299 Days: The Stronghold (11 page)

“The Mexicans,” the guy said, “have blocked the west side,” which was the Mexican part of town. “The blue ribbon guys said not to go there. The gangs—I didn’t even know there were any major gangs in Frederickson, but I guess there are now—won’t let you in unless you’re Mexican. Except if you want to buy stuff. They have gas in gas cans they’re selling. For cash and those FCards that Martin’s is now taking,” he said, referring to the grocery store in town.

The man perked up with some excitement. “Oh, speaking of that store, when I was in town there was a rumor that Martin’s was getting a load of food. People swarmed there. We went, too, and people started fighting for a spot by a truck that was docked in the back where they unload stuff. Some cops came along with some Mexican dudes. They beat back everyone and stood guard around the truck. It looked weird: the cops and the gang bangers were, like, on the same side or something. We left. It took us awhile to get back to the gate out of town. I shouldn’t be in town anyway, but my wife wanted to get some things,” the man said, looking at her. She shot back a cold glare.

Then she yelled at him. “You wanted to get some cigarettes, you asshole. Don’t blame this on me, you son of a bitch.” It would be frosty at their house for a while.

The man looked embarrassed. He continued, “Anyway, when we were at the gate going out of town, one of the blue ribbon guys said the cops—what’s left of them, which isn’t many—and the gangs took the food from Martin’s and now are selling it. The FC guy heard what the blue ribbon guy said and just shrugged.”

Great. Gangs and rogue cops and the government were running a giant racket called the City of Frederickson. At least a truck of food got in. But, now the gangs had it. Nice.

Grant wondered if the whole country was like this. He figured the bigger cities would be worse. Olympia would be bad, Seattle worse, and God forbid imagining what was going on in L.A. right now.

Just then, Grant noticed some of the Pierce Point guards scurrying around. There was a black man with his hands up walking slowly toward the bridge.

Grant looked at the man. He knew—he just knew—that this was important.

I am providing for you.

Chapter 117

Gideon Arrives

(May 12)

Grant yelled to the guards, “Lower your weapons! Don’t shoot him.” Grant had no idea why he was yelling this. He just knew that they needed this guy walking toward them. It was like Grant knew the guy. But he didn’t.

The black man got about twenty-five yards from the gate and, out of breath, yelled, “You need to come quick. Come quick. Before it’s too late.”

Grant ran toward him. The other members of the Team followed Grant out of instinct. They didn’t know why, but they assumed Grant knew something they didn’t know. Which was true. Grant knew he needed to help this man, he just didn’t know why.

The dogs were going wild and Dan yelled, “What the hell are you doing?” Grant and the Team kept running. Grant came up to the black man and said, “How can we help?”

The man, a blue collar looking guy in his forties, was surprised these well-armed white militia-looking guys just ran over to him and asked how they could help. He expected militia types to not like people with his skin color much.

“My truck,” the black man said. “My truck. Some guys are trying to steal it.” He started to put his hand in his pocket and realized that that was a bad idea. He pointed to his front pocket and said, “I have the keys in here. They’re coming after me!”

“Who?” Wes asked.

“Where?” Bobby asked.

“How many?” Scotty asked.

“Come on,” Grant yelled as he started running across the bridge and up the road where the man had just come down. “Let’s go!” Once again, the Team followed Grant, assuming he knew something they didn’t.

Grant motioned for the man to take the lead and show them where the truck was, which he did. They came to the intersection of where Pierce Point Road connected to the road to Frederickson. The black man pointed to the right. Grant shouldered his AR and went around the corner. He paused and motioned for the others to come, too. They did, just like they’d practiced a million times at the range.

Sure enough. A few hundred yards down the road was a semi-truck parked on the side of the road with its hazard lights on.

The black man yelled, “There were two of them. They still might be around, but I don’t see their car. Be careful. They had weapons.” Grant noticed that he said “weapons” instead of “guns.” He must have some military or law enforcement experience to use a term like that.

It was time for the Team to do its first SWAT work. Let’s see if we’re any good or whether we die right here and now, Grant thought. He was serious. They might die in the next few seconds.

The Team fanned out and started looking for bad guys. There were no cars on the road, as traffic had been virtually non-existent. Grant stayed with the black man.

“What’s your name?” Grant asked.

“Gideon. Gideon Armstrong,” he said.

“OK, Gideon, what happened?” Grant said, a little winded. He was in decent shape, but this sprinting and mentally preparing to be in a gun fight tired him out.

“I’m driving,” Gideon said, winded. “I have just one more load and then I’m done. I knew this was dangerous, but the money was great. So I see a police car blocking the road up there,” he said pointing up the road away from the gate. “I slow down. ‘Great, some cops are gonna jack my load’, I say to myself.”

“Are the bad guys cops?” Grant asked quickly. He wanted to know who to be looking out for. He didn’t have time to chat.

“Kinda,” Gideon said. “They were in a cop car, but they had on BDUs” Gideon said. Using the term “BDUs”, which stood for “battle dress uniforms,” told Grant that Gideon had been in the Army or other military service in the 80s or 90s when that term was used to describe woodland camouflage fatigues.

“Did they have hard hats?” Grant asked.

Gideon’s eyes lit up. “Yeah! Yellow ones. How did you know?”

Grant yelled to the Team, “Be looking for a cop car with FCs in hard hats and fatigues.” He looked back to Gideon and said, “Where are they now?”

Gideon looked up and down the road and said, “I don’t know, man. They were here a few minutes ago.” Then he put his hand on his pocket. “The keys. I took the keys.” He thought a while.

“It happened so fast,” Gideon said. “Now I remember. One had a gun pointed at me and the other motioned for me to roll down the window. I did. The one without the gun said he was ‘commandeering’ the truck. I’m like, ‘hell no, you’re not’. So I took the keys out of the ignition, raised my hands, and got out of the cab.”

Gideon went on, “I knew these white boys—no offense—would shoot my ass once they got what I’m hauling. It’s pretty valuable,” he said with a smile. “So I had nothing to lose. Besides, my home is back in Philly so I’m pretty much dead here now, anyway. So I tell them, ‘It’s yours’ and I walk away with my hands up. Those dumb asses didn’t even realize I took the keys out of the ignition. They were high fiving each other just staring at the truck, like they won. Well, shit, they can’t move that trailer far without the cab running. So I start running down the road and I see the entrance to your place. Then I see your guards and I think, ‘Oh shit. They’ll shoot me too.’ That’s what happened.”

“Where is the cop car?” Grant yelled. He wanted to know right now.

“Dunno,” Gideon said. “They might have left when they realized that I had the keys. Or they might be going back to get some bolt cutters for the locks on the back.”

Grant realized they needed to get that truck moving and into Pierce Point. “Get it running and go across the bridge where the guards are. I’ll tell them to let you in. Move. I don’t want those FC coming back.”

“FC?” Gideon asked.

“Later,” Grant yelled as he ran toward the Team. “We’ll talk later. Move that thing now. We’ll cover you.”

“Roger that,” Gideon said. He jumped up in the cab and started it up.

Grant yelled to Pow, who was closest to the gate, “Tell them it’s OK for this guy to bring the truck in. And tell them to be ready to shoot up a cop car if one comes by.”

Pow yelled, “Roger” and started running toward the bridge.

Grant ran up to the rest of the Team, who had taken cover around the truck and were scanning the area, and told them what was going on. No sign of a cop car or any other car so far.

The truck slowly lumbered down the shoulder and turned onto Pierce Point Road. Grant motioned for the Team to come back. They retreated with one man closest to the threat—the road to Frederickson—covering the road while the others ran back toward the bridge. As soon as the last man got to cover, he yelled, “Set!” That was the signal for the man closest to the threat to turn and run back toward the bridge. A leap frogging retreat. They’d done this on the range a bunch of times. Special Forces Ted had taught them. They weren’t perfect doing it today, but they didn’t practice this for a living. Even with the flaws, Ryan was impressed. He fit right in, executing his cover right when he heard “Set!”

Grant was one of the first to the gate. The guards were looking at him like he was on drugs. Rich and Dan came running up and yelling, “What the hell?”

“FC tried to steal this guy’s truck,” Grant said, winded.

Rich and Dan weren’t sure that was a good answer. Why was Grant letting this stranger drive a truck—possibly filled with looters—through the gate?

Dan yelled to the guards, “Cover that truck. If people come out the back, shoot ‘em!”

This was the first action the guards had seen, and they were jumping around. Dan looked toward the hill where the snipers were and motioned with his arm.

Gideon parked the truck and put his hands out the window. Grant ran up and said, “Move this over there,” pointing to the volunteer fire station. “I don’t want people seeing that we have your truck.”

Gideon nodded. He started to drive. Some of the guards yelled, “Stop!”

Grant ran around the truck yelling, “Let him drive it! Let him drive!” The guards, too, assumed that Grant knew something they didn’t.

Finally, the truck was parked so it couldn’t be seen from the road. The Team was behind cover on and near the bridge, sweeping the entrance with their rifles. Any cop car driving down the road would be cut to pieces in seconds.

Grant ran back toward the gate and yelled to the guards, “Be on the lookout for a cop car. Shoot it. Got it? Shoot the cop car.” The guards slowly nodded. They were in shock. No one had ever told them to shoot a cop car before.

Grant yelled for the Team to retreat across the bridge while the guards covered them. The guards were clumsily covering the bridge as they started streaming back. The Team was definitely smoother than the guards, but there were way more guards.

Grant was at the gate, trying to catch his breath when the Team started coming up to him.

“What just happened?” Pow asked. “Who is this guy?”

“I dunno,” Grant said.

Chapter 118

The Spoils of War

(May 12)

“What?” Ryan said. “You dunno?”

“I dunno who he is,” Grant said.

“Why the hell did you let him in?” Rich asked as he came up.

“I felt like I should,” Grant said.

“What?” Several people said in unison.

Al, the immigration guy, the former Border Patrol agent from the meeting at the Grange, came up and angrily asked, “Who let this guy in?”

Rich pointed at Grant.

“Why did you let him in?” Al asked.

“I dunno,” Grant said.

Grant realized how stupid that sounded. He needed to give a better explanation. Except he didn’t have one. So he made something up.

“You’ll see,” Grant said as he walked toward the truck. “You’ll see,” he repeated.

Grant didn’t know for sure what was in there, but he knew in his gut that they needed to rescue the driver and bring the trailer in. He knew they needed to do this fast before they got caught.

Gideon was standing outside the cab with his hands up with about a dozen rifles pointed at him and the truck. He was starting to get nervous surrounded by all these rednecks with guns. Gideon was beginning to fear that he had walked into some white power compound. He had been told by his company and the news that these types of compounds were springing up everywhere and that the “Don’t Tread on Me” flag was a Nazi militia symbol. Other drivers said that was a lie, like just about everything else the company and the news were saying. Gideon hadn’t actually seen any signs of it out there as he drove across the country.

Just as he was getting really nervous about all the white guys in hunting clothes pointing rifles at him, he saw an Asian guy who looked like a tactical badass. Gideon scanned the guards and also saw two Hispanic looking guys. That was a relief. This surely wasn’t some white power compound.

Grant said to Gideon, “Open the trailer.”

“The keys to the padlocks are in the cab. Can I get them?” Gideon asked.

“I’ll get them,” Grant said. He got up in the cab and found a key ring. He came down and asked Gideon, “These them?”

Gideon nodded.

Grant ran to the rear of the trailer and started to open the locks. There were three of them.

Grant opened up the trailer door and gasped. He could not believe his eyes.

Gideon came running to the trailer door. “I was bringing a load to a grocery store called Martin’s. This is a semi load of food. Non-perishable. Want to see the paper work on it?”

The guards exploded with whooping and hollering. They were jumping up and down.

Grant’s knees gave way. He fell to the ground. He was overtaken with emotion. They’d eat for weeks! The constant worrying about having enough food was over. He was ecstatic.

Everyone was screaming with joy. Rich yelled to Grant, “How did you know what was in there!”

“I didn’t,” Grant said as he shrugged. “I just knew it was stuff we needed. I just knew.” He wasn’t about to explain the outside thoughts and how they had always been right. No one would believe him.