by Glen Tate
“Winters is dead,” Bennington said through the door, remembering the sound of his neck bones snapping under his boot. “Lots of the others, too. No one is left to hurt you. I saved you, Julie, and now I need to help you some more. You are not safe in this building. Trust me.”
She unlocked, and slowly opened, the door. There he was. He looked so handsome. More than that, he was there to help her. Unlike all the others. He was there to protect her. She couldn’t believe how lucky she was.
“Grab any medications or other things you need,” Bennington said. “Right now! I need to get you out of here. Grab everything you need.”
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.”
Chapter 275
“Good Evening, Officer”
(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.”
Chapter 276
“Let’s Go to Work”
(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.
He pulled the paper back and said to Bobby, “You need to tell me what channel the gall bladder surgeon talks to you on.”
Bobby nodded and looked at Scotty.
“Eleven,” Scotty yelled across the cab and out the window to Mendez.
“That’s what I thought, but you can’t be too careful with things like this,” Mendez said and handed the paper to Bobby. Bobby handed it to Grant, in the rear of the cab.
“I’ll be sitting in my cruiser for a while,” Mendez said as he walked back to his police car. He got in and turned the lights off. Now that he had made contact with the reinforcements, he could turn the lights off and not be giving away his position to the gangs any longer.
Grant looked at the paper. It was addressed to “Rich’s guys.” Grant scanned it and smiled. He got out of the truck and walked over to the semi cab, where Ted was.
“This is fucking brilliant,” Grant said to Ted. “Rich’s cop friend, who is named Bennington, killed a bunch of the cop and gang leadership, started a war between the two, and now is in the radio room at the courthouse. He gave us 144.75 as the frequency to talk to him on and a code phrase to authenticate ourselves.”
Grant pointed over toward the courthouse, which was at least a mile away. “And, get this,” he said. “Bennington has called out a posse of the Patriot cops who got fired. Now they, the good cops, will start popping the gangs and bad cops.”
“Chaos,” Ted said with a smile. “Exactly what we need right now.”
“Bennington needs some help from us,” Grant said, scanning the paper again. “He needs us to make a show of force where the gangs are rallying and planning an attack on the courthouse.” Grant pointed to the handwritten map Bennington had drawn and told Ted the plan Bennington had written down.
“This is great,” Ted said. “Let’s do it.”
Grant ran back to Mark’s truck. The inter-unit radios were crackling. Ted got on the radio and briefed Sap, who was in the back of the semi. Ted knew everyone in the semi-trailer could hear the radio, so he was effectively talking to everyone. His voice was always calm, but he paid extra attention to sounding calm so everyone in the semi-trailer would know things were under control. Hearing the briefing, even one delivered by a calm leader like Ted, increased the emotions in the semi-trailer. The nervousness level went up in the trailer, as did the excitement level. This was real. It was go time. They were heading into a big fight.
Ted quickly briefed the chase truck and the scout car so now everyone knew
the plan. He made sure every car had drawn out a map of where they needed to be. There would be no GPS for this maneuver. Thank God, Ted thought, that some people still knew how to use a map. After years of relying on GPS, many people had lost this knowledge.
Jim Q. got on the 144.75 mHz frequency on the ham radio band and said, “Gall Bladder Surgeon, this is Cavalry 1,” which was the code phrase Bennington had given the 17th.
“Do you copy?”
Bennington came on the radio. “Cavalry 1, this is Gall Bladder Surgeon, copy.”
“We have the paper and are proceeding as instructed,” Jim Q. said.
“Roger that,” Bennington said. “See you in a few.”
Mendez would drive the lead car and direct them where they needed to go. Even with a guide, someone in each vehicle was acting as the navigator with the hand drawn maps they had quickly scribbled. They made sure that the direction they were going in was consistent with the map. The convoy was now rolling.
The 17th could hear an increase in the rate of fire, and it was getting louder as they got closer to their objective. It was now getting frighteningly loud and constant. There were wild bursts of fire; high-volume, “spray and pray” fire that seemed random instead of well-aimed. Then there would be single shots that seemed more deliberate and careful. It was impossible to know if the gangs were doing the spray and pray or if the cops were terrified and doing it. It seemed like after a wild burst, a few single shots would put an end to the bursts.
There was a real firefight going on—and they were heading straight into it. Just as they had been all day, the soldiers of the 17th were a combination of excited and afraid – but even more so now that they heard the fight they were about get into. Everyone was silent, straining to hear any little noise that could tell them more about what they were facing. No one wanted to talk and distract the others.
“One more block and then we dismount,” Nineteen Delta said into the radio. The convoy slowed and then came to a gentle stop.
