Stan raised his hand and declared, “My family has a Mini-14, a SMLE .303 that was shortened, and a Browning A-Bolt, in .30-06 with a four-to-twelve-power variable scope. None of them have ever been registered. I don’t even have a possession and acquisition license.”

Ray laughed and said: “No PAL, but you’re a pal of mine.”

There were some groans in response to Ray’s pun, and then he asked, “Ammo?”

Stan glanced upward and then said, “I’ve got about two hundred rounds for each gun. With the bolt actions, that’s probably enough. But for the Ruger, laying down semiautomatic fire, that might only be enough for one lengthy firefight.”

Phil nodded and said, “I can help you out with some 5.56 ammo for your Mini-14. I suppose I can spare at least three hundred rounds. But after our first few engagements, I have a feeling that 5.56 ammo won’t be a problem, if we do our job right.”

Stan chuckled, and said, “Yeah, I suppose that once they stop breathing, they cease to have any need for the ammunition in their pouches.”

“Precisely.”

Ray raised his hand and asked, “What about OPSEC?”

Phil cocked his head and shot back, “Ours, or theirs?”

“Ours.”

Alan chimed in and said, “I’ve heard Ray talk about military operational security a few times over the years. It seems to me that our best OPSEC protection is absolutely no talk whatsoever about any of our activities or even of the existence of the cell to anyone, even if we know they’d be sympathetic. Leaderless resistance is most effective and impenetrable when the cells keep totally anonymous, and all of the members outwardly carry on with very mundane daily lives.”

Claire asked, “Could we, or should we, expand our cell?”

Phil answered, “No, not unless the tactical situation on the ground dictates it. For now, I can’t foresee fielding anything more than three or four people at a time for small raids, emplacing IEDs, and some sniping harassment. More people will just mean a larger signature, more chances of getting spotted, and more chances of a slipup or betrayal. And any group larger than three or four people in a vehicle or multiple vehicles convoying has ‘resistance profile’ written all over it. We want to operate in ways that don’t attract suspicion.”

Alan said firmly, “Agreed.”

Claire asked, “How long do you think it’ll take the resistance to drive them out of Canada?”

Alan answered, “It all depends on how quickly resistance builds—and a lot of that depends on the public perception of their tyranny. Perhaps as long as three, four, or five years.”

“Nah. They’re a bunch of cheese-eating surrender monkeys,” Stan retorted.

Claire giggled, remembering that phrase from an episode of The Simpsons.

Phil turned to the couch, where Ray and Alan were seated and asked, “What about the RCMP?”

Alan replied, “I’ve been thinking a lot about that. Back in the east, the Gendarmerie Royale du Canada—the GRC—are nearly all quislings. Out here, we’re policed by the RCMP’s E Division, which covers all of BC except Vancouver. In E Division they’re mostly good guys, but they have a reputation as rowdies who play by their own set of rules. The bottom line is that I predict that in a few months we’ll be able to divide the RCMP in the western provinces into four categories:

“Category one will be all the RCMP officers who quit in disgust—but probably citing some fictitious ailment or some family crisis. They’ll dutifully turn in their weapons, body armor, uniforms, and radios, and go home, feeling content that they ‘did the right thing.’ That may be a fairly sizable number. Perhaps forty percent of the force, at least in BC, Alberta, and up in the Yukon.

“Category two will be your real hard-core guys who wait for the right moment to either: a, abscond with as many weapons and as much body armor, ammo, and assorted gear as possible, and head for the hills and play Maquisards; or b, turn their weapons on the UNPROFOR while still in uniform, timing it so they can take several of the French bastards with them, before they get gunned down. But I think that this category will be very small—and nearly all of them will be unmarried RCMP officers, maybe one or two percent.

“Then there’s category three, who will just go along with the program, by kidding themselves that they still represent a legitimate government, even if it means rounding up fellow Canadian citizens and putting them into forced labor. I’m afraid that might be as much as one-third of the force in the cities, and probably a smaller percentage out in the woods. It’s almost always the freedom lovers who ask for the rural assignments.

“Lastly, there is category four. Those are the cops that are secretly wanting to resist, but who are blocked mentally from doing so, and always finding excuses that ‘it’s too soon,’ or somehow intend to do subtle sabotage to the system, without getting caught. You know, like the old ‘Hitler’s Barber’ comedy shtick.”

“The what?” Stan asked.

“An old stand-up comedy routine by Woody Allen, from the 1960s. He played the part of Friedrich Schmeed, barber to Hitler and his general staff. After the war, he justifies his actions, claiming, ‘Oh, but don’t you see that I was always plotting against Der Führer, in my own small way. Once, toward the end of the war, I did contemplate loosening the Führer’s neck-napkin and allowing some tiny hairs to get down his back, but at the last minute my nerve failed me.’”

29

UN ESSAIM

Why do you allow these men who are in power to rob you step by step, openly and in secret, of one domain of your rights after another, until one day nothing, nothing at all will be left but a mechanised state system presided over by criminals and drunks?

—Die Weisse Rose (The White Rose), Resistance Leaflet 3, 1942

The McGregor Ranch, near Anahim Lake, British Columbia—June, the Third Year

UNPROFOR swarmed into Canada’s western provinces simultaneously from three directions: from British Columbia’s western seaports, by road across the U.S. border, and by road from Ontario. Once they had control of the highways, they took over airports, seaports, and railroads. Because the rioting and looting had been less widespread than in the U.S., and the power grids suffered only limited interruption, reestablishing commerce went fairly quickly. The key ingredients were liquid fuels—gasoline, diesel, home heating oil, and propane—all of which had been disrupted by the Crunch.

UNPROFOR’s strategy for western Canada could be summed up in the phrase: Control the Roads. Checkpoints, manned by mixed UN and RCMP contingents, were set up on all highways.

The parliament met in a marathon emergency session in response to the global financial crisis. By means of some back-channel maneuvering and building a fearmongering coalition, the new Canadian Le Gouvernement du Peuple (“People’s Government,” or LGP) took power. They promised to “restore law and order to the streets,” and to “create order and fairness to the markets.” The new prime minister was Pierre Ménard, a strongly pro-UN socialist/collectivist and dyed-in-the-wool statist. Even before trucks began rolling in with foodstuffs, the LGP took advantage of the stable power grid in most of Canada and launched Progressive Voice of Canada (a.k.a Progressive Voix du Canada or PVC), operating on the old CBC transmitters and using their old studios. Annoyingly, more than half of the broadcasts were in French. And even more annoying, the broadcasts were pablum propaganda: promising the world, and sprinkled with charming human interest stories about how the benevolent LGP was making everyone’s lives beautiful. The truly laughable part of PVC was that it featured a lot of the same newscasters and radio show hosts who had been on CBC before the Crunch. Now they were dutifully parroting the LGP party line.