Fire in the Ashes

Steve shrugged. “Times change. People grow up and hopefully become wiser. I think I have. Don't ask me if I'm part of the Rebels, Mrs. Rommey—the men working for Al Cody are known for their expertise in torture."

“Open this fuckin’ door!” a harsh voice rang from the outer office.

“Use the rear entrance,” Steve told her. “Now!"

She left, tears in her eyes.

“As Shakespeare said,” Steve muttered. “Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.” The professor smiled. “Come on in, motherfuckers!” he yelled. He cocked the pistol.

* * * *

Just off the campus of the University of South Carolina, in a private home, Lynne Hoffman spoke before a small group of men and women. Their ages ranged from fifteen to sixty. Lynne was the head of her particular cell of nonviolent Rebels. Although they believed quite strongly in what the Rebels were attempting to do, their jobs were in gathering supplies and caching them. None of her people carried firearms.

All that was to change this night.

“We don't have much time,” Lynne told the group. “One of those captured in the Virginia raid has broken, telling Cody's men about us. We've got to run and we've got to fight. We..."

The front door slammed open and the small foyer filled with federal police and Hartline's mercenaries. “You're under arrest!” a man yelled. “Get your hands over your head and get up against the wall. Move, goddammit, move!"

Lynne jumped for the back door just as someone plunged the room into darkness. Gunfire rocked the night and someone began screaming in pain. Lynne and two others made it out of the house, running into the night.

“Burn the goddamn house down around them,” a man yelled.

* * * *

Out in the desert, the night animals began their search for food. The hawk for a rabbit; the snake for a mouse; the mouse for a hole. But on this night, another type of hunt was underway. Mike Medlow, a federal police officer from Modesto searched for Judy Fowler.

Ever since he'd handled her lush little body during a campus demonstration, Medlow had tried every way he could think of to get the pants off her. Tonight, he'd followed her old VW into the desert and forced her off the road. The rest would soon be history.

“Come on, baby,” he called. “I know you're part of the local cell of Raines's Rebels. I've known for months. But I haven't said anything about it, have I? That ought to be worth some pussy, huh? If I turn you in, Hartline's boys will gang-bang you day and night. It'll be our secret, Judy. Just you and me. Come on, baby?"

A dozen yards away, trembling in the rough shelter of a barranca, Judy tried to still her ragged breathing. She had been so frightened when Medlow ran her off the road she had failed to grab the only weapon she had, a tire iron.

Medlow came closer. Judy panicked and felt her feet slipping in the loose gravel. She slid down into the dry creek bed and landed on her back. Medlow was on her in an instant, tearing at her clothes. The cool desert air fanned her bare hips and belly.

His fingers found her and entered her, spreading her. Then she screamed as his hardness replaced his fingers and drove deep. Medlow began hunching, panting in her face, his breath stinking. She screamed as his hands found her breasts and squeezed brutally.

Judy's hands clutched at the dry gravel bed until she found a baseball-sized rock. She slammed the rock against Medlow's head, just above his right ear. He slumped on her, unconscious, blood dripping on her bare skin from his torn flesh.

She wriggled from under him and covered herself with her torn clothing. She started to run, then remembered what a Rebel sergeant had told a group of them at a secret training. She pictured the sergeant and brought back his voice.

“Strip the body of all weapons, ammunition, and money. We're preparing to fight a guerrilla war and we have no time for niceties. Take his ID, badge, everything we might be able to use. Then make damn sure he's dead."

Judy stripped the body and Medlow's car. There, she found a shotgun and several boxes of shells for his pistol and shotgun. She walked back to the federal police officer and stood over him. She cocked his service revolver, a .44 magnum, and blew half his head into a bloody mass.

* * * *

All across the nation similar events were unfolding as the federal police and Hartline's men became more savage and brutal in their handling of any suspected Rebel sympathizers.

* * * *

It had been raining off and on for a week, ever since VP Lowry had met with the military; ever since that damned demonstration that had turned into a riot. Two cops were dead, a dozen civilians dead. A hundred or more civilians hospitalized, several hundred arrested. And the press was really outraged. One of their own was on the run after killing a federal cop and many press-people were blatantly ignoring the government's censorship order.