Part 22 (2/2)

There were four ALAT personnel still onboard. The two others who had been thrown free in the crash were not moving. One of them was clearly dead-since the top half of his body was fifteen feet away from his pelvis and legs.

The fuselage was lying on its side. The shorn rotor mast had stopped spinning. A wisp of smelly white smoke was coming from the engine compartment, apparently from leaking oil that had reached something hot. The door gun's muzzle was pointed straight upward. After more shouting from inside the helicopter, the pilot, copilot, and door gunner all crawled out in rapid succession. They were apparently not badly injured in the crash. The pilot and copilot started shooting wildly at the tree line with PA-50 9mm pistols. Meanwhile, the door gunner was reaching up, attempting to detach his FN-MAG-58 light machine gun from the mount.

Phil had a good angle on the pilot, and Alan had line of sight to the copilot and door gunner. With deliberate neck shots, all three of the men were shot down and bleeding out in less than twenty seconds.

The ambushers quickly advanced on the downed helicopter, firing coup de grce head shots once they were within forty feet. Inside, they found another crewman dead, apparently from a broken neck. His weapon was a FAMAS bullpup, but it had a bent barrel and a broken stock. They decided to bring it with them to use for spare parts.

Phil exclaimed, ”Hoo boy! This is better than a box of Cracker Jacks. I always wanted an M240, and here's a MAG-58, which is almost identical.”

He detached the machine gun from its dogleg mount and examined it. Except for a sc.r.a.ped flash hider and a gouge in the pistol grip, the MAG had survived the crash intact. Once it was detached, it could be fired from its bipod. The door mount included a four-hundred-round ammo box of linked ammunition, but the gun could also be operated from a teaser belt and a Bulldog two-hundred-round camouflage nylon shoulder bag that they also found onboard. In addition to the four hundred linked rounds in the ammo can and the two hundred linked rounds in the Bulldog bag, there were one thousand rounds of ammo in narrow, brown-painted European-style two-hundred-round ammo cans. All of the ammo was FN-made 7.62mm NATO, a four-to-one alternating mix of ball ammo and tracers.

Ray warned, ”Okay, the clock is ticking. We need to strip anything useful off this bird, burn it, and get out of here before they send anyone to investigate.”

They worked quickly. There wasn't any time to remove the Gazelle's built-in avionics. They did strip a notebook and a callsign/frequency card from a clear pocket that was built into the pilot's flight suit, just above his knee. They also took a satchel that held a sectional aeronautical chart and a notebook. The loose belt of ammo for the door gun, ammo cans, six extra FAMAS magazines, the two pistols, and the broken FAMAS carbine were all distributed and stowed in their backpacks. Almost as an afterthought, Alan pulled out the helicopter's plastic first-aid chest and stuffed it into his own pack, along with one of the two-hundred-round ammo cans. Phil carried the twenty-eight-pound MAG and the Bulldog bag. Since he was also carrying his M4, his combined load was almost eighty pounds.

They walked thirty-five yards to the tree line at the north end of the opening. Phil got down p.r.o.ne and pulled back the cartridge from the loose end of the MAG's teaser belt and clipped on the first cartridge from the Bulldog bag. He fired two short bursts from the MAG into the Gazelle's fuel tanks. The tracer bullets (interspersed every fifth round on the belt) soon set the fuel ablaze.

A year before the Crunch, Phil had the chance to buy a nearly new semiauto version of the M240 light machine gun, made by Ohio Ordnance Works, but he had balked at the eleven-thousand-dollar price tag. In retrospect, when the purchasing power of his savings dropped to nearly nothing and the value of an M240 soared to an incalculable level, he wished that he had bought it. Now, with the capture of the MAG, he felt redeemed from his previous mistake.

Alan shouted, ”As they often say in the French army: 'Nous devons fuir!'”

They did just that. They ran away, heading into the dense timber to the north. They didn't slow down until an hour and a half later, when they had covered five miles of rough ground.

48.

EFFRONDREMENT.

All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force.

-George Orwell The McGregor Ranch, near Anahim Lake, British Columbia-June, the Sixth Year The day of the collective disgust arrived, at last. It came immediately after a p.r.o.nouncement on Progressive Voice of Canada that all residents age six years and older would have to enroll in a National Ident.i.ty Card program. These new smart cards, with an embedded microchip, would be used both for identification and as a cashless debit card that would be required for all transactions over three dollars. After the announced forty-five-day enrollment period, cash transactions would be banned, as would mere possession of the old paper currency or any gold or silver bullion. All would be criminal offenses.

A rapid turn of events for the Menard government followed. There were large street rallies in cities throughout Canada protesting the National Ident.i.ty Card scheme. The crowds were ordered to disperse, but they stood their ground. Then some RCMP officers crossed the line and joined them. This proved to be a key psychological turning point. The crowds of protestors grew larger. In some cities, as the UNPROFOR troops grew weary of the standoff, they began using tear gas. But this only strengthened the resolve of the protestors.

Most of the ma.s.s protests were filmed, mainly with smartphones. Then, via satellite Internet connections that had recently been reestablished, these videos were aired on U.S. television networks. News spread that the handwriting was on the wall for the Menard regime, which had recently been derided as ”The Mauviette Union” by detractors.

The UNPROFOR troops were ordered to retreat to their garrisons. The protests then s.h.i.+fted from town and city squares to the perimeters of the garrisons. The citizenry created a twenty-four-hour ”perimeter around their perimeter.” Sensing that the scales had s.h.i.+fted, Menard and his entourage panicked and fled to France on a midnight flight. Once word leaked out about this Airbus A380 flight, it was all over for both the LGP and UNPROFOR.

The UNPROFOR command in Ottawa quickly agreed to demobilization and a rapid withdrawal from Canada. Calls for war crimes trials were outnumbered by a majority (mainly in Quebec and Ontario) who favored a general amnesty and ”Peace and Reconciliation” commission hearings. It took two months for most of the UNPROFOR combat troops to leave the country, and it would be six months before all of the support troops were withdrawn.

After the Menard government's capitulation, there was not much cheering in the streets. Most Canadians simply wanted to get their lives back in order. The French minefields began to be cleared, but it was estimated that even with the meticulous emplacement maps available, the process would take five years. Commerce across the U.S. border was slowly restored, and Canadian factories gradually resumed operations. Food and fuel came first, to meet a pent-up demand. A free-floating exchange rate with the gold-backed U.S. dollar was established, and then quickly rescinded after the new Canadian dollar plummeted. The precious metals redeemable U.S. dollar very quickly became the de facto currency in Canada, as many sellers had begun refusing to take payment in Mooneys.

The citizenry fell into three categories: those who had collaborated with the Menard government, a small minority who had actively resisted, and a majority who-though they sympathized with the resistance-had stood by and done nothing. They earned the new label ”The Mundanes.” The collective guilt for several years of inaction weighed heavily on the nation. Inevitably, many collaborators fled the country. But most collaborators stayed-facing humiliation but not prosecution.

49.

BEIJING CHARADES.

The first rule of unrestricted warfare is that there are no rules, with nothing forbidden.

-From the treatise ”Unrestricted Warfare” by Colonel Qiao Liang and Colonel w.a.n.g Xiangsui, People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China The McGregor Ranch, near Anahim Lake, British Columbia-November, the Sixth Year Three years after the liberation of the U.S. was declared and one year after the liberation of Canada, there was some startling news: Chinese s.h.i.+ps were landing troops in Canada via the seaports of Vancouver, Bella Coola, Bella Bella, and Prince Rupert. Meanwhile, Chinese troops of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) were landing at airports in Kelowna, Edmonton, Calgary, Kamloops, and Saskatoon. Wave after wave of troops arrived before any organized resistance could be mounted.

The Chinese had the audacity to call themselves a ”UN” force and fly UN blue flags. They did so because the original UN resolution that had authorized peacekeeping troops in Canada was poorly worded and open-ended. The declaration stated, ”Any nation with a full UN delegation that is willing to send troops may do so, using their organic transport capability.”

So now the UN was in a strange position: ”UN troops” were again invading western Canada. But, in their cla.s.sic debating-society style, the UN General a.s.sembly adopted a ”wait-and-see” posture, rather than condemning the Chinese incursion. Some of the delegations reasoned that if the invasion was not immediately countered by the U.S. there might be international trade advantages in allowing the Chinese to stay.

Phil reacted to the news. ”The sheer numbers are daunting. While the French had attempted to control western Canada with just a few brigades, the Chinese are pouring in corps-size formations. By the way, the Chinese use the term brigade to designate what most other armies would call a 'division,' and what they call a 'division' most other armies would call a 'corps.' In their mechanized infantry brigade table of organization, for example, there are four thousand soldiers.

”As near as I can determine, there is a full mechanized infantry brigade controlling a fifty-kilometer-wide swath stretching from Bella Coola to Williams Lake. Each brigade has four battalions of mechanized infantry, one battalion of tanks, one artillery battalion, one communication battalion, and one engineer battalion. Oh, I should mention that there are two different flavors of PLA mechanized infantry: one with tracked equipment and the other with wheeled equipment. And it is obvious that the one that they are garrisoning here is the wheeled variety.

”Now, a.s.suming that they are using their published post-2006 TO&E, then within the mechanized infantry battalions, there are three companies, with three platoons per company. Each company has thirteen infantry fighting vehicles (with four per platoon) plus one command vehicle. Now, the artillery brigade has seventy-two PLZ89 122mm self-propelled guns, and their tank battalion has ninety-nine Type 96 main battle tanks.

”So, not even counting the tanks, we're talking about a total of 156 APCs in just our sector. That means we're facing more armored APCs on the ground than the French had fielded vehicles of all descriptions-of which half were merely stolen pickup trucks that were turned into technicals. Add to that another ninety-nine tanks? That is a Schumer-load of armor.”

He paused to let his words sink in, and then continued. ”The bottom line is that we simply cannot fight the Chinese the same way we fought the first UNPROFOR.”

Alan said, ”I think they plan to treat Canada just as they have much of Africa, as a colonial strip mine. They want all of our mineral wealth, and they want our timber. Why else would they be here in force?”

The PLA timed their invasion of Canada for the period just after UNPROFOR's capitulation, but before a Canadian Defense Force could be reestablished. China recognized that it was in a nuclear stalemate with the United States. Both nations had nukes, but both were reluctant to use them for fear of escalation to a full-scale exchange. The Beijing government, therefore, felt that they could get away with invading western Canada. Their plan was to seize all of the provinces from Saskatchewan westward, and then bargain for permanent occupation and a peace settlement with the Toronto government.

As one well-known political and international affairs blogger put it, ”So the Chinese position is simple: 'We take western Canada and keep it for our own. And if you play nice, then we promise not to nuke you.'”

When the Chinese arrived in western Canada, they had expected a level of resistance similar to what they had encountered in Africa, but they were in for a rude surprise. Not only did the resistance cells that had fought the French UNPROFOR troops have plenty of experience, but they were now very well equipped, with large quant.i.ties of captured weapons, ammunition, and night vision gear. Much of that gear was widely distributed in homes, farms, and ranches. (After the French had surrendered, the new status symbol for Canadian ranchers was to have a captured UN armored vehicle in their machine sheds, alongside their tractors.) The Chinese had few friends waiting for them in Canada. They were almost universally despised. Even the majority of the large Chinese immigrant population hated them, since the PLA represented everything that the immigrants had left behind when they fled China.

Six weeks after the Chinese arrived, Malorie had switched from carrying her FAMAS to a captured Chinese 5.8mm carbine. Her new weapon was a QBZ-95 (Type 95 automatic rifle). Like the FAMAS, this was a bullpup-style carbine manufactured by Norinco. It shot the Chinese 5.8x42mm cartridge, which, up until the Crunch, was only rarely exported, and only for military contracts.

The PLA's experience in invading Africa had helped ready them for their planned Canadian invasion. They had become accustomed to operating with a long logistics ”tail,” ranging over long distances with limited resupply. The majority of their tanks, APCs, and trucks were retrofitted with trundle racks to hold fuel cans, giving their vehicles ”longer legs.” While this increased their vulnerability, the longer-range capability was a must. And, since Canada was viewed by Chinese strategic planners as a vast, underpopulated expanse, it was decided that all of the vehicles sent to Canada should be similarly outfitted for long range. (The PLA borrowed the aviation term ”radius of action” in their ground-combat doctrinal treatises.)

50.

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