299 Days VIII: The War (19 page)

Grant went into the farmhouse and found Ted in the den working on plans. Grant closed
the door.

“Ted, I’m all in,” Grant said with a huge smile. “All in, baby.” Ted wondered why
Grant was so hopped up. Maybe he was drunk.

“Okay,” Ted said slowly. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Grant said. “I’m fine, man. Here’s the thing: I just left my family. I feel
great.”

Ted looked at him like he was insane.

“No, I’m not happy that I left my family. That sucked and was the worst moment of
my life,” Grant said, waving his hands to gesture that it had happened in the past.
“But, here’s the good part: I have nothing to lose,” Grant said excitedly. “I am the
walking dead. My life is basically over, dude. I’m okay with that. I can’t get my
family back, so let’s focus on the future. The future is whipping the 17th into the
very best unit on earth and beating the shit out of those Lima bastards.”

Ted smiled. This was exactly what he wanted to see out of Grant. The enthusiasm would
be contagious. Pretty soon, the whole unit would be chomping at the bit to go into
combat. Ted had seen this before. A reluctant commanding officer usually meant disaster.
An enthusiastic one usually meant success. Lots of people might die, but the mission
would succeed.

Ted leaned back in his chair.

“Welcome to my world, Grant. Welcome.” Ted smiled. “I got nothin’ to lose either,
man. Nothin’. No wife. Not sure where my kids are. All I got is you assholes.”

Grant laughed. There was nothing more to say. Ted and Grant just nodded. If they weren’t
tough-guy soldiers, they would have hugged.

Grant stood up and said, “I gotta go. I have some contagious enthusiasm to go distribute.”

Ted stood up at attention. “Hell, yes, Lieutenant!”

(December 26 – December 30)

The next few days were a blur to Grant. He ran full speed for about twenty hours a
day motivating people and getting things done. He talked to every single soldier in
the unit and told them how important the mission was and how the Limas had it coming.
He asked each soldier why they hated the Limas and received some stunning answers:
rapes, murders, theft, destroying lives, missing relatives. Grant’s message was the
same: it was time to get even. You are lucky to be in a position to be able to get
even with these bastards, Grant would tell the soldiers. You’re not in some pathetic
line with your FCard begging for cornbread mix like most people. You can fix this.

The troops loved it. They were charged. Everywhere Grant went, the troops flashed
him the “gang sign.” It was euphoric.

The best part of Grant’s day was the morning runs. He would get up early and roust
everyone out of bed while radiating enthusiasm and energy. It was, indeed, contagious.
The soldiers would jump out of bed enthused and ready to go.

They ran to the Warrior Song, their unit’s official song. Grant would scream out the
lyrics and the whole unit would scream them back. The song was only four and a half
minutes long so they ran to it on a loop several times.

After a few days of telling the troops that this was their chance to get even, Grant
realized he might be overdoing it. Some of the soldiers made comments about not shedding
a tear if they indiscriminately killed the residents of Olympia. That was not what
Grant had in mind; not at all. He meant getting even with the guilty Limas—the FUSA
and National Guard soldiers who didn’t surrender, the cops still on the force and
fighting, the gang bangers, the FCorps, and assorted sympathizers and enablers in
the civilian population, like politicians.

Grant realized how moldable these soldiers were right at this point. They’d been cooped
up in a compound for months with no contact to the outside world. When the Collapse
hit, they saw everything they thought they knew about the world change overnight.
Then Grant was soon telling them it was time to “get even.”

Upon this realization, Grant compensated—well, tried to compensate—by making it a
point in each conversation to say they’d be getting even with the “guilty Limas.”
He then went on to remind them that the civilians, unless they presented a threat
like pointing a weapon, were to be protected.

“That’s why we’re doing this,” Grant would say. “We’re going in to fix things, not
kill innocent people.” Most of the troops understood the difference. A handful, mostly
the ones who had the worst things happen to them by the Limas, seemed to not understand
the difference as well. Grant worried that he’d turned a few of his soldiers into
killing machines of innocents and talked to Ted about his concerns. The potential
innocent-killers, as Grant and Ted called them, would be watched more carefully.

Grant also worked hard on the planning of the mission. He, Ted, and Sap went through
a million contingencies. What if the semi breaks down near Frederickson? What about
near Olympia? They had a rough plan for most of these contingencies. For some, however,
they had no plan whatsoever. They had very limited resources. Ted and Sap would constantly
start to suggest a solution they had in the FUSA Army, like helicopters, and then
remind themselves that they were going “third world” on this mission.

Grant also worked his ass off physically on the many heavy lifting jobs that came
up as the unit was packing. If cases of ammo needed to be loaded, Grant was there
doing it. He was a ball of energy and he wanted his men to see he would never ask
them to do something he wasn’t prepared to do himself.

Grant went into Pierce Point to get Smithson’s semi. Smithson volunteered to drive
his semi into combat in Olympia. He had not fully joined the unit a few months ago
because he’d be away from his family during all the training, but he volunteered to
do the driving job. Right then and there, the 17th got its first PMC, which stood
for Private Military Contractor. It turned out there were quite a few PMCs who did
brave and important things for the Patriots during the Collapse, just like in the
Revolutionary War. They were Patriots doing dangerous things that needed to be done,
sometimes for profit, but usually not.

At night, so no one in Pierce Point would see, members of the unit came to the Smithson
place with all the diesel containers they could find and filled them up with the fuel
from his underground tank. That diesel was worth a fortune now, and Smithson had willingly
donated it, which was good because Grant would have shot him and taken it. He wasn’t
kidding. Grant knew he wouldn’t have to do that, but had a conversation with himself
going over what to do if this became necessary. They had come this far and nothing
would stop them now from taking Olympia and ending this nightmare. Grant was going
to finish this fight. He was impatient to get it started. Not only did he want to
end the nightmare of the Limas’ tyranny, but he wanted get on with his new, post-war
life. The sooner he started the fight, the sooner his post-war life could begin. Plus,
he really wanted to hit back at the bullies.

One thing terrified Grant, and it wasn’t going into combat. It was Grant going to
the Grange for some reason and accidently seeing Lisa. That was the last thing he
needed right then. He was mentally in the game of being an “all-in” soldier and didn’t
need any downers like that, so he didn’t go where he might run into her. Instead,
he asked Rich and Dan to meet with him at the gate.

They came to the gate a few days before New Year’s. It was cold, rainy, and miserable.
They met in the little office at the volunteer fire station, which was one of the
few dry and warm places near the gate. Now that it was nasty outside, the guards were
given several small travel trailers and RVs to stay in rather than stand outside all
day. They still patrolled, but they frequently came in to keep as dry as possible.

Rich and Dan knew what this meeting was about.

“Haven’t seen much of you lately,” Rich said with a smile. Dan laughed.

“I’ve been working on a big project,” Grant said with a smile. Not knowing if the
volunteer fire station walls were completely sound proof, Grant decided to talk in
generalities.

“We’ll be kicking things off at midnight on New Year’s Eve, or, I guess, technically
at the very beginning of New Year’s Day,” Grant said.

Rich and Dan nodded.

“Had you heard this before?” Grant asked, testing to see if word had leaked out.

Rich and Dan shook their heads. Good. Grant was a bit surprised this news hadn’t gotten
out. He was relieved.

Grant told Rich and Dan the basic plan. The unit would leave right before midnight
on New Year’s Day in a semi and two diesel pick-ups, fight through Frederickson, fight
all the way down Highway 101 to Olympia where, hopefully, regular forces had taken
the city. Then the unit would perform civil affairs work.

“What do you need from us?” Dan asked.

“From the guards?” Grant asked. “Just keep doing what you’re doing. Beef up when we
go. If people realize we’re gone, they’ll know Pierce Point has less capabilities
and might pick this time to attack. We don’t know of anyone planning on doing this,
but it would be the time to do it if someone wanted to.”

“I have reserves and a plan for calling them up,” Dan said, with considerable pride.
“I’ll tell them they’re working on New Year’s Eve and I’ll keep them for … how long?”

“A week if we’re lucky,” Grant said, “A month if we’re not.”

“What’s the cover story for Judge Matson, the Team, and eight of the guards being
gone?” Rich asked. “The ‘rental team’?”

“Yep,” Grant said. “It’s been working so far. The story will be that we left to get
the rental team up and running in the nearby—but still unnamed—community.”

“Okay, sounds good,” Rich said as he leaned back in his chair. He was still amazed
that this rental team cover story had worked as long as it had.

Grant paused. He didn’t know if Dan knew about Bennington, and he took the vow of
secrecy he gave to Rich very seriously. So he said to Rich, “New Year’s Eve night
is when you’ll need to activate your friend.”

“Bennington?” Dan whispered. Rich had either told him or Dan had guessed.

“Yep, Bennington,” Grant whispered back. “We’re going through Frederickson. It would
be much, much easier if the local officials and gang leaders were dead.”

Rich looked very serious. This was for real. It was go time. “I’ll activate him. A
couple hours ahead of your arrival.”

“Great,” Grant said. “Like one to two hours ahead of us. I don’t want to give them
time to regroup or to be ready for us if Bennington fails to take them out.”

“I have a way to communicate with him,” Rich said. “Both to activate him and to get
a report that the job’s been done.” Grant and Rich talked about how Rich would radio
the news to Grant. Rich would use one of the powerful ham radios Curt Copeland had
with a code phrase. Jim Q. and Scotty had ham radios that could receive the message.

When all the details were worked out, there was a long silence. All three men just
stared at the little table in the room. They didn’t want to say what was coming up
next, but finally, Grant did.

“Well, I guess this is it for a while,” Grant said as he stood up. He hated long goodbyes.
Besides, these were guys. What were they going to do? Hug and cry?

“See you in a few days or weeks when Olympia is under new management,” Grant said
with a smile. It was a forced smile; one to show confidence in the mission, not a
happy smile. It was a smile to motivate and reassure Rich and Dan.

“That’s it, huh?” Dan said. “‘See you around’? It all comes down to that?” Dan was
trying to comprehend that Grant and the others really were leaving for war. He knew
this day had been coming, but it always seemed off in the distance. Now it was here.

“Yep,” Grant said, trying to act casual and confident. “That’s pretty much it.” He
was confident, but he needed to be extra reassuring now. He knew whatever sense Rich
and Dan had of the Olympia mission would color how they would communicate it to others
in Pierce Point. It was important for Grant to convey confidence in the success of
the mission.

“We’ll be back in, I’d say, two weeks,” Grant said with a shrug as if to say, “No
big deal.” He went on to tell them how weak the Limas were and how people were leaving
Olympia for Seattle. He needed them to tell this to people after the unit left. He
really needed Lisa to hear this from Rich and Dan.

“You guys will do just fine here without us,” Grant said. “You’ll realize just how
fine and not want us back eating your food,” he said, trying to make light of everything.

That comment brought up the topic of the diminishing food supplies. The FCard food
would no longer be available from Frederickson after the unit attacked the town.

“We’ll need to break into the semi,” Rich said. “Are you okay with that?” he asked
Grant.

“It’s your call, gentlemen,” Grant said. “I’m taking a leave of absence for a few
weeks from political decisions here. I’m just glad we got through the calendar year
without cracking that thing open.”

Grant didn’t share with them that he had been worrying about the food situation at
Pierce Point. If Tet succeeded, the FUSA would no longer have control over the areas
outside of Seattle, like Frederickson, so the meager government food supplies going
there would cease. Not only would Pierce Point residents no longer have any FCard
food from the daily runs into town, but the hungry in Frederickson would begin moving
toward Pierce Point because news would spread that there was at least a little food
there. It would be hard to keep the news of the semi-trailer secret when people a
few miles away had no food whatsoever.