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GWOT VI - Nebraska Lines
Feb. 3rd, 2020 03:37 pmGWOT VI - Nebraska Lines
We were deploying in western Iowa. What's to the west of Iowa? Nebraska. What's keeping all the refugees from you know … refugeeing … to Nebraska?
Border control points, with the assistance of the mighty Missouri River.
Every bridge was occupied by Nebraska National Guard. And they had the charming habit of shooting at people who approached, especially in numbers or at night. In places their checkpoints invaded Iowa by as much as several hundred yards.
The effects on interstate commerce should be tolerably obvious - except that at the major Interstate bridges, that the trucks were allowed to keep rolling after cab searches.
This had moved the people smuggling to truck trailers, even after Nebraska had introduced mandatory fumigation.
Every third truck had to enter a fumigation tent and stay there for half an hour while the air was displaced by nitrogen gas. Sometimes the truck to be treated was switched. Sometimes suddenly.
They'd kept up the practice even after the third horrid discovery of a load of bodies further down the way.
The UN deployment didn't say a word about Nebraska. It was not technically illegal. It was still the sort of thing that I'd like to … punish.
It also meant that I couldn't get _our_ supplies that way. Even if we had the log support in Nebraska, which we didn't, there would be no way to break bulk and get the stuff across the river in between bridges - and while bribing guards a couple times is possible, doing it daily gets expensive.
So I'd set a few things up and left the bridges alone thereafter.
###
"Spotrep, US military convoy, two gun jeeps, eighteen lowboy trucks carrying fourteen M-1 Abrams MBT, two extended cab HUMVEE, one Hercules, one gun system unknown type, headed westbound across the bridge. Did not slow for Nebraska checkpoint. Was not fired upon."
###
But I hadn't forgotten about the problem either.
###
California Forward Operating Base
"The Farm"
Eastern Nebraska
The aircraft bumped to a halt, black tires on black tarmac in a black sky. Only the dim green glow from the navigational instruments and the whine of the pilot's night vision goggles.
A small tractor was hooked up to the tow point just ahead of the nose gear, and the aircraft was wheeled into the hangar. All in darkness.
The doors were closed, in darkness, the perimeter checked.
Only then did the lights come up and the people start climbing down from the side hatches. The wheels were chocked, the ramp whirred, and both the new arrivals and the base staff started passing crates hand-over-hand.
It was a small plane, two engined, with a cargo capacity barely justifying the ramp. The kind of 'puddle jumper' that supplied villages from Alaska to Zaire.
"How was the flight?"
"Routine for what it was," the pilot replied, gratefully wrapping his hands around the cup of warm beverage. Neither coffee nor tea, but it was warm and would do.
The co-pilot and base XO had exchanged verbal codes, and then zipped fabric packets with locks built into the zippers. Each small packet had a small incendiary charge on one edge of its lining. Awkward if one was airborne. Essential if one risked capture.
The most secure method of communication, although the slowest, is always by courier.
The pilots had to know the coordinates of the Farm to land there. The flight crew chief, who did not know, had strict instructions in the event the location of the Farm was not yet compromised, but capture was imminent.
Further back in the hangar, a pair of civilian pickup trucks with welded on roll cages and hard points - so-called 'technicals' - waited for when the base would have to be abandoned.
The delivered cargo would be moved - never mind quite how - to small boats, which would cross the river another night. Evading the occasional, lazy patrols of the Nebraska National Guard, who didn't know boats or water nearly as well as they thought they did.
As for the cargo itself - not everything California forces needed could be bought, borrowed, procured or stolen in Iowa. And some was very secret.
There was no hiding the neat rolls of what looked like extension cords, brightly colored, with cut off tags that had once said words like DANGER.
"No air drops?"
"No, still too risky, takes away too much cargo space in chutes. Just one bad drop and we're compromised."
Then, only after the cargo was concealed under tarps, the other half of 'The Trade' was brought forward from where they had waited in a side room.
About twenty fearful people, with very minimal personal effects even for refugees. Women with children - many children - and a few old women. No men and no younger women. Brought on small boats, on a prior night.
They could have helped move the stuff. But then they would have known what some of it was. Operational security forbade.
"Folks, I'm a California flight officer. We will be flying you to the next point here in a few minutes. Does everyone have all their things? Has everyone used the restroom?"
Has everyone been searched for electronic devices? Is the manifest accurate in case the plane is shot down, or worse, captured?
"We will seat you on board a certain way so we can balance the aircraft. It will be uncomfortable, there are no seats, but this is important. DO NOT MOVE AROUND on the aircraft. There are some blankets and I do want people to huddle together for warmth. But we don't want people moving around, it affects the flying of the aircraft."
And in the event of a takeover attempt, the crew chief would use a machine pistol indiscriminately to prevent same, counting on the extra bodies to absorb any stray rounds without damage to the aircraft.
Major 18 had been very clear. Men - and most women - were not eligible for evacuation. They could stay, and fight or flee without assistance. Only women caring for children, and those children, and maybe people otherwise unable to walk long distances on two feet could be helped, and only a handful of those.
This would stop once California forces started taking significant casualties. Then the back of the plane would contain groaning wounded, those likely to survive from station to station on this 21st century 'underground railroad.'
And not just some, but _all_ of the cargo moving forward would be explosives.
###
Every town and city has a feel to it, a flavor. In a word, character.
Omaha had all the character of a tired old man slogging his way home after one too many drinks, but not enough to dull the pain.
But that tired old man was scared.
Police patrolled strictly in pairs. National Guardsmen patrolled in larger convoys. Checkpoints ringed the city and the central business district and the state building.
The War hadn't come here, bar some pre-emptive detentions and executions by Homeland that had barely raised notice, and certainly hadn't made the news.
But the mess in Iowa was right next door, and Nebraska's firm 'keep the problems out' policy had prevented the mess from coming here.
Few people would have looked twice at the old man pushing his cart. He had a warm place to sleep, or he'd be dead. He had his papers, or even in the relatively enlightened post-Homeland administration of the city, he'd be in a 'shelter' with no right of exit from same.
He never kept notes or took pictures. Ever.
But his eyes were sharp. And on his cell phone, he kept sending long rambling one-way E-mails to his dead son, several times a day.
The long winded ramblings of a crazy old fool.
That were decoded and treated with the urgent attention they demanded, when received in California.
###
The "Farm" had, of course, a farmer. A long known member of the community. He'd had a daughter, a few remembered, but he never spoke of her.
She'd been in California, visiting a place called the Exploratorium. In San Francisco. On Firecracker Day. But no one remembered that little detail.
He took care to keep within his rations, of foods he did not grow and fuel needed to grow the food he could. He did nothing to raise anyone's suspicions, except being an old man who lived alone and had two equally closed-mouthed farm hands.
In better days, he'd hired a crop duster, and for that crop duster had put in an airstrip parallel to one of his fields.
At night, when old men are restless and cannot sleep, he sometimes heard the low drone and gentle kiss of a heavily muffled aircraft using that strip.
He did not get up.
What he did not know, he could never say.
No matter the means applied.
###
Every now and again, I tested my staff on the bridge crossings.
Mo had already written demo plans for every single one.
There was no way to know in advance whether I'd have to blow just one, to keep Federal troops from the west or pursuing Iowa militia from the east off my neck … or blow them all, to keep my force safe on the other side, not knowing whether that would be the Iowa or Nebraska side, or neither.
In the game of chess, much of the game is defined by the left and right edge of the map, which secures the flanks of the advancing force.
This was a harder game. And I had only one 'map edge,' the river. The Nebraska lines.
I could die confusing the map for the territory, and the entire Expeditionary Force with me.
In the Vietnam War, the American forces scrupulously respected the lines on maps. The infamous "Ho Chi Minh Trail" survived because some military bureaucrat, some politician in a chair wearing a pressed uniform, decided that the parts of it that were in Laos could not be attacked.
And that trail moved ten tons a day from North Vietnam to South Vietnam, much of it on the backs and bicycles of enslaved women.
And just like my own supply lines, mostly explosive.
I wouldn't be respecting any lines, and I didn't expect my foes to be doing so either.
We were deploying in western Iowa. What's to the west of Iowa? Nebraska. What's keeping all the refugees from you know … refugeeing … to Nebraska?
Border control points, with the assistance of the mighty Missouri River.
Every bridge was occupied by Nebraska National Guard. And they had the charming habit of shooting at people who approached, especially in numbers or at night. In places their checkpoints invaded Iowa by as much as several hundred yards.
The effects on interstate commerce should be tolerably obvious - except that at the major Interstate bridges, that the trucks were allowed to keep rolling after cab searches.
This had moved the people smuggling to truck trailers, even after Nebraska had introduced mandatory fumigation.
Every third truck had to enter a fumigation tent and stay there for half an hour while the air was displaced by nitrogen gas. Sometimes the truck to be treated was switched. Sometimes suddenly.
They'd kept up the practice even after the third horrid discovery of a load of bodies further down the way.
The UN deployment didn't say a word about Nebraska. It was not technically illegal. It was still the sort of thing that I'd like to … punish.
It also meant that I couldn't get _our_ supplies that way. Even if we had the log support in Nebraska, which we didn't, there would be no way to break bulk and get the stuff across the river in between bridges - and while bribing guards a couple times is possible, doing it daily gets expensive.
So I'd set a few things up and left the bridges alone thereafter.
###
"Spotrep, US military convoy, two gun jeeps, eighteen lowboy trucks carrying fourteen M-1 Abrams MBT, two extended cab HUMVEE, one Hercules, one gun system unknown type, headed westbound across the bridge. Did not slow for Nebraska checkpoint. Was not fired upon."
###
But I hadn't forgotten about the problem either.
###
California Forward Operating Base
"The Farm"
Eastern Nebraska
The aircraft bumped to a halt, black tires on black tarmac in a black sky. Only the dim green glow from the navigational instruments and the whine of the pilot's night vision goggles.
A small tractor was hooked up to the tow point just ahead of the nose gear, and the aircraft was wheeled into the hangar. All in darkness.
The doors were closed, in darkness, the perimeter checked.
Only then did the lights come up and the people start climbing down from the side hatches. The wheels were chocked, the ramp whirred, and both the new arrivals and the base staff started passing crates hand-over-hand.
It was a small plane, two engined, with a cargo capacity barely justifying the ramp. The kind of 'puddle jumper' that supplied villages from Alaska to Zaire.
"How was the flight?"
"Routine for what it was," the pilot replied, gratefully wrapping his hands around the cup of warm beverage. Neither coffee nor tea, but it was warm and would do.
The co-pilot and base XO had exchanged verbal codes, and then zipped fabric packets with locks built into the zippers. Each small packet had a small incendiary charge on one edge of its lining. Awkward if one was airborne. Essential if one risked capture.
The most secure method of communication, although the slowest, is always by courier.
The pilots had to know the coordinates of the Farm to land there. The flight crew chief, who did not know, had strict instructions in the event the location of the Farm was not yet compromised, but capture was imminent.
Further back in the hangar, a pair of civilian pickup trucks with welded on roll cages and hard points - so-called 'technicals' - waited for when the base would have to be abandoned.
The delivered cargo would be moved - never mind quite how - to small boats, which would cross the river another night. Evading the occasional, lazy patrols of the Nebraska National Guard, who didn't know boats or water nearly as well as they thought they did.
As for the cargo itself - not everything California forces needed could be bought, borrowed, procured or stolen in Iowa. And some was very secret.
There was no hiding the neat rolls of what looked like extension cords, brightly colored, with cut off tags that had once said words like DANGER.
"No air drops?"
"No, still too risky, takes away too much cargo space in chutes. Just one bad drop and we're compromised."
Then, only after the cargo was concealed under tarps, the other half of 'The Trade' was brought forward from where they had waited in a side room.
About twenty fearful people, with very minimal personal effects even for refugees. Women with children - many children - and a few old women. No men and no younger women. Brought on small boats, on a prior night.
They could have helped move the stuff. But then they would have known what some of it was. Operational security forbade.
"Folks, I'm a California flight officer. We will be flying you to the next point here in a few minutes. Does everyone have all their things? Has everyone used the restroom?"
Has everyone been searched for electronic devices? Is the manifest accurate in case the plane is shot down, or worse, captured?
"We will seat you on board a certain way so we can balance the aircraft. It will be uncomfortable, there are no seats, but this is important. DO NOT MOVE AROUND on the aircraft. There are some blankets and I do want people to huddle together for warmth. But we don't want people moving around, it affects the flying of the aircraft."
And in the event of a takeover attempt, the crew chief would use a machine pistol indiscriminately to prevent same, counting on the extra bodies to absorb any stray rounds without damage to the aircraft.
Major 18 had been very clear. Men - and most women - were not eligible for evacuation. They could stay, and fight or flee without assistance. Only women caring for children, and those children, and maybe people otherwise unable to walk long distances on two feet could be helped, and only a handful of those.
This would stop once California forces started taking significant casualties. Then the back of the plane would contain groaning wounded, those likely to survive from station to station on this 21st century 'underground railroad.'
And not just some, but _all_ of the cargo moving forward would be explosives.
###
Every town and city has a feel to it, a flavor. In a word, character.
Omaha had all the character of a tired old man slogging his way home after one too many drinks, but not enough to dull the pain.
But that tired old man was scared.
Police patrolled strictly in pairs. National Guardsmen patrolled in larger convoys. Checkpoints ringed the city and the central business district and the state building.
The War hadn't come here, bar some pre-emptive detentions and executions by Homeland that had barely raised notice, and certainly hadn't made the news.
But the mess in Iowa was right next door, and Nebraska's firm 'keep the problems out' policy had prevented the mess from coming here.
Few people would have looked twice at the old man pushing his cart. He had a warm place to sleep, or he'd be dead. He had his papers, or even in the relatively enlightened post-Homeland administration of the city, he'd be in a 'shelter' with no right of exit from same.
He never kept notes or took pictures. Ever.
But his eyes were sharp. And on his cell phone, he kept sending long rambling one-way E-mails to his dead son, several times a day.
The long winded ramblings of a crazy old fool.
That were decoded and treated with the urgent attention they demanded, when received in California.
###
The "Farm" had, of course, a farmer. A long known member of the community. He'd had a daughter, a few remembered, but he never spoke of her.
She'd been in California, visiting a place called the Exploratorium. In San Francisco. On Firecracker Day. But no one remembered that little detail.
He took care to keep within his rations, of foods he did not grow and fuel needed to grow the food he could. He did nothing to raise anyone's suspicions, except being an old man who lived alone and had two equally closed-mouthed farm hands.
In better days, he'd hired a crop duster, and for that crop duster had put in an airstrip parallel to one of his fields.
At night, when old men are restless and cannot sleep, he sometimes heard the low drone and gentle kiss of a heavily muffled aircraft using that strip.
He did not get up.
What he did not know, he could never say.
No matter the means applied.
###
Every now and again, I tested my staff on the bridge crossings.
Mo had already written demo plans for every single one.
There was no way to know in advance whether I'd have to blow just one, to keep Federal troops from the west or pursuing Iowa militia from the east off my neck … or blow them all, to keep my force safe on the other side, not knowing whether that would be the Iowa or Nebraska side, or neither.
In the game of chess, much of the game is defined by the left and right edge of the map, which secures the flanks of the advancing force.
This was a harder game. And I had only one 'map edge,' the river. The Nebraska lines.
I could die confusing the map for the territory, and the entire Expeditionary Force with me.
In the Vietnam War, the American forces scrupulously respected the lines on maps. The infamous "Ho Chi Minh Trail" survived because some military bureaucrat, some politician in a chair wearing a pressed uniform, decided that the parts of it that were in Laos could not be attacked.
And that trail moved ten tons a day from North Vietnam to South Vietnam, much of it on the backs and bicycles of enslaved women.
And just like my own supply lines, mostly explosive.
I wouldn't be respecting any lines, and I didn't expect my foes to be doing so either.
