299 Days: The 17th Irregulars

by Glen Tate

  Finally, the doorknob was all the way to one side. It was time to actually open the door. Sheila pushed on it gently. The door creaked and she nearly jumped. That was the same creak that she had been meaning to fix, but today it was more scary than annoying.

  She opened the door a little and looked into the dark garage. It was light out, but the garage didn’t have any windows and the light wasn’t on. She paused to listen for any little tiny noise.

  Nothing.

  Then she got brave. She had her gun in her right hand. She used her left hand to open the door and opened the door fully. She then used her left hand to flip on the light in the garage.

  Nothing.

  Maybe he was hiding behind the car. She slowly walked around pointing her gun at whatever was in front of her. She would stop and look behind her.

  No one was in the garage. She was getting more confident. She started to walk at a normal pace and had lowered her gun so it was pointed down at the ground. Her hands were hurting, as squeezing that thing was painful.

  Sheila stopped. This was what happened in the movies right before the axe, she thought again. She raised her gun back up and felt the pain in her right hand again. She resumed the rhythm of searching each nook and cranny for Ethan. She opened the door from the garage to the outside. It was locked. Thank God. She swore she would never leave a door unlocked again.

  She looked outside. Nothing. Finally, she realized Ethan wasn’t there. She felt a little silly taking so long to check each room, like she was overreacting. Then she realized it wasn’t overreacting. It was smart.

  She ran inside to get Kellie.

  “We have to go now,” she said to Kellie, who was still huddled in the bedroom. “He might come back.”

  That was all Kellie needed to hear to become motivated. She jumped up and started running to the garage to get into the car. She expected Ethan to jump out of a doorway and stab her as she ran down the hall.

  Kellie was in the car. Alone. Where was her mom? Sheila came running to the car with keys in her hand. It had been so long since she’d driven—over two months—that she forgot where her keys were.

  Sheila jumped in the car, hit the garage door button, and backed out. Fast. Too fast. She almost hit the garage door, which hadn’t gone up yet. She hit the brakes and waited for the garage door to go up, which seemed to move in slow motion. Once she cleared it, she zoomed out. Fast. She forgot to close the garage door. Now he could get in and burn the place down, she thought as she sped down the road. But she didn’t care. She had Kellie and they were safe in the car. They were getting the hell out of there.

  “Keep your eyes out for him,” Sheila said to Kellie, who had stopped crying by now.

  “Wes. We need to go to Wes,” Kellie said.

  “Where is he?” Sheila asked.

  Kellie thought. “He’s at the Richardson house. Training or whatever.”

  Sheila knew where that was. She drove there like someone was chasing them.

  Sheila and Kellie raced up to the Richardson house. The dog team started barking at them. The Crew looked around and wondered who they were. One of them raised a rifle at their car.

  Kellie didn’t care. She wanted to be with Wes. She got out of the car and started running toward the house.

  “You’ll get shot!” Sheila yelled from the car. She couldn’t watch. Her daughter shot by mistake. Sheila shut her eyes.

  Nothing. No shot. Sheila opened her eyes and saw Kellie hugging Wes and sobbing. Pretty soon, men started coming out to the car to see if Sheila was OK.

  Sheila told the Team and Crew what had happened. The Team was getting their gear to go out and find Ethan. Sheila had the distinct feeling that the Team would kill Ethan if they found him. Good.

  A truck came screaming down the road and bolted into the Richardson drive way. It was Ethan’s truck. Sheila cringed as low as possible in her car seat. This was it. Ethan was about to die. And Kellie would have to see it.

  The truck stopped and Ethan jumped out. He was out of his mind with anger; yelling and screaming. He started walking toward them. He must have seen Kellie and Wes hugging and went insane. He started running toward them.

  Ethan didn’t have a gun. There was no pistol in his holster. The Team and Crew realized that he was seemingly unarmed. They wouldn’t shoot him unless he was a threat.

  Ethan got a few yards from the front porch where Kellie and Wes were and he stopped. He had about ten rifles pointed at his head and was noticing it for the first time He put his hands up and just stood there.

  Ethan looked around and sized up the situation. He was powerless. Weak. He was humiliated. He had guns pointed at him and his girlfriend was in the arms of another man. He was weak and pathetic. He could never show his face in Pierce Point again. Never. He had nothing left to lose.

  Chapter 193

  Troop Discipline

  (July 14)

  “Shoot me!” Ethan yelled out. “Go ahead! Get it over with!” Then he started crying. Like a little baby. More humiliation. Ethan wanted to leave. He wanted to get in his truck and go, but he knew he’d be shot if he went back to it, so he just stood there. Humiliated.

  Wes let Kellie go and started walking toward Ethan. Quickly. And gaining speed. In an instant, Wes was closing in on Ethan at a full run. He looked like a cougar pouncing on prey.

  Wes tackled Ethan and started punching him wherever he could. Wes felt some of the punches land. A couple went into the ground and hurt his fists, but he kept going. He was an animal. Unstoppable.

  After a few seconds, Wes felt arms pulling him up. He realized it was the Team and Crew pulling him off of Ethan.

  When he got to his feet, he realized his hands hurt and he had blood on him. Ethan was standing, too and also had blood on him. Wes wondered if the blood on Ethan was his. He checked his face. No blood there. He saw blood coming out of Ethan’s nose, however. Wes smiled. He must have landed at least one on Ethan’s face. Hopefully he broke the bastard’s nose.

  “Want some more, bitch?” Wes yelled out to Ethan.

  “Shut up,” Rich said. “Both of you shut up.”

  “Fuck you!” Ethan yelled to Wes.

  “Shut up,” Ryan said as he pulled his pistol out and pointed it directly in Ethan’s face. “Shut up,” he repeated slowly.

  “Cuff both of them,” Rich said.

  “What?” Wes yelled. Why him? He was the hero here. Ethan was the bad guy.

  “Shut up and calm down,” Rich said.

  Bobby cuffed Ethan with the plastic cable zip ties they carried. No one on the Team would cuff Wes, a fellow member, so Rich cuffed him.

  Kellie came running up and tried to hug Wes.

  “Get her out of here,” Rich said. He pointed to Kellie and motioned for someone to take her into the house where she wouldn’t spark another fight.

  Rich was in cop mode. It was his job to restore the peace.

  Rich went over to Sheila to find out what she knew. Sheila told Rich about how she thought Ethan might down their door.

  “Get Dan up here,” Rich said. He pointed to Ethan and said, “This is one of his guards.” Someone ran off to a radio.

  Grant went up to Rich and whispered, “What the hell are you doing?” He whispered because Rich was in charge and he didn’t want to contradict him.

  “Fighting isn’t allowed,” Rich said. “Troop discipline. We can’t have our guys fighting, especially over a girl.”

  Grant couldn’t believe it. Ethan was the bad guy. Wes was just defending Kellie. “Wes didn’t do anything wrong,” Grant said in a whisper.

  “Yes, he did,” Rich said. “He attacked an unarmed man.” Rich looked at Grant as if to say, “Duh.”

  Grant wanted to help one of his guys. Then it hit him. “One of his guys.” Grant was taking Wes’s side because they were both on the Team. Wes had crossed the line by attacking an unarmed man. As understandable as it was, it still crossed the line.

  “What are you going to do?” Grant aske
d Rich.

  “Discipline both of them,” Rich said. “A couple days in the jail.”

  “What?” Grant asked. That sounded preposterous. Jail? For Wes?

  “Yep. To be an example,” Rich said. Then he looked Grant in the eye and said, “An example that the Team doesn’t get special breaks.”

  Grant bristled at this. The Team was doing more than anyone else there. They were risking their lives all the time, raiding houses when the guards just stood there and BS’ed. The Team guys were the only actual badass gun fighters in this whole place.

  Then it hit him. It was exactly the kind of division that Pierce Point didn’t need. Everyone with a gun was part of the community’s security; the guards, the Team, the Crew, the beach patrol, the comms people. No divisions. No cliques.

  Grant started to remember how much emphasis George Washington put on troop discipline. General Washington was almost fanatical about it. Fighting and drunkenness were a constant problem for the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, as were divisions between the regular army and state militias. Fighting and drunkenness were dealt with by flogging. Stealing was a problem, too. Depending on the amount stolen, the death penalty was administered. Deserters were shot. In fact, the story goes, when one unit tried to desert, Gen. Washington ordered that unit to count off. Every tenth man from the deserting unit was lined up. Washington ordered the deserting unit to shoot their own members who were lined up. Desertions went way down after that.

  Grant had always thought that Gen. Washington’s discipline had been too harsh, but now he was beginning to understand why Washington had been so adamant about it. There was no way to fight a superior force with undisciplined troops. Look at how pathetic the Blue Ribbon Boys were, Grant thought. And a break down in order among the troops meant they could easily turn into a gang and terrorize the civilians, which was the very opposite of what they were trying to do out at Pierce Point. Maintaining order among the troops was more important than being precisely fair, he thought. Military discipline had to be fair enough to prevent a mutiny, but it didn’t have to be one hundred percent fair. Precise fairness was the goal for the civilian courts. They didn’t have the tough job the troops did, so civilians could afford to have precise fairness as the goal.

  Dan arrived and was briefed. He was taking Ethan’s side, then Kellie told them about how Ethan had come to the house and how they fled. Dan was no longer as staunch a defender of Ethan.

  Rich came over to Grant and said, “This is a commander’s call. Troop discipline is a military thing, not a court thing. Not a civilian court thing.”

  Grant nodded. Rich was right. Under the Constitution, the military got to discipline its own members outside of the civilian court system. Grant would not be the judge on this matter. Besides, he was biased in favor of Wes. Rich, who was not biased like Grant or Dan, could make an impartial decision.

  Rich paused for a moment and then said to everyone assembled outside the Richardson house, “OK, fighting is not allowed. Neither is banging on someone’s door and trying to do who knows what. I don’t give a shit who did more fighting. Here’s the message: Fighting and acting up is dealt with severely. And fairly. So both Ethan and Wes are in jail for three days. Starting now. This is a commander’s call and I’m the commander. Period.”

  “What?” Wes said, looking at Grant for help. “Me? I’m going to jail?”

  “Yep,” Grant said sternly. “Military discipline is critical. And it’s the commander’s decision, not a civilian court thing. I support Rich’s decision.”

  Kellie started crying. Ethan just stood there with a very strange look in his eye.

  “What if I quit?” Ethan said. “And I leave here.”

  “You can’t quit,” Dan said. “You…” Dan thought about it. The guards had not pledged to serve for any period of time, and he knew he couldn’t insist on the guards enlisting for several years. Dan had never thought about that. He just assumed the guards would serve as long as the community needed it.

  “Well, I guess you can quit,” Dan said. “But not Scot free. If you walk out of that gate, you can never come back. Never. If you try to come through that gate, you will be shot. And we keep all your stuff. That’s the price you pay for us feeding you for so long.”

  Grant and Rich went up to Dan. Grant said quietly to Dan, “Dude, this guy knows all our defenses. You can’t let him go into town.”

  “We can’t keep him jail for a few years,” Dan said. “We can’t have him on guard duty if he’s said he doesn’t want to be there. Besides,” Dan smiled, “I purposefully don’t tell the guards much of what’s going on just in case one of them ends up in the enemy’s hands. Ethan doesn’t know much more than a person observing us from a hidden position off the road for a day or two would know.”

  “What about the ‘fifty Marines?’” Grant asked. “What if Ethan tells Winters they don’t exist?”

  Rich and Dan were silent for a moment.

  “Ethan is a disgruntled guard,” Rich said, “leaving Pierce Point over a woman. Not exactly the most trusted source of information, so I’d say Winters would strongly discount whatever Ethan says. But, yeah, Ethan will probably say that there aren’t fifty Marines, though he can’t say for sure that they don’t exist. We’ve been hinting to everyone, including the guards, that some security people are secretly hiding out here, so the worst Ethan can say is that he hasn’t personally seen fifty Marines.”

  Rich thought about it some more and then said to Dan and Grant, “Worst case: Ethan tells Winters that we have snipers on the hill. That keeps Winters out of here. I’m OK with that. And I’m not going to let Ethan stay here. Wes will kill him.” Rich looked around to make sure no one could hear him. “It’s not like Wes doesn’t know how to do it,” he said and then mouthed “Lima down.”

  “Besides,” Dan said, “No one is going to leave Pierce Point willy nilly. They have food and security here. Only fuck ups like Ethan will go. Good riddance.”

  Rich, who was in command, got to make the call. He went over to Ethan and said, “So here’s your choice: First option is three days jail and you go back to guard duty without any other incidents. Second option is you quit and walk out with nothing, never to return.”

  Ethan quickly said, “I’m outta here.” He smiled. He hadn’t done that in a long time. He was relieved. He never wanted to show his face there again. He’d take his chances outside the gate. It couldn’t possibly be that bad out there.

  Rich said, “OK. That solves that. We’ll drive you back to your house where you will give us the keys to everything you have and then you leave.”

  “Great,” Ethan said. “I’ll be out of this little hick town.” To Rich, who knew how bad it was back in Frederickson, leaving Pierce Point sounded insane. He realized that pride was a bigger motivator to a young hot heat like Ethan than safety and food.

  Now it was Wes’s turn to receive his punishment. Rich turned to Wes and said, “Surrender your weapons, Wes.” The moment felt tense.

  Wes realized that he had to obey. He thought it was crazy for him—the one who was protecting Kellie from a psycho—to go to jail while the bad guy just walked away. He looked at Grant and asked, “Really?

  “Really,” Grant said. “I fully support Rich’s decision. He’s in command. Period. The Team gets treated like anyone else.” Grant really didn’t fully support the decision because it was unfair, but he understood why it needed to be done, and he had to publicly support Rich. Grant also had to show everyone that the Team got no special treatment.

  Wes, who was still handcuffed, motioned with his head to Bobby to take away his pistol. It felt weird to be disarming a handcuffed member of the Team, but Bobby did it. He handed Wes’s Glock to Scotty. Wes motioned with his head at his AR, which was on the ground. Bobby picked it up, checked to make sure it was on safe, and handed it to Rich.

  Bobby went up to Wes and pointed to his front pants pocket. “Sorry, dude,” Bobby said and took out Wes’s Zero Toler
ance folding knife. “I’ll take good care of this,” he said, “for three short days, brother.” That knife meant everything. Members of the Team always had their matching knives with them. Always.

  Wes realized that all eyes were on him. Would he be a whiner or a man? “The sooner this starts, the sooner I get out,” Wes said to Rich. “Who’s taking me back there?”

  Kellie started crying. She needed Wes right now. She needed him and now he was going to jail. This wasn’t fair.

  Rich made arrangements for someone to take Wes to the jail. As Wes walked by Rich, he pulled him aside and whispered, “Don’t worry. You’ll get the star treatment in jail. Comfy room. Good food. I just had to do this to show…”

  “I know, I know,” Wes whispered back, “the Team gets no breaks. I understand. One request: conjugal visits?” he said looking over at Kellie.

  “We’ll see,” Rich said. “I just don’t want you to get caught. It’ll take away the ‘no special treatment’ thing I’m trying to do here.”

  Wes nodded and recognized that Rich was doing what he could. Wes decided to think of it as three days of rest, which he could use. They had been patrolling and training hard for weeks.

  A truck came for Ethan. A few minutes later, one came for Wes. Kellie was crying while Sheila took her away in their car.

  Things got quiet for the first time in a while. Finally Rich said, “OK, let’s get back to work. Let’s run through this raid one more time. In slow motion first, then full speed. Empty mags and empty chambers. Safeties on. Let’s go, gentlemen.”

  Grant stood there and thought about the different things that motivate people. He was trying to motivate people to risk their lives and do some very nasty things with the promise of high-minded things, like freedom and liberty. That motivated a few people. But other people, like Ethan, were motivated to do life-changing things, such as leaving the safety of Pierce Point, by things like being scorned by a woman. Never underestimate wildcards like jealousies over women, Grant thought. Never think that this is some perfect chess game of political philosophies and predictable behaviors. Human beings are a crap shoot. Expect the unexpected.