Liberators: A Novel of the Coming Global Collapse

51 PROJECT JORDAN

Two hours after PO3 Jordan Foster had his flash of brilliance, his invention diagram was reviewed by a UDT lieutenant commander staff officer with SEAL Team Seven, also at NAB Coronado. Recognizing its potential utility, he wasted no time and picked up a STU phone to call one of his old classmates, who was now a paramilitary operations officer with the CIA Special Activities Division (SAD)—the action arm of the National Clandestine Service, in Virginia.

Three days later, “Project Jordan” went into formal planning. The first prototype “Pogo Stick” was built one month later and was approved for final design review and production soon after, under a classified Presidential Decision Document (PDD) finding. It was decided early on that the devices would be built with all-commercial off-the-shelf components so as to be untraceable. Ironically, their PROM timer chips had all been manufactured in China before the Crunch. The key component in the thermite igniters had also originally been made in China but was marketed by the Estes Rockets company as model rocket engine “Solar Igniters.” Full-scale production began in October, and the production run of eight thousand units was completed in January.

The Pogo Sticks began arriving in Canada in February. Some were parachute-dropped by B2 stealth bombers while others were infiltrated by land or sea in civilian craft. In one case, they were transported via hermetically sealed containers on the Multi-Mission Platform on a stealthy U.S. Navy nuclear Seawolf-class submarine.

The Pogo Stick incendiary devices were all timed to burn at 1212 hours on December 12—nearly a year after their manufacture. They were not programmable. To enable them, the upper sleeve needed to be depressed by one inch (or more). If the sleeve was left fully extended, they wouldn’t function. Alternatively, the spring could be removed from the sleeve cap, so that the sticks became armed without being under tension. They couldn’t be more simple or foolproof.

They were designed to fit in a standard twenty-liter Chinese “Big Mouth” plastic fuel can. These ubiquitous cans were used for gasoline, diesel fuel, and kerosene. They were quite similar in design to the Scepter cans widely used by the U.S. and Canadian militaries.

Prototype tests had shown that if a Pogo Stick was placed in a fuel can filled with diesel, when the timer went off a stream of molten thermite would quickly burn through the bottom of the can and still have the exothermal energy to burn through fourteen millimeters of plate steel beneath. Then, depending on the width of the air gap, up to twelve liters of flaming diesel fuel would follow down the hole that had been cut by the burning thermite. Alternatively, if a Pogo Stick was placed in a fuel can filled with gasoline, there would be a flaming explosion with a twenty-foot-diameter fireball.

Inserting a Pogo Stick took just a few seconds. Because they were spring-loaded and because there were internal tapers on the top and bottom of the fuel cans, the top of a Pogo would automatically wedge itself into the far corner of a can, where it could not be seen through the open spout hole.

The Chinese did not trust Canadians around their vehicles (for fear of sabotage), but it had become the norm in the lengthy occupation to send out all of their empty fuel cans to commercial fuel stations for refilling. Because the Pogo Sticks would be inserted incrementally, there would be no way of knowing whether any particular can had already been rigged. So a discreet stripe drawn with a felt-tip marker underneath the triple carry handles on the cans was devised.

Although not all of the commercial fuel contractors were “in the loop” and supplied with Pogo Sticks, more than 60 percent of them were. Between March and August, the resistance rigged the majority of fuel cans in most of the Chinese-held Canadian provinces and territories. Always well regimented, the PLA had a policy of rotating their stocks of stored fuel, so that it would not go bad in storage, and this policy was enforced quite stringently in Canada, partly as an “antisabotage measure.” As a result, even though it was more laborious, their SOP was to always use gas in cans first before filling vehicle tanks directly from pumps. This meant that eventually the resistance would get their hands on nearly every Chinese fuel can in many regions.

Then, in September, the resistance had a major coup. In the Northwest Territories, a part of Canada where Pogo Sticks had become available only late in the game, three boxcars full of brand-new empty fuel cans were received from China, all with yellow cap straps—designating them for use with diesel fuel. With the impetus of a kickback payment from a fuel contractor, the regional logistics coordinator was convinced that the new cans should be distributed full of fuel. This gave the contract operator the chance to insert Pogo Sticks in every one of those fuel cans.