The Last Rebel: Survivor (29 page)

Finally, Kindhand gathered his troops in front of him and, with Jim and Bev in attendance, said, “I don’t know for sure why we succeeded. They clearly had a superior force in terms of numbers, but not in experience.

“It probably boils down to this,” Kindhand continued. “Our experience. Though we haven’t been engaged in many battles lately, we have been engaged in a whole bunch of these that involve coming in and hitting like a hawk—with total power—and pouring out fire. They weren’t able to catch their breath. To put that another way, we were the pigeon but we reversed roles and became the hawk.”

“I think that’s true,” Sergeant Ray McCafferty said. “Over and over—and over—again we’ve had failure drills and instinctive shooting. I got the feeling that we were firing at wide-eyed recruits. I mean, it’s not that we’re better than them essentially. We’ve all been on the range—or whatever serves as a range these days—firing thousands of rounds. You almost get used to getting fired at. These guys weren’t. They may be great on tactical patrol, but this is combat.”

“What do you think, Jim?” Kindhand asked.

“I think it’s a matter of experience as well. I remember the first time I faced a charging grizzly. I was nervous, and my father had to bring it down.

“The second time,” he continued, “I was much calmer. Because I had decided not to go into the woods anymore . . .” The Rebels laughed. “So there was no second time.”

They laughed again.

Kindhand started to speak again to the men when Jim said: “My brother was in all kinds of battles and the like, in Vietnam and other places, but something has me puzzled.”

“What’s that Jim?” Kindhand asked.

“How did the Rejects find us? We’re in, as they say, the middle of nowhere, and not only do they find us, but wait in ambush ahead of us.”

“Well,” Kindhand said, “one thing I know for sure. No one from this outfit is telling them where we are.”

“Right,” Jim said. “Maybe it happened somehow when you sent the message out telling all the Rebels where you were. It was intercepted or something.”

“Maybe,” Kindhand said.

“Well as long as you don’t send any more, we should be all right because we’re moving our position.”

Kindhand nodded.

“Unless,” Jim added, “there’s something we’re not seeing—but I have no idea what that is.”

Kindhand nodded again.

“Okay,” he said, “mount up.”

TWENTY-NINE

The clearing was totally quiet, except for the normal sounds one hears coming from the woods when darkness falls. This night it seemed especially quiet, just the wind and, appropriately enough, the sound of a lone wolf. It was about the way many of the Rejects—just forty-nine—who had survived the firefight with the Rebels felt. Lonely—and scared. The troops, who stood at attention in four lines, were stiff to the point of being frozen, and tenseness came off them like heat. The only light was from the moon.

Opposite them was Premier Szabo, who had gathered them together, he said, to speak to them—Just to speak, they hoped.

“At ease,” he said, and the soldiers came out of the attention position. At ease was another story.

“I have a couple of questions—and an observation,” he said. “First, did anyone see that little pipsqueak we’re looking for?”

They shook their heads.

“I didn’t see him either,” Szabo said. “And how about the bitch?”

Hands shot up. Szabo nodded to one of the soldiers at the end.

“I saw her in one of the HumVees,” the soldier, a tall, lean white guy, said. “She had a helmet on but it was her.”

Szabo nodded.

“Yes,” he said, “that confirms it. I saw her too. Now, let’s talk about the battle.”

He paused, and his eyes scanned the troops from left to right.

“There are a couple of things that we should have learned today,” he said. “Does anyone here have any idea what they should be? They are important because we lost fifty-one men, including Colonel Duyvill. And Dill.”

Smiling, he scanned the group again, his expression something that his soldiers either knew they should fear, or instinctively did. You never knew what was going on behind the smile, and almost always it was evil and violent.

No one answered.

“C’mon,” he said, “this is very important to our efficiency as a force. Indeed, if any of you have any idea what went wrong today...

“Surely,” he continued, “something did go wrong. We lost many good men. According to my observations, I didn’t see a single Rebel trooper hit.”

He paused and looked along the line.

“I need an answer to this question,” he said, smiling, “or there are going to be consequences.”

Still, no one had the temerity to offer a postmortem on the battle.

Szabo’s face didn’t change, but he walked toward the group and as he did they seemed to back up just a little, though none moved their feet.

He went up to one soldier. He looked like the others in the sense that he was in good condition. The trooper was maybe twenty-five, handsome, and had blue eyes and short blond hair.

“What’s your name, soldier?”

“Johnson.”

“Okay, Johnson,” Szabo said, “are you able to tell me what went wrong with today’s operation?”

Johnson looked up Szabo. Though Johnson’s eyes were bright blue, even in moonlight they seemed brighter against his skin, which was almost glowing with redness. He was fighting to hold back starting to shake.

Johnson knew he had to give an answer.

He hesitated, but then spoke.

“I don’t know, sir. I really have no idea, sir.”

Szabo nodded and smiled but it was the wrong answer. He brought his hand around in a blinding arc of speed and what was in it—a box cutter—sliced the jugular vein of the soldier in half, and blood spouted from the wound like a jet spray onto Szabo, who did not seem to notice or mind it. In fact he liked it—because he was too busy making other killing cuts in the soldier’s neck, increasing the flow, the only sound that of the soldier gurgling, desperately trying to stop the flow with his hands.

Szabo backed off as Johnson dropped to the earth, shitting his pants just as he did, and still gurgling, still trying to stop the flow, which was now a spurt rather than a spray, but shortly he started to lose strength and went unconscious and then Szabo watched him slowly exsanguinate on the ground, the blood spreading in a shiny bright pool that continued to increase its margins. The smell of the blood and methane rose upward from the soldier.

Szabo looked at the soldiers with glazed eyes. He was smiling. He made no attempt to wipe off the blood that had sprayed all over his chest, a few drops catching his chin.

“Now,” he said, “let me ask the question again. What was wrong with today’s firefight?”

A black trooper raised his hand.

“Yes?”

“Those motherfuckers got more experience. We’re not used to it or something, because it seemed to me people were just firing all over the place but not aiming.”

“That’s correct! What else?”

The soldier shook his head, but then a tall muscular white soldier raised his hand.

“It seemed to me that we weren’t standing our ground. We would fire, then retreat, which made us vulnerable.”

“Exactly!” Szabo said. “Exactly.”

He paused, looked around.

“And you know what?”

If anyone knew, they weren’t making any suggestions.

“We learn from our mistakes, and next time we’re going to make sure that the people who go on a mission like this are very experienced. You troops are fine when it comes to taking over a town, or fighting some of the Believer forces. But against a group like these Rebels the odds were stacked against you, even though you had superior numbers.”

He paused again.

“But the other important lesson here is that when a commanding officer asks you a question, you must answer it directly and as clearly as possible. Nothing else will do,” he said. “There is another issue here that needs to be resolved. Does anyone know what that is?”

No one spoke.

“Well, it’s this: there is still a job to be done. We still don’t have Rosen. And until we do we are all at great risk. Do you understand that?”

The troops nodded, assented, and in other ways indicated that they understood.

“What I need now,” he said, “is two volunteers to go with me and continue the pursuit of Rosen. Anyone?”

The black guy raised his hand and Szabo bade him to come forward. Then from the back of the group a tall, thin trooper raised his hand.

“Come ahead,” Szabo said.

The trooper came ahead.

“Your name.”

“Atkins.”

“And you?” he said to the black trooper.

“Wilson.”

“Okay, good.”

“And the rest of you are all sentenced to death.”

But then he added quickly, “Just kidding,” and laughed heartily, some of the troopers laughing along with him. He looked down at the body.

“Clear this away and bury it. I don’t want to see a sign of it.”

He walked off, leaving a couple of major questions never posed. Why didn’t he take the responsibility for the failure of the battle? After all, he was the commander, the one who bore the ultimate responsibility. But no one would ever ask him that question. That is, no one who was desirous of keeping on living.

THIRTY

An hour after the firefight with the Rejects, Kindhand and Garrett’s Rebels crossed over into Montana and hooked up with over two hundred Rebels, men who had come from all over the country. The occasion was just as festive as when Kindhand and company met the first group of Rebels at the diner, and the news was all good.

They decided to stop for the night. The Rejects would never risk an attack of so formidable a force and, anyway, the chances of finding them were very slight, though Jim, for one, was not too happy that they were still not able to come up with an explanation of how they had been found.

The leader of the large contingent was General Thomas Bradley, who, with his gray hair and handsome features looked like a fifties general from Hollywood Central Casting, confirmed what Kindhand had heard about the plague from Rosen. The plague was now history. Though Bradley had not heard anything about the Believers and the Rejects colliding in a big war, the idea did not surprise him.

“It’s been coming,” he said. “Doesn’t surprise me at all.”

Kindhand and Bradley, who as generals were at the same rank in the Rebel army, had much to discuss about the future government of the Rebels, though they certainly had a model: the principles employed by Ben Raines when he formed the SUSA.

Kindhand also introduced Jim and Bev to Bradley, who said: “I understand we’ll be losing you, Jim.”

“Yeah, Bev and I are going up north and from there who knows? Hopefully, there’s a preacher somewhere who could marry us.”

“Really?” he said. “How about if you could get married right now?”

“Are you kidding?” Bev asked.

“Not at all. One chief medical officer, Ray Lownbes, is a minister, and I’m sure he’d be glad to marry you. I do agree that it might be difficult finding someone up north.”

Bev looked at Jim, and she at him. It was crunch time, and though both were deeply in love with each other the idea of getting married was still scary. It was a big step, something both had dreamed about their whole lives, and if they wanted to, they could get married.

There is, of course, only one thing stronger than fear, and that’s love.

“Let’s do it, Jim.”

“Absolutely,” he said. “It’s an odd place and time to get married, but that’s okay. Just as long as I get you out of circulation!”

Everyone laughed.

“Actually,” Bradley said, “this is not the first time that Ray has performed the ceremony in circumstances like these. He’s performed at least a half dozen in the ten years that I’ve known him.”

“Good,” Jim said.

“So,” Bradley said, “do you have a ring?”

Bev stuck out the hand with the ring on her thumb.

“Good. Beautiful ring.”

“Thank you.”

“How about a best man?” Bradley asked. Jim looked at Kindhand.

“How about you, Duke?” he said.

“Sure,” Duke said. “Be happy and proud to.”

“I guess we’re going to have to live without a maid of honor. I think any of the troopers here would be reluctant to get into a dress, even if we had one.”

“That’s okay,” Bev said. “I do have a dress for myself.”

“You do?” Jim asked.

“Yes, and a white one.”

“A white one? Where’d you get that?” Jim asked.

“At one of the houses we stopped at.”