Meeting no resistance, the convoy of cars, trucks, and military equipment moved slowly on up I-95 toward Jacksonville.

Melanie, riding in the 18-wheel truck that they had made their command center and which was, except for some advance scouts, leading the procession, stood at the open back door of the trailer and looked out. The convoy--her convoy--stretched down the highway for miles, she could not see the end of it. Overhead, Air Force and Navy jets circled, making sure that their opponents launched no sneak attacks. The vehicles moved at a very slow pace, as they were virtually all overloaded with people and more people--thousands of them--were accompanying the convoy on foot, taking pride in marching from Florida to Washington.

This is some dream, she told herself. Some crazy dream. What's happened is that you've been wounded, and the hunters have caught you, and they're torturing you so severely that you're delirious, you're imagining all this. Maybe at this very moment, she thought, I'm being burned alive. Or maybe spitted for a cannibal feast.

Harry came up behind her. "Need a word with you, Melanie," he said, breaking her reverie.

She half-turned and smiled. "Anytime, Harry."

He grinned too. "We've got reports about highways clogged with people, headed this way, coming from Tampa and Orlando and a hundred small towns. You want to handle the newcomers the way we handled those coming out of Miami?"

She nodded. "Send Michelle out there," she suggested. "With a few officers from the Guard. Tell them to try to triage them as best they can. Trained military people and police who're joining us we don't want to disarm."

"Miller thinks that's risky. You could get spies and saboteurs--even a would-be assassin--in here, in close."

"Yeah, we could. But we have an advantage, Harry. Our enemies are fighting to save their own skins and to save their money. They don't have high-minded ideals--we've got a corner on that market. People fighting to save their ass and their money make poor suicide attackers. And that's what an attempt at sabotage or assassination in here would be."

"Right again," he agreed. "Still. There are nuts out there. People who're going to convince themselves that you're an arch-criminal and have to be eliminated."

"I won't argue with that," she replied. "But I don't want to weaken the movement by making it too elitist, I want it to be a people's movement." She shrugged. "If somebody manages to assassinate me," she went on, "it wouldn't be that big a deal, not now. The movement will go on. There's no stopping it now."

"No," he said, "but I'd be a little upset if we lost you now."

She grinned. "I know you would, Harry. But this is war, too. Not all of us are going to make it through. I'm clear on that, perfectly clear."

"Most of us," he told her, "feel we can't spare you. I've been drafted to ask you again if you won't let us move this command center back closer to the middle of the convoy."

She shook her head firmly. "No. Next thing I know you'll have me out on the Admiral's carrier, completely out of harm's way. I didn't ask to lead this, but I ended up doing it. If I'm going to lead I'm going to lead, and that means in person, not from safety." She gazed back out over the convoy. "It's just so crazy, Harry," she went on softly. "Everybody looking to me to tell them what to do. I've had two jobs in my life, I've been a convenience store clerk and I've been a stripper. The rest of the time I've just been trying to stay alive. And for me to stay alive sometimes meant others didn't; like Kathleen, remember her?" She paused and sighed. "What the hell am I doing? I can't lead an army..."

"Yes, you can," Harry told her. "I'll admit, in part you're just a figurehead, you're the one who erupted and set fire to all the tinder that was lying around. But the people from the group--the Internet group--they pushed the idea of you as leader, too."

"They did? Why?"

"Because they know what you did with your ten years in the forest, and especially during the years you were the troop leader. Years ago, Jane was my favorite; she was a smart woman, and a damn good leader, too. But you've gone way beyond her. You weren't content to just try to keep your girls alive. You built a society out there. You gave them a meaningful life to live while they were trying to stay alive, and that no one before you had ever done. You've demonstrated that you're a strong and competent leader under the worst possible circumstances imaginable."

"I just did what seemed reasonable," she protested. "And besides that, you and your family had a lot to do with that too."

"Maybe a little," he acknowledged with a grin.

"And anyway, how do all these people in the states know about all this?" She turned her head and smiled. "Actually," she went on, "I don't have to ask that question, do I? You and Eileen, busy at your computers."

"All we were," Harry told her, "were reporters. We reported nothing but truth."

From behind Harry, Miller walked up, just a little unsteady on his feet in the moving truck. "We need you inside, Melanie," he said. "We have some new information, and we need to decide how we're going to proceed."

She nodded. "Coming," she said, and she and Harry followed him back to the command center. "What do we have?" she asked, sitting down at the small makeshift conference table they'd set up.

"News, mostly," Mitch said, looking up from his computer. "And some important info from Hansen, but I'll let Miller brief you on that. Let me give you the news first."

"Okay."

"First, we have two other columns on the move now. One's coming through West Virginia right now, they just joined up with a smaller one from the Carolinas. They have a lot of citizens and a small amount of armor from the Kentucky National Guard. The Air Force is providing cover. The second is moving into upstate New York just now, mostly armed citizens from New England. Right now they have no cover but Washington is ignoring them, too. Army troops and State police are gathering to stop the Appalachian group; they'll intercept at the Virginia border."

"We need to get word to both groups to stop and hold until we can reinforce them," Melanie said. "What else?"

"We've been contacted by an old friend of ours," he said. "Someone we were all worried about."

"Stephanie?" Harry asked anxiously.

Mitch nodded. "Stephanie."

"Who's Stephanie?" Melanie asked them.

"As 'Insider,' she's one of our oldest members," Harry explained. "She works in the Justice Department. She was put in charge of the program to use doctors to send girls to the preserve, and she's spent the last few years effectively sabotaging it."

"Sounds like my kind of woman."

"She is, Melanie," Mitch assured her. "Like you she was framed for a crime. She's spent almost ten years as a virtual sex slave for Billy Jackson, Assistant Attorney General." He glanced at Harry and shook his head. "You know what Jackson did, Harry?"

"No," the ranger answered, looking worried.

"An order came down from the President to eliminate 'questionable personnel' and he had her charges reactivated. They forged a trial waiver and she was convicted and sentenced to death in absentia. Then they sold the execution rights to Gallagher."

"What!!"

Mitch waved a hand. "Relax. She's okay. She's in hiding already. The gladiators are with her, and they've all declared allegiance to us. They're still in the heart of DC; they want to know what they can do to help from there."

"The bastard said he'd let her go after ten years."

"Well, he didn't."

"Amazing," Melanie noted. "Like we were twins, isn't it? We both did our ten years and we were both double-crossed and sold to Gallagher." She shook her head. "How many others out there are there? Anyway--get a message back to her and tell her and the gladiators to wait, hide, look after themselves. I can easily see something coming up where they'd be invaluable."

"I have a briefing for you now from Admiral Hansen, Melanie," Miller said.

She nodded. "Yes. Go ahead."

"Two Navy task forces," he said, "both of them in the Atlantic, have been ordered to attack the Jimmy Carter. Both refused. Then they were both ordered to lob cruise missiles at us. They both refused that, too, noting that that involved firing missiles into areas with large civilian populations. When the Pentagon started talking court-martial for all the sailors on those ships, both declared their allegiance to you. Your navy has just tripled in size."

Melanie smiled. "Wonderful..."

"Yes, it sure as hell is! Otherwise, it looks like the troops still loyal to Washington--mostly regular Army--have pulled way back after the debacle in South Florida. They're still on the move, but analysis of recon information shows that they're going to let us move freely up through South Carolina. They're massing troops and equipment right at the North Carolina border, on I-95 and for miles to either side. It looks like they're very serious about stopping us there, and that area offers them an advantage because I-95 isn't close to the ocean there, and it's further for the Navy jets and so on to travel."

"Can't we avoid them by going up the coast?"

"We can go up the coast and in my opinion we should," Miller replied. "They're hoping we'll come up 95. But they know we might not, so they're weighting their forces toward the coast."

"What if we swing west? Can be go around them like we did in South Florida?"

Miller shook his head. "We could try but they're taking that into account, too. They're setting things up to be very mobile east-to-west, and coming up to the west--though Charlotte--really takes the Navy out of things."

"Well, that we don't want," Melanie said. "Right now, unless things change, we'll plan to go up the coast."

Miller frowned. "Good," he said. "You should know, though, that going up the coast puts us in some rough country. Lots of swampland and marshes there. Whoever's trying to move in for an attack has got problems, and from the look of things that's going to be us. Hansen thinks the intelligence suggests they won't attack us period. They'll just dig in and sit and wait for us; if they stop us from getting to Washington, well, that's two-thirds of the battle."

"And if we stall there," Dave noted, "we risk several things. One, winter'll catch us; it isn't bad there, but it isn't fun, either, and we'll lose some of our civilian-soldiers. Second, we want to keep moving fast to keep public enthusiasm up. I'm not saying people will abandon us if we stall, but they will lose interest, they'll go back to their own lives, at least to an extent. Especially in the North, in the winter. Our two other columns will both be in serious trouble if there's a stall."

"Then we can't afford to stall," Melanie said flatly.

David sighed. "No. We can't. And that's going to mean a real bloodbath. The jets can soften them up a little but we still have to break through on land. For the people on the front line, well, that's going to be worse than the landing at Normandy in World War II, much worse. It's going to be really bad."

"I agree," Miller said. "That first wave of attack, if we get eighty percent casualties I won't be surprised."

Melanie was listening, but this wasn't something she hadn't considered; the Army was making a good move by entrenching and daring them to attack. She looked at one of the maps they'd posted on the wall. "What if we put out to sea somewhere along the South Carolina coast," she suggested, "and then come back in at Norfolk? Or even higher up?"

"You're talking about a major operation, Melanie," Miller told her. "Moving the people, that's not hard. Moving the vehicles, the armor, the artillery..."

"And," Mitch put in, "they'll know we're doing that. We can't keep the movements of a convoy this big a secret."

"No," Melanie mused, "I'm sure we can't." She stared at the map for a while, at the area someone had circled in red, the swamps along the Southeastern North Carolina border where it now seemed the first truly decisive battle of the war might take place.

"And just maybe," she continued, very softly, "we shouldn't try..."