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.