A Mighty Fortress

by H. A. Covington

  The tone of the main meetings ranged from the icily correct to practically barroom brawl. O’Connell attended the sessions as nominal chair, and made valiant but usually ineffective attempts to control and direct them, and stifle the more dangerous shouting matches before guns were drawn. These usually took place between John Corbett Morgan and Howard Weintraub, each whom clearly wanted the other dead, but sometimes between Morgan and Brubaker, McCausland and Weintraub over Biblical subjects, Gair and Brubaker, and once Stepanov and Weintraub both blew up and cursed and railed at one another in Russian. Jeanette Galinsky had for some reason developed an almost frantic aversion to Jane Chenault, who did the daily media briefings for the NVA delegation, and went out of her way to call her the shiksa and “Blondie.” The rest of the delegation retaliated by making sure the media got hold of “Mommy Dearest,” to her fury. Galinsky and Barrow had a couple of extremely cold and nasty exchanges, but the Senator seemed completely terrified of Morgan, and of Andrei Stepanov as well, which was odd because Stepanov was generally the most Continental and courtly courteous of the NVA team. “Genetic memory of Cossacks,” said Stepanov with a shrug.

  Whenever Emily Pastras was present in the conference room, Cody kept catching Susan Horowitz giving her a calculating once-over, and that bothered him. He mentioned this and Nightshade told him “Yeah, I picked up on it. She takes this running joke about us being a hot item seriously. She’s going to try something, and when she does I’ll cut her.”

  “Well, I don’t know why she…” fumbled Cody.

  “I can guess,” said Emily, looking at him. “Forget about it. Now’s not the time and place.” Cody agreed and changed the subject.

  One major thing that was accomplished during the first week was the creation of the subcommittees, the important ones being the territorial and border committee and the prisoner release committee. Cody wasn’t on either one, but Jane Chenault was on prisoners with a special brief to get as many Canadians sprung as she could, and Barrow himself headed the boundary committee on the Northwest side, so Cody got to sit in on that one, which was actually much more productive and civil than the main conference since the American delegates were Stanhope and Lodge, both of who were firm and slippery negotiators but who at least didn’t rant and rave, and who took the matter seriously. To Barrow’s relief and astonishment, it was Stanhope who said, “Let’s start from the premise that we’re not going to worry about the outcome of the substantive negotiations or what form of autonomy might apply in the parts of the United States we’ll be discussing. Let’s quantify rather than argue about how many terrorists can dance on the head of a pin in Spokane and how many in Redding, California. I think it’s obvious, General Barrow, that you will want as much land as possible, while we wish to concede as little as possible. That being taken as a given, let’s see what we can come up with as if we’re performing some academic exercise in demographic economy or political science.”

  “I’m amazed at how easy the border subcommittee is going,” Barrow reported to one of the delegation’s internal briefings, shaking his head in wonder. “I can’t understand it. I thought that this would be the main show itself, that they’d be argue and reject and quibble until the cows come home, that every square foot of land would be like pulling teeth. But they didn’t bat an eye about the three basic states, they graciously accepted our concession of Alaska and threw us Wyoming as a consolation prize!”

  “You ever been to Wyoming, sir?” asked Gair.

  “Now we’re bobbing and weaving over how much of Montana and northern California we get,” said Barrow, shaking his head. “I think Jeff Anderson is right. This has to be some kind of gull! They have to have something up their sleeve.”

  “Any progress at all on freeing any of Canada, sir?” asked Jane Chenault.

  Barrow sighed. “Jane, I’m more sorry than I can say, but no. They won’t even discuss it. They say they haven’t got the authority to negotiate away someone else’s country, and I have to admit, they have a point. The Canadian government just refused yet again, point blank, to send even so much as an observer here, much less a plenipotentiary. Looks like that one glimpse of the Prime Minister on the big screen telling us to piss off is about all we’re going to get. Comrade, the best I can tell you is that our neighbor to the north goes on this new country’s permanent to-do list and someday Canada will be free as well as us. But it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen here.”

  Cody Brock was assigned to the standards subcommittee, which consisted of himself, Olaf Olafsson and Lisa Napolitano, and some American bureaucrats whose main object seemed to be that the Northwest Republic didn’t go onto the metric system. “That’s actually more important than it sounds,” explained Red Morehouse to Cody in a phone briefing. “It’s an economic issue. Who will the Republic be importing most of its technical and mechanical goods from, the United States or Europe?”

  “Well, hopefully, we’ll be manufacturing them, not importing them,” replied Cody.

  “I agree, but let’s not mention that to the Americans, shall we?”

  “What should we push for, sir?” asked Cody. “As much as you can tell me on these phones?”

  “We’re going to be getting a lot of new arrivals from Europe, fleeing their own unrestricted Third World immigration,” said Morehouse. “We already are, in fact, mostly young men who want to fight. The NDF has two fledgeling German divisions now and one British, including a corps each of ANZACs and South Africans, and the French-speaking Charlemagne Division is on the drawing board. My inclination is hold out for as much metric as you can get, but let them talk you back to miles instead of kilometers and Fahrenheit instead of Celsius, which is a better temperature scale anyway. This is so they can show some gain to match against our holding out on the substantive issues. It’s a sideshow. But I think it’s a damned good sign that they even want a standards agreement. It shows they’re serious and they’re envisioning trade and economic relations with a new nation.”

  In between the arguments, Barrow and Stanhope and occasionally Barrow and Oliver Lodge actually managed to conduct a passably civil dialog on substantive issues, but not one very long on progress. Morehouse had been correct in his assessment of Oliver Lodge. When the man of big business did speak he did so quietly, briefly, and to the point, and all the others shut up and deferred to him. “They’re stalling for time,” Barrow told Morehouse in a phone conversation made through a scrambling attachment Doc Doom had cooked up, which they hoped worked. “That’s the only way I can figure it. But why? Time is on our side. Every day the NDF assumes command in more and more of the Pacific Northwest and the Homeland becomes more and more of a reality on the ground. What the hell are they playing at? Why don’t they wind it up, one way or the other?”

  “Could it be you’re reading too much into them?” asked Morehouse. “Could it be that the United States really honestly does not have a plan for a situation like this? I’ve always believed that we always overestimated ZOG’s competency. Frank, these people have always thought maybe ten minutes ahead, on a good day. Their entire style of government has been crisis management, staggering from crisis to crisis. Maybe they’ve finally reached a crisis that they just plain don’t know how to handle, and they’re just keeping the balls in the air waiting for the flying saucers to come down out of the sky and land on the White House lawn.”

  What the sessions boiled down to was the Americans trying to browbeat, seduce, or bullshit the NVA into making concessions on just about every front having to do with the substance of political and economic independence, and Barrow shooting them down every time and countering with demands for more prisoner release. Completely off his own bat, and drawing on his best legalese from his police and house-buying days, the night before coming down to Longview Barrow had drawn up a simple six-point document, which he had cleared with Morehouse beforehand:

  Agreement for Disengagement,

  Mutual Recognition, and Non-Belligerence Between

 
; the United States of America and the Northwest American Republic

  1. The following plenipotentiary treaty between the United States of America and the Northwest American Republic shall be legally binding on both participatory governments, from the date of signature by the delegations assembled at Longview, Washington, and unless and until full ratification by the participatory governments is specifically denied or rejected, shall have the force of international law.

  2. The United States of America shall recognize the Northwest American Republic as a fully independent and sovereign nation, to be reserved specifically for the habitation, protection and interest of the non-Jewish, Caucasian peoples of the world, of the race historically known as Aryan or Indo-European, and shall respect the territorial integrity and sovereignty thereof.

  3. The United States of America shall withdraw all military, paramilitary, law enforcement, administrative and governmental forces from the territory of the Northwest American Republic, within fourteen (14) days of the signing of this instrument, said territory to be determined by the duly assigned subcommittee of the conference now convened at Longview, Washington.

  4. The signatory parties shall agree that no indemnification or compensation for loss and damages sustained by any and all persons or institutions during the hostilities leading to the independence of the Northwest American Republic shall be demanded, paid, or discussed save by a joint commission of the two participatory governments to be convened at a later date mutually agreed upon.

  5. The participatory parties agree within one (1) year of the signing of this instrument to establish a Border Commission to determine the final and recognized boundaries and frontiers of the Northwest American Republic.

  6. The respective military and paramilitary forces of the two participatory governments shall maintain a complete ceasefire during the withdrawal phase of this agreement, and shall refrain from any and all acts of hostility towards one another during the period preceding ratification thereof.

  At the bottom of this document were signature blocks for the five NVA primary negotiators and the five primary American negotiators. Barrow had Emily print this document out in two copies on nice heavy, creamy parchment and encased in a couple of document holders, one copy for them and one for the Americans, and all of the NVA negotiators signed both copies of the impromptu treaty and had the hotel’s notary affix her seal to each signature. Then Barrow periodically shoved the papers under the Americans’ noses and demanded they sign, to which they reacted like vampires confronted with a crucifix.

  A major problem was none of the NVA people being able to set foot outside the South Wing without getting mobbed by reporters wanting comments on everything, inside information on what was going on in the conference meetings, and in-depth interviews of the “Portrait of a Hater” kind. The stress and the cabin fever started to grow almost immediately. Barrow told his people, “Look, comrades, we’re shut in together and as comfortable as these surroundings are, we’re going to start getting on one another’s nerves. Be aware of it, be aware of what’s causing it, learn not to sweat the little stuff, and let’s make an agreement not to start snapping and crabbing at one another. This is a great adventure and something you’re going to tell your grandchildren about. Make a decision that you’re going to enjoy it!”

  In August, when the weather was still warm, the hotel agreed to work out a schedule with the peacekeepers between the two sides governing the use of the facilities such as the golf course, the tennis courts, the fitness room and sauna, and the outdoor and indoor swimming pools, but the media proved impossible to restrain or interdict, stalking the NVA delegates with telephoto lenses and trying to phone them and sneak into the rooms. On several occasions reporters were nearly shot by Volunteers on guard duty on their floor, and on one occasion Doctor Doom, of all people, lost his temper with one blowsy newshen and jabbed her with a homemade electric cattle prod of his own design he had taken to carrying. One supermarket tabloid paid a paparazzi photographer $100,000 for a surreptitious picture of Jane Chenault in a swimsuit by the supposedly closed outdoor pool, which the photographer had taken at some risk to life and limb. “That’s twice my Domestic Terrorist bounty, eh!” she protested indignantly, waving the offending newspaper in a team meeting.

  “Uh, it gets worse, Jane,” said Barrow sympathetically. “According to a talk I had with Red this morning, a national so-called sophisticated men’s magazine is offering $250,000 for pictures of you or Lisa or Emily in the nude.”

  “Yeeeewww!” said Cody, staring at Nightshade in disgust and receiving a one-finger salute in return.

  “Not me?” asked Mabel McCausland. “I don’t know whether to be pleased or insulted.”

  “My understanding is that the offer applies as well Ms. Horowitz and some of the American secretaries, and the female hotel staff. They want to do a spread called Ladies of Longview.”

  “For $250,000 Leah will strip off in a heartbeat,” said Cody sourly.

  Corby Morgan was scowling in rage. “Frank, you sure it wouldn’t be a good idea to just say to hell with all this, and go back to blowing these bastards’ brains out?”

  “I think this may go beyond ordinary tabloid sleaze,” Barrow told them. “It may be some kind of government plot to cause us embarrassment, throw us off, make us lose our cool. I think a lot of you gals, and I am going to be very angry indeed if any of you are humiliated in such a manner. John C., I think we can find some way to make it clear to those reptiles that these particular ladies of Longview have a lot of friends on the outside, and if anything of the kind happens the parties responsible aren’t going to be around long enough to spend that two hundred and fifty Gs.”

  “I’m on it,” said Morgan.

  “Do you think they’d go so far as to bug our bathrooms and showers, sir?” asked Jane Chenault wearily.

  “Stanhope and Lodge assure me privately that the bathrooms aren’t bugged or monitored, that their people do have that much decency,” replied Barrow. “Do they? I don’t know. We’ve been fighting these people for five years, they are capable of murder and torture in every form, and I have never noted any particular signs of any decency at all. I don’t think they’d stick at watching us on the crapper. But to be frank, other than trust in Doctor Doom’s electronic wizardry, there’s just not too much we can do about it.”

  Whether Nightshade was present or not in the sessions, if Cody had his laptop, which he usually did, they spent a lot of time instant messaging one another. The Federals never objected to this practice, so the two of them assumed that the IMs were bugged and made it a point to include various scatological and libelous comments about the enemy negotiators. Cody and Nightshade were actually well known around the hotel, because to their chagrin, the media picked up on the two of them almost immediately. It seemed that FBI intelligence had finally caught up with them, put two and two together regarding Emily’s alleged kidnapping on Capitol Hill in June, updated their files, and passed the information on to their tame journalists. A week after the conference began Cody and Emily came into the morning briefing and found everyone poring over copies of the latest Newsweek magazine. “Hey, Em, you’re a cover girl now!” a grinning Doc Doom told her. There was with a blowup photo of the two of them in uniform on the cover of the magazine, taken with a telephoto lens as they debarked down the helicopter ramp on the first day, with the headline “THE NVA’S KILLER KIDZ.” Inside, the cover story was headed “NATURAL BORN KILLERS” with more photos of them from the press conference, labeled Deadly Nightshade and Wild Bill. “Wild Bill?” asked Lieutenant Waters.

  “It’s better than Raging Psychopath from the Hills,” said Morgan sulkily, looking at his own photo in the same issue.

  “That’s actually my name,” said Cody. “My Dad liked cowboys. William Cody Brock, which would actually make me Buffalo Bill, but these idiots don’t seem to know the difference between Bill Cody and Bill Hickock, whose real name was James, by the way. Wait until they pick up on Doctor Doo
m.”

  “I’d rather they didn’t,” said Barrow in some irritation. “Doc needs to stay beneath the radar.”

  The main story in Newsweek featured a not wholly inaccurate account of the Country Joe Krajewski hit, a somewhat less accurate retelling of the events in Eastgate mall, and an almost totally fabricated account of Cody’s stabbing of Larry Sapirstein. It also mentioned that Emily Pastras’s grandmother had been euthanized under the Senior Citizens’ Quality of Life Act. “This is like Mark Twain said. I could go over this story with a divining rod and never find myself. No doubt I have Leah-Susan to thank for this,” sighed Cody. He turned to Nightshade. “I’m sorry, comrade. Looks like you got caught in a shitstorm aimed at me.”

  “Well, Mom had to find out sometime,” said Emily with a shrug. “I suppose I’d better call her.”

  “Uh, yeah, I think so,” agreed Cody. When Emily went out of the room to use the phone in the hall, he followed her. “Em, I didn’t know about your grandmother. I’m sorry.”

  “Hey, I told you once, I have a story like everyone else,” she said with a shrug.

  “Look, I don’t want to pry and it’s none of my business, but how did that happen?” asked Cody. “You guys were rich, right?”

  “After my father died, I had a stepfather too, for about a year,” said Emily in a dead voice.