Liberators: A Novel of the Coming Global Collapse

37 BLENDING IN

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 analysis. 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 shift. 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 shift so Megan could homeschool the boys, Megan took swing shift, and Joshua took the graveyard shift.

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.

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 analysis. 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 analysis 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 analysts 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 analytical 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 analysis 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 spacecraft 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 analyst 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/latitude, 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 analysis. 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 analyst 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-à-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 document 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 document 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 godsend. 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 conflict–type 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, documents, 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 document 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 Region–Current 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 analyzing 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 analyst, 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 shells 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-shirt. 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 shift ended and another started, Joshua, Megan, and Malorie would brief one another on what had transpired during the previous eight-hour shift. Normally, this would take no longer than a few minutes. Megan usually took the crucial day shift, Malorie was swing shift, and Joshua took nights. Most of these later shifts 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 assessment, 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 Constitutional 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.