by Glen Tate
The community made a big deal out of Christmas this year. It was a time for them to pull together. They’d been doing that all year long, but instead of pulling together to shoot some looters, now they got to pull together for something positive.
The local churches started caroling. They’d never done that before, and it really was quite magical. When they came by the Briggs’ house, the whole family stopped doing what they were doing and just listened. They listened to the words of the carols and thought about their meaning. No one in the family said a word for half an hour after the carolers were gone.
Christmas Eve services at the Forks churches were packed. Lots of people who hadn’t been to church in decades were back in the pews during the Collapse. In fact, most of the town was attending church, including the Briggs family.
Steve had never felt closer to his family and his community than he did that first Collapse Christmas. Things seemed so much more real and were boiled down to what mattered, which wasn’t food processors.
The gentlemen of Forks decided to start a new Christmas tradition. Steve and his friends snuck out of their houses after Christmas dinner and went to city hall, which had become the guard headquarters. They cracked open some moonshine. With all those hillbillies living in Forks, there were plenty of people who remembered grandpa’s ‘shine recipe. Some guys had been making ‘shine all summer and fall. It was a good business to be in. People needed it, especially now.
They sipped moonshine that night and talked about the past year and the coming year. Through Don Watson, the local ham radio operator, they got dispatches from the rest of the world. Landline phones usually still worked, but cell service and long-distance texting. The internet didn’t work because the only service provider out there went out of business. One person in town had some spotty satellite internet service, but it was nothing to count on. Ham radio was the main link.
Don, sipping some ‘shine with one hand and holding his handheld radio in the other, got real serious at one point.
“You know, guys,” Don said, “there are tons of rumors out there that there’s going to be something big in a few days.”
“Will they try to cut off the utilities again?” someone asked.
“No one is saying for sure what’s coming,” Don said, “but if I had to guess, I’d say it’s a Patriot military move of some kind.”
The room fell silent. Everyone thought about what that meant for them in little, and totally isolated, Forks.
Not much, Steve thought. This would have very little effect on them.
“No government here in Forks to overthrow,” Steve said as he raised his cup of moonshine.
“Cheers!” everyone said. They’d drink to that.
Chapter 258
Christmas at Prosser Farm
(December 24)
The EPU team and Carly seamlessly fit into the WAB families out at the Prosser Farm. Everyone there was doing all they could to give the kids as normal a Christmas as possible. Everyone spent time figuring out little gifts to give each other. There was no access to stores, so they were on their own.
There was one exception. Dennis, on one of his runs into Olympia to secretly distribute the Rebel Radio CDs, got some candy canes. They were left over from a prior year and some street vendor was selling them. They cost Dennis a fortune (a box of 12-guage shells), but it would be worth it to see the look on the kids’ face, when they had a real candy cane. That would make Christmas “normal.” Sorta.
Things settled into a day-to-day routine after the EPU agents arrived. There were still a bunch of chores to do every day on the farm, so that kept everyone busy. The agents pitched in, of course.
When they arrived, the agents started setting up communications and a very sophisticated guard system. They still used the Prosser neighbors for guards, but as a first ring of defense. The agents were the second ring. They came up with detailed escape plans and trained everyone on how to start running down the escape paths on a moment’s notice. They had supplies and weapons pre-positioned in two sets of vehicles. If they had to evacuate people, they would essentially drive out the back pasture into the forest and take a logging road to the power lines, which were cleared of brush. From there, the Delphi guards would pick them up after being alerted. The Delphi guards didn’t know who the families were. They just knew that if Jeff Prosser said they needed to be at the power lines and used a certain code phrase, a select team of guards needed to be there. And they needed to be ready to fight their way back to a safe house, which was the home of Ned, the guard commander.
All that Ned knew was that Jeff was a Patriot, he had guests from Olympia, and some Secret Service-type people were out there with them. Ned was starting to think some Patriot big shot was hiding out there … until Ned found out about Tom’s rich father.
The Prosser Farm neighbors and the leadership of the Delphi guards were told that Tom Foster had a rich father who had hired these people to protect Tom. That story, which would have been absurd before the Collapse, explained everything to Ned.
Now, when anyone with a gun, and especially a badge, could be rented—this story made perfect sense. What would have seemed outlandish was that the Patriot’s future governor was living right under everyone’s noses and a bodyguard team of defecting state police had been sent to protect the new governor. That would have been crazy.
The EPU agents had amazing radios and even private email devices that didn’t use the internet and were totally secure. They could email with the Think Farm and other Patriot headquarters. It was some data packet ham radio thing; pretty clever.
“We need to talk in private,” Brad Finehoff, the leader of the EPU team, said to Ben. Brad seemed very serious. The families had just celebrated Christmas Eve. The kids put out milk and cookies for Santa. They had fancy desserts made from the meager sugar reserves they had out there. It was an amazing time. The kids really enjoyed having a “normal” Christmas; it was much needed. So did the adults. Ben could tell that Brad had waited until the festivities were over before giving him something to worry about.
Ben and Brad went out to the shed closest to the house. “What’s up?” Ben asked.
“We’ll be moving out in a few days, probably the day after New Year’s,” Brad said. He seemed a little nervous.
“Where to?” Ben asked.
“Olympia,” Brad said and then smiled, “Your new office in the capitol, Governor.”
Hearing “Governor” still stunned Ben. It took him a while to get his senses back.
“Let me guess,” Ben said, “We’re not just strolling down the road to Olympia. We’re waiting for some people to go ahead of us and clear things out.”
Brad nodded.
Ben was silent for a while as he was trying to comprehend what they were talking about. The Patriots would fight over Olympia. If they won—and that was a big “if” to Ben—then he would be the new governor. At least, he would be in the interim, until there were elections that he would probably win.
It was hard to comprehend, even though Ben had known for a few weeks that he was the Patriot’s designated interim governor. But this—actual plans to move into Olympia—seemed so much more real than the talk about Ben being the governor “someday.”
Ben was no military guy, but he was curious. “How’s this going to work?” he asked Brad.
“Patriot units from the areas all around Olympia will move in on New Year’s Day,” Brad said. “While the Limas and gang bangers are hung over,” he added with a smile.
“And there’s political significance,” Ben said, “to a new year. A new year and a new set of leaders. New, new, new. People want something new. Last year sucked; this year, with new leaders, things will be better.” Whoever thought of a New Year’s Day attack understood politics, Ben thought.
“Patriot regular units will concentrate on the north, to prevent Lima regulars at JBLM from coming down I-5,” Brad explained. “Patriot irregular units …”
“What’s an �
�irregular’ unit?” Ben asked and Brad explained the term.
“Irregular units will be coming from all around here,” Brad said pointing around the farm. “Some will be coming very close to here, right down Highway 101.”
“Will they come here?” Ben asked.
“Nope,” Brad said. “Not unless we need them to.” Brad hadn’t talked to HQ about having an irregular unit come to the Prosser Farm, but he knew he could call in to HQ and have them divert one, if absolutely necessary.
Brad continued, “The most dangerous time for us is when the irregular units are nearby. The Patriot forces near us will make a big fat target for the Limas, who supposedly don’t have much in the way of helicopters or aircraft, and their artillery can’t reach here. But still, the Patriot units will be a target. There could also be some confusion. You know, the ‘fog of war.’” Brad had been a paratrooper in Desert Storm and had seen the “fog of war” up close. It was deadly: sleep deprivation, adrenaline, and an overload of information. Bad things happened.
“What do we do when all this starts?” Ben asked.
“When the Patriot forces,” Brad said—he almost slipped and added “or God forbid, the Lima forces” but he didn’t—“when the good guys get near us, we’ll activate the evacuation plan. We’ll take you, Tom, Brian, and Carly and get into one of the vehicles and take the route. The second vehicle and half of my team will stay here to get the families out, if that’s necessary. I doubt it will be necessary, they’ll probably stay here until it’s safe for families to go into Olympia and join you.”
Ben nodded. This was like part of some movie, but it was happening for real.
“We’ll take you slowly and safely,” Brad said, “instead of the mad dash we’ve rehearsed. We’ll wait near the Delphi guard station until we have confirmation it’s okay to go there. When the coast is clear, it’ll be okay to go down 101 to Olympia. Then we cruise there in your first motorcade, Governor.”
Ben, once again, was trying to take all this in.
“What do I need to do to help?” Ben asked.
“Get your family mentally prepared,” Brad answered. “Make sure their head is in the game, and that they’re not afraid and they trust us to get them through it safely.”
Brad put his finger up in the air like he had forgotten something. “Actually,” he said, “don’t tell them what’s going on by yourself. We’ll have a big meeting with my whole team and we’ll use maps to show them what’s happening and let them know about all our communications and other capabilities. When they’re done listening, they’ll understand that we’re pros at this.” Brad smiled. He was very proud of this plan and his team’s abilities. They were good, and they were doing something incredibly important for the cause. Brad couldn’t wait to get started. He knew it would work. He just knew it.
“So I just show up and take a ride with you guys?” Ben asked. There had to be more to it than that.
“Well, you need to pack some suits. Do you have any?” Brad asked.
“Nope,” Ben answered, and Brad took a note. He’d make sure the Think Farm had some suits for Ben when he got to the capitol. The new governor had to dress well.
“There’s one more thing you need to do,” Brad said.
“Sure,” Ben said, “name it.”
“Study those binders we brought out,” Brad said. Those were the briefing binders the Think Farm had prepared. They detailed what the Patriot’s plan was for governing. How the new, interim government would be formed, who the interim legislators would be, and the political messages the new governor would be giving. And, most importantly, the Patriot plan for a new state constitution and elections.
“Homework?” Ben asked with a smile. “I have frickin’ homework?”
“Yes, Governor,” Brad said. “The content of those binders is why we’re going to all this trouble.”
And by “trouble,” Brad meant all the lives that would be lost.
Chapter 259
Collapse Christmas in Olympia
(December 24)
Ron Spencer wasn’t even thinking about Christmas this year. He was completely preoccupied and busy preparing for a mission.
Leading up to Christmas, Ron had noticed some big changes in the government-employee enclave of Olympia. Regular people, like him, had been civil to the Loyalists for months, but that was starting to change. Regular people were not taking it anymore. They were no longer accepting that some people got more FCard credits than them. They could sense that the Loyalists wouldn’t be running things much longer and they weren’t afraid of the Loyalists as much as they used to be. They had seen that the FCorps were a joke.
Ron could tell that the Loyalists were stunned the “temporary Crisis” was still going on. With the whole government focused entirely on the recovery, why was it taking so long? It was almost like government couldn’t solve a problem, which was impossible in their minds. The Loyalists were dismayed at the news of states and parts of states joining the Patriots. They were amazed when blacks and Latinos joined, too. How could minorities possibly be part of the racist teabagger movement? And how could stupid hillbillies be winning?
The most tangible evidence of Loyalists losing faith in their side was all the families in Olympia who were abandoning their houses there and getting on buses to go up to Seattle, where they felt more safe. The Loyalists had tight control of things up there.
But not in Olympia. People could tell—and were betting their own lives and their families’ lives—that Olympia was about to be in Patriot hands.
A few days before Christmas, Ron received word that he and his fellow “gray men” had a mission. Finally! A mission. Ron was so excited he couldn’t sleep.
Their weapons? Cans of spray paint. But not for the graffiti Ron had been doing.
Matt Collins, Ron’s friend who was the gray man organizer in the area and got spray paint to Ron, told him before he got arrested that something big was coming up in a while. They were tasked with some “preparations” for the big event.
Matt explained a few weeks before that each gray man would go into his or her neighborhood and spray paint a huge “L” on the houses of people they knew were Loyalists. To get an “L” spray painted on their house, a person had to be more than just a person who went through the motions of supporting the government. A person had to be a hardcore Loyalist to get an “L.” This had several purposes.
First, it would inform the Loyalists that the Patriots knew who they were and could strike anytime. This time it would be some spray paint. Next time, it might be a shotgun or a Molotov cocktail. Ron remembered how terrifying it was when Nancy Ringman spray-painted “POI” on the Matson house. Well, it was time for the Loyalists to be terrified. Every day, when Ron walked by the Matson house, he saw that “POI” and was afraid for them. He wondered what happened to them. He figured there was a good chance Grant was dead by now. He hoped Grant’s family was still okay.
The second purpose of painting an “L” on Loyalist houses was to allow Patriot forces, who were rumored to be coming into Olympia, to know which houses were safe and which could be trouble.
The third purpose was to let all the people who just pretended to be Loyalists know that they were okay and that Patriots would not harm them. The masses—the “Undecideds”—living in government-controlled areas, like Olympia, were superficially supporting the government. Many Undecideds had “We support the Recovery!” signs in their yards, for example. But they really didn’t care about the government—they just wanted their FCards to stay full of credits.
The Patriots would need the support of the Undecideds. They were, after all, the majority of the population. But the Undecideds were scared of the Patriots. They had been told all kinds of wild tales about how the teabaggers were racist, right-wing whackos. The Patriots needed to demonstrate to the Undecideds that they would not harm them, just the Loyalists. When the Undecideds woke up and found their door wasn’t tagged but the hardcore Loyalists’ were, they would know
they were being spared.
A final, and grisly, purpose was to let the population know which houses to loot and whom to drag out of their houses and … Ron tried not to think about that. Reprisals were part of every collapse and war everywhere in the world throughout history; modern-day America was no exception. It was human nature to hurt those who brutalized a person and their loved ones. It was human DNA.
However, Ron fervently hoped the reprisals would be as limited as possible. He didn’t want to be part of revenge killings, but he couldn’t deny that the Loyalist bastards—who had taken everything from people—deserved to at least have people know who they were. The decent people who had everything stolen from them and had been put down for so long would have to make up their own minds about whether they’d go over to their neighbor’s house, now painted with a big “L,” and settle the score. It was up to them; Ron couldn’t control that.
He wondered if the Patriots would be coming tomorrow. He knew it would be soon. They wouldn’t show their hand by tagging the houses and then waiting too long to follow through on the tagging. So the liberation of Olympia would be coming soon … very soon.
Ron started to think about people in his neighborhood, former friends in some cases, whom he wanted to kill. He thought about how he would do it, in great detail. Then he’d catch himself. He was supposed to be better than that. They were the bad guys; he couldn’t stoop to their level, but he couldn’t deny that he wanted revenge. He prayed for forgiveness, for the sin of thinking about what he’d do to them if he couldn’t control himself – and for forgiveness if he carried out what he was thinking about doing to them.
A few days before Christmas, an envelope appeared on Ron’s front porch. It contained the code phrase, “The chair is against the wall,” which was a line from the movie Red Dawn. It meant that it was time to tag houses that night. There was a handwritten note on it, “This is for Matt Collins, RIP. Clover Park massacre.” Ron closed his eyes and prayed that this was a mistake, but he knew in his heart that Matt was now gone.