Chapter 11 xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Myles was up early the following day. He felt a sense of mixed excitement and apprehension he had seldom felt, and never with this level of intensity. He had done a few moderately dangerous things - racing cars and motorcycles, flying some aircraft of rather dubious character, deep-sea fishing and the like. But it had never been like this - they had, as his grandfather sometimes said, poked the bear. The bear's reaction in this case was never in doubt, and certainly things had now become very serious. He dressed in his usual attire, noticing that Sarah had starched and ironed a number of his shirts, something he never did. He wasn't sure he owned an iron - perhaps she had taken them to a laundry. They were not excessively stiff, just smooth and unwrinkled. He smiled slightly as he looked at himself in the mirror - she wanted him to look good, and he had to admit it was an improvement. He and went down to breakfast in the mess hall. He joined Sir Walter, who introduced him to a couple of freehold leaders at his table. They did not talk much - with the meeting beginning in less than an hour, there would be sufficient talk soon enough. In the meeting hall, Myles found a seat on the back row, near one side, with a good view of the speaker's podium. He had never seen Sir Walter make a public appearance, and was interested in seeing his public personality was like. He knew Sir Walter was regarded by the Knights as their leader, and the Knights themselves, with their wealth and sometimes mysterious connections, were seen as the captains of the league. Thus he had been elected to lead the council, and would soon begin his presentation. A small team of West Plains technicians assisted with the equipment, and had already assumed their positions. The video screens came on, and more lights on the whiteboards and computers came on. With no ceremony, not even an introduction, Sir Walter strode across the stage and took his place behind the podium. "Can everyone hear?" he asked. The PA system had been calibrated perfectly, as far as Myles could tell. The men on his row nodded, held up hands with the OK sign, making a circle with the thumb and forefinger, or nodded. The hall was lighted to near normal levels, with just the area behind the speaker's position, where the whiteboards and screens were located, somewhat darker. "Excellent" said Sir Walter. "We don't have a great deal of time, so I'll get the first part out of the way as quickly as possible, and then the committee meetings can begin." The two screens to his right changed to display a map of the North America, with part of South America visible below it. A number of dots in various colors appeared on the map, mostly within the U.S. There were just a few in Canada and Mexico, and a few more on the north and northeast coasts of South America. The other screen had a maps of Europe and Asia side by, in a somewhat smaller scale. A few more dots appeared there, and then some in the ocean areas, representing seaborne communities similar to November Alpha. Sir Walter continued. "Gentlemen, as of today these are the Freeholds that make up the League. Briefly, in addition to the ones in the U.S., two hundred eighty six total, we have six in Canada and three in Mexico, along with the ones you see in Europe and Asia. The six seaborne freeholds are as you see, unchanged over the past ten years or so, except for growth. Since you are all familiar with the missions of all of the freeholds outside the country, I'll not discuss them at this time. Some of the committees will be dealing with them." "The smallest members," he said, "range from about twenty or so up to about fifty in number, with a few larger. There are quite a few of them in that class, under one hundred members, thirty-six in all. While that may not seem like a substantial element of our strength, together they make up just over nine hundred men, which can be useful as a single force or as a number of smaller ones. More to the point, their small size makes them less noticeable, and their geographical distribution makes them an important element of our surveillance and monitoring activities. "Our total force of combat-capable men stands at over seventy-one thousand, not including those outside our borders. There are around eight thousand men there, and while they are not expected to be involved in operations, except on special missions, they do form a considerable pool of resources outside the control of the government. They also provide, in some cases, places to send people who are being pursued by the government to prevent their being captured, and to hide other things. "This very large, dispersed force will be a major obstacle to any effort by the government to implement major repressive measures against the population. Due to the policies which preceded the political shift which has created this situation, the armed forces have been considerably diminished, to the point that there are only something over half a million active duty army, and about three hundred thousand each in the Air Force and Navy. Close to half of the air and naval equipment is idle due to lack of maintenance personnel and operators. This is not likely to improve in the short term as large budget deficits continue to be used primarily to fund social programs to appease the large idle population, while the continued increases in taxes and regulations are causing many businesses to fail, further eroding the tax base. While they must continue doing this in order to prevent a massive, unorganized revolt on that front, they are still attempting to crush the remaining sources of productivity. Noticing that this is insanity is not enough - we must, if unable to defeat and remove them from power in the short term, at least impede their progress. "As to other assets, the Army Reserves are in even worse condition, in terms of manpower, than the active forces, with the Air Force and Navy in the same condition. The National Guard has not been able to attractive competent personnel for two to three decades now, and is essentially not a factor should they be used. And police forces, from the local to state level, are even worse than the military forces. Unable or unwilling to make any kind of reasonable reforms, the various governments of most states have, while already under pressure from the malcontents of their population , have now alienated the law-abiding citizens who once supported the police. Thus, we have relatively little to fear from that quarter. "As we saw at Penn Creek, they federal forces are not much better. Both from a policy and procedural perspective, it was a disaster. The government is now populated mostly by the sort of bureaucrats who expect the population to capitulate to their every decree, and the idea of any sort of serious resistance has never been considered. Until now. At this point they are most likely in a rather mad rush to figure out what is happening and how to react. "While we do not have the luxury of knowing what they know about us, due to the difficulty of getting our people into the right positions, we know that they have a general idea that something organized is happening. They likely suspect, at this point, that we are one of the various militias or dissident groups which come and go, hence the attack on Penn Creek. They may or may not have suspected anyone at that location, but it seems to have been their general idea that our attacks came from that quarter. "As to the militias, as many of you know, and there is more detail in the report you have, we have an influential presence in some of them. A few of the more serious and professional ones have some former military personnel, including a few retired officers of considerable rank. Our relationship with them at this point is somewhat distant, not wanting to reveal much about ourselves. But when the time comes, we are likely to be able to have some assistance from some of these groups, should we find the right opportunity. "Finally, our most likely concern in the short term is the reaction to our activities thus far. A connection has most likely been made to Mike Charlie and Redstone, as they were involved in the operation at Penn Creek. Alpha Romeo One and Sierra Delta may also be suspected, if only due to their proximity. So defending against a retaliatory attack must be a priority. However, any attack which does occur, if properly handled, can be a major opportunity for us. At this point we have an substantial advantage, and we want to remain in that position. "Thank you for your time. Let's begin our sessions and see how much we can get done before lunch." Sir Walter left the stage and the participants got up and headed to their own meetings. Myles went to the room where Sir Walter, and Sir Andrew, along with Matthew Richardson and John Bradford would discuss the preparations for the almost certain attack on one or more of their freeholds. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ * ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Myles accompanied Sir Walter to the discussion group that would work on defense strategies. As he had observed in his speech , retaliation for the assassinations and the interference at Penn Creek would likely be directed at Mike Charlie or Redstone, or perhaps both. Sir Andrew was in the group, as were Matthew Richardson and John Bradford. They were joined by the leaders of several other Freeholds that were both large and relatively close to either Mike Charlie or Redstone. "Given that we have no way of knowing what form the attack will take, we have no choice but to be, as much as possible, prepared for anything," said Sir Walter. "I do believe that in terms of hardware, it will almost certainly be more than the lightweight equipment they had at Penn Creek. They were expecting no opposition then - they are certain of it now. Hence, heavier armor, probably helicopters, likely with rockets and AGMs, probably in the AGM-80 series, for use against bunkers. And of course, .50 caliber door guns if they use something in the utility class, or 20 millimeter cannon if they use attack choppers." "Either way," said Sir Andrew, "we can handle them in the air - our Russian friends have been quite accommodating in recent years. We can put enough Yozhov missiles at all four sites to take down anything they send. The YZ-4 series, of which we have a good supply, is optimized for anti-helicopter work. "Of course, if we hit a loaded utility chopper or two with a dozen or so troops each, it will be a bloodbath of major dimensions before any ground engagement takes place. Remember at the Solomon's Creed incident, they started by flying a couple of UH-11s around the place, rather indiscriminately shooting any available target with the fifties in the doors." "Well, I don't see a downside there" said John. "By now, anyone who goes on a mission knows, or should know, the risk. Going when you know the targets are civilians removes any consideration that might normally be given to either military or law enforcement. Any decent man would have already resigned, and if not would at least refuse to carry out the order." "True enough," said Sir Andrew. "This is now a matter of survival and, if we survive, it will mean they failed. Not that they will stop at one failure. Which is why we should consider having the Samson option available. It's simple a matter of activation." "I completely agree," said Sir Walter. John and Matthew both nodded. Myles had been briefed some months back on Operation Samson. While unable to accomplish deep penetration of the government agencies they would be battling, it was easier to put people into more ordinary roles, such as working at various construction-related companies that had regular access to the insides of various government buildings. Cities of any substantial size, beginning at around a population of a hundred thousand or so, had a large building dedicated to federal government offices. The fact that a small city would have a large building, usually three floors at a minimum, with offices for dozens of federal agencies, should be a clue to anyone paying attention that the government was quite out of control. The problem was that few people were paying attention, at least to the things they should. In several major, and a few smaller cities, these buildings had been compromised by League agents, working as construction workers, electricians or plumbers, and sometimes as building inspectors employed by local government. Over a period of time they had used their access to the buildings to plant explosive charges in places where they could not be detected except by a thorough search. Setting them off would destroy the building in a manner similar to a controlled demolition. Not as neatly, but just as effectively and spectacularly. "We have no way of knowing how this next battle will go," said Sir Walter. "But if we succeed , which is to say we end the action on terms favorable to us, I would hope to have some of their personnel as prisoners. We should be able to work some sort of truce at that point, and we can extract some concessions from them. If they prove obstinate, seeing one of those buildings go down, on command, should bring them around." "Whatever happens," said Matthew, "we will almost certainly see some ground action. I suspect that, even with their latest debacle in mind, they will try to make their personnel a bit harder to take down. What did they lose, ten men?" "If no more died afterward, it was ten" said Sir Andrew. "And with this being a revenge operation, they'll want to reverse that trend. You're thinking harder armor then?" "Correct," said Matthew. "It's heavier, and impairs mobility, but I wouldn't be surprised if they are heavily encased. Still, the best there is only good against rifles with armor-piercing, and we have the luxury of setting up a lot of battle stations with one-inch guns. Those will knock them down if nothing else. "I recommend doing so" said Sir Walter. "As defenders, we do have the option of engaging in overkill on a considerable level." "One advantage we have at Mike Charlie" said Sir Walter, "is the ability to manipulate their expectations to some degree. As I told with you a while back, we have a spy in our organization. If they are coming for us, I suspect we'll see some clues in her behavior. More to the point, we have been providing misleading information to her for quite a while. Among other things, she believes the main road is mined. We have thoughtfully provided a couple of routes around it, and those are mined. I don't know how you might do something similar, but you might look at some similar measures." "We'll need to arrange transport of the SAMs" said Sir Walter. "Roger and Stephen both have some, and are conveniently positioned to supply both Redstone and Mike Charlie, as well as Sierra Delta and Alpha Romeo One. While we don't expect any awareness of your involvement at this point," he said, looking at John and Matthew "we don't want you unprepared." "How likely are they to use chemicals?" John wondered. Roger and Stephen were two of the Knights - properly called Sir Roger and Sir Stephen. Myles had met both of them. Sir Stephen seemed to be about the age of Sir Walter, and had a similar background, from what Myles had picked up being around him. Sir Roger was different, considerably younger, perhaps fifteen years or so, and seemed to have been an acquaintance of Sir Walter for quite a while. Sir Stephen's freehold was in Colorado, not far from Arizona, in easy reach of the freeholds in the northern part of the state. Sir Roger was located in Kentucky, and was quite close by air to Mike Charlie. "At this point, not very" said Sir Andrew. "However, we must be prepared, with equipment checked out, fresh filters, some additional practice." "We'll need to set up more efficient communication protocols, in case we do find ourselves in a open-ended situation, we need to have fewer major points of contact, grouping the leaders of smaller freeholds with the larger ones in their area. They can then direct their people with short-range comms, while the long-distance traffic can be limited to fewer points." "You see a situation, then, in which this doesn't go to continuous action soon?" John asked. "There is some hope for that" said Sir Walter. "If the next attack is a debacle of even greater magnitude than the previous one, they may want to take some time to regroup and try to learn more. It may be, if this goes really bad for them, we can force some kind of fact-to-face contact, in which we persuade them to halt hostilities for a while. We're getting continued movement on the Atlantis front now, and if our belief about that is correct, we may want to delay the inevitable explosion, in which the militias commence operation while incidents of civil unrest, of our making, put additional pressure on them. We would like to have maximum resources available for securing Atlantis. We believe our presence, both in the militias and in various dissident organization, can provide a major distraction at the right time." If the Atlantis theory is wrong, where does that leave us, Myles wondered. He guessed it would be a long and bloody civil war. One they might eventually win, but he did not care to contemplate the cost. Still, as Sir Walter had observed on occasion, doing nothing was not an option for honorable men. As they broke for lunch, Myles noticed that the foreboding that had begun to occupy his quiet moments was becoming stronger and more frequent. Any kind of activity, even the meeting they were in, would suppress it. He wondered if this was to be a regular condition for the foreseeable future.