Still at the site,  Taras and Sgt. Lee interviewed the 8 detainees.

One thing was clear: they were not bikers, although they did meet up with some bikers at this house, which was being used as an impromptu bar ("booze can").

They appeared to be ex-US servicemen-turned-mercenaries from across the border in Bellingham. They were being paid by Lt. Michael Roberts, a regular US Army officer. He commanded a local unit of the US Military, the oddly-named "1st Alternative Cavalry Regiment" of the 47th Infantry Division. As evidenced by Robert's rank, this unit was (at most) company strength. But they certainly were "alternative" in that in addition to the horses they had recovered several elephants from a Ringling Bros. circus that had disbanded during the nuclear strikes in early 1998. He wanted to expand his mounts but elephants were very hard to come by. But rumours of some survivors from the Vancouver Game Farm was enough to motivate an impromptu effort to locate them and transport them across the border. Roberts had not wanted official or even semi-official involvement by the regular US military due to its strained and ambiguous relationship with the Canadian government in what could be looked like a cross-border incursion to conduct looting and rustling (of a kind) in a foreign technically-allied company. That was if they got caught. But it didn't seem that the area was controlled by the federal government. And using private citizens would give some deniability. He did, however, lend one of the unit's own elephants ("Dumbo") to help calm and manage any elephants they would find, with a driver/mahout and some horses for transport.

The American mercenaries numbered twelve and were led by a British deserter, Victor "Vic" Lagge. Originally from the UK, Captain Lagge had been training in Alberta when the war went nuclear. At first he joined the Anglo-German brigade, but went his separate way after chafing under unit command and seeing the opportunities available in the new post-nuclear world. Along with him went a core group of Brits and Germans taking with them a  considerable quantity of supplies, weapons and ammunition. In the years since then in the roundabout journey from Alberta to Washington those companions found themselves dead or missing one by one, leaving him still in possession of a good selection of valuable material. This new assignment piqued his interest and Lagge gathered a crew of American ex-servicemen together at a bar down in Bellingham.

Travelling on horse and elephant-back, they crossed the border three days ago and made camp in this farmhouse, which had a junkyard/vehicle dump in back, surrounded by overgrown farmland. Two days ago they tracked down the elephants to Ft. Langley with the help of a female veterinarian living in Aldergrove. At the fort they found the two elephants (Woozle and Heffalump) and the caretaker, Old Willie. During the course of "convincing" Old Willie to accede to their demands for the pachyderms Willie "fell down some stairs". They all swore they had nothing to do with that, Lagge was solely responsible for all injury and insisted it was accidental. (Indeed, Old Willie's multiple injuries were consistent with both a fall or a beating. Either/or.)

With the help of the tamed elephant from the 1st ACR they brought with them (Dumbo) they got Woozle and Heffalump as far as the farmhouse but it was obvious the injured one would need help getting the rest of the way down to Bellingham. So Lagge disappeared and came back yesterday with a US Army 10-ton HEMMT truck, accompanied by (of all things) a LAV-75A1 airborne/recon light tank. The operators are unknown to them, seem to be more American deserters. Plus a dozen bikers from both sides of the border showed up, ready to party. It seemed the plan was now changing from finding and caring for elephant refugees from Vancouver Game Farm to looting (scavenging/salvaging) the abundant materials kept at Fort Langley Historical Site. The Mahout on loan from the "1st Alternative CR" decided they didn't want any part of this and withdrew the day before back across the border towards Bellingham taking his elephant and the loaned horses with him. Lagge promised to load the elephants in the 10-ton and deliver them down to Bellingham that day. Lagge and his new biker friends, the 10-ton and the light tank departed the previous evening to go loot the fort while the rest of his crew waited here to guard the elephants. Obviously, Lagge and company were the unknown group that bumped into them at the fort. But the waiting crew hadn't heard or seen him or his biker friends since, and they hadn't returned.

Timeline:

-5 days: Lt. Roberts (1 ACR/47th ID) makes contact with V. Lagge, contracts him to retrieve elephants from somewhere in Fraser Valley.
-3 days: Lagge and group on horse and elephant-back cross border, set up base in farmhouse.
-2 days: Lagge makes contact with friendly veterinarian in Aldergrove, locates elephants at Ft. Langley. Lagge and crew arrive Ft. Langley, Old Willie is injured, elephants stolen.
-1 day: Elephants and crew arrive at farmhouse. Biker friends of Lagge arrive as well, plan to go back to Ft. Langley and "salvage it" (strip it of valuables), bring HEMMT and LAV-75 (from USA). 1st ACR mahout takes own elephant and horses, returns south across border. Lagge keeps Woozle and Heffalump as insurance to make sure they are paid, promising to deliver them himself. Lagge and new crew (10-ton HEMMT and LAV-75) plus some biker friends head back to Ft. Langley to loot it leaving original crew at farmhouse without transport to wait for them.
Day 0: Crew waits for Lagge to return. Team URIEL assaults and captures them.

The mercenaries, not being local, don't have specific first-hand answers to most of Taras' questions. But the bikers who partied there had told them a few things. All this is second-hand.

a) Where are the bikers located? Have they any prisoners with them? They are in a prison somewhere in the valley. A big one! No prisoners they talked about. [From Lee: Probably Matsqui Penitentiary, a prewar maximum security prison near Abbotsford.]
b) What are the shortcomings being experienced by the bikers in their violent campaign? A lack of heavy weapons and armour, maybe? Otherwise they seem to be doing well, lots of food, they make ethanol fuel.
c) What is their operational and political planning? Not sure what this means, they say the bikers don't seem to be going on the offensive. Just waiting to see what the police and government might do. They try not to be too hard on the locals.
d) What are their numbers, organisation, deployments, training, weapons and communications means? Maybe a hundred? Divided into smaller sub-gangs of 10-20 each. Lots of ex-military, Canadian, American, Russians. Lots of guns! Lots of bikes and technicals and trucks. Lagge thought the LAV-75 might be very useful to them if he brought it to them with a crew.
e) How are the relations with other communities? The bikers aren't liked among most of the survivors in Langley and Aldergrove. Other independent communities and survivors fear them. There is a religious community in the valley they seem to be friends with. Weirdos with shaved heads. Some kind of Christian militia?
f) What is the magnitude of their involvement against other communities including plans against UBC? No known plans at this time.
g) What is their morale like? How are the conditions in their bases? They seem to be doing all right, in good sprits. They think the government will be occupied with dealing with Surrey for some time.
h) What are the bikers intelligence network details and priorities for operations against other citizens? They have friends in the local population. [From Lee: pre-war they would also have contacts and spies within Law Enforcement, typically civilian support workers, using bribery, intimidation, coercion via threats to them or loved ones.

Your orders from HQ regarding the prisoners was that if they didn't seem to be a threat or important, cut the Americans loose at the border with a warning not to come back.

Lots of movement going on. Gangs are moving east, away from stability operations in Richmond, the western parts of Surrey and Burnaby. They're coming up the valley. Everyone here is tense and expecting the worst, arming up for a confrontation. Plenty of ex-military hardware is floating around. For those that can't afford it or want something more concealable cheap pistols are flooding the valley. The main arms market used to be Annacis Island but that flooded out in the spring. Plus too close to the areas we're bringing under control.

"There are two major arms pipelines coming from over the border. Not much yet but they are poised to expand their operations and become much bigger. One supplies the arms merchants that relocated from Annacis Island and have set up in the Cloverdale Arena between Surrey and Langley. You can get small arms there. If you want something heavier you need to go to the old prison in Matsqui. That's where the other pipeline leads.

"This trade is based on whatever salvage people can get their hands on, and prewar valuables. But the really valuable merchandise is worth more than some wedding rings, toasters, CDs and potatoes. There will be a big deal going down soon, we don't know when or where. Lots of firepower coming up. In exchange, what's being called "product" is going south. We don't know what that is but our guess is drugs. Prewar bikers here controlled many grow-ops for marijuana, they could have gotten their hands on prewar caches of hard drugs like heroin, methamphetamine, powder and crack cocaine. Another possibility is some kind of WMD like fissile material salvaged from an unexploded nuclear weapon or chemical agents. Disrupting this deal is our (Koldan and myself) operational number one priority. We'll need your assistance with this.

"We have heard some rumours that there is a biker gang that runs Matsqui, the Razorbacks. They just got their hands on something big. Something that will keep them safe against raids from police and other gangs.

"There is another rumour that a large group moved down the Fraser valley from the interior and settled in Abbotsford. Some sort of right-wing Christian militia organisation with possible ties with similar groups down in Washington. No established connection to New America as of yet. They've been seen across the river in Mission as well but no clashes as of yet. Also, no known clashes with the bikers in Matsqui." Mission was the community centred around Westminster Abbey, a large Catholic monastery (a Benedictine order).

New America was a considerable threat, although somewhat diminished. They were an umbrella organisation combining a wide spectrum of far-right fringe groups like neo-Nazis, anti-government militias, Christian identity "churches", White supremist groups, etc. throughout the USA and Canada unified under the survivalist prophet and neo-Nazi Carl Hughes. They seemed to be gaining power before Hugh's arrest by the US Federal government. Afterwards it had fractured but retained a power base in the US Southeast, Great Planes and the Pacific Northwest, along with BC, Alberta (where they had infiltrated the surviving government and military before being rooted out) and the prairies. The team had run into a cell of NA commandos before: the KGB agent posing as LT. Jagelis had used them...

"We have heard some rumours of a big gang forming and operating out of the prison in Matsqui. (Matsqui is where the federal penitentiary was located and is between Aldergrove and Abbottsford, during the war after the bombs fell there was a mass prison break.) They go by the name "Razorbacks" but we believe it's more a federation of sub-gangs and independent gangs controlled by the Hells Angels (HAs).

"Past Abbottsford, travel up the valley is blocked by Lake Sumas. Long before the war Lake Sumas was completely drained to produce fertile farmland on the old lake bed. When the base at Chilliwack was nuked, the dikes and pump stations that kept it clear were gone as well." A new lake started forming there a couple years ago when the Fraser overflowed its banks during the spring melt but during last spring's freshet (spring melt flood) the entire Sumas Prairie became Lake Sumas once again, stretching from the Fraser River and Sumas Mt. in the north to Vedder Mt. on the border in the south. "The old flood plain on the north bank of the Fraser is also flooded to the foot of the mountains so that's Highway 7 gone and no way to continue up the Valley without getting your feet very wet. There was no border crossing that far east before the war, too mountainous. We think there are some logging roads and minor roads that have been made or repaired and an unofficial cross-border trail opened up allowing you to go down through Washington and then up back into BC through the Cultus Lake Valley but we can only speculate on this. Almost all traffic up the valley is by boat or the paddle-wheeler based in New West.

"Aside from the gang in Abbottsford, we have been hearing rumours of various Christian militias on both sides of the border. Down in Sumas in Washington, and in Abbottsford.

"Finally, over the last couple months we've been getting reports of a few people going missing. Mostly single travelers or small groups of refugees. Abandoned farms and encampments. But no bodies. We did get a report that someone got away from a group on horseback that tried to kidnap them. They were walking along Highway 13 down near the border. We've been running daily patrols down 13 but so far nothing.

[...]


Monday, sixth of June, two weeks ago. Around nine AM. Uh, so six white males, some camouflage clothing. Armed with rifles."

"One thing you should know is that it sounds like they tried to capture those people. They didn't shoot them but used lassos and whips. Like, bullwhips. They got two, one escaped. This was about two weeks ago. Down on 16 Avenue. West of Highway 13. The rumours were they were cannibals.