~Subject: WhtCaptv 06/10  "White Captive"
~From: grobert@soho.ios.com (TheEditor)
~Date: Fri, 04 Oct 1996 06:23:51 -0800
~Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories


tattered blankets from the bed upon which she had been so brutally
ravished last night.  Her body ached horribly in all the tender
places the three negroes had so mercilessly pressed their
attentions upon.  Duke had awakened her early, in the same
position she lay after the horrible depraved attack, and she was
grateful for she had been able to freshen herself a little in the
cold water from the kitchen before the others awoke.  She had
repaired her torn gown in a makeshift way, using several pins she
found around the cabin, and Duke had retrieved her panties and
brassiere from the car.  From these few remnants of cloth, she had
covered herself as best she could.
	The others had awakened shortly afterwards.  She had prepared
them breakfast, refusing to look any of them in the eye, though
she could feel their arrogant gazes peering right through her all
the time she worked.  Duke had not mentioned what had happened to
any of them, but it was plain he was not happy that he had given
her up for the evening.  In fact, she felt rather secure in the
knowledge that it was not likely to happen again in that way.  If
she was called upon to give herself, it would be only to him and
not the others.  Strange, she thought, as she raised her head and
looked around the room at the four negroes who held her captive,
how the perspective of things changed when one had no other
choice.  All things in the world were really relative to one
another.  She had taken her choice of all the boys in high school,
and had picked Richard because he was most like her.
	Now, she had only the choice between these four brutal
criminals, all of whom, except the imbecile Stitch, had ravished
her against her will, but she still had to make a choice between
them for her protector.  She knew it wouldn't take much show of
preference on her part to get anyone of them on her side, although
Duke was the one she needed.  He was the leader because he was the
strongest.  He may be more brutal than the others, but still he
had exhibited a certain tenderness toward her after the rape in
the car, and would not have let the others take her last night if
he hadn't been so confident of himself in cards.  Even then, when
he had lost and had disappeared from the room to let the victors
have their way with her, she half expected him to return and
reclaim her.  But, o f course, under their code, which she knew
she could never understand, he could not, no matter how much he
may have wanted to.  Life itself meant so little to those brought
up in the ghetto jungles, so how could she expect they, the
survivors, to care about such a small intimate thing as her lost
virginity?  She was an object to be used, like a tin can they
might suddenly come upon in the gutter and kick along the street
until they became bored, and then kick back again into the gutter
from which it came No, her only hope for survival was Duke, and
that meant subjugating herself to him completely, until she could
find a way to get out of this horrible mess she had fallen into.
	"I-I-I think I hear them c-comin'," Stitch, who had been
sullenly reflecting on his missed chance last night, suddenly
exclaimed.  "T-T-There's a c-c-car."
	The others jumped up and rushed to the window expectantly.
They had been waiting patiently all morning for whoever they were
supposed to meet.  Susan had heard them quietly discussing a plan
of some kind where the word riot had come up often, and she had
begun to wonder then if they really were just ordinary hoodlums,
or something much more dangerous.  What ever it was that they had
in mind, it seemed to be something very important to them.  Duke
had been nervous and on edge all the while they had been waiting,
as though he were afraid of something or someone ... perhaps, she
would learn the answer soon now.
	"It's about time," Duke growled, looking at his watch.
"They's over two hours late."
	The low roar of a car engine could be heard coming up the
road, and then turning into the short dirt driveway that led to
the shack.  It stopped, and the sound of two doors being slammed
could be heard from the outside.
	"Hot damn," Shorty sudden slapped his knee and grabbed his
stomach in laughter, "He's done brought Jodie with him.  You gonna
ketch hell ovah this lit' honky chick now, Duke."
	Susan turned from the fireplace where she had kept her head
down looking into the blazing logs, when she heard the loud
laughter and the words that Shorty was throwing at Duke.  She felt
his eyes turn to her for a moment and then look back out the
window.
	There were two pair of steps coming across the porch, and
then the door opened.  A tall lithe mulatto Negress entered first,
and seeing Duke, rushed to him and threw her arms around.  She
held him for a moment, and feeling no response, backed off with a
puzzled expression on her face.
	"What's the matter, Baby, don'cha recognize me?" she asked
quizzically.
	"That isn't the reason, is it, Duke?"
	A second well-dressed negro, wearing horn-rimmed glasses and
sporting a small goatee, entered behind her and nodded toward the
confused Susan, who still sat huddled beneath the blanket.
	The Negress turned her head, and for the first time saw the
cowering white girl before the fireplace.  She stood still for a
moment, her hands on hips, and glared down at her from across the
room She was a striking thing, as a really good-looking negro
woman can be, with long flowing jet black hair that glistened down
over her shoulders, and fiery black eyes that burned through Susan
like two hot belching volcanic craters smoldering before eruption.
	"Who's the honky bitch," she hissed through her tightly
clench teeth, a quick rising hatred in her voice.
	"She ain't nobody," Duke suddenly defended.  "I brought 'er
here to keep us company while we plan the thing.  That's all."
	The others snickered.  It was obvious they were enjoying the
position Duke had been put in by the unexpected arrival of his
girl, and also the thought that perhaps it would free the white
girl for them to enjoy again as they had last night.
	Susan sensed this, and she could see the imbiced a certain
tenenly brightening as the thought penetrated his & mind.  He had
sulked all morning after Shorty refused to let him ravish her
battered body, but she knew he had not given up by any means.  She
had caught his eyes flickering over her with an undisguised lust
in them when he had thought no one was looking, and she found
herself trembling each time he did.  She remembered him
masturbating over her broken and exhausted form last night and
shooting his lewd sperm across her naked breasts, as she had lain
helpless and beaten on the bed.  God help her if she ever were at
his mercy without Duke to protect her.
	"Well," the Negress sneered with cocky self-assurance and
started with a swagger across the room toward Susan.  "I just
gotta see what this little honky gal's got that I ain't."
	Susan cowered back against the wall next to the fireplace, as
the girl reached down grabbing the corner of the blanket and
ripped it from her shoulders, exposing her tattered gown to the
eyes of the others in the room.  "Well, looks like somebody's been
havin' some fun, and it better not be you, Duke, baby," she half
snarled as she saw the condition of the cringing Susan's dress.
	"Leave 'er alone," Duke growled from the window where he was
still standing.  "I do what I like, ya hear.  Nobody tells me what
I can do or cain't do.
	"Stop it, you two," commanded the well-dressed negro.  "We've
got more important things to discuss now than who gets lover boy
here."
	Susan held her breath as the angered Negress towered over
her, still holding the blanket in her hand She glared down at
Susan for a moment with the most intense contempt she had ever
seen in any human's eyes, and then suddenly threw the blanket back
at her, and turned away.
	"Ain't no honky bitch got what I got anyway," she said,
walking seductively across the room and placing her arm in Duke's.
"He's my man, and he's gonna stay that way, ain'cha honey?"
	"Aw, shut up, and let's get to work," Duke said, ignoring her
question directly.  He turned to the other negro, "Did ya bring
the bread, man?"
	"Yes," the new arrival answered, raising the briefcase he
carried in his hand.  "But," he hesitated, "there are some things
that have to be settled first, some very important things."
	"Then let's git with it," Duke said, walking toward the
table.  "We got some questions for you too."
	Susan watched them pulling chairs up to the rickety wooden
table that stood in the corner away from the fireplace, and
preparing for what evidently was to be an extremely important
meeting.  She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but there
seemed to be an undercurrent of conflict between Duke and the man
who had just arrived.  Duke had greeted him with a cold reserve
that she hadn't noticed he possessed before.  He could be cruel,
yes, but the reserve was something else, and she was certain she
could detect a little fear mixed in his almost contemptuous manner
toward the man.
	The man was educated, there was no question about it from the
way he dressed and spoke, and perhaps, this was the element that
Duke feared the most.  He obviously did not know about the world
beyond the power of strength, and maybe he could feel himself
being bypassed, even by those of his own kind.
	This was something new to many negroes, she thought as her
mind raced back in retrospect, remembering things her father had
said‹things she had never absorbed before because she had never
been directly exposed to them.  She could remember him talking
about the sudden push for educating the negroes, and how this was
creating a gap among their own people, the educated and the
ignorant.  This gap began to breed suspicions among those like
Duke who had learned to live on strength and cunning alone.
	Perhaps, she reasoned, Duke had his place too, by virtue of
the fact that he had developed such animal cunning and physical
strength.  This was his education of survival that was older than
the human race itself.  The new university breed, the lucky ones
who had escaped the ghetto, or had never been born there ... they
knew about the ways of the law and how it could be used to
accomplish the same purpose with greater effect than the strength
of old.  Their movement, her father said, was much like the
American labor movement and the rise of unionism It hadn't been
many years since union organizers were treated as criminals and
jailed for trespassing on company property.  Now, they had their
own laws that protected them just like the negroes that benefited
from the new civil rights laws.
	But, as with the unions of yesterday, opportunists were
always there to exploit the great unrest smoldering beneath this
kind of social movement for their own fortune and power.  These
were the new breed, like the well-dressed man sitting at the table
now, she thought.  The university ones, who had nothing to lose
because they had already passed the barrier.  They already had
their position in either world and could use those still
attempting to climb up from the ghettos with impunity and
disregard.  They were expendable and exploitable because they
worshipped their educated leaders, and if a man could boast of
this, they asked nothing more from him.  They're like lambs being
led to slaughter, Susan thought, as she studied the man with the
horn-rimmed glasses with a renewed interest.
	"Hey," Duke's voice burst across the room, interrupting her
digressions.  "Help Jodie with some chow."
	Susan automatically rose to her feet at his command, pulling
the blanket tight around her like a cape and started for the
kitchen.  She dreaded going in there, because she knew she would
be alone with the tall Negress who was Duke's girl.  She knew also
that she had made a bitter enemy that could be far more dangerous
than any of the others had been so far.  She had studied her back
by the fireplace, and could tell by the way she hung onto Duke
that she was insanely jealous of him.  In fact, there was not the
slightest doubt in her mind that Jodie would kill for him if she
were forced into the position.  Susan had read grim accounts in
magazines of what girls from these gangs had done to each other
over possession of their men, and shuddered as a few of the more
grisly details filtered through her worried mind.  She would just
have to be as careful as she could, and stay as close to Duke as
possible.  She had to, for the sake of her life.  Nothing she
could do or say would change the negro girl's enmity towards her
now, and without Duke's protection she would be at the mercy of
all the others.  She would rather die than go through another
horrible ravishment that her body had been subjected to last
night.
	No, there was only one way out.  And that was by giving her
all to the negro leader, in spite of her repulsion of him and all
the others.  Duke was her only hope for survival.
	"Here's the map," she heard the educated negro say as she
passed the table.  "We're gonna make last summer's little warm-up
in Detroit look like a Sunday school picnic."
	"Okay, man," Duke said skeptically, looking over the table at
the two girls as they disappeared into the kitchen.  "Spell it out
fo' us."
	Susan followed behind the Negress girl as they entered the
kitchen, and did not say a word.  She knew that whatever she did
say would be taken with anger and didn't want to start anything,
though she knew something was bound to happen sooner or later.
The Negress did not intend to let her off so easily for her
encroachment on her man, even if she had been raped.  If Jodie had
the least opportunity, she would make it unbearable for her.
	Jodie went right to work, as though she had been through this
kind of thing a hundred times before.  She said nothing at all to
Susan as she followed her silent indications over what was to be
done in preparation for the meal.  First, came the bread, and then
the thinly sliced lamb that they had brought in abundance.  She
remembered looking for some ham in the grocery bags last night,
but could find none.  It was then she recalled reading about the
black Muslim movement among the ghetto negroes; of course, they
did not eat ham, instead they followed the Moslem religion of the
Arabs and made their staple food, lamb.  This fit so well with the
many other puzzling factors about them that she still didn't
understand fully.
	There must be a strong purpose in this gathering, she
thought, and a far more evil purpose than merely holding up
supermarkets or mugging drunks in back alleys.  She could not
place her finger on it yet, but from the few things she had picked
in isolated bits of conversation, it was sure to be something big
they were planning.
	"Don't touch it," Jodie snarled, as Susan made a move to pick
up the tray that held the sandwiches.  "I'll take care of 'em.
You jist wash up and stay heah in the kitchen."
	Susan gladly followed her command.  The more she stayed away
from the others, the less problems it would create for her.  The
imbicilic Stitch was beginning to get on her nerves the way he
undressed her with his lewd glances out of the corner of his eye
when he thought Duke wasn't watching.  She realized that the less
she stimulated his desire with her presence, the safer she would
be later.
	She busied herself washing up the things they had dirtied
while the Negress disappeared through the door with the tray.  She
wished she could stay alone all day and collect her thoughts, or
try to, but knew it would be impossible.  She might possibly have
a chance to escape if she had enough time to recover her wits and
think hard enough.  It shouldn't be too difficult, as they weren't
watching her that closely now.  They didn't even seem to be
worried about it, but she knew that if she did try, she had better
succeed.  Once they caught her at it, she would never be given the
chance again, and she was sure her punishment would be swift and
harsh.  No, she would just have to bide her time and wait for a
chance that could not fail.
	"Duke says you're to come out in the other room," Jodie
suddenly said from the door.  "He don't want you alone in heah."
	The tone of her voice was cold and filled with a hatred of
the most intense kind.  The Negress had realized now that her
position with the leader was in jeopardy by his concern over the
white girl.  Susan could feel the change of her attitude from one
of sudden confused jealousy, to a deep animal loathing whose
intensity knew no bounds.
	The Negress filled half the doorway and would not move as
Susan started out to join the others in the front room.  She
paused for a moment to give her the chance to let her by, but
Jodie remained defiantly entrenched where she was standing, fire
sparkling in her black eyes.
	"He s mine, and I'll kill you if you touch him," she hissed
into her ear, being careful that the others could not hear.
"And," she added as Susan squeezed by her, "I won't do it fast-
like It'll be nice and easy, so's you can feel it all the way down
to white hell."
	Susan trembled, pausing for the slightest of seconds as the
girl spoke to her, and then continued on as though she had not
heard her.
	"Come on, baby," Duke smiled proudly as she came into the
room.  "I want ya to see this heah plan.  Ya might wanna change
sides in this heah war when ya see what we got cookin' for the
honkies down in Chicago."
	"I don't think she ought to hear this Duke," the newly
arrived negro said quietly.  "If it gets out before we're ready,
it could ruin the entire plan."
	"Man," Duke answered, looking him coldly in the eye, "You
bring the bread and you lay the plan, but don't tell me how to git
it done."
	"Alright," the other negro said after pausing for a moment,
"but remember, if anything goes wrong, you'll have to answer to
the man.  Not me."
	"I'll answer to the man," Duke said confidently.  "As long as
he sends the bread."
	It was obvious that whatever they were planning had something
to do with the riots that had been going on in a small scale for
the last several weeks.  This negro tanking to Duke seemed to be
an intermediary between Duke's gang and someone else who was
running things on a much broader scale.  Susan could see also,
that the union between the two groups was very shallow, and was
not being done on Duke's side for any particular social or
philosophical reason.  It was being done because he and his gang
were being paid to do it, and nothing else.
	"Sit down, baby, and listen."  Duke motioned to an empty
chair beside him.  "You gonna see how the great race war of the
summer nineteen hundred and sixty-eight really began."
	Susan sat hesitantly in the chair, aware of the glaring eyes
the negro girl had locked on her.  She dared not look up at her
for fear of giving away the dread that permeated her whole body.
This would be a mistake now, and would only bring further
retaliation.  If she stayed near Duke and kept his confidence
until her chance for escape arose, she should be safe, and, it was
the only way she could be assured of escaping the others.
Particularly, the lust-crazed Stitch, who even now was licking his
lips nervously as he watched her from across the table.
	"First, man, the bread."  Duke halted the well-dressed negro
as he started to point to an enlarged map of the Chicago Woodlawn
ghetto area that was laid out on the table.  "How much ya got?"
Duke persisted.
	"One grand, as we agreed before," he answered matter-of-
factly.  "Straight from Havana."
	"Is it real?" Duke asked skeptically, and then added, "Lemme
see it."
	The negro lifted the briefcase off the floor and reached in
to pull out a large stack of twenty dollar bills.
	"Care to count them?"
	"Naw, man, just wanna make sure they's real," Duke answered
and peeled one from the stack where they had been placed on the
table.
	He looked it over carefully, studying every detail by raising
it to the light and looking intently through it.  After several
minutes, he turned his head to the waiting visitor and nodded his
approval.
	"Looks okay," he said.  "We been stuck with some phony stuff
for some o' the other jobs we done for ya."
	"You spent it, didn't you, like it was real," the other negro
said impatiently.
	"Yeah, yeah, man, it was good stuff, but for the risks me and
my boys takes, it oughta be right stuff.  We don't charge much, ya
know."
	"I'll tank to the man about it in the future," he was
answered curtly, and the negro turned back to the map.
	Susan watched him carefully.  In spite of her concern over
her own precarious position, her curiosity had been aroused by the
trend of the strange conversation.  Most of the people she knew
were of the opinion that the negro ghetto flare-ups that had
occurred throughout the country were a spontaneous kind of thing
that had been brought on by accidental incidences, and were not
the result of some master plan controlled by any central organized
group.  Now, she was not so certain, and concentrated on the well-
dressed negro's words as he began to speak.
	"This is where we start it," he said with a grim tone to his
voice.  She could see that he was pointing to a side street that
ran adjacent to the main artery through the Chicago ghetto.
	"They'll never expect it here.  They'll be looking for it on
the main drag where they've got all the fuzz concentrated.  We
could never get a crowd gathered otherwise.  They'd have it broken
up in two minutes after all the lessons they learned last summer."
	"W-W-Where ya g-gonna git a c-c-crowd," Stitch stuttered, a
puzzled expression on his face.
	"That's what you four and the others of your group get the
thousand for," the speaker answered with a smile.  "You see this
point on the map," he continued, pointing to the center of a
block.  "This is where two of you will get picked up by the cops
for being drunk and breaking a window in the cleaning shop that's
located here.  When they arrive to arrest you, you'll start a
fight so they'll have to call a patrol wagon and bring in others.
This will isolate them from the main group on the next street so
they can't organize into any kind of wedge formation to break
anything up before we can get started."
	"Man, that ain't gonna git no crowd," Shorty, who had been
sitting silent, interrupted.  "We gotta hundred beefs goin' all
the time down there."
	"Next step," the negro continued as though anticipating this
objection, "is a molotov cocktail through the window of this
supermarket just down the street.  They've got a stock of cleaning
fluid and other inflammable material stored right next to the
window where it goes through.  It'll go up like a roman candle.
This, of course, brings in the fire department."
	He paused for a moment with a self-assured smile on his face,
and looked around the table.
	"Does everyone see now the beginning of a crowd?"
	"Ya crazy, man, ya talking about a hunderd years for anybody
what gits caught," Duke spoke with alarm.  "We cain't do that, for
no money."
	"You'll have help," their visitor said with quiet confidence.
"Once this stage is reached, they won't have time to worry about
arresting two drunken brawlers and an arsonist.  You see these
buildings?" he asked, marking five of them on an enlarged map.
	"These are better sniper positions than all the trees in the
jungle of Viet Nam.  We've marked out twenty vacant rooms that we
can pick off the honky police and firemen from, and have another
forty for alternate positions that each man moves to after his
primary position is discovered.  We've twenty-five of the best
trained guerrilla fighters you can find anywhere already
familiarizing themselves with the area and their escape routes.
When one building is overrun, we'll get out through the sewers.
If one knows those underground routes well, there's no one in the
world who can catch them unless that person knows them too, and so
far, the honkies haven't caught on to the fact that we aren't just
another mob.  They haven't planned for the way we're going to do
it this time."
	"Where'd ya git these guerrilla fighters ya talkin' so big
about," Duke interjected, a forced skepticism in his voice.  He
didn't mind the planning and brainwork of something like this
being in other hands if the money were good enough, but violence
had always been his business, and he sensed a sudden tinge of
jealous concern flicker through his mind with the realization that
even this was being taken from him.  "I got guys that kin take
care o' honky cops."
	"You got guys that can use a shive or zip gun," the smooth
self-assured negro said contemptuously.  "That did the job last
summer, but it won't do it this time.  We can't leave it in the
hands of amateurs."
	"Man," Duke half shouted at him and leaped to his feet.  "I
kin take on all twenty five of them cats o' yours anyday and don't
ya try and tell me I cain't."
	Unruffled by the sudden outburst, the negro out lining the
plan stepped back from the table and put his hands in his pockets.
He stood still for a moment not saying a word as Duke leered at
him with clenched fists across the width of the table.
	"Say it, man, say I cain't, lemme hear ya say it," the
enraged Duke shouted again.
	His antagonist turned back to him and spoke without raising
his voice.  "Can you fire an M-16 rifle, Duke?"
	There was a long silence and Susan could see the blood rising
in Duke's face as he suddenly sensed a defeat that he was
unprepared for.
	"Naw, man," he finally sputtered, his voice lowering a degree
in bitter retreat.  "But what's that got to do with it?"
	"Just this," he was answered in a calm even tone.  "The honky
National Guardsmen down on the street know how and they've got
them.  They could cut down your boys with their knives and zip
guns in a matter of minutes.  You wouldn't stand a chance.  The
men we've got there now have learned to use their equipment well,
taught by the honky army itself in Viet Nam.  And, we've just
brought them back from six additional months in Cuba where they've
had the best guerrilla training in the world.  And, another thing,
they've got M-16's too, and can use them ten times better than the
young green honkies in the guard."
	Duke stood for a moment, his composure and command completely
gone, and then sat slowly back down in the chair.  He had no
answer for that argument and knew the others knew it too.  They
had seen the city last summer when the guard had moved in with
their tanks and machine guns and automatic weapons, and nothing he
could say now would matter one bit.  His own men would know he was
wrong and that the smooth-talking educated son-of-bitch with the
black horned-rimmed glasses was right.  A puny thin bastard that
he could twist into nothing with his little finger, and here he
was humiliating and degrading him before the others like he was
dirt.  And, there was nothing he could do about it; nothing in his
background had prepared him for arguing against this new confident
breed that were slowly taking over the world he had known and
controlled by brute cunning all his life.
	Susan felt the impact of the heavy silence that followed the
one-sided and unequal exchange, and suddenly within herself, in
spite of all she had gone through at the hands of the four brutal
negroes, found her heart going out to them and all their kind.
For some reason, she remembered with clarity at this particular
moment a favorite statement of Mr. Herman, her anthropology
teacher in school, about how funny the first two legged clumsy
creatures to walk upon the earth must have looked to the monkeys
swinging gracefully through the trees.  She had always pictured
them following the earth-bound creatures through the jungles,
taunting them with their excited chatter and throwing objects down
on them from above, safe and secure
	I	in their haven above the ground until one day, eons
later, they suddenly found themselves caged and gaped at as
objects of jest by those very creatures they had tormented with
such impunity at an earlier time.
	And now, now she could picture Duke and the others tormenting
in the same way from a ghetto street corner someone much like the
goateed and horn-rimmed negro now twisting and leading them into
an oblivion that could set their cause back a thousand years.  She
could hear them throwing crude obscenities at his dress and
perhaps tearing the books from his hands in a cruel gesture of
superiority.  And now, now he had returned with a vengeance to
cage them in their own ignorance of the world outside the ghetto
that only he had visited and could compete with.  They had no
choice, the new breed were the catalysts around which their cause
had become centered, the black power, the militants, because no
one else had a plan to lead them from their misery that promised
anything else but a vague hope in the future.  At least the
promise they received was a promise of action ... where that
action would lead was another matter ... but it was action.  That
was all that mattered now.
	"So what's gonna happen to all those people, man, once we git
'em in the street and all fired up?" Duke spoke defensively now.
He had conceded by his own primitive logic the point he had lost a
moment ago.
	"Some will die," the well-dressed negro answered matter-of-
factly "They have to, it's a war."
	"I got brothers down there in them streets," Duke said,
attempting to regain a small bit of the prestige he had lost in
the eyes of the others.  "You mean you gonna let them honkies
shoot 'em down."
	"They may not, but we will," the other said coldly.  "It's
the only way to get them fired up enough to take the law into
their own hands.  We've got to alienate them completely from the
honkies and all their one hundred years too late programs for
curing the ills of our people.  The man has instructed our snipers
to fire on the mob.  The honky cops will be blamed and there'll be
no holding them back after that."
	"Man, we cain't kill our own people.  Let's git them honkies,
I kin do that, but not our kind," Duke objected with an almost
pleading tone to his voice.
	"You've got no choice, you've taken the pledge to follow the
decisions of the group and this is the decision of the group.
Besides, I said this was a war and people must die in wars.  We
need martyrs to unite our people as one against the honkies and
for what they stand for, otherwise, they'll never get mad enough
to take what belongs to them.  That's the way it's going to be and
you're coming along or be left behind, so take your choice right
now.  I'm sure the others are with me."
	Duke looked around the table at Coke, Shorty, and Stitch.
They did not look back at him but kept their eyes lowered to the
map on the table.  There was no doubt which way they would go if
he put the choice to them.
	"Okay, man," he said after a few minutes.  "Let's get on with
the plan."
	There were no other objections after Duke had had his say and
Susan sat in stunned and helpless silence as the whole horrible
plot was outlined before her eyes that would leave a major part of
downtown Chicago a gutted and useless city.  It was a military
operation, pure and simple, which even she as a girl could
understand.  Gone were the days of the peaceful freedom marches
through Mississippi.  Gone were the days when whites marched
alongside them in their quest for a better world for themselves.
It was color now, black against white, not human being working
with human being and could only lead to a senseless and vain
slaughter in the end that would accomplish nothing but the
building of a barrier between them that could never be breached
ever again.

                           *    *    *

	It was dark when the meeting was over and the visiting negro
folded his maps and packed them away in the brief case.  Duke had
followed the complicated plan all the way through even though the
others had lost interest long ago and had had to be prodded awake
several times as a reference to their part in the operation would
come up.  Susan had maintained her alertness through-out, even
forgetting for short stretches of time, her precarious position
with the gang.  Again, she had caught the others at various times
glancing over at her with obvious remembrance of the pleasure her
young virginal body had given them last night.  All, that is,
except the still sulking Stitch.  His glances were of pleasures
yet to come from that body that had been denied him by the others