299 Days: The 17th Irregulars 2d-6 Page 6

  She knew Grant was going to do this, anyway. She had been surprised at how easily he had just quit working with the Team and started doing office work. She knew he wanted to be out there with them. It was harmless. They were just training today, not getting in any actual gun fights.

  Lisa was trying very hard to be understanding of all the new things that were happening. She realized that she had been a little too hardcore on the whole “just be a lawyer and have an office job out here” thing. She had increasingly been admitting to herself that Grant was right about the need to prepare. She also admitted to herself that he had done a good job of getting them out of Olympia and was running things very smoothly out here. She was blessed to have a husband like him. She didn’t want to admit it to him, though; that would give him a big head.

  “Will do, dear,” Grant said, signaling by the use of the word “dear” that he appreciated her coolness on the topic.

  Wow. This was just like the old days. Grant got to go out shooting with the guys and his wife was cool with it. Oh, wait, he told himself. In the old days, she was “cool with it” only because she never knew what he was doing. This was even better. She was fine with it while even knowing what he was doing.

  Grant had to admit that Lisa was working hard at getting over normalcy bias. She still wasn’t fully over it; not at all. She was still hesitant about many aspects of life out at Pierce Point. She never seemed comfortable with the situation out here. She wasn’t complaining, but it was obvious she wasn’t glad to be out here. But it was equally obvious that she was trying hard to accept what was happening.

  Grant thought about it for a few minutes. He had to give credit where credit was due. Lisa was adapting to the new conditions of life much better than he thought she would. He remembered back to when she was crying in their Olympia house and screaming at him not to leave. That seemed like a different Lisa. Thank God. He didn’t want to tell her how much better she was being. That would just give her a big head.

  After a big breakfast of biscuits and gravy with delicious fresh strawberries on the side—the first berries of the season—the Team was ready to get to work. They headed out to the Richardson house. It felt so good to Grant to be out riding with the guys. It was a beautiful sunny day.

  When they got to the Richardson house, Rich and Dan were there. Kyle Lemond, the new dog handler, was also there with the dogs. The “Crew” was there, too.

  The Crew consisted of five new guys who worked on securing the perimeter when the Team went into the building. They had tactical shotguns and AKs, and one even had a vest with magazines. All of them had pistols, of course.

  The Crew’s job was to make sure no one escaped from the building that was being raided. This role had been the missing piece during the tweaker raid. The occupants of that house could have escaped once the Team flushed them out because there were only enough Team members to go in.

  Dan solved this problem by recruiting the five best guards. It was a promotion for them and the possibility of being on the Crew motivated his other guards to work hard. Being on the Crew was a status symbol.

  The Crew was made up mostly of guys in their thirties. No teenage boys. Dan wanted mature men for this job. The Crew couldn’t get caught up in the excitement and shoot just anyone running toward them, like innocent civilians being rescued by the Team. They had to have judgment. They couldn’t be rookies who wanted to show the world how tough they were. They needed to be quiet professionals and also needed to have the temperament to detain people who might end up being good guys.

  The Crew’s job wasn’t just to grab people who were running out from a building and cuff them with zip ties. They were also in charge of making sure that no new bad guys came to the building trying to help their buddies inside. In a big fight, there was a very real possibility that the Crew would be shooting.

  Chip led the Crew, which made sense. Chip was a member of the Team, but wanted to sit out the heavy stuff. Chip had the full confidence of the Team and knew them. He could tell the Crew what the Team would be doing since he knew exactly what they would do.

  A final, but very important, piece of the Crew was Kyle Lemond, who ran the dogs. He was in his thirties with black hair and a scar on his chin, but he didn’t look like a criminal. He looked more like a logger. He was a quiet guy who had worked in a motorcycle shop before the Collapse.

  The dogs Kyle handled could be used to secure the premises or to go into the house ahead of the Team. The dogs were the Team’s secret weapon.

  Grant had a unique role during the training. He would be a member of the Team, but would be a “floater,” an optional add-in guy. He would not be a core member of the Team since there was a good possibility he would be doing office things at any given moment the Team could be called up.

  Rich was in charge of the house-clearing training. Ryan assisted because he had done a lot of urban warfare training in the Marine Corps. His knowledge and experience was better than Rich’s somewhat dated law enforcement training. Rich and Ryan went through the process in slow motion, talking out each step. Everyone made suggestions to Rich’s basic plan of how to clear the house and secure the premises. They came up with a better system of communications. They already had been using basic terms like “moving!” that they practiced at the range before the Collapse. Now they expanded on them and came up with a command for everything they would likely run into. It was good to have Grant as the “floater.” When he was taken out of the mix, simulating when he would be away in the Grange and couldn’t’ get on scene with the others, this forced the Team to change up who had various roles like lead entry. This meant each permanent member of the Team had to cross-train. They learned each role better by actually doing it, over and over again, all day.

  After a few hours, each man on the Team knew exactly what every other member of the Team was doing at any given moment, and would be doing next. It was like on a basketball team when a player knows who will be where and exactly when. They were truly operating as a team instead of individuals.

  It was hard work. They had to stay mentally alert for hours. It was mentally tiring, as well as physically. By the end of the day, they were a pretty good integrated team. The Crew was working out just fine. Kyle and the dogs were working well, too.

  That day of training took the Team to the next level. They would need several more days of training to be semi-decent under stressful conditions. Grant heard that in the stress of combat, a person is only able to do 50% of what they are trained to do. So, they needed to train up to a level of double what they wanted to accomplish in real life.

  “Whaddya say we call it a day?” Rich finally said. He could see the guys were starting to make mistakes because they were so tired and hungry. Rich didn’t want the training to reinforce the mistakes. They had done an amazing job all day, and he wanted to end the day on a high note.

  When they broke for the day, Grant noticed the Team and the Crew talking and laughing. They were getting along just fine, which was not a guaranteed thing. At the beginning of the day, there had been a little tension between the two groups.

  Having an elite group and a “junior varsity” can often lead to conflict. The elite group might act like dicks. Not the Team. They appreciated having the Crew back them up. They knew the Crew was risking their lives to make the Team safer. And they knew the Crew was the best of the guards, which was a pretty high level.

  A big flatbed truck with wood side boards came by a few minutes after Rich called it a day. The Team, Crew, Rich, and Dan got in. The dogs went into the cab. All together, they rolled down the road. The closer they got to the Grange, the more people saw them. People took note that the Team was expanding to add plenty of local men. This was a relief to some who had worried the Team—who were outsiders—might turn into a gang.

  The Team integrating with the local men of the Crew was a clear sign that things were progressing in a good way. Pierce Point was getting a fighting unit together. Grant was glad to see the people
witnessing this development. He expected they would be called upon to support a bigger fighting unit in the coming months. He wanted Pierce Point residents to feel pride and see that they could turn some good ole’ boys into real fighters with a little training and equipment. And some help from Special Forces Ted.

  When they pulled into the Grange, there was an awkward moment when the Team and Crew needed to pick a table. Grant solved that problem.

  “We eat together, gentlemen,” Grant said, motioning for the Crew to join the Team. They all sat down and recounted the day’s events and joked. Dinner came and the men wolfed it down. Salmon and biscuits. No butter, but they were too hungry to care. Desert was heavenly: tons of ripe strawberries and whipped cream. Real cream, from real cows, whipped up with some sugar in it.

  They were full and happy. They had done some great work and everyone in the group could see that they would be doing lots more great work together. They had an amazing unit. They felt they could do anything together.

  It was almost 7:00 p.m., and people were arriving at the Grange for the nightly meeting. The Team sat with the Crew, and listened to the nights’ meeting, while their taste buds were still remembering the strawberries and biscuits filling up their stomachs.

  Chapter 176

  Walk-Ons

  (July 7)

  The meeting started with Rich calling on Al VanDorn, and Kate Henley, who helped keep track of the coming and goings of non-residents into Pierce Point. Kate was in her fifties, smart and quiet. Part of her job was to verify if a person was really a Pierce Point resident who hadn’t been able to get there until then, and was showing up for the first time since the Collapse. That was pretty easy.

  The harder part of her job was handling requests from strangers coming to the gate who wanted to live in Pierce Point. Kate and Al would interview the stranger and see if he or she had some skills or equipment that could be contributed or, if they were leeches instead. They would make a recommendation to the community and the residents would vote on it at a Grange meeting. So far, there hadn’t been any votes on letting people in because no one worth considering for admission had come to the gate. There were plenty of strangers who had come to the gate, but they were clearly not worth even asking the residents about; most seemed like drifters and petty criminals.

  “We’re seeing something new now,” Al said. “A spike in strangers coming to the gate who might be decent candidates for admission,” Al said. It had been over two months since the Collapse and the flow of decent people at the gate was just now spiking? Grant wondered. Then he realized what had taken people so long to start coming out to the country to try to find a place. The long walk, for one. The roadblocks, for another. He assumed that as long as there was enough in the stores to survive and the FCards were flowing, people wouldn’t come. But now they were.

  Maybe the government increasingly wasn’t able to get enough in the stores, Grant thought. Maybe the crime was getting too awful. Maybe the government was starting to take away FCards from “trouble makers.” That would make sense. He had a hunch that many of the people out in the country who were trying to find a place to go were political troublemakers, which meant Patriots. They were very likely Grant’s kind of people. People who could become fighters. People with no other way to eat and nothing left to lose.

  He felt a little guilty about taking advantage of hungry people, but he had to think about the survival of his community, and he wanted skilled people for Special Forces Ted’s unit that was forming up. Besides, if these people had their FCards taken away by the Loyalists, Grant was doing them a favor by feeding them, and likely getting some fighters in return. Everyone was better off, except the government, which was fine with him.

  “Most of the recent ones seem like decent people,” Al said. “We’re interviewing them and we will have some recommendations for you tomorrow.”

  “What do you do with them before you let them in?” someone asked.

  “We let them camp across the road from the entrance,” Al answered. “We give them water.”

  “Are they being checked for diseases?” another person asked.

  “If we think they’re worth consideration for admittance then we will have the medical people look at them,” Al said.

  Grant didn’t say it out loud, because he didn’t want to alarm people, but checking for diseases would become even more important as the weather got colder and diseases would become rampant when malnutrition started to weaken people’s immune systems.

  “Why are we even thinking about letting people in?” someone asked. That started a long, and important, discussion.

  “Because it’s our Christian duty,” a man said, and quoted some verse of the Bible.

  “Not everyone here is a Christian,” Grant said. “Not everyone is motivated by that,” he added. Grant could speak with authority on that because, while he was a Christian, he was not exactly advocating the opening of the gate to let every poor soul in. A topic as critical as the standards for admitting new people to Pierce Point needed to be broadly agreed upon; it couldn’t be limited to either Christians or non-Christians.

  “Forget the Christian part,” a woman said, “we need to take in anyone we can. It’s the right thing to do.”

  “Anyone?” another woman asked. “They can just come in here and eat our food? I don’t think so.”

  “Yeah,” a man added. “I work fourteen hours a day in my garden and hunting. I’m just supposed to hand some stranger my food because he managed to walk to the gate? Are you kidding me?”

  “Maybe we just give some drug addicts all the food in the semi,” another woman said sarcastically. “Why in the world would we do that?”

  “Are you going to turn away a starving child?” the first woman asked.

  It was silent for a moment as people thought about this. While it was quiet, Grant thought about how he wanted to agree with those who wanted to help everyone. As a Christian, he wanted to take in everyone; he honestly did. He even wanted Loyalists to live, as long as they weren’t in a position to do bad things. People would be judged for what they did — or didn’t do — to help others during this terrible time, but it wouldn’t be by a human like Grant. He knew he was obligated to help everyone he could.

  Could. Grant was supposed to help everyone he could. Well, what did that mean? He was limited to what he was able do as a practical matter. His ability to help people was severely limited.

  Grant had the deep and unshakable feeling that he was being tested by the outside thought. He was being tested throughout the Collapse to see how he reacted. If, say, a semi load of food were put in his lap, would he share it or sell it? Would he squander it by handing it out, or would he lead the community to only use the food when they needed it most? It was that kind of test. Will the example Grant set inspire others to do good things? That was a test, too. Grant felt arrogant for thinking he was part of some cosmic test, but he just knew he was being tested.

  The scarcity and limited options were a test, Grant came to realize. These conditions were intentional. He didn’t understand why, but he accepted that things were unfolding according to a plan. A big plan; the biggest plan.

  Grant knew that it wasn’t possible to help everyone who needed it. Not in this sinful, fallen world. Many of the people needing help—like the grasshoppers—were wholly or partially to blame for their predicament. They could have prepared. The signs were there when twenty-five pounds of beans were $13 before the Collapse. They could have said no to “free” stuff from the government.

  Blaming people for their predicaments, Grant realized, wasn’t universally true. What about the little kids who were hungry, sick, had been beaten, or lost their parents? What had they done to deserve this? He didn’t have an answer for that, which troubled him.

  You will need some of the strangers coming to you.

  Grant felt his arms break out in goose bumps while sitting there at the Grange meeting. He had that amazingly calm feeling he experienced before
when he realized who the outside thought was and what it meant. Grant knew that he couldn’t lose with what he was doing. He had help; he had the biggest help possible. Grant just soaked in the calm he was feeling. It was like nothing in this world.

  He snapped back into the world of the here and now. It was time to get to work. Grant could see that food was the main issue, which was no surprise. That was a way to solve this problem, he thought. He decided to put his idea out to everyone for consideration.

  “What if any person coming in had to be sponsored by a current resident?” Grant asked. “So if you want a person to come in, you have to feed him or her. The community is off the hook for them.”

  Most people seemed to like the idea. In the discussion that followed, several people made the point that if a person were sponsored, and wouldn’t be a burden on the community, then there was no harm in letting them in. It would also prevent people from letting in too many people, because each sponsoring person had to provide for the new person.

  “It prevents people being generous with other people’s money,” a man said. “We’ve seen too much of that in the past,” he added.

  “OK,” the Bible-quoting man said, “but what about if no one can sponsor a person for whatever reason?”

  “Skills,” Grant said. “If that person has skills we need, we could take them even if no one sponsors them. Their skill might be so valuable that we decide to feed them in exchange for the community getting their skill.”

  “Like what?” some asked. “What kind of skills?”

  “What if there is a person who knows how to run water systems?” Grant asked. “I’d love to have him or her out here in case anything happens to our well system and pump, that kind of thing.”

  Most people seemed to like this idea, too.

  Grant’s mind then switched to the topic of getting Special Forces Ted as many skilled people as possible. First dibs would go to Pierce Point, but there might be some skilled people, particular former military and law enforcement people, who could be a big asset to Ted.