299 Days IX: The Restoration (21 page)

Grant forced himself to go over to the truck. He didn’t give himself the luxury of closing his eyes. A weak man would close his eyes and run, and Grant was not a weak man, even though he wanted to be.

Grant slowly approached Wes and he noticed two things: the rope burn around his neck and that smile. Grant wondered how a man could be smiling after being hung. It was simultaneously eerie and joyous. That smile communicated perfectly that Wes was happy with his life, he died a happy man, having done as much as humanly possible in his short twenty-two years. He had been a husband and created a new life, even though he would never meet his child. He had fought for his country. More importantly, he had fought for his friends.

Wes was a loyal friend. He was the kind of friend a person never forgets. Grant recalled all the times Wes could jump in the back of Mark’s truck to go out on patrol, always wearing that big smile, and joking around in his Southern drawl. Grant remembered the first time he heard Wes talk, and how Wes had said, “We believe in diversity. Fords, Chevies, and Dodges.”

Kellie. She would be devastated. The father of her unborn child, her true love was gone. Oh God. This was horrible. Kellie had finally met a decent man, and he was killed a few months later. Grant thought of her and their unborn child as innocent victims of this whole stupid war.

“You can judge a man by the size of his funeral,” Grant remembered his dad saying. It was one of the few decent things that guy ever said. Grant thought about all the lives Wes had touched, and how huge his funeral would be. They would have a gigantic funeral, and celebration of Wes' life, back at Pierce Point when they were done with this shit and could go back home.

Grant knew they needed to get Wes' body to the makeshift morgue, but he couldn’t say the word “morgue.” He wanted to buy time before someone took Wes away from them forever. Forever, at least, down on Earth. Grant knew he’d see Wes again in a perfect and healthy body and with that same smile.

“Let the rest of the unit come by and pay their respects,” Grant said. “There is no use having them crowd into the morgue. Let them come by the truck.”

Grant told Scotty to grab Wes' “membership cards,” like his Raven Concealment holster and pistol, and his AR with the SKT sling. All those would be keepsakes for the Team to remember their fallen brother. They were special items no one else would get to have.

Scotty pulled Wes' bloody Zero Tolerance out of his pocket and started crying. “They took his ZT, man,” Scotty sobbed. “Fucking animals. You don’t take a man’s knife. Animals.” Scotty got ahold of himself. He was a soldier, and a member of the Team. He stopped crying and said, “I took care of the guy who took his knife.” He wanted everyone to know that.

“You keep it,” Grant said to Scotty. “You are the keeper of Wes' knife.” Scotty nodded. He would literally kill again if anyone tried to take that knife. It was his last link to Wes. Grant had to pay his final respects to Wes. He didn’t want to touch a dead body, but this wasn’t just a dead body; it was Wes. He got up his strength and walked over to the bed of the truck and squeezed Wes' arm. There. That was it.

Pancakes. A soldier near them was eating pancakes on a paper plate. Grant remembered that Wes ate pancakes right before they went out. Then all the blood drained out of Grant’s face.

Pancakes.

Grant remembered one of the first mornings out at the cabin after Lisa and the kids came out. Wes said one time over breakfast that his last meal would probably be pancakes. That comment had bothered Grant since that day and he never knew why. Now he did.

This was all Grant’s fault. If Grant had remembered Wes saying that months ago, then he could have stopped Wes from eating the pancakes and Wes would have lived.

Grant thought about that. Was it his fault? Because of pancakes? That was insane. Grant realized that absolutely irrational guilt comes from losses like this. The lack of sleep didn’t help either when it came to thinking straight. Grant took a deep breath. It wasn’t the pancakes or Grant that killed Wes.

He had to get back to business, as hard as that was. For the first time, he noticed that Ryan, Pow, and Scotty had blood all over their clothes and gear. He started to say they needed to clean up, but what clothes would they change into? What extra set of kit did they have?

Besides, Grant wanted the rest of the 17th to see that war was serious fucking business. They needed to see the blood and to understand what it was they were doing out there.

“Gotta get back to work,” Grant said to the Team, ashamed that he had to leave Wes. They nodded. They understood. They, too, needed to go back out. They would go and help Bravo Company seal off the exits from the park. They wanted to be there when those fucking animals were flushed out of the woods. They wanted to see if no one was looking and then do some more ZT work. They would even use Wes' knife, just for the symbolism of it. This was personal now.

Grant walked back to the area where the 17th was. He tried to look at his pamphlet that he was so proud of, but it didn’t mean anything anymore. All the strategy, all the thinking, all the planning, all the … everything was a joke. Meaningless. Words. What mattered was in the back of that truck.

Grant pulled his black knit cap off and looked at the lieutenant’s bar stapled onto it. What a stupid piece of cloth that insignia was. Stapled on, not even sewn. What a joke. A piece of cloth. All of this was stupid.

Grant wanted to be back on the range with Wes and the guys before all this started. Back when Grant had a wife and kids he could go home to. Back when he had a real job. Back when sick people had simple medicines to keep them alive and back before all this killing and dying and good people going insane. Like Mark. Poor Mark. And Luke. And Tammy. And especially Missy.

The list went on. The list needed to stop. Everything needed to stop. It was out of control. Grant felt like he was physically spinning, thinking about all the things that needed to stop. He had to sit down. He was starting to pass out from exhaustion and hunger and stress.

He abruptly sat down on the concrete outside the brewery. Sitting there, he realized that he needed to be back in control of things, which meant getting back to Pierce Point. Things were normal there. Wes wouldn’t have died there. They would still be riding around in a truck there and saying, “This never gets old” with big smiles on their faces. He could go home to his family there, too.

Grant took off his black knit cap. He looked at the lieutenant’s bar on it. He tore it off. Grant had just resigned his commission. He and the Team were volunteers. Irregulars. They could go home at any time. That was what Grant would do. He’d done plenty. He was done. He went to go gather up the guys before they went out again.

Grant got up off the concrete and took that first step toward the truck. He knew that if he walked up to it and said, “We’re done, guys. Let’s go back home,” that things would truly be over. Even if the guys didn’t come back to Pierce Point with him, it would be over for him. Over. He walked quickly to the truck, wanting to say something that couldn’t be taken back. He wanted this to be over with.

He was two steps from the truck. The Team looked at him and realized he had something important to say. Grant opened his mouth and said, “Guys…”

Just then, someone came up and grabbed Grant’s left arm. He swung around, reaching for his pistol with his right hand.

Grant turned and saw a female soldier was grabbing him. Fortunately, he hadn’t drawn his pistol yet.

The soldier exclaimed, “Lt. Matson! The Governor wants to talk to you.”

Chapter 319

“We Know Everything. Everything.”

(January 3)

She must be telling the truth, Ron Spencer thought as he was looking at Judy Kilmer. There was no faking that kind of shuddering, body-shaking crying.

Ron hugged Judy. She needed that. She needed to know that she wasn’t a monster, that there was still some forgiveness and decency left in this world. Ron hugged her as she finished crying. He wasn’t hurrying her; he wanted her to get it all out.

When she was done crying, she meekly asked, “What are you going to do, Ron?”

Time to lie, he thought. As horrible as that was, he had to play it safe. After all, until five minutes ago, Judy was a Lima. She was very emotional and scared. For all Ron knew, Judy might run out and naively try to tell Carlos, Rex, and Scott that everything was okay and no one had to do anything like shoot someone. Ron knew otherwise.

“You can stay here for a while,” Ron said, looking at the clock and noticing it was now after midnight, officially January third. Three days into the new year and look at how much had changed. A sobbing and apparently confessing Lima, like “Judge” Judy was there on Ron’s couch begging for forgiveness.

“Sherri and the kids will take care of you,” Ron said. He knew that Judy loved his kids. She had a son of her own, but he never liked her. She had been so focused on her career that she never spent much time with him. He became a left-wing activist, which pleased Judy at the time, and moved to Washington, DC to work for a big union at the beginning of the last presidency. She hadn’t heard from him since. This ended up meaning that Ron’s adorable kids were Judy’s window into the world of functional families and happy kids.

“Oh, the kids!” Judy said, suddenly happy. “Yes, yes, that would be nice. I can stay here tonight. It’s best not to be out there tonight. There have been some shooting sounds.” That was quite an understatement.

“You bet,” Ron said, half feeling guilty about using his kids to keep Judy put, and half proud that he thought of it.

Ron put his shotgun down and said, “I’m going to go talk to Carlos and the others. Unarmed. I just feel like we can work this out.”

Judy clapped her hands like a little girl. “Oh yes!” she said. “That would be so great. Violence only begets more violence.” She thought that was in the Bible or something. That was the only part of the Bible she ever remembered.

“No need for that,” Ron said, pointing toward the shotgun. “I’m going to go warn Len.”

Judy nodded. Awesome, she thought. This really is working out. Without violence and guns. What a relief.

“Sherri,” Ron called up the stairs to his wife. He went upstairs to explain why Judy would be staying at their house that night.

Ron explained that Judy had told him about Carlos and them wanting to burn down their house and Len’s. He told her not to worry, and then explained his plan. Ron told the kids everything was okay and he’d be back in the morning.

He went back downstairs with a coat on. “See you in the morning when everything’s been worked out,” he said to Judy.

She gave him the thumbs up, feeling so glad this could be worked out peacefully.

Ron walked out of his house and headed to Len’s. He wondered if that had been the last time he would ever leave his house. He quickly got there and did their secret knock on the door. It was kind of childish, but it was effective. A “daa daa, da da da, daa daa” knock.

Len came to the door with a shotgun, but also knowing it was Ron. Len asked who was at the door and, when he heard Ron’s voice, opened it.

“We have some work to do tonight,” Ron said. He told Len what had happened. Len was stunned, but not that surprised at the same time. He wouldn’t put anything past the Carlos Cabal, but this? Wow.

Ron told Len the plan and asked to borrow a shotgun. Len nodded and they quickly headed out.

They waited a few hours—long, long hours out in the cold and occasional drizzle—at the one point in the neighborhood on the route to both Ron’s and Len’s house. A chokepoint.

Sure enough, at 4:35 a.m. Carlos, Rex, and Scott came walking into the neighborhood. Scott had a rifle or shotgun and Carlos had a gas can.

Ron and Len silently watched as the three walked—they thought they were being so stealthy—to a place about twenty-five yards away. It was a pre-planned place Ron and Len came up with where there were no houses directly in front of them.

Ron raised his borrowed shotgun. Len raised his, too. Each of them put three rounds of 00 buck into the three men. Just like they’d planned, Ron put one round in each of the three men from left to right and Len did the same from right to left. That would avoid confusion and make sure each target got two rounds of 00 buckshot.

It was hard for Ron to shoot his last two targets because Len’s round had basically torn them in half. Fortunately, the spread on 00 pellets at twenty-five yards is pretty forgiving.

Their ears were ringing as they reloaded. They had duck hunter guns that only held three rounds to make them legal under the game laws.

Ron and Len waited a minute to see if Carlos had any back-up coming, which was very unlikely, but it was a reasonable precaution to take. People starting stirring in nearby houses. Six 12-gauge blasts in a subdivision was pretty hard not to notice, even when the surrounding city was in the middle of a battle.

As part of the plan, Len kept his shotgun pointed at the bodies and in the direction any bad guys would come. Ron started knocking on the doors nearby. He was waking people up telling them to come out and see what had happened.

There was Carlos with a full gas can—well, it was punctured with buck shot and the gas had leaked. There was Rex. Ron hoped Rex was wearing that stupid Che Guevara t-shirt when he died, but Rex’s chest was so blown apart and blood soaked that Ron couldn’t tell what shirt he had on. Ron really, really hated that shirt. Scott was dead and holding a shotgun. All three were blown to pieces. Blood was everywhere and was flowing in the street.