299 Days VIII: The War (26 page)

Julie got her glasses. She wore contacts for work. She wouldn’t need those anymore.
“Okay,” she said. “Where are we going?”

“The radio room,” Bennington said. “You’ll see what’s going on in a second. Let’s
move.”

Bennington couldn’t believe the risk he was taking by getting Julie and yelling through
her door that he had told her to be sick. If someone heard him, he was dead. Dead.

These were the details and things he had gone over in his head countless times over
the past few weeks, and he was prepared for whatever was coming his way. If he lived
through the grenades and shooting, he knew that he would try to do something good:
saving Julie. And that meant being with Julie. He was madly in love with her, he finally
admitted to himself. He had loved her from afar for months, but could never admit
that to himself because he expected Winters to kill her. He couldn’t get too attached
to her. Luckily, Winters wasn’t a threat to her anymore. Now she could have a normal
life – and he desperately wanted that to be with him.

This was more than just a normal man-loves-woman thing. Julie was the perfect example
of what had been done to the people. She had been violated and humiliated by people
with power. She needed to be rescued. Like all the other people.

Bennington was in a unique position to rescue her. To make up for all the bad things
that happened. Well, not totally make up for them, but to at least try to stop further
harm, and help guide her toward a better life.

Bennington grabbed her by the hand and started running through the courthouse. People
were running around and yelling about attacks, where to send reinforcements, and screaming,
asking why there were no reinforcements. It was total chaos. Perfect.

Bennington had to admit to himself that he’d done a fine job handling his task. The
leadership was dead. All of them. The cops and FCorps had been so controlled by the
political elite that they couldn’t tie their shoes without approval. And all the approvers
were now dead.

Bennington took Julie to the radio room in the courthouse, which was part of the plan.
“Get me Mendez,” he said to the comm guy, whose name he always forgot. Paul Mendez
was the one active duty cop Bennington trusted. They had talked gingerly and in code
about how bad things were. Mendez reminded Bennington of himself as a young man. A
sheepdog who wanted to help people. Bennington had no idea why Mendez was still on
the force. That was another similarity between them. Bennington was taking another
big risk by trusting Mendez, but what the hell.

“Mendez is on his way,” the comm guy said. He pointed at Julie. “What’s she doing
here?”

“Shut your fucking mouth and do your job,” Bennington barked. The comm guy froze with
fear. He slowly recovered and returned to his dispatch work.

The radio was erupting with screams for reinforcements. The gangs were putting up
fierce resistance. The scattered cops, FCorps, and Blue Ribbon Boys that had rushed
into the MexiZone without a plan, leadership, or communications were dead retreating.
Now the gangs had regrouped and were coming out of the MexiZone for a counter attack.

Mendez came rushing in. “Yeah, boss?” he said breathlessly.

Bennington motioned for him to come out into the hall, and he did.

“Paul, I need you to take Julie, the receptionist, to your place,” Bennington whispered
to Mendez. “Make sure she’s safe with your family. Got it?”

Mendez nodded. He had no idea why he was doing this, but he figured that the vague
conversations he had with Bennington about how out of control things were in the courthouse
were now coming to fruition.

“After you get her to your place,” Bennington continued to whisper, “I need you to
round up all the ex-cops. All the good guys. All the guys who quit the force. I need
you to get as many good guys as possible, even if they’re not former cops, and get
them here. The Sheriff is dead and I’m the next in command. I’m the Sheriff and I’m
calling out for a posse. I need good men, Paul, not corrupt bastards.”

Mendez nodded. He knew exactly what Bennington was doing. “We need good guys to take
out corrupt ones,” he said.

Bennington nodded. “Yep, Paul, it’s come to this. Finally. You and I had talked around
this for a long time. But now it’s time to do it. I’m the new Sheriff and I’m going
to get this under control. You’re my second in command. Now, go get Julie to your
place and get me a posse.”

Mendez saluted and ran off with Julie. That went well, Bennington thought.

Bennington went back into the radio room. He looked at the comm guy and drew his pistol.

“You’re done here,” Bennington said to the terrified comm guy. The comm guy put his
hands up. He was unarmed.

“Hands behind your back,” Bennington said and the comm guy complied. Bennington holstered
his pistol and handcuffed him.

“I’m not going to kill you unless you give me a reason to,” Bennington said. “You’re
under arrest for …” Bennington had to think of what the charge would be, “aiding and
abetting … racketeering.” That was close enough.

Bennington took him to an office down the hall. Bennington had the master key. “You’ll
be staying here until we sort things out,” Bennington said to the guy, who was now
shaking and crying. “Some of your former colleagues on the force will be joining you
here. It’s our temporary jail. People who prove their loyalty to the Constitution
will not be killed. Understand?” Bennington wanted the rumor to start going around
that he wouldn’t kill everyone; only the guilty ones. People from the old regime would
be spared as long as they fully supported the new management.

The comm guy nodded.

“As this room fills up,” Bennington said to the comm guy, “tell your buddies something.”

Bennington pulled out his pistol and put it up to the comm guy’s head. Then he put
it back in his holster.

Bennington smiled. “There’s a new Sheriff in town.”

(December 31)

After putting the comm guy in the makeshift jail, Bennington returned to the comm
room and started running the radios. He was starving—he’d thrown up earlier and it
was now close to midnight—but he didn’t have time to eat, or the desire. He had other
things to do.

The radio room was an extremely strategic asset. With it, Bennington could control
the fight between the gangs and corrupt cops. That is, he could misdirect the cops
and have them killing the gangs and vice versa. He didn’t want to destroy the radios.
He had thought about it in the initial phases of his planning, and it would have been
easy, but he realized that he’d need the radio system to direct the good cops, his
posse.

Bennington knew enough about the radios to get the job done. He got the report from
the FCorps guy about the semi and vehicles, which he assumed to be the Pierce Point
guys. They were right on time. Now that he had the cavalry here, Bennington’s options
expanded significantly.

About forty-five minutes after he left, Mendez called Bennington on the secondary
police frequency.

“Dropped off the package, talked to people and now I’m on my way back,” Mendez said.

“Roger that,” Bennington said.

The sound of gunfire had subsided by now. There was an ominous feeling that a storm
was brewing, and would soon unleash its havoc. The cops were terrified that they had
rushed in and haphazardly attacked the gangs—and now the gangs were pissed.

This calm before the storm was a critical time in the battle. One little mistake now,
Bennington thought, and they could lose it all.

After a few minutes, Mendez came running in. “What’s next, boss?” he asked.

Bennington handed him a piece of paper. “Take this and link up with a semi that’s
over by Lions Park. It is between Lions Park and here, somewhere. There is a lead
car and pickup and a chase pickup. They’re armed.” Bennington smiled. “They’re our
reinforcements.”

Bennington looked around the room crammed with radios and computers. They didn’t have
what he was looking for. He ran into the next room where he found it. He tore it down
and brought it into the radio room.

“Here,” Bennington said, handing Mendez an American flag that had been hanging on
the wall in the adjoining meeting room. “Approach the convoy with this flag. Waive
it around. This is how they’ll know you’re a friendly.”

Mendez nodded. This was awesome. Awesome. Reinforcements.

“How’s the posse coming along?” Bennington asked.

“I’ve got several guys ready to go,” Mendez said. “Everyone understands what’s going
on. We’ve been waiting for it. I told the posse to report here. They’re already coming
in.”

Bennington smiled. Support, like Mendez, was key. Bennington realized that he was
getting lucky. He should have had other guys in on this plan, but he hadn’t been able
to fully trust them so he didn’t get anyone involved. Bennington would rely on the
luck of having guys like Mendez helping, even if he didn’t plan for it.

“How does the posse know what to do?” Bennington asked.

Mendez smiled, “I got Paulson organizing things.” Paulson had been kicked off the
Frederickson city police force when he was outed as an Oath Keeper. Paulson was a
great guy.

“Paulson’s there in the lobby getting guys organized,” Mendez said. “He’s telling
everyone that this posse is being called by you, and that it’s for the legitimate
government, but he knows what’s really going on. He’s giving the new guys winks when
he says this is for the ‘legitimate government.’”

“Outstanding,” Bennington said. “Couldn’t do this without you guys.”

Bennington got on a CB and set it to channel 11, the prearranged channel to communicate
with the Pierce Point troops. He would be taking more risks by talking to them on
an unsecure CB, but that’s all he had. This whole thing wasn’t exactly planned out
in great detail. They were free styling it.

“Breaker, breaker one-one,” Bennington said. “This is the gall bladder surgeon.”

In the cab of the semi, Jim Q. had a CB. It was on channel 11 as Rich had told him
to be. Jim Q. and Ted knew about the “gall bladder” story, so they figured it was
that friendly cop in Frederickson who was clearing things out before they rolled through.

Ted grabbed the handset. “Gall bladder surgeon, go ahead.”

“There will be a police officer with an American flag approaching you,” Bennington
said, praying that no one was listening to channel 11 who would recognize his voice.
“He’s a friendly. He has a piece of paper with him that you need. Copy?”

“Copy,” Ted said. “I will let my guys know that an LEO with an American flag is a
friendly and get back to you when I see the paper.”

“Roger that,” Bennington said. “Gall bladder surgeon out.”

Ted pointed at Jim Q. who got on the inter-unit radios and made sure each vehicle
knew about the LEO with an American flag. They all confirmed that they got the message.
Soon, a police car with its lights on, but no siren, came slowly toward the 17th.
Mendez had decided that he was more at risk from well-trained reinforcements mistaking
him for a bad guy than he was from the gangs seeing his lights. Besides, the gangs
were pretty much concentrated at the entrance to the MexiZone, so the odds were that
the only risk to him in the area by Lions Park was friendly fire from the reinforcements.

“Cop car,” Nineteen Delta said into his radio as he was looking through his rifle
scope. “Coming our way.”

Meerkat and Anderson saw the lights and rested their rifles on the hood of the scout
car. They could tear the cop car to pieces if they had to.

The unit was tense. Those of them who could hear the radio traffic knew that a cop
car was coming. It was probably the friendly. Probably.

“I see the flag,” Nineteen Delta said into the radio. “He’s friendly. Do not fire
on the cop car. Repeat: Do not fire on the cop car.”

Everyone with an inter-unit radio confirmed that they got the message.

The police car stopped abruptly. Mendez had finally seen the semi. He opened his door
and waved the flag out of the open door. Then he slowly got out. He knew several rifles
were aimed at him and that he should make no sudden moves.. Now that he was out of
his car, he started slowly, turning three-hundred-sixty degrees while displaying the
flag. After two full turns around with the flag, he carefully walked up to the lead
pickup. He had never seen the scout car. Good.

Bobby casually rolled the window down and said, almost comically, “Good evening, officer.”

(December 31)

“I have a piece of paper for the semi,” Mendez said to Bobby. “It’s from the gall
bladder surgeon.”

Mendez started to hand it to Bobby, but he still wasn’t one hundred percent sure
Bobby and the pickup truck were with the semi people. Things had been moving too fast
to have pre-planned codes. Mendez would have to make it up as he went.