The Brigade

by H. A. Covington

  The metal suitcase turned out to contain a large battery and some electrical apparatus. The black bag contained, among other things, several hypodermic syringes. For some time afterwards Kicky screamed, and screamed, and screamed, but no one came to help her. The final syringe contained some kind of substance that made her feel hideously, gut-wrenchingly sick, like the worst withdrawal she had ever experienced multiplied by ten. They left her lying on the floor behind the table naked, jerking spasmodically and dry-heaving wildly, her body still arching from the electrical burns and the acid injections in several places that would leave no visible marks when she had her clothes on. She thought she was having a heart attack, that she was going to die, and in her agony she even tried to pray to God to receive her soul, but she passed out instead. A few hours later, Lainie Martinez came back, leaned over and gave her another injection that woke her from her semi-comatose state and seemed to ease the pain a little, and said to her, “Get dressed. As a further punishment, you will not see your child again, not for one month. Fuck with me ever again, over the slightest thing, and that’s the end.” For the time being at least, Kicky was completely broken and cowed. There were no more acts of defiance.

  McCafferty was able to get his fiber optic camera card. It was duly installed snugly behind Kicky’s license, and for a couple of weeks she simply continued her intermittent taxi runs for unknown persons. She said little to her special passengers, nor did they ever initiate any conversation. One day Kicky got off her shift a little after midnight. She went to her usual bus stop, and as she stood there waiting under the streetlight Jimmy Wingo suddenly appeared at her side out of nowhere. He was wearing blue trousers, a baseball cap, and a gray mechanic’s service tunic with the name “Bob” embroidered in red over the left shirt pocket. “We’ve got something for you,” he said. A nondescript older model Buick pulled up at the stop. “Get in,” he said with a gesture toward the car.

  Kicky briefly considered turning and running, but she fought down her panic and got into the back seat. Wingo got in beside her and the car pulled away from the curb, heading south. She recognized the man who was driving as one of her previous Hot Sauce trips, but she hadn’t gotten too good a look at him before, nor did she really do so now. In the passing glow from streetlights and oncoming headlights she saw that he was tall and broad-shouldered, with a baseball cap similar to Thumper’s on his head. “What’s up?” she asked Wingo in a voice she had to battle to keep casual.

  “The company commander wants to see you,” said Wingo. Kicky felt the vibration in her cell phone, and she knew the police in the task force room were listening in.

  She didn’t ask what the company commander wanted to see her for; she was learning quickly. “So you’re Bob today?” she asked casually.

  “If today’s Tuesday, I must be Bob,” he agreed.

  “Today’s Thursday,” she said.

  “Then I’m Rumpelstiltskin. What did you think of the Handbook?”

  “It said everything I have always thought, but was afraid to say,” she answered truthfully. “Hell, afraid even to think. When I read some of it I knew that I had always felt the same way, but I never actually sat down and thought it all out. I was scared to, as silly as that sounds.”

  “ZOG doesn’t want us thinking,” said Wingo. “They know that the most effective censorship and thought control is what they can get people to impose on themselves. It’s the most effective form of control. George Orwell once wrote that orthodoxy is unconsciousness. That’s been the goal of a century of careful social and psychological conditioning, to render white people unconscious of who they are, to make them so blind they can’t see what’s right in front of them. Orwell also said it requires intense concentration every day to see what’s right in front of your nose. Or words to that effect. I forget.”

  “You must have done a lot of reading in Angola,” she said.

  “Not really. Actually, believe it or not, I was an English lit major in college,” he told her.

  “Pretty rad tattoos for a college boy,” remarked Kicky curiously.

  “Some of those are from prison, some later,” said Wingo. “I had to register as a hate offender when I got out, so college and any kind of so-called normal life were no longer an option. I had no choice but to live the life ZOG chose for me, so I figured in for a penny, in for a pound and I decided to get some body art to look the part. Stupid decision, actually. Tattoos are identifying marks.” Kicky fell silent, looking out the window as the car got onto Interstate 5 and headed south. She knew she should try to encourage conversation for the benefit of her listeners, and she was terrified of another session with the needles and the electrodes if she displeased them by showing what they deemed insufficient enthusiasm for her work. But she was beginning to feel stirrings of deep guilt about betraying this man and the others. Other than occasional casual references to murdering her, they had treated her with courtesy and respect. It was the law of the United States that had tortured her with electric shock and acid.

  They pulled off the interstate and onto one of the many four lane highway strip mall sections of Portland, and then into the parking lot of an all-night Burger Barn. Only the drive-through window was open. Wingo got out of the car and motioned for the girl to follow; the driver remained behind the wheel. They went to the employees’ entrance in the rear. Wingo knocked twice, then knocked twice again. Someone inside somewhere buzzed the door and Wingo pulled it open. They went down a short corridor past a room on the left full of rolling stainless steel racks on castors heaped high with buns in plastic bags, while on the right was a walk-in freezer with a thick steel door. Wingo opened the door to a small manager’s office. A middle-aged, round-figured white woman looked up at them from the desk, then silently got up and left the room, carrying a sheaf of papers that looked like invoices with her. “Have a seat,” said Wingo. “Not behind the desk.” They both sat down in plastic chairs. Kicky found herself studying a flyer taped to the wall, detailing how healthy and nutritious all Burger Barn’s menu items allegedly were, and how many calories and grams of fat were in each product.

  The door opened, and a slim young man dressed in jeans and a tan polo shirt walked in and sat down behind the desk. He looked even younger than Kicky, almost like a high school kid. His auburn hair was clipped short and neat, not exactly a military style buzz cut, but close. His face was slim and angular, his nose sharp, his lips thin, and his green eyes glittered like ice crystals. He wore a Browning High Power automatic on his hip in a clip-on holster. “I’m Lieutenant Billy Jackson,” he said without preamble. He did not offer to shake hands. “I’m the officer commanding A Company, First Portland Brigade. I am telling you my real name instead of using a code name because I’m a wanted man by the Zionist authorities and my picture has been all over the media, not to mention every post office wall in the Northwest, so it would be pointless to try to conceal my identity from you. Miss McGee, I have spoken to many of the comrades you have been assisting with transport over the past few weeks, and they have nothing negative to report about your performance. You have been interviewed by this comrade here, uh, Comrade Bob, and also by a lady from up north. You have now read the NVA’s General Orders and the Party Handbook. I’m asking you now if you are prepared to proceed to further training and also assist in active service operations on a higher level.”

  “Yes,” said Kicky with a nod. “I mean, yes sir.”

  “Pay dirt!” hissed Lainie back in the Operation Searchlight task force room, headphone to her ear. “Our first major terror suspect!” She gave a thumbs up to McCafferty and Jarvis.

  “Jackson’s wanted for what? Twenty murders?” asked McCafferty grimly.

  “And as many bombings,” replied Lainie with a nod. “Not to mention treason due to his part in the Coeur d’Alene insurrection against the United States.”

  “Muthafukka!” was Jamal Jarvis’ contribution to the conversation.

  “I understand that at your last conference with us you
expressed reservations about killing people,” Jackson went on, his voice quiet and polite. “We will respect those reservations, but you understand that this will rather limit your usefulness to the cause. I’d like to ask if you’ve thought any more about it, and if you are prepared to overcome these reservations for the greater good of our people and for a future in freedom for yourself and your daughter.”

  “I think so,” said Kicky with a nod. “I’ve realized that if I am a part of the NVA I bear moral responsibility for everything the Army does, and I can’t escape that. I also know if the feds catch me they’ll kill me or torture me, and it won’t make any difference what I did or didn’t do. I think some cops just get off on torturing people.” (This last sentence was directed at Lainie Martinez.) “If I’m going to do the time, I might as well do the crime.”

  “You’re sure?” asked Wingo.

  “You mean will I freeze up when the time comes for me to pull the trigger? I’m pretty sure I won’t,” Kicky told them. “Now I am, anyway.”

  “We won’t start you with a hit,” said Jackson. “However, we will need you to take a bit more involved role. There have been some tactical developments, which demand we move newbies up a little bit faster than we would normally like. There have been some arrests and E&Es and other losses recently, and we find ourselves in need of more people for certain assignments—more dangerous assignments. This is a bit rushed, and I would have liked to use you on more support-related jobs first to bring you up gradually, but we’re a tad short of button men now, and that means we need them all shooting, not driving. Accordingly, we need new wheelmen, or in your case wheelpersons, to drive selected comrades on terminations, corporal punishment missions, expropriations, and possibly some EOD attacks.”

  “EOD?” asked Kicky.

  “Explosive ordnance delivery,” said Jackson. “We need you to drive for other Volunteers who will be shooting people, beating people, pulling off armed robberies and planting bombs.”

  Kicky gulped. “Yes, sir, I’m willing, but won’t my cab be kind of conspicuous for that purpose? I mean, what if some eyewitness gets the number?”

  “We’ll provide the vehicles. Actually, we’ll provide other cabs in some cases,” said Jackson. “Brigade will be boosting some from Excelsior and Yellow and Checker as well, take them to one of our chop shops and have them re-detailed every time someone goes out, change the number and the ads on the back bumper rack, that kind of thing. Vans are still best for most jobs, of course, but the cops are getting wise to vans and pickup trucks. Also, we need more boy-girl couples. They’re starting to profile and pull over any car or truck they see with two or three white men in it. We need to start varying our transport on active service missions with everything from cabs to motorcycles to fake ambulances, you name it. We may decide to move you completely underground, if we feel you may have been recognized or compromised in some way. I trust you’re not overly attached to your career with Excelsior Cab?”

  “Oh, no,” said Kicky with a rueful chuckle. The dispatcher Singh had been getting unpleasantly importunate of late. Someone had informed him that Kicky was a pro, or at least an ex-pro, and he was becoming surlier over her refusal of his offers of cash for sex.

  “What about your daughter?” asked Wingo.

  “My Mom will keep her,” said Kicky.

  “Indefinitely?” asked Jackson.

  “Actually, I think she kind of wants to,” Kicky told them with a sigh. “She thinks I’m a bad mother, and I guess I am. Mom doesn’t know I’m with the NVA, she’d probably have hysterics if she did, but she senses something’s going on with me and she thinks I’m back on the streets or on the crack pipe again. As horrible as it sounds, that will explain to her why I keep strange hours and only show up every so often to see Ellie.”

  “You’ll be able to make it up to them both later, in a free land, when they understand,” said Jackson, not unkindly. “You’ll still be doing a lot of routine driving around town on our kind of taxi service, but we’ll need you constantly on call, and as I said, the very instant we suspect you may have been compromised, we pull you under. You may have to abandon your trailer at a moment’s notice. Anything keeping you there?”

  “In that shithole? Nothing at all,” said Kicky, shaking her head. Maybe I can get the hell out from under some of their bugs and surveillance, she thought.

  “Okay. For the time being we need you to keep your job at Excelsior, but you must keep us apprised of your work schedule so we only call on you when you’re off duty.” He took out a cheap pre-paid cell phone from the desk drawer. “I am going to give you this, so you can contact us in the event of any kind of change in your schedule or anything else you think we need to know. Make sure you keep the battery charged. There are three numbers pre-programmed into this phone’s memory. Use any one of the three, never the same one twice in a row. You will probably get a different person every time. When someone answers, you will identify yourself as Jodie. If a man answers, it will be your friend Bob here, even if it isn’t him. If a woman answers it will be your friend Melissa. You will make a few casual comments about the weather or about the new shoes you bought or something innocuous of the kind, and then you will mention that you won’t be able to make it for some unspecified date or social function because your schedule has changed and you have to work such and such a time on such and such a day. Do not stay on this phone more than three minutes, max. Got all this so far?”

  “Got it,” said Kicky.

  “Bingo!” cried Lainie jubilantly back in the task force operations room. “At last, we’ve got our first uplink!”

  “Keep this phone with you at all times, somewhere you can hear the ring,” Jackson continued. “If we text you with the words Burger Barn we want to set up a meet with you and probably give you an assignment that will take some hours, so come prepared to go into action. You will have several meeting places, each one of which will be linked to a number. Burger Barn One means to go to a certain place, Burger Barn Two means a second place, etc. When you get such text messages you will drop whatever you’re doing and get to the meeting place as soon as you can. These meeting points will change regularly, and you’re going to have to remember a lot. Bob, on your way back, go over all of this with her again, and then again. Make sure she has all this by heart.”

  “She will,” Wingo assured him.

  “I don’t have a car of my own,” said Kicky. “I’ll have to get to the meeting point by bus.”

  “That has to change,” said Jackson. “You’ll need transport. Stand by that phone and we’ll get you a car in a couple of days, a clean one, legitimate pink slip and license plate. When we call you, you will come to the meeting point in your own car and switch to one that we have assigned to the mission, which you will drive. There will be one to three other comrades going with you. One of them will be in charge. You drive wherever the team leader tells you to drive and do exactly what he or possibly she tells you to do, nothing more and nothing less. You may also have to escape and evade a police pursuit if anything goes wrong, which is one reason I’m a little reluctant to use someone as relatively untried as yourself. But needs must be met, and everyone has to start somewhere. It won’t be anything too heavy at first. Bluntly put, we don’t want to give you too much to fuck up, if you do fuck up. We need to see how you handle yourself under pressure.” Brother, if only you knew! thought Kicky to herself. “Do you understand all this, comrade?”

  “I understand,” said Kicky.

  “Any questions?” asked Jackson.

  “Do I get a gun to carry?” asked Kicky.

  “Do you have a personal firearm?” asked Jackson.

  “No, I’m not legally allowed to own one,” she told him. “Convicted felon.”

  Jackson rubbed his chin. “Mmmm, right now you’re not an actual Volunteer, you’re an asset, and if everyone has done their jobs properly the police shouldn’t know about you. If you get caught at a checkpoint or some other casual street search and
you’re strapped, that could simply land you back in prison with no benefit to the Army. Don’t pack, for now. On assignment you will be issued a handgun in case you need to use one, which you will then return at the conclusion of the mission.”

  “Okay,” said Kicky. “Look, at the risk of sounding too curious, just when do I cease being an asset and become a Northwest Volunteer? Is it like the Mafia? Do I have to make my bones and swear a blood oath or something?”

  Jackson allowed himself a wintry smile. “Actually, we do call a first kill making our bones. But it’s pretty simple. No blood oath or mysticism. When I say you’re in, you’re in. Anything else?”

  “Guess that about covers it,” said Kicky with a nod. “Covers it, sir.”

  Jackson stood up. “Wait for our call and we’ll get that car for you.” Without another word he walked out of the room.

  Back in the task force room Lainie shook her head in wonder and concern. “Methodical. Organized. Efficient. That whole meeting lasted what? Ten minutes? Do you know any of our own people who can conduct a briefing and get as much done in that time?”

  “We’re getting an idea of what we’re up against,” said McCafferty. “I thought that was the point of the whole operation.”

  “It is,” said Martinez. “And the answers we’re getting are shaping up pretty scary.”

  Kicky found Lainie Martinez and McCafferty waiting for her at her trailer when she got in at about two thirty in the morning. Lainie simply held out her hand and Kicky handed over the wireless phone the NVA had given her. McCafferty pulled an electronic meter of some kind out of his briefcase and ran it over the phone. “That looks like something out of Star Trek,” commented Kicky.