Glen Tate - 299 Days - The 17th Irregulars

More silence.

“I can see it both ways,” Grant said, realizing how weak he was being. “Can we think about it more? Give it more time? This is a huge decision.”

Rich said, “I guess, but we need to act soon. What if he finds out you’re a POI? He was trying to get on the internet when I came over. He could find out and then fax that in, as well. A confirmed sighting of a POI. Think about that. You want to go to prison or get shot just to give Snelling another few hours on earth?”

Right then, Mark’s truck with the Team went by. They saw Rich’s truck and turned around to join them.

“What’s up, guys?” Bobby asked. He was driving. Mark wasn’t in the truck; he must have loaned it to the Team.

Rich, Grant, and Dan looked at each other. Might as well tell the Team. They were part of this, too. They had to be trusted. Rich explained Snelling’s fax machine. Everyone was quiet. They all knew what decision they were making. It was one thing to get ready to kill people trying to crash your gate. But to murder someone? Over politics? Even someone who wanted to have you killed? This was hard.

Finally, Bobby said, “I wonder what Ted would think.”

“Oh, he was pretty clear,” Ryan said. “‘Kill him’ is what he said about Snelling.”

“What about his wife?” Pow asked. “She hasn’t done anything. And there’s that Abbott jack off. What about him? How far does this go?”

More hard questions. This guerilla shit ain’t easy, Grant thought.

“We should get back,” Wes said. “Clean up before the Grange meeting.” Everyone agreed, not so much about cleaning up for the meeting, but wanting to have more time to think about this huge decision. Grant got in Mark’s truck and they went back.

Everyone was quiet on the ride to Over Road. These young gung-ho ass kickers were mature enough to realize the significance and severity of the decision they were making. There was no going back. They could justify forming an armed guard and even hanging child rapists. If the Collapse ended today, they could explain what they did and why, and probably not be charged with anything.

But the planned killing of a guy? That was not something that could be explained away if things went back to normal. Grant thought he had completely worked through the mental process of casting his lot with the Patriots when he agreed to join up with Ted. Now he was realizing that he hadn’t fully committed. Killing Snelling would be a full commitment. There would be no going back.

When they got back to the cabins, everyone went off on their own. They weren’t talking, just quietly cleaning their gear. Grant went to his cabin to see his kids. He heard a moped take off. It was Wes. Probably going to Kellie’s. Is that all that guy thought about?

Grant was quiet around his kids. He cleaned up. He hadn’t showered in three or four days. It felt amazingly good to be clean. He looked in the mirror. His beard was getting pretty full. His hair was getting long; he’d get a haircut. but the beard was staying. Shaving everyday seemed stupid, and wasteful.

Grant chatted with the kids and Eileen. He wasn’t fully present for the conversation, though; his thoughts were elsewhere.

“Time to go to the Grange,” Grant said to them. “I’ll eat dinner there,” he said to Eileen. “No offense to what you’re eating here, but being there and talking to people is part of my job.”

“No offense taken,” Eileen said. “It means more food for the rest of us,” she said with a smile.

Grant went out to round up the Team and pile into Mark’s truck. Wes was coming back on the moped. He had a weird look on his face, as if he had aged ten years.

The Team quietly got into the truck without the usual “This never gets old” thing; the mood was too serious for that.

Wes was the last to get into the truck. He had something in a towel. He looked around and opened up the towel to show the Team Scotty’s silenced .22.

“Lima down,” Wes said.

Everyone was shocked. This was so final. Wes had killed another human being. Snuck up on him and killed him. This wasn’t self-defense.

No one talked much on the ride to the Grange. What little they said, they whispered to prevent Mark from hearing. Only the Team members would know about this. Grant wondered how Rich and Dan would react. Oh well. There was no way to undo this now, anyway.

Grant felt even closer to the Team than before, and that was saying something. They had gone all the way and there was no turning back. They had already killed together as a team before this when Pow shot that guy in the raid. They had hung those two child rapists, but this was different. It was planned. This wasn’t reacting to a crime. It was committing one.

“Thanks, Wes,” Grant finally said. He wanted everyone to know that he—the guy most troubled by this decision—was OK with Wes’s actions. . “It had to be done.”

“Had to,” Ryan said.

“Yep,” Pow said.

“He tried to turn us in,” Bobby said. Scotty nodded.

“Whadd’ya do with the body?” Grant whispered.

Wes shrugged. “Just left him there.” Wes paused. “Musta been a break in or something. Snelling had nice stuff. Someone probably wanted to steal it, and knew that he wasn’t armed.” Wes smiled at that last part. He had been counting on the fact that Snelling wasn’t armed.

As the Grange appeared, Grant started thinking about how they would explain this to the crowd. Everyone would suspect Grant. He would have to lie to everyone and deny any involvement. Then someone would find out. Grant would be a liar and his credibility would be destroyed, although he hardly cared about his image. He was more concerned about the diminishment of his ability to get things done at Pierce Point.

When they got to the Grange, Grant motioned for Rich and Dan to come over. Grant found Chip, too, and the four of them went out to the parking lot, where Grant broke the news. They all just nodded. It was anti-climactic.

The Team ate dinner together as usual and tried to talk about meaningless things just so people didn’t realize how quiet and serious they were.

The Team Chicks came over and had dinner with the guys, which lightened the mood considerably. Whispers of much sex later that night were exchanged. Wes was hugging Kellie so hard it looked like he might hurt her.

“What’s wrong, honey?” she asked him.

“Tough day,” Wes said. “That’s all. Things are fine.” Wes looked her up and down with a gleam in his eye and said, “What’cha wearin’ tonight, darlin’?”

She whispered something to him and he smiled.

The meeting that night had all the usual reports. Things were going well; the community was humming along; things were tough but people were pulling together out of necessity. Rich listened to the reports and marveled at how much better off they were than the sheeple in Frederickson.

Grant kept waiting for Snelling’s wife and Abbott to burst into the meeting and accuse him of the killing, but it didn’t happen. The meeting broke up early and everyone went home.

The ride home was a lot more upbeat than the ride there because the guys were talking about the Team Chicks.

Grant had this overwhelming urge to go to Snelling’s house. He realized this was stupid, but he wanted to go to the scene of the crime. He thought others might have a similar urge so he said to them, “Everyone just stay home tonight. We’ll deal with the reaction to this tomorrow.”

Scotty’s ham radio crackled. It was the Chief. He said that a small boat carrying two people had left Pierce Point. The boat left from area right around Snelling’s cabin, going at a high rate of speed and heading toward the inlet into the sound. The Chief tried to catch up with them but had no luck.