by Glen Tate
“We are proposing a trade,” her interrogator told her. “You for him.”
Carol wanted to get out of that awful place. She didn’t want the authorities to get her brother, though. But she realized that she had no power over the situation. Either she would be traded for him or not. It wasn’t her decision.
Then Carol started to think about how awful it would be even if she were released. Everyone would know that her brother was some high-ranking teabagger. She could never show her face again.
After days and days of waiting, word came back that there would be a trade. Of sorts. She was released and allowed to go to Olympia.
When she got there, Grant was waiting.
“Welcome home, sister,” Grant said as he hugged her. She hugged him, too. He looked different and she almost didn’t recognize him. He was thinner, had a beard, and had a gun. Everyone around him had guns. Didn’t they know that guns were illegal? And could get them sent to prison forever? Then she would remember she was no longer in Seattle.
Olympia, now under Patriot control, was fundamentally different than Seattle. Carol marveled at how there were no lines for things. In Seattle, she stood in line at every store and paid for things with an FCard. In Olympia, there were small businesses springing up. People paid with New Dollars, which was the currency of the southern and western states, and with some weird local currencies. They still bartered, but it was weird for Carol to watch people buy things with cash. It was all cards in Seattle.
Being in a Patriot city was very strange for Carol. She was in teabagger central. She expected to see Klansmen running around hanging blacks. That’s what she had been led to believe. She actually expected to see that.
After the initial shock of not seeing Klansmen, Carol’s next emotion was extreme indecisiveness. On one hand, she still feared the Klansman that she expected to see in that teabagger town. On the other hand, she was thankful for being out of jail and out of Seattle, which, she now had to admit, was crumbling. She could see with her own eyes, from the conditions in New Washington, that things were much better here.
However, she could not instantly feel comfortable in Olympia. She thought people would mock her, or would preach to her some fundamentalist Christianity, or wanted to hurt her because she was from “evil” Seattle. Yet, she knew it was better here. She could not decide if she belonged in New Washington, especially since she couldn’t feel comfortable in New Washington. She didn’t need permission to do things here. Everything was legal. There were so few police and soldiers around. People were making decisions for themselves.
Carol found this very hard. She had difficulty making decisions, even about little things. It was frustrating to make decisions. It seemed like too much work to make her own decisions. Then she would realize that making decisions was normal and having them made for you was not normal. She was slowly adjusting. Grant realized that his sister was suffering from what newly released prisoners often struggled with. They had had decisions made for them for so long that freedom was hard to adjust to.
Grant told Carol about the deal that got her out. A straight one-for-one swap of Carol for Grant was laughed at by the New Washington leadership. A war hero and head of the ReconComm for … a Spanish literature professor? The New Washington leadership never told Grant about the situation in case he did something stupid like turn himself in to Seattle to save his sister. Later, after he found out, Grant had to admit that he never would have done that. He barely knew his sister and she had made repeated choices to stay in Seattle. He didn’t want her in jail, but she chose to live in a place where people went to jail for no reason.
Just as the New Washington leadership suspected, Carol was the opening bid in a negotiation. When it was all over with, the Patriots and Limas traded prisoners. Equal numbers for equal numbers. The Patriots bent their own rules and counted Carol as a Lima prisoner to be swapped. So they got her out, but it only cost them a random Lima, not a prize like Grant’s capture.
As Carol settled into New Washington, she had to hide her identity because, as a family member of the chair of the ReconComm, she was a target for Lima attacks. She would also be a big target for a kidnapper because she could be used to get pardons from Grant. So New Washington issued her a new identity and she found a job working at a small bookstore. No one needed a Simon Bolivar-era Spanish literature professor anymore.
Chapter 327
Reconciliation Starts … Tomorrow
(January 29)
Grant was in Olympia for a few days between speaking engagements for the ReconComm. He still hadn’t heard from Lisa. He had written her off and had other things on his mind.
Grant needed to visit someone. The Team was enjoying some R&R in Olympia, so he arranged for a State Patrol EPU detail to take him where he needed to go.
“Sorry to trouble you guys,” he said to the EPU agents, “but I gotta have a political discussion. It’s all hush-hush.”
“No problem at all, Commissioner Matson,” the senior agent said. “It’s an honor to be on your detail.”
The younger agent, who was driving, asked, “Where to, sir?”
“Meconni’s,” Grant said, “You know, the sandwich shop.”
“You got it, sir,” the younger agent said.
When they got to the Meconni’s parking lot, Grant said, “Hey, guys, I’m trying to lay low in town here. Do you mind if I have someone in the car. It’s sensitive and we don’t want to be seen in the restaurant.”
“We’ll be outside the vehicle, sir,” the senior agent said. Maybe Commissioner Matson was meeting a girlfriend. He didn’t seem like that kind of guy, but maybe.
“Thanks, guys,” Grant said, “I appreciate it.” He added, “I’m very well armed so I can handle anything, unless of course, I can’t and that’s when you guys jump on in.”
“Roger that, sir,” the senior agent said as he and the younger agent took up positions in the Meconni’s parking lot.
Grant got into the driver’s seat and put the keys in the ignition. At exactly 2:00 p.m., a man came walking up to the parking lot. Grant rolled down the window to the unmarked State Patrol car.
“Hey, Jason, need a date?”
The man looked stunned and then recognized that it was Grant.
“Get in,” Grant said as he unlocked the passenger door.
The man got in.
“Okay,” Jason Wallace said, “to what do I owe the pleasure of this unusual rendezvous?”
“I need a favor, warden.”
Grant proceeded to make his request.
“I dunno,” Jason said after hearing it. “This is super illegal.”
“Oh,” Grant said. “I know. Not only is it illegal, but it destroys my credibility and the Governor’s – if I get caught.”
“You won’t get caught,” Jason said as he sat up straight, “I have total control over everything that happens at the old Olympia High School prison.” He was proud of that fact and he was going to prove it by doing Grant that favor. That hugely illegal and politically destructive favor. Because it was something Jason had wanted to do for a long time.
“Thanks, Jason,” Grant said. “I owe you, man.”
“No, you don’t,” Jason said, “Pardoning my cousin repaid me in full.”
“I would have recommended his pardon anyway, Jason.”
“I know,” Jason said, “but it makes it easier for me to justify what I’m about to do.”
Grant smiled.
He remembered the speech he gave at the Delphi Road overpass when they caught that teenage kid texting their position to the Limas. Instead of shooting the little bastard, like they were perfectly entitled to do, Grant told the 17th and the Delphi guards, “Reconciliation starts today,” and then he proceeded to merely hammer and tag the kid.
Well, Grant admitted to himself, given what he did today, reconciliation starts tomorrow. He was taking this day off from reconciliation and letting revenge have just one day. He owed it to all those poor souls under the
Clover Park football field.
Chapter 328
New What?
(February 1)
“Vehicle approaching,” the CB radio said in the Forks City Hall, where Steve Briggs was sitting around talking to some other guys about how to fix a broken water heater.
“Lots of them approaching,” the scared voice on the CB said. Steve and the others grabbed their rifles and headed to the city gate.
Steve was terrified. Two pickup trucks with armed men and a small military fuel truck were parked right outside the city gate. It was probably a gang fuel run to supply Port Angeles that got lost. They’d fight to death to protect that treasure in their fuel truck. Then a larger bunch of that gang would come looking for what happened to their treasure and kill everyone in Forks. This was the exact nightmare scenario the Forks guards had been talking about for months and now it was coming true.
A military looking man got out of the first pick-up. Maybe this was a gang of AWOL soldiers, Steve thought. The military man put his arms out like he was hugging everyone. Great, they were high.
The man was smiling. Another man got out with a yellow Gadsen flag, but it had an evergreen tree on it. What?
“Welcome to New Washington,” the man exclaimed.
New what?
Steve went up to the man, wanting to get these stoned AWOL gangbangers back on the road and the hell away from Forks.
“Can I help you find where you’re going?” Steve yelled.
“I’m where I’m going,” the man said with another huge smile. “I’m in Forks. And you’re in New Washington.”
What was this “New Washington” thing? Oh wait, Steve thought. Don Watson, the Forks ham radio guy, had said that the state, except for Seattle, was calling itself that. Steve hadn’t really paid attention to that. Politics from the outside world didn’t matter in Forks, which had been forgotten by the outside world.
Pretty soon, more men got out of the trucks and came walking up to the gate with their arms out. They seemed really happy about something.
The flag. Doc Watson’s ham radio reports about the Patriots taking over most of the state. Now it was starting to make sense.
The Patriots won? It took Steve a few seconds to process that.
“What the hell is ‘New Washington’?” Steve yelled back. He thought he knew, but wanted to make sure.
“The new state you live in,” the military man replied. “The Patriots won. We have the whole state, except Seattle. You’re free and we have gasoline and a medic.”
A warm wave went over Steve. Gas and a medic. Freedom. A new state. Patriots won. Gas and a medic.
The Forks guards started to jump up and down and whoop and holler. The realization was hitting people at different speeds and they reacted at different intervals.
Pretty soon, it was a full-on party at the gate. People were hugging the soldiers, asking about news from New Washington—which sounded so weird to say. “New Washington.” It would take some getting used to, but thank God the Patriots won.
Steve spent the next two days distributing the gas and arranging for medical treatments. He made sure the soldiers radioed their base with a list of additional needed supplies. Pretty soon, another convoy arrived with blankets, some antibiotics (but not enough), biscuit mix, and a precious, precious item: a newspaper. The Olympia Patriot, it was called. A new newspaper. Independent. It actually seemed believable, what all the stories were saying. The internet was still spotty and the Limas hacked Patriot sites to put in Lima propaganda so, amazingly, actual hard copy newspapers were getting the real news out.
Steve devoured the paper. He read every single word in it. He almost fell over when he saw a long story about Grant Matson. Grant was a war hero and heading some Reconciliation Commission. Thank God he was okay, Steve thought. As Steve read the story, he got goose bumps. All those things about Grant’s past that Steve knew about seemed to have been planned long ago. The miracle of getting the cabin and of knowing that Special Forces guy who trained them. All those weird things in Grant’s life, Steve could now see, had been planned and allowed Grant to do what he’d done.
“Here for a reason,” Steve said out loud. That’s what Steve always told Grant when Grant was down. “You’re here for a reason, dude,” Steve would say, and as it turned out, Steve was right.
Steve went on to become the mayor of Forks. He refused to take a salary. He was living just fine on fish and deer, although he was glad to see that first semi of food come to Forks about two weeks after the first soldiers arrived. A few weeks after that, someone from Steve’s old company showed up and started to take orders for car parts. Many vehicles were not running and now, with a little gas being available, people wanted to drive again. Boy, did they want to drive again. And now Forks could sell timber again because that was a “critical industry” under the new laws, which meant that they cut the red tape to get it moving. People had jobs again in Forks. It was a miracle.
The Collapse had changed Forks. It had brought them together as a town. They had fed each other and saved each other’s’ lives. The churches stayed strong. So many people had experienced tragedies and miracles and there was only one explanation to many people. Thanksgiving would never again be about overeating and watching football. Thanksgiving was real in Forks now. It was about giving thanks. Everyone who lived through the Collapse in Forks knew why they should be thankful.
Later, when Steve got to Olympia to visit Grant, he couldn’t believe how much that place had really changed. For the better. He and Grant had a grand old time, telling stories about their upbringing and the Collapse and all the “coincidences” in their lives. “Here for a reason,” they would both say time after time.
Chapter 329
Remembered for a Hundred Years
(February 2)
Warden Jason Wallace walked onto the second floor of the old Olympia High School prison.
“I need to speak with Eric Benson,” he told the guard.
“Yes, sir,” the guard said.
The warden was let into the classroom housing Eric.
“You’re dismissed,” he said to the guard. The guard left.
“We need to talk,” the warden said to Eric.
“Whatever,” Eric said. He was still stunned that the Patriots were holding him as a prisoner when his only crime was working too hard to help them. He could not understand why they didn’t give him a medal for killing so many Limas.
“You know who Grant Matson is?” Jason asked him.
“Yes,” Eric said. “He’s the guy who isn’t giving me a pardon.”
“Grant asked me give you a message,” Jason said. Eric was silent. He could care less what Grant Matson had to say. “Don’t you want to know what he said?” Jason asked.
“Okay,” Eric said sarcastically, “What did he say?”
Jason whispered, “Nice work at the carwash.”
Eric smiled and briefly relived the thrill of killing Bart Sellerman. He could see the blood and the sudsy carwash foam on the cement when he was done with Sellarman.
“He wanted to ask you a favor,” Jason said. “And I know you’re gonna love doing it.”
Eric’s curiosity was piqued. “Yes?” he said.
Jason told him the plan.
“I’m in,” said Eric. “Let’s go.”
“Okay” Jason said as he took a knife wrapped in cloth out of his suit jacket.
“How do you know you can trust me?” Eric asked.
“Because you asked that question,” Jason said. “If you were going to kill me, you’d enjoy it more by surprising me.”
“Excellent point,” Eric said with a laugh.
“Besides,” Jason said, “you want to be a Patriot hero. I’m giving you the chance, and if you kill me, you won’t be a hero. You want to be a hero, don’t you, Eric?”
Eric nodded like a child.
“Remembered for a hundred years as a man who did a great, great thing?”
Eric nodded again and let o
ut a slight guttural sound.
“Okay,” Jason said, “make it good.”
Eric, feeling like a giddy child, gave Jason the thumbs up.
Jason handed Eric the knife, careful not to touch it so his fingerprints wouldn’t get on it. The only fingerprints on it would be Eric’s.
“Oh God!” Jason screamed. “He’s got a knife! Help! Guards!”
The guard came running to the door but was afraid to open it.
“Open that door or I kill him!” Eric screamed. He felt a rush of pleasure just screaming those words. He felt alive again, like he hadn’t felt in months. He was going to get to kill someone. And not just anyone.
The guard unlocked the door and watched in horror as Eric held the knife up to Jason’s throat and slowly walked out of his classroom cell.
Eric took Jason down the hall. By now, several guards stood petrified, unable to believe that a prisoner had taken the warden hostage. When he came to classroom 210, Eric screamed, “Open the door!”
The guards were still frozen.
“Open the damned door!” Jason screamed.
A guard slowly came up and opened the door. The prisoner in room 210 started to scream, too.
A second or two later, the screams turned to shrieks of agony, shock, and slaughter. The shrieks got quieter and quieter as the slashing sounds got louder and louder. Eric was started to cry out with pleasure and Jason cried out in horror.
And Nancy Ringman lay dead.
Chapter 330
Smiley Faces
(February 3)
Grant and the Team were in Mark’s truck, driving to Yakima. He was in the back cab with Pow, as usual. Pow was checking his kit to make sure he had everything. He looked stunned. He had everything all right; he had something he forgot he had.
He looked sheepishly at Grant and said, “Oh, dude, I totally forgot I had this,” as he handed Grant the letter from Lisa.