William W. Johnstone Read Online Free PDF

flesh. Georgi Striganov felt this was going to be a good year. He had a full complement of willing young girls to satisfy his sexual needs, and very soon he would see Ben Raines die. Yes, a good year indeed.

Five
     
    The morning broke to a gray sky and a hard-falling rain. It was just as well. For Ben had made up his mind to cancel the jump anyway. By doing that, he would give his first battalion more time to get in position, and the Rebels coming from the east more time to arrive.
    Leaving Sylvia to sleep amid the warmth of their blankets, Ben dressed and pulled a poncho on and stepped from his command post. He walked over to Ike’s quarters and knocked on the door.
    “Come on in, Ben.”
    Ben shucked his poncho and hung it up. He moved to the coffeepot at Ike’s wave of his hand and poured a cup.
    It really wasn’t coffee, but a mixture of coffee and chicory and other things that Ben would just as soon not know.
    “You and Sylvia decided to just shack up and to hell with what the others think?” Ike asked, a grin on his face.
    “Might as well. Her idea. But fine with me. Ike, we both can’t buy it on this run. Have you given that any thought?”
    “Sure have. And I think you ought to stay back here and—”
    Ben waved him silent. “You can take that thought and shove it, pal. Ike, after Sylvia went to sleep last night, I couldn’t sleep …”
    Ike paid him back for cutting him off. “I’m sure you couldn’t. Probably laid there and wondered if you was goin’ to have a heart attack.”
    Then the ex-SEAL roared with laughter at the expression on Ben’s face.
    Ben unsuccessfully fought to hide his grin and took a sip of the awful-tasting brew. At least it was hot. “I’ve got to be thinking of a successor, Ike.”
    “When you finally buy it, Ben,” Ike said, “the movement goes with you.” There was a flatness, a finality, in his voice that Ben did not like.
    “Ben, I’m an ol’ curly wolf; not an administrator. Cecil is one of the finest men I have ever known in my life, but he’ll be first to tell you: he won’t be able to hold it together. No, Ben, it’s your show all the way. Hell, partner, it always has been. I knew that when you showed up down in Florida … Christ, how many years ago was that?”
    “More than I care to recall,” Ben said with a sigh. “Okay. We’ll talk about that later. Let’s get down to business. You’re sure you want to take your people in from the south?”
    “You bet.”
    “You’re going to have some hot area behind you, buddy. No backing up for your bunch.” Radioactive areas.
    “I don’t intend to back up, Ben. Just go forward and sideways and every other whichway.”
    It was to be the type of war that Ben and Gray and Ike were trained to fight: a cut-and-slash, hit-and-run, guerrilla-type action.
    Ben nodded. What deep recon intel they had been able to receive showed that Hartline had few planes. He could not escape by air. And since the nuclear blasts, the tides had been affected; the oceans that hammered the coasts on both ends of the United States had become a raging torrent of fury. Scouts reported gigantic waves crashing against the shoreline; the seas bubbled and roared, creating a nonsurvivable maelstrom.
    No one was coming in by the sea along the California coast.
    And Ben was not sure he wanted to see the once-peaceful Pacific in such a rage.
    Dan Gray entered Ike’s quarters and poured a cup of what now passed for coffee. He sipped and grimaced. “So so, is good, very good, very excellent good; and yet it is not; it is but so so,” Dan said.
    “Shakespeare on a rainy morning, Dan?” Ben asked.
    “It’s the best I could come up with in describing this dreadful brew,” the Englishman replied.
    “Why don’t you say it just tastes like shit and be done with it?” Ike needled him, knowing Dan would have a quick retort.
    “I shall leave crude remarks to people of your ilk,” Dan said.
    Ike feigned great personal affront. “The man has