299 Days: The Visitors (26 page)

Special Forces is often misunderstood. The main mission of the Special Forces is not to be commandos, although they could do that. Special Forces’ typical mission was to go in behind enemy lines, make contact with friendly indigenous fighters, and then train and supply them to become guerilla units harassing and sabotaging the enemy. That’s what Ted and Sap were in Pierce Point to do.

Special operations also included Psychological Operations and Civil Affairs units. These were white-collar “nerd units” tucked into the commando-dominated special operations command. PsyOps was propaganda, weakening the enemy’s will to fight, which was a powerful tool, especially in situations like a Collapse where most of the population just wanted to survive and get on with life. The side that could show the population they were better off teaming with that side would have a huge advantage. In a civil war, it would be an astronomical advantage.

Civil affairs were the military governing authorities—the people who went into a devastated area and got the water running again and revived other governmental services. Civil affairs nerds were the ones who started to get the people back on their feet so they could provide their own basic government services again. This, too, was important because it did very little good for the badass soldiers to take an enemy city and then have the population rise up because they had no water, electricity, or food. The badasses’ work was in vain if the nerds didn’t finish the job of keeping the population happy.

Ted had very little regard for the civil affairs nerds back in his old unit. They were largely Loyalists. Almost all of them were in the Reserves or Guard, which wasn’t why Ted didn’t like them. He didn’t like them because, for most of them, their full-time jobs outside of the military were civilian government administrators, like city managers and county public works departments. They worked for the Loyalist authorities and were part of that system.

One of Ted’s missions was to link up with a Patriot civil affairs asset they’d heard about. The asset was at Pierce Point. And Ted knew the guy and trusted him.

Chip wanted to get the Special Forces guys off the beach and out of sight. “Would our guests like a little dinner?” Chip asked. He waved good-bye to the Chief and Paul and motioned for Ted, Sap, and Grant to follow him. Chip started walking back toward Grant’s cabin.

As they walked up the stairs, Ted and Sap were scanning for threats even with their rifles lowered; it was a habit for them. They’d spent thousands of hours walking through woods, beaches, jungles, mountains, deserts, and cities scanning for threats. Chip and Grant were pretty casual about the whole thing. Probably too casual, Ted noticed. Chip and Grant had walked these stairs so many times they didn’t treat them as some place to be cautious. It was home.

Chip took the lead and made sure none of the neighbors saw them. He couldn’t go into Grant’s cabin because the kids or Drew or Eileen were probably there. No one should see the mystery guests who looked so obviously like resistance leaders. Chip ran ahead and checked out the yellow cabin. It looked like the Team was still out. He didn’t have a key for it.

Gideon saw Chip and wondered what he was doing. Might as well let Gideon in on it, or at least part of it, Chip thought. If you can’t trust the guy guarding your families at night, who can you trust?

Chip came up to Gideon and said, “Hey, you got a key to the yellow cabin?”

“Yeah,” Gideon said. He knew that Chip lived in the Morrell’s cabin so he wondered why Chip needed to get into the yellow cabin, which was loaded with the Team’s extremely valuable guns. Gideon basically trusted Chip, but his job was to protect the cabins on Over Road, so he wasn’t going to let Chip just walk in and potentially take stuff. In times like these, Gideon knew from growing up in a rough part of Philly, people you think are your friends will steal from you.

“Why do you need to get in there?” He asked Chip.

Chip could tell Gideon was no dummy, which was good. Gideon was guarding Chip’s huge stash of guns and ammo hidden in Grant’s basement, so he wanted a smart and inquisitive guard there.

“Well, might was well let you in on a little secret. You were in the Army, right?” Chip asked Gideon.

“Yeah. MP,” Gideon said, referring to the military police.

“Oh, an MP,” Chip said. “Better yet. Well, you know when someone says ‘You never saw something’?”

“Yeah,” Gideon said. He was really curious now. He straightened his posture and gripped the AK-74. Something was up.

“OK, you didn’t see this,” Chip whispered. “I have some guests. People from the outside who are going to help us. But they fly under the radar, know what I mean?”

“No, I don’t know what you mean,” Gideon said. He kind of did, but he was curious.

“Can I trust you, Gideon?” Chip asked.

“I hope so,” Gideon said. “I’m guarding your shit.”

“Fair enough,” Chip said. “These gentlemen are Special Forces. For the Patriots, of course. They’re here to do their training thing.” Chip knew that Gideon would know what that was since he had been in the Army.

Gideon’s eyes got big. “Damn,” he said. “Damn.” Gideon thought for a while. This was great news.

He decided when he was taken in by Pierce Point that, with his family trapped in Philly, he would probably never see them again. He decided to make the best of it, and fight hard to make sure his new home of Pierce Point was as safe as possible. Besides, Gideon got to know some of the Special Forces guys back when he was in the Army. They were cool guys. Gideon wanted to be part of it. A small part, but a part.

“See what?” Gideon said with a smile. “Just crazy Chip doing his usual crazy-ass…whatever it is he does. That’s all I saw.”

“Thank you, sir,” Chip said with a big smile. “If anyone is poking around here, they might be poking around about the green lid boys,” Chip said, referring to the nick name for Green Berets. “We can’t have that.”

“Gotcha,” Gideon said. “We have double valuable cargo in the yellow cabin. Equipment and people.” Gideon got the key to the yellow cabin out of his pocket and gave it to Chip.

“Yep,” Chip said and he took the key. Chip turned and motioned for Grant, Ted, and Sap to follow him to the yellow cabin. They did.

As Ted and Sap walked by the guard shack, Gideon said, “Good evening gentlemen. Who I didn’t see.”

Chip pointed to Ted and Sap and said to Gideon, “They’re me and Grant’s gay lovers.”

“Oh, you guys must be from Seattle,” Gideon said. That got a good laugh. Gideon couldn’t resist one more joke.

“Good luck with your lovin’,” Gideon said to Ted and Sap. “It might be hard. Well, soft. Grant’s wife tells me he has problems down in his drawers. That’s why she comes to me.” More laughs. Gideon was fitting in just fine out there.

Chip unlocked the door to the yellow cabin, Ted and Sap let themselves in and looked around. ARs, AKs, tactical shotguns, cases of ammo, optics, and kit were everywhere. They knew they were in the right place.

“Nice,” Sap said as he looked around at the gear. “You guy aren’t duck hunters, that’s for sure.”

“No, but we’re not SF, either.” Grant said.

That was music to Ted and Sap’s ears. Ted had trained some with Grant and knew he was a level-headed guy, not a “mall ninja.” Mall ninjas were simultaneously overconfident and undertrained, which was the worst combination possible.

“Militias” were even worse. Some of the Patriot SF units would be sent out to make contact with militias. The number of groups calling themselves a “militia” went way up as the Collapse unfolded. Many were good people organized to help the community, but quite a few groups calling themselves a “militia” were total goofballs. Mall ninjas. They knew more about how to fight in video games than in real life. They were worthless.

Ted and other SF units could work with even the greenest civilians and train them, which is what they did all over the world and were now doing in America. But, if the trainees thought they knew it all, there was no use even trying to train them. The mall ninjas would get themselves, and everyone else, killed. Or they’d run at the first sound of gun fire.

Ted realized that he hadn’t fully introduced Sap to Chip and Grant. “Gentlemen, this is Sgt. Brandon Sappenfield. We call him ‘Sap.’” Sap looked a little like Luke Skywalker in the Star Wars movies.

Sap shook Grant’s hand. “Pleased to meet you,” Sap said in a slight upper Midwest accent. Grant thought maybe Minnesota. Sap shook Chip’s hand, too.

“You guys hungry?” Chip asked.

“Yep,” Sap said.

Chip got them some MREs. “Sorry, guys, that’s all we have here. We usually eat at the Grange. Hot meals. Very nice. But you guys can’t just stroll in there.”

“The Grange?” Ted asked.

This was Grant’s moment to shine. He had done a lot to organize functioning governmental services out at Pierce Point. He hadn’t done it all alone, of course. Rich, Dan, and a host of others had made it possible. But Grant was the driving force behind all the services they were developing out there. The fact that they had so many volunteers at the Grange, and could feed them, was a big bragging point for him.

“The Grange is where…” Grant started.

There was a knock at the door.

Gideon’s voice said, “Hey, the Team’s coming and they have some girls. What should I do?”

Chapter 163

Limas

(July 3)

Ted and Sap looked concerned. Who were these people coming to the cabin?

“The Team can come in. The girls can’t,” Grant yelled through the door. “I’ll come out and explain it to them,” he said. Chip motioned to Ted and Sap that things were cool, even though he was wondering if they really were.

Grant ran out the door. He and Gideon went to meet the truck rumbling down the gravel road. Sure enough, there was the Team getting out of Mark’s truck, with some lovely female friends.

Grant had wondered how long it would take for this to happen. The Team was made up of single guys in their mid-twenties. They were the heroes of Pierce Point. Do the math.

Gideon yelled to them, “Hey, sorry, guys, this is a restricted area.” He was harkening back to his MP days using that phrase.

Grant yelled, “Yep. We need your guests to wait in the truck for a minute.”

Scotty yelled back, “What the fuck?” There are few things that get guys more angry at each other, even good friends, than one of them getting in the way of the other’s lovin’.

The young ladies looked confused. They were on their way to the Team’s place for a party and…well, everyone knew how things would end up.

“Pow, I need to see you, man,” Grant said. Pow was not happy about this, either. He got out of the truck and came up to Grant.

“This better be good,” he said softly.

“It is,” Grant whispered back.

When Pow was close and no one else could hear, Grant said, “Ted is here with another SF liaison. They’re in the yellow cabin. We can’t have random people, even hot ones, know they’re here. Sorry, but I’m calling operational security over some hoochie time.”

Grant was softening what he was saying with a word like “hoochie,” but he was in command right now. What he said went. People’s lives literally depended on it. There was a time for palling around and this wasn’t it.

Pow’s eyes got big. “Roger that,” he said.

Pow went back to the truck and said, “Sorry, ladies, but we’ll have to get back with you. Something has come up. It’s probably nothing, but it’s a little dangerous.” He might as well reinforce the hero thing with the girls. “We’ll text you in a little while when it probably calms down. But we’ll text for sure, either way.”

The guys were looking at him like he was insane, but they knew that whatever Grant said to Pow was truly something that needed their attention right then. They were disappointed that business had gotten in the way of their only pleasure in quite some time.

The girls were disappointed, too. They started hugging the guys. One of the girls came up to Wes and they hugged like they knew each other. The other girls were staking out which man was theirs with their departing hugs.

The Team, minus Ryan, who was driving the girls back to the Grange, assembled around Grant and Pow.

“Well?” asked Scotty. “What is it?” He was pissed. His girl was smoking hot.

Grant motioned for them to follow him into the yellow cabin. Gideon was watching the truck the whole time to make sure it was gone and not coming back. He wasn’t going to let anyone discover the SF guys.

The Team walked inside, expecting to meet with Grant. They did not expect to see other people in their cabin, especially not Ted.

Bobby was the first to recognize Ted. “Ted? That you? No way!”

Wes just said in his southern drawl, “Well, I’ll be…”

Scotty and Pow said “Oh shit” at the same time. They knew what this meant.

Everyone on the Team was excited. They lived for this. They idolized Ted. They wanted to be like him. They loved learning from a real Green Beret. They wanted to be a part of whatever Ted was a part of. They wanted to go into battle with Ted. It was how they were wired. They were sheepdogs.

They wondered who the guy with Ted was and he introduced them to Sap.