299 Days: The Visitors (5 page)

Wes was bored, except that he was hoping to watch Frankie die. That would be cool, Wes thought. What had happened to the nice young man who worked at the rental equipment store just a few weeks ago? What had happened to peacetime Wes? Now he was beating a man and hoping to watch him die.

Rich would lead the questioning, which was a good idea since Grant had kind of blown it with the kick to the face.

“Frankie, wake up, man,” Rich said. Using “man” was an attempt to bond with the subject.

Frankie stirred when he heard his name. He was surprised this cop, or “constable” or whatever, knew his name.

“We need to ask you some more questions,” Rich said. Frankie was regaining consciousness.

“Crystal. What do you know about Crystal?” Rich said.

Frankie smiled, which was painful, given his broken jaw. It was that demonic smile. “She likes…” Frankie went on to describe something disgusting and horrible. Rich began to seriously think about killing this guy on the spot.

Grant whispered to Rich, “We have all we need to convict him. Let’s stop questioning.” It wasn’t that Grant was a smart investigator; he couldn’t stand to hear any more from Frankie. Frankie’s bragging about what he and Josie had done to that little girl would give Grant nightmares. Grant had kids and the thought of people doing that made him sick.

Rich whispered to Grant, “One more.” Grant nodded. Rich was the professional here, so Grant deferred to him.

“What about Josie? Is she involved with what you do with Crystal?” Rich asked.

Frankie smiled. “Crystal likes to watch me and Josie go at it.”

“I doubt it,” Rich said and walked over close to Frankie. Rich drew his pistol, bent down, and slammed it into Frankie’s face. Blood went everywhere. Frankie’s jaw had already been broken, but now, with the blow from Rich’s steel 1911 pistol, nearly every bone in Frankie’s face shattered. Frankie’s face was so destroyed that he couldn’t even yell out.

Rich wiped the blood off his pistol with a rag on the floor. He was careful not to touch Frankie’s blood. He could only imagine what diseases Frankie had. Rich calmly re-holstered his pistol and looked at Frankie, who was crumbled up on the floor and unconscious.

“I guess he’s about done,” Rich said calmly. “Tell Tim to come in, but not waste his supplies.” Rich just walked out.

So much for Rich as the role model of constitutional professionalism, Grant thought. But good for Rich. Frankie was the worst of the worst. If anyone in Pierce Point deserved this, it was Frankie.

Chapter 142

Lessons Learned

May 14

There was a lot of activity out at the tweaker house following the raid. People were coming to see what had happened. The crime victims were keeping people back from the house because there was a dead body and it was a crime scene, technically, sort of. Plus, no one needed to see little Crystal in that blanket. She’d been through enough.

Grant wanted to go off and be by himself. He didn’t want anyone to see him if he threw up or cried. He threw up once, out of anyone’s sight, and managed not to cry, although he had tears in his eyes. He kept thinking about all the evil in that house – Frankie and Josie – and all the trauma little Crystal had suffered that would last a lifetime. He thought about the dead man, who no one really seemed to know. That man died without anyone caring. He was someone’s son, but his parents would probably never know what happened to him.

Grant also kept thinking about how they weren’t traditional police, but they had to go in and do this. He couldn’t understand why it was that a lawyer, insurance salesman, hospital tech and all the others were now suddenly the ones who had to protect everyone from people like Frankie. It felt so weird. There are no authorities, so we need to do their job, he kept thinking.

Grant felt guilty about his next thought because it was so selfish given all the horrible things that had just happened. He thought about whether the Team would be prosecuted by the authorities for this? Was this murder? It seemed absurd, and Grant kept remembering how there weren’t really any police left, but what if things got back to normal in a few months or even years? There is no statute of limitation on murder, Grant kept thinking. At any point in the future, even when he was an old man, he could be hauled into court and charged for about a dozen felonies he knew he’d committed about a half hour ago.

It was hard to tell if the other members of the Team were having the same reactions. They were quiet. Very quiet. Pow was his usual high-energy and confident self. He was coordinating things, but speaking in an unusually soft voice. Scotty, who was quiet in normal times, was absolutely silent now. Wes seemed OK. He kept looking in on Frankie, presumably because he wanted to see him die from his injuries. Bobby was focused on making sure the curious people coming to the tweaker house weren’t threats. “Bad guys travel in packs,” he remembered Special Forces Ted saying, and maybe the tweakers in the house had friends who were pissed that the Team had just killed their friends – and suppliers. Rich seemed remarkably calm, and so did Ryan. They’d seen this kind of thing before. They were rattled, but weren’t showing it much. They wanted to project calm to the Team and the residents.

As the shock wore off, Grant could concentrate on what was happening at the crime scene. Frankie was still unconscious, so they got a neighbor with a pistol to guard him and another neighbor to guard Brittany and Ronnie. Crystal was over at the neighbor’s house, dressed, and hopefully watching cartoons – they were still on TV – or something else that a nine year-old girl should be doing. That freed the Team for a quick meeting. “Let’s go over what happened now, while it’s fresh,” Rich said.

They gathered in the front room containing the dead man with the blown up torso against the wall. Bobby, Scotty, and Wes were a little shocked when they walked in and saw it for the first time. Right about then, Grant started to have a terrible headache and felt weak. It was the after-effects of adrenaline. He was embarrassed to be the weak old guy, but he felt so faint that he had to sit down on the couch.

“OK. What went right?” Rich asked. He wanted to keep the guys’ minds on business instead of dwelling on the death and destruction in that house.

“The answer is none of us are dead,” Rich said, answering his own question, “and no innocents are dead. That was a decent take-down, gentlemen.” The Team started smiling.

“But not perfect,” Rich said. The smiles went away. “You guys are way better than a bunch of hillbillies storming a house. Way better. But you’re not up to a professional SWAT standard. This raid was a learning experience, so let’s learn,” he said.

They started from the beginning and discussed what went right and what they’d do better next time. They went in chronological order, starting from the report of the thefts. They would not have reports come in during open meetings where people could tip off the bad guys. That made them rush off to do this raid without nearly enough planning. It went OK, but they got lucky on several things. “Taking down a handful of tweakers is one thing. But wait until the bad guys aren’t high and have defenses in place,” Rich said. “That will make this look like a cakewalk.” The Team knew he was right. Suddenly they didn’t feel so good about themselves. This could have gone much worse.

They agreed that next time, they’d have a “go kit” with a sledgehammer. Grant gave his suggestion about Paul making a handheld battering ram; they agreed that this was a good idea. The lead guy needed a shield of some kind. Maybe Paul could make one out of steel, if that wasn’t too heavy to carry.

They agreed they would like to have radios, but they didn’t have any. “Should we do these at night?” Bobby asked. They talked about it and decided that if they had a real opponent, they should do a raid at night, especially if the occupants slept at night (though tweakers never slept). Then again, all the confusion they experienced would be even worse at night. The odds of shooting each other went up, too, in the dark. They decided that they’d try to do daytime or, preferably, dawn raids, if possible.

They needed to observe the area before they did this next time. Pow had a bolt action rifle and was an amazing sniper for a guy who had no formal training. He could watch the area before they went in and find out all kinds of important details, like whether there were dogs, how many people were at the place, and a wealth of other information. However, that would probably mean that Pow would have to stay in his sniper position during the raid so he could continue to observe things and take a strategic shot, if necessary. The problem was that they couldn’t spare a man by having Pow watching the area through his sniper scope while the raid went down. Maybe they could get one of the gate snipers to do this. But, would they know the tactical things they needed to know, like when to shoot someone or not? Relying on gate snipers—hell, relying on the amateur Team—wasn’t exactly ideal. They were making do with everything out there. Perfection was in short supply in Pierce Point.

This brought up the fact that they didn’t have enough men. They barely had enough to handle a handful of tweakers. They would need to recruit more guys for the constables; at least double. They probably couldn’t train new guys to the level of the Team, but they could use them as a second wave to secure the grounds while the Team was in a building.

The Team had approached the tweaker house by walking in. They would try to drive next time, if possible. Ideally, they would come crashing into the yard. That would require practice, especially on the dismounting. It’s harder than it looks to jump out of a vehicle with a rifle and full kit.

For the next raid, they needed more information on who was inside and whether there were innocents, like Crystal. She might have been shot when she ran through that door. They realized that they wouldn’t always have information on occupants, but they should sure try to get it.

The dogs could have been a big problem; the Team got lucky that the issue was eliminated quickly at the beginning of the raid. They needed a way to deal with them in future. The silenced .22 and a few of their own attack dogs would be helpful. In fact, their own attack dogs could go in first and scare and bite the bad guys. But maybe innocents, too. This was harder than it looked.

One thing that went very well was their verbal communication with each other. They didn’t have to use specific terms for things, just clear, general communications, and it had worked. Rich didn’t want to say it and make their heads big, but he was amazed at how well the Team worked together. They had never done this before and did great for rookies.

They also did well by not shooting Crystal, Brittany, or Ronnie. Grant got high marks for improvising with this flash-hider jab instead of shooting Josie. Then it came to the dead guy in the front room.

Ryan said to Pow, “Sorry, man, but I’m gonna lay it out. I didn’t see a weapon when we came in. Not sure that was a clean shoot.”

Pow suspected this was coming. He said, slightly pissed, “Hey, I went in first and saw this guy get up from a couch and reach for the table in front of him. Instinct.” Pow was passing this off as no big thing, but down deep, he actually believed he had overreacted on the guy. He would pause a millisecond longer next time and wait to see a weapon or a very clear reach for something. This had been his first time.

Grant would talk to Pow later about being in the “club”: the club of people who have killed a person. It wasn’t a happy thing, a feel-good club. Pow, as tough as he was, would need to talk to someone about it. Ryan had killed insurgents from long distances. This was different. This was an American and up close. Grant knew exactly what that felt like.

Rich didn’t want to destroy Pow’s confidence. They needed Pow on the Team, and to be the confident and aggressive man he was. They needed all the gunfighters they could get, and Pow was a key part of the Team. Rich could tell that Pow had learned his lesson, but Rich wasn’t too upset. The guy Pow shot had it coming. Rich needed to remind himself that this wasn’t the old world anymore. Sure, they should be as careful as possible to not shoot innocents. But, they didn’t have the luxury of backup. There wouldn’t be any lawsuits out there. People dying from accidental shootings would be one of the many things that sucked about the post-Collapse world, like people dying of easily treatable medical conditions. It was one more thing that sucked. They’d do the best they could, but they couldn’t eliminate all the badness.

“Pow did fine,” Rich said. Everyone had been waiting to hear what Rich had to say about it. “The guy wasn’t surrendering. He could have made a break for one of the many guns in that room.” Everyone, including Pow, realized that Rich was cutting Pow some slack.

“If you have to choose,” Rich said, “between shooting and not shooting, shoot. You’ll know when to do it.” Rich didn’t want a bunch of overcautious guys. Pow nodded and looked relieved.

Rich said, “Here’s something that won’t be happening next time, and I blame myself, Grant, and Wes.” His directness got their attention.

“We don’t beat prisoners,” Rich said. He told the story of Wes, and then Grant, beating Frankie. No one on the Team gave them a high five. They all realized that what had happened was wrong; not cry-your-little-head-off wrong, just don’t-do-it-again wrong.

“I’m not innocent on this, either,” Rich said. He told about how he smacked Frankie in the face with his pistol. “Sorry, guys, when he said the little girl enjoyed it, I just lost it. I won’t do it again, but then again, we probably won’t have anyone as bad as him in custody, so we can hope it probably won’t happen again.”

Grant said, “I am the most to blame here. I’m the judge. I’m the guy giving the speech about the Constitution—and then I kick a guy in the face?”

“What if people see him and ask what happened?” Scotty asked. They were already cooking up a story to cover their tracks. Beating a guy—even if he was a child rapist—was one thing, but lying about it was not OK.

“We tell the truth,” Grant said. “A guy was verbally abusive to the constables. We needed to keep him under control. He admitted to repeatedly raping a child, and was bragging about it. Things got a little out of hand.” Grant shrugged.