by Glen Tate
299 Days: The Change of Seasons
by
Glen Tate
Book Seven in the ten book 299 Days series.
Your Survival Library
www.PrepperPress.com
299 Days: The Change of Seasons
Copyright © 2013 by Glen Tate
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
Prepper Press Trade Paperback Edition: December 2013
Prepper Press is a division of Kennebec Publishing, LLC
- To the real “Amber Taurus,” the den mother of the Washington State liberty movement.
From Chapter One to Chapter 299, this ten-book series follows Grant Matson and others as they navigate through a partial collapse of society. Set in Washington State, this series depicts the conflicting worlds of preppers, those who don't understand them, and those who fear and resent them.
The Change of Seasons is the seventh book in the 299 Days series, where summer has ended and reality has set in at Pierce Point. For many people, this means scrambling to survive the long winter with even less food. Some were smart enough to spend the summer preparing for the changing season and the expanding effects of the Collapse; others were not so smart, and their desperation and fear grows stronger by the day.
Grant Matson reflects with pride on how he has provided for his family while guiding Pierce Point into a community that functions well on its own. Celebrating this accomplishment, Grant and others join to offer the community a Thanksgiving dinner, which is met with gratitude and exhilaration. This mood is short-lived, however, as circumstance quickly begin to unravel, beginning with the disappearance of a beloved community member, followed shortly by a self-defensive killing by another.
The situation is just as bleak, or worse, in other parts of Washington State and the country, as innocent people are imprisoned and murdered, women and children become commodities, and what is left of the government looks even less like the once-beloved United States of America.
As the threat of a civil war becomes imminent, Grant, the Team, and the 17th Irregulars at Marion Farm bond over their duty to protect the country and are soon a fully-formed combat-ready unity, excited to go into combat but uncertain of what will happen to them. Grant dreads what he knows is coming, but he understands that he has been called to sacrifice - potentially his life and probably his marriage - to stop the Loyalists from hurting more people.
Books from the 299 Days series published to date:
Book One – 299 Days: The Preparation
Book Two – 299 Days: The Collapse
Book Three – 299 Days: The Community
Book Four – 299 Days: The Stronghold
Book Five – 299 Days: The Visitors
Book Six – 299 Days: The 17th Irregulars
Book Seven – 299 Days: The Change of Seasons
For more about this series, free chapters, and to be notified about future releases, please visit www.299days.com.
About the Author:
Glen Tate has a front row seat to the corruption in government and writes the 299 Days series from his first-hand observations of why a collapse is coming and predictions on how it will unfold. Much like the main character in the series, Grant Matson, the author grew up in a rural and remote part of Washington State. He is now a forty-something resident of Olympia, Washington, and is a very active prepper. “Glen” keeps his real identity a secret so he won’t lose his job because, in his line of work, being a prepper and questioning the motives of the government is not appreciated.
Table of Contents
Chapter 216
“Call in the ‘Hit’”
Chapter 217
Meatball Sub
Chapter 218
Render Unto Caesar
Chapter 219
Car Wash Josh
Chapter 220
“Sorry. Nice E.”
Chapter 221
Angie
Chapter 222
The Think Farm
Chapter 223
End of Summer
Chapter 224
Kit Kat
Chapter 225
“I Brought Friends”
Chapter 226
“Embahla”
Chapter 227
Crazy-Ass Idea
Chapter 228
Throwing Some Turkey Around
Chapter 229
And Cranberries, Too
Chapter 230
Dinner for a Few Hundred
Chapter 231
Thanksgiving
Chapter 232
Band of Brothers
Chapter 233
Different, But Normal
Chapter 234
Purple Heart
Chapter 235
“Lil’ Sissy”
Chapter 236
“Lt. Matson”
Chapter 237
Todd and Chloe
Chapter 238
The Republic of Texas
Chapter 239
The Five Amigos
Chapter 240
“Doctor” Greene
Chapter 241
The Redheaded Princess
Chapter 242
“Two to the chest, one to the head.”
Chapter 243
Saving Lucia
Chapter 244
Better Late Than Never
Chapter 245
Faint Whiff of Smoke
Chapter 246
Mementos
Chapter 247
Physical and Social Sanitation
Chapter 248
Warrior Song
Chapter 249
“Standin’ on My Head”
Chapter 250
The Football Field
Chapter 216
“Call in the ‘Hit’”
(August 2)
After they lifted off, Nedderman used the helicopter’s intercom radio to ask Mendez where they were going. “I’ll punch them in,” Mendez said, referring to the coordinates. They had left so hastily that they didn’t have time to do the normal pre-flight procedure of going over the plan. They had to hit the target fast because word could get out that it was coming. Nothing stayed a secret very long at Joint Base Lewis McChord, or “JBLM” as everyone called it. The teabaggers always seemed to know what the still-loyal American forces were doing.
Chatting on the radio was frowned upon, but Nedderman couldn’t resist. “I’m looking forward to this,” he said to Mendez. Nedderman loved killing teabagger insurrectionists.
“Me too,” said Mendez. “Me too,” he repeated.
“Olympia airport?” Nedderman asked, referring to where the military units operated from.
“Nope,” Mendez said. “We need to boogie before the mission is compromised, so we’re meeting the contractors at a landing zone outside of Olympia.”
“Okay,” Nedderman said. The trip from Camp Murray, which was within the JBLM complex, to Olympia only took a few minutes. They flew in silence, each man running through his mental checklist of what would happen if he died in the next few minutes. They’d been through it a million times, but each time they thought about dying, it was like the first time they’d ever pondered the concept.
“There they are,” Mendez said, after spotting some men at a landing zone in a clearing near the water. Right where they were supposed to be. That wasn’t always how things worked.
Yellow smoke, from a smoke grenade, appeared down by where the contractors were.
“That’s the sign,” Mendez said with a smile. Everything was going according to plan. What a relief.
Nedderman took great care while he was touching down. He had to avoid power lines, trees, and, because helicopters we
re most vulnerable during takeoffs and landings, he had to be on the lookout for enemy fire. The teabaggers were everywhere.
The contractors were in the tree line surrounding the landing zone, staring at the approaching helicopter. The yellow smoke swirled around from the rotor blades. Nedderman skillfully set the helicopter down and looked over at Mendez with a smile for a job well done. Mendez didn’t smile back.
Instead, he swiftly took out his pistol and shot Nedderman, who looked at Mendez in horror. Mendez shot him several more times, holstered his M9 pistol calmly, and looked around.
Almost instantly, two of the contractors came up and tried to pull Nedderman out of the cockpit.
Mendez signaled for them to leave Nedderman strapped to the cockpit; he was dead and couldn’t do any damage. Then Mendez signaled for them to get in, which they did. After the contractors’ team leader counted and ensured that all of his men were in the helicopter, he signaled to lift off. He put on the headset so he could talk to Mendez on the helicopter’s intercom system.
“All in,” the team leader said. “Call in the ‘hit.’”
Mendez switched from the intercom and radioed back to base and screamed, “We’re hit, we’re hit. Ambush! Ambush!” He switched back to the intercom and asked the team leader, “Where we going?”
“To see the Attorney General,” the team leader said with a huge smile.
Chapter 217
Meatball Sub
(August 2)
“The Governor thanks you for your service,” Sean Patterson, the Governor’s Legislative Director, said sarcastically right before he smirked to mock and humiliate the teabagger asshole standing in front of him. “We have a new, and,” Sean paused and then said, even more sarcastically, “exciting… assignment for you.” Sean barked like a dog and said, “You get to guard the Governor’s dog!”
Captain Brad Finehoff had been expecting this. Up until a few minutes ago, when he was rudely summoned into Sean Patterson’s office at Camp Murray where all the state officials had fled to, Brad had been the chief of the Washington State Patrol’s very elite EPU, the Executive Protection Unit, which was the state-level equivalent of the Secret Service that protected state officials. He had worked incredibly hard for the past twenty-three years and now was being treated like a child by an evil and thoroughly corrupt little politician who took great delight in tearing other people down. Especially strong men; the very slight and frail Sean Patterson seemed to have a chip on his shoulder about those types.
“Woof! Woof!” Sean kept saying, acting like a spoiled little child. “Won’t it be fun taking care of Rover?”
The Governor’s dog was actually named “Rover.” That was because, after hours of political strategizing, her aides decided to come up with the blandest name possible so as not to offend anyone. The name of the “First Dog,” as Rover was called in the EPU, had become a symbol of how dysfunctional Washington State government had become before the Collapse. The First Dog was kept in the old Governor’s Mansion in Olympia, which had been evacuated of all essential personnel. Now it was just a symbolic building, but was still guarded by a massive force because it was a juicy target for the Patriots, or rebels, or whatever they were. It looked like the mansion in Olympia would be his new duty station. He wondered if he really had to take care of Rover.
“I will gladly serve in any capacity I can,” Brad said in shock. “But …”
“Yes?” Sean said. “But, what?”
“Why, sir?” Brad pleaded, as he noticed his lip was quivering. “Why am I being re-assigned?” He was fighting back the tears. He hadn’t cried in decades.
Sean looked out the window at the barbed wire and machine gun nests surrounding Camp Murray. “Well, Trooper,” Sean said, knowing that Brad was not an entry-level Trooper, but instead a Captain, “it seems that your son is still missing.” Brad’s twenty-five year old son, Russ, had been missing since May Day.
“Have you heard something? A clue?” Brad asked with great enthusiasm. “Is he okay?”
“No, we don’t know anything,” Sean said with a roll of his eyes, which was an incredibly cruel thing to do to a parent with a lost child. “Maybe you know where he is.”
Brad looked dumbfounded. “If I knew where he was, he wouldn’t be missing, sir,” Brad said. Sean’s behavior was confusing him.
“Okay,” Sean said, disengaging from the argument, “I guess you don’t know where he is.”
“How does my son’s disappearance have anything to do with me being reassigned to Olympia?” Brad asked.
“I dunno,” Sean said, sarcastically again. “Why do you think?”
“I’m sorry, sir,” Brad said, “I honestly don’t know.” Brad had no idea why this little snot of a man was being so cruel.
Sean stared at him. “Your son is hiding out at some insurrectionist camp, isn’t he?”
“I have no idea,” Brad said. “If I knew where he was, I’d go get him. If he’s being held hostage by terrorists, then I’d be the first through the door with the entry team. I mean, that’s my son they’re holding.”
“Keep up the game, Trooper,” Sean said, once again refusing to acknowledge that Brad was a Captain.
“Game, sir?” Brad asked.
“Dismissed,” Sean said with a wave of his hand.
That was it. Twenty-three years of sacrificing to protect state officials and now he was apparently being demoted to guarding a dog named Rover. Brad left the room.
As he gathered his belongings from his quarters at Camp Murray, Brad thought about all that had happened. His son, Russ, was an aide to the conservative state Senator John Trappford. Brad figured that it was only a matter of time before his son’s very unpopular political position made it impossible for him to remain on the Governor’s protective detail. There had been whisperings before the Collapse about Brad being a “known conservative,” though Brad had been never political. He found most politicians to be quite unpleasant.
His fellow EPU agents openly wondered how Brad could remain the Governor’s bodyguard when he was a “known conservative.” Desperation was the answer. The State Patrol, as big as it was, didn’t have much bench strength when it came to the protective details. Before the Collapse, the EPU was tiny because there weren’t too many threats against the Governor, just a few crazies. Now there were lots of threats, as evidenced by the fact that the Governor was hiding out in a fortified military base.
The tiny EPU grew enormously when the Collapse hit. The State Patrol hastily trained up a new, and mammoth, EPU when the riots started. Brad knew his days were numbered in the EPU when they didn’t even ask him to train the new kids. And they were kids, all in their twenties. They didn’t remotely have the experience it took to be an effective member of a protective detail. They were young ladder-climbers who wanted to make a name for themselves on an elite assignment they were not qualified for. Brad shrugged as he took his last load of items out to his unmarked police cruiser. The lack of experience on the protective details wasn’t his problem now.
Brad forgot to get the fan he loaned a co-worker so he went back to the entry gate. He got out his swipe card to get through the first layer of gates. It wasn’t working. He tried it again. It still didn’t work. Of course not. He was no longer welcome near the Governor. He sighed and drove off to Olympia, to start Rover Duty.
After the shock of being fired so rudely had subsided, and he drove farther away from Camp Murray, Brad became more and more relieved. He couldn’t stand being around those people anymore. For the first fifteen years or so, things were fine. The various governors and their families were genuinely nice people. Their staffs were polite and hardworking. Many of them seemed like the kind of people who were working in government to solve problems and help people. But, as the years went on and state government grew and grew, it seemed like the people running it got more arrogant. They had egos and threw temper tantrums.
The worst part for Brad was watching the corruption grow. It started with littl
e things, like people getting their friends out of tickets and an occasional DUI. Then Brad started to notice that gifts were rolling in from lobbyists. And the trips! All the trips the politicians went on, paid for by the lobbyists and unions and God only knows who else.
Brad accompanied the Governor and other officials on all of the trips. These excursions were where the corruption started to turn really ugly. Everyone had girlfriends or boyfriends, and they partied hard. At first, they kept the drugs away from Brad and the EPU agents, who, after all, were law enforcement officers. Then, slowly, they stopped hiding their activity.
Eventually, the wild parties, along with the drugs and prostitutes of every kind, started popping up at the Governor’s mansion. Brad couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He started to feel abnormal because he wasn’t doing cocaine, ecstasy, and oxycodone with transvestites like everyone around him. Even some of his EPU agents were getting high on the job. It wasn’t the honorable service for honorable people he remembered from when he started in the unit.
Brad wasn’t alone. As the Collapse approached, he found a small group of his EPU agents who were as disgusted with everything as he was. They became a tight group. However, after the Collapse, Brad went up to Camp Murray, but the others remained in Olympia, so he lost touch with them.
As he approached the outer ring of the defenses around the Governor’s mansion, he saw two men, and one woman, in suits with their backs turned. When he was closer, they turned around and Brad immediately recognized them: Jerry, Mike, and Chrissy; his EPU friends who were disgusted with everything like he was.
Brad rolled down the window and said to them, “Looks like it’s reunion time.” They didn’t smile. They looked nervous. They got in Brad’s car.
“How you guys doin’?” He asked. They were silent. Finally, Mike said, “Let’s go to Mecconi’s,” which was a nearby sandwich shop.
“Okay,” Brad said. “Is everything alright?” He was the guy who just got demoted, yet he felt like the happiest one in the car compared to his three somber passengers.