299 Days VIII: The War (24 page)

When the four cops ran into the conference room, Bennington ran to the doorway and
looked in. Then he looked around behind him. When no one was looking, he tossed another
fragmentation grenade in.

“Boom!” Bennington came running from the conference room doorway toward the lobby,
which had filled up with more cops, and yelled, “Booby trapped! Watch out for booby
traps!” That would slow them down so he could perform the second phase of his plan.

Bennington motioned for the other officers to follow him. He ran down into the communications
room and yelled at the comm guy, “The gangs attacked the Commissioner and the department
heads! I saw it all! Call out Code Orange! Code Orange!”

That was the code phrase the county had for an attack on the gangs, even the “good”
ones who were doing business with the county. Winters had planned for the gangs trying
to take over if there had been a business disagreement between the government and
the gangs. “Code Orange” meant all police, FCorps, and Blue Ribbon Boys needed to
go straight to the MexiZone and start killing all the male gang bangers possible.
It would be an all-out war. Perfect.

The comm guy started screaming, “Code Orange!” into the radio. Units out on patrol
started radioing in that they copied and were heading to the MexiZone to start the
operation. They had a meet-up point a block from the entrance to the MexiZone.

“Let’s go!” Bennington yelled. About a dozen men started to follow him out into the
parking lot to get into their cars.

“Shouldn’t we secure the courthouse?” one of the astute sergeants asked.

“No time! No time! Move! Move!” Bennington yelled. These people were used to taking
orders and Bennington was a lieutenant. He had planned on this and knew that the people
who were still cops or FCorps were conformists who would take orders. They would do
whatever he said. That was how things worked in the courthouse.

A group of about twenty men were streaming out into the parking lot. They were jumping
into police cars and heading out. Bennington drove the lead car. He was in charge
and everyone was following the leader.

They sped to the staging area without their lights or sirens on. When they got there,
about a dozen other cops and Blue Ribbon Boys had assembled. The regular police were
putting on body armor. The Blue Ribbon Boys looked terrified. They were supposed to
have an easy job standing at a gate. Now they had to go into the MexiZone?

The cops, who now had their body armor on, seemed more confident. Of course they were.
They had body armor. Everyone huddled around Bennington.

“Okay,” he yelled to everyone. “The gang bangers are probably drunk now so this should
be easy. Go in and just start killing every last one of them. You’ll know them when
you see them. You probably see them all over town. Leave the women, children, and
old people alone. Now go get the bangers before they take over the whole town! Go!
Go! Go!”

The men broke out of the huddle and ran toward the Mexican gate. There was no real
plan or any communications of any kind. They were just running toward the “enemy.”
Perfect.

Bennington, who had put on his body armor, got his AR out of the trunk and ran behind
them. He heard the first shots from the MexiZone guards and then the cops unloaded
on the guards. The shooting quickly stopped.

Lights started coming on in the Mexican houses near the entrance to the MexiZone.
Dog started barking. The cops began fanning out into groups of two or three. Perfect.

Bennington was running around giving orders. His men had no clue what they were doing.
They were just going house-to-house looking for young males. It was total chaos, just
like Bennington had planned.

The number of gunshots was increasing. Now it started to sound like a bunch of firefights.
Bennington ran up to a group of two Blue Ribbon Boys who were cowering behind a car.
He knew both of them. They were bullies and thieves. They were the perfect government
employees under the Winters administration.

“Go! Go!” Bennington yelled and pointed toward a house. The two got up and ran toward
it. Bennington used the car roof as a rest and covered them. He looked around and
didn’t see anyone. Bennington put the red dot of his Aimpoint sight on back of the
head of the closest Blue Ribbon Boy and pulled the trigger. He quickly did the same
for the second one.

“Snipers!” Bennington yelled into the radio. “Snipers!” he screamed again. The fear
of Mexican snipers would slow them down. Perfect.

Bennington ran up to another group, this time, it was three cops in body armor hiding
behind a car. “I think fire is coming from over there,” he yelled pointing toward
a house. He ran back to a car for cover and then he shot all three of them in the
back of the head.

Bennington realized that he might be too many of them. The plan was for the gang bangers
and government people to kill each other. As many as possible. If Bennington kept
killing too many on the government side, the gangs just might win. That wasn’t part
of the plan. But then again, with most of the gang bangers high or drunk on this New
Year’s Eve, the government had the element of surprise. Oh well, Bennington couldn’t
plan out all the details. This was war. It could not be precisely managed, just guided,
which Bennington had done.

He had set the plan in motion. Now it was time for it to play out. The government
and gangs would be fighting each other for the next several hours, maybe days. And
they’d be doing it in the MexiZone. That would leave the highway wide open for people
to go right past everything.

Then Bennington realized he had another important thing to do in order to complete
the plan. He found his car and headed back to the courthouse.

(December 31)

It was New Year’s Eve in Times Square in New York.

“Three, two, one!” everyone chanted as the glowing ball dropped, signifying it was
officially the New Year on the East Coast.

Everyone was cheering. Jeanie was watching it on TV in the big meeting room back in
Camp Murray, Washington. It was 9:00 p.m. Pacific time, but midnight, and officially
the New Year, in New York.

Jeanie, the media expert, couldn’t help but notice that the ball drop was different
this year. She could tell from the camera angles that the crowd was much, much smaller
than in the past. A big crowd like in the past would be too juicy of a terrorist target
so they must have limited the crowd size. A lot.

The crowd seemed surprisingly racially mixed. And they all had “We Support the Recovery!”
signs. It was pretty obvious, at least to a PR expert like her, that the few hundred
people on the TV screen were actors with props.

But Jeanie didn’t care. She was mesmerized by the familiar ball dropping in Times
Square, even if everything about this year was different. For decades, she’d watched
this on TV every New Year’s. Well, not every New Year’s. The past few years, when
she was in college and then a graduate, she spent her New Year’s Eves partying instead
of watching TV. But when she was a kid and a teenager, her family would all get together
to watch the Times Square ball drop on TV.

Sitting there watching the ball drop, and feeling the many glasses of champagne kicking
in, Jeanie was transported back in time. She remembered when she was a girl, watching
the huge 2000 New Year’s Eve ball drop. A new millennium. Everything seemed so new
and fresh back then. The future was wide open. Everything was going great. She had
a brand new millennium to go out and make her mark in. She remembered her mom and
dad telling her on that particular New Year’s Eve that she was lucky to be alive then.
That her generation had it made and would have wonderful lives. It was their millennium.
America was the only world super power in 2000. Everything was perfect.

Jeanie needed the comfort provided by the drop of the Times Square ball. It made everything
seem … normal which meant that the upcoming year would be great, as they always should
be.

Things could suck all year, but seeing that ball drop meant some things never change.
Hey, Jeanie thought, America has had a rough couple of years—this year in particular—but
America will bounce back. It always does, right? Jeanie was upbeat and optimistic
for the first time in months. Things would get better.

Suddenly, the TV went off. Jason was standing in front of it with the power cord in
his hand. He looked very serious. And worried.

“Sorry, everyone,” Jason said. “We have a general alert. Everyone needs to go to their
duty stations. There have been several attacks tonight all over western Washington.”

Everyone was stunned. Now? New Year’s Eve? This was a holiday. The Patriots were savages.
They couldn’t even give the legitimate authorities one night off? They were animals.

Jeanie and everyone else took a second or two to fully comprehend what was going on.
Attacks? All over western Washington? Was this the beginning of the war? The real
war? The big one?

Then Jeanie started to tear up. The new year. The new year would suck. It was actually
going to be worse than the previous one. This wasn’t going to get better. Last year
wasn’t a fluke bad year. Things would suck forever. There would never be a good year
again. They were only going to become worse and worse.

Jeanie started running to her “duty station,” which was at the visitors’ barracks.
That was the few rooms they had for visitors to stay. Since Jeanie handled the NVIPs,
the “not very important persons” who got tours of Camp Murray, the visitors’ barracks
was her duty station. It was a humiliation to have a lame “duty station” like that,
but that was just one of the humiliations she suffered at Camp Murray because she
was not fully trusted.

There she sat for about twenty minutes, which was an excruciatingly long time, in
the visitors’ barracks. She could hear people running around. Jeanie was obviously
useless there where nothing was happening. That gave her twenty minutes to think about
New Year’s Eves past … and, unfortunately, future. Christmas had been so bleak trapped
there in the prison of Camp Murray, but this was worse. Far worse. Hope was being
attacked on New Year’s Eve. Which was exactly what the Patriots wanted, she realized.

Finally, Jeanie couldn’t take it anymore. She went back to the cafeteria to talk to
people. She needed to find out what was going on.

“There has been a series of apparently coordinated attacks tonight,” one of her State
Patrol friends told her as he ran into the next room. “All around Olympia. And in
Seattle. Even in the JBLM ring. All over the state.”

“Are they attacking us here?” Jeanie asked.

“Nope,” her friend said. “Not yet.” He ran off.

That was reassuring. “Not yet.” Boy, that would help her sleep tonight.

Jeanie was starving for information. She went back into the big meeting room with
the TV. It was on again, replaying the ball drop. She checked all the channels. Same
thing: New Year’s programs. The news stations were replaying the President’s New Year’s
speech about how last year was a challenge, but everything would be better this year.
Duh, Jeanie, the political media expert, thought. Of course TV won’t be covering the
attacks.

Jeanie realized that she couldn’t find out what was going on. She’d have to just wait
and see if they were attacked. It was the most helpless feeling she’d ever had. Just
sit and wait to see if a fight is coming to you.

She went back to her “duty station” and sat there. Pretty soon, she was crying. Softly
at first, but when she realized no one was around to hear her, loudly. She was remembering
all the things she’d seen and heard about how weak the “legitimate authorities” were.
The speculation about whether they could withstand an attack. Now she had to sit and
wonder whether they could. And then what would happen to people like her, if they
couldn’t.

Jeanie lost track of time that night. She thought about each of the lies she told
all day long. The biggest lie she told visitors was that the population overwhelmingly
supported the legitimate authorities. That would be tested tonight. She would tell
the visitors that the military units were loyal. That would be tested. She told them
that Camp Murray had a plan for everything. That would be tested.

She knew how it would turn out. She started crying even louder.

(December 31)

“All clear to mile post two,” a voice said on the radio. The voice was “Nineteen Delta,”
who was Josiah Wallingford, a former Army scout. The code 19D was the MOS (Military
Occupational Specialty) for a scout. So, in Army lingo, a scout was a 19D.

Josiah insisted on being called “Nineteen Delta.” It wasn’t an ego thing about being
a scout. He really, really didn’t want his real name used. He seemed to have some
deep reason why, but he wouldn’t say why when he was asked. That was cool. Many people
in the Patriot movement were using fake names or going exclusively by code names.
It was accepted.

Ted and Grant were extremely grateful to have a scout in the unit. Nineteen Delta
was the eyes of the unit. He would go ahead of them and spot any problems.