Glen Tate - 299 Days - The Visitors

Ted pointed to the Team and said, “We might need you guys to basically keep doing what you’re doing in your day jobs. And Grant to certainly keep doing what he’s doing with the organizational things. While you guys are doing your normal things, we’ll slowly move assets into the training facility. Toward the end, we can fold you guys into the training, because you guys are already essentially trained. We need a functioning and supportive place to do our thing way more than we need a handful of extra guys like you.”

It was silent again.

“Sounds like a plan,” Grant finally said. “How do we stay in contact with you?” he asked.

Ted smiled. For a civilian, this Grant guy thought of everything. He would definitely be the civil affairs guy for the unit and maybe for the larger statewide special operations unit. Ted would suggest that to Lt. Col. Hammond back at Patriot headquarters.

Sap handed Grant a military radio in a pouch. “Here you go. There’s a laminated card with the frequencies. Your code names are on there, too.” Sap looked Grant in the eye and said, “Don’t lose this. You know what would happen.”

Grant nodded. This was serious business.

“Scotty here is a comm guy, if I recall correctly,” Ted said. Ted was very sharp.

“Yep,” Scotty said. Grant handed Scotty the radio.

“I think we’re done, for now,” Ted said. “I know you guys have important ‘business’ to get to.” The guys laughed. They felt a little embarrassed that they had originally put girls ahead of this meeting, but they hadn’t had the slightest clue what the meeting was going to be about.

“Remember, guys,” Ted said. “If anyone talks about what’s happening, even to a hot chick who swears she won’t tell anyone, we can all get killed. You’ll have to live with that for the rest of your life. And that’s if they don’t get me first, because,” Ted said with a cold and frightening stare, “I will fucking kill you.”

Ted let that set in. “Anyone doubt me?” he asked. No one did.

The Team was silent and then started shaking their heads to show that they did not doubt Ted.

He said, “Sap and I will grab those MREs you promised and take off. We have a bunch of work do to.”

Ted stood up and got serious once again. “Thank you, gentlemen, for joining. I can’t tell you this will be easy. But it’s necessary. There’s no other way to get the country back. We tried everything else for years. We tried. We didn’t start this fight. They did. We’ll finish it.”

Seeing the Team reminded Ted of how much had happened so quickly. Wow. After evacuating the gun store, he hid the guns at his place and quickly got in touch with some trusted Oath Keeper colleagues. That was how he found out his old unit commander, Lt. Col. Hammond, was commanding the special operations part of the Patriot’s new army, the Washington State Guard. Ted met up with Lt. Col. Hammond in a safe house out at Boston Harbor, which was a Patriot stronghold right outside Olympia where the Patriot’s Special Operations Command was quietly setting up.

A few weeks ago, Lt. Col. Hammond arranged to have two new arrivals, an Air Force guy named Tom, and a Navy guy named Travis, come out to Ted’s house in Olympia and help them move the guns back to Boston Harbor. Ted linked up with two civilians from the gun store, Carl and his buddy Stan. The four of them and Ted ended up moving the guns at night around checkpoints. It took ten days to go fifteen miles. It was hard and dangerous work, and totally unglamorous, like most of the work in this project. That was most civilians’ biggest misconception about war: that it was all about gun fighting. Nope. It was mostly about slowly moving supplies around checkpoints.

After Ted got the guns to Boston Harbor, he spent the next few weeks working on the plans for training a guerilla group near Olympia. During the planning, he got Sap assigned to him. He knew Sap a little from back at Ft. Lewis.

Ted thought Sap was a great young Green Beret. He spoke Urdu fluently and could communicate in about a dozen other languages. He had a photographic memory. When Ted got to see Sap’s old Army personnel file, he thought the IQ listed for Sap was a typo. It said 146, putting him in the top 0.1%. That was better than Ted’s, which was saying something.

Sap was the most down-to-earth Wisconsin kid anyone would ever meet, but he was calculating algorithms in his head as he was talking to you about ice fishing. And he could do all this after forty-eight hours of hauling heavy gear without sleep.

As Ted and Sap worked on a plan to start a guerilla unit near Olympia, Chip’s radio reports to Ted made it clear that Pierce Point was more than just a place where some guns were stashed. Chip’s reports about the services springing up at Pierce Point led the command staff to think maybe Pierce Point could do civil affairs for other places. That’s when it became time for Ted and Sap to go out to Pierce Point and see if the civilians Ted knew out there wanted to join up.

“That went well,” Sap said to Ted as they were walking back down to the beach.

“Uh huh,” Ted said, not wanting to discuss operations until they got back into the boat and away from any ears that might be lurking on the beach.

They got back down to the beach where Paul was guarding the boat. The Chief had gone out patrolling.

“Come back and see us real soon,” Paul said.

“We probably won’t get back out to these parts,” Sap said, trying to throw off Paul. “So, what’d you see this evening?”

“Nothin’,” Paul said with a smile. Sap had a good feeling about Paul.

Ted and Sap put their rifles and kit into the boat. They talked to Paul about the tide and the winds. He told them about a rock pile near in the water that might be submerged in this tide and then got on the radio to the Chief and said, “Green team out for a cruise. Brown team out.” Paul implied he was the “brown team” to make it sound like they were using colors to differentiate their own teams. That would lessen any meaning from “green”—as in green beret—that someone listening might notice.

The Chief’s voice came on the radio and said, “All beach patrol will allow a small vessel to pass out of the inlet and into the sound. Training craft.” That was as good of a story as any. No one listening to the radio would find this remarkable. It was a beautiful evening. Warm, with clear skies. At 8:30 p.m. it was just starting to get dark. They wanted to get back to Boston Harbor before it got pitch black. It was a short ride, about twenty-five minutes.

“So what did you think of those guys,” Ted asked, as Sap steered the boat just like he was on a Wisconsin fishing lake. Ted hadn’t talked the Pierce Point guys up too much in case they turned out to be a disappointment. He had only said that he knew them well and they seemed like very good initial candidates for an indigenous fighter unit. But that was it.

“Very impressed,” Sap said. “Better than a tribe of totally untrained goat herders like we’ve worked with before,” he said referring to the last overseas mission he and Ted were on. “They speak English, which is a nice change from our usual situation,” he added.

“Who do you think the leader is?” Ted asked, already knowing the answer but looking for input.

“That Grant guy,” Sap said. “He’s a consensus leader, but he’s clearly the leader. That Pow guy, the Korean, he’s a tactical leader. A sergeant type, but he’s young, so not a father-figure sergeant. The other three young guys are solid. They’re not mall ninjas. That Marine, Ryan, should be good. The old guy, your friend Chip, is good, too. A very decent start out there.”