The dogs Kyle handled could be used to secure the premises or to go into the house ahead of the Team. The dogs were the Team’s secret weapon.
Grant had a unique role during the training. He would be a member of the Team, but would be a “floater,” an optional add-in guy. He would not be a core member of the Team since there was a good possibility he would be doing office things at any given moment the Team could be called up.
Rich was in charge of the house-clearing training. Ryan assisted because he had done a lot of urban warfare training in the Marine Corps. His knowledge and experience was better than Rich’s somewhat dated law enforcement training. Rich and Ryan went through the process in slow motion, talking out each step. Everyone made suggestions to Rich’s basic plan of how to clear the house and secure the premises. They came up with a better system of communications. They already had been using basic terms like “moving!” that they practiced at the range before the Collapse. Now they expanded on them and came up with a command for everything they would likely run into. It was good to have Grant as the “floater.” When he was taken out of the mix, simulating when he would be away in the Grange and couldn’t’ get on scene with the others, this forced the Team to change up who had various roles like lead entry. This meant each permanent member of the Team had to cross-train. They learned each role better by actually doing it, over and over again, all day.
After a few hours, each man on the Team knew exactly what every other member of the Team was doing at any given moment, and would be doing next. It was like on a basketball team when a player knows who will be where and exactly when. They were truly operating as a team instead of individuals.
It was hard work. They had to stay mentally alert for hours. It was mentally tiring, as well as physically. By the end of the day, they were a pretty good integrated team. The Crew was working out just fine. Kyle and the dogs were working well, too.
That day of training took the Team to the next level. They would need several more days of training to be semi-decent under stressful conditions. Grant heard that in the stress of combat, a person is only able to do 50% of what they are trained to do. So, they needed to train up to a level of double what they wanted to accomplish in real life.
“Whaddya say we call it a day?” Rich finally said. He could see the guys were starting to make mistakes because they were so tired and hungry. Rich didn’t want the training to reinforce the mistakes. They had done an amazing job all day, and he wanted to end the day on a high note.
When they broke for the day, Grant noticed the Team and the Crew talking and laughing. They were getting along just fine, which was not a guaranteed thing. At the beginning of the day, there had been a little tension between the two groups.
Having an elite group and a “junior varsity” can often lead to conflict. The elite group might act like dicks. Not the Team. They appreciated having the Crew back them up. They knew the Crew was risking their lives to make the Team safer. And they knew the Crew was the best of the guards, which was a pretty high level.
A big flatbed truck with wood side boards came by a few minutes after Rich called it a day. The Team, Crew, Rich, and Dan got in. The dogs went into the cab. All together, they rolled down the road. The closer they got to the Grange, the more people saw them. People took note that the Team was expanding to add plenty of local men. This was a relief to some who had worried the Team—who were outsiders—might turn into a gang.
The Team integrating with the local men of the Crew was a clear sign that things were progressing in a good way. Pierce Point was getting a fighting unit together. Grant was glad to see the people witnessing this development. He expected they would be called upon to support a bigger fighting unit in the coming months. He wanted Pierce Point residents to feel pride and see that they could turn some good ole’ boys into real fighters with a little training and equipment. And some help from Special Forces Ted.
When they pulled into the Grange, there was an awkward moment when the Team and Crew needed to pick a table. Grant solved that problem.
“We eat together, gentlemen,” Grant said, motioning for the Crew to join the Team. They all sat down and recounted the day’s events and joked. Dinner came and the men wolfed it down. Salmon and biscuits. No butter, but they were too hungry to care. Desert was heavenly: tons of ripe strawberries and whipped cream. Real cream, from real cows, whipped up with some sugar in it.
They were full and happy. They had done some great work and everyone in the group could see that they would be doing lots more great work together. They had an amazing unit. They felt they could do anything together.
It was almost 7:00 p.m., and people were arriving at the Grange for the nightly meeting. The Team sat with the Crew, and listened to the nights’ meeting, while their taste buds were still remembering the strawberries and biscuits filling up their stomachs.
Chapter 176
Walk-Ons
The meeting started with Rich calling on Al VanDorn, and Kate Henley, who helped keep track of the coming and goings of non-residents into Pierce Point. Kate was in her fifties, smart and quiet. Part of her job was to verify if a person was really a Pierce Point resident who hadn’t been able to get there until then, and was showing up for the first time since the Collapse. That was pretty easy.
The harder part of her job was handling requests from strangers coming to the gate who wanted to live in Pierce Point. Kate and Al would interview the stranger and see if he or she had some skills or equipment that could be contributed or, if they were leeches instead. They would make a recommendation to the community and the residents would vote on it at a Grange meeting. So far, there hadn’t been any votes on letting people in because no one worth considering for admission had come to the gate. There were plenty of strangers who had come to the gate, but they were clearly not worth even asking the residents about; most seemed like drifters and petty criminals.
“We’re seeing something new now,” Al said. “A spike in strangers coming to the gate who might be decent candidates for admission,” Al said. It had been over two months since the Collapse and the flow of decent people at the gate was just now spiking? Grant wondered. Then he realized what had taken people so long to start coming out to the country to try to find a place. The long walk, for one. The roadblocks, for another. He assumed that as long as there was enough in the stores to survive and the FCards were flowing, people wouldn’t come. But now they were.
Maybe the government increasingly wasn’t able to get enough in the stores, Grant thought. Maybe the crime was getting too awful. Maybe the government was starting to take away FCards from “trouble makers.” That would make sense. He had a hunch that many of the people out in the country who were trying to find a place to go were political troublemakers, which meant Patriots. They were very likely Grant’s kind of people. People who could become fighters. People with no other way to eat and nothing left to lose.
He felt a little guilty about taking advantage of hungry people, but he had to think about the survival of his community, and he wanted skilled people for Special Forces Ted’s unit that was forming up. Besides, if these people had their FCards taken away by the Loyalists, Grant was doing them a favor by feeding them, and likely getting some fighters in return. Everyone was better off, except the government, which was fine with him.
“Most of the recent ones seem like decent people,” Al said. “We’re interviewing them and we will have some recommendations for you tomorrow.”