The Brigade

by H. A. Covington

  “Then why are they slowing down and pulling over?” asked Singh.

  “I don’t know,” said Dow with a frown, peering into the monitor.

  The truck was slowing down because they had sighted the FATPO convoy coming down Highway 26 from the city below them and to their rear, but they needed a few extra moments. “Okay, Joe, I want you to get in behind them, but not too close, just close enough to keep them in sight,” said Cat-Eyes through the radio. “At least three vehicles behind the last Stryker.”

  “We won’t be able to see shit,” said Mohr. “Especially since the three civilian cars ahead of us will be giving them a lot of space, if they have any sense.”

  “I know, but right now we just want to see where they’re going,” replied Cat. In order to give the Federals a sufficient lead, Mohr had to slow down and ease the truck toward the right shoulder of the road a bit, almost as if he were about to pull off. It was a slight movement, and normally it would not have been noticed except by the driver immediately behind him, but Singh had sharp eyes, and Dow saw it too.

  In the gatehouse a radio crackled. “Pilgrim, this is the Doc Shop,” said the Blackwater watch commander, speaking to the convoy on the radio. “We have you on visual. All clear.”

  “Roger that, Doc Shop,” came a voice from one of the staff cars.

  Dow frowned and picked up the radio. “Doc Shop, this is Post Four. We have a possible bad boy on the access road, blue Apex Dry Cleaning truck. You see them?”

  “Yeah, I see ’em, Roy,” said the control room operator inside the hospital. “What’s bad about ’em?”

  “Probably nothing, but it looks to me like they’re hanging back, waiting for that Priority One movement to pass by, maybe so they can fall in,” said Dow.

  “Mmmm, okay, I’ll alert Pilgrim,” replied the control room man.

  “Always better to be safe than sorry,” Dow lectured Singh. “The devil’s minions are clever and sneaky. They can come at you from anywhere, any time, just like the temptation to sin. Okay, there they go. They’re getting on to the highway and following the Priority One. Doc Shop, you see that?”

  “Affirmative,” came the response. “Pilgrim, this is Doc Shop. Be advised we have a possible suspect vehicle on your tail, blue panel truck marked Apex Dry Cleaning, just pulled onto 26 about three cars behind you. May be nothing but somebody’s shirts and suits, but thought you should be made aware.”

  “Roger that, Doc Shop,” said whoever was in the convoy. The voice belonged to Major Wallace Reid of the FATPO, a career Marine who had been seconded to the paramilitary organization over his protests because, as he put it to his superiors, he did not wish to command scum. He was told that the fact that the FATPO were scum was the primary reason they needed to be commanded by properly trained military officers, and he could take that or a seventh tour in the Middle East, this time in Saudi Arabia. Reid had almost taken the seventh tour, but by this time the perpetual 130-degree heat was driving him very nearly insane, and the thought of a winter of freezing Northwest rain seemed to him to be a dream of purest nirvana. Even now, cold and wet as it was, Reid wanted to lower his power window, but the Ambassador would no doubt object. Reid clicked to another channel on his radio. “Pilgrim to Cormorant One.”

  “This is Cormorant One. Go ahead, Pilgrim,” came the voice of a pilot in one of the Apache helicopters above them.

  “Check out a blue Apex Dry Cleaning truck about three cars back behind us, just got on back at the last exit,” ordered Reid. “You see him?”

  “That’s affirmative, Pilgrim.”

  “Keep an eye on him and let me know if he turns off,” said Reid.

  “Possible bad boy?” asked the pilot.

  “I don’t know,” replied Reid. “Probably not, but we’ll be going through checkpoint Foxtrot 20 up here in a bit, and if they follow us off the highway, I want them not just stopped but opened up and searched thoroughly.”

  “Roger, Pilgrim,” said the pilot. “I’m on it. Cormorant One out.”

  In the Apex truck Volunteer Gardner asked, “You got any idea where they may be headed yet, Jesse?”

  “Mmm, since it’s not St. Vincent, maybe Beaverton Mall, to that Mighty Mart that got leveled by EOD a couple of years ago. They’ve done a couple of minor agitprop broadcasts from there, swearing to rebuild the place, although I notice they haven’t even cleared away the debris yet. It’s become a symbol of Portland’s struggle against wicked racism and all that moo.”

  “The Red Baron blew that one at three o’clock in the morning, didn’t he?” asked Gardner. “Nobody was killed or even hurt, if I remember correctly. Why would they want to make a symbol out of an empty department store that got blown up because they wouldn’t hire American citizens?”

  “Amurrica’s pride got hurt,” chuckled Cat. “Those places are the official Temple of Mammon, kind of, and we desecrated Amurrica’s temple. If Mighty Mart isn’t safe from the mean old NVA, who is? Besides, the ruins and the twisted girders and all look very picturesque. There’s this one kiddie’s doll in a box half sticking out of the rubble, and every time they go out there the cameras always show a close-up of that crumpled doll. The unspoken implication is that children were killed in the bombing, when in actual fact, as you pointed out, no one was killed at all. It’s one of the many ways the media lie without actually lying, if you get me. I’ll give the kikes this much, they’re expert at creating propaganda.” Lockhart’s wireless phone bleeped. He answered it and muttered in the odd, stilted code the NVA was forced to use on the air via cell sites, then closed the phone. He picked up the radio. “Okay, if I could understand correctly what Oscar was saying through all the doubletalk, we’ve got a make on the bigwig occupant of the convoy ahead. Chaim Lieberman, Israeli Ambassador to the United States.”

  “Shit,” said Gardner. “What the hell is he doing here?”

  “Probably a drop-in photo op thing, like I said,” answered Lockhart. “The Israelis are really ginning up their PR machine in this country. The word seems to be that the Muslims are finally going to quit fooling around with the various American occupation garrisons in their assorted countries and they’re going to launch some kind of mass offensive aimed at Israel, no one is quite sure how, but that’s the buzz. The Jews are worried, judging from the money they’re throwing around Washington, D.C. like it was confetti, and judging from the way the damned TV preachers are calling down the spirit for Israel even more than they ever have before. This is probably part of their campaign to pressure the United States into finally nuking Mecca.”

  “Jesus Christ,” muttered Gardner. “I’m not a Muslim, but even I know that will simply make any peace between us and them impossible, forever.”

  “I think that’s the idea,” said Lockhart dryly. “Make damned good and sure we can never call this madness off. Just like in Iraq, where our so-called advisors from the Mossad forced us to bury any hadjis we killed in pig skins, or failing that with bacon in their body bags, a deliberate insult to their religion, unforgivable. Then they flew off in their damned choppers and left us to face the rage and the hate of the rest of them. Speaking of choppers,” he picked up the radio, “Joe, are those copters still overhead?”

  “Yeah,” said Mohr.

  “Let me know if they move out and appear to be scouting out in some direction. That might give us a clue as to where they’re going.”

  “Got it.”

  “You know they call Lieberman the Butcher of Jericho?” ruminated Cat. “When he was a general in charge of the Jewish occupation on the West Bank, some kikes in a settlement got shot up real bad, and Lieberman decided to make an example of a whole Palestinian city, Jericho. You know, where the Bible says Joshua fit the battle and the walls come tumbling down, all that stuff? He cordons off the whole city in a night maneuver and then about four in the morning he sends over helicopters with feathered engines and drops gas bombs. Good old fashioned mustard gas. Thousands of people died in agony in their sleep, men, women
, children, babies, everybody. The ones who survived are all blind or their lungs are shot for life. Hillary actually called the Israeli prime minister to congratulate him on the bold strike against terror.” Lockhart sighed. “I’ve always felt bad about what we’ve done to those people. A lot of guys came back from the Middle East hating them all, mindlessly, and considering some of the things they did to us, the beheadings and all, I can understand that. But we started it, back in 1948 when we turned those filthy Jews loose on them and stole their land, and then we came again to steal their oil. I killed them, but I never hated them. They were just doing what even then I wished American white people would have the balls to do someday. I sure would like to take this kike down. My way of apologizing to all the people I hurt over there.”

  “When they get to where they’re going, will you take a shot?” asked Gardner eagerly.

  “Yeah, one way or the other, unless it’s just plain suicide for all of us.”

  “Looks like they’re turning off,” came Mohr’s voice from the cab. “Cornell Road exit.”

  “Now what?” wondered Cat. “Where the hell are they going?”

  Joe Mohr spoke on the radio. “Cat, good news and bad news. Bad news, there’s a Fattie roadblock at the top of the off ramp, and they’re going right through it. Good news, we have a couple of Apex pick-ups on Cornell and down on Thompson, and they’re on my trip sheet, so we ought to be able to talk our way through.”

  “Go for it,” said Cat-Eyes, deciding quickly. Mohr pulled off at the exit and the blue truck pulled into the line of cars at the top of the ramp, waiting to pass through the standard mobile checkpoint, which consisted of a portable, manually operated boom and about twenty FATPO officers in their dark blue, almost-black serge outfits and body armor, on both sides of the road. He reached back and pulled the row of suits and shirts on the rear rack closed; anyone looking in the back of the vehicle would see only garments in plastic on hangers and plastic bags on the floor. “Okay, Scott, get your weapon ready just in case anybody sticks his nose a bit too far back in here who should have kept his nose the hell out.” Lockhart took his M24 out of the clamps and chambered a round. Gardner took his own rifle out, a Steyr .30-06 hunting rifle with a scope, and did the same. This could be tricky, but Apex trucks were a familiar sight on the streets, and on any given day they would go through at least one FATPO or police checkpoint. They were almost never searched anymore, and on the rare occasions when they were, so far they had been carrying nothing but laundry. Mohr’s papers were all in order and he had made it past such checkpoints often before in the past week; he even knew some of the Fatties on his route by name now.

  Mohr didn’t know the captain who stepped up to his cab with his M-16 at the ready, a white man with a blank face and the deceptively polite tone of a policeman who was about to do something very bad. Nor did he know the three FATPOs who stood behind him in the cold drizzle, their weapons also at the ready. In both his side mirrors, Mohr could see more armed gun thugs moving around to the back of the truck. The captain said, “Sir, please turn off your engine and step out of the truck.”

  “Sure,” said Mohr with a shrug, “Let me get my trip sheet.” Mohr leaned over a little to his right to reach for his Browning Hi-Power automatic, and some instinct made him duck down just as one of the federals fired a rifle bullet into the cab, creasing his left shoulder and the left side of his face. Mohr floored the accelerator without even seeing where he was going, smashed through the portable roadblock boom, came up with the Browning in his right hand and managed to fire several shots at the scattered FATPOs as he roared down Cornell Road, swerving to avoid oncoming traffic and picking up speed, the truck wheels spinning on the slick asphalt. He could barely keep his wounded left arm steady on the steering wheel, and he had to set the gun down on the seat to pick up the radio to talk to the men in the back. “Cat, they’re onto us!” he yelled. “I don’t know how, but when I pulled up they all moved in on us locked and loaded!”

  “Yeah, I saw,” said Cat. “Are you okay, Joe?”

  “I’m hit in the left side somewhere, and my arm’s starting to hurt like hell, but I can still drive,” reported Mohr. “Do we bail?”

  “Those damned choppers!” said Cat with a curse. “No point in bailing with two copters to bird-dog us, plus they’re gunships and they’re probably about to blow us off the road! Joe, you’ve got to floor it and catch up with that convoy, get in among them so close the choppers won’t dare fire their rockets or chain guns for fear of hitting down into their own men! Then if you can get past them, head for that bird sanctuary up on Cornell here. That’s about four square miles of woods and we can at least find cover in the trees there and try and work our way out.”

  “That just gives us the Strykers to worry about,” said Mohr, who knew that their chances were now slim to none. “What that fuck? Hang on!” Mohr floored the accelerator and sent the truck hurtling down Cornell Road NW, passing slower-moving traffic like a madman, and within seconds he had the rear armored vehicle of the convoy in sight. He picked up the radio. “They may think we’re a truck bomb and run!” he yelled hopefully to Cat in the back.

  “Just don’t roll us over!” replied Lockhart grimly. “We got no seat belts back here.”

  The crew on the rear Stryker seemed to be napping, or else they were afraid to fire on a truck that might be full of explosives, because the blue truck caught up with the motorcade right in the intersection of Cornell and Skyline Boulevard, and the staff cars scattered like quail in a covey. There was no telling which one of them contained the Israeli ambassador. The lead Stryker raked the truck with a machine gun burst as it roared by, perforating the entire length of the vehicle and shredding some Portland citizens’ laundry, but by some miracle not hitting any of the Volunteers. Lockhart was watching the outside through the laptop. He picked up the radio. “Joe, we got an Apache closing in on us upstairs. We’re about ten seconds from getting a Hydra missile up our ass. We have to bail.”

  “I’m coming up on Thompson Road, that bird sanctuary is up on the hill to the right,” yelled Mohr. “I’m going to pull into that gas station up there and then we bail and run for it on foot. Maybe those FATPO assholes won’t fire rockets into anyplace crowded with civilians.”

  “Yeah, and maybe when they catch us they’ll give us cookies and milk. As soon as he stops we get those doors open and move out,” said Lockhart to Gardner. “We need to make it into the woods where they can’t watch us like bugs under a microscope from those choppers. Let’s just hope they don’t have infra-red tracking gear! We want to make the motherfuckers come in after us, up close and personal.”

  Mohr was wrong about the FATPOs exhibiting compassion and concern for civilian life. The Apache gunship rocketed the truck without compunction within seconds after it came to a halt. Lockhart and Gardner made it out of the vehicle; Mohr, who had to open the left hand driver’s door by reaching across with his right hand and climb down out of the cab without the use of his blood-soaked left arm, was a few seconds too slow. He was killed when the truck exploded into a million shards of metal and tatters of cloth. A second rack of Hydras, which the Apache seemed to fire just for the hell of it, detonated the gas tanks beneath the concrete. The ground thundered and a huge fireball billowed upward into the sky, a conflagration that killed twelve more people who had stopped for gas at the wrong place at the wrong time, or who worked at the station. But the explosion and the curtain of black smoke that rose into the air was able to keep the whirlybird off Lockhart and Gardner for almost a minute. When the copter spotted them again, both Volunteers were running up a low hill toward the tree line of the Portland Audubon Society’s bird sanctuary, rifles in hand.

  The Apache’s California-Asian pilot, Warrant Officer James Yee, had always wanted to be black. Even in his cockpit he wore a red Los Angeles Lakers baseball cap on his head, backwards. “Yeah!” he screamed. “Dass what I’m talking about!”

  Yee’s co-pilot, Warrant Officer Eddie Wi
lliams, really was a negro. The two of them had a running gag going. They liked to play “Rush Hour,” after a particularly moronic series of movies from a few decades before. “Man, when you get back to base will you look in a mirror?” Council demanded of his partner. “Read my lips, homes. You are not black!”

  “Shut up and let me fly this thing while you waste those crackers!” responded Yee.

  “My pleasure,” said Williams, opening up with the 30-millimeter chain gun and mangling one of the fleeing men, knocking Scott Gardner down and plowing dozens of rounds into him on the ground. “Yeah, yeah, how you like dat, racist muthafukka? How you like some o’ dat?” The Apache roared over the dead man. There was a loud clang inside the cockpit of the Apache, and Williams began to scream and scream like an animal. “Dey shot my dick off! Dey shot my dick off!” he shrieked, thrashing about in his seat like a spastic. Yee looked down and saw that his partner’s crotch was a sodden mess, spurting blood onto Williams’ flight suit and the seat. A bullet from Cat Lockhart’s rifle had been fired from the ground right into the underbelly of the helicopter, and it had indeed detached Warrant Officer Williams’ genitals. “Wheah my dick! Wheah my dick?” moaned Williams, fumbling on the ceiling and around the seat searching for his missing manhood. “Dey can put it back on, right, man, dey can re-attach my dick, huh?”

  Yee heard another clang as a second rifle bullet popped into the cabin, and he decided that the point had been reached when discretion was the better part of valor. He turned around and radioed, “Pilgrim, this is Cormorant One. Target destroyed, one terrorist down and one still in the wind. We have been hit and my co-pilot has been severely wounded. Returning to base.” They never did find Eddie Williams’ penis, but it didn’t matter. By the time Yee landed back at the FATPO air base at PDX, Williams had bled to death.

  The flight of Cormorant One gave Cat-Eyes Lockhart time to make it into the tree line of the bird sanctuary. Down below him he could see the FATPO convoy pulling up within a safe distance of the burning gas station, and he sighted in his rifle on them. Down below Ambassador Chaim Lieberman got out of the staff limousine. Lieberman was an Israeli of the old arrogant type, tall and lean and muscular, tanned, coiffed hair and movie-star good looks. Today he wore a neatly tailored Armani suit, but he looked even better in uniform with his shirt open, and he always took every opportunity to show off his hairy chest and make the shiksas at the U.N. and White House functions swoon.