"William W Johnstone - Ashes 26 - Triumph in the Ashes (txt)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Johnstone William W)

Criminals discovered almost immediately that in the Tri-States they had
very few rights. All the rights belonged to the law-abiding citizens. If
a criminal got hurt during the commission of a crime, he or she could
not sue for damages. If he got killed, his family could not sue for
damages. And in the Tri-States, a lot of criminals got killed during the
first years. The Tri-States was not a friendly place for criminals . . .
and it didn't take them long to discover that. The residents of the
Tri-States didn't have a problem with drugs; the penalty for selling
hard drugs was death; when caught, after a very

7

brief trial, the criminals had a choice, hanging or firing squad.
Consequently, very soon drug dealing in the Tri-States dropped off to zero.

Life was so good in the Tri-States that the central government, once it
got back on its feet after only a few years, couldn't stand it and moved
against the Tri-Staters. It was a terrible battle, but in the end the
old Tri-States, located in the northwest, was destroyed.

But Ben Raines and his dream lived, and Ben gathered together the
survivors of the government assault and declared war on the
government... a dirty, nasty, hit and destroy and run type of guerrilla
warfare.

Eventually, the entire United States collapsed inward and Ben and his
Rebels, now hundreds and hundreds strong, were able to move into the
soutih and set up a new government. This time it was called The SUSA:
The Southern United States of America.

It was a struggle for a few years, and one time The SUSA was overrun by
rabble from outside its borders. But the Rebels beat the attackers back
and rebuilt their nation-larger and stronger and more self-sufficient
than ever before.

The Rebels were now the largest and most powerful and feared fighting
force in the free world, so much so that the Secretary General of the
newly reorganized United Nations met with Ben Raines and made a bargain
with him: \bu deal with a few trouble spots around the world, especially
with Bruno Bottger and his band of Nazis, and we'll recognize The SUSA
as a free and sovereign nation.

The two men shook hands, sealing the deal, and Ben took his Rebels and
sailed off to Africa. . . .

9 One

Ben and his Rebels were ready for the big push southward. The hundreds
of replacement troops, all fresh from The SUSA and green as a gourd when