“Eventually people in the conquered states will rise up and put an end to the Hutchings puppet government, and kick out the UN. It is just a matter of time. As for me, I’m not willing to live as a slave and wait for that to happen. I’d rather start to make it happen myself.” Doug Carlton shouted, “Oo-rah!” Gray continued. “The bottom line is that I’d rather die fighting on my own terms with a rifle in my hands, than to die whimpering and begging for mercy in some ditch with my hands tied behind my back.” The men and women around him clapped and cheered. “Even if I die trying, my little boy there will grow up knowing that I at least tried to regain his freedom. I owe him that much.” The metal walls of the barn reverberated with more applause, whistles, and shouts.
“Okay, then, here is my basic plan, at least off the top of my head, but as always, I’m open to suggestions. I propose that we evacuate both retreats and regroup temporarily at a place that Mike picked out a few miles from here, up in the National Forest. He found it when he was leading a security patrol last April. From what he’s told me it’s a good defensible location, well away from any roads, and it’s in heavy timber for concealment. There is a good-sized level opening where we should be able to land the Doyles’ Star Streaks.” Nelson gave a thumbs-up in agreement.
Todd nodded back to Nelson and continued, “We’ll use that valley as our initial base of operations. Within a few days, though, we will probably want to split back into two separate organizations and locate and operate independently. We wouldn’t want to put all of our eggs in one basket. There is the chance that the Feds will have aircraft with FLIR pods, so I want to keep our signature small. Ten-man squads at most. If we pick up any recruits, we should start breaking up into smaller independent cells to stay under that ten-man threshold. Luckily, the hills are crawling with deer and elk, so there will be lots of false thermal targets to confuse them. If and when the Federals do get here, they will no doubt want to absolutely level our house and barn, and probably Kevin’s too, just as ‘examples.’ I don’t want to be in their sights when that happens. These Federals have no compunctions about throwing their weight around.”
Ian Doyle chimed in. “I first heard about these goons when I was in Arizona. And I heard some more about them when we were in Utah, on our way up here. As far as I’m concerned, these Federals are no better than looters. They’re just better armed and organized. They wear the cloak of legitimacy, but there’s nothing legitimate about them. They’re just another band of thugs, flying that Tidy-Bowl blue UN flag.”
He continued, “Our two planes are available for recon, of course. And, I’ve also got some other goodies down in the basement.” He thrust up a forefinger and blurted out, “Wait! I’ll be right back.” He left the barn abruptly leaving most of those gathered wondering what could be so important that he had to miss part of the meeting. While he was gone, the militia members started chattering among themselves about contingency plans and G.O.O.D. kits.
Doyle returned to the briefing after just a few minutes. Laying a bulky olive drab nylon duffel bag on the floor of the barn, he proclaimed, “Well, here they are. There are five of them. Well, originally I had seven, but therein lies a long story all in itself. I’ll just make it simple and say that I’ve got five left. They are all, the later ‘A2’ model. I broke them down into halves so they’d fit here in the duffel.” Doyle started to unwrap the front assemblies and rear assemblies of what at first glance looked like later-model Colt Sporters, padded by his extra sets of ACUs and BDUs.
As he continued to talk, he laid out the halves in pairs on the floor of the barn, and then began assembling them, snapping their pivot pins into place. “I got these gems from the AP’s arms room, along with three Beretta M9 pistols.
They were the last guns still in there. Unfortunately, there was no small arms ammo left on base. They only kept a small quantity onhand for base security, and that had been cleaned out when the APs left. The nearest ammo supply point was way the heck down at Fort Huachuca. Luckily, I had a few hundred rounds of commercial .223 at home, plus three .50 caliber ammo cans full of nine-millimeter ball, tracer, and soft nose.” He added with a smile, “In case you are wondering, I did indeed sign Uncle Sugar a hand receipt for these guns. Heck, if I hadn’t put them in safekeeping, who knows whose hands they’d be in by now.”
Doyle went on, “The reason I ran to go get these was because I just had the idea of mounting these in a rack in the front of one of the Larons with some sort of remote firing mechanism. With five of them firing simultaneously, I could do some major Vandammage. Oh yeah! My Star Streak will be C-A-S capable.”
“What’s C-A-S?” Lon asked.
Doyle turned toward him and replied, “C-A-S stands for Close Air Support.”
Lon Porter eyed the M16s and stroked his chin and said forthrightly, “No sweat, I can probably fab that up for you in a day or two.”
Mike Nelson added, “What about our M60? Could we build a mounting bracket for it on the other Star Streak?”
“Why not?” Doyle laughed. “We can have two armed birds in the air at the same time that way. Mounting the M60 should be even easier than mounting these sixteens. It’ll be just like the old days, Todd. We’ll just cut to size, file to fit, and paint to match!”
CHAPTER 25
Egress
Just after the morning meeting, Mike Nelson and Ian hiked up to reconnoiter the new base of operations. They scouted a small valley four miles to the east that Mike had picked out months before. Ian said that the meadow in the center of the valley looked fine for landings. They walked the length and width of the meadow several times, looking for landing gear obstructions. They found none. The pair hiked back to the retreat, had a hurried lunch, and pre-flighted Ian’s Laron. The flight to the valley took only a few minutes. They both wanted to see what the site would look like from the air. Ian made a test landing in the meadow. Before they took off again, Mike left his HK91 wrapped in a poncho, with his web gear harness lying beside it, in a thick clump of trees just beyond the east edge of the meadow. It was the first of what would soon become a small mountain of equipment. The site would soon be known as the militia’s tactical command post or “TAC-CP.” As they walked back to the plane, Nelson remarked, “I think we’ll call this place Valley Forge.”
The remainder of the two companies spent the day and evening in feverish preparation. The first order of business was for every individual at both retreats to repack their “G.O.O.D.” backpacks. Lon Porter, Mike Nelson, and the Doyles consumed their next two days mounting the five M16s on Ian’s Laron, and the M60 on Blanca’s. There was no way to mount the guns in the cramped noses, and mounting them on the planes’ fragile wings looked very difficult.
The solution was simply to remove the planes’ canopies and mount the guns in the front seat area, with their muzzles protruding over the front lips of the cockpits. A large narrow bin was constructed of sheet metal to hold the ammunition belt for the M60. When belts of ammo were linked together continuously and loaded into the bin, it was found that it would accommodate one thousand and sixty rounds.