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.”
He then added, “when you all leave please pick up the long cardboard boxes you see stacked at the door. Inside the box is a 5-element Yagi antenna, the magnetic coordinates you need to aim the antenna towards, and 50-feet of RG-8X coax to run between the antenna & your radio.”
The Facilitator then asked the Logistics Chief, who was an amateur radio operator, to give a short tutorial on how to use the communication equipment.
The Operation Chief, being former military, already knew how to run FLDIGI, transceivers, and the use of the Brevity code process. The Chief of Planning and the Money Lady picked up the simple communications quickly.
That accomplished, The Facilitator then asked the Planning Chief for guidance on developing a plan.
The Planning Chief asked, “Operations Chief, could you start a Recon and ongoing surveillance of the Governor’s mansion?”
The Operations Chief replied with a nodding of his head and said, “I can have the first SITREP to you in 48-hours. Then every twelve hours after that, I will pass to The Facilitator a BORIS report who will relay to you.”
“Great!” The Planner said.
The Planner then asked the Chief of Logistics if he could get a floor plan of the Governor’s mansion? “That should be no sweat as it is public knowledge and lives on the interwebs” he replied. “That is a good start, and I should have it to The Facilitator to pass to you within twenty-four hours”, he added.
The Facilitator rose from the table and addressed the assembled group of patriots and said, “you folks do not know each other. The only connection is me. If in the future, you see one of us on the street do not recognize the other. The only Chief that needs to acquire more operatives will be the Operations Chief.
Looking at the Ops Chief, The Facilitator asked, “do you have an idea of who you would invite to this mission Chief?”
The Operation Chief replied, “Yes I do. I have the team of men in mind and, better yet, they to do not know each other either.”
“Great!” The Facilitator remarked.
The Facilitator continued with, “Okay ladies and gentlemen, let’s keep to the communication windows and report in using the preset frequencies to me starting tonight. The operation commences if and only if the States Supreme Court ruling comes down which supports the Governors position. If they rule the other way, enjoy your new comms and I will get the operations money back from the Money Lady at a later decided dead drop. Just move on with your life. Questions?”
There were none as everything seemed to have been well thought out. The Facilitator then said, “Okay, lets pray.”
Only the Planning Chief and The Facilitator knew the details of the coming event. The others only knew that they were all working towards the same goal: Remove the Governor from office to free the citizens from the tyranny of her reign.
On the way home from the meeting the Money Lady turned on the car radio for the latest news. The second headline on the newscast was that the States Supreme Court, in a two to one decision, upheld the Governors right to continue with her lock down orders. She sighed heavily and thought to herself “the game is on, it seems”.
Two weeks went by quickly. Operations Chief had assembled five men one of which was a retired Master Sargent from the Army. After a 20-year stint and then another 10+ years working as a contractor, he had seen action in all parts of the world and had an impressive résumé.
The Chief arranged a meeting at an abandoned house and gave each man – who would handle the abduction – the name of a color (to help mitigate future discovery if captured). The Team Leader would be called Brown. The Recon Sniper would be Gray. White would play two roles as the team’s RTO and Medic. Green and Black would be the door kickers along with Brown while White remained in the van acting as close over-watch and the Tactical Operations Center (TOC) on wheels while Gray provided long-range over-watch.
Thanks to the recon and continued surveillance of the governor’s mansion, the Planning Chief with the help of The Facilitator had a plan ready for review in less than seven days.
On day seven, The Facilitator, Planning Chief and Operations Chief met at a vacant farmhouse to discuss the plan.
The Operations Chief liked the plan and only made a few minor changes. The Facilitator asked the Operations Chief to come up with the gear he and his team would need for the operation. He would pass that information to the Logistics Chief who then would gather it and then place it in a dead drop for the Operations Chief to pick up. Money would come from the Money Lady using a standard dead drop procedure for the delivery.
On the way back to his Cabin, the Facilitator heard on the car’s radio that his governor just closed a business that produces flags for holidays like Memorial Day and Independence Day. Plus, she ordered the Boy Scout Troops in the state to not put flags on the graves of the states fallen heroes during the up and coming holiday ceremonies. He thought to himself, “we ARE doing the right thing Lord. Thank you for gathering this flock to do your bidding.”
Chief of Operations passed to The Facilitator the list of things he would need during that night’s FLDIGI QSO. That evening, the Facilitator passed on the list to the Logistics Chief along with a suggestion for dead drop locations for the gear and another one for the money from the Money Lady. During his QSO that evening with the Money Lady he relayed to her the amount of cash that the logistic Chief needed for gear, comms, and a van as well as the requisite dead drop locations for the drop.
Based on the recon and surveillance of Gray, the Operations Chief, Planning Chief and the Facilitator, all decided that the best window to snatch the Governor would be early morning while she was having breakfast and reading the morning paper (as was her pattern).
That time in the early morning, three times a week, a milk truck swung by the back of the mansion to drop off organic milk, butter, and eggs.
As was the plan, the regular milk driver would be taken out of the equation several stops from the Governor’s mansion. Then for Brown, White, Black, and Green to pile into the milk truck to execute the assault and capture the Governor. Gray’s role was to give over-watch at a distance in case things went Murphy.
Communication between Gray and White continued throughout the operation. Gray was on guard for hostile forces coming their way and, additionally, to take out potential threats to the mission. He was using his personal rifle a suppressed Bergman B-14 rifle chambered for a 7.62×51 NATO round, topped off with a Leupold Mk5HD 5-26×54 scope with a Tremor3 reticle. For viewing, he also used a Leopold angled spotting scope for surveillance. For comms, like the others, he used a BaoFeng DM-1701 digital radio set on 1-watt and a simple earpiece that had a built-in mic that came with the radio.
With the milk man and truck taken two houses from the Governor’s mansion, the plan was progressing nicely. In no time the driver found himself tied with wire ties and given a shot of midazolam & propofol to calm him down and hopefully give him little memory of the event. Once injected, he was laid on the trucks deck in the back between the team’s feet.
The men piled into the milk truck and Brown reminded his team to put on their masks. “After all”, he said “it is the law gentlemen” and chuckled as White drove the team to the Governor’s mansion.
The guard at the gate gave a wave to the milk truck driver. The truck pulled around to the kitchen at the back of the Governor’s mansion. White walked up to the back door with milk crate, knocked and bent over.
The cook Liz opened the door as White started to stand up and saw a suppressed Smith & Wesson M&P handgun. White placed a finger to his masked lips signaling for her not to speak. Brown, Green, and Black quickly entered the mud room, gagged, wire tied, and sedated the cook with the same cocktail used on the milk man; this cocktail would soon be used on the Governor.
White returned to the truck to give short over-watch and TOC on wheels. He monitored two different digital frequencies which would be totally garbled by anyone who accidentally happened on to the frequencies.
Slowly, Brown, Green, and Black worked their way down the hall from the mud room to the pantry. Then into the country styled kitchen. There the Governor sat at a kitchen table, sipping her Earl Gray tea, and reading the paper.
While engrossed in her paper she asked absent-mindedly, “was that the milk man, Liz?” Brown answered the Governor in a deep commanding yet quiet voice, “Ma’am, do not move or we will kill you.”
The Governor dropped the corner of the paper and saw Brown with a suppressed pistol pointed at her celiac plexus. Within a heartbeat Black had grabbed her arms and wire tied them behind her back while Green plunged a syringe loaded with the medic’s cocktail into her neck. They both grabbed her before she hit the floor as she collapsed immediately.
Within thirty seconds of her capture the assault team had her in the milk truck and on their way to the rendezvous point about five minutes away.
The team moved the Governor to a back road about four to six minutes away from the mansion grounds and handed her off to The Facilitator and one of his colleagues. Everybody was wearing surgical masks of course – after all, it “was the law while in public”.
The team then drove about five miles to where the Logistic Chief had previously left a van. There the team abandoned the milk truck and napping milk man.
With that accomplished they then drove to the meeting point of the team in the wee hours of that morning. They took their clothing off and gave their personal gear to Brown who was responsible for ditching the clothes and returning borrowed equipment to their owners or ditch them in a near-by lake. Then, each member got in their cars and drove away – never to see each other again.
After the milk truck had left the mansion grounds Gray had backed away from his surveillance place got into his vehicle and drove to a predetermined rural site. Took off all his clothes, redressed, and secured his equipment. Then worked his way to a state road. Every mile or so, as he drove along, he jettisoned a piece of his clothing out the window.
The Governor found herself locked in an office in a abandoned warehouse. A close circuit camera monitored her. Once she regained consciousness The Facilitator’s colleague walked into her makeshift prison cell cut her wire tied arms and gave her some hot coffee laced with an energy drink.
Once she had drunk most of her coffee, he took her to the washroom so she could relieve herself and wash up a bit.
Once completed with her toiletries, he walked her to a meeting room that had a long table with an empty chair at the end of it.
Now seated the Governor took in the room. She saw that there were five other chairs set around the meeting table all occupied by surgery masked people – Four men and one woman she noted.
The Facilitator said, “You are accused Governor of sedition and the men and women here today are your jury.”
He paused to let that statement sink in. Then he continued with, “These men and women along with your participation will seal your fate. I strongly recommend you answer any questions truthfully. Maybe you can still leave here alive. Do you understand?”
The Governor half in shock and the other half defiant said, “I do not understand what I have done. I worked hard to save the citizens of this state. If you hurt me in any way my State Police will follow you to the end of the earth and kill you!”
Once she completed her rant, The Facilitator said, “lets proceed.”
The Facilitator read the States Oath of Office to the Governor. He pointed out that she had violated the First, Second, Fourth and Fifth amendments to the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution along with similar amendments to her States Constitution.
Then, each member of the Tribunal read the Amendments the Governor had violated and explained how she violated those Amendments by here Emergency Orders.
The Governor was given the floor to speak upon the reading of each Amendment. Her standard reply alternated between, “I did it for the children” or “I will see all of you dead.”
At the end of the reading of all the violations The Facilitator asked her how she plead, guilty or not guilty to the charges.
She nervously started to talk, and she said, “I did it for the children!” Looking around at her jury she continued, “I did it for all of you… To protect all of us from the virus.”
When she saw that tact was not working the Governor again went into a rant of how she single-handedly saved the State and all its inhabitants and again, “I am going to see all you dead for this!”
Once the Governor ran out of excuses The Facilitator asked again, “how do you plead Governor? Guilty or Not Guilty?”
She then said with strength in her voice, “You can’t do this…It is illegal!” The women jurist replied, “no Governor, what YOU did was illegal.”
At that point, The Facilitator asked the four members of the Citizen Tribunal how they vote, “guilty or not guilty?”
Once the seriousness of that question sunk in The Facilitator went around the meeting table and asked each Chief how they voted, “guilty or not guilty?”
The vote was unanimous – Guilty.
At the end of the polling The Facilitator said to the Governor, you have been found guilty of sedition by a panel of your citizens; Consequently, I sentence you to death, to be hung by the neck till dead. May the good Lord have mercy on your soul.” The Governor just stared in disbelief at The Facilitator and the assembled men and women around the table.
A door opened. Brown and The Facilitators colleague walked into the meeting room. Brown tied the Governor’s hands behind her back while the colleague injected her with a mild sedative.
They then walked her out of the meeting room between them to the corner of the warehouse where located was a trapdoor for moving barrels up and down from the first to the second floor and back again. A hanging noose was in place over the trapdoor. The noose was quickly placed over her head and snugged down around her neck.
The Facilitator asked, “Governor, do you have any last words?” She replied with glazed eyes and said, “I did it for the children”.
As she said “children” The Facilitator opened the trapdoor with a flick of a switch on the wall and she fell to end of the rope. A muted crack was distinctly heard by the seven witnesses present.
The next morning – Twenty-six hours after her capture – the dead Governor was found on the off ramp of the capital cities highway loop for the State Capital Building. A note pinned to her chest that read… Open our state or you will be next.
It was time…
Written by johnyMac for American Partisan, May 18, 2020