299 Days: The 17th Irregulars

Chapter 213 Just Like Normal

Grant went back and finished lunch like nothing happened. So did Nick, after he took care of the baby. A real man, Grant thought. Taking care of the baby like that. Letting his wife rest a little.

Manda and Jordan were catching up Jay Minton and his wife, Grace, on what it was like being a teen out at Pierce Point. The social scene and how their pre-Collapse lives had been changed. For the better in some aspects, worse in others.

Lunch was over and it was time to go.

“Thank you so much for your hospitality,” Grant said. Grant wanted Nick to break the news of his pending departure to Rita himself so Grant didn’t say, “Be back in an hour.” Grant, Manda, and Jordan left and, by habit, Grant went toward the driver’s seat. Then he remembered someone else was driving.

“You can drive, Jordan,” Grant said. Jordan smiled and held his hands out for the keys to be thrown to him. Which Grant did. They drove back to the Sparks’ house and dropped him off. Jordan gave Manda a goodbye kiss in front of Grant. Good for him. He’s not a wimp, Grant thought.

Grant drove back to the cabin. John waved them through at the guard shack. He was surprised to see Grant driving the Tacura.

“Just turning the engine over every couple of months,” Grant said. Actually, he would shortly be using the Tacura to go to Marion Farm, but John didn’t know about Marion Farm. Yet another person Grant wasn’t being honest with.

It was getting hard to keep track of who knew which story and who didn’t. Especially when some people, like John, knew some of the true things, but not others. Grant knew he would slip up soon.

Grant dropped off Manda. “Her” kids were already there. They were glad to see her. So was Cole. She resumed her role as the CEO of the babysitters.

Grant had a little time to kill before he had to be back at the Minton’s to get Nick. He wanted to give Nick a sufficient amount of time to say goodbye to Rita, at least for a while until he could visit her and the kids again.

Grant couldn’t stand to waste time; he had to do something productive at all times. He went to the shed at his cabin and looked at all of the plastic tubs of food, stacked almost to the ceiling. He had the inventory list out, with the contents of each numbered tub. This way, they didn’t need to move a bunch of heavy tubs to find the ones with some oatmeal if oatmeal was what they were looking for. And the inventory had the expiration dates for the various items so they could eat the soonest expiring ones first.

Grant looked at the inventory list. The date of the list caught his eye, which was almost two years ago, and remembered how crazy it seemed to most people back then to buy up and store food. There was lots of food in the stores. Why go to all this trouble? This is why Grant did this in secret. So he wouldn’t get “caught” by Lisa and have to answer these questions. So his wife wouldn’t think he was crazy.

But she enjoyed oatmeal for breakfast now. Many others didn’t have any breakfast. Grant had long ago gotten over the “I told you so” feeling. He didn’t look at all the food in that shed as an “I told you so.” He looked at it as a “Thank God I can take care of my family.”

Besides, there was no upside to saying “I told you so.” Grant knew how Lisa worked: She couldn’t admit being wrong. Once she realized she was wrong, she would just be nice to Grant and act like she had never been wrong.

That’s what she was doing now. In fact, she was adapting incredibly well—better than he thought—to her new life as a doctor living out in the sticks and getting paid in cans of tuna. Grant had underestimated her. He was glad to have been wrong.

Grant looked at the date again. He swelled up with pride that he had done all this prepping. “Pride” maybe wasn’t the best word. “Thankful” and “at peace” was more like it. He might pat himself on the back for something wise he did that was less important. If, for example, he would have bought a snow shovel in the summer and it snowed a lot that winter and the stores were out of snow shovels. That was pat-on-the-back material. But having food for his family when few others could count on feeding their kids—that was way too important for a pat on the back. That was just pure thankfulness and peace.\Grant looked at the inventory list. He saw all the can openers from the Dollar Store. He got about a dozen and had given most of them away. People were so thankful to have a can opener. Many didn’t have them because they always ate drive-through or microwave food. For a one-dollar can opener, Grant had made some lifelong friends who would now literally die for him. Not a bad deal. All it took was the self-confidence to buy a bunch of can openers when times were good and not worry that the cashier thought you were crazy. Once you get over that, saving your family’s life gets much easier. Not a bad deal at all.

Grant looked at his watch. He had slowly gotten used to wearing one. In peacetime, he never did. He was around a clock all the time. His cell phone, his car clock, his computer screen. Not anymore. And now that he was doing things that sometimes involved armed men being at the same place at the precisely the same time to counter other armed men, being on time was critical.

Half an hour had gone by. Grant had a stop to make at the Grange so it was time to leave and then go get Nick and take him to the farm. He wasn’t looking forward to tearing Nick away from Rita. He wasn’t looking forward to that at all. Grant got back in the Tacura and took off. John waved him by.

On the way to the Grange, Grant noticed that there were no other cars. Lots and lots of bikes, though. Most people, especially those with kids, had bikes but rarely used them in peacetime. That had changed. Now it was the primary mode of transportation in Pierce Point. And, Grant suspected, elsewhere in America.

Grant pulled into the Grange to the strange looks of everyone who saw a new car they hadn’t seen before. They were surprised when Grant got out of it. They’d never seen him drive it.

Grant went in and found Drew. “I need a meal card for Rita Folsom and her two kids,” Grant said. He whispered, “Make up something that she’s donating. Trust me.” Drew nodded and a few minutes later came back with an official Pierce Point card for Rita “and two infant children.” Grant thanked him and left.

Grant pulled into the Minton house and rang the doorbell. He could hear a woman crying. Jay Minton answered the door and, without saying a word, waved Grant into the living room. Jay’s wife, Grace, was crying. Rita wasn’t. Rita just kept hugging Nick. She gave him each baby to hold one last time. For a while, at least. He would be back to visit. Grant was amazed at how understanding Rita was. Amazed.

Grant felt like he was the mean sheriff taking someone away from their family to go to prison. He was trying to avoid eye contact with Rita, but she wasn’t avoiding him.

“I understand,” Rita said to Grant. “I understand,” she repeated.

She paused and got teary. “Take good care of him, OK?” She didn’t want to cry because she knew that would make this even harder on Nick. She needed him to have a positive attitude and go do his job safely. And come home. She knew that crying or telling him he couldn’t go wouldn’t work and would just make things worse. Besides, back at Ft. Lewis and on the trip out to Pierce Point, they had talked about the fact that Nick would probably join up with the Patriots if an opportunity came up. They had prayed about it. They both knew it was what Nick was supposed to do. That made it easier. But it was still hard. Really hard.

Grant handed Rita the meal card and said, “It’s the least we can do for you, Rita.” She had never seen a Pierce Point meal card so he explained what it meant.

“I got you a temporary card because, in a little while, Nick will be back and your contribution to the community will officially end. Then you’re off the gravy train, ma’am,” Grant said, hoping she would laugh. She did. It was a tension-breaking laugh.

Grant felt awkward watching the final goodbye hug. “I’ll be in the car,” he said. Jay motioned for Grace to come with him into the kitchen. It was just Nick, Rita, and the two babies in the living room.

Grant went out to the car. He expected to be there a few minutes. Instead, Nick came out after a few seconds. Apparently they didn’t like long goodbyes.

Nick got into the car and was all business. He wasn’t going to let this affect him. Sure, Grant thought, maybe not now, but tonight Nick will be a mess. Grant knew. He’d been there. Except when he had to leave his family, it was against their wishes and he thought they didn’t want him back.

Grant handed Nick a tiger-stripe camouflage handkerchief. “Sorry, dude, OPSEC,” Grant said, using the acronym for “operational security” that an Army guy like Nick would know. Nick nodded and put the handkerchief over his eyes.

Grant had never driven a car with a blindfolded passenger. It was a very weird experience. Grant felt like he was in a movie or something.

Grant drove to the farm. He had never been there from the road; he’d always come by water. He knew from a map how to get there and wondered what kind of guard they had at the road entrance.

Duh. Better call ahead so he didn’t get shot.

Grant pulled over and grabbed the handheld ham radio in the pouch on his kit. He kept it on the Team frequency, but they didn’t talk much on it. About all Grant did with the radio, other than using it a handful of times to talk to the Team or to dispatch at the Grange, was to check the battery each night and occasionally charge it.

Just because he didn’t use it often didn’t mean it wasn’t important. Having ham radios, which had lots of frequencies and much longer ranges than CBs, was critical. Today was a perfect example of how that little radio could save his life. Friendly fire sucks, as Ted used to say.

“Green 1, Giraffe 7, over,” Grant said. “Green 1” was obviously Ted. Sap, who was from Wisconsin, got “Cheese 2.”

But “Giraffe 7”? Grant never understood why he got the lame call sign of an animal with an absurdly long neck. And “7”? Was he the seventh most badass out of…seven? Oh well. Grant cared more about not getting shot by the Marion Farm guards than about what his call sign was.

A few seconds later—remarkably fast considering that Ted was probably in the middle of something—Grant heard Ted’s voice. “Giraffe 7, Green 1, copy.”

“Tacura with two friendlies at the front door,” Grant said. Ted would remember the reference to the “Tacura” from when Grant went out shooting with Ted in that car and they mocked him for having a car instead of a truck.

“Roger that, Giraffe 7,” Ted said. “Flash us when you get up near the gate.”

“Roger that, Green 1,” Grant said. “Giraffe 7 out.”

“Green 1 out,” Ted said. Nick was impressed. He couldn’t see anything because he was blindfolded. These guys weren’t hillbillies. Radios. And call signs. Nick’s amazement at the sophistication of the unit was just starting.

Grant drove slowly and turned off down the dirt road to the farm. He looked first to make sure no one saw him. The dirt road was long. He went very slowly and came up to the gate where he slowed down to a stop. He flashed his head lights.

“You can take your blindfold off now, Nick,” Grant said. They were already on the dirt road so Nick would have no idea what roads it took to get there. Besides, if Grant showed up to the gate with a blindfolded passenger, the guards would assume the blindfolded man was a prisoner and might shoot him if he made a sudden move.

Nick took off his blindfold and Grant rolled down his window. Grant put both hands out the window to show the guard, or guards, that he was not going to ram the gate. It was hard to do with his hands off the steering wheel. Nick, seeing Grant put both hands out the window, did the same.

A minute later, a bearded man in military fatigues opened the gate. Grant had the unmistakable feeling that one or more rifles were aimed at his head and the Tacura’s engine block.

The man in fatigues, who was partway behind a stump to remain out of sight and for cover in case Grant or someone else started shooting, waved Grant in through the now-open gate. Grant drove slowly. He got past the swinging metal gate, a typical farm style one and a second man in fatigues popped out from behind a big tree and gave him a signal to stop. He, too, was bearded, which looked weird with the military fatigues.

The first man, who was now behind Grant’s car, closed the gate. The second man still had his hand up telling Grant to remain stopped.

Once the gate was closed, the first man came up behind the car on the driver’s side. He said in a stern voice, “Out of the car.” Grant could recognize the first man, and now the second man, as soldiers he had met at the farm. He forgot their names.

The two soldiers were being very serious and professional which Grant appreciated. This was serious business. Goofing around—especially at a gate—got people killed.

Grant’s AR was laying barrel-down in the passenger’s foot area with the stock near the gear shift. Grant could grab it by the stock if he needed to get it. He wanted to check and see if it was on safe, but didn’t because he realized he’d need to handle it to do so. And he didn’t want to reach down for a rifle and handle it now. Oh well, he told himself, he didn’t need to check his rifle. It was always on safe when it should be. He laughed to himself about the irony of making a safety check and getting shot as a result.

Grant said to the first soldier, “I’ll come out the driver’s side. The passenger will await directions.”

The first man said “OK” and the second man, who had his rifle shouldered and pointed at the engine block, nodded. Grant noticed that the second man had an M1A in .308. That could stop a car better than an AR in 5.56.

Grant got out slowly. He was not afraid, but he was cautious. He wanted to make sure something didn’t drop from his kit and then he instinctively lunged to catch it. No sudden movements. He thought how embarrassing it would be to die because your pen fell out of your pocket and you went to catch it and got shot by your own guys. Embarrassing. Hardly a hero’s death.

Grant got out and kept his hands to his side. They weren’t raised up like in the movies, just out to his side. Grant stood there. He didn’t want to turn directly toward either of the men.

“OK, now the passenger gets out,” the first soldier said. Nick got out and did the same thing Grant did with his hands to the side and stood in the same direction with his sides to each of the men.

“OK, sir, please open the trunk,” the first soldier said. Grant very slowly turned and motioned for whether it was OK to get his keys out. The first soldier nodded. Grant slowly got his keys out and showed them to the soldiers. Grant hit the trunk release. He very slowly turned back around with his key in his right hand and his left hand to the side. He stood facing the same direction he had been.

“Moving,” the first soldier said.

“Move,” the second man said. That meant that the second man was now covering both of them. The first man looked in the trunk. He saw Nick’s two sports bags of clothes and a military back pack. Grant’s “get home bag” was in there, too, where he’d kept it since before the Collapse. As the name implied, that was a bag of things Grant would need to get home if he was in his car and a disaster happened.

The first soldier realized that searching all these things for a bomb would take a lot of time. He also knew that with the driver being his commanding officer the odds of this being a terrorist were pretty slim. The first soldier looked in the back seat. Nothing. He came up and looked in the front seat.

“M4 in the passenger side,” the first soldier said to the second. “Secure.” That meant that it was in a secure place.

The first soldier thought a moment. “Tell you what, Lieutenant,” he said to Grant, “It’ll take a while to search all of this gear back here and the underside of the car for explosives. It’s only a few hundred yards to the farmhouse. How about if you keep the car here and we do a quick search of any gear you will be bringing there?”

“Makes sense to me,” Grant said. “Just so you guys know, I’m bringing Nick here to the farm. He’s your new medic. Nick, you need those two bags and your backpack, right?”

“Yes, sir,” Nick said. He hadn’t known Grant was a lieutenant, but one of the guards just referred to Grant that way. Nick had been calling Grant “sir” because the Mintons told him that Grant was the judge. Now Nick was seeing that Grant was also a lieutenant in this Patriot unit.

“I’ll get the bags and the backpack out,” the first soldier said. “I assume the ruck goes with the medic, right?” He motioned for the backpack.

“Yes,” Nick said.

“The civilian backpack is my get home bag and can stay,” Grant said.

The first soldier got the two bags and the ruck out. He gave them a quick search, looking for a really big bomb. He opened the ruck and saw it was full of medical supplies. His eyes lit up. Lt. Matson had brought an awesome guest.

“All clear,” the first soldier said. “Go ahead and go down the road gentlemen.”

“Can I get my rifle?” Grant asked. He couldn’t stand to leave his gun unattended. Not like he thought these guys would steal it. He just couldn’t stand to leave his AR behind.

“Of course, sir,” the first soldier said. They were searching for a car bomb, not something less lethal like a rifle.

Grant looked at the second man and said, “Nick here will get my rifle and hand it to me.” The second soldier nodded. Everything was done overtly in such situations. The smallest little thing needed to be announced and acknowledged. No surprises.

Nick slowly got the rifle from the passenger side, checked that it was on safe—it was, of course—and, with the muzzle pointed down and with his finger off the trigger, walked around and handed it to Grant who checked that it was on safe and slowly slung it over his shoulder.

“Nice job, gentlemen,” Grant said to the two soldiers. “I appreciate a secure gate.”

“It’s our job, sir,” the second soldier said. “You’re our first stop so far so we were making sure we had our procedure down. Looks like we do.”

“Yep,” Grant said. Grant looked at the first soldier, who by now had come up to Grant. Grant said to him, “Would you like the keys?” That way they could move the Tacura if someone else came in.

“Yes, sir,” the first soldier said. Grant got out his keys.

Grant took one of Nick’s bags and Nick got the second one and his ruck. The second soldier said something into his radio. “They’re expecting you at the house,” he said to Grant and Nick.

“Thanks, guys,” Grant said, instantly realizing that he needed to work on being the lieutenant and being more formal. “As you were, gentlemen,” Grant said to the guards. He and Nick started to walk the few hundred yards to the farm. Nick’s eyes became huge as he started to see the Patriot’s facilities.