The Last Rebel: Survivor

by William W. Johnstone

“Why fertilizer?” Bev asked.

  “Makes a big bomb,” Langone said, “which is my specialty.”

  He paused.

  “We weren’t even born when this happened, but in one city, Texas City, Texas, it showed the world just how powerful it was. A freighter was in the harbor with its hold full of the stuff and it went off. They found the anchor two miles away. That blast—actually a series of blasts—killed a lot of people. Destroyed the town itself.”

  All Bev could do was shake her head.

  “And you’ve heard of the bombing of the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City years ago by terrorists?”

  “I saw a film on it,” Bev said.

  “Ammonium nitrate is what they used.”

  “By the way,” Kindhand said after they were finished examining the weaponry in the HumVees, “did you know that the vehicle you’re driving is armor-plated?”

  “No,” Jim said, “I didn’t. All I knew that it was a good solid vehicle.”

  “I’ll say,” Kindhand said. “It’s also got a windscreen that’s made of one-and-a-quarter-inch Lexan and side windows that are an inch thick.”

  “That’s good,” Jim said. “As you saw, I travel with cans of gas.”

  Kindhand nodded.

  “Now,” he said, “we’d like to debrief Mr. Rosen a little more on this escape unit, and maybe some other things.”

  “No problem,” Rosen said.

  “Also,” he said to Rosen, “when you get through—I assume you’re having difficulty too—”

  “Yes,” Rosen said.

  “We’d like you to sit on what you know for now.”

  Rosen looked as if he had been stabbed in the heart.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “There are pockets of Rejects all over the country,” Kindhand said. “We also know a lot, but we don’t want them to know what we know.”

  “Surprise,” Jim said, “remember?”

  “I don’t like it,” Rosen said. “Countries are dependent on a free press—for freedom.”

  “I understand that,” Kindhand said, “but you’ve also heard of the press sitting on a story for a little while if it’s in the national interest, haven’t you?”

  “Yeah, sure, but—”

  Kindhand interrupted him.

  “We’re just asking you to hold on to what you know for a little while. Anyway, there’s no way you have to get the information back to New York right now.”

  Rosen still did not seem convinced, but on the other hand he knew that he really had no choice.

  “There’s another reason,” Jim said, “if you think this through. If Rolling Stone publishes the story, this may give the Rejects a military advantage in some cases—and may influence the course of whatever conflict there is. And if it helps them achieve victory, you, me, and the Rolling Stone are going to be no more.”

  “That’s it in a nutshell,” Kindhand said.

  Rosen nodded and threw up his hands and walked away. Both men, as well as Bev, were watching Rosen’s reaction, and got the distinct feeling that he had not been convinced.

  FOURTEEN

  The debriefing by Kindhand and the other Rebels of Morty Rosen took a half hour. Jim attended the questioning, but the interesting thing was that the way Kindhand conducted it, it seemed more like a conversation than a debriefing or an interrogation, which, about one-third of the way through Kindhand’s gentle, conversational style, complete with laughs and anecdotes, he realized it was. The result was that Rosen was very relaxed, and Jim was sure that he would remember more details and come forth with more information because he was more relaxed than he might have been had Kindhand come on hard.

  Rosen told the Rebels all the salient details on the escape unit, the bloodhounds without larynxes, how they were lightly armed so they could travel rapidly, and how all were in excellent physical condition so they could cover a lot of terrain quickly. In fact, they wore light, ridged shoes that could negotiate the forest floor quickly and light clothing that would not impede their progress.

  “They don’t train like other troops,” Rosen told Kindhand at one point, “because they’re not engaged in assaults on other forces or towns. Their only job is to run down escapees.”

  “But you don’t have someone try to escape every day, do you, Morty?” Kindhand asked.

  “I have nothing to do with it,” Morty said with a laugh, and Kindhand laughed at the ambiguity of the question.

  “So what does the unit do while they’re not running after other people?”

  “They work around the compound, keeping weaponry shipshape, working on vehicles and other equipment, doing odd jobs for the premier. But they definitely don’t work as hard as other troops.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they are special. They’ve been selected from the force at large to become part of the escape unit. It’s the equivalent of someone being selected to be a SEAL—you remember them?”

  “Sure. And their leader is a guy named Krill?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What kind of guy is he?”

  “He’s a stickler for training and rules. He’ll train you until your butt drops off on the road.”

  “Do you know his background?”

  “Just that he was a mercenary. You can tell by the way he conducts himself that he’s been in the military a long time.”

  “And what about our friend Alex Szabo?”

  “A lot,” Jim piped in. “Do you think you could show Duke the report from the psychologist on Szabo?”

  Jim had made his comment in a very low-key way, and Rosen immediately went and got the doctor’s devastating report from his backpack on the persona of Alex Szabo. Kindhand read it quickly and handed it around for the other Rebels to read.

  “Well,” Kindhand said when everyone was finished reading the document, “the Apache have a name to describe his personality.”

  “What’s that?” Jim asked.

  “Lakuna da freede.”

  “What does that mean?” Jim asked.

  “He’s three quarts low.”

  Everyone, including Rosen, laughed.

  Rosen, using the excellent Rebel maps, showed them where Compound W was, and estimated that it was forty-three and a half miles away. Kindhand, therefore, did not expect them to arrive for a number of hours. How many was hard to say because Rosen was not able to say what their rate would be. But it was understood that they would certainly arrive more quickly than troops not as highly trained.

  Once the briefing was over, Kindhand—obviously the leader—started to set up a reception for them. Joining him in the discussion were the other Rebels, and Jim volunteered some ideas as well. Where they came from, Jim thought, he had no idea. It was just that he seemed able to visualize the enemy, their possible approaches, and to volunteer some ideas for neutralizing them. And the beginning of a trap started to form in his mind.

  “You shouldn’t have any trouble,” Jim said, “if you can keep can keep surprise on your side.”

  “Are you planning on trapping them all, capturing them?” Rosen asked. “Or driving them away, or what?”

  “No, our plan is to kill every single one,” Kindhand said.

  Bev, who had been listening, asked: “What about the dogs?”

  “They have to go too,” Kindhand said. “When we’re finished we want every single entity of this escape unit gone, so they will not be able to hunt someone down another day soon. I love dogs, and it pains me to have to handle them this way, but the dogs are at the core of that unit they have to go.”

  Jim nodded.

  “It’s funny” Jim said, “in the brief time I knew Ben Raines I got a sense of what he was like. And I think he would be doing exactly what you’re doing. I had a brother who once told me, ‘War is not tiddlywinks.’”

  “Absolutely,” Kindhand said. “I think our best bet is to stay here. We could try to rendezvous with the Rebels up north, but we might be attacked before we meet them. Better that we make our fight in a
place that’s familiar . . . and hopefully have surprise on our side.”

  “I agree with that,” Jim said, and the other Rebels nodded.

  Kindhand also asked Rosen if he wanted to help.

  “Sure,” he said, “I’d like to help. But as a journalist I don’t think I can. I’d rather observe.”

  “You better hope we win,” Frank Langone said. It was a simple statement, but filled with peril. Rosen was very well aware that if the Rebels did not stop the escape unit, he was a dead man. It was that simple. Indeed, Rosen could feel the color go out of his face, then he walked off.

  The first thing Kindhand did was set up a picket about a hundred yards from where the rest of the small force was. Kevin Shaw was chosen first. He was, surely, good at all aspects of warfare. He had been a mercenary in Bosnia, Africa, and later for America before it had become the swamp of self-interest and depravity, as it had after the Great War.

  Kindhand also assigned Jim and Bev as pickets. He knew they were in love, and wanted to station them together so that they could keep an eye on each other. He also was aware of Jim’s background as a mountain man, and it certainly didn’t hurt to have someone with his acute senses waiting to sound the clarion call that the enemy was coming.

  Kindhand suggested that Bev use the AK-47, and he gave her some additional instruction on how to use it.

  “Just make believe you’re pointing your finger at someone and pull the trigger. Aim for the chest. Even if they have body armor on you’ll knock them down, you then can go for a head shot.”

  He also instructed Bev and Jim in how to use grenades, how to pull the pin and throw the grenade stiff-armed.

  “Actually,” Kindhand said, “you shouldn’t have to use one, but in case you do you’ll know how.”

  Kindhand also broke out a pleasant surprise for them: bulletproof jackets made of Kevlar.

  “They won’t help you if you take a shot in the head or the leg, but if you take one in the torso it’s likely you’ll end up with a bruise or two. Once the unit is spotted, Shaw will lead you guys back to us so you can take firing position with us.”

  The other Rebels would be a fluid force, ready to take up wherever needed. As usual, the Rebels were armed with everything but the kitchen sink, including antipersonnel grenades and AK-47s with each man carrying four or five extra bandoliers of thirty cartridge banana clips, 9mm sidearms, and knives. Also, each of the AK-47s would be equipped with silencers and bayonets in case there was hand-to-hand fighting, an unlikely scenario if the Rebels executed their plan well.

  Ben Raines had structured his Rebel army to fight the way Kindhand was setting them up, like any well-oiled guerilla army, which was to say by ambush. Quick, deadly strikes that lasted only a few minutes with everyone dead or dying by the time the smoke cleared. Exactly what Jim had opted for.

  Kindhand remembered one young Rebel soldier, observing the way Ben Raines set his forces up for an ambush for the first time.

  “It doesn’t seem very fair,” he had said.

  “That’s exactly the way we want it, young man.”

  Bev had, of course, agreed to fight, but Jim wanted to make sure that she wasn’t doing it just for him. He took a short walk with her after Kindhand had briefed them all, and waited to speak until they were outside hearing distance of any of the other people.

  “Are you sure,” he said when they had stopped, “you want to play things this way?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “To fight.”

  Her brow crinkled.

  “Of course,” she said. “I don’t see anything wrong with fighting in this situation. I really do view it as a holy war, which, of course, is a terrible kind of war. But like the SUSA says—and not to play the record to death—if you want to have liberties you must sometimes fight for them, and sometimes blood will be shed.”

  Jim nodded.

  “What do you think your father would have done?”

  “I don’t think, I know,” Bev said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He was in the second Iraqi war as a chaplain, and once the group of soldiers he was with were ambushed by Saddam Hussein’s special guards. The Americans were outmanned and outgunned by the Iraqis, so my father took up a gun and fired back.”

  “Good,” Jim said, giving her a long hug.

  “I was thinking one day that with my ninja background and willingness to fight I was probably more like an Israeli female fighter than an American.” Jim nodded.

  “I think the Rebels are like the Israelis,” Jim said. “I don’t think the escape unit troops have a chance.”

  “Absolutely,” Bev said.

  Jim paused.

  “It looks like Duke Kindhand is the main man here. Let’s go over and see where he wants to situate you when we get off the picket line.”

  “Okay.”

  They went up to Kindhand, who was busy screwing a baffle type of silencer on his AK-47.

  “We’ll be setting up positions in a few minutes.”

  “How would it be if you could get all these Rejects in one spot?” Jim asked.

  “What do you mean,” Kindhand asked, “one spot?”

  “All close together within a radius of, say, twenty-five yards.”

  “That would be ideal. Like shooting fish in a barrel. You think you can do that?” Kindhand asked.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Let me hear what you got.”

  “Well, first, let me ask you a question.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Do you have any household bleach?”

  “You mean like Clorox?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean.”

  “Yeah,” Kindhand said, “I think we do.”

  A couple of the other Rebels were standing nearby.

  “What are you going to do,” one of them said, “blind them?”

  Jim smiled. He thought the remark funny too.

  FIFTEEN

  Otto Krill, the leader of the escape unit, insisted on all personnel in the unit being in top physical shape, which was why now the unit had covered a tremendous amount of ground and figured that they would be delivering an unpleasant surprise to the little bastard reporter very shortly.

  As they went, threading their way through evergreen forest, lodgepole pine, and patches of sagebrush, they had to be very careful to make sure that they did not receive a surprise from the Believers. They believed in God, Krill thought, and he knew, like other Rejects, that they could act like the devil. More than once the armies of the Rejects had been run into a Believer trap, with the resulting loss of many lives. The Believers fought with the same ferocity as the Rejects.

  Krill had almost lost his life. Once, he and a force of some two hundred men had gone through a natural tunnel in Utah and were caught in a withering cross fire from the Believers with the loss of all lives except for himself and five other people. They were saved because another Reject force happened to be in the area—just by chance—and had heard the gunfire and come to investigate and quickly crushed the Believer force. The only positive thing about that whole raid was that it was then decided to nail all survivors to crosses, and Krill had been able to personally crucify twelve of the forty-five men captured. It was hilarious, and ironic, and thoroughly satisfying.

  The premier had had a great idea: to take photos of those who had been crucified, and send them to the head of the believers, McAulliffe. He included a tape of “Onward Christian Soldiers” to be played while viewing the photos, and a little note that suggested that McAulliffe might want to change the lyrics of the song from “onward Christian Soldiers” to “upward Christian Soldiers.”

  As it happened, it was said that when Father McAulliffe got the package he became livid.

  Recalling that now, as he trotted behind the bloodhounds and handlers, Krill smiled. It was one of the more satisfying moments of the campaign.

  This was going to be satisfying, too, because it was one of the most important missions of hi
s time with the Rejects. He knew he would succeed. It was just a question of when.

  It all depended, of course, on the effectiveness, first, of the bloodhounds, and they seemed to be doing just fine, loping along, noses close to the ground.

  These bloodhounds performed very well. As soon as their collars and leashes were put on, which was a signal to them to go on scent, they did.

  It was, Krill thought, the training that kept these dogs so good. They were tested once a year to make sure their skill level was high, and trained three to four hours a week.

  Krill had also trained these dogs to detect explosives. So, if someone wanted to set a trap for the unit with an explosive, the dog would be trained to detect black powder, TNT, Flex-C, C-4 plastic, and a GI explosive.

  These dogs were ideal for such detection. They were calm and of an even temperament, a good way to be around explosives. If they found anything suspect, they were trained to sit still, not go sniffing around it—and possibly set off some hair-trigger timer.

  He was as proud of his dogs as he was of his men. He smiled. But men could not be motivated by the same things as dogs. Because when he had first started to train them he rewarded them with praise and a favorite fetch toy, a ball or a towel.

  And they could do much more, including building searches and hard tracks, following a scent along a concrete surface.

  Krill knew they were still on the scent, the route that Rosen had traveled as obvious to them as if the path had been marked with neon lights.

  They had stopped twice. When he had first started doing escape-unit work, Krill had driven his forces to near exhaustion, and that was the problem. Men didn’t perform as well as they ordinarily would when they were tired.

  So, as every good commander did, he had modified his strategy, and would stop his crew for two half-hour snack breaks plus a rest. The result was that they were now loping along with the same energy as the bloodhounds, who, of course, had also gotten breaks.

  Now it was just a matter of time before they tracked Rosen down. There was no way he could escape them.

  Krill knew that Rosen had a .45 with him, but he did not expect him to fire at the dogs. Krill could have trained German shepherds or other dogs for tracking like this, but no canine beat the blood-hound. If he had the shepherd, it could have been trained to attack the shooter, even in the face of being fired at. The bloodhound wouldn’t do that. On balance, though, the bloodhound was best. Its scenting ability was far superior to that of a shepherd.