299 Days VIII: The War (38 page)

“Instead of killing this traitor, like I had every right to do,” Grant said to the
crowd, “we took him out of the fight. But we let him live. He’ll be a productive member
of society in a few weeks when his hands heal. The ‘L’ on his face will wear off in
a few weeks. That’s reconciliation.”

Grant walked up a few inches from Zack’s face and softly, but eerily, said, “You understand
me, young man?”

Zack nodded slowly. He had stopped crying by now.

Everyone was silent.

“No other texting,” Ted said after coming back from searching all the guards. “All
the others are clean.”

Grant turned to Ford. “I trust that you will keep all your guards’ cell phones, so
if we have another little shit like this that a hundred of my men don’t get killed.”

Ford nodded. He didn’t like being ordered around by Grant but, he had to admit, Grant
made sense. Actually, as Ford thought about it, his anger was not at Grant, but rather,
it was embarrassment that one of his men had been a spy.

“Okay,” Grant said. “Let’s get back to work.”

The soldiers shuffled around and got their gear together.

“Okay, 17th,” Grant said. “Let’s get in our rigs and roll. Thanks for lunch Mr. Ford.”

(January 1)

In the Cedars, Ron Spencer was just waking up late on New Year’s Day morning. He’d
been out all New Year’s Eve night tagging slogans in town. Ron’s contact with the
Patriots, Matt Collins, had been arrested a few weeks ago and hadn’t been heard of
since. A new contact, Joel Edwards, took over for Matt and gave Ron instructions.
Joel’s instruction for New Year’s Eve was to spray paint “Welcome, Patriots!” all
over Olympia.

Welcome. That must explain the gun fire and explosions Ron heard all night. They sounded
far away, but slowly got closer. And then there were bursts of fire nearby from random
directions, like people were going on shooting sprees inside the various neighborhoods.
It was all very confusing, unless you knew that Patriots were taking the city that
night.

And they were going to take Olympia. Ron was sure of it. Every day he got to see how
weak the Limas were, how they were hanging onto power in the city by a thread. The
only reason people in this town were putting up with the gangs and government thugs
was that most of the people were part of the system themselves. They were government
employees—well, former government employees after the many budget cuts, or they still
worked for the government in the FCorps or other capacities. Perhaps they made their
living off of bribes or as white-collar gang members trafficking in “contraband” (and
everything was contraband). Health care. Home repairs. Everything required a permit
and no one gave out permits, so it was all underground. Just about everyone in Olympia
was part of it, so they all wanted the Limas to stay in power. Not because they liked
the Limas, but because they were caught up in the system.

It was sad, Ron thought. Most of these people caught up in the system weren’t bad.
They didn’t wake up one morning and decide to be part of a corrupt government and
oppress their neighbors. They started out a few years ago just doing their government
job, accepting the money and benefits that came with that. Voting for people who would
keep taxing other people to pay for their jobs. Then, when things got bad, these same
decent people thought they could wait it out. Things would get better. They always
did: this was America. In the meantime, they needed to join the FCorps or even put
out a “We Support the Recovery!” yard sign. No big deal. It wasn’t like they were
robbing people. They just had a yard sign up.

If morality wasn’t an issue, it made sense to be a government supporter in Olympia.
You got more credits on your FCard. You kept your job (if you had one). You didn’t
get visited by the FCorps. Your friends liked you because you weren’t a “teabagger.”
You were just like everyone else.

It happened slowly. One little compromise, one little “practical” decision after another.
Harmless little decisions, like accepting an FCard with more credits than your neighbor
who didn’t have a “We Support the Recovery!” yard sign. Little decisions like that.
Just doing what everyone else was doing. If everyone else was doing it, it couldn’t
be wrong, could it?

Closely related to the slow process of accepting more and more government controls
was the fact that most people in Olympia could not take care of themselves. They were
dependent, totally dependent on the government. Without food in the stores and the
credits on the FCard, they would starve. Deciding not to go along with the government
meant starving, and your kids going hungry. That was too high a price to pay for some
idealistic emotional decision like not putting up a yard sign. It was
just
a yard sign, compared to your family starving. It was an easy decision to make.

Another reason why the population of Olympia put up with the Limas was that they were
disarmed. While Ron and a few others in his neighborhood secretly had guns, almost
no one else in the city was that fortunate. The general population had long ago been
told that guns were evil and dangerous. Having a gun meant you were a redneck teabagger,
so the population was largely unarmed and, not surprisingly, had no way to push the
gangs and government back.

Ron thought about how most of the people around him had slowly morphed into what they
had become, how they were dependent and disarmed. He had been seeing it going on the
whole time. At first, he said something and tried to persuade people, but they looked
at him like he was crazy, and a little dangerous. At first they were polite. Then
they weren’t. Then they refused to talk to him. He was lucky he wasn’t hauled off.
The only reason that he wasn’t was that the government had too few prisons. And Ron
could bribe his way out of it with the silver he had stashed away.

He realized how close he could have been to being one of them. He could have bought
into the “way it is,” that big government was necessary, and even a compassionate
way to make sure the poor were fed. He could have been dependent if it weren’t for
that silver. He could have listened to his neighbors and not owned a gun.

So Ron couldn’t really hate all his neighbors. He could have been just like them;
he was just a few decisions away from being one of them. That didn’t excuse what they
had done; they had hurt people and ruined lives. They had to be stopped. Ron wanted
them to pay for what they’d done; it was just that revenge wasn’t his strongest urge.
What he really wanted was for all of this to stop. For all his neighbors to admit
they had made a mistake and start a new way of life. One that didn’t depend on taking
things from other people.

Ron wasn’t just going to sit around and dream about how to make it stop. He was doing
something about it, concrete and dangerous things. At least he could die knowing he
tried.

Ron thought back on everything he had done. He had tagged numerous Patriot slogans
all over town. On Christmas Eve, he tagged the Lima “Carlos cabal” members in his
neighborhood with big “L” on their doors. That freaked them out. They were terrified
and angry. They had actually believed that they were popular in the neighborhood.
Their sense of popularity and security had been shaken to the core. They suspected
Ron and even came to his house on Christmas morning. But Ron’s wife, and even his
adorable little kids, lied for him and said he was with them that night. They looked
throughout the house but never found any spray paint. They looked on Ron’s hands and
didn’t find any traces of paint. Duh. He used disposable latex gloves.

Ron had to quit patting himself on the back about his Christmas Eve tagging and focus
on what he would be doing in the next few hours and days. He was on standby for a
big mission. He had to let the Patriot forces coming through know who the Limas and
Patriots were in the neighborhood. Ron knew. He had a list of addresses and a handwritten
map, but it was unknown if Patriot forces would come through Ron’s specific area,
so he may never be activated for that mission.

But Ron would still be the Patriot’s liaison for this neighborhood. He would handle
any problems that came up before the city was finally taken. If Limas in the neighborhood
went on a rampage against him or his Patriot and ULP neighbors, Ron would lead the
effort to fight back, which could be house-to-house fighting. That would mean shooting
his neighbors at close range. Ron had a shotgun and a few pistols. He made sure his
wife, Sherri, was ready to use them, if needed.

Ron was on his own for this phase. Free styling, as the Patriots called it. Ron had
been getting instructions from Joel Edwards, but that required face-to-face discussions.
Joel would be hunkered down in his own neighborhood during the attack on the city.
Cell phones would be down, of course, and they weren’t secure enough to talk on, anyway.
Besides, there wasn’t much that needed to be communicated. Just make your neighborhood
as helpful to the Patriots as possible and take out any Limas coming after you. Other
than that, just wait for the Patriots to establish order throughout the city. Then,
when the Patriots get to your neighborhood, tell them who the Limas are. No detailed
plan was necessary.

“It’s finally happening,” Ron said to himself. Finally, all the corruption would be
over. All the stealing. All the violence they did, or allowed to be done. All the
gangs. All the FCorps thugs, their FCards to politically connected people. All the
neighbors spying on neighbors just to get extra FCard credits. Finally, it would be
over.

Ron’s wife was up and came into the kitchen that morning. “Happy New Year’s,” he said,
giving her a big kiss.

(January 1)

“Kill him,” Mr. Shipley told Freddy, handing him a lead pipe. “They did it to us.
Remember what they did to us.”

Freddy was shaking under the street light in a really crappy part of Olympia. Garbage
was blowing around and the whole place smelled like piss and people who hadn’t taken
a bath in months. It was loud out on the street. There was gunfire and explosions
about a mile away. People were running around screaming. Some were screaming in pain
and others were screaming with joy at hunting people down to kill them.

“Remember what they did, Freddy,” Mr. Shipley said again. Mr. Shipley was in his sixties,
and with a long beard, he looked like one of the ZZ Top guys. He was like a father
figure to Freddy, who was a mildly developmentally disabled homeless man in his thirties.

Freddy nodded. Mr. Shipley was right. He was always right. But Freddy had never killed
anyone. He had never actually hurt anyone.

“Go ahead,” Mr. Shipley said. “Go ahead, Freddy. Remember what they’ve done.”

Horrible and sickening visions passed through Freddy’s head. They were vivid memories.
He remembered what the yellow helmets had done. Freddy felt a surge of adrenaline.
Of hateful adrenaline. He gripped the pipe. He looked the terrified FCorps man in
the eyes. The FCorps man was trying to scream, but the duct tape on his mouth prevented
that. The man communicated his horror with his eyes. Those eyes.

That man wasn’t a human being, Freddy told himself. That man was one of them. One
of them, who hurt people. Just for fun. Then, Freddy started to remember what the
FCorps men had done to Freddy and his friends. Freddy was fighting this feeling. He
was trying not to hate, but he couldn’t resist it anymore.

Freddy sensed that someone had hit the FCorps man in the head with a pipe. The man’s
head exploded with blood spurting everywhere. Freddy looked. The pipe was in his hand.
He was the one who hit the man.

He kept hitting the man in the head. The man’s eyes were crossed. He was trying to
scream, but no sound was coming out. Freddy looked as the pipe just kept hitting the
man’s head.

Pretty soon, the man’s eyes closed and he slumped to the concrete.

“Nice, Freddy, very nice,” Mr. Shipley said. “He had it coming. You know he did, right?”

Freddy nodded. He didn’t feel bad about killing this man. He thought he would, but
he wanted to fit in and please Mr. Shipley who had done so much for him and all the
guys. Mr. Shipley would never ask him to do something wrong.

“OK, Freddy, go back to the line and we’ll try to get into that building,” Mr. Shipley
said, pointing to a storage unit warehouse. “There might be some of them in there.”

Freddy nodded and put the now bloody lead pipe in his back pocket. He might need it
again.

“Oh,” Mr. Shipley said. “Don’t forget the helmet. Take that and give it to one of
the guys. We can use it to trick them into thinking we’re one of them.”

Freddy nodded, picked up the helmet, and started heading back to his guys.

Holding the helmet felt weird. Freddy hated those helmets, but now he was holding
one. He couldn’t believe how strange it felt to actually hold one. The helmet terrified
him, but he was in control. He had the helmet, and the guy wearing it was now dead.

“I did good, Mr. Shipley,” Freddy said.

“Yes you did, Freddy,” Mr. Shipley said with a big smile. “Yes, you did. Very good.”