Patriot Dawn: The Resistance Rises (9 page)

Both Bill and
Jack had served in Afghanistan and they well remembered how the electronic warfare assets would listen in to ICOM chatter on enemy networks in real time as attacks were taking place. The Resistance did possess VHF ‘walkie-talkie’ type radios and there was a place for them, but mainly the focus would be on being ‘old school’ and low tech.

Bill also had a satellite system that he could use while the internet was locked down to transmit messages to the internet
that remained outside of Regime control.

Supply would largely be conducted by a ‘quartermaster’ system using cut-outs, dead drops and caches. Caches would be identified with a marker system to allow the location to be passed on and found by subsequent users.

In simple terms, directions would be given to go to a certain location and identify the primary marker. This could be something such as an identifiable tree or fence corner, for example. From the primary marker the searcher would look for the described secondary and tertiary markers, leading to the location of the cache, hidden or buried in waterproof containers.

For other situations, a policy of hiding in plain sight could be adopted. For example, discreet farmers markets had grown up since the collapse, bartering in goods. It was a simple thing for a covert
Resistance team to show up at a market and ‘barter’ for supplies, that would then be driven away in plain sight.

One of
Jack’s concerns was the co-location of a training camp in the same place as where the families were to be in hiding at Camp Zulu. They developed the concept further in discussion together. It was agreed that Zulu remain as a well hidden ‘family only’ camp.

They would establish another training camp separated from Zulu. Bill had some ideas based on a
n abandoned farm he had come across while conducting his initial reconnaissance. It was in the same forested area as Zulu, up on the high ground, and it had a farm house, some outbuildings and a large barn type building that would be good for a training location. It was about five miles away from Zulu, the only route between the two being a small trail.

Although many of those that would be trained at this new camp would be the fighters whose families were at Zulu, this
plan to separate the locations worked better because it kept the activity away from Zulu. This would also create a firewall between any new recruits, potential spies however well vetted, and the families.

They agreed that
Jack would take over the establishment and running of this training camp once he had settled his family at Zulu. They agreed to call the camp, ‘Victor Foxtrot’, which stood for Valley Forge, a name which they considered appropriate.

Bill had
recruited a group of volunteer fighters that was about three platoons strong at this point and which he hoped to continue to recruit to get it up to strong Company strength. The concept was to hide this force out at the training camp in the wooded hills and train over the winter, beginning operations in the spring once training was complete.

Bill and Jack
both realized that they were fighting an irregular Resistance campaign and the Regime had the upper hand in terms of surveillance assets and firepower, and they would have to organize and operate accordingly.

The br
oad concept was to train up a force based on a basic cell structure that could come together to coalesce into larger formations in order to allow the Company to concentrate force as appropriate. A system of dispersal and cell level small team IED operations, infiltration, and also concentration of force into larger groupings when necessary

The Company would begin to conduct operations
as soon as they were ready, but in a most careful way. Strategically, they would aim to harass, disrupt and dislocate Regime operations with the initial aim of preventing the pacification of the sector.

If they could establish that, they would increase the pressure on the
Regime safe zones to demonstrate the weakness of the Regimes legitimacy as the provider of ‘safety and security’. This would be accompanied by an information operations campaign in order to attempt to wake up the people and generate support for the Patriot cause.

The focus of the Company training would be on small unit insurgency operations, attacking the Regime where it was weak. Force on force pitched battles were to be avoided. The Company would be trained to operate as small teams but with the ability to mass up to Company level in order to concentrate
overwhelming force against key targets as necessary.

The big focus was on counter-surveillance, avoiding detection.

This would mean surprise attacks from ambush positions in order to temporarily overwhelm damage and destroy the enemy, before exfiltration to fight again another day. This would mean that both team members and leaders in the unit would have to develop an aggressive and independent way of thinking that would allow them to conduct operations as a small group, or come together and mass as a larger team.

Bill told
Jack that the group he had so far was a somewhat eclectic bunch, a mixed bag of loyal Patriots, some of whom were better prepared than others. Many were veterans, others were not. They had all volunteered and were willing to put the required effort in. He had a core platoon sized group, of just less than thirty fighters, that he had been working with for some time, and they would be the baseline for the new unit.

Jack
s role was to be as a lead trainer. Jim was also going with them along with the latest bunch of recruits and family members who were with them at the farm.

Jim Fisher had been a Special Forces NCO, an ‘18C’ special operations engineer, an expert at explosives and demolitions. Jim had deserted before joining up with Bill. He would be
Jack’s second in command of training, effectively his ‘First Sergeant’, and would also be responsible for running the training for the IED specialists.

Jim came across as very competent and professional,
an imposing figure with a relaxed manner, backed by just the suspicion of a potential for violence.

Bill also told
Jack about Major John Cassidy, who was the company commander. He was currently up at Camp Zulu overseeing the final build and preparations. He was an active duty engineer officer who had deserted and still insisted on using his rank. He liked to stand on ceremony, Bill told him, but he was a good man. Jack would be working with him getting the Company ready, and supporting him with continuing training, in particular of any new recruits coming through.

Because of the cut-out system and the lack of communications, Bill would be sending
Jack up with a letter of introduction for Major Cassidy, explaining the plans and arrangements.

Chapter Five

T
hey left the next morning as part of a convoy taking personnel and supplies up to Camp Zulu. They had about sixty miles to travel as the crow flies, along country roads, and this meant that they needed to break the journey. It would not do to be in a hurry and run into trouble.

There was a safe farm
on the plateau just over the Shenandoah ridge and that was where they were aiming for, before resting overnight and making the final journey across the valley and into the forests to the west.             

Jack
was pleased by the way the move was run. The convoy itself was six vehicles including their Suburban, mainly SUVs, pickups and a minibus. Running interference ahead of the convoy were two other vehicles. One was an old beat up Chevy pickup and the other an old Ford sedan.

Both vehicles contained old married farming couples
, volunteers, looking entirely natural in the environment. They were equipped with handheld VHF radios that they were only to use in an emergency, to warn the convoy. They rotated ahead of the convoy, taking it in turns to run point and check that the route ahead was clear of security force patrols and checkpoints. If they hit one, they would just pass through it and alert the convoy, who would take another direction with the remaining recce car.

The journey itself was uneventful; they stayed the night and headed out the next morning for the wooded hills, crossing the I-81 in the center of the Shenandoah Valley after the route had been cleared by the
recce cars.

They wound up into the hills, the roads getting smaller, until they came to a parking area. Here, the
recce cars left them and they waited, the new recruits pulling security around the convoy.

After a while, they were approached by a pickup truck
with forest ranger markings; recognition signals were passed prior to the link up. Jack was impressed by all this; it was an example of the cut-out process at work.

The convoy moved further into the wooded hills and diverted from the asphalt road onto a fire trail which they followed for a couple o
f miles before coming to a concealed parking area in a natural bowl, cut back amongst the trees.

Oddly, under a camouflaged net at the back of the bowl, was a fuel tanker truck.
There were a couple of other rugged looking pickups parked under nets and everyone gathered round the guide for a brief.

“Ok, welcome,” he said. “I’m Grant, your guide. W
e go on foot from here; it’s a couple of miles on a hiking trail. We have four ATVs with trailers and a couple of gators for the heavy gear and they will make a couple of trips as necessary. Leave your keys in the cars: once we have all the gear at the camp, we will move the extra vehicles out to satellite laagers to reduce our footprint.”

It was about a three mile hike on a small trail through the woods. It was slow going with the various family members struggling under their packs. Some gear had been loaded on ATV trailers and had gone ahead, what remained was under a guard force by the vehicles, ready for the ATVs to shuttle back up to the camp.

There were a lot of supplies to carry in; most of the families arriving here were preppers and had brought their salvaged food stocks with them, mainly in five gallon buckets, as well as equipment. What was useful was brought to the camp, and the rights of the families over their property were respected.

Bill had been clear that although he expected people would fall into a teamwork mentality and
begin to meld and rely on each other at the camp, it was not a commune and people’s property rights were to be respected.             

Jack
noticed that they were mainly heading uphill until they were contouring along several hundred feet below the crest of a minor ridge, heading south down the eastern side of the valley, the ridge to their left.

He had a chance to talk a little with Grant as they walk
ed. It turned out that he was a forest Ranger who had been employed in the surrounding National Forest. As such, Grant had an intimate knowledge of the area and had been instrumental in helping Bill find the various locations. Such local knowledge had been essential in the scouting missions that Bill had led, in order to find the location for Zulu and the well hidden abandoned farm that would become the training base.

They passed a well camouflaged bunker on the left of the trail, dug in with overhead protection.

The faces of two sentries were visible in the shadowed interior, the muzzle of a machine-gun protruding out and facing down the track the way they had come. A little way further there was an identical bunker on the right of the track, well sited to provide depth and mutual support.

They came to the edge of a draw, in fact it was more like a ravine, and the trail went off the edge and cut left diagonally down the face of the steep drop.
They followed the trail down and found themselves at the bottom of the draw, in a place where it opened out to form a bowl.

The sides of the draw were quite steep and high, but not rocky or cliff like. There was an area of flattish ground in the
central area where the draw opened out in a bowl like fashion, with a creek gurgling through the center of the feature. As Jack looked around him, he could see the wood framed entrances to multiple bunkers dug cave-like into the banks of the draw.

In the central area
, which was dotted with trees, were several open sided roofed areas, created out of timber and boards and covered with a layer of dirt with tree litter strewn around on top of them. One appeared to be an open kitchen area, another maybe a meeting area or schoolhouse.

B
etween the entrances to the bunkers, these various structures and the trees was a combination of similarly roofed covered walkways. Camouflage nets, held up on poles and wooden frames, covered other areas and the gaps in general.

It struck
Jack in an instant that this was a wonderfully planned and protected base. As they had been coming down the slope into the draw the effect of the roofs and camo nets had been to create a false floor, or canopy, above the ground of the open area.  The effect of the camouflage netting was enhanced by the falling leaves, catching on top and adding another layer of obscuration of the ground below.