299 Days IX: The Restoration (14 page)

“Prisoner says she’s the only one,” he said into the radio. “Whatever. Expect bad guys.”

“If there is anyone else here,” he said to Nancy, “You’ll hear a loud noise and a tremendous burning sensation as I shoot you.” He let that sink in. “It’ll hurt. A lot.”

Nancy started crying.

“So,” he said, “I’ll ask again: how many others are here?”

“I’m it,” Nancy said between sobs. “Everyone else left.”

“Where did they go?” the man asked.

“I dunno,” she said. “They just left. This place isn’t safe.”

“Like the football field?” he screamed. “Yeah, it’s pretty dangerous out there. We know what you guys did.” He wasn’t going to tell her that the Patriots had captured several of the Clover Park guards who confessed to the massacre at the football field. He was one of the Patriot special operations troops behind the JBLM line who conducted raids and executed other impromptu missions, like liberating prison camps. He’d seen some awful things, but a mass killing like this was the worst he’d heard of.

“We had to make room for refugees,” Nancy blurted out, realizing that she was incriminating herself. While she suspected this man was a teabagger, she still couldn’t fully believe they were operating behind the JBLM line. That wasn’t supposed to happen.

“So then, you were part of the football field incident?” the man asked, thanking his lucky stars that he seemed to be getting a confession from this prisoner.

“I didn’t do any of it,” she said. “Others did.”

“Why are you here?” the man asked. He turned when he heard people running up to his position. They were his teammates.

“I,” she started to say and then the other contractors started talking to the man about other threats and where to search next.

“You what?” the man finally said, after talking to his teammates.

“I told them to do it,” she said. She realized she shouldn’t have said that, but she wanted to get it off her chest. She immediately felt better.

“Spud Six, Oscar Romeo,” the man said, “I got the ringleader.”

Chapter 307

“Let’s Go Fix This State”

(January 2)

Patriot EPU agent Mike Turner heard what he’d been waiting for … for years.

“Carrot cake.”

That’s what the radio operator at the Think Farm said.

Mike felt a surge of adrenaline when he heard those two magical words.

“Cream cheese frosting,” Mike responded into the radio, which was the encoded reply showing that he received the code phrase and would carry out the mission.

This was it. Mike’s years of watching the government slowly imploding. The corruption. The outright theft. Putting innocent people in jail. Letting guilty ones go. Maintaining a secret membership in Oath Keepers and worrying about getting caught, then defecting from the State Patrol’s Executive Protection Unit, or EPU, a few months ago and becoming a guerilla behind enemy lines. All of it. It all came down to “carrot cake” which was the code phrase for the order to bring the Interim Governor and his staff in to Olympia. It meant the Patriots had taken the city and were holding it. That they would start governing and fixing things. Everything Mike had risked his life for during the past several years was finally here.

It was 11:32 p.m. Time to get going while it was still dark. Mike alerted his fellow former EPU members that it was time to go. They woke the families, who had been expecting this.

They’d heard the faint gunfire and explosions in Olympia for the past two days. In fact, they were getting nervous that the Patriots hadn’t taken the city yet. They were relieved to get word that they had to get into cars and drive into a city where lots of people wanted to kill them. That was a relief compared to the thought that Olympia had not been taken, which would mean they would be hiding out on the Prosser Farm forever. Or worse.

The Interim Governor, Ben Trenton, and his chief of staff, Tom Foster, would go into Olympia with Ben’s director of legislative affairs, Brian Jenkins. Also joining them would be Carly Johnson. She would be the assistant director of legislative affairs. She risked her life to get the EPU out to the Prosser Farm so all of this could happen.

Wives, and especially children, would stay behind at the Prosser Farm. They would be protected there. To everyone’s knowledge, no one other than the immediate neighbors knew who was staying out there. That had been a miracle, but hiding on a farm where all the neighbors were relatives made that possible. The presence of the EPU agents and their sophisticated equipment, to the extent anyone even saw them, was explained with the story that Tom Foster had a rich relative who had paid for a private personal security detail. Rich people were hiring lots of former military and law enforcement people, and sometimes current ones, to protect them. That seemingly outlandish story made perfect sense in the insane world of post-Collapse America.

After everyone was awake, there were quick goodbyes. The wives, Karen Jenkins in particular, were scared. They knew their husbands were in amazingly good hands, but still it was hard to say, “Okay, go off into a war zone and become the enemy’s biggest target for assassination. See you in a while. I won’t worry.”

The kids were taking it pretty well. They were mostly older, around middle school age and a few in high school. They had been told for quite a while that their dads would be leaving to go back to Olympia and do some important things—things that would allow the kids to go back to their normal lives. To live in their own homes, to go to school, to not have people with guns around. Well, that last one wouldn’t change. These kids, given who their parents were, would have EPU agents around them for the rest of their lives. But, overall, the kids’ lives would be back to normal when their dads could go back to Olympia and fix all the bad things that had happened.

Packing took no time at all because they had all their bags pre-loaded. Ben changed out of sweatpants and into jeans. Brad, the chief of the EPU unit, didn’t want to waste any time with apparel changes.

“Governor, no one will see you arriving,” Brad said. “We have suits your size coming from the Think Farm. You’ll have a tailor there at the capitol to finish them off. You’ll look fine.” Brad was used to vain dignitaries that he had to guard. Ben wasn’t vain—he was amazingly humble, in fact—but he
was
a politician.

Ben smiled. “I’m not getting into jeans for fashion,” he said. “My sweats won’t hold a holster belt.” Ben showed Brad the Sig he was carrying and Brad smiled. A holster belt was an acceptable reason to make an apparel change, especially given what they would be doing in the next few hours.

The families gathered in the living room and just stood there silently. They didn’t know what else they were supposed to do. They’d never had to watch their fathers and husbands leave with a personal security detail to a battlefield before. Not many people had.

The plan was for Brad and Jerry Schafer, the EPU agent who was a former Marine, to accompany the “principals,” as protectees were called. Jerry would drive. They would travel light, with just two EPU agents, but it was just for a while and then they’d pick up an escort detail.

Two EPU agents, Mike Turner, the coms guy, and Chrissy Mendez would stay. They needed coms back at the farm and Chrissy, besides being a spectacular gun fighter, was very good at calming kids … and wives.

“Okay, let’s go,” Brad said. He looked at the families. “You’ll be in extremely good hands with Mike and Chrissy.” There was a tradition in the EPU that the protectees could call their agents by their first names instead of “Trooper Turner” or “Trooper Mendez.”

“Bye,” the kids and wives said one by one. Everyone got a final hug.

“Let’s go,” said Brad. He had radioed in to the first checkpoint that they’d be there in a few minutes and he didn’t want to be late. Being late in a personal security detail was a big deal.

The protectees and agents got into one of the two EPU vehicles, a black armored Chevy Suburban. Very nice. Brad had stolen it during the chaos of the Collapse. Mike had stolen the com van, too. With all the budget cuts right at the end, Brad and Mike, and most of the other state employees who weren’t politically connected, hadn’t been paid in a few months, and what salaries they got were totally eaten up by the runaway inflation. So they decided to settle up with the state by taking a couple of vehicles. Fair trade, they thought.

Jerry started up the Suburban. A full tank of gas. Of course. Tires inflated to the correct pressure. A map of the route for the driver and navigator. Radios set to the correct frequencies, a notebook with backup frequencies, and plenty of charged spare radio batteries. Plenty of firearms and ammunition, and a bulletproof vest for each protectee. Of course.

They took off down the long driveway and looked at the Prosser Farm. For the last time?

Of course not, Ben reassured himself. The Prosser Farm would hopefully be a museum in a few years. Showing where the Governor had to hide out during the Collapse. Hopefully. If everything worked out. It had so far, Ben reassured himself.

Ben had never ridden in the Suburban before. It was a smooth ride. There was a strong vibe about being in the “war wagon,” as they called that Suburban. It made them feel like they really were special, worthy of a personal security detail. It was really cool, Ben had to admit. He still couldn’t fully believe he was the Interim Governor … but riding in the war wagon made it very believable.

Brad was working the radio. He looked at his watch, “ETA four minutes.” Ben recognized the voice on the radio answering him as one of the Delphi guards.

The plan was that they would go from the farm to the Delphi guards. A Patriot escort would be waiting there who would take the Suburban into the capitol. The actual capitol campus was still a little hairy with some remaining holdouts barricaded in individual rooms. The Patriots were having to go room to room—and closet to closet, and heating duct to heating duct—to clear the buildings on the capitol campus and the buildings within sniping range of the campus, but the Patriots had a place for the new Governor and his staff to stay temporarily.

The Suburban pulled up to the Delphi guards, whose eyes popped wide at the sight of the war wagon. They had already been impressed with the Patriot escort that had arrived a few minutes before. An armored Humvee with a .50 caliber machine gun and three pickup trucks with serious-looking, very well-armed soldiers. They had kit and beards. Maybe they were contractors, but there was something about them that made the guards believe they were in a military unit of some kind, maybe Special Forces or something.

When the Suburban stopped, Brian asked, “Are we supposed to get out?”

“No,” Brad said. “Please don’t get out until we tell you to. Ever.” He seemed very stern and serious.

Brian nodded. Of course. He’d never had a personal security detail before. He didn’t know how it worked.

Brian noticed that one of the pick-ups was maneuvering to the left of the Suburban and another was on the right. The third one was behind the Suburban and the Hummer was in front. They started to move.

The trucks stayed alongside the Suburban until they got to the on ramp to Highway 101, which was only wide enough for one vehicle to safely travel. There, they peeled off and went to the rear. The Suburban accelerated with the Hummer in front setting the pace. When they got onto the highway, the left and right pick-ups zoomed past them and resumed their positions on both sides of the Suburban. Brian felt very safe.

There were no other vehicles on the road. The lights were off in most homes and businesses. The power was on, and some homes and businesses had their lights on, but most were dark. They were probably hiding out and trying not to draw attention from the bands of Limas and Patriots roaming the streets. Not to mention the gangs. They could be out in full force, Brian thought. What he didn’t know was that now the gangs were hiding. Last he knew, when he was still in Olympia, was that they were tough guys out strutting around and terrorizing unarmed citizens. There had been nothing for them to hide from. But now they were being hunted down and killed one by one by Patriots. They weren’t so tough anymore and weren’t showing themselves.

“Okay, Governor,” Tom said, getting into his new role as Chief of Staff, “What’s your first message when we get to your new offices?”

“I thank everyone for making this possible,” Ben said. “The EPU, the troops, the civilians. I let everyone know that I’m only the Interim Governor, that fair elections are our first priority once order is restored.”

“Excellent,” Tom said. They had worked together for so long it was easy for them to go over things like this.

“Brad, correct me if I’m wrong,” Ben said, “but we still don’t have Seattle and the surrounding metropolitan areas, right?”

“Correct, Governor,” Brad said, without taking his eyes off the road. “We have Olympia, all of rural Washington, and all of Eastern Washington. Seattle is a little patch of enemy territory. Once you get settled, one of your first meetings will be with your Commandant of the State Guard to get a briefing on the military situation. You are the commander in chief of the State Guard.”

Ben let that sink in. “Who, by the way, is my Commandant?” Ben asked.

Brad told him the name of someone Ben had never heard of.

“Oh, okay,” Ben said. “I guess he’s doing a good job since we’re going to Olympia.” It seemed odd to him that someone as important as his Commandant would be a stranger, but then Ben realized he wasn’t really in charge of the state. He had been picked to be the interim Governor but couldn’t leave the Prosser Farm. He trusted that the Patriots, probably the Think Farm, would be picking good people. Ben, while he was a leader, was not a control freak. That being said, he was still a little surprised that he didn’t know his Commandant. But they were putting the state back together on the fly, so he expected lots of seat-of-the-pants governing in the beginning.