Glen Tate - 299 Days - The 17th Irregulars

Hammond was in Army fatigues. He had his “scare badges” sewn on: Special Forces tab, Ranger tab, airborne wings, combat infantry badge. He had a “Free Wash. State Guard” name tape instead of the former “U.S. Army” one. He had a military Beretta M9 pistol in a leather shoulder holster like some of the senior officers wore. The other men in the room were similarly in a uniform and had side arms, mostly on belt holsters and mostly military-issue M9s. They sat back down.

The commander looked up from his desk, smiled, and said, “Welcome Lt. Matson.”

Lieutenant Matson?

There must be some mistake. Grant wasn’t a lieutenant or in the military. Oh, wait. He was kind of in the military. He had signed up with Ted a few weeks ago back in the yellow cabin, but he didn’t have any rank or anything. He was just a guy in an irregular unit for a while until he was no longer needed.

“Lieutenant?” Grant asked. “No, sir, I’m not a lieutenant. I’m just Grant Matson.”

The commander laughed. “Well, that’s what we’re here to talk about tonight.”

The commander stood up and extended his hand. “I’m Lt. Col. Jim Hammond. I’m the CO of the Free Washington Special Operations Command.” CO stood for “commanding officer.” He pointed to Ted and said, “I worked with Master Sergeant Malloy. He’s a damned fine soldier.” Grant remembered Ted saying that his former Special Forces commander at Ft. Lewis had come over to the Patriots early on and was commanding Free Washington’s special ops.

“Yes, sir,” Grant said. Grant was standing at attention, another habit that came back to him from his Civil Air Patrol days.

“At ease, Lt. Matson,” Hammond said with another smile. “We’re just here to talk business.” Hammond looked serious for a moment. “Should I call you ‘lieutenant’ or ‘mister’ Matson?”

Grant smiled. This was a business meeting, he could tell. He’d been in quite a few of those. It was time for him to get a little bit of the balance of power back.

“Depends on how the conversation goes,” Grant said with a slight smile. “But ‘lieutenant’ works for now.” That was Grant’s not-so-subtle way of saying that he was probably agreeing to whatever was about to be asked of him. Probably, but he wanted to hear the details. His life was at stake.

Hammond smiled at Grant’s remark that “‘lieutenant’ works for now.” This Matson guy was not a pushover, Hammond thought. This guy had some moxie. Hammond opened up a paper file. Hammond looked at the file for a moment and flipped a few pages. Finally, he looked up at Grant and said, “Sgt. Malloy here tells me a lot of impressive things about you, Lt. Matson.”

“Thank you, sir,” Grant said. “I learned a lot from Ted, Sgt. Malloy, and I’m very lucky to know him. Especially in times like these.”

“Yes, indeed,” Hammond said. “Yes, indeed,” he repeated.

Hammond looked at Grant, sizing him up. He had come to an initial impression about Grant from Ted’s reports, but wanted to physically look at Grant and see if body language or anything else would change his opinion. Finally Hammond asked, “Has Sgt. Malloy told you about our plan for your services?”

Grant didn’t know if Ted was supposed to have told him about the civil affairs role, but he thought it was best to tell the truth to his…commanding officer? That felt so weird.

“Yes, sir, very briefly,” Grant said.

Hammond was watching to see if Grant’s eyes darted over to Ted to see if Ted thought it was OK to answer the question. Grant’s eyes did not dart. He looked Hammond right in the eye when he answered. Good, Hammond thought, he was truthful and confident. Hammond could trust Grant to report to him truthfully and without hesitation.

“So what do you think about our civil affairs role for you and your Team?” Hammond asked.

“I think it’s great, sir,” Grant said, again looking Hammond straight in the eye. “For whatever reason, sir, I am the right person, at the right time, in the right place. I have some unique skills. But,” Grant’s body language relaxed and he got a little informal, “the weird thing is that I don’t have any military training. I don’t claim to be an expert, sir. Me and my guys can shoot a little, but we’re amateurs.”

“I know and that’s what I like,” Hammond said as he smiled. “You aren’t playing Army. You’re humble. You know your limits. But,” Hammond was thumbing through the file, “you’ve got some organizational skills we could use. You can get a community up and running. We’ll need that.” Hammond kept looking at the file and nodding his head.

“You’ve done some amazing shit out at Pierce Point,” Hammond said. “You’re even keeping a list of Loyalists out there.” Hammond looked up at Grant and said, “I understand that the Lima leader out there had an untimely death.”

“Yes, sir,” Grant said, once again looking Hammond right in the eye. One of the Team must have told Ted or Sap about Wes and the silenced .22.

“It was handled,” Grant said sternly. “We had evidence; irrefutable evidence.” Grant shrugged as if to say, “Just taking care of business.”

Grant felt a little dishonest because he had been too weak to approve the killing; Wes had done it on his own, but Grant was willing to take credit for it now that everything worked out.

“What’s your background?” Hammond asked Grant, knowing the basic answer, but wanting to hear it from Grant. Hammond had found that how people choose to answer such a question was very revealing; especially what they choose to talk about first. It was usually an indicator of their biggest priority in life. If they start by saying they have kids, then that means that they are their biggest priority. If they start off by saying which college they went to, that reveals something. If they shrug and say nothing, that says a lot, too.

Grant proceeded to tell Hammond about being a lawyer, suing the government, working for the State Auditor and resigning in disgust, prepping, coming out to Pierce Point, organizing Pierce Point, and then linking up with Ted and Sap. He never mentioned his family. Grant didn’t want to show weakness by saying, “My wife has no idea what I’m doing and would be mad at me if she found out.” That wasn’t exactly a bad-ass soldier thing to say.

Hammond was smiling again. In the absence of a real military-trained civil affairs guy, Hammond had a pretty good substitute here. And this Matson guy had known Ted from before the Collapse. Ted said he was solid. That was as good of a reference as one could have.

“What was your major in college?” Hammond asked. This was often a good way to find out a lot about people who had gone to college.

“American history, sir,” Grant said.

“What period?” Hammond asked.

“Revolutionary War,” Grant said.

Hammond leaned back and smiled. “Oh, Lt. Matson, when this whole thing is over, we need to talk over a glass of bourbon. I am a history buff. What part of the Revolutionary period interests you the most?”

“The differences between the Revolutionary War and the French Revolution,” Grant said. “The differences in philosophy and political outcome. How we came out of it with a beautiful republic and the French ended up with a murderous dictatorship and two and a half centuries of statism.”

Wow. That was the right answer, Hammond thought. The fact that Grant described the French Revolution as a murderous dictatorship was important. Hammond had been initially concerned that maybe Grant liked killing people. Maybe Grant enjoyed the thing with Snelling. Hammond didn’t need any of that. He needed someone who did not want to repeat the French Revolution. Grant was perfect.