A Mighty Fortress

by H. A. Covington

  The noise was beyond description, especially as in some way the DVD player on the radio station’s sound deck was hit or jostled, and the paranoid Paraguayans started to wail again for about the first thirty seconds until a bullet hit something, and their paranoia was silenced forever. The acoustics inside the mall echoed and re-echoed the gunfire until the whole structure of glass and steel and concrete was actually vibrating sonically and giving off a sound of itself, like a free hanging bell that has been struck hard and lingers. It was like being inside a thunderbolt, as hundreds of rounds went off. Cody fired and fired, his AK on semi-auto, and in the scrambling mass of bellowing and twirling enemies below he seemed to see that he got some hits, dust jumping on body armor, blood splattering, although who could tell who was really firing which bullets? His magazine emptied and his bolt locked back, and he saw one of the railings behind which he was kneeling pop and a small neat hole appear. The Fatties were shooting back.

  He and Jumping Jack Flash shoved an overturned table up against the railing to provide at least a little cover, and jammed new magazines into their weapons. “Do you see Nightshade?” he yelled at Jack, who pointed in a general downward direction. Cody rolled to the right, covered down behind the base of the railings, and risked a peek over the top. He saw bodies lying all over the floor, but none of the hostages seemed to be among them. Then motion caught his eye, and he saw Nightshade and the lesbian FATPO rolling together across the concourse floor, the dyke with her pistol out now and Emily’s left hand on her wrist trying to deflect the muzzle while she tried to stab with her right through a flak vest. The two women’s faces were glued together; they seemed to be kissing in an obscene parody of diversity.

  Cody grabbed up her field belt, tossed his arm through it and shouldered it, then picked up his own rifle in his right hand and Emily’s M-16 in his left. He got up and ran down the left-hand deck of the mezzanine, past the shops full of glittery junk and Third World trash and unnecessary plastic objects. The bullets were flying and ricochets screaming around him. When he got more or less over where he thought the two battling females might be, he heedlessly looked over the rail, and through some miracle his head stayed on his shoulders. Nightshade was below him, staggering to her feet in a daze. The dyke was lying on her back, completely still, with a blood-smeared face and a pool of blood growing and welling beneath her head. He dropped the field belt down at her feet and she looked up at him. “Get down, you damned fool!” he roared. She held up her hands, he held the M-16 out level, dropped it down, she caught it and dropped to the floor herself, and rolled behind a concrete pillar.

  An insane woodpecker the size of a skyscraper suddenly landed on the shopping mall and began to peck; the Russians down the concourse had unlimbered the machine gun. Ricochets were screaming like banshees. Cody ran for the midsection stairs. A wounded FATPO was staggering up the stairs, his M-16 barrel weaving in the air. Cody aimed above the flak vest and shot the black in the throat, a messy business. He dropped his M-16 and rolled down the stairs gaggling and gargling and grabbing his spurting shattered neck and jaw. Another FATPO was just charging up the first few stairs at the bottom. This one had somehow managed to get his full body armor on, as well as his helmet. Cody fired twice, hit the Fed dead center in his vest and staggered him back, but the FATPO nearly cut him in half with a burst from his Uzi.

  Cody leaped back off the landing onto the upper stairs and leveled his Kalashnikov in case he saw a helmeted head appear. I can’t go down and he can’t come up, thought Cody. A Mexican standoff, no pun intended. He ripped open a grenade cylinder on his belt, pulled out the grenade with his left hand, and pulled the pin with his teeth in the best Audie Murphy tradition. In direct contradiction to Eddie Hagen’s directions Cody slowly counted to three before he dropped it gently over the rail and let it bounce down the stairs. In the enclosed stairwell the blast knocked him off his feet and he slid down to the landing, banging his elbow and his head, but when he looked he saw the FATPO was a smoking mass of cloth and oozing blackened flesh. Cody leaped down the stairs over him. Heedless of the bullets that were whizzing around him like electrons, he ran to join Nightshade behind the pillar. She was firing semi-automatic shots calmly from the M-16, and did not acknowledge his presence. Cody leaned out looking for something to shoot at.

  Then suddenly it stopped. It was dim in the mall now, since so many of the lights had been shot out, an odd twilight as opposed to the neon glare of before. It wasn’t silence, since Cody’s ears were ringing like an oscillator, ear plugs or not, and his right ear hurt. He pulled the primitive earplugs out and the right one was soaked in blood. He peeped out and scanned the hall. He saw carnage. Every wall was pockmarked and battered, every piece of furniture was ripped and shredded to kindling, the potted plants and ferns both natural and artificial were chopped up into a powder like bay leaves and scattered all over the floor, and lumps of dead meat in cloth and body armor lay everywhere. And there was blood. A sea of blood, already an inch or so deep, mixed with water from the fountain whose pool had been perforated with bullets and was leaking out onto the floor.

  “Cody? Nightshade?” shouted Bells from above. “Are you alive? Do you see anything?”

  “We’re both here, sir,” he called back. “I don’t see anything moving.”

  “We’re coming down!” shouted Bells. “Hold your fire!”

  The Volunteers descended in pairs, with the Russians kept in place to cover them with the machine gun from the upper level. “Minchia!” said Bells, shaking his head in awe as he lit a White Owl. “It’s like the fucking St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago down here! Check every one of these bastards carefully,” he ordered, “If they’re still alive, get rid of them.” But not a single coup de grace was necessary. There had been more Fatties than the NVA thought at first, for they eventually counted an even sixty enemy bodies. Outnumbered by roughly three to one, the rebels had wiped the Federals out. Of the seventeen Volunteers, including Ted from Two Brigade, the security guard Glenn, and the two Bellevue police officers, not a single one was killed or wounded, although Cody’s right ear was bleeding slightly. “I thought I might have had a burst ear drum, but I can still hear okay out of it,” he told Bells, “Must be just a nick. Once the ringing stops I think it will be fine.” He saw Nightshade lean over and pull her switchblade out of the dead FATPO dyke’s eye, and wipe it clean on the corpse’s sleeve. He looked closely and saw that the woman’s nose had been bitten off. “You didn’t eat it, did you?” he asked her.

  “Naw,” she said. “I had one of those microwave burritos in the refrigerator before we left the house.”

  “You know, Bells took note of the fact that you didn’t kiss me goodbye before you left us up there,” he said, looking pointedly at the dead officer’s mutilated face. “Just so you know, in the future, don’t bother. By the way, where are all the hostages? We don’t seem to have killed any.”

  “Probably hiding in Dorfmann’s among the Fruit of the Looms,” she said. “I told them to try and make it in there when the band played Waltzing Matilda.”

  “Here they come,” said Cody. Farmer Brown and Thumper were leading the hostages out of Dorfmann’s Menswear. The woman who had been molested and stripped to the waist by the dyke had helped herself to a man’s shirt from the stock. They seemed to be in a daze. “This wonderful little girl told us what to do,” a middle aged woman said, crying as she came over and hugged Emily. “You—you look younger than my own daughter! Are you in middle school?”

  “Uh, no ma’am, eleventh grade,” said Emily.

  “Eleventh grade!”

  “We go to a really rough school,” Cody told her.

  One of the men said, shaking his head, “I never thought I would be glad to see any of you guys, but I—God, I don’t know what to think any more! I always considered myself to be a loyal American before tonight, but how can I possibly overlook what these government hoodlums did to me and these other innocent people? I just don’t understan
d. Things aren’t supposed to be this way, dammit!”

  “There comes a time when white people just can’t pretend any more,” said Bells. “For some people it comes later than others, is all. You heard the President’s speech tonight?”

  “Yes, we all watched in the Radio Shack.”

  “Well, even though it isn’t formally settled yet, we’re the government now,” said Bells.

  “But can you make that stick?” asked the man. “You heard what that police colonel was saying on the radio tonight?”

  Cody slapped the butt of his Kalashnikov. “Yes, sir,” he promised. “We’ll make it stick.”

  “Speaking of that asshole FATPO colonel, where is he?” asked Bells.

  “A good question,” said Jumping Jack Flash. Another search across the shattered mall and in the bandstand area produced no sign of any corpse of one Colonel Wendell Josephson. “The gallant colonel seems to have taken the better part of valor,” observed Jack dryly.

  “Okay, we got one more thing we gotta do,” said Bells. “We have to go out front and commandeer those FATPO vehicles, and drive ‘em to wherever we’re told by Brigade, hopefully without being fired on by any of our own ambushes. Now, I suspect that colonel has beat feet. But even Fatties probably leave a vehicle guard. They may have taken off as well, but we approach with caution and weapons ready. I’ll take point, with our Russian friends and their street sweeper. Eddie, you take three guys and stay here and police up all these Fattie guns and as much ammo as you can scrounge. We’re gonna bring back a whole goddamned Fed arsenal for the NVA. Farmer Brown brings up the rear with Cody and Nightshade. You guys have been up front enough today. Let somebody else get some glory for a change.”

  By this time it was completely dark outside. There were three camouflaged FATPO armored personnel vehicles and two Humvees parked under the line of street lights which ran along the sidewalk, pulled up along the curb, as well as an OD green military staff car which had presumably belonged to Colonel Josephson. All appeared to be empty. “Okay, one man check out each vehicle with another covering him,” said Bells. “Do not assume the Fatties are all gone, and watch for booby traps. We ain’t the only people who know how to set a spring switch or a wire.” It turned out that the APVs were all empty and clean.

  “Hey, Captain, each of these APVs has an M-60 and a 40-mil launcher!” called one of the Volunteers from the back of a truck.

  “Good, we’re gonna need those,” said Bells, puffing on his cigar.

  Moving around the staff car, Cody and Nightshade and Farmer Brown saw what appeared to be the body of Colonel Wendell Josephson stretched out on the ground, face down. “Hey, looks like we bagged that ATF asshole as well, Captain!” said Cody, turning to call over his shoulder to DiBella.

  “Where’s the blood?” asked Farmer Brown. “I don’t see a trail.” With a wild animal scream that could have been rage or terror, or both, Josephson rolled over, his Glock service pistol in his hand, firing wildly. Farmer Brown’s rifle flew from his hand and clattered to the asphalt, the receiver smashed by a bullet. He was between them and the Federal, and neither Cody nor Emily could fire. Josephson leaped to his feet and grabbed the stunned Farmer Brown, pistol barrel at Brown’s head, using him as a human shield. “Back off, you fascist bastards!” he shrieked hysterically. “I’ll kill him! I’ll…” Brown went down on one knee and wrestled with his attacker, grabbing at the pistol, which went off. He managed to throw the FATPO off him, slamming him against the staff car, freeing himself. Bells leaned over the hood of the car from the sidewalk and his arm shot out like a striking cobra, the .45 Colt blasting one, two, thee times, a column of flame roaring from the muzzle, bright golden cartridge casings soaring high and clattering onto the windshield. Josephson seemed almost to turn a back flip and collapsed in a heap onto the asphalt. Bells ran around and kicked the corpse again and again, shouting enraged obscenities.

  Farmer Brown leaned against the car. His left sleeve was already a mass of bubbling scarlet, and his left hand a bloody mass. Bells grasped him around the waist, lifted Brown up bodily onto the hood, and laid him back, ripping off his shirt to get rid of the soaked sleeve. Emily and Cody already had their first aid packs out. “Gimme your canteen!” Bells commanded them. He took Cody’s, opened it, and poured the water all over Brown’s bloody left hand.

  “It’s a Dick Tracy special, just brushed my shoulder,” moaned Brown.

  “Your shoulder ain’t hit, it’s your hand, it’s just your whole arm that’s goin’ numb. You’re gonna be okay,” said Bells. But he wasn’t going to be okay. The gaping wound was more than a brush; it had gone clear through his palm. The hole was pumping blood. Bells took both sterile gauze pads from their kits and pressed down on from both sides, making the wounded man groan. “Cody! Each of you have a small bottle of alcohol in your first aid kits. Take out your canteen cup, pass it around to everybody, and fill it up with alcohol to the brim. Donnie, this is going to hurt like the very fires of hell, but we have to stop that bleeding long enough to get you to a doctor. I’m gonna have to sterilize and plug you up long enough to get you help.”

  “I know the drill, Bob,” gasped Brown. “Get on with it.”

  “Gimme another gauze pad,” called Bells. Someone gave him one. He stuck it between the injured man’s teeth. “Bite down on this so you don’t bite off your own tongue. Now hold him down.” Cody, Emily, and one of the cops grasped Brown’s arms and legs. Bells took the alcohol. “Here it comes, Donnie.” Slowly he poured it into the bloody mess. Brown jerked and groaned but did not scream.

  “I should have been paying better attention. Like I told you once, Cody,” he said groggily. “This thing we do is like driving on the freeway. A single moment of inattention, and you get hurt.”

  “Okay, now we got to get you to a doctor,” said Bells.

  “Where’s Mary Beth?” asked Jack, referring to the nurse who served as A Company’s medic.

  “She’s back at the house in Medina and she’s set up, but this is going to be a bit beyond her,” said Bells. “That’s major trauma. Somebody’s going to have to X-ray it and check the damage and he’ll probably need some kind of cauterizing, and then that whole mess had to be packed. He needs an honest to God doctor who knows what to sew up and how, and he’s going to need a blood transfusion. Mary Beth may or may not have whole blood in Farmer’s type. We have to get him to a hospital, but that means we have to move in on one in force, take over the joint, and stay there guarding him while he’s treated, which is going to take a while. It also means we have to abandon all this Fattie gear.”

  “That’s just asking for trouble, Bells,” said one of the cops. “All the hospitals and clinics in Seattle are already running at full clip tonight with all this fighting going on, and there’s gonna be FATPO and cops all over them, on the lookout for people with unexplained gunshot wounds. Plus if the Fatties hear you guys have forced your way into some emergency room, they’re going to come after you in force, and this time you won’t be so lucky. You’ll have a pitched battle in a hospital with all kinds of sick and injured people getting in the way, which won’t look very good for you people propaganda-wise, and you won’t have the element of surprise this time. You won’t get off with just one wounded man if you do that. I thought you guys had secret hospitals in Canada?”

  “He needs help now, and he’s going to get it,” said Bells.

  Cody Brock spoke up. “Hey, do you guys know if the freeway bridge to Mercer Island is open?” he asked the policeman.

  “So far as I know, yeah,” said the cop. “Why?”

  Cody turned to Bobby Bells. “Sir, you and the unit go ahead and get these vehicles and weapons secured. The NVA need them. Give Farmer to me, and let me take Jack and Nightshade and the Cadillac. We’ll get him help. I know where there’s a doctor.”

  V.

  “Just because I was born in a sty,

  that doesn’t make me a pig.” – Cody Brock

  Jumping Jack Flash bro
ught the Cadillac around to the front of the mall. One of the Volunteers had gone into a drugstore in the mall and gotten bandages and more alcohol, and liberated some oxycodone tablets from the pharmacy, so the wound was bound up and Brown’s pain was somewhat alleviated. Then they gently loaded Farmer Brown into the back seat. He conscious and coherent. Bells was speaking to someone on his cell phone, and once Brown was in the car he closed the phone. “You keep in touch and you let me know what’s going on,” he told Cody. “Use my 2387 number. It will have to be in the clear, but fuck it. I just got off the phone with Brigade. There are running battles going on now all across Seattle between us and renegade Fatties. Lotta people hit on all sides, including bystanders. The cop was right about the hospitals. They’re madhouses, and there’s been some shooting in emergency rooms when both sides bring their wounded in.” Even as they spoke, Cody could hear the rattle of small arms and the occasional crump of a grenade in the distance. “Oh, there’s a password now. Ragnarok. That should get you past any of our people you come across who want to know why you’re riding around with guns. If they’ve been told about the password, that is. Now move out!” He leaned into the car. “Donnie, we got a job to do for the cause, or you know I’d take you myself. But these great kids of ours are gonna take care of you.”