The Coming Storm: Liberators Part 17

-Karl Hess Alta, Wyoming-April, the Fourth Year In early April, Tracy had heard that UNPROFOR Homeland Security investigators were asking questions around Driggs, making lists of "anyone suspicious." According to Rumor Control, this included anyone with a military service record, anyone who refused to accept ProvGov currency for payments, anyone who had made disparaging comments about the ProvGov, and anyone who was not originally local to the area. Though Megan matched all these criteria, the last category concerned her most.

Megan, Joshua, and Malorie decided that it was time to leave the Sommers ranch, and with the snow off, the timing was good. They had been able to help Ron with some of the most intense work for two summers, so they felt that they had contributed enough labor to justify their upkeep.

On the day of their departure, they had their deer carts packed much more efficiently than when they had arrived. Over the past seventeen months, they had systematically acquired an a.s.sortment of gear that was better suited to cross-country travel than what they had arrived with. They also had three carts now-one for each adult. All three carts had been spray-painted in flat green and brown blotches. The heavy canvas tents that they'd inherited from the chaplain had been replaced with a pair of forest-green Fjllrven Singi lightweight nylon three-season backpacking tents. These Swedish-made tents were well used but of very good quality. Ostensibly two-man tents, they had just enough room for the five of them to sleep comfortably. The same retired backpacker in Driggs sold them several small waterproof dry bags to protect their gear from the elements.

Joshua's party had also upgraded to better-quality sleeping bags for the boys, lighter-weight cooking gear, and four army surplus green foam sleeping pads that Joshua trimmed to match the interior profile of the tents. Their food was mostly beef jerky and freeze-dried Mountain House backpacking foods that they had bought at great expense with some of their pre-1965 silver coins. Antic.i.p.ating a diet that was heavy on meat, they laid in a supply of Metamucil powder and an acidophilus-blend probiotic powder to maintain digestive regularity.

The boys had new broken-in boots instead of tennis shoes, and everyone had olive-green or woodland-camouflage ponchos.

After making their good-byes to the Sommerses, they headed out on the morning of April 10. The boys were crying. They were going to miss Chad. Their life at the Sommers ranch had hardened them in some ways but softened them in others. They were physically much stronger, given the exertions of wood felling, bucking, hauling, splitting, and stacking as well as hauling hay. (Nearly everyone in the region had switched back to small bales, since they didn't require the use of tractors.) But they had become accustomed to regular meals and sleeping in warm beds. Roughing it out on the road would be much different and their mental stress level would be much higher.

Their progress through Idaho was slow. They made it to Driggs the first day, but then transitioned to night travel for the sake of stealth. (They were traveling armed, and not only were most of their guns in the ProvGov's banned categories, none of them were registered.) Their intended route through the Banana Belt and up Highway 95 was 685 miles. After reaching the outskirts of Rexburg and averaging only 4.5 miles a night for the first week, Megan "did the math" and realized that their trip would probably take them five months if it was all done on foot.

Their modus operandi was to sleep during the day in brushy or wooded areas, cook their "breakfast" at dusk, and then be on the road by full dark. From Rexburg all the way to Payette, they were in open, arid country. Since the power grid had gone down, much of this erstwhile farming country had reverted to desert and had become largely depopulated. They looked forward to seeing windmills as their a.s.sociated stock-watering tanks were often their only source of water after being filtered.

They became experts at dodging off the highway whenever they saw approaching headlights. This happened infrequently, since southern Idaho had just recently been occupied by UNPROFOR troops and fuel was still scarce. Whenever they saw headlights, they just a.s.sumed that it would be a UN vehicle. During the day, while the others slept, Joshua would often hunt rabbits and birds with a folding slingshot. He even became adept at stunning or killing trout with large pebbles from the slingshot, once he learned how to aim low, to compensate for the refraction of the water. Starting in Rexburg, they were also able to buy food to resupply their party, paying in silver dimes and quarters.

By May 7, they reached the strange town of Arco. The cliffs behind the town were painted with huge, gaudy, two-digit numbers representing high school cla.s.s years. It was now nearly a ghost town. The most difficult stretch of their trip was the forty-three miles between Arco and Carey, since it took them through the dusty Craters of the Moon National Monument. They averaged seven miles per night, and found water only once, at Lava Lake. They rested, fished, and filtered water there for two days.

On May 14 they pa.s.sed by Carey, and were able to refill their canteens again at Carey Lake and at the Little Wood River. From there on, water was less of a concern since they pa.s.sed by water sources nearly every night. Often, however, the water had an alkaline taste even after being filtered. On June 10 they reached the outskirts of Mountain Home, Idaho. Because of an obvious UN troop concentration in both the city and the adjoining Air Force base, they took a circuitous route, via Mountain Home Reservoir. They slept in abandoned houses each day and averaged only two miles of travel each night. The daytime heat was becoming oppressive and they longed to get into the mountains.

They cut between Nampa and Meridian, Idaho, on small farm roads. Here, the population density was higher, but the people were friendly and generous, even though they had obviously been suffering since the Crunch. Most of the families here were Mormon. Rather than staying on Highway 95, they took Highway 55 north from the town of Eagle. It was here that they heard their first resistance firefights in Idaho. One of these was within a mile of them, and a few stray tracer rounds from UNPROFOR machine guns pa.s.sed over their heads. Jean and Leo seemed more excited than frightened. The adults, in contrast, felt exposed and outgunned.

They quickly climbed into cooler, more timbered country, which was how they had always imagined Idaho would be. It was 155 miles from Mountain Home to the former ski resort town of McCall. On the way, they pa.s.sed through the derelict sawmill town of Cascade, which still had mountains of sawn logs.

On July 12, they made it to McCall and camped just one hundred yards from Payette Lake. There, they were surprised to witness a drunken contingent of Belgian troops partying by the lake, teaching themselves how to water ski. They were using a pair of stolen ski boats that they had brought back to life with UN-supplied 94-octane gasoline.

The next ninety miles, which brought them back onto Highway 95, en route to Grangeville, took them through some scenic mountainous ranching country and forest lands. On July 20, Joshua shot a young cow elk with his .270 rifle. They rested for the next four days, gorging themselves on elk steak and making as much jerky as they could carry.

Then they dropped down into arid country alongside the Little Salmon River. Except for the town of Riggins-which was the farthest northern point of UNPROFOR occupation-the population density was very light, and there was no sign of UN troops except for a couple of daytime convoys.

A local, who was a former whitewater rafting guide, warned them to avoid a UN roadblock that was at the north end of Riggins. He advised them of the route they should take, and drew them a tracing of a Forest Service map. They would have to turn off on Big Salmon Road and take a long detour. This squiggly route, which took them through abandoned Salmon Hot Springs and then up the mountainous gravel Salmon-Grangeville Road (on NF-263 and NF-2630), had not been maintained since before the Crunch. Because of landslides and downed timber, the road was just barely pa.s.sable in spots with their game carts, and would have been impa.s.sable for anything else except perhaps dirt bikes. The detour took them two grueling nights and fifteen hundred feet of elevation change, but ironically it deposited them back on Highway 95, less than a mile north of Riggins.

They now could make better speed, but they still traveled only at night, for fear of bandits or being strafed by UNPROFOR helicopters, which had been seen as far north as White Bird.

On August 20 they pa.s.sed through White Bird and started up a long, steep grade to the Camas Prairie, skirting around the town of Grangeville.

There were several buildings near Grangeville that were blackened ruins. They didn't stay to ask if the buildings had been burned by looters or by a long-ranging UNPROFOR guns.h.i.+p. They just avoided getting close to the town and moved through the area as quickly as possible.

After transiting the Nez Perce Indian Reservation, they dropped down to the city of Lewiston. They ended up taking the dozens of switchbacks on the Old Lewiston Grade to avoid any vehicles on Highway 95. Once at the top of the grade, they entered into the rolling Palouse Hills country. Although mostly cleared and cultivated, the region offered lots of shady forested canyons, where they could lay up each day. Once up on the prairie, there was a maze of small farm roads that they could take toward Bovill.

By September 5 they were in the hamlet of Blaine. Finally, on September 9, they reached Bovill. There, a man with the local CB network contacted Todd Gray's ranch. Ken Layton came to pick them up in Jeff Trasel's pickup truck, towing a box trailer.

There were lots of hugs. The carts and backpacks were quickly loaded on the trailer. Riding with Ken in the cab of the pickup, Joshua and Megan sat with their rifles between their legs. Malorie sat in the bed of the pickup holding on to the boys. She was joyously singing them an old French Canadian sea shanty.

When they approached the lane from the county road that led to Todd Gray's house, Ken said, "I love you like a brother, but I've got to warn you that things are crowded here. So crowded, in fact, that there's already talk of splitting the group and putting half of us down at Kevin Lendel's ranch, which is just a few miles down the road. Until that happens, things will be very cramped.

"Since UNPROFOR is already in southern Idaho and central Montana, we expect them to move in to northern Idaho next year, and things may get dicey. In fact, Todd made the mistake of speaking up and identifying himself publicly, when a UN spokesman came to give a speech at the Moscow-Pullman airport a few months ago. So when the Blue Helmets do arrive-and that could be as soon as this autumn-we may be at the top of their hit list. Todd and Mary are thinking that we may have to bug out. Now, don't get me wrong, from a self-sufficiency standpoint, this is a great region to live in. I just don't think that it'll remain safe for you here at Todd's ranch for very long."

Joshua asked, "So what do you recommend, Ken?"

"I'll make some inquiries, but I think that one of the big cattle ranches around St. Maries might be looking for a team like yours. You will, of course, have my strong recommendation, plus the letter of recommendation you're carrying from that rancher you worked for near Driggs."

Joshua sighed, and then said, "We're going to have to pray about this and talk it over. We all have skills, and we want to help fight the ProvGov, but we have the safety of little Leo and Jean to consider."

Ken said, "I'll leave it up to you. Working at a ranch is probably the best option since you have your kids with you. But if you have enough precious metals to support yourself for a while, then maybe you'll want to go and get involved with one of the militias that are forming. They're popping up all over the region. I'm sure that they could use the help of folks with a background in intel gathering and a.n.a.lysis."

They slept in the living room of Todd and Mary's house just one night. They stayed up late, sharing stories of their adventures and testifying of G.o.d's providence and protection. They caught up on events in different parts of the United States as they had played out during the Crunch and its aftermath.

The next morning, they awoke early. Joshua, Megan, and Malorie prayed together. Over breakfast, Joshua talked with Ken. Joshua said, "We reached a conclusion. We've decided that G.o.d has protected us thus far, so we need to continue to trust in him. So we think that we should get involved with one of the new resistance groups in the region. For the sake of the boys, we need to keep a fairly low profile. We'd like you to make the introductions, but please do so under our a.s.sumed names from the very beginning."

Ken nodded, and said, "You got it, brother."

37.

BLENDING IN.

Thou art my hiding place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compa.s.s me about with songs of deliverance. Selah.

-Psalm 32:7 (KJV) Moscow, Idaho-September, the Fourth Year Joshua rented a house on Harden Road, on the northwest side of Moscow, just north of the University of Idaho campus. As a college town, Moscow had been depopulated following the Crunch, and only now was it getting back to its earlier population level. There were plenty of rental houses and apartments available. They also started attending Christ Church, which met nearby on Baker Street.

The Moscow Maquis already had eighteen members. With Ken Layton and Todd Gray vouching for their bona fides, Joshua, Megan, and Malorie were recruited to form a new cell within the organization-one that specialized in intelligence a.n.a.lysis. Their new cell and its location would be known only to the two key leaders of the Maquis, and they would be identified only by their first names during their interactions. For the sake of OPSEC, the Moscow Maquis leaders habitually referred to Joshua's small cell as "the intelligence guys in Spokane."

The local economy was starting to recover and there were even hopes of reopening the university, but the threat of invasion by UNPROFOR loomed on the horizon. To have enough silver to live on, Joshua, Megan, and Malorie shared a twenty-four-hour-a-day job as "receptionist/concealed-carry security guard" at the front desk of Christ Church. They each took an eight-hour s.h.i.+ft. The job paid $1.20 a day, which was just enough for them to live on. Though they had to deal with many issues as receptionists (mainly referring refugees to sources of aid), there were also lots of quiet hours at the desk, time Joshua devoted to gathering intelligence about ProvGov activities and UN troop movements. Malorie took the day s.h.i.+ft so Megan could homeschool the boys, Megan took swing s.h.i.+ft, and Joshua took the graveyard s.h.i.+ft.

Their new living arrangement worked well through the winter. They settled into a steady work routine. Thanks to Malorie's skills as a mechanic, they even set aside a little more silver.

Moscow, Idaho-October, the Fourth Year The Moscow-Pullman region was immediately thrown into turmoil when the UNPROFOR armored column appeared. As usual, UNPROFOR began with flowery promises, but eventually delivered tyranny.

In response, Joshua's cell went completely underground. They quit their receptionist jobs and began full-time intel a.n.a.lysis. With the Maquis now paying their rent and delivering them groceries once a week, Megan and Joshua decided to set up their own higher-level Tactical Operations Center, or TOC.

Instead of just setting up another collection or a.n.a.lysis cell attached to an individual militia, Megan and Joshua decided on the brigade-level TOC concept for several reasons. First was Megan's recent military expertise, both in uniform and as an NSA contractor. She had spent a lot of time working in a tactical TOC and knew that she could set one up herself if she ever had to. There were not many other intelligence a.n.a.lysts in the region with her expertise. Second, the other intelligence cells attached to the Maquis and other militias were usually busy collecting raw intelligence and had few a.n.a.lytical skills or resources. Third, and most important, since the Moscow Maquis was currently the largest and most active militia in the area, these other intelligence cells needed someone to provide intelligence synchronization. "The intel people in Spokane" could battle-track the big picture for the entire region and then create intelligence reports, situational map templates, and so on, to brief the two Maquis leaders. And they wanted to fulfill the intelligence requirements (IRs) that these militia leaders had for their region as close to real time as possible.

Joshua was chosen as the contact to sell this arrangement to the other militias' intelligence cells (some of which consisted of only one person, a collector). Joshua's intention was to get the other cells to routinely report events and incidents as they occurred. In return, the other cells were encouraged to make their own Requests for Intel (RFIs) to Megan, Joshua, and Malorie. The other cells could also rely on them for "reachback" support, meaning research and a.n.a.lysis of particular weapons systems, vehicles, order of battle (OB), UN deployment schedules, or anything else that the other cells needed to know. This also included providing training to the other cells, in areas such as SALUTE format reporting, military symbology, and battle tracking. For OPSEC, Joshua spoke only with the actual intel people involved in "training the trainer" mode. This way the intel cells could then train the rest of the members within their own militias.

There was already an incredible "unity of effort" within the resistance, an advantage of most insurgencies. Many military schools (the U.S. Army, in particular) teach the concepts of unity of effort, unity of command, and so forth. However, in reality, these concepts tend to go in one ear and out the other, particularly with occupying military forces that are engaged in counterinsurgency warfare.

A majority of the other intelligence cells were actually relieved that a centrally organized intelligence effort was now taking place. This added to the perception that the resistance was getting bigger and better. Just the word circulating of "the Spokane Intelligence Center" was a huge morale boost within the resistance in the region.

The first two weeks of setting up their TOC were rough going. Since they lived in a small rental house in the middle of a suburb, they needed to establish where the TOC was going to be located within the house itself. After briefly considering one of the bedrooms, they decided on the small dining area attached to the kitchen. Things needed to be as compact as possible to fit map boards and several netbook computers for report writing and maintaining an event log, along with a printer.

Next, they had administrative OPSEC issues. They needed to operate under maximum light and noise discipline. All blinds and drapes around the TOC were closed, with blankets taped to the window frames, and reinforced with black, heavy-duty plastic garbage bags duct-taped over the top. For a final yet important touch, they installed a "lightlock" around the back door of their house, which used the same principle as an airlock on a s.p.a.cecraft or submarine, except for light instead of air.

They had one of the Maquis members test their light discipline one evening, using a captured PVS-14 night vision monocular to look for any light leaks that might be seen by someone with well-adjusted natural night vision, or through another night vision device. The lightlock was not perfect for concealing all trace amounts of light, but being located in town, it did not need to be.

They also had thermal signature considerations. Despite the fact that most houses used woodstoves all through the winter, they did not want to glow like a Christmas tree to any airborne thermal imaging systems at odd hours of the night. Heat was kept to a minimum since the bodies, radios, and computers created their own residual amounts of heat.

For noise discipline, the blankets over the insides of the windows worked well, though they also covered the linoleum floor of the dining area with throw rugs to absorb noise. This had the added benefit of providing heat insulation.

For message traffic, they encouraged the other cells to make a series of written SALUTE reports using USB thumb drives. They were to leave them at a dead drop inside a plastic play "fort" in the backyard of an abandoned house down the street. The dead drop was checked early each morning by Jean and Leo, who regularly rode their bicycles in the neighborhood.

Last but not least was access to the TOC. Since it sat in the middle of the house, they did not entertain guests. No one saying that they were a "militia member" could just enter the house. The only people permitted inside the TOC were the two Moscow Maquis leaders, and then only to receive briefings (or debriefs) by Megan, Joshua, or Malorie.

They encouraged the other cells to include as much detail as possible in their SALUTE reports and not to worry about redundancy within a report, such as mentioning equipment, or weapons, a second time. This made for more accurate reporting, they explained.

They also taught the other cells to "filter" or review and rewrite these reports, if necessary, rather than just sending lots of small, separate SALUTE reports. For instance, an a.n.a.lyst at a cell might receive a bunch of small, separate SALUTE reports coming to them from several different militia members, all seeing the same thing. This filtering would not only make Joshua, Megan, and Malorie's jobs easier, it would provide better OPSEC, in limiting unnecessary message traffic.

Before they could get the TOC up and running, they focused on putting together their own situational templates (SITTEMPS) that would display all current information on events in the region.

A SITTEMP tells anyone looking at it, through military symbology, what is currently taking place on the ground. These were maps, attached to a board behind them, with clear acetate overlays placed on top of the map, with all three parts securely connected to one another using duct tape. Megan would have killed for some decent 1:50,000-scale military grid-reference system maps and a good map board to hang them on. However, all they could come up with were regular road atlases, some USGS maps, and some U.S. Forest Service maps of the national forests in the region. For the map boards, they used simple four-by-eight-foot sheets of half-inch plywood. Because of the limited quality and availability of maps, they maintained several separate SITTEMPS in different map scales.

Young Jean and Leo helped out as couriers, but because of their age, they mainly observed the daily routine at the TOC, read books, and quietly played with their toys. The map board became such a fascination for them that Joshua constructed a two-by-three-foot toy map board for them using Megan's old Virginia Beach Quadrangle map and a sheet of acetate. This kept the boys from being tempted to doodle on the TOC's working map boards.

Before the Crunch, as a prepper, Megan had been aware of an online mapping service called MyTopo.com. She had once looked at the website, but had never used it herself. It was a powerful resource, allowing people to take a "snapshot" of any place on earth, where they could choose whether they wanted a map in longitude/lat.i.tude, or in the global UTGM military grid-reference system. Their maps were also offered with lamination, meaning that users could still draw or stick symbology directly on them in the event that no transparent overlay material was available.

The symbology used in a SITTEMP was basically the same as that found in the old Avalon Hill war simulation board games that were sold in toy stores. This was one of the reasons Megan enjoyed the tactical side of intelligence a.n.a.lysis. In her training, that was basically what a map exercise (MAPEX) was: an elaborate war board game. With symbology that represented units, movement, actions, situations, and unit boundaries, a person skilled in reading a SITTEMP could read this information like words on a page. That, after all, had always been Megan's personal standard.

Megan had brought her old military map bag with her that she had carried since her days at the Navy and Marine Corps Intelligence Training Center (NMITC). She wouldn't have been much of an a.n.a.lyst if she hadn't. In it were several military map-reading protractors in 1:50,000 and 1:100,000 scale. There was a variety of fine-point permanent ink pens in various colors, Vis--Vis brand temporary markers, and a small felt pen that was filled with alcohol for erasing, a set of military symbol stencils, and a folded 1:50,000-scale military map of the Virginia Beach area that she had been allowed to keep after her Advanced Individual Training (AIT). There was also a DVD that had been prepared for each student, containing PDFs of various Army and Marine Corps manuals, such as Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (IPB), and TOC Operations. Megan also had a stack of transparent, single-sheet doc.u.ment protectors. She had been taught how to use these to make "mini" SITTEMPS, using a single-page photocopy of a map, or anything else that was on one sheet of paper, inserted. By stapling other empty doc.u.ment protectors on top of the one holding the map, one could make a product of multiple overlays, depicting avenues of approach, hydrology (rivers, lakes, and streams), restrictive terrain, and obstacles.

One thing that Megan was able to acquire was a spare copy of Army FM 101-5-1 (Marine Corps MCRP 5-2A): Operational Terms and Graphics. A copy had been given to her by Jeff Trasel, of the Northwest Militia. He told her that he had picked up several copies from an Army surplus store in Sandpoint, Idaho, that he jokingly called Grogan's War Surplus. Each copy still had its price tag of $2.49, from before the Crunch.

Megan thought this manual was a G.o.dsend. While she had this manual and others saved as PDFs on her DVD, this hard copy was invaluable. It was funny that an Army surplus store in the local area would have them available for a pittance. The date on the FM was 1997, but the symbology was what she was most interested in, and that had not changed over the years. It included all of the symbols for low-intensity conflicttype events, such as drive-by shootings, vandalism, graffiti, "drug vehicles," and refugees. This would serve as an invaluable hard reference, particularly if the resistance captured any UNPROFOR operations or intelligence products, since all of the other "formerly NATO" countries used the same symbology.

Given the nature of their work, and their vulnerability, they kept a thirty-gallon galvanized steel trash can in one corner of the TOC, with a one-quart motor oil container filled with gasoline hanging at the top. In the event that they were raided or faced any other emergency that would compromise them, they wanted a rapid way of destroying as much data, doc.u.ments, thumb drives, and laptops as possible.

As Megan put it, "If the house goes up in the process-oh well. That will destroy even more evidence."

One day at the TOC in late October was particularly eventful and stressful. Reports arrived on USB thumb drives, but there were more than twice as many as usual. (There had been ambushes conducted the day before by both the Bovill Blue Blaze Irregulars and the Moscow Maquis.) As she began opening the files on the USB sticks, Megan began muttering. "Here's another one that reads just like a 'What I did on my summer vacation' essay. Why can't they follow our instructions on using SALUTE format?" she exclaimed.

"Beggars can't be choosers," Malorie replied from the kitchen. "We're lucky to get the resistance groups to report directly to us at all. And we sure can't jack them up about it. They aren't in our chain of command. And what are we gonna do-threaten to dock their pay?"

Megan laughed and said, "You're right; half of nothing is still nothing."

As usual, Megan put each separate report in the Message Traffic Log spreadsheet, which was an ongoing doc.u.ment saved on one of their netbook computers. It mentioned in much-abbreviated form what had been reported.

Next, she started plotting the gist of the reports, one by one, onto the Moscow RegionCurrent SITTEMP overlay of the main map board. Megan had developed a way of using a computer printer to print symbology onto clear plastic sheets, with the event information next to that symbol. In this way, anyone visually a.n.a.lyzing the SITTEMP could see the map's terrain information through most of the printed material. Needless to say, the UN forces were marked in red, and any symbology marking a militia unit or action was marked in blue. Due to the limited number of reports that came in on most days, the symbols were left on the SITTEMP boards indefinitely, unless they started to crowd each other out. In that event, the oldest plotted information was removed first.

Malorie could hear Megan's frustration level as she worked. "I just spent twenty minutes digesting this and then when I go to plot it, I discovered that it was the same event, as seen from the opposite direction by a different unit, except that I now have conflicting reports on the type of German vehicles that were engaged. Were they six-wheeled TPz Fuchs or were they eight-wheeled GTK Boxers? Arrrgh!"

Malorie laughed. "That's why they pay you the big bucks as a hotshot a.n.a.lyst, sis."

"Twice nothing is still nothing," Megan shot back.

Moments later, they heard the sound of an approaching helicopter, and then the unmistakable chugging sound of a 30mm cannon. Then they heard the cannon sh.e.l.ls impacting close by-close enough to rattle their windows.

Malorie pulled back the curtain of the kitchen window just far enough to see that a farmhouse a quarter mile north of them had been hit and was engulfed in flames.

Megan gasped. "Must be retaliation for yesterday's ambushes."

Joshua, who had been awakened by the explosions, stepped out of the bedroom wearing a pair of sweatpants and his body armor over his T-s.h.i.+rt. He glanced out the window and asked, "Any idea whose house that is, or should I say was?"

Megan shook her head.

Malorie whispered so that Jean and Leo wouldn't hear her from the other bedroom, "Sweet Lord, that could have been us if we had been identified as 'the suspect dwelling.'"

As Megan got back to work at the map board, her hands were shaking.

As one s.h.i.+ft ended and another started, Joshua, Megan, and Malorie would brief one another on what had transpired during the previous eight-hour s.h.i.+ft. Normally, this would take no longer than a few minutes. Megan usually took the crucial day s.h.i.+ft, Malorie was swing s.h.i.+ft, and Joshua took nights. Most of these later s.h.i.+fts were dedicated to radio watch, monitoring shortwave and CB traffic as well as scanning the public service bands.

Occasionally, the two Moscow Maquis leaders (or just one of them) would arrive at the TOC unannounced. They would invite them into the living room and set up the map boards with their respective SITTEMPs. Joshua, Megan, or Malorie would then brief the current situation, describing significant events and current UN force operations, and answer any questions or concerns that the leaders had.

In between periods of handling message traffic and plotting on the SITTEMPs, the three of them would write intelligence summaries, do OB and target vulnerability studies, conduct after-action damage a.s.sessment, and coordinate and synchronize all of the other intelligence activities for the Maquis. Their parent organization soon numbered fifty-five members in six distinct cells (three operational and three support) that had little contact except for a few combined operations.

Though there were many close calls, Joshua's cell was never detected. Their intelligence products proved crucial as the resistance war heated up in the western United States, though by this time the ProvGov was already nearing collapse. In essence, they had attempted to conquer too much territory too quickly and had spread their forces too thinly.

In northern Idaho, Todd Gray's Northwest Militia fled to a remote valley to use as a new base of operations. Todd stayed behind to demolish his own house with remote-controlled mines and firebombs, just as the empty house was being raided by German troops. Todd's group spent one winter encamped in the national forest and conducted numerous raids and ambushes. They also used captured nerve gas canisters on an UNPROFOR barracks and at an UNPROFOR staff meeting. Very rapidly, the occupiers were losing ground to a well-armed citizen resistance in the inland northwest.

Shortly after the bombing of UNPROFOR's regional headquarters in Spokane by the Keane Team resistance group, there was a local surrender. In early July, there was a nationwide capitulation of the Maynard Hutchings government, and a withdrawal of UNPROFOR troops began.

As the new Restoration of Const.i.tutional Government (RCG) administration was being formed, Joshua, Megan, and Malorie went back to their previous work as receptionists at the church. Things were getting back to normal in the region. The power grid was back up continuously, and a new currency that was truly "redeemable on demand in silver" was being issued. But there was a huge unresolved issue that pressed on everyone's minds: Canada.

38.

PACKING IT IN.

SEND A GUN TO DEFEND A BRITISH HOME. British civilians, faced with threat of invasion, desperately need arms for defense of their homes. THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR DEFENSE OF BRITISH HOMES has organized to collect gifts of PISTOLS-RIFLES-REVOLVERS-SHOTGUNS-BINOCULARS from American civilians who wish to answer the call and aid in defense of British homes. The arms are being s.h.i.+pped, with the consent of the British Government, to CIVILIAN COMMITTEE FOR PROTECTION OF HOMES, BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND.

-From a full-page advertis.e.m.e.nt in American Rifleman magazine, November 1940 The Gray Ranch, Bovill, Idaho-July, the Fifth Year Only days after the UNPROFOR capitulation in the United States, Ken Layton, Todd Gray, Mike Nelson, and Jeff Trasel volunteered to make a series of CBLTV logistics excursions to Canada. For his part of the supply effort, Joshua donated two of his deer carts to Todd's group.