The Coming Storm: Liberators Part 26

Phil paused to take a breath, and then went on. "Just 'think outside the box,' folks. Arson and sabotage will be key force multipliers. Given the cold climate of the interior, two of our primary goals will be depriving the Chinese of liquid fuels and burning them out of their barracks. I intend to freeze them out of BC over the next winter or two."

57.

BIG TREBLE.

A clever rabbit's burrow has three holes.

-Chinese proverb Near Nimpo Lake, British Columbia-September, the Eleventh Year Their recon mission was a failure. They had been detected, perhaps by a ground sensor, so now Peter and Ray were on the run. After he had shot just four rounds, Ray's FAMAS carbine jammed. He tried the traditional "slap/pull/squeeze" method of clearing the jam, but a glance in the ejection told him that the jam was a dreaded "double feed," which could take a long time to clear. He didn't have a lot of time.

"VBT!" he shouted to Peter, quoting one of Malorie's favorite fake acronyms. Recognizing Ray's predicament, Peter laid down covering fire for their withdrawal with pairs of semiautomatic shots from his Pindad SS2.

Ray safed the FAMAS and slung it across his back as he ran.

Nearing a boulder that would provide decent cover, he pulled his Inglis pistol from its stock/holster. He fired two quick shots toward his pursuers. Seeing that Peter was up and running, Ray fired three more times. Then he pulled the wooden shoulder stock from its harness, attached it to the b.u.t.t of his pistol, and adjusted the gun's tangent rear sight to two hundred meters. Shouldering the gun, he tried to engage the advancing Chinese squad as best he could, firing deliberately. Once he heard Peter firing again (following his own rush), Ray jumped up and started a rush, reloading as he ran.

This series of withdraw-by-fire and rushes went on for several minutes. Peter was briefly stunned when a bullet hit him near the top of his TBAS trauma plate. He realized later that he would probably be dead if it weren't for his armor. Mainly because of their superior accuracy, the PLA squad stopped pursing them after they had taken four casualties. Peter shot and killed three PLA soldiers, and Ray badly wounded another.

After they broke contact, Ray and Peter kept running, heading for dense timber. They were in an area just a few miles from the ambush of the French Gazelle helicopter five years earlier.

They were certain that the Chinese would resume their pursuit once a larger unit arrived to back them up. What they hadn't planned on were scent-tracking dogs.

When the heard the dogs, Ray shouted as he ran, "We've gotta think fast. They may have transponders on their dog collars, so even if the handlers can't keep up with them, they can use those returns to vector attack helicopters in on us."

"There's another VBT for us," Peter said.

If they got pinned down, he expected the Chinese to call for a gunship. It would be either a Z-9 (a clone of the Eurocopter Dauphin) or a Z-10, a more formidable attack helicopter similar in capability to the Augusta 129 or the Eurocopter Tiger.

After running for another minute, Peter said, "Hey! How about treble hook lines?"

"Could work!" Ray answered. "Let's look for a narrow spot."

They found the right spot a few hundred yards ahead where the trail crossed a swale that was hemmed in by trees and some large boulders. The dogs now sounded as if they were getting closer-perhaps only a mile behind them.

They stopped and grounded their weapons. Ray dug into his pack and pulled out his medical kit, which contained several battle dressings and a combat application tourniquet (CAT). Beneath that was a brown plastic clamsh.e.l.l soap box that was about the size of his hand. Inside it was a piece of cardboard with eight separate pieces of 120-pound test monofilament wrapped in notches that had been cut along the sides of the cardboard. Each nine-foot-long fishing line had a three-quarter-inch-wide treble hook tied at both ends.

To save time, Ray pulled out his tanto pocketknife and cut the cardboard in half. He said, "Four for you and four for me. Doggie chest height, naturally."

They quickly unwound the snare lines and started to string them up across the trail.

Phil had taught them the technique. He'd learned it from a Special Forces NCO. The idea was to attach them to a strong synthetic line such as spiderwire fishing line. Typically one end was attached to the hook and the other to the ceiling rafters or doorframes with enough slack to allow the hooks to lie on the floor near the edges of the wall. They could place these in what Phil termed a "fatal funnel"-an interior ambush zone inside a building. According to Phil, using treble snares could delay, distract, and unnerve a SWAT-style raid party, allowing defenders to have a brief period of advantage wherein they could shoot the invaders. The attackers are slowed and stunned by pain, allowing the defenders to spring a trap and fire upon the attackers, all caught nicely inside a restrictive s.p.a.ce. The same sorts of treble hook snares were also useful in wilderness areas on trails.

By the time that they were done emplacing all eight snare lines, the barking dogs sounded much closer, perhaps only a half mile away. "Crud, they're gaining fast," Ray muttered nervously.

Ray and Peter grabbed their rifles and resumed running. They had run about fifteen hundred yards when they heard a terrible commotion behind them. They stopped to listen. The many shrieks, howls, and barks from the dogs made it clear that the pack had gotten themselves into a big tangle. The howls went on and on, and both men felt bad to have been forced to harm the dogs the way they did.

Peter uncapped his canteen and took a long pull from it, and offered it to Ray, who also took a sip.

Handing the canteen back, Ray said, "Thanks. I think I have time to clear that jam now."

58.

EBB TIDE.

All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable, when using our forces we must seem inactive, when we are near, we must make the enemy believe that we are away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near. Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him.

If he is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is superior in strength, evade him. If your opponent is of choleric temper, seek to irritate him. Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant.

If he is inactive, give him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected. These military devices, leading to victory, must not be divulged beforehand.

-Sun Tzu, The Art of War (Translation by Lionel Giles, 1910) Prince Albert, British Columbia-November, the Eleventh Year On November 26, a backpack containing twelve of the Project Jordan Pogo Sticks was captured by a Chinese patrol, following an ambush near Prince Albert. All of the guerrillas were killed, so the PLA had n.o.body to question about these strange devices. The local PLA commander recognized that they were unusual and suspected that they might be some sort of hand-emplaced sensor, so he ordered that they be sent to the Third Department intelligence section regional headquarters in Regina. "Pa.s.sing the buck," the Third Department officer rightly claimed that their specialty was signals intelligence rather than technical (materiel) intelligence, so on November 28 they were forwarded to the PLA technical intelligence section in Vancouver. They arrived by train on December 3. One of the sticks was sawed open. The overseeing office recognized the dark gray powder that poured out as either an explosive or an incendiary, so he had his subordinate fetch a representative from the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) office at the same garrison. On December 4, two of their EOD bomb technicians completely disa.s.sembled one of the Pogo Sticks and took detailed photographs, which were relayed via their satellite communications to Beijing.

On December 6, the Technical Intelligence Directorate ordered that the dark gray powder first be tested to determine if it was gunpowder, a high explosive, or thermite. The first test, wherein a fully suited EOD tech exposed a few grams of the powder to the intense heat of a burning piece of magnesium ribbon, confirmed the suspicion that the powder was thermite. A preliminary report was written and forwarded to Beijing.

On December 9, the Technical Intelligence Directorate ordered four of the Pogo Sticks be packaged with extreme caution, heavily padded, and transported to the Technical Intelligence section building north of Shanghai, as soon as possible. The evening of December 10, all ten remaining intact Pogo Sticks were individually and tightly wrapped in bubble pack, and four of them were further packaged in a double box and put on a Y-20 long-range transport plane bound for Shanghai.

On the evening of December 12, the box of Pogo Sticks arrived at the Technical Intelligence section in China. The following morning (December 13 in China and December 12 in Canada), the box of Pogo Sticks sat on a loading dock under armed guard. An argument then ensued between two PLA officers, who both held the rank of major-one of them in Technical Intelligence and the other in Engineering-in charge of an EOD unit. They were bickering about how and where the mysterious cylinders should be unpackaged and who should be in charge. They were still arguing when the box burst into flames, and a searing, white-hot stream of burning thermite poured out of one end of the box.

Then the real shouting began.

59.

FLAMBeE DAY.

Victory has a hundred fathers, but no one wants to recognize defeat as his own.

-Galeazzo Ciano Occupied Western Canada-December 12, the Eleventh Year At 12:12 P.M. Saskatchewan time (10:12 A.M. in British Columbia) every Pogo Stick with a depressed cap sleeve ignited simultaneously.

Because knowledge of Project Jordan was on a strict "need to know" basis, the ma.s.s immolation was as much of a surprise to most of the resistance as it was to the Chinese. Even those who were supplied the incendiaries were not told the exact date that they would be activated-only that they needed to be emplaced "before the first week of December."

There were unfortunate incidents where the Pogo Sticks started fires in unintended places. In one instance a few Chinese gas cans had been pilfered by a resistance unit. These burned down a generator shed and destroyed a pickup truck. In another, a generous Chinese supply sergeant had given some cans of diesel to the headman of an off-hydro tribal village in the Yukon Territory. There, a generator house was completely destroyed.

Even in other places where Chinese vehicles were destroyed, there was collateral damage: a wooden bridge, dozens of civilian buildings and vehicles, and two wooden docks. There were more than 150 Chinese casualties, but no reported civilian deaths.

A few Pogo Sticks had also had their springs removed and surrept.i.tiously hidden under flexible fuel blivets. Huge fires burned out of control at many Chinese fuel depots. Because they had all started simultaneously, the fires overwhelmed the ability of PLA soldiers and the few trained firefighters to respond. Hundreds of buildings burned while motor pools and marshaling yards became infernos. There were also dozens of railroad locomotives and railcars set ablaze, since the Chinese frequently used auxiliary heaters that were kept refueled with twenty-liter cans. This was particularly true with the rolling stock that the Chinese had brought to Canada. (The ubiquitous Manchurian Heaters were used in railcars and in large tents to stave off the cold. They were also used as ration-warming tray heaters for field messes. Now, nearly half of the Manchurian Heaters had fuel cans that had burst into flames.) There was never an exact count of the number of ground vehicles, aircraft, and generator trailers damaged or destroyed, but it was at least five thousand. Nor were there details on the amount of fuel or the number of buildings destroyed, but it was certainly devastating. And with the winter solstice just ten days away in the Northern Hemisphere, the incendiary attacks came at a very advantageous time. The PLA forces in Canada were largely immobilized. Exploiting the dire position of their opponents, the NLR went on the offensive. They attacked wherever and whenever possible, all through the winter, pressing their advantage. With the loss of the majority of their armored vehicles, the PLA commanders drastically scaled back their operations. At the strategic level, PLA planners started looking for a quick exit strategy for their campaign in Canada.

Occupied Western Canada-Late April, the Twelfth Year The Xinhua news service announced a "cease-fire and troop withdrawal," on April 25. Its carefully worded statement, which did not include the word surrender, announced that all Chinese UN forces would be withdrawn from Canada on or before August 20. (Sooner, if additional UN transport was provided.) Under the "Completion of UN Humanitarian Mission and Cease-fire Agreement," the Chinese troops would not be allowed to bring any weapons with them, and the only vehicles that they could take with them were ambulances.

60.

WEDDING PRAYER.

If every Jewish and anti-n.a.z.i family in Germany had owned a Mauser rifle and twenty rounds of ammunition and the will to use it, Adolf Hitler would be a little-known footnote to the history of the Weimar Republic.

-Aaron Zelman, cofounder of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership Porthill Border Crossing Station, Idaho-Twenty-two Years After the Crunch Phil and Malorie Adams pulled up to the border checkpoint with their pickup's radio playing an oldie by the Mumford & Sons. They had enjoyed a pleasant drive down from their ranch near Kamloops.

As he handed his Canadian driver's license to the officer at the booth, Phil wondered how old this young man must have been when the Crunch hit. He surmised perhaps less than four years old. The border patrol officer noted the Resistance Veterans of Canada a.s.sociation (RVCA) sticker on the Ford's windshield.

Phil caught the border patrol admiring the MP5 submachine gun mounted on the dashboard and the brace of Glock pistols with extended magazines holstered in the center console. "Do you have anything to declare?" the officer asked.

"Just h.e.l.lo."

The officer noted that the children in the backseat were both quietly reading well-worn books from the Little House on the Prairie series. Phil and Malorie were proud of their kids for being avid readers. Alan Cedric Adams was eleven years old, and his sister, Claire Megan Adams, was eight.

The officer nodded. "Enjoy your visit to the United States, sir, and thank you for your service."

Both the wedding and the reception that followed were being held at the Elkins Resort on Priest Lake. The groom, Leo LaCroix-Kim, had met his bride, Chantal, when they were both attending the University of Idaho. Chantal Tolliver was from the town of Priest Lake, Idaho. Her father owned and operated Priest Lake Country Outfitters, a business that rented snowmobiles in the winter and guided float trips in the summer. They also had a rifle and pistol range, where they gave private instruction. In recent years, many of their shooting-school students had been tourists from j.a.pan.

The wedding celebration seemed swarmed with children. There was lots of laughter as children ranging from toddlers to teenagers ran around, pell-mell. The mothers and grandmothers hoped that none of the children would fall or jump into the lake until after the group photos had been taken.

Phil and Malorie greatly enjoyed attending the wedding and catching up with acquaintances. They were amazed at how quickly all of the children had grown up. As soon as they arrived, they immediately found Ray McGregor and his wife, Sylvia.

Ray was wearing a red-and-green Clan McGregor kilt. Sylvia was one of Stan Leaman's second cousins. She was just sixteen years old at the onset of the Crunch and had come to live at the Leaman ranch after her parents had been killed by a Chinese drone strike when she was nineteen. She and Ray had married fourteen years after the Crunch. Ray and Sylvia had a son and a daughter, who were now ages four and six, and Sylvia was pregnant with their third child. Their son was named Alan Leaman McGregor and their daughter was named Claire Malorie McGregor.

Other guests from Canada included Stan Leaman; his wife, Katie; their grade-school-aged children, Philip Alan Leaman and Claire Malorie Leaman; and their infant son, Terrence Billy Leaman. Of their three children, Philip showed the most First Nations traits, with jet-black hair and dark-brown eyes.

Also attending were Ken and Terry Layton, and their sons, Dan, Thomas, and Gray.

Todd and Mary Gray were also there with their four children. There were also three generations of the Altmiller family, who had traveled from Florida.

The guests that were the least well-known by the wedding party were Dustin Hodges and his wife, Sheila. Sheila's son, Tyree, wasn't with them. He was a U.S. Army aviation warrant officer, deployed in the Africa campaign. It was hoped that the Chinese would be pushed out of Africa in the next few years.

Joshua and Megan Kim were there, but could be in Idaho for only three days. They were both working at Field Station (FS) Kunia, Hawaii, operated by the recently reestablished Army Security Agency. Joshua was the site manager and Megan wore two hats as both senior a.n.a.lyst and const.i.tutional protection oversight manager. (The NSA and the military SIGINT agencies now had strict rules that precluded recording the conversations or intercepting the e-mails of American citizens.) The wedding ceremony had a strong gospel message, and some great old hymns, which pleased Phil and Malorie. The decorations and place cards were all readied in the reception hall. The wedding cake had been made from two full sheet cakes that were cut and pieced together in the shape of North America and then frosted white. "Leo" was written in icing across Canada and "Chantal" was written across the United States. A red line of icing marked the Forty-ninth Parallel, bisected by the shape of a heart.

There was an enormous pile of wrapped wedding gifts on two tables in the back of the reception hall. Phil got a chuckle seeing the large number of distinctively long rectangular boxes. Ever since the ouster of the UN occupiers, guns and ammunition had become standard wedding gifts in both Canada and the United States. Just like giving gold as wedding gifts in India, guns were seen as a lasting store of wealth. They were also considered "invasion insurance." Phil and Malorie added their own large, heavy gift boxes to the pile. They contained a full-auto German MG4; another box with a tripod, links, and small accessories for the same gun; a full-auto QBZ-95 bullpup and six magazines; an ammo can full of 5.8x42mm cartridges; and a pair of Glock 30S pistols.

Everyone was having a wonderful time at the reception. There was a lot of mingling between the tables, embraces, and laughter. As Ray was returning to their table with two cups of punch, he overheard his wife, Sylvia, saying to the bride's father, "Ray has killed dozens of enemy soldiers-mostly with IEDs-but I've only seen him hit one man."

"Oh, not that story again!" Ray objected.

"No, let her tell it," Mr. Tolliver said.

Sylvia continued. "It's true. You hush now, Ray, and let me tell this. We were at an RVCA meeting in Kamloops last summer. And there was a roly-poly young man there, bragging his tail off. Based on his age, I thought that he must have been in the resistance to the Chinese occupation. But he was claiming to have resisted the French, too. With Ray and me both standing there, this fellow launched into a c.o.c.k-and-bull story about how he was with 'a nine-man team that had destroyed eight French helicopters at the Williams Lake helibase.' So Ray played along with him, and said, 'Tell me more. How did you do it?' And this poseur says, 'I'll tell you. We used compound bows to silently take out the three sentries, and then we used TH3 incendiary grenades that had been smuggled to us by a U.S. Special Forces team.'"

Mr. Tolliver c.o.c.ked his head, and Sylvia went on. "So Ray says to him, 'That was one fine bit of work, sir. I'd like to shake your hand!' So when this fellow reached out his hand, quick as lightning, Ray punched him in the nose."

Mr. Tolliver roared with laughter.

Ray looked sheepish. "Yep, I couldn't control the urge, so I hit him. I'm afraid I made quite a scene that evening. There was blood going down the front of his nice white shirt. I said to him, 'For your information, it was just me and my two friends who were there that night, not you and that mythical nine-man team. And by the way, we didn't use archery equipment on the sentries, nor did we use thermite on the helicopters. But I'll spare you the actual details because I don't want you incorporating them into your own story, if you ever dare repeat it.'"

GLOSSARY.

10/22: A semiautomatic .22-rimfire rifle made by Ruger.

1911: See M1911.

5Ws: Who, What, When Where, Why. (Intelligence report format.) 9/11: The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

AAA: Depending on context, American Automobile a.s.sociation or Anti-Aircraft Artillery.

Accredited/Accreditation: The formal approval of a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) that meets prescribed physical, technical, and personnel security standards.

Acoustic Security: Security measures designed and used to deny aural access to cla.s.sified information. See also SCIF.

ACP: Automatic Colt Pistol.

ACU: Army Combat Uniform. The U.S. Army's predominantly gray "digital" pattern camouflage uniform that replaced the BDU.