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.

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 shipped, with the consent of the British Government, to CIVILIAN COMMITTEE FOR PROTECTION OF HOMES, BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND.

—From a full-page advertisement 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.

Following the suggestions that they’d heard on the shortwave, Todd had packed both of the camouflage-painted carts half full of rolls of detonating cord, a few magazines (M16, FAL, and HK G3—all freshly loaded and wrapped in plastic), and an assortment of ammunition calibers that included 7.62x39, 5.56mm NATO, .303 British, .300 Savage, .30-30, .270 Winchester, .308, .30-06, 9mm Parabellum, .45 ACP, and twelve-gauge buckshot. Any of the ammo that was not already in sealed plastic battle packs was carefully wrapped in sealed plastic bags. On top of this, he packed each cart heaping full of blasting caps in padded boxes. Some of this padding was woodland pattern BDU camouflage pants and shirts, which they assumed the resistance could also use.

The loads were secured with scrap pieces of camouflage netting, attached with paracord and plastic cable ties.

For their own defense on the trips, Todd’s team decided to carry guns that they had captured from UNPROFOR and then leave them with the local resistance before returning to the U.S. These rifles were all captured AK-74s. Coming home, they would be traveling only lightly armed, with just one gun for each man: a FN P90 bullpup, a Steyr AUG bullpup, and two Colt M1911 pistols.