Despite his reservations, Snodgrass realized that he had to be at the meeting. Word had it that heads would roll. Not only was he expected to be there but he wanted to see the fun when they started pointing fingers. Since he was a civilian UN Administrator, and the problem at hand was strictly one of military security, he knew the fingers wouldn’t be pointed at him. As a ten-year veteran of British civil service before he joined the UN, Reggie Snodgrass knew how those games were played. He grumbled to his aides about the weather as they all loaded up. At least they had the privilege of traveling to the meeting in a well-heated APC.
The meeting itself was held in the front parlor of the old De Smet mission building. It was situated on a hill, with a broad circular driveway. When Snodgrass and his staff arrived, ten minutes before the scheduled start time, there was already a roaring fire going in the fireplace. Coffee, brandy, and finger foods were served before the meeting got started. These niceties and the inevitable ensuing chatter delayed the start of the briefings for twenty minutes.
The meeting was a big event, just as Snodgrass expected. Even the Second Corps commander and his staff were there. It was what theYank soldiers called “a big dog and pony show” or “a real goat rope.” Reggie loved American colloquial terms. Outside, there were two tanks and more than thirty APCs—an assortment of BTRs, BMPs, Marders, and Bradleys—in a semicircle around the mission grounds. Most of the large security detachment was ordered to stand outside their vehicles so that there would be no chance of infiltrators escaping their gaze and slipping through the perimeter. There were also roadblocks set up on all four approaches to town. The security arrangements had been planned more than a week in advance. Realizing that a gathering of commanders would be a tempting target, nothing was left to chance. Engineer Corps personnel spent three chilly days searching the building and grounds for bombs, using both bomb-sniffing dogs and metal detectors.
The first briefing was a general situation overview. It was given by Colonel Horst Blucher, G2 of the UNPROFOR Second Corps. Other, more detailed briefings were scheduled for later in the morning. Blucher was a tall angular man with a booming voice. Standing before an acetate-covered map board and holding a retractable pointer, he read from prepared notes. “Zuh security situation in western Montana, northern Idaho, and eastern Washington is very much worsening. In northern Idaho, our Second Corps has, to date, killed 295 terrorists, and captured 17. These latters, of course, have all been thoroughly interrogated and dispatched. An additional 172 troublesome civilians, all deemed potential security risks and/or politically unreliable and/or possible resistance sympathizers, have been transported to zuh work and rehabilitation camp at Gowen Field.
“Since arriving in this region, we have suffered 918 casualties, killed and wounded. Another 97 of our soldiers, mainly American nationals, are missing—and presumed either dead or deserted. 126 of our vehicles and 11 aircraft have been destroyed, mainly by arson. An additional three trucks and one APC have been stolen and not yet recovered.
“Over 400 weapons of all descriptions are missing, and presumably now in zuh hands of these terrorists. Of those, most were lost in ambushes. A surprisingly large number were taken by deserters. Another 312 weapons, mainly vehicular mounted, have been written off our property books as ‘destroyed.’
“Zuh strength of zuh terrorist bands in northern Idaho was originally estimated at around 150. Now, despite heavy losses that we have inflicted, their strength is estimated at over 700, and growing. They are actively recruiting in the towns and on ranches. Their recruits are mainly young, healthy, and already proficient with firearms. In this region almost every adult male, and many females, are skilled hunters and scharf shooters. This dreadful winter weather has decreased zuh number of attacks, but at zuh same time reduced our own effectiveness in our counterinsurgency campaign. These terrorists are using zuh inclement weather to their advantage, to conduct training of their new recruitments at remote camps within zuh National Forests….” Just then, a loud bang was heard in front of the building. It rattled the windows. Colonel Blucher stopped abruptly. There were anxious murmurs in the room. A few officers pulled pistols from their holsters.
The Bundeswehr major who was in charge of interior security for the meeting ran to the door to see what had happened. A blast of cold air spilled in as he stood at the main door. He shouted back to those assembled, “Nothing to worry about, just a small time-delayed bomb underneath one of the Unimog trucks from Moscow. It wasn’t close to the building at all, and it didn’t even set the truck’s fuel tank on fire. These constant little acts of sabotage are so inept and pathetic.”
Colonel Blucher laughed, and looked down at his notes, preparing to resume his briefing. He felt strangely dizzy. He couldn’t focus on the papers, and the light in the room seemed to dim. His hands started to tremble. He looked up and saw that most of the men in the room were either doubled-over in their chairs or prostrate on the floor, twitching. Blucher’s knees buckled and he fell on the floor with a gasp. He heard a lieutenant in the back of the room yell “Gas!” Just before he died, Blucher felt himself wet his pants, and his bowels sloughing.
• • •
The turning point for many Americans came in May of the sixth year since the Crunch, when the Federals announced that, due to widespread forgery of the National ID Card, they had begun a pilot program implanting a magnetic biochip in the right hand of newborn babies. The biochips held 1,332 lines of data. Passing the hand over a scanner would show a dossier of the individual, and their account balances. By May of the next year, the announcement said, every U.S. resident, regardless of age, would be required to have either a National ID Card or the new Mark IV biochip. And, as of the following May, the biochip would completely replace the National ID Card, and all paper currency would be null and void. After that, without the Mark IV, residents wouldn’t be able to function day to day. They couldn’t transact business at any store, enroll in a school, pay their property taxes, or transfer the title of an automobile or land. Resistance was popping up throughout the country, even in previously “safe” areas, soon after the National ID Card announcement. News of the Chicago Blindings a month later was an even stronger catalyst for resistance. A boisterous anti-government demonstration in downtown Chicago was dispersed with the aid of a Dazer alexandrite laser. The handheld Dazer system had been developed by the U.S. Army CECOM in the early 1990s. It was designed to destroy enemy electro-optic systems such as FLIRs, starlight scopes, and thermal sights. Given its power and 750-nanometer wavelength, it was far from “eye safe.” It could destroy a human retina instantly. In the Chicago incident, a French infantry NCO “painted” the front ranks of the crowd with a Dazer for just a few seconds. More than eighty people were permanently blinded. The Chicago Blindings went down in the history as an infamous act that rivaled the Boston Massacre and Pearl Harbor.
No troops from east of the Mississippi could be spared for the western campaigns. The new Second Corps commander was instructed to “hold until relieved” and specifically not to detach any forces to attempt to re-pacify southern Idaho. No move was to be made into southern Idaho until the situation in the north was more favorable. He reconsolidated and reorganized his available units, and waited. The Federals were at a full standstill and in a defensive posture throughout the Second Corps area.
In a surprise move on the fourth of July, in the sixth year after the market crash, the Idaho legislature declared secession from the union. Oregon,Washington, California, North and South Dakota, and Alaska followed suit in the next two weeks. Within days, the lightly manned garrisons in southern Idaho fell to the rebels. Most surrendered, without a serious fight. The Second Corps was bogged down in northern Idaho, fully engaged against the resistance forces. The newly assigned Second Corps commander sent countless faxes to the UN headquarters, begging for reinforcements and replacements. The answer was always the same: “None available.”
Still more disheartening news for the Second Corps came on July tent
h.
Two line companies, Bravo Company of the 114th Armor Battalion and Alpha Company of the 519th Infantry Battalion, had turned coats en masse. Their commanders had parlayed directly with the resistance and then enthusiastically put their entire units under the operational control of the Northwest Militia.
When they went over the hill, they took all their equipment with them. Even more importantly, they supplied the resistance with current maps, plans, op orders, CEOIs, and cryptographic equipment.
CHAPTER 30
Radio Ranch
“The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the Courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.”
—Abraham Lincoln
Edgar Rhodes had just turned seventy-two when the Crunch hit. He had lost his wife two years earlier, to cancer. His only son, an electrical engineer, had moved his family to Brazil a decade earlier. Edgar was alone at the ranch. The sign by the front door read “Radio Ranch,” and the place certainly lived up to its moniker. He had selected the property forty years earlier, specifically because of its favorable ridge top siting. The ranch parcel was thirty-five land-locked acres. His road transited deeded right-of-ways through two neighboring properties to get out to the county road. Edgar liked the privacy. The ranch had plentiful water—a big spring near the bottom of the property—but not much else. There were no trees and there was not much topsoil. Rocks poked through the surface of the soil throughout the property. But Edgar liked his ridge top.
He said that it gave him “line of sight to the world.” Eventually, five antenna masts were scattered around the house. The largest was his “moon bounce,”
perched atop a sixty-foot tower. There were also dipole and sloper antennas stretched as far as eighty-eight yards from the house, in several directions.
Edgar used a pair of hydraulic rams to lift the water to the house. They were very inefficient, but reliable. The twenty-five gallons a minute at the spring yielded only five gallons a minute at the house.
• • •
Thirteen months after the Federals invaded the Palouse Hills region, Edgar was the recipient of a package that he hadn’t expected. A knock on his door at 11 p.m. woke him from a sound sleep. Edgar put on his robe and slippers and picked up his Belgian Browning twelve-gauge shotgun. He was about to snap on the 24 VDC porch light, when he heard a muffled but familiar voice through the door, “Edgar, it’s me,Vern. Leave the light off! I need to ask you a favor!You’ve got to hide this package.” Edgar drew back the heavy bars that he had built for the top, middle, and bottom of the door. He opened the door warily, and asked, “What’s so important you have to come here in the middle of the night?” He could see his neighbor in the dim moonlight. There was a woman with him. They were silent. Edgar motioned inward with his hand, and said, “Well, come on in.”
Vern and the woman crept in, groping in the dark front hall. After Edgar had rebolted the door, he lit a big “triple wick” candle and carried it to the kitchen.Vern and the unfamiliar woman followed him. They sat around the table, with the candle between them, lighting their faces.
It was then that Edgar could see that the woman was emaciated. She appeared to be around sixty year old, with graying hair. Her eyes were sunken, and the skin around her jaw seemed taut. She also looked frightened. She kept glancing at Vern.Vern spoke in a jumble. “I’ve just gotta ask your help. This is Maggie. She escaped from the Federal camp down at Gowen Field, three weeks ago. Folks have been shuttlin’ her north, here into rebel-controlled land.
I can’t keep her. I can barely feed my own family. I figured that since you were alone, and that because you eat good, that, well, you know….”
Edgar raised his hand to signalVern to stop his chatter, and then asked, “Can you cook, Maggie?”
She nodded.
“Can you mend clothes?”
She nodded again.
“Do you know how to shoot?”
She nodded again.
“Can you speak, Maggie?”
She laughed, and answered, “Of course I can speak!”
“How old are you?”
“Fifty.”
“How is your strength?You look something terrible thin.”
“I’ve lost a lot of weight, but I still have my strength. Will you hide me here?”
Without a pause, Edgar answered assuredly, “Certainly, ma’am. Nobody bothers me here. The Federals have never noticed me. Even if they did, they’d think I was an eccentric old hermit. Come to think of it, I am an eccentric old hermit. I suppose some day they’ll come looking, to confiscate my radios. But in the meantime, since I’m so far off the county road, nobody is going to notice that there’s somebody else living here.” Maggie beamed and said quietly,
“God bless you.”
Vern stood up and made his goodbyes, thanking Edgar Rhodes repeatedly, and giving Maggie a hug. As Edgar shook his hand,Vern said, “Now you take good care of this little gal, Edgar.” He turned and disappeared into the darkness.
Edgar made Maggie a batch of scrambled eggs before bed. He apologized for not having any coffee or tea. As he walked her down the hall to the guest bedroom, he said, “You can tell me all about your adventures in the morning.”
The next morning, Edgar went looking on the front porch, where he expected to find Maggie’s luggage. There was none. She had only the clothes on her back. They consisted of a long and tattered gray dress, a pair of filthy tennis shoes with no socks, and an oversized man’s forest green trench coat.
Over a breakfast of eggs, flat bread and honey, and slices of cheese, Maggie told her story. “We lived in Payette. My husband had died five years before the stock market crash, so I went to live with my daughter and her family. Three weeks after the troops and the UN administrators arrived, they came for our whole family: my daughter, my son-in-law, their two children, and me. Both my daughter Julie and my son-in-law Mark were with the resistance. They were trying to organize groups in the neighborhood for sabotage. One of our neighbors must have informed on us.
“They surrounded the house at 6 o’clock in the morning. Must have been forty of them. They said that they’d burn us out if we didn’t come out with our hands up. They dragged Julie and Mark away in handcuffs. They took Mark’s guns and CB radio as ‘evidence.’ They gave me, and the children, just five minutes to pack a few clothes, while they stood there with Kalashnikovs pointed at us. Then they searched me again, and they took everything that I had packed in the suitcases and the duffel bag and scattered it across the yard, looking for ‘contraband.’ They laughed and kicked me while I was picking it all back up and trying to repack it.
“When Mark shouted at them, the soldiers threatened to kill him. Finally, after I had most of the clothes picked up, they threw the bags up into the back of a big canvas-topped Army truck, and handcuffed me next to Julie and Mark.
They even handcuffed the kids. We were all connected to a big heavy chain—it looked like a big boat anchor chain, running lengthwise down the middle of the truck bed. It was welded down at both ends.
“They stopped and picked up another family later the same day, the Weinsteins. By the time they had them loaded in the truck, Mrs. Weinstein was having a nervous breakdown. To her, it was the Holocaust all over again. They had lost great grandparents and several great aunts and great uncles in the Nazi years in Germany. Seeing it happen all over again was just too much for her.
“We were nearly fifteen hours in that truck, without a drop of water. They only stopped once to let us relieve ourselves, and we had to do that in full view of everyone. They did what they called ‘double locking’ the handcuffs, so that they wouldn’t tighten up, but even still they left horrible red marks. Poor Mark lost some of the circulation in his left hand, but the guards wouldn’t do anything about it. When they finally took the cuffs off of him, his hand was all puffed up. He must have had permanent nerve damage in that hand.
“Gowen was
a horrible place. We were put in a barracks with eleven other families. There were fifty-nine of us in that barracks, at first. We had one large pot, and we had to do all of our cooking in that, as best we could. There was a weekly ration of spuds. And once in a while, there would be some beans, or bread, or wheat. But there was never enough. Once in a blue moon we’d get some rotten lettuce or cabbage.
“We never got a trial. There was never even any mention of it. And when we asked about appealing our confinement, or asked when we would be released, they just laughed at us. Most of the adults were expected to work. Some of it was just make-work. Others worked in the sweatshops. At Gowen, the big industry was boots. Julie was one of the boot makers. She worked eleven hours a day, with fifteen minutes for lunch. If she didn’t do her quota of stitching, she was beaten.
“They came most every day, to take away one or two people for interrogation. It was usually the men. They came back, usually a day or two later, looking ghastly. Sometimes they couldn’t walk. They were usually bleeding. Sometimes they were bleeding out of the rectum from being kicked so much. They often talked about the torture: beatings, whippings, electric cattle prods. Oh, and the bruises, so many bruises! I thank the Lord that I never got picked up for interrogation. I don’t think that I could have survived it.
“After three weeks, they came for Mark. He fought them. He hit one of the Belgian soldiers square in the nose, and I think he broke it. His nose bled like a headless chicken. They started beating Mark even before they drove off with him. They never brought Mark back. We were sure they must have killed him.
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