Drone Wars 1: The Beginning

by Mike Whitworth

  "You bet," Doc replied.

  It took them about 20 minutes to rendezvous with Myrtle and his friends at a location where the chopper could be set down. When everyone was loaded, five people—two of whom each weighed as much as two people—in a four-passenger helicopter. Lorne turned in the pilot's seat and said "you guys better lose weight real fast because I don't think this baby will get all this weight off the ground."

  "Well hell, then I'll just get out of this son of a bitch right now!" Lowboy said. Before Lowboy could unfasten his seat belt and open the door, Lorne wound up the turbine as high as it would go, and managed to get the chopper airborne. It was obviously a struggle. Altitude gain was very slow. Once he got the chopper to an altitude of 200 feet, Lorne flew the helicopter slowly across the landscape.

  "I was hoping to fly this thing all the way to Missouri. However, I think we'll have to find some other transportation," Lorne said.

  Doc reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. "Can you get us to Tupelo by daylight?” Doc asked.

  "I think so," Lorne replied.

  "Good, I will arrange to have a car waiting for us."

  "Maybe you better make it into a two and a half ton truck.” Lorne laughed.

  "A heavy-duty, half-ton, crew cab pickup truck will do just fine," Lowboy chimed in.

  Chapter 19: KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI

  "Man's best weapon is not a rifle; it is his mind.” John Debrouillard

  Near Kansas City, Missouri

  I met with Toni and Peggy in the conference room. We had heard from Lorne that the Mississippi ranch was destroyed, and he was returning with only four other survivors. We lost 18 people, men, women, and children, at the Mississippi ranch. I felt sick. Our purpose in having Lorne and the others go to Alabama was to get those folks and their families to safety. In that, we had failed. I knew that in any war, there were always casualties. I didn't like that fact one bit. I didn't think I ever would.

  "Peggy. Toni," I said, nodding in their direction where they sat across from me along the narrow table in the conference room. I had suggested to Lorne that we use a narrower table than normal because it gave a more intimate feel to meetings. I would have suggested a round table like King Author used, if the room had itself not been long and relatively narrow. Myrtle had responded to my suggestion by taking a circular saw and slicing the overhanging sides off of the conference table. Lorne shrugged and sanded the edges while he teased Myrtle about not being able to saw a straight line. I thought Myrtle did an excellent job. No attempt was made to stain the cuts. Apparently the organization was more about expedience than appearance. I liked that.

  "You two are the best organizers that we have," I said. "Both of you have developed far more connections within the organization than I have.

  "That's just because you have a hermit-like nature," Toni said, while Peggy nodded agreement.

  I have been thinking about using low-tech methods to defeat some of the high-tech that the government is using against us," I said. "I think our best chance to develop usable low-tech techniques is to first study the inherent weaknesses of the surveillance methods and weapons used by the feds so that we can counter them with as little expense and effort as possible. Let the feds spend as much money as possible. The more they spend, the more they damage the federal budget, and the sooner, and with fewer patriot casualties, they fall."

  "A war of economic attrition?” Toni asked.

  "Exactly," I replied. "At least much of it, I hope."

  "Inexpensive methods like the low-power LEDs that we have been using in caps and hats to keep closed circuit television cameras from being able to identify us?” Toni asked.

  "Yes," I said. "I have been doing more reading on this, and many other topics, and I have some thoughts, although neither the knowledge or talent to do very much with any of my ideas. For that we need talented, creative, and knowledgeable patriots to work on each problem and devise inexpensive and practical solutions, as well as come up with even better ideas. I put forth my ideas only to get things started."

  "For example, I don't think it's enough to just be able to hide our faces from the closed-circuit television cameras. That may be working for now, but I doubt it will work for very long. I suspect the government will soon begin to use biometric information taken from airport body scanners, and similar scanners from other locations, such as post offices, along with the data from the ubiquitous closed circuit television cameras to identify people from other body measurements."

  "I've been wondering about that," Peggy said.

  "Do you have any ideas?” I asked.

  "Well, we could use makeup, hairstyles where some hair drape is across the upper face. Perhaps prosthetics inside clothes to enhance shoulder and/or hip width, or even just shoe lifts to help hide bone structure measurements might work. Something as simple as a knee brace might change a person's gait so that they would not be recognized."

  "I agree," I said. "However, when they start putting thermal filters on some of these cameras, if not all of them, they will be able to see the heat of blood flow through facial arteries, even when the LEDs are in place I suspect. The distribution of your facial arteries is as unique as a fingerprint. I can't think of any low-tech ways to falsify this."

  "Maybe we can get some of our doctors and biologists to work on this?” Toni asked.

  "That sounds like a good idea," I replied. "Can you find a couple of researchers to look into this for us?"

  "Let me see what I can do," Toni replied.

  "Toni," I asked. "Can you get someone to obtain some infrared LEDs and see how they work for fooling the thermal abilities of the security cameras?"

  "Yes, I can do that," Toni said as she took some notes. I told myself again that I needed to get everyone trained in the memory system, but right now I didn't feel that we had time.

  "I can see that we will probably need access to various federal facilities at some point," I said. "It is my understanding that many of these facilities have entry points controlled by fingerprint scanners. Can we find someone who can prepare kits for making molds from latent fingerprints so that we can fool these systems?"

  "I will look into it," Peggy said. I noticed Peggy was not taking notes. She seemed to remember everything quite well, so I assumed she had a great memory, perhaps even a trained memory.

  "The next technology we need to be able to circumvent is RFID chips. The government is putting these chips in nearly everything. That allows them to track the movement of many items, as well as people. It is my understanding that the feds have already started placing RFID chips in driver's licenses."

  "I have heard that too," Peggy said. "Some people say that when they put these chips in people, it will be the Mark of the Beast."

  "Can we find some electronics technicians who can build, or manufacture, RFID emulator/cloners for us? We will most likely need thousands, if not tens of thousands of these units.” I paused. "These RFID cloners need the ability to read RFID chips from a distance, and then counterfeit the RFID chip's unique signal. That means that we can read a chip from a distance, and then the code from that RFID chip can be implanted into a card, or some other item containing another programmable RFID chip. With that we can fool the system using RFID emulator cloners and appear to be where we are not, or simply disappear from RFID tracking."

  "We will see about setting up a small factory to manufacture these units," Toni replied.

  "It might be better to scatter the production across a number of locations, each unknown to the others," Peggy said.

  "OK," Toni said, "that sounds safer."

  "Another problem that we will commonly encounter is the government's propensity to record GPS readings on newer vehicles everywhere they go. We can't always drive old cars and trucks. They will be far too obvious. We need to be invisible."

  "Recently, the government has mandated that all vehicles be equipped with a black box. These black boxes have GPS capability and record the location of the vehi
cle and periodically send that data to the big government spy centers, as do many of the Government Motors vehicles with their navigation system. We need to be able to fool, or shut down GPS tracking at will."

  "Can we use GPS jamming systems?” Toni asked.

  "Yes, we can," I said. "However, there are several types of GPS systems in addition, to the one used by civilian GPS instruments. We need to be able to block all of these systems using the same unit."

  "GPS blockers are available, or were until recently when the government shutdown sales of these items. However, as far as I know these units only block civilian GPS," Peggy said.

  "We need to get our electronics boys working on developing GPS blockers that work on all known systems, including the encrypted system that the feds are now developing, I pointed out."

  "We will get some people working on that," Peggy said. "We also need to incorporate GPS emulators into these devices so we can tell the government that we are somewhere else.

  "Good idea," I said. "That will be a neat and extremely useful trick."

  "What about EMP devices?” Peggy asked.

  "If these can be used in a directed fashion, they would be invaluable to us," I replied. "We could probably take drones, helicopters, cars, trucks, etc. out at will. I doubt all federal equipment is as armored against EMP as military equipment.

  "We will get the electronics boys working on this as well," Peggy replied. "I know there are several companies that work on small-scale EMP devices for the federal government. We will see if we can hack into their systems and find out what they have."

  "So how are the negotiations with the hackers coming?” I asked.

  "Much better than I thought they would," Peggy replied. "It turns out that the majority of these hackers are just as anti-government as we are, although usually less violent. The hackers are proving to be a tremendous resource."

  "I have heard of other devices that the government is beginning to deploy," I said. "One of these is the sound canon. I don't know anything about these, so I have no idea how to counter them."

  "I will have the electronics techs work on that as well," Peggy replied.

  "What about the silence gun the Japanese have developed? I hear that the U.S. government is beginning to use that as well."

  "How does that work?” Toni asked.

  "I think it works by reflecting what you say back at you with a slight delay. This is supposed to confuse people so much that they are no longer able to speak."

  "That's an easy fix," Peggy laughed. "Just wear earplugs."

  "But we need to be able to make the earplugs available in large numbers to the patriots if the feds start using this device."

  "I will find a way to get that done," Toni replied.

  "What about being able to avoid thermal imaging from drones and airplanes when our people are in the field?” Peggy asked. "Lorne told me that the ground hounds—she shivered a bit when she said ground hounds—even have thermal visual capability implanted in one of their eyes. We need some way of avoiding detection from thermal imaging systems."

  "The best way that I can think of to avoid being detected is to make a cloak lined with the reflective Mylar from space blankets. The cloak should have a hood that closes tightly around the face."

  "Maybe we should even make a pair of pants that are lined with the space blanket material as well," Peggy suggested.

  "That's a good idea, Peggy," I replied. "Maybe the pants should have spats that also cover the shoes."

  "That would be good," Peggy said. "How about if we put tie strings on these garments that allow you to tie on local vegetation to further camouflage the outfit."

  "That would also help match the emissivity of the outfit to the emissivity of the surrounding area, making it more difficult to detect with thermal imaging," I said.

  "I can see about having these made," Toni said. "How many do you think we will need?"

  "I think we can start with a few dozen for testing and then work our way towards being able to provide the suits to any patriot who wants one."

  "Another method that will work if we have a situation in which we have a number of people on the ground, is to scatter heat sources in the area. That should confuse the drone cameras and prevent them from easily homing in on our people," Peggy said.

  "That's a great idea, Peggy," I said. "Are you sure you are just a computer programmer?"

  "I don't know," Peggy replied. "Are you sure you were just a professor?"

  "I guess we are all having to develop skills and learn things that we never thought we would need," I said.

  "That's a fact," Toni replied. "We could just use light sticks. They are cheap. We could issue them to everyone in large numbers. Then, all they have to do is break them and scatter them on the ground."

  "That's a great idea too," I smiled.

  "Road flares would work too," Peggy said.

  "For that matter, camera flashes would work as well," I said. "Could we design battery-powered strobes that could be tossed out of vehicles, and always landed an upright position like a caltrop?"

  "We can manufacture those as well," Peggy said. "We can get the electronics folks and machinists working on this."

  "We also need to know more about the capability of the various government drones," I said.

  "I have been researching drone capabilities," Peggy replied. I will put together a small pamphlet that we can pass out to patriots that delineates the capabilities and weak spots of each drone used by the government."

  "I gather you have taken a personal interest in this?” I asked.

  "You might say that," Peggy said. "I don't like those damn drones."

  "Neither do I," I said. "There are a number of other things we should examine as well.”

  "Go on," Toni said.

  "I anticipate that the government will retaliate against rebel strikes by withholding food supplies, gasoline, medicine, etc., just like the Russians did in the Ukraine. Unless the people in the restricted area turn the rebels in to the government, they will not be able to get food. The government would just starve them until someone cracked."

  "That means we need to have ways of getting food and supplies into any affected regions," Peggy said.

  "Not only ways of getting food into affected regions," I replied. "We need to, as much as possible, anticipate where those regions might be, and make sure that there are stores of food and water already stockpiled to supply as much of the citizenry as possible."

  "That sounds like we need to get all of the local preppers involved in this?” Toni asked.

  "Yes, that is exactly correct," I said. "Preppers are the people who know best how to store and hide food. I think we need to contact influential preppers in various strategic areas, and arrange for them to have the funds needed to begin major stockpiling of food, and securing of water supplies."

  "Do you want me to contact the council for the funds?” Toni asked.

  "Yes," I said, "please do."

  "Another thing that the government would be likely to do," I said, "is shut down the electrical grid as retaliation for rebel activity in the area. They are especially likely to do this in the heat of summer, or the coldest part of winter."

  "How about we have the preppers distribute information to patriots that tell who to contact if the grid goes down?” Toni asked. "We may be able to make arrangements for a number of wood stoves and wood heaters, or at least plans on how to make them, to be available for citizens in need. I don't think this will be inexpensive, but it would help."

  "If these wood heaters or wood stoves are installed for free during grid down, I think that would go a long way towards winning people over to our side. I suspect our preppers could organize the installation of these heaters on as needed basis."

  "So basically we are replacing FEMA with our own organization," Peggy said.

  "That won't be hard. They don't do anything right anyway," Toni chuckled.

  "The logistics will be very difficult," I said. "Tha
t means that we have to be the ones to initiate action against the government in the areas that we think are best prepared for any possible consequences. That will take a lot of planning. Toni, can you set up a series of meetings with influential preppers once we establish the most likely key areas for action against the feds?"

  "I will get some people on identifying influential preppers all across the country right away."

  "When Lorne gets back, we will decide where, and how, we can take action most effectively. What I worry about is the government continuing to piss off citizens, like they did in Alabama, so much so that the citizens take action independently. A conflagration like that will make our efforts to protect citizen's lives much more difficult.”

  "There is also a high probability of a preemptive strike by the feds against the people," I said. "A shock and awe tactic intended to break the people's will to resist."

  "This rebellion stuff is more difficult than I ever thought it would be," Peggy mused.

  "Actually, what we are doing is not rebellion," I said. "What we want is to keep the Constitution and the constitutional structure of our government, the executive branch, the legislative branch, and the judicial branch. We simply want to remove all traitors to the Constitution from office, and rid the country of the bogus laws that have been passed by these traitors to limit constitutional freedoms for the people. The problem is that almost all 545 members of the current government, 546 counting the vice president, and many federal workers as well, are traitors to the Constitution, and the country," I paused. "Our founders knew this day would come. That is the purpose of the second amendment; to make sure the people have the power, not only to resist, but to depose a tyrannical government."

  "Well, those bastards in D.C. sure think that what we are doing is a rebellion," Toni said. "It kind of feels like it to me too," She paused. "Those idiots brought it on themselves though. They think so little of the American citizens that they feel they can kill us at will.”