299 Days IX: The Restoration

by Glen Tate

  Grant found him napping. It was about 5:30 a.m. on whatever day it was. Grant had lost track of the dates, and days of the week. At this point, he only knew daytime and nighttime, and even that was getting blurry.

  The 17th had taken over the third floor where the kids had stayed. There were several members of the 17th there, the ones who hadn’t been put on a detail with another unit. Grant couldn’t resist. For just a second, he was going to let himself lie peacefully on the cement floor and rest his eyes.

  He woke up when he heard Ted saying, “Wakey, wakey, Lieutenant.”

  “How long was I out?” Grant asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

  “Two and a half hours,” Ted answered. “Let’s get some food.” Good idea, Grant thought. He was beyond hungry, although he was so used the feeling of hunger by now that it didn’t really bother him.

  The sun was coming up. They went to the field kitchen and got some pancakes. Nice. Pancakes never tasted so good. Grant popped a caffeine pill and got ready for a day’s worth of work. Or a night’s worth. Or whatever it would end up being.

  The runner came back from the copy center where the copy machines were actually working. The runner gave Grant a ream of paper and several pens. Grant neatly handwrote a small leaflet—four to one page and double-sided—that made four simple points. First, the Patriots had liberated the city. It was over. Second, civilians should stay indoors unless they had an emergency, in which case they could come to the brewery. Third, military and law enforcement of the “former authorities” could turn themselves in for consideration of a full pardon. Finally, gang members would be treated like the criminals they were. The pamphlet also said that anyone who reported a former regime member would be rewarded for assisting the Patriots. Grant had no idea if they had anything to reward informants with. He just wanted the Limas to see that they couldn’t trust anyone, especially the general population.

  Grant had the runner and a newly formed work detail make as many copies as possible and then cut them up into quarters for distribution.

  He then spent the next half hour or so talking to his troops, making sure they’d had some sleep and some food. But, he just generally wanted to perk them up and tried to do so by telling them how important their job was, and how the 17th had made the whole brewery HQ possible Grant also told his troops how he thought they might have Olympia wrapped up in a couple weeks and maybe they could get back to Pierce Point, or maybe they’d go up to Seattle. But Grant let his irregulars know that he wouldn’t volunteer the unit for any missions that weren’t absolutely necessary. Individual members could volunteer for missions, but Grant wasn’t going to obligate the whole unit just so he could please his superiors.

  A runner came up to Grant and said, “Battalion Commander wants to see you right now!” Grant ran with the runner up to the fourth floor.

  “Yes, sir,” Grant said, breathlessly when he saw Brussels. “What can I do for you?”

  Brussels had a pamphlet in his hand. He screamed, “Is this yours?”

  “Yes, sir,” Grant said, a little timidly. This wasn’t going well.

  “Did you clear this with me?” Brussels screamed. Everyone on the floor became quiet.

  “No, sir,” Grant said, getting mad. Who the fuck was this guy to question Grant’s civil affairs work?

  “This headquarters is under my command and you are in my headquarters,” Brussels seethed. “You are under my command.”

  “Not really,” Grant blurted out. Oh great. That wasn’t very diplomatic.

  “What did you say?” Brussels asked in a calm voice that showed he had the power.

  “Well, sir, I’m not really under your command,” Grant said. “I was ordered by Lt. Col. Hammond, Special Operations Commander, to take care of civil affairs here. I am doing that.”

  “What’s this about pardons?” Brussels asked. That must be what was pissing him off. Either that or he needed to yell at someone just to show he was in charge. Or he was tired. Or all of these things.

  “We want to get the Limas to turn themselves in,” Grant said, stating the obvious.

  “We?” Brussels yelled. “We do? No, Lieutenant Irregular, you want the Limas to turn themselves in. I want to kill them.”

  Oh, so that was it – a difference in viewpoint about reconciliation after the victory. It was the old American Revolution versus French Revolution thing.

  Might as well go for broke, Grant thought. He knew he’d have to win this argument with Brussels, or all he’d been working for would be lost.

  “That would not be the most effective strategy from a civil affairs perspective,” Grant said.

  Brussels exploded. “Oh, Mr. Civil Affairs, tell me again what civil affairs unit you were in? What training you’ve had for this?”

  “None, sir,” Grant said with a little edge in his voice, feeling himself getting pissed. He wasn’t used to being screamed at and his exhaustion lowered his inhibitions. People were usually pretty happy to have him around. “But I have been put in charge of this, of civil affairs, and I’m doing my job, sir.”

  Now Brussels was being challenged in front of his men. Grant wished he hadn’t done that, but it was too late now.

  “Get me Hammond at Boston Harbor,” Brussels screamed to a radio operator.

  About thirty silent and tense seconds later Lt. Col. Hammond was on the radio.

  “Yes, what is it?” he asked.

  “Did you tell some lieutenant in some irregular unit to do all the civil affairs here?” Brussels asked.

  “Yes, Myron,” Hammond said, not knowing that other soldiers were listening. Since they were of the same rank, Hammond could call Brussels by his first name, “Matson knows his shit. He’s done some great stuff since this all started.”

  “This Matson guy has put out a pamphlet saying Limas will be considered for pardons,” Brussels hissed. “Did you know anything about that?”

  It was silent for a moment.

  “No,” Hammond said. Grant’s heart sank.

  “But it makes a hell of a lot of sense to me, Myron,” Hammond added, speaking peer-to-peer to Brussels. “Let him do his thing. Besides, I know for a fact that the Interim Governor is a big fan of pardons. It’s how the General wants to do it, too. Mercy, not a bloodbath. Copy?”

  “I don’t appreciate your irregular people fucking with my operations here,” Brussels said. That’s about all he had.

  Hammond was used to his special operations activities making regular units mad. It happened all the time.

  “Want me to get the General on the horn?” Hammond asked without any emotion. Hammond knew that the man who didn’t get emotional was perceived to be the one in control.

  “Not necessary,” Brussels said abruptly. “I have a city to pacify.” That was the end of that.

  Brussels looked at Grant and said, “Watch yourself, Lieutenant. Now go pass out your little pamphlets while we fight a real war.”

  Fuck you, Grant thought. You idiot regular units will be fighting insurgents in this town for months unless the Limas have an incentive to give up. Dumbass.

  “Yes, sir,” Grant said and then stood there waiting to be dismissed.

  “Dismissed,” Brussels snarled.

  When they were out of earshot of everyone, Ted pulled Grant aside and whispered, “You know he’s going to try to motherfuck you at every turn, right? You do know that?”

  “I do now,” Grant said. He knew that he’d have numerous challenges to his reconciliation mission. He just never thought it would be someone on his own side, and so early in the process.

  “What else could go wrong?” Grant asked. Then he saw Mark’s truck pull up. And he looked in the back.

  Chapter 306

  Ringleader

  (January 2)

  “On your knees! Hands to your sides!” screamed the man in military contractor clothes and gear.

  Nancy Ringman wondered who he was talking to. She looked around. There was no one there.

  “
Me?” she asked in bewilderment.

  “On your knees!” the man screamed. “Yes, you!”

  Nancy fell to her knees. The man’s rifle, one of those assault weapons, looked terrifying to her. She started to cover her face with her hands.

  “Hands to your sides – now!” he screamed.

  She froze. She could not move to save her life.

  She heard a click and, without knowing anything about guns, realized it must be a safety to the gun. She’d seen that in movies. This man was about to shoot her. Suddenly, she realized she needed to put her hands to her sides, which she quickly did. Her hands were shaking uncontrollably.

  “Spud Six, Oscar Romeo, got a prisoner here by the football field,” he said without pushing a button on a radio mic. He had a voice activated Quietpro headset for his radio.

  “Roger, Oscar Romeo,” a voice said into the man’s earpiece. “On the way.”

  “How many of you are here?” the man yelled to Nancy.

  She couldn’t talk. She was so scared that her mouth wouldn’t move. The man gave her one more second to talk before he would seriously consider her to be a decoy or ambush bait.

  “Spud Six, Oscar Romeo,” he said into his voice-activated radio, “Prisoner won’t say how many more are here. Expect lots of bad guys. Smoke ‘em if you gotta.”

  Hearing that made Nancy realize these soldiers or contractors or whatever were deadly serious – and that they considered her a threat. She felt herself losing bowel control. She felt so embarrassed and helpless as she realized she has just shit her pants.

  “No more,” she said meekly to the man.

  “What?” he yelled at her, as he was moving with his gun trained on her head. He wanted to be mobile so he’d be harder to shoot.

  “No more people here,” she said a little louder. “I’m the only one.”

  “Right,” he said dismissively.

  “Prisoner says she’s the only one,” he said into the radio. “Whatever. Expect bad guys.”

  “If there is anyone else here,” he said to Nancy, “You’ll hear a loud noise and a tremendous burning sensation as I shoot you.” He let that sink in. “It’ll hurt. A lot.”

  Nancy started crying.

  “So,” he said, “I’ll ask again: how many others are here?”

  “I’m it,” Nancy said between sobs. “Everyone else left.”

  “Where did they go?” the man asked.

  “I dunno,” she said. “They just left. This place isn’t safe.”

  “Like the football field?” he screamed. “Yeah, it’s pretty dangerous out there. We know what you guys did.” He wasn’t going to tell her that the Patriots had captured several of the Clover Park guards who confessed to the massacre at the football field. He was one of the Patriot special operations troops behind the JBLM line who conducted raids and executed other impromptu missions, like liberating prison camps. He’d seen some awful things, but a mass killing like this was the worst he’d heard of.

  “We had to make room for refugees,” Nancy blurted out, realizing that she was incriminating herself. While she suspected this man was a teabagger, she still couldn’t fully believe they were operating behind the JBLM line. That wasn’t supposed to happen.

  “So then, you were part of the football field incident?” the man asked, thanking his lucky stars that he seemed to be getting a confession from this prisoner.

  “I didn’t do any of it,” she said. “Others did.”

  “Why are you here?” the man asked. He turned when he heard people running up to his position. They were his teammates.

  “I,” she started to say and then the other contractors started talking to the man about other threats and where to search next.

  “You what?” the man finally said, after talking to his teammates.

  “I told them to do it,” she said. She realized she shouldn’t have said that, but she wanted to get it off her chest. She immediately felt better.

  “Spud Six, Oscar Romeo,” the man said, “I got the ringleader.”

  Chapter 307

  “Let’s Go Fix This State”

  (January 2)

  Patriot EPU agent Mike Turner heard what he’d been waiting for … for years.

  “Carrot cake.”

  That’s what the radio operator at the Think Farm said.

  Mike felt a surge of adrenaline when he heard those two magical words.

  “Cream cheese frosting,” Mike responded into the radio, which was the encoded reply showing that he received the code phrase and would carry out the mission.

  This was it. Mike’s years of watching the government slowly imploding. The corruption. The outright theft. Putting innocent people in jail. Letting guilty ones go. Maintaining a secret membership in Oath Keepers and worrying about getting caught, then defecting from the State Patrol’s Executive Protection Unit, or EPU, a few months ago and becoming a guerilla behind enemy lines. All of it. It all came down to “carrot cake” which was the code phrase for the order to bring the Interim Governor and his staff in to Olympia. It meant the Patriots had taken the city and were holding it. That they would start governing and fixing things. Everything Mike had risked his life for during the past several years was finally here.

  It was 11:32 p.m. Time to get going while it was still dark. Mike alerted his fellow former EPU members that it was time to go. They woke the families, who had been expecting this.

  They’d heard the faint gunfire and explosions in Olympia for the past two days. In fact, they were getting nervous that the Patriots hadn’t taken the city yet. They were relieved to get word that they had to get into cars and drive into a city where lots of people wanted to kill them. That was a relief compared to the thought that Olympia had not been taken, which would mean they would be hiding out on the Prosser Farm forever. Or worse.

  The Interim Governor, Ben Trenton, and his chief of staff, Tom Foster, would go into Olympia with Ben’s director of legislative affairs, Brian Jenkins. Also joining them would be Carly Johnson. She would be the assistant director of legislative affairs. She risked her life to get the EPU out to the Prosser Farm so all of this could happen.

  Wives, and especially children, would stay behind at the Prosser Farm. They would be protected there. To everyone’s knowledge, no one other than the immediate neighbors knew who was staying out there. That had been a miracle, but hiding on a farm where all the neighbors were relatives made that possible. The presence of the EPU agents and their sophisticated equipment, to the extent anyone even saw them, was explained with the story that Tom Foster had a rich relative who had paid for a private personal security detail. Rich people were hiring lots of former military and law enforcement people, and sometimes current ones, to protect them. That seemingly outlandish story made perfect sense in the insane world of post-Collapse America.

  After everyone was awake, there were quick goodbyes. The wives, Karen Jenkins in particular, were scared. They knew their husbands were in amazingly good hands, but still it was hard to say, “Okay, go off into a war zone and become the enemy’s biggest target for assassination. See you in a while. I won’t worry.”

  The kids were taking it pretty well. They were mostly older, around middle school age and a few in high school. They had been told for quite a while that their dads would be leaving to go back to Olympia and do some important things—things that would allow the kids to go back to their normal lives. To live in their own homes, to go to school, to not have people with guns around. Well, that last one wouldn’t change. These kids, given who their parents were, would have EPU agents around them for the rest of their lives. But, overall, the kids’ lives would be back to normal when their dads could go back to Olympia and fix all the bad things that had happened.

  Packing took no time at all because they had all their bags pre-loaded. Ben changed out of sweatpants and into jeans. Brad, the chief of the EPU unit, didn’t want to waste any time with apparel changes.

  “Governor, no one will see you arriving,”
Brad said. “We have suits your size coming from the Think Farm. You’ll have a tailor there at the capitol to finish them off. You’ll look fine.” Brad was used to vain dignitaries that he had to guard. Ben wasn’t vain—he was amazingly humble, in fact—but he was a politician.

  Ben smiled. “I’m not getting into jeans for fashion,” he said. “My sweats won’t hold a holster belt.” Ben showed Brad the Sig he was carrying and Brad smiled. A holster belt was an acceptable reason to make an apparel change, especially given what they would be doing in the next few hours.

  The families gathered in the living room and just stood there silently. They didn’t know what else they were supposed to do. They’d never had to watch their fathers and husbands leave with a personal security detail to a battlefield before. Not many people had.

  The plan was for Brad and Jerry Schafer, the EPU agent who was a former Marine, to accompany the “principals,” as protectees were called. Jerry would drive. They would travel light, with just two EPU agents, but it was just for a while and then they’d pick up an escort detail.

  Two EPU agents, Mike Turner, the coms guy, and Chrissy Mendez would stay. They needed coms back at the farm and Chrissy, besides being a spectacular gun fighter, was very good at calming kids … and wives.

  “Okay, let’s go,” Brad said. He looked at the families. “You’ll be in extremely good hands with Mike and Chrissy.” There was a tradition in the EPU that the protectees could call their agents by their first names instead of “Trooper Turner” or “Trooper Mendez.”

  “Bye,” the kids and wives said one by one. Everyone got a final hug.

  “Let’s go,” said Brad. He had radioed in to the first checkpoint that they’d be there in a few minutes and he didn’t want to be late. Being late in a personal security detail was a big deal.