Glen Tate - 299 Days - The 17th Irregulars

Grant had never driven a car with a blindfolded passenger. It was a very weird experience. Grant felt like he was in a movie or something.

Grant drove to the farm. He had never been there from the road; he’d always come by water. He knew from a map how to get there and wondered what kind of guard they had at the road entrance.

Duh. Better call ahead so he didn’t get shot.

Grant pulled over and grabbed the handheld ham radio in the pouch on his kit. He kept it on the Team frequency, but they didn’t talk much on it. About all Grant did with the radio, other than using it a handful of times to talk to the Team or to dispatch at the Grange, was to check the battery each night and occasionally charge it.

Just because he didn’t use it often didn’t mean it wasn’t important. Having ham radios, which had lots of frequencies and much longer ranges than CBs, was critical. Today was a perfect example of how that little radio could save his life. Friendly fire sucks, as Ted used to say.

“Green 1, Giraffe 7, over,” Grant said. “Green 1” was obviously Ted. Sap, who was from Wisconsin, got “Cheese 2.”

But “Giraffe 7”? Grant never understood why he got the lame call sign of an animal with an absurdly long neck. And “7”? Was he the seventh most badass out of…seven? Oh well. Grant cared more about not getting shot by the Marion Farm guards than about what his call sign was.

A few seconds later—remarkably fast considering that Ted was probably in the middle of something—Grant heard Ted’s voice. “Giraffe 7, Green 1, copy.”

“Tacura with two friendlies at the front door,” Grant said. Ted would remember the reference to the “Tacura” from when Grant went out shooting with Ted in that car and they mocked him for having a car instead of a truck.

“Roger that, Giraffe 7,” Ted said. “Flash us when you get up near the gate.”

“Roger that, Green 1,” Grant said. “Giraffe 7 out.”

“Green 1 out,” Ted said. Nick was impressed. He couldn’t see anything because he was blindfolded. These guys weren’t hillbillies. Radios. And call signs. Nick’s amazement at the sophistication of the unit was just starting.

Grant drove slowly and turned off down the dirt road to the farm. He looked first to make sure no one saw him. The dirt road was long. He went very slowly and came up to the gate where he slowed down to a stop. He flashed his head lights.

“You can take your blindfold off now, Nick,” Grant said. They were already on the dirt road so Nick would have no idea what roads it took to get there. Besides, if Grant showed up to the gate with a blindfolded passenger, the guards would assume the blindfolded man was a prisoner and might shoot him if he made a sudden move.

Nick took off his blindfold and Grant rolled down his window. Grant put both hands out the window to show the guard, or guards, that he was not going to ram the gate. It was hard to do with his hands off the steering wheel. Nick, seeing Grant put both hands out the window, did the same.

A minute later, a bearded man in military fatigues opened the gate. Grant had the unmistakable feeling that one or more rifles were aimed at his head and the Tacura’s engine block.

The man in fatigues, who was partway behind a stump to remain out of sight and for cover in case Grant or someone else started shooting, waved Grant in through the now-open gate. Grant drove slowly. He got past the swinging metal gate, a typical farm style one and a second man in fatigues popped out from behind a big tree and gave him a signal to stop. He, too, was bearded, which looked weird with the military fatigues.

The first man, who was now behind Grant’s car, closed the gate. The second man still had his hand up telling Grant to remain stopped.

Once the gate was closed, the first man came up behind the car on the driver’s side. He said in a stern voice, “Out of the car.” Grant could recognize the first man, and now the second man, as soldiers he had met at the farm. He forgot their names.

The two soldiers were being very serious and professional which Grant appreciated. This was serious business. Goofing around—especially at a gate—got people killed.

Grant’s AR was laying barrel-down in the passenger’s foot area with the stock near the gear shift. Grant could grab it by the stock if he needed to get it. He wanted to check and see if it was on safe, but didn’t because he realized he’d need to handle it to do so. And he didn’t want to reach down for a rifle and handle it now. Oh well, he told himself, he didn’t need to check his rifle. It was always on safe when it should be. He laughed to himself about the irony of making a safety check and getting shot as a result.

Grant said to the first soldier, “I’ll come out the driver’s side. The passenger will await directions.”

The first man said “OK” and the second man, who had his rifle shouldered and pointed at the engine block, nodded. Grant noticed that the second man had an M1A in .308. That could stop a car better than an AR in 5.56.

Grant got out slowly. He was not afraid, but he was cautious. He wanted to make sure something didn’t drop from his kit and then he instinctively lunged to catch it. No sudden movements. He thought how embarrassing it would be to die because your pen fell out of your pocket and you went to catch it and got shot by your own guys. Embarrassing. Hardly a hero’s death.

Grant got out and kept his hands to his side. They weren’t raised up like in the movies, just out to his side. Grant stood there. He didn’t want to turn directly toward either of the men.

“OK, now the passenger gets out,” the first soldier said. Nick got out and did the same thing Grant did with his hands to the side and stood in the same direction with his sides to each of the men.

“OK, sir, please open the trunk,” the first soldier said. Grant very slowly turned and motioned for whether it was OK to get his keys out. The first soldier nodded. Grant slowly got his keys out and showed them to the soldiers. Grant hit the trunk release. He very slowly turned back around with his key in his right hand and his left hand to the side. He stood facing the same direction he had been.

“Moving,” the first soldier said.

“Move,” the second man said. That meant that the second man was now covering both of them. The first man looked in the trunk. He saw Nick’s two sports bags of clothes and a military back pack. Grant’s “get home bag” was in there, too, where he’d kept it since before the Collapse. As the name implied, that was a bag of things Grant would need to get home if he was in his car and a disaster happened.

The first soldier realized that searching all these things for a bomb would take a lot of time. He also knew that with the driver being his commanding officer the odds of this being a terrorist were pretty slim. The first soldier looked in the back seat. Nothing. He came up and looked in the front seat.

“M4 in the passenger side,” the first soldier said to the second. “Secure.” That meant that it was in a secure place.

The first soldier thought a moment. “Tell you what, Lieutenant,” he said to Grant, “It’ll take a while to search all of this gear back here and the underside of the car for explosives. It’s only a few hundred yards to the farmhouse. How about if you keep the car here and we do a quick search of any gear you will be bringing there?”

“Makes sense to me,” Grant said. “Just so you guys know, I’m bringing Nick here to the farm. He’s your new medic. Nick, you need those two bags and your backpack, right?”

“Yes, sir,” Nick said. He hadn’t known Grant was a lieutenant, but one of the guards just referred to Grant that way. Nick had been calling Grant “sir” because the Mintons told him that Grant was the judge. Now Nick was seeing that Grant was also a lieutenant in this Patriot unit.