299 Days: The Stronghold

Chapter 133 The Legend of Pierce Point (May 14)

Grant got up at about 7:00 a.m. that morning, which felt like sleeping in. He felt rested, a feeling he hadn’t had in a while. He had a light day ahead of him for the first time since he got out there. He needed it. All these all-nighters, stress, and runnin’ and gunnin’ was wearing him out.

He got up and started making pancakes. He wanted to give Eileen and the others who had been making breakfast for the past few days a little break. Not that they minded doing it, he just wanted to show his thanks by doing it for them.

Grant loved the smell of those pancakes. He took several deep breaths and savored the smell. It wasn’t just that they smelled good and he was hungry. It was that he had pancake mix out there and he had his family to cook for. He had prepared for this and—by some miracle—his family was out there. He had written them off when he first got out there. He had mentally decided that he would spend the rest of his life without them because they wouldn’t come out. Now they were sleeping in his beloved cabin and he was making them pancakes. What could be better?

His family started stirring. First Eileen, and then Drew. Eileen helped with breakfast and Drew made coffee. Grant, who didn’t drink much coffee, was very glad he brought out plenty of coffee and filters before the Collapse. He knew that coffee had a civilizing effect on people. A morning cup of coffee was a pre-Collapse routine. Having a cup out there was a connection to the pre-Collapse “normal.” That was very important.

Grant had always hated normalcy bias, but there were parts of “normal” that were healthy and beneficial. A morning cup of coffee reminded people of the past when things were good and gave them hope that even during this stressful time, these things of comfort were still available. Not everything had changed; that was reassuring. They would have coffee through this and enjoy it after things got better.

The Morrells and Colsons came over. Missy Colson was playing with Cole, and Manda was watching over them. That was working well. It seemed that Manda had grown up in the past few weeks, nearly overnight. It was remarkable to see her—who Grant remembered just a few short years ago playing like little Missy—now being the teenager in charge.

The Team came over, too. Ryan was now fully integrated with them, which was good. He was staying out at the yellow cabin with the rest of the Team. They were a tight-knit group, so it wasn’t easy to quickly fit in, but Ryan, a combat Marine, had the respect of the guys, so it worked well.

Wes came in and smelled the pancakes. “I loves me some pancakes,” he said in that rich southern drawl of his. “I bet you the last meal I eat will be pancakes.”

That statement struck Grant. For some reason, Grant thought Wes might be right. Grant thought it was superstitious, but he kept thinking pancakes would be Wes’s last meal. He couldn’t shake that thought.

The last guy to come over was Chip. When he came to the door, Chip signaled Grant to join him outside. Grant knew that they had business to conduct.

When they got outside and away from everyone, Chip said, “OK, let’s do this.” Chip had the keys to the downstairs unfinished basement in his hand. He was holding the keys like they were gold coins. They were. They were the keys to something worth more than gold: guns and ammo.

Grant motioned for Chip to lead the way down to the unfinished basement. Chip went down the stairs to it. When Chip got to the door, he paused. He looked at Grant and said, “How bad do we need those medical supplies?”

“Real bad,” Grant said. Chip smiled. He knew it was true. Chip wasn’t greedy, he just wanted to make sure the sacrifice he was about to make was worth it. It was.

Chip opened the door to the unfinished basement. It was dark in there, so he turned on the light. There they were. Boxes and boxes of guns. Cases of ammo stacked neatly. Boxes of magazines. Several scopes and red-dot sights. Several handgun cases, mostly Glocks. Leaning on the wall were AKs and tactical shotguns with a “Don’t Tread on Me” flag partially covering them from view. On the bench were Chip’s gunsmithing tools.

Chip looked at all the guns. They were his “babies.” He loved every one of them. Grant knew that what Chip was about to do would be hard, but he would still gladly do it.

Chip started checking the labels on the ends of the boxes. “How about standard M4s? Carry handles and standard handguards?”

Granted nodded. “Yeah, we don’t need to give out the good stuff.” About half of Chip’s guns were the fancier models with flat tops and rails for mounting optics and other accessories, like lights. The standard M4s didn’t have those features. They were general issue military carbines, except they weren’t fully automatic. They were great guns, just not all tricked out.

Chip selected two gun boxes and handed them to Grant. Chip went to one of the big boxes of magazines and pulled out twenty standard aluminum magazines. He tested each follower to make sure it worked. They all did. He handed each magazine to Grant after he tested it. Grant found an empty box to put them in. Then Chip went over to the ammo stack, looked at the label and turned to Grant and asked, “A full case of 5.56? Really? Ouch.”

Grant just nodded.

“OK,” Chip said. He grabbed a full case—1,000 rounds—of 5.56. It was heavy and he was in his sixties, so he lifted it slowly. He brought the case over to the two gun boxes and the magazine box Grant had over by him.

Grant looked at the guns, ammo, and magazines and said, “Thanks, man. Seriously. This is a life-saving thing you’re doing.”

Chip smiled. “Oh, I know. That’s why I’m doing it.”

Grant motioned that he would go outside and make sure no one was looking. He trusted everyone upstairs with his life, but…he still didn’t want anyone to know that they had enough guns, ammo, and magazines to outfit about forty fighters. That’s just not something to share. Until it’s time. And it wasn’t time yet.

Grant went out into the daylight and saw that no one was around. He came back in and grabbed a couple of beach towels and motioned for Chip to bring the guns out. They went to Mark’s truck and put them in the bed. Grant covered them with the beach towels. Next, came the box of magazines and the case of ammo, which Grant carried. They all fit under the towels. Grant put some pieces of firewood on the towels to keep them on.

Grant said to Chip, “Hey, man, you go have yourself some pancakes. You’ve earned them. I’ll hang out here. Then tell Mark we need his keys to take something up to the Grange. Tell him to enjoy breakfast. We got this all by ourselves. You can have someone at the Grange run the truck back to him later this morning.”

Grant took this opportunity to sit and just take in the sun and nature out there. God, it was beautiful that May morning. Birds chirping. Sunny and warm with a slight breeze. Nature was still its beautiful self, right in the middle of all the human chaos.

A few minutes later, Chip came out with Mark’s keys. He had his AR slung across his chest, a paper plate of pancakes in his hands, and a plastic fork in his mouth. It was the oddest thing Grant had ever seen, but it made perfect sense.

Chip got in the bed of the truck and Grant started up the engine. Chip was busy keeping the firewood on the towels, balancing his AR, and working on those pancakes. How a guy could simultaneously sit in the bed of truck and do all that at the same time was unclear, but Chip was doing it.

It was almost 8:00 a.m. when they pulled into the Grange. Perfect. That’s when they were supposed to meet Rich, but his truck was already in the parking lot.

“You finish up those pancakes and guard the goodies,” Grant said to Chip, who nodded. Grant went in and saw Rich. He motioned for him to come out. Rich came to the truck and looked in the bed. Chip pulled the towels back and showed Rich what they had brought. Rich smiled.

Grant said, “Rich, I love you man, but I’m not telling you where these came from. These were hidden.” Grant was trying to imply that these two ARs were all he had. “I can’t say who I got them from, but I did. Legally. Well, to the extent anything is legal. You know what I mean. I didn’t steal these.”

Rich understood. He wasn’t offended that Grant didn’t disclose where he got them. Rich assumed they were extras the Team had, though it was odd that the Team would have extra guns in their factory boxes like this. Oh well. Rich didn’t think about it too much. He was just glad they had them.

“Great,” Rich said. “Thanks, gentlemen. Let’s get these in my truck with those towels on them. Grant, you should watch them. Chip needs to get the day Grange guard organized and operating.” Chip gave Rich a friendly salute and hopped out of the bed of the truck. He took his syrup-soaked pancake plate and put it in the garbage. He went off and started getting the day guards together. It was work time.

Grant sat in the back of Rich’s truck and chatted with people. They offered him breakfast. He’d already eaten some pancakes, but he took some more breakfast. He could never predict when he might miss a meal, or two.

A volunteer, a teenager Grant had met down at the gate, came up to Grant and asked for the keys to Mark’s truck. He said he was going to pick up the Team and Mark so Mark could drive the truck back. Grant handed him the keys.

Grant stayed in Rich’s truck chatting with people. About a half hour later, the Team arrived in full kit, as usual. Since they didn’t know the source of the guns, it was OK to tell them what was going on. As soon as they got settled, Grant told someone to send the Team out to Rich’s truck. They came out and saw Grant sitting in the bed of the truck, which was odd. Grant looked around to make sure no one else saw them. He motioned for them to come closer.

Grant whispered, “We have two ARs to sell in town. Don’t ask where they came from. I didn’t steal them.” The Team was very surprised to see Grant had some ARs. They all started to wonder how he got them. They weren’t coming up with any answers.

Knowing that they would be wondering where the ARs came from, Grant said, “Community donations.” That was true, just not the whole story. They were Chip’s community donations, but were still “community donations.” Grant couldn’t lie to the Team, but he felt OK telling them part of the truth when it was necessary.

“We’re going into town to buy us some medical supplies and,” Grant winked at Rich, “something else that you’ll see later.” Rich smiled.

Grant continued. “I’d like Pow and Ryan to come with Rich and Cindy, the nurse. I can’t go because of that POI thing. And Wes…well, some Mexicans are looking for a white dude with an AK underfolder right now, so he’s out.” Wes was embarrassed, but still smiling.

“I chose Pow and Ryan for a couple of reasons,” Grant said. “I want Pow because he’s Asian. He’ll stand out in a crowd there in Frederickson. I want people there talking about ‘that SEAL-looking Asian dude. Don’t mess with Pierce Point.’ I want kind of a signature thing and Pow’s ‘ninja’ bad-assness is perfect.” Pow was smiling and very proud that his “ninja bad-assness” was a selling point.

“I also want Ryan because he’s a local,” Grant said. “I want the Frederickson people to know that Ryan and Rich out at Pierce Point have recruited some stranger badass support. Something exotic. And a six-foot Korean in full kit fits the bill.” The guys were patting Pow on the back and laughing.

“Why not take us all as a show of force?” Bobby asked.

“Good question,” Grant said. “That was my first idea, but we need plenty of the Team back here to deal with anything that might come up while they’re gone. We don’t want to put all our eggs in one basket. While we have reason to believe our little shopping party won’t be arrested,” Grant again looked at Rich, who smiled back, “we would only lose a few of our Team—but not all—if that happened.” Bobby nodded, satisfied with the answer.

Grant pointed to the packages under the towels. “Not a word about these. Not to anyone. We do not need people knowing that we have extra ARs or people speculating that we have more. Seriously. Not a word.”

“What ARs?” Scotty said.

“Don’t see nuthin’,” Wes said, pretending to be the stereotypical dumb southerner.

“Exactly,” Grant said as he looked at his watch. That was another new thing in Grant’s life: a watch. Pre-Collapse he always used his cell phone to keep track of time. Now he didn’t use his cell phone because he could be tracked by it. So he dug out his old Timex, which still worked perfectly well. He was quickly getting used to it being on his wrist. With all the coordination of plans requiring him to be places at certain times, he had to have a watch.

“Rich, Pow, and Ryan will meet Cindy here at 9:00 a.m., which is in twenty minutes. The rest of you will get the day’s jobs from Dan, who I think will have you guys down at the gate today training some of the new guards. I will be going to Mrs. Roth’s funeral at noon and working on administrative things, like the meal cards. Tomorrow, when the full Team is back, we’ll resume our visits to the residents. Any questions?”

Everyone shook their heads.

“Okely dokely,” Grant said, imitating Ned Flanders of the Simpsons. “Let’s go to work.” The group broke up and went into the Grange to talk to Dan.

Pow and Ryan went over their gear with Grant. Pow had his body armor plates in a load bearing vest which had magazine pouches all over it. He carried four double AR magazine pouches, which was 240 rounds, plus the thirty rounds in his carbine. Well, actually 252, since Pow and the Team only loaded a magazine with twenty-eight rounds instead of thirty to prevent any feeding malfunctions, which were extremely rare. But still. Why not take out the possibility of a malfunction when your life depended on the gun going bang? Pow also had four seventeen-round Glock pistol magazines in two double-mag pouches and one mag in his pistol. He had a fairly large first aid kit on the back of his kit. And his Camelbak water bladder. Lots of guys thought ammo was more important than water, but a person drinks several times a day and almost never fires their gun. Which was more important?

Pow also had Grant’s Gerber LMF knife hanging upside down on the webbing of his left shoulder, his non-firing shoulder. Normally, Pow didn’t carry a knife on his kit because he wasn’t trained at knife fighting and didn’t want to pull a knife on someone, not know how to use it, and get it taken away only to be used on him. Grant was the same way, almost never carrying anything other than his Zero Tolerance folding knife. But, Grant had brought his thoroughly badass Gerber LMF along knowing that he needed to “dress up” Pow for an extra badass appearance. It was a little bit of theater. With his sunglasses, 5.11s, and combat boots, Pow looked like a military contractor. Perfect. Let the rumors fly about the professional gun fighters out at Pierce Point. It wasn’t true, of course, but that was a false impression that was good to have out there.

Ryan was using extra kit borrowed from various Team members. Ryan, who was still in Marine shape from his recent return from Afghanistan, looked plenty badass himself. He was wearing his Marine camouflage-pattern pants, a black tee shirt, and boots.

Rich handed a handheld CB to Pow and Ryan. “These are more for show. I don’t think we’ll need them, but I want the Frederickson boys to think we’re all equipped with these.”

“Why not the ham radios?” Ryan asked. “I mean, they’re way more high speed than CBs.”

“Because I don’t want people in town to know that we have hams,” Rich said. “Ham is the way we do our sensitive communications. If they know we have them, they might start trying to listen in on those frequencies. Let them listen in all they want on CB, which is where we say routine things. But also let them think we have tons of handheld CBs out here, which we don’t. This trip is as much about starting the legend of Pierce Point as it is getting medical supplies.”

Cindy came out to the Rich’s truck. She had a clipboard and several garbage bags in which to bring things back.

“Good morning,” Ryan said to her.

“Morning,” she said, nervously. She was scared. She knew town was dangerous. Really dangerous. She was glad she had an extremely well-armed escort, but she was still scared. She really didn’t want to be doing this, but she knew she had to.

Ryan made a facial gesture to Pow and Rich that Cindy needed to be made comfortable. They nodded. They would ease Cindy’s mind.

Cindy got in the cab with Rich. Pow and Ryan got in the back of the truck and opened the rear window to the cab so they could talk to Rich and Cindy. They started down the road toward the gate. The guys began to banter about the weather and all the things they were going to do in a few hours when they came back—safely, of course.

“What are the Grange ladies serving up for lunch?” Ryan asked.

“Dunno, man,” Pow said, “but I hope it’s those deer burgers. And, damn, that potato salad. Hey, Cindy, you had that potato salad?”

She nodded. “It’s good,” she added. She was relaxing a little. She hadn’t slept the night before worrying about going into town. Not just about danger to herself, but about seeing all the horrible things going on in town. She wasn’t sure she was prepared for it.

Just before they got to the gate, Cindy asked, “Did you guys bring money? How are we paying for these?”

Rich pointed toward the back of the truck and said, “We have something much better than money. You’ll see.” Rich realized that they hadn’t told Cindy the plan yet so it was no wonder she was nervous. Just going to town without money would be a scary thing.

“We have some valuables to trade for the medical supplies,” Rich said, pointing toward the back of the truck. “Then we’ll meet someone who will, shall we say, cut the red tape for us and take us to someone who has medical supplies for sale. Don’t worry. We have this thing well planned.”

Cindy relaxed some more. She thought Rich had done plenty of things right in the past and seemed to know what he was doing. She was reassured they had a plan and something to trade for the medical supplies.

Rich got on the CB. “Bennington, leaving now. See you at the rendezvous in about five minutes.” Pow’s and Ryan’s CB’s echoed with this. They were all on the same channel. Of course.

“OK. See you soon,” the other voice, which must be Bennington, said.

Rich’s truck came up to the gate. Ryan made sure the towels were over the packages. The guards seemed puzzled when the guys and Cindy didn’t get out of the truck to be at the guard station. Were they going into town?

“Gotta do some errands,” Rich said with a smile to Dan, who knew the plan. Dan shouted, “Let them through.” The steel-pole gate swung open and out they went. It was scary to be leaving the safety of Pierce Point. The guys were mildly scared, but wouldn’t admit it. Cindy was terrified, but was trying to calm herself down.

They went across the bridge and turned down the road to Frederickson. Rich, trying to ease the tension, looked at his gas gauge and said, “Full tank.” He had been getting fuel donated to him from various neighbors with gallon gas cans of gas siphoned from vehicles they no longer drove. Cindy nodded. One less thing to worry about, she thought.

She finally admitted it to herself. It wasn’t getting shot or even dying that she worried about. It was getting raped. That word was so ugly. She hated to even think it, so she didn’t. She thought about getting caught by a group of men, but then her thinking cut off and went back to the beginning when she got caught. She could never complete the thought about what would happen after getting caught. She couldn’t. She was starting to grip the clipboard hard. Rich could tell she was really scared.

Rich gently put his hand on the clipboard and said, “We’re all scared, but we’ll be fine. I do this kind of thing for a living. I’ve come home every time.” He looked away from the road and directly at her and said, “You have three extremely good gunfighters working for you. We’re way better than any of the punks in town. Seriously. We know what we’re doing. We have a plan and, as you’ll see, help from ‘friends.’ We’re good at this, just like you’re good at nursing.” He wanted to change her thinking from guns to nursing, which was, after all, why they were going into town. Well, the medical supplies were one of the two reasons they were going into town.

About a mile after the Pierce Point gate, Rich slowed down before a gas station. It had a sign up that said, “NO GAS” and looked like it had been looted. There was a police car there.

Cindy was alarmed. The men in the truck had guns that were illegal—especially those Army-looking guns—and now they were letting the police see them?

“Part of the plan,” Rich said with a smile. “You’ll see.” Even though Cindy was about to see what was going on, Rich had secrecy so drilled into him that he didn’t want to tell her even a minute in advance. That made no sense, but it was how he was.

Rich said to the guys in the back, “Rendezvous. Keep your eyes open for more than one guy, though.” Rich didn’t want his cargo to get stolen. He basically trusted Bennington, but he couldn’t be too sure in this climate. In many ways, this rendezvous was the most dangerous part of the trip into town.

Pow and Ryan scanned. There was no one around, unless the bad guys had snipers on the roof of the gas station, and the shot angle wouldn’t work too well if they did. Rich saw that there was apparently only one cop in the car. Good.

He pulled up alongside the police car. The cop waved. Rich said, “Mornin’ John.” Rich tapped on the back window.

Pow and Ryan jumped out and started sweeping the area with their ARs. They looked extremely professional and intimidating. Good.

This startled Bennington, but he realized that they had every right to be taking security precautions. He acted like it was no big deal even though it was jarring.

Rich said to Cindy, “Stay in here. We’ll be back in a minute.” She nodded. She had the feeling that this was actually all well planned. She didn’t know exactly what was going to happen, but she knew it was well planned. That alone was comforting.

Rich got out of his truck and came over to the cop car door and Bennington got out.

Rich shook his hand and smiled. “Nice to see you again, John.”

“Nice to see you, too,” Bennington said.

Rich walked to the back of the truck and lifted up the towels. “Well, John, just like we talked about on the radio last night,” Rich smiled, “it seems that I have two AR-15s, ten magazines, and a full case of 5.56 to ‘turn in’ to the authorities. All those items being illegal and all, I wanted to do my civic duty and get them to you for safekeeping.”

Bennington wasn’t thinking this was as funny as Rich was. Bennington was actually ashamed of what he was doing. It wasn’t funny to Bennington.

Bennington said curtly, “Yeah, thanks.” He opened the AR boxes and looked at the guns. He counted the magazines and tested one of them by pushing in on the follower. It seemed to work. Everything seemed to be in order.

“OK,” Bennington said to Rich, “help me put these in my trunk.” Bennington was looking around, not for attackers, but for anyone to see him doing something so dirty. Taking a bribe. Kind of. And doing his job. Kind of.

Rich started to help Bennington put the cargo into the trunk. Pow and Ryan were scanning the area from cover. Bennington looked over at them and said to Rich, “How many of these kind of guys you got in Pierce Point?”

Rich would be an idiot to give an accurate answer. So, instead, he said, “Oh, several squads.” He intentionally used a military term like “squad,” implying that the fighters at Pierce Point had some military structure.

“What?” Bennington asked, completely surprised.

“Oh, yeah,” Rich said very convincingly, “Ryan, there,” he said pointing at Ryan, “just came back from Afghanistan. A bunch of his Marine buddies were out of work. So a couple weeks ago they came to live with him. I don’t even know how many, but there’s dozens. They talk about a ‘Squad Five’ so I guess there’s five squads and that’s, what, fifty men?” Rich was loving this. He made a mental note to do some CB chatter back when he was at Pierce Point saying things like “Squad Three Leader, this is Squad Five Leader” to make the charade a little more real. They would assign a person to be a specific “squad leader” so there would be a consistent voice associated with that title. There was a good chance he didn’t need to do that because the cops probably weren’t listening to the CBs, but it was easy enough to throw a few of those “squad” references in every once in a while. They would also use fake squad references on the ham frequencies since the FC might be listening to that.

Rich continued, “And another guy living in Pierce Point was a military contractor in Iraq and Afghanistan with Blackwater or whatever they’re called now. He had about a dozen of his contractor buddies come live with him like this guy,” Rich said pointing to Pow, who was scanning the area with his AR from behind the cover of the pickup bed. Bennington remembered seeing a six-foot Korean guy with full kit and some other contractor-looking guys when he came to the gate. So that explained who they were, Bennington thought.

“I guess we’re lucky to have them,” Rich said with a shrug. “All nice young guys. ‘Sir’ and ‘ma’am’ to everyone. They follow orders and, when they’re not guarding or patrolling, they are working hard on gardens and things like that. Real nice to have them,” Rich said matter of factly as he was loading the last box into Bennington’s trunk.

Bennington asked, “So do all these guys have ARs?” It was pretty obvious that Bennington was gathering intelligence, so Rich thought he’d fully load him up with false information to take back to Commissioner Winters and the FC.

Rich hadn’t thought of the answer to the AR question because he was making up the fifty Marines and dozen contractors story.

“Oh, yeah,” Rich said, “they all have personal weapons. ARs, mostly, of varying kinds. Dunno where they got them. Never really asked.” Rich remembered seeing photos of contractors with AKs so he said, “Some of the contractors run AKs. I guess they learned to like them over there.”

Rich added, “You know, John, I never knew how many vets we had out at Pierce Point until they all started volunteering. You saw some of them at the gate. Every branch is represented. And those good ole’ boys and girls out at Pierce Point have guns galore. ARs, AKs, M1As, mini-14s, you name it. We have stacks, literally stacks,” Rich motioned with his hand to show a waist-high stack “of hunting rifles and shotguns. And pistols. It seems like everyone has a pistol. Those guns came out of the woodwork. You know how gun sales have been the past couple of years. Well, people in Pierce Point were the ones buying them off the shelves and now they’re being put to good use. Yep, lots of good ol’ boys and girls out at Pierce Point. We’re much better off than city people. Most everyone is self-reliant, to one degree or another, out here.”

This wasn’t entirely true, but Rich wanted to create the impression with the authorities that Pierce Point was on its own. Not a threat and not needing anything. Just there, but not to be messed with.

Bennington had already determined that if Rich was telling the truth then Pierce Point would take a much larger force than the police had. Taking down Pierce Point would be impossible. But, anticipating his boss Commissioner Witners’ next question, Bennington wanted to find out if there was enough loot in Pierce Point to justify asking for some military help to go get it. So Bennington pointed to an AR in a box and asked Rich, “How many more of these do you got?”

“This is it,” Rich said, knowing that he didn’t want to say there was a treasure chest out at Pierce Point to be taken. Besides, for all Rich knew, these were all the extra ARs Grant had out there. “These were a couple extras one of the hunter guys had. He bought them for an investment in the run up to the Crisis,” Rich was using the politically correct term with Bennington. “So this is it as far as extra ARs go out there.”

Rich realized that he could oversell the (false) capabilities of the Pierce Point “troops.” He didn’t want to create the impression with the authorities that Pierce Point was a powerful and rogue force that would threaten them. He wanted the rumor to be that Pierce Point would be a good trading partner, but not a threat.

So Rich added, “John, I’m really proud of how the troops out at Pierce Point are conducting themselves. They listen to me. For example, I told them that we need to trade some guns for medical supplies with you guys in town and they were all for it.” Rich winked at Bennington said, “It’s kinda cool to be in command of all these guys.”

Rich decided to emphasize this next point so he looked Bennington right in the eye and said, “We’ll just do our own thing out there until this calms down. You won’t have any trouble from us.”

Bennington nodded. That’s what he wanted to know. He wasn’t sure he believed Rich, but at least he could report this back to Commissioner Winters.

Rich could tell Bennington was mentally preparing bullet points for his intel report to Commissioner Winters. Fifty fully equipped Marines, a dozen contractors, and lots of well-armed vets and hunters, but no treasure trove of extra ARs. Controllable troops under the leadership of someone they knew, like Rich. Pierce Point was pretty much self-sufficient, wanted to be left alone, and had plenty of force to repel a raid. That was the perfect impression to leave with Bennington.

Now that Rich had delivered his end of the bargain, it was time for Bennington to deliver on his end. Rich said to Bennington, “So, just to be clear, I have safe passage into and around town now, right?”

Bennington nodded. He really hated acknowledging the bribe, but it was how things were. “Yes. I’ve briefed my people that you and the people with you have safe passage when you come to town. That’s what one of the ARs was for. You’re Rich, the ex-cop, so people know you and recognize you. I’ll be with you this morning and make introductions. They will give you a safe-passage ID.”

“I won’t always be making the runs,” Rich said. “I’m running Pierce Point. Can my ID be transferrable to others?”

“Sure,” Bennington said. “The IDs are a piece of cloth in a particular pattern that can’t be duplicated. So the holder of the cloth has safe passage.”

“Can I start getting my people into town and registering for FCards?” Rich asked.

“Sure,” Bennington said. “Commissioner Winters encourages it.”

Rich was still amazed that there was at least some food in the stores. After the first two weeks with bare shelves, he assumed there would never be any again. It was a logical assumption.

But, somehow the government managed to get a trickle of food out to the stores. Forcibly taking over the trucking system and all the diesel fuel was what it took. And, as inept as they were, once the United States government decided to do one thing, they had enormous resources to pull it off.

The government learned some lessons from the Mexican refugee crisis. It no longer worried about environmental approvals; it just took food and shipped it. The trickle of food to the rural areas started to pick up. It would never be like before the Collapse, but it picked up. It was a “pretty much enough” level.

Rich knew that the FCards were just a supplement—a pretty big supplement—to the food that they were getting on their own out at Pierce Point via stored food, hunting and fishing, and gardening. So, Pierce Point wouldn’t be dependent on the FCards like the people in the cities, but the FCards would help.

Rich was a Patriot and despised the FCard system, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t use it to feed his people. As long as they weren’t dependent on the FCards, they were fine. That’s what it was all about: dependence. If you’re not dependent, you don’t have to do the other things the government wanted in return.

Rich realized that he couldn’t have all his residents come into town to register for FCards. They would be asked about the fifty Marines and say, “What Marines?” He needed to have only a small group of trusted people who knew the story to go into town.

“Hey, John,” Rich said to Bennington, “I can’t be hauling hundreds of people into town to register for FCards. I don’t have the gas to bring all of them in. And they’re doing work like gardening and hunting. The logistics of getting everyone organized and into town is too much for us. Could we…”

Bennington knew what he was going to ask and interrupted him with the answer. “Yep, we can give you applications to take back. Just bring them back. We don’t need to see the people applying,” Bennington said. There were a couple reasons for this.

First, the government didn’t have the resources to process all these in person. They just issued “basic” cards when they didn’t know the person. That is, a normal person got the basic card which had a smaller amount on it. People who were “critical,” which meant politically connected, got increased amounts which took more processing. Commissioner Winters’ people would just take all the applications and give out generic basic FCards. They weren’t tied to a particular person. They were like a $1,000 dollar bill: each person got one. Simple to administer.

Second, there was quickly massive corruption in the FCard program. Winters was creating false applications and selling those extra FCards, so the whole thing was riddled with imprecision, and that’s how Winters liked it. It would be no big deal to send hundreds of applications home with Rich and give him hundreds of basic FCards. Who cares if the people really existed or if they qualified. It was like voter registration in the run up to the Collapse. The more the merrier, and no one really knew who signed up. And no one had an incentive to care.

Rich was surprised that getting FCards was this easy. What a scam. FCards would be a huge boost to their food situation, he thought. They could have a daily run into town and get things. Not too much stuff, and not enough to live on, but some.

The FCard discussion brought up the topic of paying for things. Bennington paused. He really hated saying these things, but he had to.

“When you want to buy things that aren’t in the grocery store you make deals with me on those. I tell you the prices. You can get me on CB channel 9 and then we’ll switch over to channel 34,” he picked that number because that’s how old he was, “and I take your order, tell you if we have it, and we agree on a price. You come here to this gas station and we do the deal like we are now.”

“Besides guns and ammo,” Rich said, “what else works to buy things?” Rich asked.

“Gold and silver,” Bennington said. “Some people still take cash, but the amounts are so high it’s kind of impractical. Things like tools and machinery are valuable. You can let me know what you guys have to sell and we can get you FCards or whatever for them.”

“What about gas?” Rich asked.

“To buy or to sell?” Bennington asked.

“To buy,” Rich said.

“We have the only operating gas stations around here. You can buy gas with FCards or other things. But,” Bennington said very seriously, “we control the gas, alright? You don’t buy from anyone else.”

“OK,” Rich said. Message received.

“So what else works for payment of things we need,” Rich asked.

“.22 ammo, especially for small things,” Bennington said. “A box of fifty rounds is like change: fifty little pieces almost like pennies.” That made sense. Rich noticed that .22 rifles and pistols were coming out of the woodwork. Everyone seemed to have one that had been in an attic somewhere.

“Of course, booze and cigarettes,” Bennington continued. “We sell those, but you can also use them to buy other things.”

Bennington paused. He was embarrassed about the next part. “Drugs and young ladies. That works, too. Buy or sell.” Rich knew how hard the “young ladies” thing was on Bennington, who had always been a decent guy.

This was no time for loose ends, so Rich thought he’d clarify one more point. So he looked at Bennington in the eye and said, “Along with safe passage comes being left alone. I mean, Pierce Point won’t be causing Commissioner Winters any trouble. We don’t give a shit about politics. Patriot, Loyalist, whatever. We don’t care. We just want to get through this.” While it was true that they wanted to get through this; the part about not caring about Patriots was basically a lie, but Rich needed Bennington to report back that Pierce Point didn’t care about politics.

“And,” Rich said, “We don’t need anything from the government, really. So we’re not a drain on your resources. We’ll be our own little kingdom and come into town to trade. We want to be left alone. We have some assets that make any unwelcome visit a suicide mission. Understand?”

“Understood,” Bennington said. “I understood perfectly the other day when I saw that gate and all your guys. And those dogs. And now Marines and contractors. Oh, I’ll put out the word that you don’t fuck with Pierce Point,” Bennington said with a smile. The first one he’d cracked all morning.

That got Bennington thinking. Maybe Pierce Point would be a good ally in what he was considering doing.