“Will do,” Grant said. “And, if you come back from the capitol and I’m not here because I cut myself on some paperwork and bled to death,” they both laughed, “well, thanks for getting my family out of Olympia. ‘Gonna eat that pickle?’ Classic, dude. Classic. You guys risking it for my family meant everything. Thanks.”
“What?” Pow asked with a questioning expression. “This isn’t some goodbye, dude. Don’t even talk that way. We’ll be back in a couple hours. Couple days, tops.” Pow smiled his beaming smile of confidence.
By now, Scotty, Bobby, Ryan, and Wes had assembled around Pow. It was time to go. They all bro hugged Grant. The Bravo Company guys thought it was weird for some contractor-looking guys to be bro hugging a commanding officer, but whatever. They were an irregular unit.
“Let’s go!” yelled one of the Bravo Company squad leaders, and off they went. No one from the 17th looked back. They wanted to, but didn’t want to look like wusses.
As they started walking off toward combat, none of them could possibly imagine what was going to happen in the next two hours. None of them saw it coming.
Chapter 300
“Kah-mah-la-malik!”
It was strangely quiet at the brewery after Bravo Company and half of the 17th left. It was noisy in one sense—radio traffic, people running around coordinating things, everyone asking Ted and Grant to make decisions—but it was quiet in another sense. Not seeing half the unit around was weird.
Grant had thought of a lot of scenarios over the past few months for combat in Olympia, but half his unit getting poached by a regular unit wasn’t one of them. He felt nervous. He always had a plan for everything. Everything. But not for this. He used plans like a crutch in stressful situations, and he didn’t have his crutch now. Everything seemed chaotic. And he was tired, which amplified his emotions.
Grant motioned for Jim Q. to come over. “Tell HQ that civil affairs is up and running in the brewery.” Jim Q. started talking in his code, but Grant heard “brewery” in English as he had before.
A reply came back on the radio. Jim Q. said, “Boston Harbor says they’ll start sending civil affairs assets and problems here. We’re the official civil affairs operation.” Jim Q. smiled. He was very proud of the people he was with.
More weird language on the radio. “We should be getting some MREs here on a couple of trucks. One white pick-up and one black one.”
Ted was way ahead of Grant. “Let the perimeter know,” he told a runner.
“Tell HQ that I could use a field kitchen and some more food here, too,” Grant said. “We can feed our forces and civilians.” Jim Q. started relaying those messages.
There were trucks and troops, friendlies, arriving now. There were so many of them that they stopped trying to identify the good guys. Everyone was a good guy. Grant was starting to get the feeling that there weren’t any bad guys around.
Grant looked at his watch. It was 7:58 a.m. and the sun was finally up.
“Boom!” The explosion was so loud and deep that it shook everything in the brewery. It was far off, but still. Very powerful. Gunfire erupted in the distance, right in the direction of the capitol. It was a full-on pitched battle with what sounded like hundreds of shooters, not the random pops they’d been hearing all night. It sounded like a major assault. Bravo Company was probably in on it. Grant prayed for his guys. He prayed for all the Patriots, but especially for his guys.
Grant tried to keep acting normal. He didn’t want his people to get alarmed.
“What the hell was that?” someone on the fourth floor asked. Everyone was quiet so Jim Q. could hear the radio and tell them.
Jim Q. shrugged. There were no reports yet.
The noise of the activity kept going, like the delivery of MREs, but people weren’t talking much. They were listening.
A few more minutes passed. Everyone was pretending to concentrate on their work but most were really straining their ears for word of what had happened. And what might be happening.
“Kah-mah-la-malik!” a jubilant voice came on the radio speaking in Jim Q.’s language. He was bursting with joy. “Kah-mah-la-malik!” he kept repeating.
Grant had no idea what “kah-mah-la-malik” meant, but it must be really good news.
“Victory!” Jim Q. yelled. “The Limas in the capitol buildings surrendered!”
Everyone started jumping and yelling. It was the happiest moment of Grant’s life. He felt guilty admitting that. The happiest moment of his life was supposed to be the birth of his children, but this was better. The horror was over. Things would be fixed. Finally. Finally.
“That quick?” Grant asked Ted. “How the…”
“Weird shit happens,” Ted answered with a huge smile on his face. “We knew the Limas were weak here, but twenty-four hours? That’s all it took? Wow.”
“The Limas detonated their ammo storage,” Jim Q. said breathlessly, relaying the reports he was getting from HQ. “That’s what the big explosion was.”
Grant looked out the windows facing the capitol buildings. There was a big black mushroom cloud rising in the early morning sky. He’d never seen a mushroom cloud. He always had associated them with nuclear explosions, but a large conventional explosion apparently could cause one, too.
Grant just watched the mushroom cloud. He’d waited years to see that. He’d worked and worried for years. He’d risked his job, then his marriage, then his life for this. And it just happened. A giant cloud of smoke slowly climbing into the air.
The gunfire was starting to die down. It sounded like some desperate people fired everything they had, some confident people returned fire, and then the desperate people dropped their guns. At least that’s how Grant hoped it was going.
Suddenly, the lights came on. Whoa. Grant looked at the other brewery buildings, the ones that were supposedly locked. The lights were on in those, too.
“What the hell?” Grant yelled.
Just then Don, the RED HORSE airman, came running into the fourth floor observation point.
“Ta da!” Don said. He took a bow. “You can thank me later.”
“How did…” Ted started to ask.
Don shrugged and then smiled. “I got skills. My guys got skills.”
Don looked at Grant, “I took the liberty of breaking into all the surrounding buildings and getting the electricity going. Water’s up and running, too. I thought we could use the facilities for all that will be coming our way.” He smiled and said to Grant, “I assume that was okay with you, Lieutenant?”
“Fuck yes, it was okay!” Grant yelled. “Oh — fucking - kay, indeed.” Grant wanted to hug Don, but that wouldn’t be appropriate. Oh, what the hell. He ran over and bro hugged Don. Not a full hug, just a bro hug. Hey, they were an irregular unit. They could do things like that.
Another coincidence, Grant thought. Right now, when wounded prisoners and civilians would be streaming to the only functioning civil affairs operation in the city, they suddenly had electricity and water.
You have a lot of people to help in the next few hours and days. I am helping you help them. Grant felt that instant calm come over him. He felt the goose bumps on his arms. He soaked in the feeling of hearing from the outside thought, and knowing he was doing what he was supposed to be doing. He realized he needed to get back to work, so he turned to Jim Q.
“Tell HQ,” he said to Jim Q., “that we have full electricity and water at all the buildings at the brewery. We can accommodate a field hospital, prisoner processing, and even civilians here.” Grant was so proud. The 17th, just a hillbilly irregular unit, was able to call in that piece of great news.