The ambushers quickly advanced on the downed helicopter, firing coup de grâce head shots once they were within forty feet. Inside, they found another crewman dead, apparently from a broken neck. His weapon was a FAMAS bullpup, but it had a bent barrel and a broken stock. They decided to bring it with them to use for spare parts.
Phil exclaimed, “Hoo boy! This is better than a box of Cracker Jacks. I always wanted an M240, and here’s a MAG-58, which is almost identical.”
He detached the machine gun from its dogleg mount and examined it. Except for a scraped flash hider and a gouge in the pistol grip, the MAG had survived the crash intact. Once it was detached, it could be fired from its bipod. The door mount included a four-hundred-round ammo box of linked ammunition, but the gun could also be operated from a teaser belt and a Bulldog two-hundred-round camouflage nylon shoulder bag that they also found onboard. In addition to the four hundred linked rounds in the ammo can and the two hundred linked rounds in the Bulldog bag, there were one thousand rounds of ammo in narrow, brown-painted European-style two-hundred-round ammo cans. All of the ammo was FN-made 7.62mm NATO, a four-to-one alternating mix of ball ammo and tracers.
Ray warned, “Okay, the clock is ticking. We need to strip anything useful off this bird, burn it, and get out of here before they send anyone to investigate.”
They worked quickly. There wasn’t any time to remove the Gazelle’s built-in avionics. They did strip a notebook and a callsign/frequency card from a clear pocket that was built into the pilot’s flight suit, just above his knee. They also took a satchel that held a sectional aeronautical chart and a notebook. The loose belt of ammo for the door gun, ammo cans, six extra FAMAS magazines, the two pistols, and the broken FAMAS carbine were all distributed and stowed in their backpacks. Almost as an afterthought, Alan pulled out the helicopter’s plastic first-aid chest and stuffed it into his own pack, along with one of the two-hundred-round ammo cans. Phil carried the twenty-eight-pound MAG and the Bulldog bag. Since he was also carrying his M4, his combined load was almost eighty pounds.
They walked thirty-five yards to the tree line at the north end of the opening. Phil got down prone and pulled back the cartridge from the loose end of the MAG’s teaser belt and clipped on the first cartridge from the Bulldog bag. He fired two short bursts from the MAG into the Gazelle’s fuel tanks. The tracer bullets (interspersed every fifth round on the belt) soon set the fuel ablaze.
A year before the Crunch, Phil had the chance to buy a nearly new semiauto version of the M240 light machine gun, made by Ohio Ordnance Works, but he had balked at the eleven-thousand-dollar price tag. In retrospect, when the purchasing power of his savings dropped to nearly nothing and the value of an M240 soared to an incalculable level, he wished that he had bought it. Now, with the capture of the MAG, he felt redeemed from his previous mistake.
Alan shouted, “As they often say in the French army: ‘Nous devons fuir!’”
They did just that. They ran away, heading into the dense timber to the north. They didn’t slow down until an hour and a half later, when they had covered five miles of rough ground.
48
EFFRONDREMENT
All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force.
—George Orwell
The McGregor Ranch, near Anahim Lake, British Columbia—June, the Sixth Year
The day of the collective disgust arrived, at last. It came immediately after a pronouncement on Progressive Voice of Canada that all residents age six years and older would have to enroll in a National Identity Card program. These new smart cards, with an embedded microchip, would be used both for identification and as a cashless debit card that would be required for all transactions over three dollars. After the announced forty-five-day enrollment period, cash transactions would be banned, as would mere possession of the old paper currency or any gold or silver bullion. All would be criminal offenses.
A rapid turn of events for the Ménard government followed. There were large street rallies in cities throughout Canada protesting the National Identity Card scheme. The crowds were ordered to disperse, but they stood their ground. Then some RCMP officers crossed the line and joined them. This proved to be a key psychological turning point. The crowds of protestors grew larger. In some cities, as the UNPROFOR troops grew weary of the standoff, they began using tear gas. But this only strengthened the resolve of the protestors.
Most of the mass protests were filmed, mainly with smartphones. Then, via satellite Internet connections that had recently been reestablished, these videos were aired on U.S. television networks. News spread that the handwriting was on the wall for the Ménard regime, which had recently been derided as “The Mauviette Union” by detractors.
The UNPROFOR troops were ordered to retreat to their garrisons. The protests then shifted from town and city squares to the perimeters of the garrisons. The citizenry created a twenty-four-hour “perimeter around their perimeter.” Sensing that the scales had shifted, Ménard and his entourage panicked and fled to France on a midnight flight. Once word leaked out about this Airbus A380 flight, it was all over for both the LGP and UNPROFOR.
The UNPROFOR command in Ottawa quickly agreed to demobilization and a rapid withdrawal from Canada. Calls for war crimes trials were outnumbered by a majority (mainly in Quebec and Ontario) who favored a general amnesty and “Peace and Reconciliation” commission hearings. It took two months for most of the UNPROFOR combat troops to leave the country, and it would be six months before all of the support troops were withdrawn.
• • •
After the Ménard government’s capitulation, there was not much cheering in the streets. Most Canadians simply wanted to get their lives back in order. The French minefields began to be cleared, but it was estimated that even with the meticulous emplacement maps available, the process would take five years. Commerce across the U.S. border was slowly restored, and Canadian factories gradually resumed operations. Food and fuel came first, to meet a pent-up demand. A free-floating exchange rate with the gold-backed U.S. dollar was established, and then quickly rescinded after the new Canadian dollar plummeted. The precious metals redeemable U.S. dollar very quickly became the de facto currency in Canada, as many sellers had begun refusing to take payment in Mooneys.
The citizenry fell into three categories: those who had collaborated with the Ménard government, a small minority who had actively resisted, and a majority who—though they sympathized with the resistance—had stood by and done nothing. They earned the new label “The Mundanes.” The collective guilt for several years of inaction weighed heavily on the nation. Inevitably, many collaborators fled the country. But most collaborators stayed—facing humiliation but not prosecution.
49
BEIJING CHARADES
The first rule of unrestricted warfare is that there are no rules, with nothing forbidden.
—From the treatise “Unrestricted Warfare” by Colonel Qiao Liang and Colonel Wang Xiangsui, People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China
The McGregor Ranch, near Anahim Lake, British Columbia—November, the Sixth Year
Three years after the liberation of the U.S. was declared and one year after the liberation of Canada, there was some startling news: Chinese ships were landing troops in Canada via the seaports of Vancouver, Bella Coola, Bella Bella, and Prince Rupert. Meanwhile, Chinese troops of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) were landing at airports in Kelowna, Edmonton, Calgary, Kamloops, and Saskatoon. Wave after wave of troops arrived before any organized resistance could be mounted.