Free William W. Johnstone by Wind In The Ashes Page A

our people on the border. Tell them we’re going to full alert. Tell them to be very careful. Ben Raines is on the prowl.”
    “In
our
territory?” the radioman was startled. Hartline nodded his handsome head. “I think so. My guts tell me it’s coming down to the wire.”
    Late afternoon began settling softly into dusk as Ben’s Rebels, one by one, attracting no attention from the woebegone-looking people scattered about Redding, moved into position around the airport.
    “Folks around here look like all the fight’s been kicked out of them,” a Rebel observed.
    “Sure looks that way,” his partner agreed. “I haven’t seen anyone so far I’d trust.”
    “I think what we’re seein’ is the losers; they’d be losers war or no war.”
    “Then where are the others?”
    “Watchin’ and waitin', I’d bet.”
    The Rebel’s walkie-talkie, clipped onto his web belt, crackled softly.
    “Go ahead,” the Rebel spoke.
    “This is Raines. I’ve just been informed there is a very active resistance force of Americans working out of Redding. They know we’re here and will be linking up with you point people very soon. Leader’s name is Harris.”
    “Ten-four, General.”
    “Over to your right, Mac.”
    Mac looked. A man was standing in the doorway of what had once been a drugstore. He waved the Rebels across the street.
    They approached him cautiously.
    “I’m Harris,” the man announced. “Man, are we glad to see you people.”
    “Is that right?” Mac asked. “You look like you’re big enough to kick ass and take names. Why didn’t you?”
    Harris smiled bitterly. “I’ve got about seventy-five people in my group. Seventy-five out of three thousand. That tell the story?”
    Mac was sorry he had spoken so sharply. But while he knew what the Rebels were doing was necessary, he, like so many Rebels, including Ben Raines, was getting damn tired of fighting other peoples’ wars for them.
    “Yeah, Harris. It does. Sorry I popped off at you.”
    “I understand. Believe me, I do. Many times I’ve had to just grit my teeth and walk off before I shot some of the roll-over crybabies around here.”
    “Many sympathizers around?”
    Harris spat on the littered, dirty sidewalk.
    Mac and his partner got the message.
    “What do you want me and my people to do?” Harris asked.
    “Lay back and stay out of it. When we’re finished, I imagine General Raines will put you in charge. Then you can deal with matters the way you see fit.”
    “With pleasure.”
    Mac and his partner waited on the outskirts of Redding, waited with Harris in the looted shell of the drugstore in the small shopping center … or what had once been one. Mac and his partner were just one of many two-person teams scattered in a loose circle around the airport. If any IPF people managed to escape the initial attack on the airport, they would be cut down by the Rebels encircling the area.
    “You speak any Russian?” Mac asked Harris.
    “Some. I’m no expert. But I picked up some while a prisoner of the IPF.”
    “How’d you get away from them?”
    “Broke and ran one night. They shot me.” He lifted his shirt; his stomach was pocked with bullet scars. “They thought they’d killed me. Left me and took off chasing the other guy who broke out with me. I managed to crawl into a ditch before I passed out. My people found me before morning. I just made it. Charlie didn’t. He died pretty damned hard, so I was later told. Never again will I allow my freedom to be taken from me. Never!” the word was spoken hard. “And I’ll kill any person who tries.”
    Mac smiled through the gathering gloom at his partner. Harris would do to ride the river with. “Any weak links in your group?”
    “None. But there was … for a long time. I kept wonderin’ why the IPF knew every move we were gonna make. We’d change hideouts; they’d be right there. Lost a lot of people durin’ that time. Better than twenty-five percent of my group bought it.