Glen Tate - 299 Days - The 17th Irregulars

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.

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.”

Rich explained how it seemed that the authorities didn’t have the resources to track down all the leads they had and, besides, Pierce Point’s guards could repel an assault by any force other than a professional military unit.

“Hey,” Dan said, trying to be positive, “no one out here knows how you spell your last name. How about going with the Norwegian spelling of ‘Matsen’? Maybe we say that your first name is something like Herman and you go by your middle name of Grant.” These weren’t bad ideas, but they also weren’t enough to make Grant feel totally safe.

“Snelling,” Rich said. “That’s your problem.”

All three men nodded. They were thinking the same thing, but they didn’t want to say it.

Finally, Grant spoke up. “Is it treason to do what he’s doing, if he’s the one snitching on me?” Just saying that out loud answered the question.

Of course it wasn’t “treason.” Grant could not figure out a way to put Snelling in their makeshift jail. Besides, doing so would violate every constitutional principle Grant was supposedly all in favor of.

“Wait, guys,” Rich said. “We don’t know if Snelling is the one. Let’s find that out first.” They all nodded.

“I have an idea,” Rich said.