by Glen Tate
“You ‘handled it?’” Winters asked.
“Yes, sir,” Rich said, nodding like he was seven years old and talking to his dad.
“Was it some mob thing?” Winters asked. He was fascinated that people were taking care of things like this. He had assumed everything was done through official channels—that is, through him—but was now realizing that he just controlled Frederickson, not the country side.
“No, sir,” Rich said. “We had a trial with a jury and everything. We hung his accomplice and jailed two others. They were stealing things and would have been shot soon anyway breaking into a house.” Rich shrugged again. He was amazing himself at how calm he was.
Winters was convinced. There was probably a lot of this kind of thing happening in the county. But there was something that bothered Winters much more than hanging people.
“What about this ‘Patriot’ thing?” Winters asked, with an obvious edge to his voice.
“That’s the name that guy came up with for the paper,” Rich said quickly, like it was no big deal. He had been anticipating this question and had an answer ready to go.
“We can’t have that,” Winters said, leaning toward Rich and exuding power.
“No, sir, we can’t,” Rich said quickly. “The name of the paper, now that I think about it, needs to be changed. I’ll take care of it.”
“Yes, you will,” Winters said, again exuding power. The brandy was kicking in. Winters was in his element. He was smoking a cigar and ordering people around. It reminded him why he loved his job.
“I can count on you, can’t I, Deputy Gentry?” Winters asked as he poured another glass of brandy. He wanted to use Rich’s former title to remind him that he had recently been part of the “club” of government.
“Of course,” Rich said. “Pierce Point just wants to make it through this and then help with the Recovery. Just like the rest of America. Recovery. That’s what matters.”
This was music to Winters’ ears. He and the government people all around him constantly talked about the “Recovery.” They promised it to the people. They explained that temporary things, like barbed wire around the courthouse, and seizing things like the brandy and cigars, was all to help the Recovery. The Recovery—well, the hope of the Recovery—was what gave Winters all his power. He loved that word.
“You’re right, Deputy Gentry,” Winters said. “May I call you Rich?” he asked, knowing the answer to that question. He did it just to be endearing.
“Yes, sir, you may,” Rich said. He was sensing that Winters was a weak politician. A weak, drunk-ass politician. Playing little charm games like “May I call you Rich?” That was all Winters really had. Deal making from behind barbed wire.
But still. Why pick a fight, even with this weak drunk, when you didn’t have to? Rich didn’t want to bury one, or more, of his Pierce Point guards just to prove a point with this sad idiot.
“Rich, I like you,” Winters said. Another politician’s trick to charm someone. “I’d like to help Pierce Point. Would you like me to do that?”
“Of course, sir,” Rich said with a smile, like he was desperate for help. Rich was in full deception mode to convince Winters that Pierce Point needed things and could be bought off. That’s what Winters wanted to believe so he might as well foster that delusion. And get some stuff.
“How you doin’ on FCards?” Winters asked. “Your people getting fed?”
“We’re doing OK, sir,” Rich said. “Your people are issuing FCards and we send in a crew every day to make a grocery run. Save gas that way.”
“Your crew is pretty well armed, I understand,” Winters said.
Oh crap. The fifty Marines thing, Rich thought. Think fast. “Yes, I have some guys working for me at Pierce Point. Keeping order and all,” Rich said with a wink. He wanted to imply to Winters that Rich ran a gang just like Winters did, but on a smaller scale.
“Marines?” Winters asked. He was still leaning back in his chair. He didn’t want to lean forward and signal that he was concerned.
“Yes, sir,” Rich replied. “Some were living out in Pierce Point with an old buddy of theirs. Good kids.” Rich looked right at Winters and smiled, “They know how to follow orders,” he said with another wink.
Whew, Winters thought. Pierce Point was taken care of. Rich was the boss out there and had some muscle—enough to keep order there, but not enough to be a threat. One more problem solved.
“Since I like you, Rich, and it’s my job to make the Recovery even more of a success in this county,” Winters said with a big smile, “I’m going to get you more FCards. I’ll make sure that tomorrow’s ‘grocery run’ as you call it, gets to the front of the line at Martin’s. What kind of transportation do you have for the ‘grocery runs’?”
“A pickup,” Rich said.
“Want a school bus?” Winters asked. “A little one. It holds about six people with room to bring back groceries.”
“That would be great, sir” Rich said, wondering what the catch was. “What do we owe you?” he asked, to find out what the catch was.
“Nothing. It’s a Recovery grant,” Winters said. He paused. “But I would ask you to buy fuel in town here. I have given an allotment of fuel to my Mexican friends who will accept FCards as payment.”
“Thank you, sir,” Rich said. So that was the catch.
What a douche he is, Rich thought. Giving Rich more FCards and a bus, just so they had to use the extra FCards to buy fuel for it. And Winters got to tell Olympia that he was making a “Recovery grant” and aiding rural residents with transportation to a feeding station. This was a trifecta for Winters: get bureaucratic credit for Recovery efforts, get more business for his gang gas station, and make Pierce Point dependent on him.
That was true, all except for that last part about dependence. What Winters didn’t know was how self-reliant they were out at Pierce Point. Not totally self-sufficient by any means, especially not when winter would come, but they were far better off than most places.
“I’d like your people to know that they can thank me for the bus and the extra FCards,” Winters said. “Could you do that for me, Rich?”
“Absolutely, sir,” Rich said. “With pleasure,” he said as he smiled.
Winters abruptly got out of his chair. The meeting was over. He had other things to do.
“Thanks for coming by this morning,” Winters said as he stood up. “Bennington will make sure all the arrangements are made. I have a meeting in a few minutes.”
“Thanks again, sir,” Rich said with a big smile. “Consider Pierce Point to be loyal and one hundred percent committed to the Recovery.” What a charade.
Winters just nodded.
Rich and Bennington got up and left.
Waiting in the lobby was an FCorps guy with one of those stupid helmets. The receptionist said something on the phone as Rich and Bennington walked out. Winters came out into the lobby. Winters looked at the FCorps guy, pointed to Rich, and said, “This is the Pierce Point guy. Everything’s fine. You can talk to him if you want.”
The helmet-head nodded. He wouldn’t take a county commissioner’s word for the fact that Pierce Point was loyal. There were terrorists everywhere. Maybe the teabaggers had infiltrated this county. Winters went back into his office. The receptionist told Rich, Bennington, and the FCorps guy they could go into the main conference room. That was where all the big meetings happened, like the weekly “community leader” meeting, which was the meeting with all the cops and the gang leaders.
They went into the conference room down the hall. Rich was sizing up the FCorps guy. He seemed semiprofessional. He was in his late fifties or early sixties; retirement age. He had a pistol that looked like a police-issued Glock. He didn’t seem like the fat cubicle-dwellers who usually were in those FCorps helmets. Rich got the sense that this FCorps guy was based in Olympia and worked at a higher level than most. He might even be a former cop.
“What’s with this?” demanded the FCorps guy, a
s he put a copy of the fax in front of Rich.
“I talked to Commissioner Winters about that,” Rich said. He repeated the story about the guy who did the newspaper on his little copy machine picking that name, and that Rich now realized the name of the paper was inappropriate. Rich said he would get the name of the paper changed.
“Fax each new edition to me,” the FCorps guy said as he wrote out a fax number for Rich. He scribbled the fax number in distinctive cop handwriting, just like Rich’s. This guy was definitely a cop, Rich thought.
“No problem,” Rich said. He sensed there was something bigger at hand.
There was. “You know about any POIs out at Pierce Point?” the FCorps guy asked, referring to persons of interest.
“Nope,” Rich said, in a home style cop-to-cop fashion. “Why? Are there any I need to go get?”
The FCorps guy wasn’t stupid enough to tell Rich what they knew—or didn’t know—about any POIs out there. They had reports that one of the Washington Association of Business guys had a cabin out there, but he had hundreds of leads to run down and never had the time to work up a case on just one. If he had the time to concentrate on one at a time, he could bring one in. One at a time, like he had done for the State Patrol’s fugitive task force when he worked for them. But this was a bunch of scattered leads. He was told to go out from Olympia and make the people out in the rural areas feel like Olympia had a handle on the POIs. Scare ‘em. That was about all he could do.
“I can’t really give all the details we have on this WAB POI,” the FCorps guy said. “You understand, Deputy Gentry.” He threw in Rich’s name to make him think that the FCorps knew everything about everybody. They kind of did, but they just didn’t have the ability to go out and do anything about it.
“I have the POI list printed out from when the internet was working,” Rich said, “and we keep track of who is living out at Pierce Point. I haven’t found any POIs in my jurisdiction.”
Rich decided to give the FCorps more reassurance that he was running a tight Loyalist ship out at Pierce Point. “Since I’m in charge out there, and I’m former law enforcement—once a cop, always a cop,” he said with a wink, “I’m always trying to catch those bastards. I don’t need troublemakers in my little community.”
The FCorps guy just nodded. He wasn’t really listening. In a few minutes, he had to go up the road a few towns to the north and do the same, “we have lots of details, but can’t say” speech to a police chief up there who was suspected of being a para.
“I call the local authorities if I think I have one, right?” Rich asked the FCorps guy. “I mean, I will detain them, but I bet you want to question a POI. Aggressive ‘questioning,’ I’m guessing. So keep them alive, right?”
The FCorps guy nodded. He cared a lot more about the possible para police chief than he did about some stupid political POI or some stupid little newspaper name. Paras got people killed—people like FCorps guys. Newspapers just did stupid political games. Whatever.
Bennington didn’t want to be left out of the conversation. He had sat through the whole Winters meeting silently. He was, after all, a police official, so all this talk about the local authorities apprehending POIs was his business.
“We have a great working relationship with Deputy Gentry,” Bennington said. “We’ll catch any POI out there.” Bennington had absolutely no desire to lift a finger to catch anyone out there. He had enough problems in town and didn’t need any more.
Bennington’s “we’ll catch them” speech was just another bureaucratic lie. He had to tell them all day long. Bennington just mouthed these things so often that he usually didn’t even realize he was saying them. Everyone lied, all the time. It was just how it was.
The FCorps guy had heard enough. “We’ll catch ‘em’ blah, blah, blah.” He knew that most local cops still in uniform were more concerned about getting a cut of what the gangs were doing than about apprehending POIs. Bennington was not the person who concerned the FCorps guy. It was Deputy Gentry. A former cop, which usually meant a guy who resigned in disgust because he wasn’t down with the program, who ran a small rural community. Classic profile for a guerrilla leader.
Oh well. The FCorps guy could check off this meeting on his daily list of appointments. Off to the next town.
“Report any suspicious activity to the proper authorities,” the FCorps guy said like a robot. From memory. He waved to them and walked out of the conference room. The meeting was over.
“Let’s get you back,” Bennington said.
Rich nodded. He was surprisingly tired. The adrenaline from all the lying and terror had left him pooped.
Bennington stopped by the office of the person who doled out school buses. He explained the school bus thing and made arrangements for a Pierce Point representative to come to town tomorrow and pick up the bus.
Bennington didn’t say much on the way back to Pierce Point. He was scanning the area for threats as they drove. They breezed through the Blue Ribbon Boys checkpoint. Rich noticed that it looked like a new shift had taken over. He looked at his watch to be able to report the time of the new shift. Good to know.
On the way back in near silence, he was thinking about who had faxed that newspaper article and caused all this trouble. Snelling. It had to be him, or his asshole sidekick Dick Abbott. Probably Snelling. Snelling had been so furious over the hangings. Rich needed to drop by Snelling’s cabin and see if he had a fax machine.
When they got to the gate, Rich thanked Bennington for the ride. Rich looked at Bennington and said, “I don’t view you as the enemy.”
“Nor do I,” Bennington said. Rich was getting the vibe that Bennington might be on the same side as him, but it was way too dangerous to ask. “You got a good little thing goin’ on, Rich. Kinda wish I could be out here with you.”
Rich needed to talk to Grant and Dan about the FCorps guy suspecting that a POI from WAB lived out at Pierce Point. He wanted to tell them about the condition of things in Frederickson and about the new FCards and the school bus that they’d pick up later. They also needed to talk to about changing the name of the paper, and about Snelling or whoever had faxed the newspaper.
Rich didn’t say anything. Bennington was a good guy, but they didn’t need law enforcement out there, so he stayed quiet at Bennington’s apparent request to be invited out to Pierce Point.
“But I have things to do in town,” Bennington said, to Rich’s relief. He stared right at Rich and said ominously, “I have something very important to do there. I think you will appreciate it.” When he said that, Bennington’s demeanor went from being a casual to deadly serious.
“Good to know,” Rich said. That’s all he could think to say. He wondered what Bennington was talking about, but he had a pretty good idea, so he wouldn’t ask for details.
Bennington and Rich then talked about the arrangements to pick up the bus and the FCards, and how to pay for the diesel from Winters’ Mexican gas station. Rich got out of the car and waved at Bennington, who drove off slowly.
By this time, Dan had come to the gate. “So? What happened?” he asked Rich.
“We have a lot of work to do,” Rich said to Dan.
Chapter 189
Snitch
(July 9)
Rich pulled Dan off to the side so others couldn’t hear. “You and I need to go talk to Grant,” Rich said. “Don’t radio for him to come down here. We need to keep it cool.”
Dan looked concerned.
“Nothing urgent now, just a development we need to manage. Grant’s probably up at the Grange. Hop in my rig and we’ll go up there.”
“Roger that,” Dan said. He told Heidi, the comms chick, that he was going up to the Grange. He found Terry Maler, the second in command of the day shift of guards, and said, “Goin’ to the Grange. You’re in command for a while.” Terry nodded.
Dan got in Rich’s truck. In the meantime, Rich had checked the place in the volunteer fire station where the “Return to Grange�
�� pile was. This was where people put things that needed to go back to the Grange. No one drove anywhere without seeing if something needed to be hauled somewhere. Everyone with gas and a vehicle was part of the informal parcel delivery service. Rich put the “Return to Grange” things in his truck and got in the cab.
As they drove by all the guards at Pierce Point, Rich marveled at how much better their guards were than the Blue Ribbon Boys he’d just seen in Frederickson. The Pierce Point guards seemed alert and somewhat glad to be there. They were taking the job seriously. They were organized. None of them were passing a bottle around, of course. There were about three times as many Pierce Point guards as the Blue Ribbon Boys, and that didn’t count the sharpshooters in the woods on the hill, or Sniper Mike across the road. Rich had started the day thinking Pierce Point was vulnerable to the much bigger Frederickson. Now he thought the opposite.
“Well, some interesting stuff in town,” Rich said as he began to give Dan the short version of what he saw. Dan was stunned at how weak the “legitimate authorities” were.
Rich and Dan pulled into the Grange and found Grant. “Need you down at the gate,” Dan said to him. They didn’t want anyone to overhear them, and they didn’t want to waste gas driving back down to the gate, so they would just park the truck out of eyesight of the Grange and talk in the truck.
Grant grabbed his AR and kit thinking that he was going to the gate. They got in the truck and went a little ways to a little road where no one could see them.
Rich stopped the truck. Grant was wondering what was going on.
“Got some things to talk about,” Rich said. He proceeded to tell Grant everything. Grant was worried about the POI thing. He had been assuming that the government was too overwhelmed to even keep track of him being out there. But they knew the WAB connection, too. That scared him.
“My name is on that damned list,” Grant said. “Anyone here could get that list and find out my name. I use my real name out here. It’s only a matter of time before Snelling tries to turn me in.”