by Glen Tate
There were a few picnic tables for the guards; the female soldiers were offered the first seats. The women were fully qualified soldiers and respected members of the unit, but the men were still gentlemen. The rest of the 17th and the Delphi guards stood and quickly devoured plates of food. There weren’t enough plates, so each person ate their food quickly and then took their plates back to the field kitchen, where they were quickly washed and handed to the next person. There were plenty of handshakes and high-fives among the 17th and the Delphi guards. Both groups were glad the other one was there to share in this fight. It was a joyous occasion. Eating a nice meal with fellow fighters. It was a feast. A New Year’s Day feast.
After everyone had eaten, Grant raised a cup of water and motioned for Ford to stand.
“Here’s a toast to a New Year,” Grant said. “A happy New Year.” Everyone cheered.
In the middle of all the celebration and hospitality, Scotty came running over to Grant.
“He’s texting,” Scotty whispered, half out of breath. “The young guy is texting.” He ran off toward the bushes around the gate and Grant followed him, right in the middle of the toast. He knew it appeared rude, but he had no other choice.
When Grant caught up to Scotty, Scotty had his rifle pointed at the young guy. A cell phone was on the ground. The young guy was crying and begging for his life.
“Please! Please!” the young guy was screaming. He looked like he was in high school, maybe seventeen or eighteen years old. “I didn’t mean to hurt anyone!” He was completely coming apart.
“Shut up!” Scotty yelled in his command voice.
Grant came up and drew his rifle, too. “Got him,” Grant said to Scotty. “What’s going on?”
By now, a crowd had followed Scotty and Grant. An audience was forming.
“That fucker was texting,” Scotty said, still with his rifle pointed at the young guy’s forehead. “After asking all those questions. Like our frequencies? Our fucking frequencies he wanted to know.”
“They have my girlfriend!” the young guy screamed.
“What’s going on?” Ford asked. “And, why are you pointing a rifle at one of my men?”
“Because,” Grant said calmly, “it appears that he’s a spy.” There was a gasp.
“What?” Ford screamed. “Listen,” he yelled at Grant. “We are feeding you but now you’re trying to kill my men? Explain yourself!”
Grant and Scotty explained all the weird questions followed by the texting.
While they were explaining this Ford, Ted yelled, “Perimeter!” and the 17th started to form a circle around the Delphi guards. Who knew if other guards were spies, too?
Some of the Delphi guards shouldered their rifles or drew their pistols. The 17th did the same. A Mexican standoff. Except there were way more soldiers than guards.
“We need to make sure there aren’t any more spies,” Grant said. “Sorry, Mr. Ford, but we need to secure this place.”
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Ford asked. Things were very tense. The Delphi guards were looking to Ford for instructions. “We’ve got four or five times more guys than you do,” Ted said to Ford. “Let’s just calm down and see if there are any more people who have picked today as a day to text their girlfriends or others.”
Ford knew that the 17th outnumbered them. He didn’t want a bunch of people, especially his own, to get killed.
“Okay,” Ford said reluctantly. “We’ll put our weapons down.” His men started to do so.
Ted motioned for the 17th to do the same.
“We’re going to see if any of your people have their cell phones on them and have texted recently,” Ted said.
Ford nodded. He could not defend any of his men if they were texting information about the soldiers.
Ted motioned for the soldiers to start patting down the guards.
While all this was happening, the young guy was bawling like a baby. He kept talking about his girlfriend.
“Shut up!” Grant yelled at him. By now, Scotty had the young guy’s cell phone and was reading the texts.
Scotty started yelling out the texts on his phone. “‘Convoy. Semi-truck. About 100 troops, 17th Irregulars of State Guard. Heading to Oly down Highway 101. At Delphi exit now.’”
“Do you have an explanation?” Grant asked the young guy. He was going into judge mode. He could feel it.
“My girlfriend is in Olympia,” the young guy said. “Her dad is an FCorps high-ranking guy. He said that if I helped them that I could be with her.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Grant screamed. Selling out a hundred men just to make out with some girl? Treason was bad enough, but treason for a chick was even worse.
Scotty, who was normally very calm, thrust the muzzle of his AR right at the young guy’s face. He ducked out of the way. Scotty clicked the safety off his AR. It made the very distinctive “click” sound of an AR safety. He pointed it right between the kid’s eyes.
“Stop!” Grant yelled at Scotty. “Stand down, Scotty. Stand down,” Grant said in his command voice. Scotty obeyed the order and clicked the safety back on, lowering his rifle. A wet spot appeared on the young guy’s crotch. He had just pissed his pants.
It was silent for a moment. No one could believe what was happening. Thirty seconds ago, they had all been toasting the New Year, now this.
“Do you want to do this or should I?” Grant asked Ford. “He’s one of your men, so it’s your responsibility, but I can take that responsibility off your hands.” Everyone knew what Grant was talking about. Especially the kid. He started crying even more.
“C’mon,” Ford said. “He’s just a kid.”
“I don’t give a fuck,” Ted said, walking up to Ford and getting in his face. “He tried to get us killed and he just might have succeeded. That fucking text has already gone out.”
Ford was dumbfounded. He didn’t know what to do. He had no plan for this; he had never even thought that one of his own would do this.
Grant knew what to do: shoot this little fucker in the head, finish lunch, and get back on the road.
Mercy. Be the example. This will set the tone for all that follows.
Grant thought about that. The outside thought had been right every time so far. He needed to follow what it said. Another thought quickly jumped into Grant’s head, though he couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t actually his thought. It was a brilliant thought and one that came from somewhere else.
“Give me that cell phone,” Grant said. Someone handed it to him. Grant read aloud as he typed, “‘False alarm. No semi coming to Oly. It was a rumor. I verified it’s false. All quiet at Delphi.’” He quickly hit the send button.
“There,” Grant said. “That solves that military problem. Now, onto the human problem.”
The kid was shaking so hard he fell down, trembling and whimpering on the ground. He was pathetic.
“You can’t kill him!” one of the Delphi guards yelled. “He’s my cousin.”
“The hell I can’t kill him,” Grant screamed at the guard. “I can kill him.” Grant drew his pistol. “I sure as shit can!”
It was silent again. Grant, with his pistol in hand, walked up to the kid and thundered, “Stand up!” The kid couldn’t. Or didn’t want to, knowing what was coming. A couple of soldiers grabbed him and forced him to stand.
“What’s your name, you little shit?” Grant screamed. “Name! Now!”
“Zack Knight,” the kid said slowly. He was ashamed of himself and didn’t want people to hear his name, even though all the Delphi guards knew who he was.
Grant walked right up to Zack, waved his pistol in the kid’s face, screaming, “Traitor! You deserve to die, you little fuck!” Grant was feeling a rage he didn’t know he had in him. He was starting to think he would shoot this kid right then and there. He started thinking about angle of the bullet and whether there was a safe backstop behind the kid’s head. He knew that would be disobeying the outside thought, b
ut he couldn’t control himself.
Then a calm came over him. He casually put his pistol up to the kid’s head. Grant took a breath like he was getting mentally prepared to do something big.
More silence. And whimpering. People started to cover their ears, preparing for the loud noise that was coming.
“But not today,” Grant said as he calmly holstered his pistol. “Because you are no longer a direct threat to my men. You can’t do any more spying and I cancelled the effect of your little dispatch.”
Grant stepped back from Zack. “Killing you wouldn’t solve any problem. The problem is over. Killing you would just have your family hate us. That accomplishes nothing. And you’re not exactly a badass we’re taking out from the Lima side. You’re a pathetic, selfish, horny little piece of shit.”
Grant stepped back even further and started to talk to the crowd. He needed to make a political point. “We only kill people who are a threat to us,” Grant said. “Directly. A direct threat. People who are capable of hurting us. Not pathetic little boys who piss their pants.” That felt good to say, Grant had to admit. He really wanted to kill this guy. He would settle for humiliating him if the outside thought said to spare him.
Grant looked at Ford. “We have a little something we call ‘hammer and tag.’ I won’t shoot this kid today, but he will pay.” Grant motioned and Sap came up to Zack and zip tied his hands in front of him. The troops hauled the cuffed kid to a nearby picnic table. They forcibly sat him down. Neither Zack nor the Delphi guards had any idea what was about to happen.
Grant pulled out his pistol. Ford was confused. Didn’t Grant just say he wouldn’t shoot him?
Sap and the others held Zack’s hands down on the table. Grant took his Glock, with its polymer lower, and flipped it around so he was holding it by the end of the metal barrel. His Surefire flashlight was mounted on the bottom of the barrel, so it filled up his hand. He held his pistol like a hammer, except that the grip was pointing toward Grant and the flat top of the metal barrel, with the rear sight was pointing toward the kid. Grant’s upside down pistol was now a crude metal club.
Grant raised his hand high and smashed Zack’s hands. He screamed out in pain. Grant saw that he had mangled his left hand. Sap wrestled the kid, who was much easier to control now that one of his hands was smashed, so that his right hand was on the table. Grant raised the pistol and smashed Zack’s remaining hand. A second scream of pain shot out.
Grant looked at his pistol for any damage. The notched rear sight was the part of the barrel that slammed into his hands. The rear sight had blood all over it. He handed his pistol to Bobby, who was standing nearby. Bobby cleaned it off on his jacket and handed it back to Grant.
One of Grant’s soldiers was standing there with a permanent marker. Sap and the others held Zack down while Grant wrote a big “L” on his face. It was a little crooked because the kid was squirming so much. And his face was scrunched up in pain so it was hard to write on it, but the purpose of the “L” wasn’t to put a nice looking letter on a person’s face.
“There,” Grant said to Ford. “That’s ‘hammer and tag.’ It’s better than killing them. And now, he’s no longer a threat. And everyone will know not to trust him. Forever.”
After the hammer and tagging, Zack fell to the ground again, still sobbing like a baby.
“Stand up, you little shit,” Grant yelled at him. Grant had to admit how good it felt to smash that kid’s hands and humiliate him. After all, that little dirtbag was trying to get them all killed just to be with a stupid girl. Grant knew it was wrong to enjoy it, but he still managed to have a surge of warm adrenaline and joy pulsing through him. It was like a drug. He loved it. But, ultimately, Grant had an obligation to set a good example, and this was his chance so he decided to take it.
Grant motioned to Sap to get Zack standing up. Zack was balled up in a fetal position on the ground crying. Sap kicked him lightly. Sap wanted to give him a second, much harder kick but realized that would exceed the hammer and tag punishment.
“Get up, you stupid fuck,” Sap said. Zack was in too much pain to stand. Realizing the political opportunity this presented, Grant motioned for Sap and Bobby to help Zack up. After a couple of tries, Zack was finally standing. He stared Grant in the eye. Grant laughed at Zack’s pathetic attempt at intimidation and stared Zack right back in the eyes.
He said loudly to Zack, but really speaking to the crowd around him, “When people ask what happened to you, tell them ‘reconciliation.’” Grant turned to the whole crowd and repeated, “Reconciliation.”
“We have to live with each other when this is all over,” he said and pointed to Zack, “and judging by the piss-poor performance of his Lima colleagues, that won’t be too long from now. We can’t kill all of the shits like this. Well, we can, but that would mean revenge killings from their side. And more from ours. And more from theirs. And so on.”
Grant paused and looked at the crowd. “Reconciliation starts today.” He let that sink in with them. Then he repeated, “Reconciliation starts today.”
“Instead of killing this traitor, like I had every right to do,” Grant said to the crowd, “we took him out of the fight. But we let him live. He’ll be a productive member of society in a few weeks when his hands heal. The ‘L’ on his face will wear off in a few weeks. That’s reconciliation.”
Grant walked up a few inches from Zack’s face and softly, but eerily, said, “You understand me, young man?”
Zack nodded slowly. He had stopped crying by now.
Everyone was silent.
“No other texting,” Ted said after coming back from searching all the guards. “All the others are clean.”
Grant turned to Ford. “I trust that you will keep all your guards’ cell phones, so if we have another little shit like this that a hundred of my men don’t get killed.”
Ford nodded. He didn’t like being ordered around by Grant but, he had to admit, Grant made sense. Actually, as Ford thought about it, his anger was not at Grant, but rather, it was embarrassment that one of his men had been a spy.
“Okay,” Grant said. “Let’s get back to work.”
The soldiers shuffled around and got their gear together.
“Okay, 17th,” Grant said. “Let’s get in our rigs and roll. Thanks for lunch Mr. Ford.”
Chapter 285
Meanwhile, In Olympia
(January 1)
In the Cedars, Ron Spencer was just waking up late on New Year’s Day morning. He’d been out all New Year’s Eve night tagging slogans in town. Ron’s contact with the Patriots, Matt Collins, had been arrested a few weeks ago and hadn’t been heard of since. A new contact, Joel Edwards, took over for Matt and gave Ron instructions. Joel’s instruction for New Year’s Eve was to spray paint “Welcome, Patriots!” all over Olympia.
Welcome. That must explain the gun fire and explosions Ron heard all night. They sounded far away, but slowly got closer. And then there were bursts of fire nearby from random directions, like people were going on shooting sprees inside the various neighborhoods. It was all very confusing, unless you knew that Patriots were taking the city that night.
And they were going to take Olympia. Ron was sure of it. Every day he got to see how weak the Limas were, how they were hanging onto power in the city by a thread. The only reason people in this town were putting up with the gangs and government thugs was that most of the people were part of the system themselves. They were government employees—well, former government employees after the many budget cuts, or they still worked for the government in the FCorps or other capacities. Perhaps they made their living off of bribes or as white-collar gang members trafficking in “contraband” (and everything was contraband). Health care. Home repairs. Everything required a permit and no one gave out permits, so it was all underground. Just about everyone in Olympia was part of it, so they all wanted the Limas to stay in power. Not because they liked the Limas, but because they were caught up in the system.
/> It was sad, Ron thought. Most of these people caught up in the system weren’t bad. They didn’t wake up one morning and decide to be part of a corrupt government and oppress their neighbors. They started out a few years ago just doing their government job, accepting the money and benefits that came with that. Voting for people who would keep taxing other people to pay for their jobs. Then, when things got bad, these same decent people thought they could wait it out. Things would get better. They always did: this was America. In the meantime, they needed to join the FCorps or even put out a “We Support the Recovery!” yard sign. No big deal. It wasn’t like they were robbing people. They just had a yard sign up.
If morality wasn’t an issue, it made sense to be a government supporter in Olympia. You got more credits on your FCard. You kept your job (if you had one). You didn’t get visited by the FCorps. Your friends liked you because you weren’t a “teabagger.” You were just like everyone else.
It happened slowly. One little compromise, one little “practical” decision after another. Harmless little decisions, like accepting an FCard with more credits than your neighbor who didn’t have a “We Support the Recovery!” yard sign. Little decisions like that. Just doing what everyone else was doing. If everyone else was doing it, it couldn’t be wrong, could it?
Closely related to the slow process of accepting more and more government controls was the fact that most people in Olympia could not take care of themselves. They were dependent, totally dependent on the government. Without food in the stores and the credits on the FCard, they would starve. Deciding not to go along with the government meant starving, and your kids going hungry. That was too high a price to pay for some idealistic emotional decision like not putting up a yard sign. It was just a yard sign, compared to your family starving. It was an easy decision to make.
Another reason why the population of Olympia put up with the Limas was that they were disarmed. While Ron and a few others in his neighborhood secretly had guns, almost no one else in the city was that fortunate. The general population had long ago been told that guns were evil and dangerous. Having a gun meant you were a redneck teabagger, so the population was largely unarmed and, not surprisingly, had no way to push the gangs and government back.