299 Days VIII: The War (22 page)

Finally, the unit was saddled up and ready to roll out. Everyone got in their place.
No one talked much. They headed out without any fanfare. They’d been rehearsing and
planning for this moment for so long that it was anti-climactic when it actually happened.
Everyone was preoccupied with doing their jobs; there was no time for public drama,
like a goodbye speech. Every man and woman had inner drama going on about going into
combat; there was no need to add to it. Grant thought that being low-key and seeming
calm would communicate confidence to the unit, so he just got into his vehicle as
if he were running an errand.

The radios crackled and the scout car started to move, followed by Mark’s truck. The
semi lurched forward followed by Rich’s truck and the two utility vehicles. They were
finally moving toward Olympia. Upon feeling the truck moving, and realizing that this
time was for real, Grant sat up straight in his seat. He looked out the window and
smiled. They were finally going to fix things.

When they left the guard gate at Marion Farm, it seemed weird. Most of the troops
hadn’t seen anything outside of Marion Farm since they got there several months ago.
Most came in at night by boat to the landing and had never left. The troops who had
window seats and hadn’t lived in Pierce Point before were looking around at the new
sights. They were gawking like tourists.

The convoy slowly rumbled down the road toward the Pierce Point gate. “Let Dan know
we’re coming,” Grant said to Scotty.

Scotty grabbed his radio, set the frequency, and said “Badger 9, this is Pine 6, copy?”

After a while, Dan came on. “Pine 6, this is Badger 9.”

“Bringing some New Year’s Eve fireworks,” Scotty said, which was the pre-arranged
code for the unit coming through the gate.

“Roger that,” Dan said. “Badger 9 out.”

Dan activated his plan for the unit moving through the gate. He had a few minutes
before the slow-rumbling semi and the other vehicles would be coming. He sounded the
administrative alarm, which was a whistle he had. The administrative alarm was different
than the attack alarm.

The gate guards started to gather around Dan, who was in the fire station. Guards
were getting out of their RVs and trailers.

Once most of the guards were there, Dan said, “Okay, folks, something’s about to happen
that you didn’t see. You got that? You didn’t see what’s about to happen.”

The gate guards had become fairly used to “you didn’t see this” moments, like when
Bennington came to the gate with a little Mexican girl, dropped her off, and drove
away. That didn’t happen.

“There will be a car, pickup, semi, a second pickup and two last vehicles that will
be going through the gate in a few minutes,” Dan said. “You didn’t see it.” The gate
guards nodded.

“Now go out and tell those still on post about this,” Dan said to the gate guard squad
leaders. “Dismissed.” The squad leaders ran out of the fire station to go tell the
others. None of the guards went back into their warm RVs and trailers. They all wanted
to see what it was that they didn’t officially see.

Dan went out to each station, especially the snipers up on the hill, to make sure
they all knew friendlies were coming. The squad leaders had gotten the word out. Dan
found Heidi, the comm chick, and made sure that Sniper Mike across the road knew what
was going on. Heidi gave Dan a thumbs up.

Just then, the headlights of a car hit the guards. That was so rare. No one drove
anymore, especially at night. It was like a UFO was shining a light on them.

Dan was standing there in the lights waving them through. One of the guards was opening
the gate to let them out. Then more headlights appeared, together with the pinging
hum of diesel engines.

The driver of the lead car saluted Dan and the gate guards. The passengers of the
lead car had their hands out the window with a thumbs up. The Team’s truck did the
same, as did the semi and the chase vehicle.

As the last vehicle cleared the gate and it was closing, Dan saluted them.

“That’s the ‘rental team,’ right?” a gate guard whispered to Dan.

“Something like that,” Dan said with a smile.

(December 31)

New Year’s Eve in Frederickson was a relaxed affair. People were ready to have a party.
The year had been so hard. People really needed a mental break. Much like in the former
Soviet Union, New Year’s Eve was a huge party. People living like that needed to believe
the new year would be better than the last one. It probably wouldn’t, but it was a
good excuse to get drunk in the middle of a bleak and hopeless life.

After breakfast on New Year’s Eve, Bennington got all the booze he could from the
“evidence locker,” as they called it, which was where they locked up all the contraband
they stole and used for themselves or sold. Bennington had a lot of booze.

He took an armload of bottles up the stairs to Commissioner Winter’s office. There
was Julie Mathers, the poor receptionist who Winters repeatedly raped and then showed
off the pictures to everyone. She was a shell of a person. She looked dead. She was
too pathetic to look at. Bennington felt guilty for not wanting to look at her. He
hoped that this would be the last day of humiliation she would suffer. “Hey, Julie,”
Bennington said. “Just setting up for the party tonight.”

It took Julie a while to realize what Bennington was saying. She was always in a daze
of varying intensities.

“I don’t have that down,” Julie finally said.

“Oh,” Bennington said, “I talked to Commissioner Winters about it right before Christmas.
Weird. He must have forgotten. Lots going on this time of the year.”

Julie was getting scared. If Winters thought she had made a mistake…

“Put it down on his schedule for 8:00 p.m. and I’ll tell him he forgot,” Bennington
said. “I’ll take the fall for not reminding him.”

Julie was relieved. “Who’s coming?” she asked.

“Department heads, community leaders, the usual,” Bennington said. “Community leaders”
was the phrase for gang leaders.

“I have some refreshments,” Bennington said, pointing his head down at the bottles
in his arms. “And there will be some girls who want to come.” The “girls” they always
had at the “community leader” parties were hookers and soon-to-be rape victims, of
course. Julie knew that.

“I’ll put the refreshments in the conference room and lock it,” Bennington said. “Wouldn’t
want this valuable stuff to walk off.”

Julie just stared. It was horrible to look at her. She was so wrecked.

Bennington walked up to Julie and looked her in the eye. “Tonight would be a good
night for you to stay in your room,” Bennington said, referring to her quarters in
the courthouse. “Julie, do you understand?”

She looked puzzled.

“Julie,” Bennington said to her very sincerely, “promise me you’ll stay in your room
tonight and not come out.” He was taking a huge risk about letting someone on to what
was going to happen, even if it was only a vague mention of it, but he couldn’t resist.
He couldn’t have anything happen to that poor, innocent woman who had been through
so much.

“Okay,” she said. She had no idea why, but she could tell that Bennington was trying
to protect her.

“You should be ‘sick’ tonight, Julie,” he said, staring her straight in the eye. “Trust
me, you need to be sick tonight. Okay?”

Julie nodded. Bennington was talking to her in that “wink, wink” tone meaning they
were breaking the rules. That was a common tone in the courthouse. As in, “this came
from the evidence room,” wink, wink.

“Okay, I’ll be sick tonight,” she said.

“This is our little secret,” Bennington said. “Have I ever done anything mean to you,
Julie?”

She shook her head. Bennington was just about the only man in that whole courthouse
who hadn’t done something awful to her. She had always thought of him as the one man
not trying to hurt her. He was one of the good guys.

“Our little secret,” Julie finally said.

Bennington nodded. “See you tomorrow morning,” he said to her. Hopefully he would
see her tomorrow morning, but the odds of him still being alive by then were pretty
slim. The prospect of seeing her in the morning was a silver lining in this cloud
of doom. He chose that to be his goal; fight hard, stay alive, and see her face tomorrow.

Bennington spent the rest of the day going around the courthouse inviting the department
heads—the Sheriff, Emergency Management coordinator, County Manager, the FCorps liaison—to
Commissioner Winters’ big blow out New Year’s Eve party.

“The chicas will be outrageous,” Bennington promised all of them. “We’ve got some
new ones,” Bennington told them. “Some girls who managed to get themselves in jail
and are now looking for a way out,” he said with a big, fake smile.

Bennington went to the gate at the entrance to the MexiZone, which was the Mexican
area of town run by the gangs. The MexiZone looked like a small town in Mexico: broken
down cars, dogs running wild, and little kids everywhere. The buildings were dilapidated
at best, and barely habitable at worst. Several families were packed into an apartment
or small house. It was a horrible place, by design. Winters herded the Mexicans into
one corner of the town so he could control them. The day-to-day control of the MexiZone
– the protection money, the drug trade, the prostitutes – was administered by the
gangs, who reported to Winters and gave him a cut of all the rackets. Just like a
small town in Mexico, the vast majority of the people in the MexiZone were decent,
hardworking people who were tyrannized by a few thugs.

Bennington was let in at the gate to the MexiZone, of course, because Winters was
protecting the gangs and Bennington worked for him. The gangs in the MexiZone were
“good” ones, the ones Winters could work with. There were still other gangs, but they
had largely been run out of town by the “good” gangs and Winters’ police.

“I need to talk to Moco,” Bennington said, referring to the chief of staff for Señor
Hernandez, the leader of the main gang in town. Hernandez had taken over from the
Senorita, who was much kinder than him.

The guard had Bennington wait until a black Cadillac Escalade SUV came up. Those gang
bangers drove in style while the rest of the population walked.

Moco rolled down his window. His eyes were bloodshot. He looked hung over, or high,
or both.

“Party tonight,” Bennington said to Moco. “Big one. Lots of refreshments and lots
of girls. New ones.” Bennington smiled a big smile.

Moco grinned back. He knew what goodies were in store tonight. “Carne fresca,” he
said, which meant “fresh meat.”

“Yep,” Bennington said, forcing a big smile. “About 8:00 tonight at the Commissioner’s
office. That’s when the ‘carne fresca’ will be there. They’ll go fast, so get there
on time. Señor Hernandez and any of his guests are, of course, invited.”

Moco smiled and nodded. He waved and rolled his window back up.

The rest of the day, Bennington found excuses to go see department heads and senior
gang officials to make sure they heard him talk up the big party. There was a buzz
in the circles that ran Frederickson about this big blowout New Year’s Eve party.

Bennington had one more errand to run before the party. He went to the armory and
checked out some items. When he was questioned about it, he said to the clerk, “Can’t
go into it, man. Secret shit.” The clerk nodded. Bennington was a lieutenant. He got
what he wanted. Besides, the clerk thought, Bennington had been in on a lot of stuff
the police department had done. Like all the stuff in the “evidence room.” Bennington
was solid. He could be trusted.

It had just turned dark, which was about 4:30 p.m. Bennington thought he should eat
some dinner. His stomach had been queasy all day as he gave out invitations to the
party and therefore saw the faces of all the people he planned to kill that night.
He analyzed every way he could be killed while trying to carry out his very ambitious
plan. He kept wondering how much it must hurt to be shot. He had been surging on adrenaline
all day and his stomach finally had enough. He took one bite of dinner and started
to puke. After he quit throwing up, he drank some water. He realized that he would
be hungry later that night. “No last supper,” he muttered under his breath.

Over the next few hours, he paced around the courthouse. He thought about his life,
focusing on all the good things he’d done until recently, how he had wanted to help
people and joined the Sheriff’s Department. He had done good things there: he caught
criminals, comforted crime victims, and steered kids in the right direction. He saved
lives from car accidents, heart attacks, and once ran into a burning mobile home to
save a two-year old boy. He was a good man.

Then the Crisis started. Everything turned shitty. He saw good people turn into criminals
just to survive. He ended up shooting two of them, a mother and her adult son stealing
some food. He watched as he and his fellow police officers became armed enforcers
for corrupt politicians and gangs. He had to watch as gang thugs beat men and raped
women; he couldn’t help them. He had to let it happen. That was the worst part of
it: helping the gangs terrorize the innocent people of the MexiZone. To top it all
off, his wife left him and took his daughter.