Текст книги "Liberators"

Автор книги: James Wesley Rawles

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Текущая страница: 19 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

The symbology used in a SITTEMP was basically the same as that found in the old Avalon Hill war simulation board games that were sold in toy stores. This was one of the reasons Megan enjoyed the tactical side of intelligence analysis. In her training, that was basically what a map exercise (MAPEX) was: an elaborate war board game. With symbology that represented units, movement, actions, situations, and unit boundaries, a person skilled in reading a SITTEMP could read this information like words on a page. That, after all, had always been Megan’s personal standard.

Megan had brought her old military map bag with her that she had carried since her days at the Navy and Marine Corps Intelligence Training Center (NMITC). She wouldn’t have been much of an analyst if she hadn’t. In it were several military map-reading protractors in 1:50,000 and 1:100,000 scale. There was a variety of fine-point permanent ink pens in various colors, Vis-à-Vis brand temporary markers, and a small felt pen that was filled with alcohol for erasing, a set of military symbol stencils, and a folded 1:50,000-scale military map of the Virginia Beach area that she had been allowed to keep after her Advanced Individual Training (AIT). There was also a DVD that had been prepared for each student, containing PDFs of various Army and Marine Corps manuals, such as Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield (IPB), and TOC Operations. Megan also had a stack of transparent, single-sheet document protectors. She had been taught how to use these to make “mini” SITTEMPS, using a single-page photocopy of a map, or anything else that was on one sheet of paper, inserted. By stapling other empty document protectors on top of the one holding the map, one could make a product of multiple overlays, depicting avenues of approach, hydrology (rivers, lakes, and streams), restrictive terrain, and obstacles.

One thing that Megan was able to acquire was a spare copy of Army FM 101-5-1 (Marine Corps MCRP 5-2A): Operational Terms and Graphics. A copy had been given to her by Jeff Trasel, of the Northwest Militia. He told her that he had picked up several copies from an Army surplus store in Sandpoint, Idaho, that he jokingly called Grogan’s War Surplus. Each copy still had its price tag of $2.49, from before the Crunch.

Megan thought this manual was a godsend. While she had this manual and others saved as PDFs on her DVD, this hard copy was invaluable. It was funny that an Army surplus store in the local area would have them available for a pittance. The date on the FM was 1997, but the symbology was what she was most interested in, and that had not changed over the years. It included all of the symbols for low-intensity conflict–type events, such as drive-by shootings, vandalism, graffiti, “drug vehicles,” and refugees. This would serve as an invaluable hard reference, particularly if the resistance captured any UNPROFOR operations or intelligence products, since all of the other “formerly NATO” countries used the same symbology.

Given the nature of their work, and their vulnerability, they kept a thirty-gallon galvanized steel trash can in one corner of the TOC, with a one-quart motor oil container filled with gasoline hanging at the top. In the event that they were raided or faced any other emergency that would compromise them, they wanted a rapid way of destroying as much data, documents, thumb drives, and laptops as possible.

As Megan put it, “If the house goes up in the process—oh well. That will destroy even more evidence.”

•   •   •

One day at the TOC in late October was particularly eventful and stressful. Reports arrived on USB thumb drives, but there were more than twice as many as usual. (There had been ambushes conducted the day before by both the Bovill Blue Blaze Irregulars and the Moscow Maquis.)

As she began opening the files on the USB sticks, Megan began muttering. “Here’s another one that reads just like a ‘What I did on my summer vacation’ essay. Why can’t they follow our instructions on using SALUTE format?” she exclaimed.

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Malorie replied from the kitchen. “We’re lucky to get the resistance groups to report directly to us at all. And we sure can’t jack them up about it. They aren’t in our chain of command. And what are we gonna do—threaten to dock their pay?”

Megan laughed and said, “You’re right; half of nothing is still nothing.”

As usual, Megan put each separate report in the Message Traffic Log spreadsheet, which was an ongoing document saved on one of their netbook computers. It mentioned in much-abbreviated form what had been reported.

Next, she started plotting the gist of the reports, one by one, onto the Moscow Region–Current SITTEMP overlay of the main map board. Megan had developed a way of using a computer printer to print symbology onto clear plastic sheets, with the event information next to that symbol. In this way, anyone visually analyzing the SITTEMP could see the map’s terrain information through most of the printed material. Needless to say, the UN forces were marked in red, and any symbology marking a militia unit or action was marked in blue. Due to the limited number of reports that came in on most days, the symbols were left on the SITTEMP boards indefinitely, unless they started to crowd each other out. In that event, the oldest plotted information was removed first.

Malorie could hear Megan’s frustration level as she worked. “I just spent twenty minutes digesting this and then when I go to plot it, I discovered that it was the same event, as seen from the opposite direction by a different unit, except that I now have conflicting reports on the type of German vehicles that were engaged. Were they six-wheeled TPz Fuchs or were they eight-wheeled GTK Boxers? Arrrgh!”

Malorie laughed. “That’s why they pay you the big bucks as a hotshot analyst, sis.”

“Twice nothing is still nothing,” Megan shot back.

Moments later, they heard the sound of an approaching helicopter, and then the unmistakable chugging sound of a 30mm cannon. Then they heard the cannon shells impacting close by—close enough to rattle their windows.

Malorie pulled back the curtain of the kitchen window just far enough to see that a farmhouse a quarter mile north of them had been hit and was engulfed in flames.

Megan gasped. “Must be retaliation for yesterday’s ambushes.”

Joshua, who had been awakened by the explosions, stepped out of the bedroom wearing a pair of sweatpants and his body armor over his T-shirt. He glanced out the window and asked, “Any idea whose house that is, or should I say was?”

Megan shook her head.

Malorie whispered so that Jean and Leo wouldn’t hear her from the other bedroom, “Sweet Lord, that could have been us if we had been identified as ‘the suspect dwelling.’”

As Megan got back to work at the map board, her hands were shaking.

•   •   •

As one shift ended and another started, Joshua, Megan, and Malorie would brief one another on what had transpired during the previous eight-hour shift. Normally, this would take no longer than a few minutes. Megan usually took the crucial day shift, Malorie was swing shift, and Joshua took nights. Most of these later shifts were dedicated to radio watch, monitoring shortwave and CB traffic as well as scanning the public service bands.

Occasionally, the two Moscow Maquis leaders (or just one of them) would arrive at the TOC unannounced. They would invite them into the living room and set up the map boards with their respective SITTEMPs. Joshua, Megan, or Malorie would then brief the current situation, describing significant events and current UN force operations, and answer any questions or concerns that the leaders had.

In between periods of handling message traffic and plotting on the SITTEMPs, the three of them would write intelligence summaries, do OB and target vulnerability studies, conduct after-action damage assessment, and coordinate and synchronize all of the other intelligence activities for the Maquis. Their parent organization soon numbered fifty-five members in six distinct cells (three operational and three support) that had little contact except for a few combined operations.

Though there were many close calls, Joshua’s cell was never detected. Their intelligence products proved crucial as the resistance war heated up in the western United States, though by this time the ProvGov was already nearing collapse. In essence, they had attempted to conquer too much territory too quickly and had spread their forces too thinly.

In northern Idaho, Todd Gray’s Northwest Militia fled to a remote valley to use as a new base of operations. Todd stayed behind to demolish his own house with remote-controlled mines and firebombs, just as the empty house was being raided by German troops. Todd’s group spent one winter encamped in the national forest and conducted numerous raids and ambushes. They also used captured nerve gas canisters on an UNPROFOR barracks and at an UNPROFOR staff meeting. Very rapidly, the occupiers were losing ground to a well-armed citizen resistance in the inland northwest.

Shortly after the bombing of UNPROFOR’s regional headquarters in Spokane by the Keane Team resistance group, there was a local surrender. In early July, there was a nationwide capitulation of the Maynard Hutchings government, and a withdrawal of UNPROFOR troops began.

As the new Restoration of Constitutional Government (RCG) administration was being formed, Joshua, Megan, and Malorie went back to their previous work as receptionists at the church. Things were getting back to normal in the region. The power grid was back up continuously, and a new currency that was truly “redeemable on demand in silver” was being issued. But there was a huge unresolved issue that pressed on everyone’s minds: Canada.

38

PACKING IT IN

SEND A GUN TO DEFEND A BRITISH HOME. British civilians, faced with threat of invasion, desperately need arms for defense of their homes. THE AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR DEFENSE OF BRITISH HOMES has organized to collect gifts of PISTOLS—RIFLES—REVOLVERS—SHOTGUNS—BINOCULARS from American civilians who wish to answer the call and aid in defense of British homes. The arms are being shipped, with the consent of the British Government, to CIVILIAN COMMITTEE FOR PROTECTION OF HOMES, BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND.

–From a full-page advertisement in American Rifleman magazine, November 1940

The Gray Ranch, Bovill, Idaho—July, the Fifth Year

Only days after the UNPROFOR capitulation in the United States, Ken Layton, Todd Gray, Mike Nelson, and Jeff Trasel volunteered to make a series of CBLTV logistics excursions to Canada. For his part of the supply effort, Joshua donated two of his deer carts to Todd’s group.

Following the suggestions that they’d heard on the shortwave, Todd had packed both of the camouflage-painted carts half full of rolls of detonating cord, a few magazines (M16, FAL, and HK G3—all freshly loaded and wrapped in plastic), and an assortment of ammunition calibers that included 7.62x39, 5.56mm NATO, .303 British, .300 Savage, .30-30, .270 Winchester, .308, .30-06, 9mm Parabellum, .45 ACP, and twelve-gauge buckshot. Any of the ammo that was not already in sealed plastic battle packs was carefully wrapped in sealed plastic bags. On top of this, he packed each cart heaping full of blasting caps in padded boxes. Some of this padding was woodland pattern BDU camouflage pants and shirts, which they assumed the resistance could also use.

The loads were secured with scrap pieces of camouflage netting, attached with paracord and plastic cable ties.

For their own defense on the trips, Todd’s team decided to carry guns that they had captured from UNPROFOR and then leave them with the local resistance before returning to the U.S. These rifles were all captured AK-74s. Coming home, they would be traveling only lightly armed, with just one gun for each man: a FN P90 bullpup, a Steyr AUG bullpup, and two Colt M1911 pistols.

Their first CBLTV trip to Canada began on August 20, and they were back home by August 24. Their first crossing was east of Lick Mountain, which was north of the town of Yaak, Montana. There, the Yaak River Road looped within three miles of the Canadian border. By prior arrangement, they simply dropped off their cargo at a prearranged set of GPS coordinates just across the border. They hastily cached the pile of parcels with cut fir boughs.

Their second trip, which began on August 27, was nearly identical except that their crossing was on the west side of Lick Mountain.

Their third trip, in early September, was a shorter drive, but a longer walk. They parked at the Good Grief store, 2.5 miles short of the then closed Eastport border crossing station. From there, they had a strenuous hike for ten miles up Canuck Basin Road, which was impassable to vehicles. A half mile beyond the border fence (three strands of barbless wire, which had previously been cut) they came within one hundred yards of the southern terminus of Hawkins Canuck Road. Waiting for them there was a man named Chet—their NLR contact. He thanked them profusely for the two previous deliveries as well this latest one. He presented each of them with a keepsake Canadian silver dime and declared them members of the NLR.

Chet stayed to talk with them for two hours, describing his perspective on the current situation in British Columbia, the NLR’s current logistics and technical needs, and some ways that people in the United States might be able to help with the Cause. He was convinced that the U.S. could do more to apply diplomatic pressure on the UN to withdraw their troops. He also questioned why the CIA wasn’t involved. On this note, he said, “It shouldn’t just be volunteers footing the bill.”

Providentially, all three trips were without incident except for one sprained ankle on the last return trip. (Jeff Trasel rode the last mile back to his pickup in a deer cart.) On all three trips—each with four hundred pounds of materiel—they were able to fill some specific requests that had been relayed from resistance cell leaders. These requests included a replacement magazine for a SMLE Mk. III rifle, some CR123 batteries, and ammunition in some oddball calibers including .25-35, .307 Winchester, .38-55, .30 Remington, .30 Herrett, and .221 Fireball.

Filling the special requests took some coordination via the CB radio relay network. (The phone network was still down, but the CB network covered from Grangeville, Idaho, northward and stretched into eastern Washington and western Montana.) Much of this ammunition had been custom handloaded.

•   •   •

Though they had planned to make additional trips into Canada, news of construction of a cordon sanitaire and uncertainty about just where it might be land-mined gave them pause. Instead they sent their gathered ammo and gear to Jerry Hatcher in Bonners Ferry, Idaho. Jerry was a former Alaska bush pilot who had volunteered to make some daring solo low-level night flights into Canada in his Cessna 180, an airplane equipped with oversize tundra tires. He landed in remote farm fields near Wynndel, High River, and Taber, British Columbia. In all, he made eleven flights, ferrying between 350 and 420 pounds of cargo per flight depending on the distance to his landing fields. On three occasions, he also flew out wounded resistance fighters to the United States for medical treatment.

39

INGRESS

Any single man must judge for himself whether circumstances warrant obedience or resistance to the commands of the civil magistrate; we are all qualified, entitled, and morally obliged to evaluate the conduct of our rulers. This political judgment, moreover, is not simply or primarily a right, but like self-preservation, a duty to God. As such it is a judgment that men cannot part with according to the God of Nature. It is the first and foremost of our inalienable rights without which we can preserve no other.

–John Locke

Moscow, Idaho—September, the Fifth Year

Ken Layton and Kevin Lendel came to visit Joshua’s house on a Sunday afternoon in mid-September. Soon after he arrived, Ken had a question for Megan and Malorie. He asked, “I know that you two grew up speaking French. Do either of you know how to translate written French, like technical or military documents?”

Megan answered, “I assume this is about your NLR friends who are fighting the French forces up in Canada. Technical translation would be Malorie’s department. She is more fluent in French than I am, and she used to work part-time as a technical translator.”

Malorie nodded. “For translating technical things, yes, but military things might be a stretch since I don’t know anything about the French army, their order of battle, or their command and staff structure. After all of the fighting here, I know a lot more about the German and Belgian land forces than I do the French. Do you have the document that needs to be translated? I assume that it’s a captured document.”

Ken said, “A little more complicated than that. My resistance contact up in BC mentioned that they’re looking for a French translator on site with a small intelligence unit of some sort to translate captured French documents and military manuals.”

Malorie blinked. Her mind was racing. She asked, “Go there? So how soon do they need this translator?”

Ken answered, “Yesterday. Are you up for it?”

•   •   •

Malorie and Megan were transported to Todd and Mary Gray’s ranch in a captured Krauss-Maffei Wegmann light truck. Todd and most of his group were there to help. They had all brought some gear to donate. They already had Malorie’s gear and clothes spread across the floor of the living room. As she was segregating items into piles, Malorie asked, “So what does a girl pack for a trip like this?”

Kevin Lendel suggested sarcastically, “How about a stainless Walther PPK, a little sack of cut one-carat diamonds, some knockout drops, a couple of lipsticks, and a Gerber Mark II fighting knife?”

Ken groaned. “This isn’t a 007 trip. It’s more like going off to a university or going to work on some intense corporate research project—but, ah, you should be ready to rough it out in the boonies, just in case.”

Working together, they tore apart Malorie’s pack and dry bag, and then repacked them, now including many items donated from the occupants of both Kevin’s house and Todd’s house.

In the end, her load was heavy on cold-weather clothes and light on weaponry. The pack contained her M1 Carbine, eight spare loaded magazines (six of them were fifteen-rounders), a rifle-cleaning kit, two bandoleers of .30 carbine ammunition, a Cold Steel Voyager XL tanto pocketknife, a fairly complete outdoor survival kit with a waterproof match case and a magnesium fire starter, an olive-drab space blanket, two SureFire compact flashlights, some trioxane fuel bars, eleven MRE entrees, and several pairs of socks. There were lots of other practical items like a Bible, thirty-one dollars’ worth of 1950s and 1960s Canadian silver coinage, a pair of Yaktrax ice creepers, four legal pads, an assortment of pens, a pair of rubber-armored Hensoldt Wetzlar Dienstglas 8x30 binoculars (that Kevin had liberated from a captured German officer), a folding stereo viewer for analyzing aerial photos (also recently liberated), and an eight-by-ten-inch Fresnel lens page magnifier.

On short notice they were able to locate a copy of the Routledge French Technical Dictionary, per Malorie’s request. It was a gift to the resistance effort by a professor at Washington State University. Adding the dictionary to Malorie’s pack brought its weight to nearly thirty-five pounds. The dry bag held the overflow of cold-weather clothing and her sleeping bag. That was another twenty-two pounds.

While she was packing, Malorie mentioned that she considered it ironic that she—as a mechanic and millwright—would take on the responsibility of intelligence analysis, when it was her sister, Megan, who had the more formal training in the craft of intelligence. (All of Malorie’s intel experience had been OJT.) But she reasoned that the resistance mainly needed her skills as a linguist.

With the boys to raise, Megan’s place was clearly at home, but Malorie was willing and able to get involved.

Her weapon was the same M1 Carbine with a replica M1A1 paratrooper folding stock that she had carried since she left Virginia. She had realized from the beginning that it was an underpowered gun. However, it was compact, lightweight, and most important, she was confident and competent shooting it. Malorie was warned by fellow shooters that the carbine shot a pipsqueak pistol-class .30 caliber cartridge that was not a reliable man stopper. But at the time it was all that she could afford and find available from a private-party seller. (Her first choice had been a folding stock Kel-Tec SU-16B .223, but the only ones that she could find were being sold by licensed dealers—and she detested filling out Federal Form 4473s.)

Although she was offered the gift of an “only dropped once” AK-74 by Terry, Malorie thought that the stress of learning to handle, shoot, and field strip another rifle would be one stress too many to add to her already long list. (Her anxiety meter was already pegging, and her departure was in less than twenty-four hours.)

Megan assumed that seeing Malorie board the plane would be too stressful for Jean and Leo, so Malorie made her good-byes at the Gray ranch. Megan told the boys that “Auntie Malorie is going to work on a map board in Canada.” The sisters did their best to appear cheerful and upbeat. Later, Megan let Joshua know her concerns. “Mal is very important to me and the boys. I’ll be praying for her safety, several times a day.”

•   •   •

When Ken and Malorie arrived at the hangar in Jeff Trasel’s pickup, Jerry Hatcher was adjusting cargo tie-down straps and preflighting the plane. A year earlier, the underside of the plane had been spray-painted dark gray and the upper surfaces were painted a mottled green camouflage, giving it a very serious, warlike look. The oversize tires were specifically designed for rough field landings.

Jerry was a slender, balding man of just under average height. Ken and Malorie handed the backpack and dry bag to him. As they did, Ken said, “We were told that we needed to be precise about weight. Together, these weigh in at fifty-seven pounds.”

Jerry nodded and stowed Mal’s gear behind the passenger seat. (The rear passenger seats had been removed, and that area was already crowded with a row of ammo cans beneath duffel bags of various colors.) Jerry turned toward Mal, asking, “How much do you weigh?”

“About one twenty-two. Figure probably another five pounds for my clothes and boots, to be safe.”

Jerry punched some numbers into a JavaScript Weight and Balance calculator program on his iPad. The program was tailored specifically for the Cessna 180G model.

Mal looked interested in what he was doing, so Jerry explained the screen. “You see here that a 180G has fifty-five gallons of fuel capacity, which equates to three hundred thirty pounds. But tonight will be a short trip, so we are flying with just one hundred forty-five pounds of fuel. Here we’ve got weight, arm, and moment for each section of the aircraft. And this is the CG.”

Malorie said, “I understand center of gravity, but ‘arm’ and ‘moment’ are Greek to me.”

“It’s a little complicated and hard to explain. Moment—which is a measure of the tendency of a force to cause a body to rotate about an axis—is calculated by multiplying the weight of an object by its arm. The main thing for us to be concerned with is this little red crosshair in the fat red circle. If it goes outside of this green envelope grid, then we might fall out of the sky, which would not be good. As you can see, at two thousand five hundred forty-five, we are definitely pushing the envelope, since the maximum takeoff weight is two thousand five hundred fifty pounds. So I’ll plan on an extra-long takeoff roll. The weight also pushes our safe maneuvering speed up to one hundred and six miles per hour. With just me in the plane, that will drop to just ninety-six. The stall speed with the flaps extended is, of course, much lower.”

Malorie asked, “I’ve always wondered what ‘pushing the envelope’ meant. Now I know. Cool. And I’ll just skip on getting a grasp on arm and moment. So maneuvering speed is different than stall speed?”

“Yes, higher. But suffice it to say the heavier the plane is, the higher the stall speed, and the lighter the plane, the lower the stall speed. We’ll be staying above the stall speed, which is why we have to calculate where that is, especially during takeoff and landing. It will also vary depending on altitude, temperature, and humidity of the air. I won’t go into the difference it makes whether we are looking at true airspeed versus indicated airspeed for this explanation, but it also matters where the power levers are and how many g’s are on the aircraft. Confused? That’s why we have performance charts.”

Not noticing that Malorie’s eyes were glazing over, Jerry went on, pointing again at the screen. “Now that I’ve added in the weight of you and your gear, you can see we’re still just barely inside the envelope. We’ll drop down farther into the green once I burn off some of the fuel en route, as it will lower the weight and shift the CG in our favor. And of course my return trip will be ‘easy breezy.’”

Malorie nodded. They were scheduled to leave just after sunset.

Ken gave her a hug, and said, “Bon chance, and kick some UNPROFOR butt.”

As she was about to board the Cessna, Malorie balked for a moment. The enormity of what she was about to do struck her. She took a deep breath and whispered to herself, “I’m just going to trust God’s providence on this.”

She stepped up into her seat quickly, but then fumbled with the unfamiliar seat belt arrangement.

Jerry noticed her nervousness and asked, “So, ahh, is this your first time in a light plane, or just your first time flying into occupied territory where you’ll face summary execution, if you’re captured?”

That broke the ice, and Malorie burst out laughing. She was still chuckling when she finally got the odd seat belt buckle latched.

Jerry said, “Don’t worry, I’ll talk you through everything that I’m doing. Fact is, as a former instructor pilot, I have a tendency to talk to myself. I’ve flown this same route before, entirely on instruments, in much worse weather than this, and on softer fields. This is a very solid and trustworthy aircraft. It was built in 1964, but it’s been well maintained. As for me, my model year was 1968 and I’ve logged almost thirty-eight hundred hours of flying.”

Jerry put on a dark blue baseball cap with an Alaska Aces hockey team logo, showing a ferocious polar bear taking a swipe. He handed her a pair of pale green Clark headphones with a boom mike, and said, “You can put these on once I start the engine. Press this button here to talk. But don’t push that button, or you’ll be broadcasting on the radio. Not good, under the present circumstances.”

After strapping himself in, but before starting the engine, Jerry mounted his GPS receiver in its cradle and turned it on. He immediately dialed down the brightness of the color screen.

He explained, “This is my cheater. It’s a top-of-the-line Garmin Aera Model 795. I paid fifteen hundred dollars for it a year before the Schumer hit the fan. Now that the GPS ground stations are back online, the accuracy and full coverage of the GPS constellation has been restored, so we no longer have to fly by the seat of our pants. I’ve programmed in waypoints for our entire route—in three dimensions—plus four alternate exfiltration routes.”

He tapped the screen to give a different view and continued. “This thing is sweet. The most important thing is that it gives me pop-up alerts with plenty of warning, based on altitude and heading. Basically, it won’t let me screw up and fly into a mountain.”

Malorie laughed nervously. “That’s reassuring,” she said.

It was full dark when they took off, and they were across the Canadian border in just a few minutes.

Jerry punched the intercom button and said, “Ever since the Frogs grounded most private plane flights in Canada south of fifty-three degrees latitude, whenever someone hears a plane, people just assume that every plane they hear is a UNPROFOR flight.”

After a few minutes of maneuvering at full throttle, Jerry pulled the throttle rod back and adjusted the trim wheel.

Looking straight ahead and regularly glancing down at his instruments, he said, “Okay, the field ahead is a hay field that has had its final cutting of the season harvested and all of the bales have been hauled out. So that’s about as good a grass strip as you’re going to find anywhere. It is a one-hundred-sixty-acre field, so that’s plenty long. The nearest power line is a half mile east. To be covert, I’m going to delay turning on my landing lights until the last minute, but I’ll need them just to make sure there are no hay bales or a tractor sitting there. That could be a VBT.”

“What’s a VBT?”

“A Very Bad Thing.”

As he turned toward the field and lowered the plane’s flaps fully, he started speaking more quickly. “Airspeed eighty-five, three-fifty AGL. We’re looking good, lined up on final. Now, I don’t like to dawdle once I’m on the ground. I don’t plan to be down for more than about two minutes. I won’t be shutting the engine down, so whatever you do, do not walk forward of the wing, or you’ll get the proverbial mouthful of propeller. Once you see me unbuckle, you do the same, and jump out. You can help me unload everything. We’ll unload everything on your side of the aircraft. Then sit right down on the pile of gear and close your eyes tight, because when I throttle up to turn around, the prop wash is going to kick up a lot of dust. Understood?”

“Understood.”

Jerry made adjustments to his controls as he spoke, interspersing his description of instrument readings. “There are friendlies scheduled to be waiting. Airspeed seventy, about one-ten AGL. Looking good. If someone drives up with their headlights off, then relax, that’ll be your friendlies. Airspeed fifty-eight, sixty AGL. But if you see headlights, then grab your pack and beat feet for the nearest timber.”