299 Days: The Stronghold 2d-4

by Glen Tate

  Chip started checking the labels on the ends of the boxes. “How about standard M4s? Carry handles and standard handguards?”

  Granted nodded. “Yeah, we don’t need to give out the good stuff.” About half of Chip’s guns were the fancier models with flat tops and rails for mounting optics and other accessories, like lights. The standard M4s didn’t have those features. They were general issue military carbines, except they weren’t fully automatic. They were great guns, just not all tricked out.

  Chip selected two gun boxes and handed them to Grant. Chip went to one of the big boxes of magazines and pulled out twenty standard aluminum magazines. He tested each follower to make sure it worked. They all did. He handed each magazine to Grant after he tested it. Grant found an empty box to put them in. Then Chip went over to the ammo stack, looked at the label and turned to Grant and asked, “A full case of 5.56? Really? Ouch.”

  Grant just nodded.

  “OK,” Chip said. He grabbed a full case—1,000 rounds—of 5.56. It was heavy and he was in his sixties, so he lifted it slowly. He brought the case over to the two gun boxes and the magazine box Grant had over by him.

  Grant looked at the guns, ammo, and magazines and said, “Thanks, man. Seriously. This is a life-saving thing you’re doing.”

  Chip smiled. “Oh, I know. That’s why I’m doing it.”

  Grant motioned that he would go outside and make sure no one was looking. He trusted everyone upstairs with his life, but…he still didn’t want anyone to know that they had enough guns, ammo, and magazines to outfit about forty fighters. That’s just not something to share. Until it’s time. And it wasn’t time yet.

  Grant went out into the daylight and saw that no one was around. He came back in and grabbed a couple of beach towels and motioned for Chip to bring the guns out. They went to Mark’s truck and put them in the bed. Grant covered them with the beach towels. Next, came the box of magazines and the case of ammo, which Grant carried. They all fit under the towels. Grant put some pieces of firewood on the towels to keep them on.

  Grant said to Chip, “Hey, man, you go have yourself some pancakes. You’ve earned them. I’ll hang out here. Then tell Mark we need his keys to take something up to the Grange. Tell him to enjoy breakfast. We got this all by ourselves. You can have someone at the Grange run the truck back to him later this morning.”

  Grant took this opportunity to sit and just take in the sun and nature out there. God, it was beautiful that May morning. Birds chirping. Sunny and warm with a slight breeze. Nature was still its beautiful self, right in the middle of all the human chaos.

  A few minutes later, Chip came out with Mark’s keys. He had his AR slung across his chest, a paper plate of pancakes in his hands, and a plastic fork in his mouth. It was the oddest thing Grant had ever seen, but it made perfect sense.

  Chip got in the bed of the truck and Grant started up the engine. Chip was busy keeping the firewood on the towels, balancing his AR, and working on those pancakes. How a guy could simultaneously sit in the bed of truck and do all that at the same time was unclear, but Chip was doing it.

  It was almost 8:00 a.m. when they pulled into the Grange. Perfect. That’s when they were supposed to meet Rich, but his truck was already in the parking lot.

  “You finish up those pancakes and guard the goodies,” Grant said to Chip, who nodded. Grant went in and saw Rich. He motioned for him to come out. Rich came to the truck and looked in the bed. Chip pulled the towels back and showed Rich what they had brought. Rich smiled.

  Grant said, “Rich, I love you man, but I’m not telling you where these came from. These were hidden.” Grant was trying to imply that these two ARs were all he had. “I can’t say who I got them from, but I did. Legally. Well, to the extent anything is legal. You know what I mean. I didn’t steal these.”

  Rich understood. He wasn’t offended that Grant didn’t disclose where he got them. Rich assumed they were extras the Team had, though it was odd that the Team would have extra guns in their factory boxes like this. Oh well. Rich didn’t think about it too much. He was just glad they had them.

  “Great,” Rich said. “Thanks, gentlemen. Let’s get these in my truck with those towels on them. Grant, you should watch them. Chip needs to get the day Grange guard organized and operating.” Chip gave Rich a friendly salute and hopped out of the bed of the truck. He took his syrup-soaked pancake plate and put it in the garbage. He went off and started getting the day guards together. It was work time.

  Grant sat in the back of Rich’s truck and chatted with people. They offered him breakfast. He’d already eaten some pancakes, but he took some more breakfast. He could never predict when he might miss a meal, or two.

  A volunteer, a teenager Grant had met down at the gate, came up to Grant and asked for the keys to Mark’s truck. He said he was going to pick up the Team and Mark so Mark could drive the truck back. Grant handed him the keys.

  Grant stayed in Rich’s truck chatting with people. About a half hour later, the Team arrived in full kit, as usual. Since they didn’t know the source of the guns, it was OK to tell them what was going on. As soon as they got settled, Grant told someone to send the Team out to Rich’s truck. They came out and saw Grant sitting in the bed of the truck, which was odd. Grant looked around to make sure no one else saw them. He motioned for them to come closer.

  Grant whispered, “We have two ARs to sell in town. Don’t ask where they came from. I didn’t steal them.” The Team was very surprised to see Grant had some ARs. They all started to wonder how he got them. They weren’t coming up with any answers.

  Knowing that they would be wondering where the ARs came from, Grant said, “Community donations.” That was true, just not the whole story. They were Chip’s community donations, but were still “community donations.” Grant couldn’t lie to the Team, but he felt OK telling them part of the truth when it was necessary.

  “We’re going into town to buy us some medical supplies and,” Grant winked at Rich, “something else that you’ll see later.” Rich smiled.

  Grant continued. “I’d like Pow and Ryan to come with Rich and Cindy, the nurse. I can’t go because of that POI thing. And Wes…well, some Mexicans are looking for a white dude with an AK underfolder right now, so he’s out.” Wes was embarrassed, but still smiling.

  “I chose Pow and Ryan for a couple of reasons,” Grant said. “I want Pow because he’s Asian. He’ll stand out in a crowd there in Frederickson. I want people there talking about ‘that SEAL-looking Asian dude. Don’t mess with Pierce Point.’ I want kind of a signature thing and Pow’s ‘ninja’ bad-assness is perfect.” Pow was smiling and very proud that his “ninja bad-assness” was a selling point.

  “I also want Ryan because he’s a local,” Grant said. “I want the Frederickson people to know that Ryan and Rich out at Pierce Point have recruited some stranger badass support. Something exotic. And a six-foot Korean in full kit fits the bill.” The guys were patting Pow on the back and laughing.

  “Why not take us all as a show of force?” Bobby asked.

  “Good question,” Grant said. “That was my first idea, but we need plenty of the Team back here to deal with anything that might come up while they’re gone. We don’t want to put all our eggs in one basket. While we have reason to believe our little shopping party won’t be arrested,” Grant again looked at Rich, who smiled back, “we would only lose a few of our Team—but not all—if that happened.” Bobby nodded, satisfied with the answer.

  Grant pointed to the packages under the towels. “Not a word about these. Not to anyone. We do not need people knowing that we have extra ARs or people speculating that we have more. Seriously. Not a word.”

  “What ARs?” Scotty said.

  “Don’t see nuthin’,” Wes said, pretending to be the stereotypical dumb southerner.

  “Exactly,” Grant said as he looked at his watch. That was another new thing in Grant’s life: a watch. Pre-Collapse he always used his cell phone to keep track of
time. Now he didn’t use his cell phone because he could be tracked by it. So he dug out his old Timex, which still worked perfectly well. He was quickly getting used to it being on his wrist. With all the coordination of plans requiring him to be places at certain times, he had to have a watch.

  “Rich, Pow, and Ryan will meet Cindy here at 9:00 a.m., which is in twenty minutes. The rest of you will get the day’s jobs from Dan, who I think will have you guys down at the gate today training some of the new guards. I will be going to Mrs. Roth’s funeral at noon and working on administrative things, like the meal cards. Tomorrow, when the full Team is back, we’ll resume our visits to the residents. Any questions?”

  Everyone shook their heads.

  “Okely dokely,” Grant said, imitating Ned Flanders of the Simpsons. “Let’s go to work.” The group broke up and went into the Grange to talk to Dan.

  Pow and Ryan went over their gear with Grant. Pow had his body armor plates in a load bearing vest which had magazine pouches all over it. He carried four double AR magazine pouches, which was 240 rounds, plus the thirty rounds in his carbine. Well, actually 252, since Pow and the Team only loaded a magazine with twenty-eight rounds instead of thirty to prevent any feeding malfunctions, which were extremely rare. But still. Why not take out the possibility of a malfunction when your life depended on the gun going bang? Pow also had four seventeen-round Glock pistol magazines in two double-mag pouches and one mag in his pistol. He had a fairly large first aid kit on the back of his kit. And his Camelbak water bladder. Lots of guys thought ammo was more important than water, but a person drinks several times a day and almost never fires their gun. Which was more important?

  Pow also had Grant’s Gerber LMF knife hanging upside down on the webbing of his left shoulder, his non-firing shoulder. Normally, Pow didn’t carry a knife on his kit because he wasn’t trained at knife fighting and didn’t want to pull a knife on someone, not know how to use it, and get it taken away only to be used on him. Grant was the same way, almost never carrying anything other than his Zero Tolerance folding knife. But, Grant had brought his thoroughly badass Gerber LMF along knowing that he needed to “dress up” Pow for an extra badass appearance. It was a little bit of theater. With his sunglasses, 5.11s, and combat boots, Pow looked like a military contractor. Perfect. Let the rumors fly about the professional gun fighters out at Pierce Point. It wasn’t true, of course, but that was a false impression that was good to have out there.

  Ryan was using extra kit borrowed from various Team members. Ryan, who was still in Marine shape from his recent return from Afghanistan, looked plenty badass himself. He was wearing his Marine camouflage-pattern pants, a black tee shirt, and boots.

  Rich handed a handheld CB to Pow and Ryan. “These are more for show. I don’t think we’ll need them, but I want the Frederickson boys to think we’re all equipped with these.”

  “Why not the ham radios?” Ryan asked. “I mean, they’re way more high speed than CBs.”

  “Because I don’t want people in town to know that we have hams,” Rich said. “Ham is the way we do our sensitive communications. If they know we have them, they might start trying to listen in on those frequencies. Let them listen in all they want on CB, which is where we say routine things. But also let them think we have tons of handheld CBs out here, which we don’t. This trip is as much about starting the legend of Pierce Point as it is getting medical supplies.”

  Cindy came out to the Rich’s truck. She had a clipboard and several garbage bags in which to bring things back.

  “Good morning,” Ryan said to her.

  “Morning,” she said, nervously. She was scared. She knew town was dangerous. Really dangerous. She was glad she had an extremely well-armed escort, but she was still scared. She really didn’t want to be doing this, but she knew she had to.

  Ryan made a facial gesture to Pow and Rich that Cindy needed to be made comfortable. They nodded. They would ease Cindy’s mind.

  Cindy got in the cab with Rich. Pow and Ryan got in the back of the truck and opened the rear window to the cab so they could talk to Rich and Cindy. They started down the road toward the gate. The guys began to banter about the weather and all the things they were going to do in a few hours when they came back—safely, of course.

  “What are the Grange ladies serving up for lunch?” Ryan asked.

  “Dunno, man,” Pow said, “but I hope it’s those deer burgers. And, damn, that potato salad. Hey, Cindy, you had that potato salad?”

  She nodded. “It’s good,” she added. She was relaxing a little. She hadn’t slept the night before worrying about going into town. Not just about danger to herself, but about seeing all the horrible things going on in town. She wasn’t sure she was prepared for it.

  Just before they got to the gate, Cindy asked, “Did you guys bring money? How are we paying for these?”

  Rich pointed toward the back of the truck and said, “We have something much better than money. You’ll see.” Rich realized that they hadn’t told Cindy the plan yet so it was no wonder she was nervous. Just going to town without money would be a scary thing.

  “We have some valuables to trade for the medical supplies,” Rich said, pointing toward the back of the truck. “Then we’ll meet someone who will, shall we say, cut the red tape for us and take us to someone who has medical supplies for sale. Don’t worry. We have this thing well planned.”

  Cindy relaxed some more. She thought Rich had done plenty of things right in the past and seemed to know what he was doing. She was reassured they had a plan and something to trade for the medical supplies.

  Rich got on the CB. “Bennington, leaving now. See you at the rendezvous in about five minutes.” Pow’s and Ryan’s CB’s echoed with this. They were all on the same channel. Of course.

  “OK. See you soon,” the other voice, which must be Bennington, said.

  Rich’s truck came up to the gate. Ryan made sure the towels were over the packages. The guards seemed puzzled when the guys and Cindy didn’t get out of the truck to be at the guard station. Were they going into town?

  “Gotta do some errands,” Rich said with a smile to Dan, who knew the plan. Dan shouted, “Let them through.” The steel-pole gate swung open and out they went. It was scary to be leaving the safety of Pierce Point. The guys were mildly scared, but wouldn’t admit it. Cindy was terrified, but was trying to calm herself down.

  They went across the bridge and turned down the road to Frederickson. Rich, trying to ease the tension, looked at his gas gauge and said, “Full tank.” He had been getting fuel donated to him from various neighbors with gallon gas cans of gas siphoned from vehicles they no longer drove. Cindy nodded. One less thing to worry about, she thought.

  She finally admitted it to herself. It wasn’t getting shot or even dying that she worried about. It was getting raped. That word was so ugly. She hated to even think it, so she didn’t. She thought about getting caught by a group of men, but then her thinking cut off and went back to the beginning when she got caught. She could never complete the thought about what would happen after getting caught. She couldn’t. She was starting to grip the clipboard hard. Rich could tell she was really scared.

  Rich gently put his hand on the clipboard and said, “We’re all scared, but we’ll be fine. I do this kind of thing for a living. I’ve come home every time.” He looked away from the road and directly at her and said, “You have three extremely good gunfighters working for you. We’re way better than any of the punks in town. Seriously. We know what we’re doing. We have a plan and, as you’ll see, help from ‘friends.’ We’re good at this, just like you’re good at nursing.” He wanted to change her thinking from guns to nursing, which was, after all, why they were going into town. Well, the medical supplies were one of the two reasons they were going into town.

  About a mile after the Pierce Point gate, Rich slowed down before a gas station. It had a sign up that said, “NO GAS” and looked like it had been looted. There was a police car th
ere.

  Cindy was alarmed. The men in the truck had guns that were illegal—especially those Army-looking guns—and now they were letting the police see them?

  “Part of the plan,” Rich said with a smile. “You’ll see.” Even though Cindy was about to see what was going on, Rich had secrecy so drilled into him that he didn’t want to tell her even a minute in advance. That made no sense, but it was how he was.

  Rich said to the guys in the back, “Rendezvous. Keep your eyes open for more than one guy, though.” Rich didn’t want his cargo to get stolen. He basically trusted Bennington, but he couldn’t be too sure in this climate. In many ways, this rendezvous was the most dangerous part of the trip into town.

  Pow and Ryan scanned. There was no one around, unless the bad guys had snipers on the roof of the gas station, and the shot angle wouldn’t work too well if they did. Rich saw that there was apparently only one cop in the car. Good.

  He pulled up alongside the police car. The cop waved. Rich said, “Mornin’ John.” Rich tapped on the back window.

  Pow and Ryan jumped out and started sweeping the area with their ARs. They looked extremely professional and intimidating. Good.

  This startled Bennington, but he realized that they had every right to be taking security precautions. He acted like it was no big deal even though it was jarring.

  Rich said to Cindy, “Stay in here. We’ll be back in a minute.” She nodded. She had the feeling that this was actually all well planned. She didn’t know exactly what was going to happen, but she knew it was well planned. That alone was comforting.

  Rich got out of his truck and came over to the cop car door and Bennington got out.

  Rich shook his hand and smiled. “Nice to see you again, John.”

  “Nice to see you, too,” Bennington said.

  Rich walked to the back of the truck and lifted up the towels. “Well, John, just like we talked about on the radio last night,” Rich smiled, “it seems that I have two AR-15s, ten magazines, and a full case of 5.56 to ‘turn in’ to the authorities. All those items being illegal and all, I wanted to do my civic duty and get them to you for safekeeping.”