The recruit nodded, and Ben went on. “When I heard that the ProvGov was setting up concentration camps, just like the Nazis, I very quickly decided that I’d never get dragged into one of them. I’d rather die on my feet with a rifle in my hands—”
The recruit interrupted, “—than on your knees.”
“Yes, precisely. My attitude, as a Christian, is that I know that this mortal life is short, and that I already have life eternal in heaven. So it is all a matter of keeping perspective. I have confidence that you’ll fight the good fight. Never forget this conversation.”
Depending on the tactical situation, the five-man Recon Team was often loaned out to work with Hammond’s Hellhounds, the Mulholland Company, the Fawcett Company, Gunners Against Illegal Mayors (GAIM), the Gillian Group, the Morris Maquis, the Lexington-Versailles Company, or the Alvin York Brigade. All these were independent militias that operated in western Tennessee and western Kentucky. They numbered between nine and twenty-eight members, mostly men.
The Recon Team’s specialty was locating enemy positions and lines—and crossing them, if need be. They would then guide militia companies to vulnerable points to attack. The Old Man handpicked all of his fighters from other units. He recruited Ben Fielding shortly after his team’s point man had been killed by an exploding land mine. The Old Man selected men who were exceptionally well tempered, physically fit, experienced in the field, and who had perfect uncorrected vision. Ben and Brent were the only members of the reconnaissance team that didn’t have prior military service. Most of the others had been Army Rangers or Army Cavalry scouts, one had been a Force Recon Marine, and another was a former Navy SEAL.
When Ben asked the Old Man his name, he answered dryly, “You don’t have a need to know, son. Besides, it’s safer for both of us if you don’t know it.”
The Recon Team was famous for never taking more than a one-week break from operations in two years of the resistance war, and most of those were after actions when several team members were wounded. The Old Man was the only member who made it all the way through the war. All of the others were replacements for those who had been killed or wounded. Like Ben, all of them were sworn to secrecy. Further, all were under orders to never mention their surnames to each other. At one point, there were two members on the team named Jim. They were called “Old Jim” and “Young Jim” to avoid confusion.
Brent joined the Recon Team much later in the war than Ben, just nine months before the UNPROFOR collapsed. He replaced a medic who had been killed in an ATACMS missile strike.
From the vantage point of his leaky pup tent, Brent sized up the Mulholland Company. They were a ragtag bunch, with few recognizable leaders. With twenty-nine members, it was one of the larger resistance militias. Recent experience had shown that larger units were easier for the UNPROFOR to detect and engage. In fact, the trend was to split resistance units into groups no larger than fifteen. The Mulholland Company had not yet done so, but a split was already under discussion. The members of the company had a wide assortment of weapons, uniforms, and equipment. A good portion of their gear was captured.
Like many other resistance units, there was a preponderance of young men—many still in their teens and as young as sixteen—and men in their late fifties and early sixties. Most of the married men in the ages in between had feared for their families’ safety and therefore didn’t feel free to join the fight. Both in their forties, Ben Fielding and Brent Danley were in the minority. Like many men their age in the Resistance, Brent and Ben had both lost family to the ProvGov’s actions, so their motivation could be attributed partly to revenge.
And, like many others their age, Brent and Ben had a deep-seated hatred of the ProvGov, and this made them some of the most motivated and tireless fighters. One of Brent’s most common sayings was “I’ll only relax when Hutchings is six feet under, and we have a Constitutional government again.”
The militias that tried using armored vehicles found it made them targets for airstrikes or laser-guided artillery rounds. So after taking heavy casualties in the first few months of the resistance war the goal became to destroy UNPROFOR vehicles, rather than capture and use them.
The most effective use of vehicles by the Resistance was to drive abandoned or stolen civilian cars and SUVs for high-speed covert movement of troops, to mass for short-duration raids. Often their weapons would be hidden in the vehicles in case they had to pass checkpoints.
Most resistance units preferred 7.62mm NATO battle rifles, such as M1As, AR-10s, FN/FALs, and HK91 clones. These gave them better range than the M4s, M16s, and AK-74s used by the UNPROFOR army, yet they were still light enough to carry on long patrols. Light belt-fed weapons such as the M249, MG4 (the German equivalent of an M249), and the M240B were also highly prized. The other weapons that they did their best to procure were Claymore mines, LAW rockets, AT-4s, and the various generations of Russian RPGs. These were used to great effect in anti-vehicular ambushes.
A few resistance units in urban areas found that they could carry M4 carbines broken down into two halves concealed beneath heavy coats and jackets. Assembling the guns took just a few moments. This modus operandi often resulted in gaining the element of surprise when ambushing UNPROFOR troops who were off duty or otherwise in a low state of readiness.
24. Mole Tunnels
“The qualities of a good intelligence officer:
• Be perceptive about people
• Be able to work well with others under difficult conditions
• Be able to distinguish between fact and fiction
• Be able to distinguish between essentials and non-essentials
• Possess inquisitiveness
• Have a large amount of ingenuity
• Pay appropriate attention to detail
• Be able to express ideas clearly, briefly and very important, interestingly
• Learn when to keep your mouth shut
• Understanding for other points of view, other ways of thinking and behaving, even if they are quite foreign to his own
• Rigidity and close-mindedness are qualities that do not spell a good future in Intelligence
• Must not be over ambitious or anxious for personal reward, and the most important quality: What motivates a man to devote himself to the craft of intelligence?”
Fort Knox, Kentucky
December, the Second Year
With a quiet word from the Resistance, Kaylee soon got a job working the front counter and cash register at a bagel and pastry bakery on Knox Avenue in Radcliff. The owner was sympathetic to the Cause. His bakery was in the building that had been occupied by the Better on a Bagel bakery before the Crunch. It was located near the junction of Knox Avenue and North Wilson Road. When it reopened, the bakery was called Bullion Bakery, and had a metallic gold painted sign in the shape of a gold ingot.
Because Kaylee would be in contact with so many people each day, it was the perfect place for her to be able to surreptitiously pass notes, memory sticks, or even small parcels to couriers. In the event that she had to deliver a note or memory stick to a courier after-hours, she had two dead drop locations: one inside a carved-out copy of the book Soil Survey of Hamblen County, Tennessee in the dusty stacks at the Radcliff Public Library, and one in a Ziploc bag beneath the cigarette butts in the top of a steel fence post in the parking lot of Cho’s Snack Corner on North Wilson Road.