299 Days: The Collapse

Chapter 68 “Trouble!” (May 7)

The convoy got back into the order they had arrived in and got on the road. It was a short jaunt to the freeway. Luckily, they weren’t getting on I-5, which was totally jammed. They were getting on Highway 101, which was a smaller freeway that went from Olympia to the Hood Canal area of Puget Sound. Traffic was very heavy, but not jammed. Pow realized this would be a long ride. It seemed that quite a few people had the same idea they did: bug out toward the water.

Traffic was slow, but it kept moving. This was unlike any ride he’d ever been on. Occasionally, one of the guys would get on the CB and say that everything seemed OK and the others would check in with a similar report. They were going about thirty-five miles an hour, which pleasantly surprised Pow.

They went through the main town out by the cabin, Frederickson. Things seemed like they were in Olympia: people were trying to go out and get food and gas. Everyone looked tense.

The convoy turned off onto the road leading in the direction of Pierce Point. Things still seemed OK. They turned off on another smaller road. It was hugging the beach on the water on the other side of the inlet from the cabin. It was beautiful.

Pow came around a corner and saw a car stopped in the middle of the road, blocking traffic both ways. Two men were waving them down. He yelled into the CB, “Trouble!” and then he realized that he was scaring the Taylors and Matsons. “Everyone stay in their vehicles except the Team. Go!”

The Team had never practiced for this, but they instinctively knew what to do. They slammed on their brakes and tried to park their trucks in the other lane to shield the Taylor and Matson cars from the roadblock. Lisa was just trying to stop her SUV without hitting any cars. She saw the guys jumping out of their trucks with assault rifles. They were using their trucks as shields.

“Get down!” Lisa yelled at Manda and Cole. The CBs were silent for a few seconds, which seemed like an hour.

Bobby came on the CB. “Nothing to the rear. I’m going to the Matson car.” Lisa was enormously relieved to hear that. Pretty soon Bobby came running up to their car, motioned for them to stay down, and started pointing his rifle toward the car jamming the road. Bobby would periodically turn around and scan the rear of the convoy.

Wes came running up to the Taylor car. Eileen thought it looked like the Secret Service protecting them, except they weren’t in suits. She could not believe how brave these young men were. They didn’t even know her; they were just friends of Grant’s. Drew pulled out his revolver, not caring if Eileen saw it. That was a concern an hour ago. Now things were entirely different.

Pow came on the CB, “You got the bad guys covered?”

Scotty came on, “Yep.”

Pow yelled at the men waving, “Move away. We’ve got you covered.”

The two men with the car blocking the road saw all the trucks with AR-15s pointing out at them. Who were these guys? What the hell?

They put their hands up. “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! Our car is out of gas! Don’t shoot!”

To make sure everyone knew what was going on, Pow said on the CB, “They say they’re out of gas. Watch the sides and rear.” He could hold his AR with one hand and use the radio with the other. He’d practiced.

Pow yelled to the two men in a deep and scary voice, “Walk slowly over to the side. To your left. We will kill you if you fuck around. Understand?” They nodded.

“I got the one on the right,” Scotty said into the CB.

“Left,” Wes said.

It was quiet for about thirty seconds. Pow wanted to give any of potential accomplices time to show themselves. After it appeared that the two men were alone, Pow said into the radio, “Moving.”

“Move,” Wes and Scotty said in the radio, nearly simultaneously.

Pow started running toward the car in the middle of the road, scanning right and left with his rifle, hiding behind cover as he went. He didn’t want to run toward a situation like this; he would rather wait them out. But they didn’t have time to wait. They had to get to the cabin and traffic was backing up behind them. People were honking their horns. It was annoying Pow. He wanted to solve this problem and get going.

Pow made it up to the two men’s car. There was no one else there. He looked to see if anyone else was waiting to ambush them. He was glad it was light out and he didn’t need to take an hour to do this. Pow didn’t see anyone. He looked at the car. Sure enough, there was a gas can sitting there. Maybe they really ran out of gas. They didn’t look like dirtbags, but Pow was still very careful.

He pointed his rifle right at the two men and said, “You really out of gas?”

They both nodded, appearing completely terrified. They thought they were being robbed by some…military contractors? That made no sense, which just made the two men more terrified. They had no idea who these guys were.

One of the men said, in a cracking voice, “We were trying to push it to the side. It’s in neutral. You can check.”

Pow slowly went toward the car and looked. It was in neutral.

“OK,” he commanded, “you two slowly come over to your vehicle and keep pushing this thing when I say it’s OK.” He got on the CB, “They are out of gas. They’re going to push it. When I raise my hand, it’s OK for them to move. Don’t shoot them,” Pow said noticing that the men with the stalled car were listening, so he added, “unless you have to.”

Pow said to the men, “OK, keep your hands up and slowly come over here to push.” Pow put his left hand up. That was the signal for the Team to hold their fire.

The men slowly walked over. When they got to the car, one asked Pow, “Can I get in the car to steer?” The other guy was pushing all alone but they were on flat ground.

Pow nodded. He wanted to help him but caught his politeness impulse and decided to instead scan the area for any potential bad guys. He was getting nervous about the number of cars that were now stopped in both directions. They could have lots of bad guys, or even pissed off guys who might come out and get in the Team’s faces. Pow wanted the situation to be simple: just two threats to watch, not people pouring out of their cars. So far no one was. That was probably because it looked like the stalled car was getting off the road.

The man pushed the car. Slowly, it went onto the side of the road. The man pushing put his hands back up. The man steering put his hands out the window for Pow to see.

Pow yelled, “You, in the car, come out and put your hands up.” Once the man did, Pow told both of them, “Stand over there and keep those hands up.” They did so.

Pow got on the CB. “It’s clear. I’ll keep them covered. Everyone else get back in line and we’ll get going.” By now, the horns were blaring behind them. Feeling agitated, Pow thought about shooting the first car honking its horn, but resisted.

“Where are my manners?” Pow said to the two men with a smile. “You guys need some gas?”

They nodded emphatically.

“We have one gas can,” Pow said. He continued to cover the men; just to be on the safe side. Pow held up his AR with his right hand, and used his left hand to work the CB. He said into the CB, “Could one of you round up a hose and the gas can and get these guys some gas?”

“Roger that,” Wes said on the CB. He had a short section of garden hose in his truck for siphoning gas. He got the spare gas can from Bobby, drew a gallon of gas from Bobby’s truck’s tank, and slowly walked up to the car on the side of the road.

Once other people could see the stalled car was off to the side, but traffic still wasn’t moving, horns started blaring.

Bobby, the one in the rear, walked up to the cars behind him, raised his AR in the air and yelled, “Shut the fuck up!” The horns stopped. Bobby smiled. That was cool, he thought.

When Wes got up to the two stranded men with the can of gas, they couldn’t stop thanking him.

“Let’s get this in your car quick,” Wes said in his North Carolina accent. “Or we’re gonna have to start shootin’ people behind us. I’ve killed enough people today.”

The two men froze.

“Just kiddin’,” Wes said with a laugh. “Got you.”

The two men relaxed. Things were semi-normal. Some nice passersby were helping them. That was normal. For a moment, both Wes and the two stranded men felt like things were normal. That was such a relief.

“Good luck, gentlemen,” Wes said as he took the now-empty gas can. He held up the gas can to his head like he was saluting and said, “Now you guys go do something good for someone else down the road, you hear?”

“Yes, sir,” they said, which was weird because Wes was younger than them.

Wes got back to his truck and used the hood of it to rest his AR as he covered the car. With his left hand, he got on the CB and told Pow he had them covered. Pow ran to his Hummer. Seeing Wes had the men covered, Bobby and then Scotty got back into their pickups. The time from Wes coming up to the car with the gas can to the Team being back in their vehicles was about one minute.

The convoy started back up.

Lisa had watched this in amazement. She kept expecting some shooting. That’s how things always went on TV. She was half-cringing the whole time. But no one got shot. In fact, after she thought about it, these guys in the convoy protecting her and her kids were moving so smoothly that they seemed like guys in the movies.

Lisa was concerned that Cole would be traumatized. He was fine. He just looked out the window. He had complied with all the instructions to get down. He held it together very well. Manda did, too. She never drew her revolver because she knew her mom would get mad.

As the convoy started back down the road, Lisa got the CB from Manda. Lisa said into the radio to everyone, “Well, that’s never happened to me before.” Her car erupted with nervous laughter from her passengers.

As they were heading down the road again, Lisa thought about the men protecting her family. Did Grant know how to do this stuff? He had been keeping a lot of secrets from her. She smiled. There are good secrets and bad secrets.