The Stick Leader replied, “That’s why they pay us the big bucks.”
The pilot snorted and said, “Oh yeah, just piles of Pilmos. Did you know that my dad paid for this ‘copter out of his retirement savings? You’re guests in a family bird.”
The insertion took less than 30 seconds. The pilot swooped the Blackhawk down to just briefly touch the ground, and all of the members of the Stick quickly jumped out, sprinted ten meters in the “ten and two o’clock” directions, and formed their typical Hedgehog ovals on both sides. As the Stick members ran, the Blackhawk zoomed upward, leaving them in a cloud of dust.
The pilot warned his gunner, “Weapons tight -- remember we’ve got friendly settlers down there, more than just our Stick.”
The gunner, an American-born Israeli, came on the intercom. “I’ve got a gorram bucket load of white hot possibles, but I can’t tell friend from foe. Some of them are on horseback, some are walking, some are prone, and a couple of those look like they might have bled out, but they’re still warm. And then there’s another bucket load of heat spots from cows, just to add to the confusion. Please advise.”
The quick-thinking pilot immediately radioed the TOC. “Do any of you there know if Mr. Snyman owns any horses?”
The Duty Intel NCO grabbed a microphone away from the watch commander to chime in, “Negative, they herd their cows on a pair of elec-bikes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure. I’ve had my eye on courting his daughter, and I’d assumed that I might have to learn how to ride a horse before I could get taken seriously. But I was told that they only have elec-bikes.”
The pilot responded, “That’s close enough to ‘sure’ for me. Gunner, you have the Green Light to engage any MAMs on horseback!”
“Roger that.”
A pair of thermal NVGs, when used in conjunction with a M145 4x optic mounted on an FN-MAG light machinegun, was a lethal combination. Not only could a machinegunner acquire targets by their heat signatures, but he could also fire quite accurately. At night, it was one of those “You can run, but you can’t hide” situations.
The gunner began firing at the men on horseback almost immediately in four- to eight-round bursts. There were tracers loaded every fifth round in the belt. After tracers revealed that he shooting too high with his first two bursts (he had overestimated their range), he aimed lower and started getting consistent hits with almost every burst.
After shooting every horseman he could find and then giving each sprawled form a couple of extra bursts for good measure, the gunner said, “Okay, now I’m back to friend or foe confusion.”
Just then a radio message came in from the Solus Christus TOC. “Be advised that the UAV operator reports that he has a high level of confidence that the group of three individuals that are down prone at the far north end of the ranch, approximately 250 meters north of the main cattle herd, are all carrying AKs, and the same three were all on horseback ten minutes ago. Another data point is that their three horses are tied to trees in their immediate vicinity. The three individuals haven’t moved much since going prone.”
The gunner joked darkly, “Sounds like a prayer meeting.”
The TOC Controller came back on. “You are Green Light to engage those three individuals only. I say again, you are Green Light to engage those three individuals only.”
The gunner chortled and said, “Time to introduce them to their 72 waiting Virgins.”
The pilot cut in, “No, no, no. You’ve heard a mis-translation from the Koran. It’s not 72 Virgins, it’s just one Virgin, but she’s 72 years old.”
The pilot shifted his orbit to the north, and the gunner gave each of the prone men a long burst. Before he could fire on the third one, the dragoon got up and started to run, but he was soon cut down.
Then the gunner said, “The introductions are complete. So now, with the exception of our Stick that are IR-beaconed, I’m once again back to the IFF quandary.”
The pilot shifted back to orbiting the southern end of the ranch. By their IR strobes, he could see that their Reaction Stick was moving south, with the two fire teams using almost textbook overwatching bounds. Their infrared Firefly strobes, velcroed onto the tops of their bush hats, blinked continuously. These compact circuit card devices were cast into a block of clear Lucite and were designed to clip on the terminal posts on top a 9-volt battery, so there was no need for a fragile power cord.
The gunner was back on the intercom. “I can discrim our Stick quite distinctly. I count 11 strobes, in two elements. Their Fireflies have them looking like a Christmas parade.”
The pilot, who was flying with the aid of PVS-37 goggles, replied, “Roger, same view for me.”
As they continued circling, the gunner came back on the intercom and said, “Crud. One of the horses is staggering pretty badly. I must have accidentally hit him.”
After a pause, he fired a 25-round burst.
“Sorry, but I had to put that horse down.”
The patrol leader maneuvered his Stick deliberately and with caution to prevent friendly fire accidents. They did not fire on individuals unless they first saw the distinctive outline of an AK-47 with a sharply-curved magazine. Unknowingly, the Stick’s maneuvers pushed the dismounted Janjaweed toward the Snyman family’s positions.
Four of the terrorists were heading directly for Johan. He shot two of them with his FAL before the other two returned fire. They aimed at Johan’s muzzle flashes, and two rounds from their AKs hit Johan in the chest, putting him out of the fight.
Realizing what was happening, Violet Snyman fired on those two Janjaweed from their flank with her R4. One of them went down, but the other turned and returned her fire in two long full-auto “spray and pray” bursts. One of those AK rounds hit Violet’s youngest daughter Venica, who was laying prone three yards behind Violet. The bullet hit her in the cheek, and exited the back of her skull, killing her instantly. But when the shooting stopped, Violet was unwounded.
Mrs. Snyman continued firing and dropped the other terrorist. She then fired a dozen more rounds, just to make sure that both of the Janjaweed were dead.
Meanwhile, the last two surviving Janjaweed in the raiding party were in full flight from the IRDF Stick. But their path had them headed toward Marlize Snyman. Once she was certain that they wouldn’t pass by without seeing her, she raised her Kommando LDP submachinegun and fired four short bursts at them, just the way her father taught her.
The reaction Stick spent the rest of the night methodically clearing the ranch property: checking each of the Janjaweed corpses for any signs of life, policing up their weapons, herding their frightened horses together, and tying their reins to tree branches.
In the early morning light they found Marlize cradling her submachinegun, with tears running down her cheeks. The bodies of two dead Janjaweed were sprawled on the ground within 20 feet of her.
The news of the deaths of Johan Snyman and his youngest daughter broke the same day as the death of Alex Mayol. (Mayol’s remains were not discovered until 20 weeks after his death.) The Ilemi Free Press news site ran accounts of both in a combined article headlined, “Two Ilemi Blossoms Have Been Crushed.” This marked the beginning of the Bush War, also known as the Terror Defense Ops and the Border Defense War. Henceforth, there were several marked changes in Ilemi society: First, it put everyone on high alert. Second, it silenced those who had been taunting in Letters to the Editor about the citizenry being over-armed and Ilemi architecture being “too warlike.” Third, it re-prioritized the need for sophisticated intrusion detection sensors on the border. Fourth, it encouraged a lot of older Ilemis to take IRDF training, even though it was optional for anyone over 40. Lastly, it became the norm to enclose the immediate vicinity of many homes outside of Solus Christus with three-meter-tall solar-powered electric fences with vertical high-tensile wires spaced just 75 millimeters apart. The voltage of these fences was high and the current stronger than that used in most other countries, so t
he fences were potentially lethal to intruders. Yellow plastic warning signs with red lettering printed in four languages were posted at frequent intervals.
Because this fence technology was already mature in South Africa and the component parts were made there, it was mostly South Africans who developed this sales and installation specialty.
The surviving members of the Snyman family immediately were taken under the wing of their local Dutch Reformed church. Prepared dinners were brought to the family every night for night after night until finally Violet objected, “Enough! I can cook for my own family.”
She mention to friends that one oddity of life in a frontier society is that it lacks the luxury of lengthy grieving periods. Only weeks after the death of Johan Snyman, the tone of his widow’s condolence letters and e-mails began to change, often including mention of “…a nice man who would make a good husband for you.”
Even her teenaged daughter Marlize began to receive some subtle and later some more forthright marriage proposals. Marlize soon composed a generic reply. “I am flattered by your interest, but I would not make a good wife for any man until I have gained more maturity. Please consider contacting me again in four years, once I have completed my IRDF service.”
Violet Snyman was courted by several men over the next two months and soon settled on marrying a building contractor who was five years younger than she. He was a former ranch manager in the Orange Free State and, like Johan, he came from Voortrekker stock, a descendant of Gerhardus “Gert” Maritz, on his mother’s side. They were married on a Sunday only 64 days after the terrorist attack. She had accepted his proposal on one condition: The family would continue to live on the ranch and raise cattle.
Rosie Mayol remarried that same week to Wilson, her husband’s younger brother. But unlike the Snyman family, they sold both of their cattle herds and moved into Solus Christus.
Chapter 27: Wassenaar Regime
“But as the arms-control scholar Thomas Schelling once noted, two things are very expensive in international life: promises when they succeed and threats when they fail.” -- Washington Post Columnist Fareed Zakaria
Solus Christus, Ilemi Republic -- May, Five Years After Declaration of the Caliphate
Large shipments of arms continued to arrive at the Isher warehouse. Nearly everything Rick Akins ordered on his initial purchasing trip had safely arrived. But with trade sanctions and even more arms embargoes looming, there was a renewed sense of urgency to get as many guns and as much ammunition into the country as soon as possible. They expected a full-blown Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, much like Israel had been suffering under for many years.
With sanctions, the Ilemi IDIQ contracts with European arms makers would come to an end. It was feared that even some pre-paid and previously approved firm fixed-price orders might be cancelled. As Rick put it, “The only sure things are the crates that are already stacked in the Isher warehouse. But until they are added to the pile, all the rest of the arms we have on order are just promises and up to the whims of petty bureaucrats in various countries.”
There was a delay in receiving their full order of HK121 light machineguns, but at least the older HK21E and FN-MAG light machineguns had arrived safely. A smaller quantity of the U.S. military MAG variants (the M240 series) had come through the same broker. The most prized of these was the M240L, a lightweight U.S. variant of the FN-MAG that weighed just over 22 pounds. This made them suitable for use by the IRDF’s LRRPs, although the 19-pound HK21E was still the most strongly preferred. Both guns could use the same linked ammunition, so they were considered interoperable.
Finally the sanctions came, in the form of a UN Resolution.
With the advent of the UN arms embargo, Rick and Meital’s procurement job became much more difficult and convoluted. Transactions that previously were simple and cost-efficient became protracted and very expensive. At least one layer of middlemen and transshipments, and often two or three layers, became the norm, necessary to escape the crafty Wassenaar Arrangement. And the costs of those intermediaries and extra transit legs and warehousing began to pile up. Then there were the “expediting fees.” All in all, the cost of most arms, ammunition, and spare parts doubled, and in some cases tripled or even quadrupled. Harry Heston had seen all of this coming. With his packed warehouse, he was sitting pretty.
One of the original Ilemi LOAs came from a company in Hamilton, Montana, promising 50,000 NEuros worth of assorted small arms ammunition free of charge and “up to 1 million more rounds per year, as desired, at cost (not including shipping)” for a period of four years. The latter turned out to be so profitable that the company’s President bought Ilemi citizenship and set up a subsidiary in Solus Christus under the management of an Israeli ex-pat. Since the factory was built underground in a 14,500 square-foot facility, this new company was dubbed New Ayalon Institute (NAI). This name was in honor of a Haganah secret underground ammunition factory built north of Tel Aviv in 1946. In just two years, it had produced 2.5 million rounds of 9mm ammunition headstamped AE for Eretz Ayalon, right under the nose of the British Army. The British never suspected that The Ayalon Institute kibbutz was anything more than a training facility for integrating new Jewish European refugees. Many British officers sent their laundry there.
Starting with 9mm pistol ammunition, NAI eventually expanded to offer other pistol ammo loadings, several rifle calibers, and .50 BMG machinegun ammunition.
Road improvements were continuing, but it would be years before a proper infrastructure of roads and bridges was in place to access all parts of the small country. In the interim, the only way to access some regions during the rainy season floods was in amphibious UATVs. The most capable of these was the eight-wheeled Argo, which had been in continuous production in Canada since 1967. Versions made after 2032 were powered by hydrogen fuel cells.
That first Janjaweed infiltration raised everyone’s level of security awareness and prompted some changes for the IRDF. The most immediate change was that nearly everyone who lived outside the confines of villages left a radio tuned to the IRDF Alert frequency, which changed daily. The IRDF also took advantage of new unattended ground sensors (UGS). These included seismic sensors like the Miniature Imaging Detector (MID) made by Elbit of Israel. The MIDs were hybrid day and night thermal imagers which were linked through a UHF narrowband network.
The IRDF also purchased acoustic sensors from Elettronica of Italy. One of these could pick out the sound of clanking metal, and another could discriminate between the sound of human voices, horse whinnies, and horse snorts as opposed to the sounds of wildlife. The first of these sensors was placed in Lukwatuk Pass at the west end of the Watha Peth Hills. Many more sensors followed, primarily on the new nation’s northern border with Ethiopia, which was the expected primary infiltration route for terrorists from Sudan.
Eventually there were even more sensors. These included remote camera systems on hilltops, more acoustic sensors, and even scent sensors at passes and at likely river-fording locations.
Meital found it interesting that the majority of Israeli settlers were Messianics from southern Israel. Many Messianics in Israel referred to themselves in Hebrew as maaminim (believers), not converts, and yehudim (Jews) rather than notzrim (Christians). Messianic Jews were considered eligible for the State of Israel’s Law of Return, but only if they could claim Jewish descent. For people coming from the Negev Desert, the Ilemi’s hot climate did not seem intimidating. In fact, one settler (who was a potter, musician, and FN-MAG light machinegun trainer) from an experimental farm near Eilat was fond of saying, “The Ilemi is a garden spot compared to the southern Negev. At least trees actually grow here.”
Just north of New Paran was the village of New Ganim, which was mainly peopled by ex-Israeli greenhouse farmers and hydrogen producers (called “Water Splitters” in the Ilemi parlance). The settlers liked the valley because it had less cloud cover than Solus Christus, which was important for maximum photovoltaic
efficiency for the hydrogen producers.
Christian refugees from war-torn Nigeria had some integration problems because of the deep divides between Nigeria’s three major tribes: The Igbo, Hausa, and Yoruba. Even though they were all Christians and had all faced the same persecution by the Neo-Haramists in Nigeria, after settling in the Ilemi intertribal tensions were high. The eventual solution chosen by the Council of Elders was to set aside three widely-separated town sites at distant corners of the country.
Chapter 28: Gary’s Gulch
“Armed people are free. No state can control those who have the machinery and the will to resist, no mob can take their liberty and property. And no 220-pound thug can threaten the well-being or dignity of a 110-pound woman who has two pounds of iron to even things out… People who object to weapons aren’t abolishing violence, they’re begging for rule by brute force, when the biggest, strongest animals among men were always automatically ‘right.’ Guns ended that, and a social democracy is a hollow farce without an armed populace to make it work.” -- L. Neil Smith
Gary’s Gulch, Ilemi Republic -- May, Five Years After Declaration of the Caliphate
In a broad canyon of the Lokwanamoru Range (commonly called the Western Range by the new Settlers) a loosely confederated group formed a community that was mainly secular mining prospectors, farmers, and goat herders. Their town, at just over 1,000 meters of elevation, was just one kilometer southwest of Naoyeta Mountain and nine kilometers northwest of Midvale. This settlement was more freewheeling and less Biblically-grounded than the other communities in the Ilemi Republic. It was called Gary’s Gulch. Gary Keene, a “Capital-L Libertarian” software engineer from New Hampshire, founded the town. The Gulch soon attracted marijuana farmers, beekeepers, and assorted dreamers, primarily from the northeastern United States, although some of the residents came from Australia, Canada, and England. Nearly all of them had paid full price for Ilemi passports.
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