299 Days VIII: The War (28 page)

“Are there any more of you?” Wes asked one of the cops with sergeant’s stripes, assuming
he was in command.

Mendez pointed at the sergeant and said, “Yep. He’ll know.”

The dazed sergeant counted up the cuffed prisoners and said, “I guess so.”

“If there are any more of you and they decide to fight us, there could be a crossfire
and you bastards will get cut to pieces,” Ryan said. “So, we’ll ask again: is this
all of you?”

The sergeant counted again. “There may be three missing.”

“Thank you, Sergeant,” Grant said. He motioned for the scouts to go find them. They
took off. The scouts knew they didn’t need to risk themselves just to get three more
prisoners; they were only trying to intercept the three who might be trying to get
reinforcements.

The Team took over as the observers and then covered the scouts as they advanced forward.

“So,” Grant motioned Ryan as the two were up front as observers, “what was all that
shooting about?”

Ryan shrugged. “Dunno. This happened all the time in Afghanistan. People would start
shooting. It was hard to tell right away what set it off. This is war, Grant. Crazy
shit happens,” he said with another shrug.

After a few minutes, which seemed like hours, the scouts came back.

Nineteen Delta came over to Grant, Ted, and Mendez. “Okay, here’s what it looks like.
We got all the cops in this area. Three, or whatever, got away. Most of the gang bangers
took off. It sounds like lots of women and children got left behind. Real gentlemen,
huh? The women and children are terrified. There are probably enemies in that neighborhood,”
he said, pointing to the MexiZone, “But, I gotta think, most of the armed men took
off.”

Ted looked at Nineteen Delta, and shrugged. “Guess we’ll see.” He paused. “Now it
gets interesting.” The last thing Ted wanted was some distraction, like urban fighting
in Frederickson, which would slow them down on getting to Olympia. But if that’s what
was required, he’d do it.

Jim Q. came up to them and handed Ted the radio. “Gall Bladder Surgeon wants to talk
to you.”

Ted took the radio. “Gall Bladder Surgeon, this is … you can call me Ted. I’m with
the cavalry.”

“You in a place where what I say won’t get to the wrong ears?” Bennington asked. The
prisoners heard the voice of Bennington, who they assumed was on their side, and were
even more confused than ever.

Ted looked around and saw the prisoners watching him. “Standby,” Ted said and he motioned
for several guys to stand around him so they would shield the sound of the radio from
the prisoners.

When the sound was successfully muffled, Ted turned the volume down. “Okay, go ahead.”

“I’ve got a posse here at the courthouse,” Bennington said. “They’re coming down to
you. Same deal: draped in an American flag. We’ll take over. The gangs took off from
what we can tell. They’re heading toward Olympia. We have their radio frequencies
and are hearing them say that the whole Army showed up. They’re scared to death. They
are running away. Not what I expected.”

“Need anything more from us?” Ted asked.

“Are you free from enemy ears?” Bennington asked.

“Affirmative,” Ted said.

“Okay, I’m going to say that we have another unit like yours coming into town any
minute. I want the prisoners to hear that so they spread that rumor. Get back to a
place where they can hear you and I’ll shout out a head fake.”

Ted liked his idea. This Bennington guy was pretty bright and crafty. He was exactly
what they needed to pull something like this off.

“Will do,” Ted said to Bennington. Ted turned the volume back up, motioned for the
human sound shield to break up, and then walked over toward the prisoners.

Ted acted like he was oblivious to them standing there. “Say again?” he said into
the radio.

“Your reinforcements are coming down from Bremerton,” Bennington said. “Two more platoons.
Some Marines from the Bremerton naval base who are now under Patriot command. Bradleys.
The whole shebang.” Bradleys referred to Bradley fighting vehicles, which were armored
personnel carriers. No one in Frederickson had any defense against them.

“Roger that,” Ted said, half remembering the Marines used LAVs instead of Bradleys,
but who would pick up on that? “When they getting’ here?” Ted asked, playing along
with the charade.

“They radioed in with an ETA of twenty minutes,” Bennington said.

“Great,” Ted responded. “We can get back to our Humvees.”

Which, of course, didn’t exist. Ted wanted the enemy to be on the lookout for Humvees,
not for a harmless looking semi-truck and a couple of pickups.

Ted and Bennington were trying not to laugh out loud. The rumor of two platoons of
Patriot Marines just about to arrive in Bradleys and that a bunch of Patriot fighters
were moving in Humvees would spread among the Limas in Frederickson, and out to Olympia,
in no time. The bad cops would surrender. The gangs, if any were left, would probably
take off.

Ted decided to have some fun with the prisoners, who were hanging on every word he
and Bennington were saying. “You want us to shoot the prisoners?” Ted asked.

“Negative,” Bennington said, playing along. “We have the posse coming to you in a
minute or two. We have a jail for them. We’ll give them a chance to change sides or
we’ll kill them.” That wasn’t true but the rumor would spread instantly among them.
Perfect.

“You sure you don’t want us to kill them?” Ted said, while acting like no one was
around to hear it. “It’s no problem. It’ll save you guys time and resources.”

“Nah,” Bennington said casually. “We’ll give them a chance to give us some intel and
change sides first.”

“Okay,” Ted said like he disagreed. “We’re out of here unless you need something else.”

“Nope,” Bennington said, deciding at the last minute to throw in some more disinformation.
“Your unit can head to Seattle as planned.” That added even more confusion.

“Roger that,” Ted said. “Grim Reaper out.” He added that call sign just to screw with
the prisoners and add another crazy detail to the rumor that would undoubtedly be
spreading. Ted was trying not to laugh. It was almost childish, but all of the disinformation
had a powerful tactical effect. Rumors in the enemy’s head could have more effect
than bullets.

Ted walked back to the main group of the troops and started telling them to prepare
to head back to the staging point once they got the order. He reminded them to be
alert for a counter attack.

Everything was quiet. There were occasional shots, but not many. The wind started
to blow. It was weird: a hundred well-armed troops staring silently at about a dozen
handcuffed cops, surrounded by silence. No one had anything to say, and it would seem
unprofessional to chat. The troops’ job was to quietly hold their positions and cover
the prisoners until they were ordered to do something different.

Pretty soon, the posse showed up and, to everyone’s surprise, Bennington was with
them. He should have stayed in the radio room, but he really wanted to see this Pierce
Point unit firsthand.

When Bennington arrived, he asked the Team, “Who’s in command?” They pointed to Grant.

He went over to Grant. “Thanks for stoppin’ by.”

“No problem,” Grant said. “Thanks for preparing things for us. Couldn’t have done
it without you.”

Bennington nodded. He couldn’t contain his pride. He broke into a smile, saluted,
and said, “We got it from here.”

(January 1)

It was time to get out of Frederickson and off to Olympia. Grant motioned for the
Team to head back to Mark’s truck.

As soon as they got to the truck and started getting in, Pow smiled and said to the
them, “This never gets old.” It was a huge tension breaker and a sign that things
had calmed down, at least momentarily. No one was talking like that when they headed
out from Pierce Point. Everyone was silent and serious. Now, with their first engagement
having gone so well, they could relax a little.

As the Team got into the truck, they regained their swagger. They weren’t cocky, because
they never were, but they were enjoying this again. They had taken a few hours off
from their normal gung-ho smiling selves. The old Team was now back.

Grant could feel it and emphasized it. He wanted to fire them up, as well as himself.
As Ryan and Wes were getting under the tarp, he said to the whole Team, “Is there
any place you’d rather be?”

“Hell no!” they said in near unison.

Pow was smiling to himself. When he and Grant got into the rear cab, Grant asked,
“So you were a little quieter than usual a while ago. I see the old Pow is back.”

Pow nodded and seemed relieved. “I haven’t killed anyone in a couple of months,” he
said, in a matter of fact tone, referring to the raid on the Richardson meth house.
“I didn’t enjoy doing it.” Pow looked a little embarrassed. “I’ve had some dreams
lately, as the trip to Olympia got closer.”

“Dreams about what?” Grant asked.

“Having to do it again,” Pow said. He looked out the window. Smiling Pow was gone
again and deep thinking Pow had replaced him.

Suddenly, Pow turned back to Grant and smiled again. “But I got over it. You know
how, bro?”

Grant shook his head.

“I’ve been talking to Pastor Pete a lot. He helped me figure it out. I’m supposed
to be doin’ this. You, me, us,” Pow said, pointing to all the troops around him. “All
of us. We’re supposed to be doing this. We’ve been put here to do this. There’s no
other explanation. Too many coincidences, bro, too many coincidences.”

Pow paused and looked Grant right in the eye. “It’s an honor, man. An honor to be
trusted with this job. Enjoy it. That’s what I’ve figured out. Enjoy the job, just
don’t enjoy the killing.”

Pow did a press check of his AR, which was contagious. Grant did one, too, and Scotty
looked back from the front cab and, seeing Grant and Pow do one, did the same. Bobby,
who was in the driver’s seat, got his AR from his left side where it was riding between
his seat and the driver’s side door. He grabbed it with this left hand and did a press
check, which wasn’t easy, given that he was right handed. He saw the brass cartridge
case in the chamber and gave Scotty a thumbs up. Things were settling back into their
regular flow. The Team was press checking and heading off to something big.

Scotty’s radio crackled. The unit was getting ready to move out. All the vehicles
were ready and the drivers and their navigators had their directions and maps. Gas
levels were okay. They’d stop in a few hours and refuel.

And eat. Everyone was starving. They had a big dinner several hours ago, but the constant
stress and tension burned up a lot of calories. At first, most of the troops were
too nervous to eat. But, now that they’d survived their first “battle,” they relaxed.
And got hungry.

Oh well, Grant thought. They’d be hungry for a while. One of the things Ted and Sap
consciously did in training, without the troops realizing it, was to change their
expectations about hunger. In peacetime, everyone in the unit ate normal meals before
they came out to Marion Farm. Back then, the refrigerator, fast food, or convenience
store was never more than a minute away. They never had to go eight hours without
eating and worry about getting hungry, but they did at Marion Farm, on occasion. When
they pulled a twelve-hour guard shift and maybe had been working before that and hadn’t
gotten a chance to eat. It was rare for them to go without eating all day, but it
was relatively common for them to go without a meal, given the training cycle and
their jobs around camp, like guard duty and unloading the boat.

Grant was now realizing how beneficial it was that he and the others in the unit didn’t
bat an eye at going long periods without a meal. Now they could handle not eating
for a while without thinking it was the end of the world. They had experienced some
discomfort and made it through just fine. So, as the troops were hungry now after
midnight, they knew they’d live just fine. They’d get some chow whenever it was possible.

They rolled out of Frederickson onto the main road to Olympia. They had alternate
routes planned out but, unless there was a reason to do otherwise, the main road still
made the most sense. It would all depend on how much resistance they met.

It can’t be this easy, Grant kept thinking. There’s no way this will be a cakewalk.
Frederickson had gone surprisingly well, but they had gotten lucky. Bennington had
pulled that off almost single handedly. That couldn’t be expected in Olympia.

If they suffered massive casualties, it would be in the next few hours, Grant thought.
They’d have several troops picked off in Olympia during the occupation, Grant figured,
but a massive hit would come on the road when they were all in one place. Hopefully
the semi- trailer wouldn’t get hit.

The main road turned into Frederickson eventually became the main street through town.
They traveled slowly. Nineteen Delta was a very cautious guy. Thank God.