Freedom's Sons

by H. A. Covington

  “They’re not all Nazis,” said Georgia before she could stop herself. “I mean, Hitler-type Nazis. Some of them are Christian fundamentalists and Odinists and whatnot,” she added hastily.

  Angela Herrin shrugged. “To us they’re all Nazis,” she said. “It’s as handy a term as any. But whatever they are, they are the people who drove you out of your home and made you a refugee when you were only a child, and so I assume you have no love for them. I know Marvin Halberstam casually, and he once mentioned to me that you and your mother had a rather adventurous time of it escaping from the Northwest.”

  “I don’t think adventurous is quite the term,” said Georgia.

  “Of course not,” said Angela soothingly. “It must have been horrible. But would you like to be able to go back to Montana someday?”

  “Very much,” said Georgia with a nod.

  “Well, that may be possible, but we need your help. That is, the responsible elements in the Cabinet need you to use your, ah, unique access to the President to persuade him that he has to take certain steps in order to win the war, which I’m sure you’ve realized isn’t going as well as we had hoped by this stage.”

  You mean you’re getting your asses kicked by the NDF, thought Georgia. “Yeah, I kind of picked up on that,” she said. “What steps are you talking about?”

  “Ah, well, there’s the problem,” said Angela. “Hunter is a very proud man, and like most proud men he doesn’t like to feel as if he’s being manipulated by the women in his life, even when he is, if you get my drift. I can’t tell you anything specific about the actual policy the President needs to implement. It’s classified top secret, and if I tell you anything I would not only be violating national security laws, but if you were to let slip any details he would know that I talked to you, and he would think he’s being manipulated.”

  “But you do want me to manipulate him,” said Georgia. “Although I don’t understand how I can do that if I don’t know what you want him manipulated into doing. In any case, what’s in it for me?” Georgia understood that a Jew would expect such a question, and it would be out of character for her own high-class hooker persona not to make such a remark.

  “How about a ten million dollar bonus?” said Angela seriously.

  “You have my full attention, Ms. Herrin,” said Georgia. “But how do I earn that ten mil, if you won’t tell me what it is you want me to persuade the President to do? That’s assuming I can persuade him of anything, which I can’t guarantee. We don’t exactly conduct deep political and philosophical discussions on policy and statecraft when we’re together.”

  “I understand that, Ms. Halberstam,” said Angela. “What I would like for you to do is to apply a kind of psychological massage that will make him more receptive to the whole concept of complying with our advice, that is to say chief of staff Schiff’s and mine as well as the advice of certain Cabinet officers like Secretary Chalupiak, who also lost someone near and dear to her at the hands of the Nazi murderers. Tell me, have you ever discussed your past with the President?”

  “Not really, although before I came here I discussed it with damned near everybody else,” said Georgia. “He knows I’m from the Northwest, of course. I had to go through all kinds of security clearance bullshit, and the Secret Service has a file on me that could probably tell you what I had for breakfast on this day three years ago, so I assume Hunter knows all about me, but he’s never asked. It’s not my past he’s interested in.”

  “No, of course not,” said Angela, giving her a once-over glance that made Georgia wonder if the stories she’d heard about all Jewish women being bisexual were true. “What I want you to do, Ms. Halberstam, is to talk to President Wallace about your past, in private when he’s in a listening mood, in great and heart-rending detail. Tell him about your idyllic childhood in Montana that was ripped from you by hatred and cruelty. Can you do that?”

  “Yes, I can do that,” said Georgia with a nod. You’d better believe it, sister, she thought.

  Angela Herrin went on: “From what I gather from Marvin and from reading that extensive file you mentioned, I understand the reality was bad enough, but don’t hesitate to embroider a bit. I want you to let him know how badly you want to go back to Montana and see your childhood home again, but how terrible it is that you can’t do so as long as those evil men are in power, how horrible it was to be chased by dogs and racists with guns across the snow as you and your mother were fleeing to freedom…”

  Fleeing to the next interstate exit with a Sheraton sign, thought Georgia. Let me get this straight, bitch: you’re trying to get me to psych up the Doughboy to drop a nuclear warhead on my father and my brother and my baby nephew, without knowing what I’m doing, for which you are willing to pay me a lot of money, so that makes it all right. Christ, the Party is right about you people! Now shut the fuck up and give me some opportunity to put this bug on you, so you can die tonight!

  Suddenly Angela’s phone rang. She carried it in a leather pocket on the outside of her Gucci handbag, which was on a table at the end of the Oval Office sofa. She got up, walked over, picked up the bag, pulled out the phone, and said “Yes?” into it. She listened intently to whoever was on the other end, moving back toward the two chairs where she and Georgia were sitting, the purse in her hand. “I’m still trying to bring him around,” she said. “I’m talking to someone now who might be able to help, in fact.”

  Angela glanced at Georgia and realized she probably shouldn’t be speaking about this in the clear, and so she switched to Hebrew, a language that sounded to Georgia like a tuberculosis patient choking on his own diseased lung phlegm. She threw the handbag down on the seat where she had been sitting and turned away from Georgia, who slid her hand over and was about to open the bag when she saw the small telltale LED light at the end of the zipper which told her that the bag was alarmed. Unless she knew what stud or special hidden switch or accessory to touch or flip, if she tried to open the purse it would beep or blat or screech or in some way warn the owner it was being tampered with. In a world when wealthy white and Jewish women were prime criminal targets not just for rape but for simple robbery, Georgia had heard of high-end purses and handbags that blew indelible dye in the faces of thieves who stole them and tried to open them, even electrocuted anyone who tried to cut them open. It made sense that the White House press secretary would own such a bag. It meant she couldn’t open the damned thing to plant the tracking device.

  Then she saw the empty phone pocket or pouch on the outside of the handbag. Angela Herrin was turned away from her, gabbling in Hebrew to whoever was calling her. Georgia took a quick glance around the ceiling corners of the Oval Office and spotted both small CCTV cameras. She knew there was also a small fiber optic lens in the President’s personal computer terminal for video conferencing, but which could also be used to monitor the office. The screen was turned away from her. Georgia got up clumsily out of her chair, holding her empty ginger ale glass in one hand and steadying herself on the arm of the opposite chair where Angela’s purse lay. Hoping her body and the back of the chair would shield what she was doing from the spy cameras, Georgia slipped the thumbnail-sized red microchip into the leather phone pocket or holster, and then walked to the sideboard and put the glass down on a coaster. She turned to Angela, who was still speaking in Hebrew to her unknown caller, and whispered, “I have to get upstairs. He’ll expect me to be there when he goes up himself.”

  Angela took the phone away from her head. “I understand,” she whispered back. “We’ll talk later.”

  Georgia walked out of the Oval Office. When she got upstairs to the unmonitored presidential bedroom she texted a quick message, Red on the bitch. She concealed it in a savage political cartoon from the Washington Post showing a Kali-like Hunter Wallace gripping a snake with a Swastika on it, with four fists and arms marked Group South, Group Center, Group North, and Soaring Eagle. She sent the message with a silly sexual innuendo to Talia Halberstam, regarding the accur
acy of the four arms depiction. Apparently, the Post’s cartoonist was a bit behind on the military developments of the past few days, but then most of the American people had no idea that they were losing the war. They were still being shown videos from two weeks before of the three Baghdad Boogies beginning, as well as stirring live reports from journalists embedded within the three columns, most of which were outright fakes generated by computers and performed by professional actors.

  * * *

  Lieutenant Bob Campbell sat in a small room under the eaves of the Renwick Gallery, surrounded by old American masters including a couple of Grandma Moses winter landscapes in watercolor, and several Buckminster Fuller geodesic architecture models from the 1930s and 1940s. The ancient curator, Doctor Herrick, had provided him with a large hero sandwich and a bottle of water, pointed out the alarms and motion detectors on the top floor, and left him to his vigil. Campbell had spoken briefly to Herrick before he left. “I’m told you knew the Old Man?” he had asked.

  “Never met him,” replied Herrick.

  “But Major Cardinale said you were personally converted by the Old Man,” said Bob.

  “I was, but not in person, if you see the difference,” said Herrick. “Long, long ago the Old Man used to do an internet radio broadcast once a week. Northwest Freedom or something like that, I can’t even remember what it was called, and I had to destroy all my downloads and copies once it became a death penalty offense to possess them.”

  “Radio Free Northwest,” said Campbell. “We’re taught about that in history class and they play some excerpts for the students. He converted you with his podcasts?” asked Campbell.

  “He did not,” replied old Herrick. “I was an arrogant imbecile and I thought I knew better than he did about what was what. I did not. I viewed his podcasts as entertainment, not something to actually be listened to, taken seriously, and certainly not acted upon. Northwest Migration wasn’t something anyone actually did; it was something one tapped a keyboard about on the internet. The result of my refusal to listen and act is that my life became a living hell, and by the time I realized that the Old Man’s rantings about Northwest Migration were meant to be acted upon, and not laughed at or languidly discussed on effete pseudo-intellectual blogs, it was too late. My three children were all dead. My son became a heroin addict and died of an overdose. My oldest daughter was raped and murdered by niggers when she had a flat tire up in Maryland one night, while my youngest daughter married a Mexican from Aztlan and was beaten to death by her husband while she was pregnant. I have several mestizo grandchildren whom I have never seen, and have no intention of seeing. They have nothing to do with me, and they may have died in a V-3 attack on California for all I know or care. My wife went insane and died in a mental institution many years ago.”

  “Euthanized?” asked Bob sympathetically.

  “I think so, but I can’t prove it.”

  “Why didn’t you Come Home after Longview?” asked Campbell.

  “I didn’t act when I should have, and my family paid for it. Why should I gain from their suffering?” replied Herrick bleakly. “I didn’t Come Home because I haven’t earned it. Stupidity comes with a price, young man, and I haven’t paid my tab yet. I do what I do for Vince on occasion as part of settling up that tab.”

  “You ever meet a girl named Betsy?” asked Robert glumly. “You two seem to have a lot in common.”

  “Yes, I have met Betsy and I know her story,” said Herrick. “I wish to hell somebody could persuade her to Go Home. What happened to me and my family was my fault. I simply assumed that what the Old Man was talking about was all impossible, that nothing would ever actually happen. The very idea that anything would ever actually change or that anyone would ever actually do any of what he was talking about was absurd. It never even entered into my thinking. So I didn’t listen and I didn’t act when I should have, and those I loved paid a hideous price because I was a lazy dumb-ass who didn’t have sense enough to realize that Rome was burning even with the Old Man bellowing it in my ear. I had a choice, and I chose not to listen. Betsy didn’t. I did something, by default, by not doing anything, which is another way of doing something, if you get my rather confusing drift there. Betsy had things done to her. She deserves to Go Home. Do what you can to convince her, if the subject ever comes up.”

  Bob had a small pair of field glasses through which he could view the famous façade of the White House across the North Lawn, now lit up with floodlights in the darkness of the hot summer night. He thought of Georgia inside. He wondered what she was doing, and then decided he didn’t want to know. Then his phone bleeped. He flipped it open, saw the stupid cartoon, decrypted and read her second message Red on the bitch, and forwarded it to Cardinale. Then he settled down to wait. It was out of his hands now.

  Bob was tense with worry about what might happen to his WPB comrades, but the armchair Herrick had given him for his little observation post was comfortable, and he actually managed to fall asleep for a while, until Herrick nudged him awake sometime later. “Thought you might like to know how we did,” said the old man, extending his own phone. Bob looked down at the screen and saw that it was tuned to CNN. An Asian female announcer who actually looked pale beneath her makeup was speaking:

  “Repeating the hour’s top story, two murderous terror attacks in Washington, D.C., have stunned the nation’s capitol tonight. A D.C. Metro Police spokesperson says that at eleven thirty-five p.m., White House press secretary Angela Herrin and her bodyguard, former Israeli Army Major Mordecai Krivitsky, were shot to death outside Ms. Herrin’s elegant town home on Twelfth Street Northeast in the D.C. suburb of Brookland. At almost the same time, White House Chief of Staff Ronald Schiff and two members of his Secret Service security escort detail were murdered in an attack on his limousine outside a downtown Washington nightclub, using a bomb or some other kind of explosive to penetrate the vehicle’s armor. A second government limousine was also damaged in the terrorist attack. No details are yet available on…”

  “Any of our guys hurt?” demanded Bob.

  “No, they all E&E’d clean,” replied Herrick. “I talked to Vince. They caught Schiff on 14th Street just as he pulled up to the Black Cat Club, with one of those Panzerfaust rockets. I don’t know if you’ve seen them, but they disassemble until you can fit one into a briefcase, and the warhead is only fourteen ounces.”

  “Yeah, they showed me,” said Bob.

  “Anyway, they work. Went through the armor in that limo like a hot knife through butter,” said Herrick with a chuckle. “I know because downstairs I have access to a raw news feed for a couple of cable networks, and they showed the remains. That car looked like a child’s toy that had been put into a microwave, and it looked like they were trying to scrape Schiff off the back seat with spatulas.”

  “How about Angie baby?” asked Bob. “I understand she was the main presidential handler for the Sanhedrin or whatever organized Jewry calls itself these days.”

  “Aron Habrit, which means Ark of the Covenant,” said Herrick. “The idea being that the Torah has now been taken out of the holy land of Israel and the Jewish people throughout the world are now the ark which holds the covenant between God and Abraham, their usual quasi-mystical horse shit. Anyway, the Herrin woman paid the price for living in a toney goyische old money neighborhood: no covered parking. Caught ’em on the front steps of the brownstone. Two of the team riddled the big Jew with Uzi bullets, which I think is poetically appropriate, and Duke got Yentl with a neck shot so she strangled on her own blood. Kind of a variation on kosher slaughter.”

  “And they’re all away clean?” asked Bob again.

  “Every one, thanks to the fact that some electronics whiz kid Vince dug up was able to track the targets, make a plan and run interference for the teams surveillance camera-wise,” said Herrick. “He told me to tell you to keep an eye out for any unusual activity around the Heart of Darkness down there and be ready to hit Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck if nec
essary, whatever that means.”

  “I know what it means,” said Campbell. “If it turns out it’s not necessary, I’ll need to ease on out of here and into downtown about eight in the morning, just as the rush hour begins, which in a way is good because I’ll have a lot of cover on the street. I need to pick someone up, and then we’re out of here, permanently.”

  Herrick looked down at him in the chair. “I haven’t been fully briefed on what you’re doing here, son, and I have no need to be, but I wasn’t born yesterday. I figure we’ve got somebody in the belly of the beast tonight. Whoever they are, they must be one hell of a soldier.”

  “Yep,” said Bob.

  “Well, if I don’t see you again before you leave, good luck,” said Herrick.

  “We’ve had great luck so far,” said Bob Campbell. “Phenomenal luck. Now please God it lasts just a few more hours.”

  * * *

  Special Agent in Charge Lee Lyons of the Secret Service was not completely politically naïve. He sensed that POTUS was on the edge, and he was enough of a realist to understand that this was not good for the country or for his career, and he needed to tread carefully and keep every angle covered. For this reason, when word arrived at the White House that Angela Herrin and Ronald Schiff had been assassinated, instead of immediately informing the president, he called over to the official residence on Observatory Circle and routed Vice President Hugh Jenner out of bed. Jenner was dressed and back at the White House in 20 minutes. “Are we in any doubt as to who did this and why?” he asked Lyons.

  “I think the more germane question would be the how, Mr. Vice President,” replied Lyons. “We’ve always known since Longview that there was an NAR intelligence network in D.C., two in fact, one from the War Prevention Bureau and one run by their Combined Military Intelligence, and down through the years we’ve picked up traces and signs of their activity, but nothing concrete until the events outside the South African embassy a few weeks ago when they seem to have pushed Kanesha Knight over the edge into insanity.”