. And you know every man, woman and child in this area would follow you up to and through the gates of hell.”

  Ben did not have to be reminded of that. He sometimes had to fight to push it from his mind. “I’ll leave logistics to you, Ike. Whatever you’re doing, drop it. I want a complete rundown on equipment: tanks, APC’S, howitzers, weapons, ammo-the whole bag, Ike, from pencils to panties.”

  Ike waggled his eyebrows. “Do I get to inspect the latter on the hoof?”

  “How would you like me to call Sally and tell her what you said?”

  “Lord deliver me from that!”

  “You get in touch with Juan and Mark, have them do the same with their equipment. I’ll get Colonel Gray to wind up training. It’s too late now if the new people didn’t learn the first time. I’ll get with Cec, find out how many people we’re going to have to leave behind as a rear guard. I hate to do it, but we’re going to have to leave the older ones behind to shore up our rear.”

  “They’ll handle it, Ben.”

  “I know it. I just hate to ask them to do it.” He sighed heavily. “Looks like we drop the plows and pick up the guns-again.”

  “It has to be, Ben.”

  “Maybe after this, we can all settle down and try to pull together.”

  Ike nodded his head but looked dubious. “It’s a nice thought, Ben.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Hartline hurt her every time she was chosen to be his woman for the night, but it was a hurt curiously mixed with pleasure. She hated herself when she began to respond to him. And she fought her responsiveness until it broke like a dam within her. She knew she had to win his trust and his confidence, but nevertheless, her pleasure made her feel like a whore.

  She knew she was small; nothing could change that. And Sam Hartline was built like a bull in the sex department. She thought those men were only found in porn movies. He groaned and cursed and had to force his way inside her. And she hated herself for loving it. Even when she became wet and willing, he still complimented her on what a nice, tight pussy she had.

  First nigger he’d ever kissed, too, he had informed her.

  He had, at first, been angry when in the heat of passion Peggy had pulled his mouth to hers and slipped her tongue between his lips. He had pulled back and almost out of her. She thought for a moment he was

  going to hit her. Then he had looked at her, in the soft light from the night stand and smiled.

  Supporting his weight on his elbows, he asked, “How much white you got in you, honey?”

  The question was not new to her, having been asked by both white and black men and women many times in her life. “None.”

  “Bullshit,” Hartline said. “You ain’t full nigger, baby. No way. I figure you’re about half white. At least a third. Your mammy must have done some stepping over the back fence a time or two.” He grinned at her.

  “I rather doubt it,” she replied, an edge to her voice. Her parents had both been professional people, very religious and believing strongly in the bonds of marriage. Her husband had likewise been a good person. They had been married only four months before he was gunned down by the IPF.

  Hartline laughed. “Tell me how you love this cock of mine, baby.”

  It was a game they played. Hartline was proud of his manhood, and liked to be reminded how much man he was.

  She told him, profanely and lewdly, the words ugly on her tongue, but nevertheless containing more than a modicum of truth.

  “Well, good,” Hartline said, a strange glow to his eyes.

  Then he brutally shoved himself deep within her.

  Peggy screamed in shock and pain.

  Hartline ravaged her, with no feeling, no compassion in him, merely taking her as an animal might.

  He wiped himself clean with a pillowcase and then

  tossed it on the bed beside the sobbing woman. There had been no pleasure for Peggy this night.

  Hartline said, “For a jigaboo, you got the tightest cunt I ever seen. You must not have done much fucking around as a kid. I thought all you niggers started fucking when you were about ten.”

  Peggy refused to answer.

  “Well, since the cat’s got your tongue, I got an idea. Next time you can suck me off.”

  Then he proceeded to tell her, in the most profane and ugly manner possible, what would happen to her if she bit him. His voice and harsh, ugly words made her sick to her stomach.

  But she had absolutely no doubts as to his sincerity.

  All that had been weeks ago. Now, Sam visited Peggy more than any other woman in his stable. He seemed loose and relaxed around her, even kind to her at times, in his own peculiar manner. She acted as a docile servant, completely devoted to Sam’s every whim and need. And Sam talked a bit more each time he came to her; whatever he said,
Peggy reported back to Lois, and Lois to the underground.

  On this night, just moments before Hartline was due to arrive at Peggy’s small home, provided for her by Hartline, Lois had sent word that Ben Raines was gathering his forces to march against the IPF, along with Juan Solis from the Southwest, and Al Maiden’s black troops from the Southeast. Peggy was to find out how much Hartline knew about the upcoming invasion.

  But how?

  “Baby,” Hartline said, a very slight and somehow strange smile playing across his lips, “you’re not yourself tonight. What’s wrong?”

  Something in his voice caused her to turn around and look at him as he lounged in an easy chair. His smile was filled with sarcasm. And suddenly she knew-knew- he had been playing her for a fool. She had underestimated the man from the beginning. Everything he had told her, and she had told Lois, had been false information. Those people from the local resistance, those people who had been picked up …

  Her fault.

  “You goddamn son of a bitch!” she cussed him.

  He laughed at her. “Whatever in the world is the matter, sweetmeat?”

  “Bastard!”

  He rose from his chair with the fluid motion of a man in superb physical condition, and Hartline was all of that. He walked toward her. “Honey, don’t you think I know what a house nigger is? My grandpappy came from Alabama. All us Hartlines fought for the Gray way back then. Seems like you coons would wise up after a time. You shines blew it, baby. Everything that’s coming at you jungle bunnies, you folks did to yourselves.”

  Peggy could not believe her ears, could not believe what Hartline was saying.

  “History proves you niggers aren’t as good as white people. And history is seldom wrong. That’s what’s the matter with the world, why it got in the shape it’s in. Folks just refused to study the mistakes of the past. They just kept repeating them.” He grinned at her. It was not a pleasant sight. “Strip, baby.”

  “W-what?”

  “You heard me, sweetmeat: strip! Get bare-assed. Shuck your clothes. Do it.”

  Hartline was overpowering to almost all who met him. He was big and tough and quick and mean. He was powerful, immensely strong. And he enjoyed hurting people. Peggy had heard stories about his methods of torture.

  “Dealing with male prisoners,” Hartline began his lecture to a group of government agents, “is quite different from dealing with female prisoners. Man is and has been traditionally the protector of the home, the strong one. You must handle the male roughly-right from the beginning. You must assault his male pride, his virility, his manhood, his penis power. You take the clothes from him by force and leave him naked and feeling defenseless before you. He will immediately lose much of his arrogant pride.

  “With a woman it is quite different. Use physical force with a woman only as a last resort. You order her to remove her own clothing. You demand it. Make her disrobe. By doing that her dignity has, from the beginning, rotted. That is a very important first step in dealing with a woman prisoner.

  “Don’t allow them sleep. Interrupt a prisoner every few moments while they are trying to rest in their cell. They will be imagining all sorts of dire and exotic tortures lying in wait for them. Lack of sleep disturbs the brain patterns-disrupts the norm, so to speak.

  “I will give you gentlemen an example.” Hartline motioned toward a man standing by a closed door.

  The door opened and two of Hartline’s men pushed a young man out into the large meeting room. The man was in his mid-twenties, unshaven, red and bleary-eyed. He was pushed onto the small stage.

  “Good morning, Victor,” Hartline said cheerfully. “Did you sleep well?”

  Victor said nothing.

  “Remove your clothing, Victor.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Hartline laughed and motioned toward the two burly men. They wrestled the young man to the floor and ripped his clothing from him. They pulled him to his feet to stand naked, facing the roomful of strangers.

  “You see, Victor,” Hartline said, “you are a baby. I can do anything I wish with you, anytime I choose to do so. Remember that, Victor, it might save you-or someone you love-a lot of pain. Now then, Victor, who is the leader of your cell?”

  Victor refused to reply.

  Hartline shook his head and clucked his tongue in a scolding manner. “Victor, why are you doing this? You know you’re going to tell me-sooner or later.”

  “If you’re going to torture me,” the young man said, “get it over with.”

  Hartline laughed, exposing strong, white, even teeth. “Oh, Victor! I’m not going to torture you, my boy. Oh my, no.” He cut his eyes to the man waiting by the closed door.

  The door opened and a young woman was dragged into the room. Both Victor and the young woman had the same pale eyes, delicate features and skin coloration.

  They were brother and sister.

  “Rebecca!” Victor yelled. He tried to get to her. Strong hands held him firm. “You son of a bitch!” he cursed Hartline.

  The mercenary laughed at him. “Tie him into that chair over there,” he said, pointing. “Hands behind the back, ankles to the legs.”

  Hartline looked at the woman. Something evil and perverted touched his eyes. “Now, my dear, you may disrobe.”

  “No, I won’t,” she said defiantly, holding her chin high.

  Hartline chuckled. “Oh, I think you shall, Rebecca. Yes, I believe you shall.”

  He picked up a small cattle-prod and adjusted the level of voltage. He walked to Victor’s side, then lifted his eyes to the woman. “Take off your clothing, dear.”

  “No,” she whispered.

  Hartline touched the battery-operated prod to Victor’s bare arm. The young man jerked and screamed in pain.

  “Don’t do it, sis,” he yelled. “I can stand it.”

  Hartline laughed and touched the prod to Victor’s penis. The man screamed in agony and thrashed against his bonds, his jerking toppling over the chair.

  “All right,” Rebecca said. “Don’t hurt him. I’ll do what you say.”

  “Good girl,” Hartline told her.

  As she disrobed, Hartline walked around her, commenting on her figure: the slender shapeliness of her legs, the firmness of her breasts, the jutting nipples, and finally the mat of pubic hair.

  The agents in the room whistled and made lewd remarks. Hartline smiled. “You see, boys. There are benefits to be reaped from all this. Or should I say raped?”

  The men laughed.

  Hartline ran his hands over the young woman’s naked flesh, lingering between her legs, his middle finger busy. He laughed at her embarrassment as his finger penetrated her. He glanced at Victor, now righted in his chair. “The name of your cell leader, young man. For I assure you, game time is over.”

  Rebecca urged her brother not to tell him. “We’re not worth anything to him dead, Victor.”

  “How astute of you, dear,” Hartline said. “But sometimes death is preferable to living.”

  Doubt sprang into her eyes.

  “Oh yes, my dear. I have seen human beings reduced to madmen, every inch of skin stripped from them-and still they lived, begging and praying to die. I have seen, ah, I do so hate to be crude … various objects forced into a man’s anus, including rather large penises. I have seen what happens to a man when a thin, hollow tube of glass is inserted into the penis and tapped lightly with a club. The pain is quite excruciating-so I’m told.”

  She spat in his face.

  Hartline wiped the spittle from his cheek and chin. “You’ll pay for that.” He looked at Victor. “Talk to me, Victor baby.”

  Victor shook his head.

  Hartline leaned down and kissed one nipple, running his tongue around the nipple, thoroughly wetting it. He straightened and placed the cattle prod on

  Rebecca’s breast. “One of you will,” he said.

  The rape had been going on for more than two hours. Victor watched as the tenth man mounted his sister as if sh
e were a dog. He could no longer tolerate her screaming. She was bleeding from vagina and anus.

  “All right,” the young man said. “I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

  Late that night, a man’s front door was kicked in and the man dragged from his bed. Later, the man faced Sam Hartline in an old office building. Somewhere in the dark building, a woman was screaming in pain.

  “Mr. Samuelson,” Hartline said, “you have certain information I wish you to share with me.”

  Samuelson shook his head.

  “Don’t be too hasty with your reply, sir,” Hartline said. “Before you make any rash statements, perhaps you should visit your daughter. She’s just down the hall, entertaining some of my men.” He listened as the woman wailed in pain. “She is, ah, obviously not getting into the spirit of things, is she?”

  “I don’t believe you,” Samuelson said.

  He was taken down the hall. The screaming grew louder. He was halted in front of a closed door.

  “Believe, Mr. Samuelson,” Hartline said with a smile. He pushed open the door, exposing the hideous torture of the man’s daughter. “Believe.”

  Peggy pushed those stories from her, but fear kept

  them faintly in her mind. Slowly, reluctantly, she began removing her clothing. “Ben Raines will stop you,” she suddenly blurted.

  Surprisingly, Hartline did not lose his temper or hit her. “Could be,” he said. “He’s a tough bastard. And those people with him are fanatics. But Raines can’t do it alone. Hell, sweetmeat, everybody knows niggers can’t fight worth a shit, and greasers can’t fight any better. Only chance Raines has is to beef up his own forces with white folks. And he doesn’t have the time or the people to do that.”

  Hartline cupped a breast, smiling as he squeezed. He pinched the nipple between thumb and forefinger, enjoying the look of pain that registered on the woman’s face.

  “General Raines has a lot of nationalities under his command. Lots of minorities in Tri-States-so I’m told,” she reminded him, relief on her face as he removed his hand from her breast.

  “Yeah,” Hartline once more agreed, “that’s true. I think what he did, though, was gather up the cream of the crop.”

  Hartline slid his hand downward, caressing her satin belly, his fingers dipping into the crispness of pubic hair. “Get down on your knees, yellow gal. Start working that mouth and tongue of yours. Get me wet.”