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"Yes, you are," he conceded. "But a minority member. You and about a
half dozen others over here report the truth . . . without adding your
own slanted opinions. You and David and Paul and a very few other
members of the press have your heads screwed on straight. You understand
that sometimes things have to be measured in black and white for the
good of the majority. You are fully cognizant of absolutes. You know
that the lives of a thousand punks is not worth the life of one decent
human being. That's the difference, Kathy." He smiled at her. "Your
mother and father, Kathy, belonged to what political party, back when
those things mattered?"
She laughed, then shook her head. "They were registered Republicans, Ben."
"I never would have guessed," he said dryly.
While Ben prepared his people to fight on two
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fronts, those members of the press who had been booted out of the
country began complaining to anybody who would listen, which, of course,
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was every liberal Democrat in Congress. But to everyone's surprise
except Ben, for he knew the man had steel in his backbone-it had just
taken Homer a while to find it-President Blanton told them to shut up.
In Blan-ton's words, "World stabilization is much more important than
the lives of a few hundred, a few thousand, or a few million hard-core
criminals. Those who stand in the way of a return to civilization and
orderly government had best understand now that if they persist, they
will be treated in the harshest manner. I fully back General Ben Raines
and his Rebels."
"Well, I'll be damned!" Kathy said, after reading the communique. "What
the hell happened to him?"
"He stopped paying attention to the screwballs in his administration,
told his wife to shut up, and started listening to the majority of the
American people. That's what happened," Ben replied. "If the politicians
had done that years ago, worldwide, this goddamn mess we're now in, and
will be in for the rest of our lives, and a good portion of our
children's lives, probably would not have occurred."
"To someone who didn't know you, Ben, that remark would sound very racist."
"One has only to look at the ranks of the Rebels to know that racism is
not tolerated, Kathy. From any direction."
She smiled at him. "Really, Ben?"
Ben was still puzzling over that question long after she had left the
room. His team had been in the room
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when Kathy made the comment, and he looked over at Corrie, who was
taking a break from her radio. She shrugged her shoulders.
"Beats me what she meant, boss. But reporters are weird people. I never
met one yet I'd trust very far."
Ben met the eyes of each of his team members. No more than kids when
they first joined him-and they picked him rather than he choosing them.
Now they were all adults, in their midtwenties, and there wasn't fifteen
cents worth of difference in their combined philosophies. They had taken
Ben's philosophy as their own. But, as Ben remembered back over the
years, not without question; and they had asked good questions and still
did.
"You might be right about that, Corrie," Ben finally addressed her
statement, wondering if she were trying to caution him about Kathy. "You
may be right."
179 Sixteen
Paris was going to be a real bitch.
Ben had been studying maps for several days, while his battalions made
ready for urban warfare against the creepies in the old city. Paris had
to be taken and the back of the creepies broken. Once Paris was taken,
Ben and his nine battalions could link up and finish the warlords and
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punks. But there was no way Ben could bypass the city and leave the
Night People at his back, nor could he totally destroy Paris. That was
part of the agreement he made with the secretary-general of the UN.
There were about a dozen cities in Europe that he had agreed to leave
intact... if at all possible. Paris was one of them.
"A real son of a bitch," Ben muttered, folding the old maps carefully
and putting them away. He looked up at Jersey. "They're going to be down
in the old sewers, Jersey. We've got to go in and flush them out."
"Then let's get to it," she replied.
"Indeed," Ben said, thinking, Oh, to be thatyoung again. He looked up as
Mike Richards strolled in. The chief
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of Rebel intelligence had been out in the field with some of his other
spooks for the past week, and he had a grim look on his face. "You going
to rain all over me?" Ben asked.
Mike nodded his head. "Yeah," he said, pouring a cup of coffee. He was
unshaven and his clothes were dirty from days of working close to Paris
. . . and probably inside the city as well. "Goddamn cannibals are
holding several thousand men, women, and kids prisoners inside the city,
Ben. Fattening them up for slaughter."
"We anticipated that, Mike. And no, we aren't going to launch a rescue
mission."
Mike looked at Ben. "That's firm?"
"Yes. And you know all the reasons."
Mike nodded. Something happened to those prisoners once they were held
for a long period of time, knowing they faced being eaten, some of them
consumed alive. A large percentage of them lost their minds and had to
be warehoused for the rest of their lives.
"The press is going to raise hell, Ben," Mike said softly.
"I can't help it, Mike. You know as well as I do they're better off
dead. How did the press find out?"
"I don't know that they did. But my people tell me they're all roaming
the secure areas, trying to find something they can use against you. Why
don't you just run them out of the country?"
"The thought is becoming more appealing. But I keep coming up with
reasons why I shouldn't."
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Mike drained his coffee cup. "When do we hit Paris?"
"Day after tomorrow. Dawn."
The FRF moved in to help in the job of sealing off roads on the
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outskirts of the Paris suburbs. Ben was under no illusion that he could
destroy all the creepies in the city; the best estimates his
intelligence people could offer was that 60 to 70 percent would be
eliminated. And the Rebels would suffer between 0.5 and 1 percent killed
and another 2 to 3 percent wounded.
"Let's prove them wrong," Ben told his batt corns just hours before the
push was to begin. "If I find anybody without body armor, I'll
court-martial them."
"How about the press?" Pat O'Shea asked.
"They can get their own body armor."
The batt corns all laughed. Pat shook his head. "Are they going to be
with us?"
"Some of them will be working a day behind us. Only a half dozen will
actually go in with us. I just don't want to have to read about how
harshly we treat these poor, misguided creepies: how they were forced
into a life of cannibalism because when they were young the coach
wouldn't let them play, or the homecoming queen wouldn't date them, or
they had pimples, or somebody was politically incorrect with them-and
because of that terribly unfair treatment, they were somehow forced into
a life of crime in order to rebel against the system, or some such shit."
The batt corns and company commanders and platoon leaders were roaring
with laughter. There were
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those among them who had personally suffered terrible deprivations as
children, or knew of others who had, and who had gone on to become
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