The Operations team had been watching the governors 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, the Governor was sued by a group of businessmen and a few State Congressmen. 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 additional eight weeks.
Citizens’ were restricted to essential travel, which boiled down to travel to grocery and drug stores or doctor appointments. No grass cutting, fishing, or travel to a citizen’s additional properties was allowed. State Police were pulling citizens’ over on the interstate and questioning the purpose of their travel. If the Trooper deemed travel not appropriate, the Citizen and all passengers were given a $1,000 ticket. Then, a tow truck was called, and the Citizen’s vehicle was towed off to a impound yard. The Citizens’ in the vehicle were 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 and were caught, 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 was launched days after the extension of the Emergency Order by the Governor. The suit made its way through the courts in a weeks’ time to the States Supreme Court. The suit revolved around the fact 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 day the suit was argued in the States Supreme Court, a man invited three men and one woman to his cabin for a meeting. The host had handpicked these four patriots for just this kind of an operation months before.
One of the guests was an overt operation expert and had ran many ops while serving in the military. One was a planning expert who was owner of a retail consulting firm. The lady 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.
Our host (who was later to be called The Facilitator) explained to the assembled group that he brought all together to be part of 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 previously and knew they would all participate he still asked each visitor if they wanted to be involved. 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 later was 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 to 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 onto 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 caught onto the simple communications quickly.
Once this was 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 governors 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 onto 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 Governors 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 onto 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 additional 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 “game 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 a resume that was rivaled by few.
The Chief arranged a meeting at an abandoned house and gave each man – who would handle the actual abduction – the name of a color (to help reduce the possibility of discovery in case one or more were captured). The Team Leader would be called Brown. The Recon Sniper would be Gray. White pulled double duty as the team’s RTO and Medic. Green and Black were to be the door kickers and go into the mansion with Brown while White remained in the van acting as close overwatch and the Tactical Operations Center (TOC) on wheels while Gray provided long range overwatch.
Thanks to the recon and continued surveillance of the governors mansion, a plan was developed by the Planning Chief with the help of The Facilitator 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 onto 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 cars 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 onto 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 onto 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, it was 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.
The plan was for the regular driver to be taken out of the equation several stops from the governors 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 provide over-watch at a distance in case things went Murphy.
Gray stayed in communication during the operation with White, whose job was to observe and report any hostile forces coming their way and, additionally, to take out anybody that showed to be a problem 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.
As planned, the driver of the milk truck was overpowered two houses from the governors mansion. He was 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 governors mansion.
The guard at the gate gave a wave to the milk truck driver.  The truck pulled around to the kitchen which was located at the back of the governors mansion. White walked up to the back door with milk crate, knocked and bent over.
As White started to stand up, the cook Liz opened the door and was met with a suppressed Smith & Wesson M&P handgun and a finger to his masked lips signaling for her to be quiet. Brown, Green, and Black quickly entered the mudroom, gagged, wire tied, and sedated the cook with the same cocktail used on the milk man; this cocktail was soon to be used on the Governor.
White returned to the truck to provide short over-watch and TOC on wheels. He monitored two different digital frequencies which would be totally garbled by anyone who accidentally happened onto the frequency’s.
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 absentmindedly, “was that the milk man, Liz?” The question was met with a deep commanding yet quiet voice of Brown, “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 has 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.
As per the plan, she was taken to a back road about four to six minutes away from the mansion grounds and handed 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 individual gear to Brown who was responsible for ditching the cloths 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 position got into his vehicle and drove to a predetermined rural location. Took off all his clothes and secured his equipment. Then worked his way onto a state road and every mile or so, as he drove along, he jettisoned a piece of his clothing out the window.
The Facilitator and colleague took the Governor to an abandoned warehouse where she was locked in one of the offices. She was monitored via a close circuit camera. 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 drank most of her coffee, he took her to the washroom so she could relieve herself and wash up a bit.
Once she was done 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 additional chairs set around the meeting table all occupied by surgery masked people – Four men and one woman she noted.
The Facilitator said, “Governor you are accused of treason. 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 was done, The Facilitator said, “lets proceed.”
The Facilitator read the States Oath of Office to the Governor. It was 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 appropriate Amendments 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 tirade of how she singlehandedly 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 treason by a panel of your citizens;  Consequently, I sentence you 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 governors 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 a trapdoor was located for moving barrels up and down from the first to the second floor and back again. A hanging noose was in position 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 located 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 had been pinned to her chest that read…Open our state or you will be next.

It was time…


H/T to Bob from KY