A Mighty Fortress

by H. A. Covington

  “Okay, you need to get these guys down there and get them into the control room. Can you do that?”

  “I’ll do it, sir,” said the kid. The two Russian men gave their Kalashnikovs to Cody and Nightshade to hold, and laid down their ammo boxes with belts for the PKM.

  “We follow you, malchick,” said one of them. Moments later, when the camera had swung away, the door opened and Ted and the Russians, keeping low, slipped out. They made it behind the counter of the McDonald’s before the closed-circuit camera rolled back onto the court, and disappeared from view. They were out of sight for several minutes.

  “What the hell are they doing, chowing down on Big Macs?” muttered Bells in growing frustration as he peeped through the crack in the door. Then as the camera swung away the three of them re-appeared. Ted was carrying a tray stacked high with burgers and paper soft drink cups, as well as paper containers of fries. “Good thinking, kid!” said Bells with a nod. “They’ll think he’s bringing them the gift of junk food and let him in. Pass it back, this may break bad and Fattie may be warned, so everybody get ready to come out this door blasting, find yourself a firing position, and duke it out with these motherfuckers. Once we go in, we go all the way.” They made it to the rest room hallway and disappeared down it just as the camera swung back and covered the entrance. “Whew!” sighed Bells. Then there were long minutes of silence. Then four people, not three, emerged, keeping down but disregarding the still panning security camera. The fourth man was a uniformed security guard, a young white man with no hat and a bruise and bloody face, who was carrying a military-issue M-16 rifle. They made it back to the door to the outside staircase. “Well, how’d it go?” demanded Bells.

  “Is one neeger only,” said one of the Russians. “Grigori give pile-driver.”

  “Busted that nappy head open like a watermelon,” confirmed Ted, slightly green. He pointed to the rifle in the guard’s hands. “That’s the Fattie’s Sixteen.”

  The security guard said, “My name is Glenn Dane. Ted has explained what’s going on. My partner Randy is back at the control room, he’ll watch and if he sees any of them coming up here, he’ll call me on my radio. I want to come with you and join the NVA. That porch monkey slammed his rifle butt into my face and his buddies maced Randy and kicked him when he was down. Broke a couple of ribs but he can function. Let’s do it. Do I have to take an oath or something? I’ve goddamned had it with being bullied and terrorized by these scum!”

  “Haven’t we all, son?” asked Bells. “You’re in if I say you’re in, and I say you’re in unless you fuck up. Welcome aboard, don’t fuck up, and now you do what you’re told. Good work, droogs. Pick up your rifles and get ready to dance. Okay, now we all go out, me first, and I’ll place you guys where I want you.”

  “That damned floor is going to be slick,” said Cody.

  “Well, you won’t have to worry about slipping in anything, because we’re going to low-crawl into position so they don’t see us,” said Bells. He turned to the rest of them behind him in the stair well. “Pass this down. We can’t let them see us. We all need to get down on the floor and crawl out. We got about eighteen inches of what looks like concrete, probably encasing a steel girder that can stop bullets, at the bottom of those railings that overlook the main floor. That should be enough to prevent ourselves from being seen, and it should also give us some cover when we open up. I want us to get into position so when I give the signal we can sweep the goddamned ground floor.”

  “You can command about half of it from here, sir,” said Ted, “But there’s a kind of bridge or crosswalk about fifty yards down, and if you want to cover the entire area you’ll have to put some guys on that. It will take some time to get into place.”

  “Then we’d better get started,” said Bells. “Oh, Christ, what’s that smell? Is that what I think it is?”

  Ted nodded. “After they got through trashing the food court they used the floor as a toilet. I think they wanted to give us pale people a lesson in the joys of diversity and multi-culturalism.”

  Bells raised his voice. It didn’t matter; he could barely be heard in the stairwell over the din from the raving thugs inside the mall. “Guys, I’m sorry, but we gotta crawl through these animals’ shit and piss. Literally.”

  “It isn’t the first time, sir,” replied Cody. “We’ve been crawling through their excrement for years.”

  “Yeah, but tonight will be the last time!” said Bells in a ringing voice. “Okay, we take it slow and stay down. I’ll go first and you all follow, one at a time, on your bellies, low. I’ll position you where I want you. You cops, get up here.” The two policemen mounted the stairs. “Look, I don’t want those people hiding in the food court panicking when they see us and all these guns, and maybe drawing the Fatties’ attention up here, so I want you to come out after me and get over there behind the counters. If they see your uniforms hopefully they’ll understand we’re the good guys tonight. They’re used to obeying you, and more likely to do what you tell ‘em than me. I’m putting you in charge of getting them out safely. Once we’re out of this stairwell, I’m going to need you to low-crawl the civilians over to this door, then they book down the stairs. I’ll call down and tell my two guys I left on our vehicles that they’re coming out. Okay?”

  “Got it,” replied one of the cops.

  The boy Ted spoke up. “Uh, sir, I was just here earning my minimum wage crust flipping burgers when all this broke out, so I’m not strapped. Can I get a rifle from you?”

  “You ever actually pulled a trigger in anger, kid?” asked Bells skeptically.

  “Gotta learn sometime,” said the boy. “I was trained on the AK-47, though. My Dad brought one home from Iraq and he let us fire it.”

  “These are 74s, but it’s more or less the same. Here, you can have mine.” Bells handed him the rifle and several magazines. “You got one up the spout and the safety’s on. Stick those mags one each in your back pockets, so they don’t rattle, although that probably don’t matter with all that boogie-woogie down there. Okay, let’s do this thing.” Bells dropped down on his substantial gut, stubbed his cigar stump out on the floor, and slithered out the door. He peeked around the corner, saw no hostiles, and crawled to the edge of the abutment looking down onto the main floor. On his way he paused to pick up a metal napkin dispenser and pull out a handful of paper napkins. He peeped over cautiously, studied the situation for a moment, and then beckoned. The two policemen followed, one cradling a shotgun and one the tear-gas launcher. They headed for the long row of junk food counters. Several of the people who were hiding behind upturned tables looked up and saw them, and the cops put fingers to their lips.

  One by one the NVA Volunteers snaked out of the door and Bells pointed to where he wanted them. He handed each one a paper napkin and said, “Tear this in two, chew the pieces into a gooey ball, and stick them in your ears as earplugs. When we start shooting in here the noise will be so loud it could break your eardrums.”

  Several Volunteers took up prone firing positions at the edge of the railing, lying flat behind the base beam. The Russians with their light machine gun he sent on a long crawl down the causeway to the bridge or crosswalk that spanned the chasm of the main mall. “Don’t go out into the middle,” he told them. “That will put you in our line of fire, and even though we’ll be shooting downward there will be ricochets that might hit you. Hole up along the left wall there and wait for it to begin. Once the shooting starts, they’re going to take cover behind whatever they can find and return fire up here. I want you to run down to that yogurt stand on the far left there.” Bells pointed. “That’s far enough down so that you will be able to turn the machine gun on them more or less from their rear. Those you don’t kill, see if you can force them out of cover for us, and try not to hit any of our own people once we get down there and close in. You getting all this? I mean, your English OK?”

  “We understand, Comrade Captain,” Ivanovich assured him. “We were all in
Chechnya. We remember how this is done. We can, what is word, wing it?”

  “Yeah, that’s the word.” He gave them their paper napkins and the Russians moved out, flat and quick on their stomachs, Ivanovich carrying the PKM and the others with their assault boxes on their backs. Bells kept Cody and Emily beside him. “Take a look,” he invited. “Carefully.” They both risked a peek over the abutment, down into the main mall.

  It had been trashed even more thoroughly than the upstairs. The plate glass windows of most of the stores were riddled with bullet holes, although few were actually shattered since most were made of safety glass. The walls and windows had been spray-painted with anti-racist slogans and obscenities, including FUCK THE REPUBLIC, FIGHT THE FACISTS (sic) and NO SURRENDER TO RACISM. There were, as nearly as Cody could tell, about forty members of the Federal Anti-Terrorist Police Organization strolling, dancing, or lounging around on the upholstered mall benches, lazily cradling in their laps or on their hips M-16 assault rifles, Uzi submachine guns, and a few 5.56-millimeter Steyr AUG assault weapons as well, deadly plastic things, half rifle and half submachine gun. Several of them were lording it over a small, bedraggled circle of fourteen or fifteen white people of all ages and both sexes on the floor, who sat cross-legged with their hands clasped behind their heads, their faces hung down in shame and fear. Several of the white females had black or Mexican FATPO officers bending over them, talking to them, thrusting their hands down the womens’ blouses or lower. Cody could hear one prisoner sobbing and cursing her tormentor hysterically, a white FATPO officer who was also a woman, and who had already pulled off the captive’s blouse and brassiere.

  The floor was covered with trash and debris and a growing layer of empty beer cans and wine bottles. There was a large plywood bandstand in the middle of the floor with a WKPR banner, and beside it was a white sound van which had been brought into the mall with the WKPR lettering and logo on the side. On the stand was a table with some radio mikes and gear, and in the seat was a hapless white disc jockey surrounded by uniformed FATPO officers. His face was bloody where he had been beaten and he seemed only semi-conscious. The FATPOs up on the bandstand were all black or Hispanic, and it seemed that a drunken argument was breaking out over what kind of music to play on the speakers, which was presumably also being broadcast over the air by the radio station. Suddenly the bawling negroid rap song was cut off and replaced by lilting and very loud salsa music, with Spanish lyrics being sung by what appeared to be a trio of castratos.

  “Aw, come on, Ruiz, what de fuck is dat shit?” bawled a black FATPO, hatless, who was guarding the white prisoners.

  “Hey, man, dass Los Tres Paragueños Paranoios,” yelled back Ruiz. “Dass some good mellows, essay!”

  “Dat’s beaner shit, is what dat is, muthafukka!” yelled the black.

  “Who you callin’ a beaner, man?” demanded Ruiz. “We supposed to be defendin’ dis country against dat kind of racist bullshit, essay!”

  “If they’re expecting us to come out and fight them, they aren’t taking much in the way of precautions, are they?” asked Cody. “Just one guy watching the cameras, tucked away up here? What the hell’s wrong with them? They’re supposed to be soldiers!”

  “Sheer fuckin’ arrogance,” said Bells in disgust. “They honest to God don’t think we’ll come after them in a stand-up fight. These assholes have been ruling the roost in this country so long that they can’t wrap their minds around the concept of white people who aren’t afraid of them.”

  While the argument over the evening’s musical program progressed, Emily turned to Cody. “The Three Paranoid Paraguayans?” she asked in wonder. “Who the hell are they?”

  “Didn’t anybody tell you?” replied Cody. “They’re the three guys we’re all out to get. That’s why they’re paranoid.”

  “Shut up and let me think!” snapped Bells. “How the hell are we gonna do this without getting those white people slaughtered in the crossfire?”

  “Well, for one thing, no grenades,” said Cody.

  “The police procedure manual says that in a hostage situation you’re supposed to surround the scene with overwhelming force and then try and talk them out,” said one of the cops, who had joined them where they lay, heads down, on the polished concrete floor.

  “I won’t dignify that with an answer,” growled Bells. The salsa music was abruptly cut off and was replaced by an old soul classic, James Brown, Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud. A number of Spanish accents raised in shouted protest.

  “Sir, I don’t see any way,” said Cody. “We just open up and hope to God those people have sense enough to roll under any kind of cover they can find.”

  “Captain,” whispered Emily, “If they knew what was coming, they might at least be not caught by surprise and they could plan what to do. They could run into Dorfmann’s and hide in the coat racks or something.”

  “And how do we warn them?” demanded Bells.

  “I can go down there on my own and try and get close and tell them,” said Nightshade. “It’s a zoo down there, complete with a cage full of baboons. They won’t pay much attention to one more skinny little white girl. I could get myself captured and get thrown into their circle, then once that happens, give me a couple of minutes. When I’ve done the best I think I can to warn them, I’ll take this rolled-up Balaclava off my head as a signal, you guys start blasting, and I’ll herd as many of them as I can into making a break for Dorfmann’s.”

  “And that will put you at ground zero when all hell breaks loose!” hissed Cody.

  “I’ll be okay if you turkeys up here just won’t shoot at me, and keep those Fatties’ heads down so they don’t shoot me,” she said.

  Bells sighed. “Do it,” he said.

  “Jesus, Bells!” protested Cody.

  “Do it,” Bells repeated, ignoring him. Nightshade took off her field belt and pulled all her M-16 magazines out of her pocket, and without a word slithered off around the corner to make for the nearest staircase. “She didn’t even give you a goodbye kiss,” commented Bells.

  “That’s not funny, sir,” said Cody.

  “No, it’s not,” he agreed. “Make yourself useful, troop. Go up and down the line here, tell the rest of them what’s happening, and tell them to wait for me to get up and fire first. They’re going to have to get up, site in, select a target, and fire fast before the Fatties can break out of their drunken stupor down there and start taking cover and firing back. And tell them do not shoot the chick in the blue plaid shirt.”

  By the time Cody crawled back to his position beside Bells and peeped slowly and carefully through a drain pipe he’d found that gave him a restricted view of the floor, the salsa music was back on and the dispute between the black and Mexican FATPOs on the bandstand was becoming heated and raucous, with some serious shoving and getting into faces. He was amazed to see that Nightshade was now part of the circle of prisoners, squatting with her back to them, fingers interlocked on the back of her head. “How did she do it?” he asked in wonder.

  “Rastus went up on the bandstand and started shoving that Mexican around who took off his nigger music to play paranoid Paraguayan music instead, and there was a squabble over what DVD to put in, and it distracted them all for a moment,” said Bells. “Including the dyke who was pawing that poor broad’s tits. Nightshade just slipped out of nowhere and joined the circle.” Cody looked again, and he could see Emily leaning over towards the man on her left, no doubt whispering to him.

  “And none of them noticed?” he asked incredulously. “My God, these fools are incompetent!”

  “Holy Mother, look at the bastards! They’re drunk out of their minds! Half of them aren’t even wearing their body armor! This will be shooting fish in a barrel!” said Bells.

  A white FATPO officer with a buzz cut, apparently a senior one, suddenly appeared on the bandstand and settled the dispute among his men with a few sharp words. The salsa music cut off and the man picked up the microphone and
began to speak. “This is Colonel Wendell C. Josephson of the Federal Anti-Terrorist Police Organization, and I have something to say to you people out there in radio land. More importantly, I have something to say to the politicians in Washington. For almost all of my life, I have fought as a proud Amurrican soldier in the war on terror, in Iraq and Iran, in Saudi Arabia and Syria and Egypt. For almost five years now, I have battled against terror here in the Pacific Northwest, first as an agent for the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms enforcement division, and then as an officer in FATPO. I have had the privilege of commanding some of the finest young men and women that America has to offer in this battle, many of whom are with me here tonight in the Eastgate Mall here in Bellevue. I have also had the painful duty of bringing many of them back to their stations dead. More times than I can count, I have had to write e-mails to the parents and families of my boys and girls, telling them how a beloved son, daughter, husband or wife or significant other died in action against the wicked and cowardly forces of racism and hatred and bigotry, not in a foreign land, but here in our own country. Like all of us here in the ‘PO, we undertook this risk willingly and without thought for our own lives, because Amurrica called and we could do no other than to answer. We served Amurrica faithfully and with honor and courage, and we will continue to do so. But tonight we heard something on television, from the very lips of our Commander in Chief, which has so horrified and appalled us, that I simply could not restrain this brave band of brothers, and sisters…”

  The colonel ranted on in red, white, and blue. Through his vantage point via the drainpipe, Cody could see that the lesbian FATPO officer had suddenly noticed Emily. She strode over, muscular and with a haircut so short as to be almost a crew cut. She looked down at the girl, grabbed the woolly pea cap off her head, and shook it out. The knitted eyeholes and mouth seam of the Balaclava appeared. There could be very little excuse for wearing such headgear in July. The FATPO started fumbling with her holstered pistol and turned to shout a warning to the others. Seated as she was, Nightshade didn’t try to get up, which would have wasted precious seconds and gotten her killed. Her right wrist twirled, Cody could see a glint as the switchblade leaped out and locked into place, then she drove it right into the dyke’s meaty inner thigh. Then quick as a striking snake she slashed to the left kneecap. The woman screamed in bestial rage and fell on the girl in the blue plaid shirt. “NVA!” roared Bobby Bells, leaping to his feet. “NOW!” For a brief fraction of a second the stunned FATPOs looked up and saw a dozen leveled weapons aimed at them over the railings above them, and then the mall exploded.