It Was Time…
The Operations team had watched the governor’s mansion for just over two weeks now. The team knew the comings and goings of housekeepers, food trucks, security, friends, staffers, and even the exterminator. There was nothing they did not know about the Governors day.
Four weeks earlier, a group of businessmen and a few State Congressmen sued the Governor. The suit revolved around the Governors “Emergency Order” forcing the state citizens’ to shelter in place along with closing all privately owned businesses. The goal was to lock down the state for three weeks “to flatten the curve“, the Governor said.
At the end of the three weeks the Governor extended the order for an extra eight weeks.
Citizens’ were restricted to essential travel, which boiled down to travel to grocery and drug stores or doctor appointments. The Governors emergency order allowed no grass cutting, fishing, travel to a citizen’s second home along with other restrictions. State Police were pulling citizens’ over on the interstate and questioning the purpose of their travel. If the Trooper deemed travel not proper, the citizen and all passengers were given a $1,000 ticket. The Trooper then made a call, and the citizen’s vehicle was impounded and towed to an impound yard. The citizens’ were then taken to their home by the State Police Trooper that had stopped them.
During the ride home the citizens’ were told that if they left their homes again for unnecessary travel, they would receive another fine and get to spend seven days in jail as a guest of the Governor. Most cities and towns police departments were doing the same – especially during the curfew period of 8pm to 6am.
The lawsuit came days after the Governor extended the Emergency Order. The suit made its way through the courts in a weeks’ time to the States Supreme Court. The suit revolved around that the Governor cannot make laws, only the Legislature could. Much like on the federal level, the Executive’s job was to enforce the laws, not to make them.
The suit appeared before the States Supreme Court, the same day a patriot invited three men and one woman to his cabin for a meeting. The host had handpicked these four patriots for just this kind of operation months before.
One of the guests was an overt operation expert and had run many ops while serving in the military. One was a planning expert who was owner of a retail consulting firm. The woman was a successful retired CFO from a publicly traded company. The last guest owned a business consulting firm too that specialized in logistics. Lastly, but perhaps most importantly, none of the guests knew each other.
The host (who was later called The Facilitator) explained to his guests that they were recruited to play a part in an operation that would give the state back to the people, restore the State and US Constitution as the ‘law of the land’, and bring the Governor to swift justice.
Although The Facilitator had vetted all the assembled guests before and knew they would all take part he still asked each visitor if they wanted to take part. As expected, all of them agreed. With that step completed, he went into more details.
Each of the involved parties would be “Chiefs”. The CFO, (who was later called the “Money Lady”), was to serve as the Financial Chief. The Facilitator gave her $20,000 in cash. It was her role to pay monies out as needed and be the final vetting point to the other three Chiefs. The transfer of needed funds would be accomplished through dead drops.
The Facilitator then announced that the retail consulting owner would be the Planning Chief and would work with the Operations and a Logistics Chief to develop a plan.
The Logistics Chief asked The Facilitator how they would communicate going forward and The Facilitator got up from the lunch table, walked over to a stack of five .30cal ammunition cans and gave one to each member of the team. Then, the Facilitator asked them to open the cans.
The contents in the can was a VHF radio, a Raspberry pi computer, a 6”x9” LED screen, a lithium battery, and a smart charger for the battery.
Once the members checked out the contents, the Logistics Chief smiled and said, “FLDIGI and a Brevity code I bet… Brilliant!”
The Facilitator smiled and said, “Yes Chief. I have a private repeater on my property. Each of your radios have a specific frequency programmed into them to communicate to me using FLDIGI.”
He continued speaking while handing out manila envelopes to his guests, “None of you will know the others frequency and all communications being sent to me will use a different Brevity code specific to you. I will then relay communications to the Chief that needs the information.”