The Brigade

by H. A. Covington

  “No, I have one of my own I can use,” said Hatfield. “I’m going to ditch it afterwards, of course, but I don’t want to take the risk of getting caught with anything that might be traced back to you. If this goes bad, you just tell the cops I went out for lunch and never came back, and you had no idea I intended to commit such a horrible hateful act. I don’t want to drag you guys down with me.”

  “When do we do it?” asked Washburn.

  “It needs to be fast,” said Hatfield. “I did get from Steve that the kids are with Liddy’s mother for a week or so, and the Proudfoot bull dyke has moved into Steve’s house so she and Liddy can have their orgies with no risk of the little girls walking in on them, which I find charmingly delicate of them, if a bit too late. They’re probably on their p’s and q’s so they’ll look good in court. That means they’ll be alone in the house. I’ve been in and out of Steve’s place for years, and so I already know the lay of the land, no need for any extensive preliminary scouting or observation. Liddy was also dumb enough to give Steve’s dog away to the SPCA as an act of spite, so I won’t have to worry about Spuds or maybe have to silence him, which is definitely a load off my mind. Spuds is a cool mutt, and it would really bother me to have to hurt him. I sneak in with the key, cack them both, and I’m outta there.”

  “In and out,” said Washburn. “It’s a good simple plan.”

  “Yeah, well, the first thing you learn in the military is that no plan ever survives the first day of combat,” said Hatfield wryly. “The simplest plans are the best, but even so, there are always a hundred things that can go wrong.”

  “You do realize the shit is going to hit the fan big time when two lesbians with a hatespeech case pending against a white male are murdered?” asked Charlie. “You also realize that yours is the first door Sheriff Ted Lear is going to come knocking on? He knows you and Steve have been tight since high school, plus you visited him in jail.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s why I need you two guys as my alibi,” said Hatfield with a grin. “But I’ve also got a little trick up my sleeve to muddy the waters like hell. I’m going to take a magic marker with me, and I’m going to write the letters NVA on the wall. Maybe in their blood.”

  “Jesus, Zack, that will be sure to bring in the FBI!” exclaimed Washburn. “After what’s happened in Coeur d’Alene, they’re descending on the Northwest like a swarm of angry bees!”

  “Are they? Or are they running around like chickens with their heads cut off?” queried Hatfield. “Charlie, remember, I saw the federal government of the United States in all its glory operating in Iraq. You have no idea how incompetent they are, what complete idiots they are. 20,000 or so ragged, barefoot little brown men with nothing but AK-47s and a few RPGs whipped the mighty United States Army and Marines down into jelly when I was there, and they’re still doing it all over the Middle East. Have been for almost a generation now, and these morons in Washington still haven’t got a clue! All they know how to do is jump however high and run however far Israel and the Jews tell them to. My guess is that by writing NVA on the wall I can ratchet this thing right out of Ted Lear’s hands and up onto the federal level where it’s simply lost in the shuffle. Ted Lear is smart. He can read this, although he may not be able to prove anything, and he may not want to. He’s a friend of Steve King too. But I’d rather have the dumb-ass FBI on my trail than any local cop who knows the ground and knows the people involved, and who has a couple of brain cells to rub together. We see all over CNN and Fox News that the uprising in Coeur d’Alene has been crushed and it’s all over. I don’t buy that. My guess is what’s left of the real NVA is going to keep on fighting and hitting these bastards, and very quickly the file on these homicides will end up gathering dust in some SAIC’s pending basket, with the files from a hundred other NVA hits piled on top of it.”

  “So when do we do it?” repeated Charlie.

  “Len, make your call to Helping Hand tomorrow morning,” said Hatfield decisively. “I’ll blow those dykes away tomorrow night.”

  * * *

  Steve King’s house was a large split-level ranch-style dwelling built on a wide landscaped lawn, constructed in redwood paneling and stucco on the outside with a brick planter and other tag ends of brick trim, house and lot, sitting on a beetling ridge in a subdivision just south of the coastal town of Seaside. Zack hadn’t been too happy about driving through the town itself on his way there, since the one major weakness in his plan was his vehicle. The only car he could come up with for this murder mission was his own, and that was a dangerous and foolhardy thing to do, but he could not in all good conscience ask either of the other men to loan him a car or truck, and risk linking them to the killings. Before starting out that night, Hatfield had cut several short strips of black masking tape, made sure his front and rear Oregon license plates were dry so the tape would stick, and carefully altered his license number by transforming the I into a T and the 5 into a passable 8. The resulting false license number would raise a red flag if it were run on the DMV computer by a police officer, but you had to get very close up to see the tape, and from a distance it worked.

  After crossing the great bridge over Youngs Bay he took a carefully pre-planned route, turning left off Highway 101 as soon as he came into Gearhart and swinging wide along some back roads to bypass the glowing rainy streets of Gearhart and Seaside, so hopefully no one would recall seeing his car. It had taken him an extra half hour, and he would have to take the same route going back. It was a long time on the road, but there was no help for it. He made sure he had a full tank of gas before he left, cleaned his fuel injectors, checked his battery and replaced the starter just in case. He wanted to make damned sure that engine fired up when he needed it to start.

  Now Hatfield stood outside the house preparing himself for his entry. It was about 10:30 at night, moonless and drizzly, perfect for Hatfield’s purpose. Clatsop County deputies left local law enforcement in the county’s many small towns to small municipal forces. Hatfield remembered that Ted Lear had once mentioned in some casual context or other that Seaside police shift change (all four cars of it) took place at 11 p.m., and so by now the single-cop squad cars and station staff should be easing on back to the barn, so the cops could turn in their gear and paperwork and go off duty as close to 11 as they could manage, before heading home or off to Ray’s Tavern, which had a special late-night liquor license to accommodate the gents in blue. There was a faint salty tang in the air from the nearby beach, just a couple of blocks away, and the sound of the Pacific breakers could be heard low and soft in the dark night air. The lots and lawns in the neighborhood were large, and there were almost 50 yards between King’s house and the neighboring homes on either side. Hatfield counted on the distance and hopefully some internal noise of televisions, home entertainment centers, and computers in the homes of King’s neighbors to make sure no shots were heard.

  He parked his car on a narrow yet paved verge in front of the right-hand neighbor’s house, to prevent leaving any tire tracks, although there wasn’t much chance of that with the asphalt as wet as it was from the drizzle. This also meant that so long as he walked only on the concrete driveway and stayed off the grass and out of the muddy shrubbery, he didn’t have to worry about leaving any footprints. Even so, he was wearing hospital shoe covers tied on over his shoes, which he would get rid of afterwards. The car was almost centered between two streetlights. It meant a longer walk, but Zack had balanced that against the possibility of someone noticing his Toyota in front of the King home. Zack pulled on a pair of latex surgical gloves and pulled up the hood of the cheap parka sweatshirt he’d gotten from the Salvation Army store last year. It would go as well; few people had seen him in the garment and no one should remember it.

  He walked calmly down the empty street and turned in at the Kings’ driveway. Inside the sweat shirt, stuck into his belt was a truncated double-barreled 12-gauge shotgun. Before he left the hardware store in Astoria, he had placed the old Remington,
which had belonged to Zack’s father, into Len Ekstrom’s vice grip and carefully taken the double barrel down to 18 inches with a hacksaw and oil, and cut off the stock of the old weapon down to the grip. The amputated fragments were in a plastic bag in Zack’s trunk for disposal along with the gun itself, the parka, and other bits and pieces. The gun was loaded with two shells of .00 buckshot, and Zack had half a dozen more rounds in the sweatsuit parka’s pockets. He also had a snub-nosed Smith & Wesson .38 in an interior clip holster stuck in his belt at the small of his back. The house was dark as he walked up the driveway except for a single light in the front living room downstairs. He glanced through the windows of the garage and saw Steve’s SUV and Liddy’s Lexus parked inside. There was a battered military-surplus Hummer in the driveway sporting a number of feminist and pro-abortion bumper stickers, which Zack had learned belonged to Martha Proudfoot. There were no other cars in the driveway, which was a good sign. Zack mounted the steps to the front door and took from his back pocket the key that Len had cut for him.

  Hatfield stood at the front door, thinking of his text message to the Ghost of Christmas past. I may well be doing something like this again soon, he reflected. If so, I damned well better plan it a lot better. This job was too rushed. He was now at the point of no return; he could if he wished simply turn and walk away, and possibly he should. There were several things that could go wrong now if he proceeded to enter the house. First, the key might not work, and he might have to go around to the rear door, use his knife to cut through the screen and then either kick in or jimmy the door lock to force entry, thus alerting those inside. Secondly, he had no way of knowing if Liddy King or the Proudfoot woman had become sufficiently paranoid to install an alarm system. Steve King had never used one, since this part of the Northwest was still sufficiently crime-free so it had not seemed necessary, as long as the family had Spuds the terrier to sound the alarm in case of intrusion. But with the media full of hysterical raving about evil racist terrorist conspiracies in the wake of the October rebellion in Idaho, the two lesbians might have gotten jumpy. Thirdly, he had no way of knowing for absolute certain that they were the only two people in the house, despite the lack of any unaccounted-for vehicles in the garage and driveway. It was possible Liddy had brought the two little girls back home. Finally, he had no way of knowing whether or not he had somehow been detected already, or whether he would be detected on entry in some manner, and they would call the police. Good liberal that she was, Liddy would never allow Steve to own any guns, which her husband had gone along with for fear of the girls getting hold of a weapon and a subsequent tragic accident, but that could have changed along with Liddy’s sexual orientation. It was indeed a rushed job, maybe too rushed.

  Zack pulled back the hood of the parka and then pulled down a dark navy blue ski mask, covering his face. He inserted the key in the front door, unlocked it, and carefully turned the knob. There was a brief sticking and then the tumblers fell softly. He pushed the door open. The chain was off, so he would not need the small pair of bolt cutters in his left back pocket. That’s a stroke of luck, he thought. They’re careless. Careless and arrogant. I’ll bet it simply never occurred to them that despite what they’re doing, anyone would dare to lift a finger to stop them. Why would it occur to them? Until a few weeks ago, no one’s ever fought back.

  He pushed the door open and went in. The front hall was dark. Zack silently moved to the door of the living room and peeped around into the room. It was empty except for one lit table lamp. Zack mounted the carpeted stairs slowly, staying close to the wall so as not to make any boards creak. He knew where the bedroom was, the defiled bedroom where Steve and Liddy had slept as man and wife. The door to the girls’ room was open and he glanced in; in the very dim light filtering in through the window, he could see that the little beds were empty. Thank God, he thought to himself. Caity and Judy at least won’t have nightmares about terrible sounds and boogey men in masks from this night’s work. I wonder if they will ever be able to understand why, when they grow up? If I’m still around, if we win, I’m going to have to tell them one day that I killed their mother. I can’t shirk it. Damn! Better not think about it now.

  Now Hatfield stood outside the master bedroom door. He could hear low, drowsy female voices from within, talking softly and casually. There was no sign of alarm; he had been as silent as the grave. Zack pulled two rubber ear plugs out of his pocket, lifted his mask and inserted them into his ears so the noise and concussion of the heavy bore gun going off in a closed room would not damage or rupture his ear drums. He slid the hammerless shotgun out and eased the safety off; it was ready to fire. He took a long deep breath, remembering Iraq, recovering the mindset needed to kill. This was different, he knew. The Indian bitch he didn’t give a damn about, but Liddy was a woman of his own race, a woman he’d known from Astoria High. They’d never had much in common, since even in high school Zack had been blue collar and right wing, and she had been wealthy by Astoria standards and lilac, Lifetime Channel trendy-left. But she was Steve’s wife, and so they’d spent some years at least being polite and halfway friendly to one another. Until she had gone mad and turned on his friend like a rabid dog, he’d had nothing against her. Could he do it? If I can’t, I’d damned well better find out before I meet with Red’s people, Zack said to himself.

  Hatfield pushed open the door and stepped into the room, and in that room he found only enemies, targets to be destroyed. He could do it, and he did. Driving away from the house of the dead, back to Astoria, he knew he had been right to send that text message.

  He drove to a spot he knew near Hammond, at the very mouth of the mighty river where it entered the ocean, a low cliff, and he pitched the shotgun and ammunition into the estuary. The parka and the shoe covers and gloves went into the black plastic garbage bag; they would be cut into strips and burned before morning. He stepped back inside the hardware store at 12 o’clock sharp. “How was lunch?” asked Ekstrom, glancing up from the desk in his office where he was scribbling on some inventory papers.

  Charlie Washburn sat in a corner sipping from a large Styrofoam cup of latté from a late-night espresso stand. “Speaking of which, I got you a hoagie before Larissa’s Deli closed,” Washburn said, pointing to a paper-wrapped sandwich and a second cup of coffee beside a brown paper bag.

  “Thanks,” said Zack, finding he was hungry. He unwrapped the sandwich and chomped down on it. “It’s done,” he said with his mouth full.

  “Both of them?” Washburn asked.

  “Both of them.”

  “Any problems?” asked Ekstrom.

  “Nope.”

  “You write those letters on the wall?” Ekstrom persisted curiously.

  “I did. Don’t know when they’ll find the bodies, but when they do I promise you’ll be able to hear the Daily Astorian scream in horror all the way down to Coos Bay.”

  “Well, that’s that,” Washburn sighed.

  “Not quite,” said Hatfield. “I think I’m going for a few encores.”

  “What?” asked Ekstrom.

  “Charlie, you remember last summer, that meeting I asked you to go to?” Hatfield reminded him. “The one where something suddenly came up and you backed out?”

  “Yeah,” responded Washburn cautiously. “I can’t remember what it was that came up, now, exactly.”

  “You probably had an outbreak of common sense. Anyway, don’t worry about it,” said Zack with a shrug. “That was last summer. Things are different now. I’ve got one last thing to say about tonight, and then if you guys want out, there will be no hard feelings, and who’s to say you’re not a hell of a lot smarter than I am? I won’t ever mention it again, but for now, just listen to me a bit. You both know that I know some people, and you’ve always avoided bringing up the subject. I appreciate your tact, and I never pushed it because I figured that once you knew, it was your choice whether or not you wanted to talk about it. But what happened in Coeur d’Alene has changed things. Now we kno
w it can be done. We failed in Coeur d’Alene, but the Party hasn’t been destroyed. I know because I have been in contact with some people who escaped from CdA and who are still fighting, carrying on a guerrilla war to establish our own white country here in the Northwest. It’s going to be long and bloody and horrible, but we’re going to win.”

  “How do you figure that?” asked Washburn curiously.

  “Short answer? God is on our side,” said Zack simply.

  “Oooo-kaaay . . .” said Washburn. “And you know this, how?”

  “Because of what happened in Coeur d’Alene and what happened with me tonight,” Zack explained. “These things are God’s sign to us. Not whether we won or lost, or whether I screwed up somehow and I’m in jail looking at a double murder charge this time tomorrow night. That’s not what matters. What matters is that these things happened. That we did them. God has given the white man back his courage. The courage to stand up and defy our oppressors’ laws. The courage to fight back with weapons in our hands, instead of a computer keyboard. The courage to be men again, real courage that comes from our hearts and not from a can of cheap domestic beer or a whiskey bottle. We never had that before, up until now, and that’s why white men always lost. We were ashamed of who we were. We were ashamed to be who we are. No more. Guys like me and the Old Man and so many others have spent all our lives begging God on our knees to just do this one little thing for us, to give us back the courage that our ancestors had, even if it’s only for one last glorious defeat, so that we can die on our feet instead of live on our knees, and exit the stage of history with our heads held high. God has answered our prayers. We have our courage back now. I don’t know how it happened, but we’ve got it back. We got ours back when we did this thing tonight, because even though I was the triggerman, you guys stepped up to the plate just as much as I did. When I got to that house and I didn’t find cops waiting for me, and when I got back tonight and I found both of you still here, at your posts, instead of home hiding under the bed tossing a case of beer or a bottle of Jack down your throats to quiet your terror, you proved yourselves just as much as I did. God has given you back your courage too, guys, and either of you could have done my job tonight if you’d had to.”