by Glen Tate
Several weeks ago, Winters was given a fax that showed a picture of someone hung out at Pierce Point. He ignored it at first; he had a gang truce to broker. But now, in the middle of the night when he couldn’t sleep, he started thinking about it. He found the fax on his desk. He got scared.
Winters was concerned with the picture of the hanging because that meant Pierce Point was running things themselves, and Winters didn’t like that. Worse yet, it was in a newspaper called the “Pierce Point Patriot.” Oh, great. Some redneck “Patriots” out there had their own little newspaper, Winters thought when he re-read the fax. This little newspaper of theirs showed a level of boldness—calling themselves a “Patriot” was daring the police (if any were around) to arrest them as a terrorists—that made Winters nervous.
Then Winters remembered that right after he got the fax a few weeks ago, Winters got a call from Olympia. They got the fax, too. They wanted to know what was going on out in Winter’s county. They sounded pissed and said they thought some POI who did some right-wing podcast might be out there. Winters didn’t need that.
Olympia had leverage over Winters and he didn’t want to screw up his rackets. Olympia sent semis of food to him. They controlled the FCards. Winters needed that food. It was his biggest profit center, more than the Mexican gas or bootleg medical supplies. He needed that food so he could get a cut of it. Oh, and the townspeople needed the food, too. Winters didn’t need them hungry and starting to notice how much food had been stockpiled in the courthouse.
Stapled on the back of the newspaper article was a new fax from a few days ago that Winters must have missed. It was Olympia telling him that they would be sending some FCorps investigators out to look into Pierce Point.
Winters knew what the FCorps asshole would say: “Take down Pierce Point. Arrest the teabaggers out there.” He had his hands full with the Mexican gangs and the Blue Ribbon Boys and didn’t need this. He didn’t need Olympia to withhold the food.
But, if Winters sent his guys out to Pierce Point to haul in those hillbillies, his cops and Blue Ribbon Boys wouldn’t be in Frederickson to protect Winters’ investments. Winters was the most powerful man in Frederickson, but he didn’t have the resources to go several miles out to Pierce Point and arrest some teabaggers. Winters was amazed that the stupid townspeople didn’t realize how stretched thin the “authorities” were. Besides, Bennington told Winters a few weeks before that Pierce Point had some amazing defenses and a gate. They even had attack dogs. The last thing Winters wanted was to fight some whackos out there when, instead, those people could be loyal customers.
He thought of the perfect solution. Rich Gentry, who used to work for Winters as a Sheriff’s deputy, was running Pierce Point. Rich had come in a few weeks earlier and signed up everyone at Pierce Point for FCards. Rich was a guy Winters could work with. He was a guy Winters could make a deal with.
Rich wouldn’t be part of this Patriot nonsense, Winters thought. Rich had a good head on his shoulders. Winters stumbled—it was almost 4:00 a.m.—into the “Incident Command Center” in the courthouse, which was where they had all the radios.
“Get me Bennington,” Winters said to the dispatcher, who was half asleep. It took about a minute for Bennington to come on. Winters had woken Bennington from a nap.
“What can I do for you, boss?” Bennington asked on the radio.
“Go out to Pierce Point and get me Rich Gentry,” Winters said. “I need to talk to him. He’s not under arrest or anything, I just need to talk to him.” Winters paused. Should he tell Bennington what was going on? It was a secure radio and, besides, if Winters had been handed this fax, then everyone else in the courthouse had seen it. There was no way to keep this thing a secret.
“Pierce Point has some ‘Patriot’ thing going on,” Winters continued. “They hung some dopers and have a newspaper called the ‘Patriot.’ Olympia wants to shut that down. Rich Gentry needs to understand that we can’t have that militia stuff in this county.”
Bennington realized that just talking to Rich wouldn’t solve the “Patriot problem” at Pierce Point. He had been out there and seen how organized and serious they were. Winters was a delusional politician holed up in a bunker who thought he could make deals and intimidate people, like this was the old days.
But, whatever. Taking Rich into town to see Winters wasn’t a big deal, Bennington thought. Bennington was curious to go back to Pierce Point. He envied their independence and wished he could be out there instead of being Winters’ errand boy.
Bennington looked at the clock. It was 4:01 a.m. He would get another couple hours of sleep and then go get Rich.
Chapter 187
“What’s for Breakfast?”
(July 9)
Rich Gentry slept in. Way in. By habit, he usually got up at 5:00 a.m., but this morning he woke up at 8:12 a.m. He slept in because he had been out almost all night with Ted and Sap showing them the Marion Farm.
Rich got up quietly—as he had for years—and got dressed for work without waking his wife, Amy. She was usually up by now, but had been working a lot on planning for the school in the fall and was sleeping in, too.
Amy was thirty six, the same age as Rich. She was a pretty country girl. They had been high school sweethearts. Before the Collapse, she had been a teacher.
Amy and Rich always wanted kids, but Amy couldn’t have them. They talked about adoption for years, but in the years before the Collapse, one of the first things to be cut out of government budgets was adoption services. Even without the loss of government funding, the regulations and red tape for adoptions were completely out of hand. It seemed like for each kid adopted, there were two full-time government employees. Now that government had been forced out of the adoption business—and it was a business for government—the old kind of adoptions were possible again, which meant people informally took in orphans on their own, without all the government bureaucracy. It was pretty simple: a good family took in kids. People had been doing it for a few thousand years all over the world and it worked pretty well.
The pre-Collapse government’s attitude toward adoptions had always amazed Rich. He couldn’t understand why they put up barriers to doing something as great as adopting kids. Because the government made more money administering foster care, that’s why.
But, not anymore. One of the only good things about the Collapse—and, at this point, the good things were far outweighed by the bad things—was that the government monopoly on, and discouragement of, adoption was over.
Amy had been eyeing the many kids that become orphans or displaced from their families and told Rich that she wanted to adopt them. He was open to it, but he worked twelve- to sixteen-hour days and wasn’t getting around to it. He told Amy to find some kids and they’d just take them in. Amy was thrilled. Rich was nervous about it because he’d never been a dad before. He hoped he’d do a good job. He knew the very long days would start to wind down as others were trained out there and life stabilized. That was already happening.
For the first time, Rich and Amy actually thought about having kids and a semi-normal life. This hope had unleashed a new spark in Rich and Amy’s life. They were cuddling like teenagers and things had never been better in the bedroom.
But, there was none of that this morning. Rich had to get out to the Grange for the “breakfast briefings,” as he called them. He got a report from Dan on the gate, the Chief on the beach patrol, and about a thousand other people, all of whom had a problem of some kind.
Rich and Amy lived about a mile from the Grange. His job required him to drive all over Pierce Point, so he had a personal vehicle. He was one of the few who always had the gas to drive around. Because all his driving was for Pierce Point business, people would just show up at his house with gas cans. As scarce as gas was, most people realized it was a good idea to have the coordinator of the community’s security be able to drive around. This is not to say that everyone helped with gas. Of the five hundred or so houses at Pierce Poi
nt, maybe fifty were willing to give Rich a gallon or two of gas, but that was enough.
Rich got in his truck and turned on the radio. His favorite station, 107.1 Hot Country Hits, was back on the air. It had been static for the past few weeks, but now there was music back on. No DJs talking, just music. They must have a computer playing the songs. That was an improvement; both the fact that there was music again and that there were no obnoxious DJs. The authorities probably realized that people needed things like their favorite music on the radio to help them feel like things were “normal.”
It was working. Rich was transported back in time a few years by a song that reminded him of the easy life, not too long ago. Of life before the Collapse. For a moment, he felt like he was back at the Sheriff’s department driving into work.
That ended when he pulled into the Grange. Rich’s old routine from a few years ago didn’t include a parking lot full of people at the Grange. It had always been empty back then.
He got out and said good morning to everyone and went into the Grange where Linda, the dispatcher, waved for him to come over. Dan was on the radio.
“Lt. Bennington is here and would like to talk to Rich,” Dan said. That was scary.
“What does he want?” Rich asked.
“Says he needs to talk to you,” Dan said. “You’re not under arrest, or anything.” Dan paused and then said, “Which is good, because my guards would shoot him in about half a second if he tried that. He’s alone, so there’s no way they’re trying to pick you up by force.”
Rich was scared. Why did Bennington want to talk to him? He doubted Bennington had good news. Well, Rich thought to himself, you’re one of the leaders out here. Maybe the leader. With that comes the responsibility of answering for the community.
“I’ll be right down,” Rich said. He asked one of the Grange ladies to get him a breakfast to go. “Last meal,” he chuckled to himself.
Rich took his breakfast to go—a paper towel with a ton of cornbread and a paper cup of “sweet milk,” a milk and sugar concoction the Grange ladies invented, which was a valiant attempt at a milkshake without any ice cream—and got into his truck and headed toward the gate.
The nostalgic songs on the radio couldn’t take his mind off of wondering why Bennington wanted to talk to him. He wondered if somehow they knew about Ted.
Rich pulled up to the gate and saw an unusual sight: a police car on the bridge. He got out and found the garbage can to throw out the paper towel and paper cup. Maybe they should save paper cups, he thought, but he didn’t want the guards to think anything was wrong with Bennington’s arrival, so he tried to act as normal as possible. And that meant throwing things away.
Dan came up to Rich and said, “Curious as hell what he wants.” He looked around to make sure no one was within earshot. “You don’t suppose he knows about the Ted project, do you?”
Rich shook his head. “Unlikely, but we’ll see. Anything I need to know? Anything Bennington will ask me that I need to have a standardized answer for?”
Dan shook his head.
“OK, then,” Rich said, “I have a guest to meet.” Rich was acting calmly so the guards would think everything was OK.
He walked up to Bennington, who was sitting in his car, and motioned for him to get out and walk across the bridge. Dan motioned for the guards not to shoot. Dan gave a command to the dogs not to attack.
Bennington got out and came across the bridge slowly so he could look at everything and give a report to Winters on Pierce Point’s defenses. He was trying hard not to have his jaw drop at how great the guard system was out there. There were at least two dozen well organized guards with plenty of weapons, including a fair number of ARs, AKs, mini-14s, and tactical shotguns. The dogs. Bennington’s eyes were glued on the dogs. What an effective tool those were. The metal gate was impressive, too.
The Blue Ribbon Boys back in Frederickson didn’t have any of that. All they had was some guys with hunting rifles who goofed off more than they guarded. Pierce Point was squared away. That’s what happens, Bennington thought, when people are protecting their families and homes instead of protecting corrupt politicians and gangs. Motivation is everything.
“Hey, Rich, good morning,” Bennington said.
“Mornin’ John.”
“You’re not under arrest, or anything,” Bennington said, putting his hands out to his sides away from his pistol.
“You’re not dead, so I know I’m not under arrest,” Rich said with a smile. Might as well have some fun with him, and convey a message of “don’t mess with us.”
Bennington laughed. “Hey, can we talk in the car?”
“Sure,” Rich said, knowing that if Bennington tried to drive off with him, the snipers on the hill and Sniper Mike outside the gate would riddle the car with holes. Rich would die, but so would Bennington. Bennington knew this, too, and therefore wouldn’t try to take Rich in.
But, just to be sure, Rich waited until Bennington was looking at him and then raised his hand and flashed the number four with his fingers, which was a pre-determined signal to Dan and the guards. Bennington assumed this was an elaborate signal of some kind that conveyed a tactical plan, like “Shoot the car if it leaves without me giving another hand gesture.” That was the effect it was supposed to have, but in reality, the hand signal was meaningless. It was the fake signal they used to mislead people into thinking they had a very elaborate series of hand gestures worked out.
Rich and Bennington walked back to the police car. Bennington opened the passenger door for Rich as a gesture of respect. Rich nodded and got in.
“So, John,” Rich said once they were both in the police car, “What brings you to Pierce Point?” Might as well get down to business.
“Commissioner Winters would like to talk to you,” Bennington said.
That’s what Rich was afraid of. He tried to act calmly. “About what?” “About this,” Bennington said, handing Rich the fax with the picture of the hanging in the Pierce Point Patriot.
“Oh, that,” Rich said nonchalantly, even though fear shot through him. He realized they had a spy in Pierce Point. An active spy who was trying to get them killed. He knew who it probably was and knew what needed to be done. He’d deal with that later.
“Yeah,” Rich said with a shrug, “we tried calling 911, but no one answered.” Rich looked at Bennington as if to say, “Duh.” Rich pointed off in the general direction of the Richardson house and said, “We had a little felony murder and child rape thing we had to handle.” Rich looked Bennington right in the eyes, “You understand.”
“I sure do,” Bennington said. “Frankie Richardson and what’s her name, the article says. We knew them downtown, before all of this. Not surprised.”
“So why does Winters care about this?” Rich said, looking at the word “Patriot” on the fax and knowing exactly what the answer was.
“This,” Bennington said, pointing to that exact word. “‘Patriot’ is a word we don’t like. Olympia got this fax, too, and is bitchin’ to Winters to do something about Pierce Point.”
Rich was scared. Really scared. Adrenaline-rushing scared. He was struggling to control his appearance and not convey how terrified he was.
His mind racing a mile a minute, Rich casually said, “The guy who does the paper is a big New England football fan.” He looked at Bennington and forced a smile, “You know, the New England Patriots.”
Bennington rolled his eyes. “That’s all you got?”
Rich pretended to not understand what Bennington meant.
“Winters would like to meet with you,” Bennington continued. “He said ‘Rich has a good head on his shoulders.’ He wants you to tell him that you’re not into this ‘Patriot’ shit.” Bennington looked Rich in the eyes and said, “He wants to make a deal with you so he can get Olympia off his ass.”
What a relief. Probably.
“What kind of deal?” Rich asked.
“Pledge your loyalty, all that shit,” Ben
nington said. Rich could tell that Bennington was not exactly a devoted government employee. Bennington knew how corrupt his boss was.
“No problem with that,” Rich said, knowing he could lie to Winters, and Winters couldn’t do anything about it. It was significant that Winters had sent Bennington alone. If Winters had the ability, he would have sent a force to bust through the gate and arrest the people responsible for two “murders” by hanging. Rich was getting solid evidence of how weak Winters really was.
“How about breakfast at the courthouse?” Bennington asked.
“How do I know you won’t be taking me for a longer stay than just breakfast?” Rich asked.
“Fair question,” Bennington said. “Well, it’s pretty simple. If we piss you guys off, we’ll be visited by your fifty Marines and the contractors you have.” Rich thought Bennington actually believed that. Good.
“Not to mention,” Bennington said motioning to the guards, “some of them.”
Bennington shrugged, “All that violence just because we want to ‘arrest’ someone for hanging some druggie dirt bags?” Bennington shook his head, “Nah. Not a good deal for us. We don’t really care about the hanging thing. It’s just that Winters wants to know you’re loyal out here so he can tell Olympia.”
Rich realized that Olympia thinking Pierce Point was “loyal” would be good for Pierce Point, so he was willing to risk getting arrested for that. Besides, Rich was fairly confident Winters was actually afraid of the “fifty Marines.” Wow, that little story was paying off.
Rich knew that if he refused to go see Winters that Winters might try to attack Pierce Point, for his pride, if nothing else. Did Rich really want his community attacked just because Rich was scared for himself? No way, Rich thought. When this whole Collapse started, Rich had mentally considered himself dead. He just happened to be alive right now. He’d be dead soon, he kept telling himself. Might as well die with your boots on.