Glen Tate - 299 Days - The 17th Irregulars

“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, as 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.