Ted and his young colleague on the beach, Sergeant Brandon “Sap” Sappington, who was also a former Special Forces soldier, joined the Washington State Guard. They were now serving as Special Forces soldiers for the Patriots in the Washington State Guard.
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.