If they failed to stop the feds, Brown had ordered him to retreat through the back fence using one of the compound's ATVs. Brown made it clear that Bishop was too valuable to be captured and that he was needed to play a critical role in upcoming events. He could take the surviving camp regulars with him. They had enough four wheelers for about a dozen of them to escape if they doubled up.
The new recruits would have to stay and fight it out, no matter what happened. He hoped it didn't come to that, but Brown had made the options clear. If the feds turned the tide too quickly, Hacker Valley would vanish into obscurity, and there would be no point for him to remain behind. If they could repel the attack and force the government to come back with a bigger force, True America could turn this into another Waco, Texas. Greely's spin-doctors in the media would make this a symbol of government oppression. Brown and the higher-ups had something massive planned for the upcoming days. Ongoing media coverage of the Hacker Valley siege would play right into that plan, so he was told. The key to that plan was holding the fort.
Through the fence line, he could see that a faint mist had started to penetrate the valley, lightly touching the ground in a few patches to the south. He raised his night vision scope and scanned beyond the fence. The light cast by the moon turned the landscape into day, providing a crisp image across the clearing in every direction. They had some night vision equipped rifles, which would come in handy if the attack took place at night. He highly doubted they would attack under a full moon, on a clear night. Then again, he wasn't facing military tacticians. Lawyers and accountants filled the ranks at the FBI. If he were in charge of the federal attack, he would hit the compound an hour before full sunrise. The mist often transitioned into fog by then, stringing thick ribbons of smoky white clouds across the valley. Perfect cover to approach undetected.
He was about to step down from the doorway and take a walk around the compound when an excited voice nearly scared him out of his clothes.
"They're coming! Ty! They're coming."
He ran into the building and took the first door on his left, entering the control room. The small space housed a table with three monitors and a variety of communications equipment. Two of the monitors showed feeds from various cameras located throughout the compound and along the approach road. The third monitor displayed a virtual security window that relayed information from several dozen sensors placed in the forest surrounding the compound. Immediately upon entering, he could see that motion sensors along the approach road had been tripped.
"Rewind the camera feed," he ordered.
The black-haired, bearded man seated at the table clicked the mouse a few times, and the digital feed sped back in time twenty seconds. As the image flashed on the screen, Bishop saw a massive convoy of vehicles enter the screen, headed backward toward Route 15.
"Stop it there. Play it forward."
Bishop counted the vehicles as they slowly passed the night vision equipped security camera. Eight vehicles inbound, carrying maybe fifty agents. The lead vehicle had been a stripped-down Humvee, probably from a West Virginia National Guard unit. This made sense since none of the vehicles displayed headlights. The Guard drivers could navigate the road with night vision and lead the feds along safely to their target. The convoy was more than twenty minutes out, giving him more than enough time to deploy the compound's defenses. He wondered if they had him under some kind of long-range surveillance. He'd considered the possibility, but his array of motion sensors told him a different story. He'd overseen the placement of this array and had tested it from every direction. If working properly, nothing could get close enough to watch the compound without alerting him.
Still, he didn't want to completely spoil the surprise. He notified each of the barracks buildings with his radio and set them in motion. Within minutes, he'd have two heavy machine guns covering the approach road from the ground and the other two mounted in fixed rooftop positions. Located on opposite sides of the parade field, the rooftop guns could fire in any direction around the compound and would be their first line of defense against helicopters. Sniper positions on the rooftops and along the raised earthen barriers inside the fence could similarly fire in any direction, though he would concentrate their placement in the direction of the approach road.
The recruits would man the entire fence line armed with a variety of automatic rifles, equipped with state-of-the-art optics. Once the heavy machine-gunners made contact, he'd deploy the Road Warrior if they pressed the attack forward. He really hoped they were stupid and stubborn enough to try to breach the fence line. He'd love nothing more than to see the entire group of FBI agents slaughtered as they crossed 350 yards of open field.
He opened a tall metal cabinet pressed against the wall and grabbed his battle gear, which consisted of an AR-15 with 4X ACOG scope and a full tactical vest loaded down with spare magazines. He already wore his pistol in a drop-down tactical leg holster, along with a hand microphone-equipped command radio.
"Stay on the command channel. If you see any movement on the forest sensors, aside from the approach road, you notify me immediately. Understood?"
"I got your back, Ty. I wish I could be out there with you guys."
"You'll get your turn, don't worry. If we have a turkey shoot out there, I'll send someone back so you can empty a few mags."
"Fuck yeah! Save some of those dirt bag pieces of shit for me," he said, as Bishop disappeared.
"All teams report when in position. I want everyone ready in three minutes," he said into the hand mic.
He had a dozen snipers, four heavy gun team leaders, Road Warrior and the mortar team on the command net. Things would get busy very quickly. The recruits would be led by his regulars, separated into groups of ten. If he needed to contact them, or vice versa, the request would be relayed through a different channel that was monitored by his second-in-command, who was sprinting down the hall toward him.
Paul Thomas had been a competent soldier to have at his side for the past year. Wearing a Marine Corps-style "high and tight" haircut that matched his persona, the former Marine staff sergeant got things done around here. He considered Thomas to be an essential camp asset, which was more than he could say about many of the regulars that rotated through the compound.
"Wake your ass up, marine. We have a whole invasion force coming down that road. Make sure the recruits get into position, and don't leave my side. We may need to shift guys around pretty quickly."
"Roger that," Thomas said.
"I want to get down by the front gate to assess the situation firsthand," Bishop said and started running south, in the direction of the front gate.
On his way across the parade field, he saw activity on the rooftops designated to hold two of the heavy machine guns. These boys worked fast. Dark figures dashed in every direction, following orders barked by men and women who had been trained to lead freedom fighters into battle. The sound of equipment rattling sent a chill down his spine. He had never served in the military, but he imagined that this was exactly how it must have felt to be stationed in the Korengal Valley, at one of those hilltop firebases when the Taliban launched a surprise attack. The feeling nearly overwhelmed him as he reached one of the machine-gun positions established beside the gate. He had to stop and catch his breath, woozy from the excitement and adrenaline.