A Mighty Fortress

by H. A. Covington

  “No, not at all, General,” said Lodge. “I never thought you were dumb. Anyone who can force the United States of America to even consider some of the things we have discussed at this conference isn’t stupid. We know that, even if some of our colleagues of the Hebrew faith might not entirely grasp it. There’s a lot of things they don’t grasp.”

  “Like the coming to an end of their world?” asked Barrow.

  “That’s definitely something they don’t grasp,” agreed Lodge. “The Jews are a very ancient people and they have survived a lot, but this has led them to believe that they will survive forever. But time marches on, even for them. I and the men I do business with understand that now, Frank. You and your crew have made us understand it. It is not a lesson we have enjoyed learning, but we have learned it. You seem to think that articles 83 through 85 are some kind of insult or attempt to do you in or enslave you. They are not. They are actually an admission on our part that you have won. You didn’t read them right. We weren’t shutting you and your gunmen out, we were letting you in. Giving you something you would never have had in a million years if you hadn’t done what you did. We are offering you a cut. I don’t mean you personally. I wouldn’t insult you by offering to bribe you. But your Party, your new government, your new nation—you get a cut, a cut that you can use to do anything you want. Build a thousand statues to Adolf Hitler if you want. Create your ideal White Homeland. Whatever you want to do.”

  “Of course, by accepting this cut we also acknowledge that it’s your pie to divide,” said Barrow. “It isn’t. Never mind, I see you still can’t hear the word no. Probably you never will be able to. I suppose you’re constitutionally incapable of it. On another subject entirely, let me ask you something, Mr. Lodge. Have you men in the suits and the corporate board rooms decided to finally dump Israel? When the Arabs attack next year and Israel frantically calls to the U. S. for help, are they finally going to get an answering machine?”

  “Mmmm, well, I’m just a businessman and I wouldn’t know anything about that, of course…” Barrow waved his hand.

  “I think we can take all the disclaimers as read, Mr. Lodge.”

  “Okay, disclaimers having been read, Israel was an interesting experiment, an experiment which after a century the world needs to admit has failed,” said Lodge. “An attempt to bring the Sidewalks of New York to the land of the Bedouin and the mosque. The British originally offered Palestine to the Jews in 1917 with the Balfour Declaration. It was a bribe in order to induce them to change sides during World War One and stab Germany in the back, as your Adolf Hitler so presciently observed. It was never intended to be taken seriously, but the Jewish people have always produced a high percentage of neurotic obsessives, and a lot of them did take it seriously. Its original strategic purpose from the free world’s point of view, or the capitalist world if you will, was as a forward airfield and an outpost in a largely Soviet-controlled region. That purpose hasn’t been valid for well over a generation, and eventually we ended up having to go in and conquer that part of the world ourselves at great expense after all, in order to secure our oil supply.”

  “Your oil supply?” interjected Barrow with a bemused chuckle. “My God, you honest to God don’t get it, do you?”

  Lodge disregarded him. “In the long run, that little colony proved to be more trouble than it was worth. Sometimes one simply has to do that, admit you’ve made a bad investment and let it go. When you think about it, dumping a few million Jews down into the middle of a sea of hostile Arabs and trying to steal a little sliver of land from them that happened to be some of the holiest real estate in Islam right out from under the noses of a billion Muslims wasn’t a very smart idea, but remember this was done in the aftermath of World War Two, when the Jews and America were riding high, wide, and handsome on a wave of victory that would never end, when Jewish arrogance and Jewish hubris knew no bounds. After their help during World War Two in destroying National Socialism and making the world safe for big money again, they presented their bill, and we said what the hell, what are bunch of ragheads going to do? So we gave them their shitty little country just to shut them up. Big mistake.”

  “And now you think you’re giving us our shitty little country just to shut us up?” said Barrow. “Well, I can live with that. I don’t care what you think of us so long as that Masonic dishrag goes down from our sky and the Tricolor goes up. But we aren’t Jews. We’re serious about this new world we’re making, and I feel constrained to repeat that these three articles that give you looting rights on everything of value we’ve got aren’t on. Nothing of the kind is going to happen. When you leave everything with the word Federal in it leaves, and that most especially includes your Federal Reserve.”

  “General Barrow, we don’t give a damn who works those mines and forests and ranches, so long as we get our cut, no pun intended,” said Lodge. “It’s true that Third World immigrant labor is cheaper, but believe it or not, over the years we have come to understand that what’s cheaper in the short run can prove to be more costly in the long term. We understand the necessity of investing money in long-term projects. We are willing to make your new country a long-term project. Man is an economic animal. Oh, you get guys like that big hillbilly with the beard who thinks he can fight and shoot his way out of anything, but eventually economic man triumphs. Once you boys are sitting there in those offices with the power and the responsibility, behind some desk with a sign on it that says the buck stops there, things will look very different, believe me. And you know, we really don’t hold you in quite the contempt you seem to feel. This whole revolution of yours has been quite a daring exploit, although it was no fun having your bombs and your bullets aimed at us. I’ll be honest with you, a good many of my colleagues are looking forward to dealing once again with guys who look like us and like girls.”

  “Dear me, that statement would get a working man from one of your assembly plant five years in prison,” said Barrow. “It might even get you a few mandatory hours of sensitivity training.”

  “Hardly. I wrote the template for most corporate ethnic diversity and sensitivity training courses, so I know they’re crap,” said Lodge with a chuckle. “The schoolbooks teach our children that America is about freedom and democracy and the pursuit of happiness, and lately they teach that it’s about diversity. That’s horse hockey, General Barrow. America is about the accumulation of wealth. Columbus wasn’t trying to prove that the world was round; all educated men from ancient Greece onward who could look at the horizon and understand what they were looking at knew that. He was looking for trade routes to the East Indies, but why was he doing that? For the greater glory of God or the spirit of intellectual inquiry? Bullshit. He wanted to be rich. All of our ancestors who came to this country other than the ones who were shipped here in chains as indentured servants just like the blacks were came here in order to find wealth, gold, land, tobacco, cattle, opportunity to have more than their neighbors. And even the ones of our people who came here in chains, and there were as many of those as there were black slaves, were brought here in order to make other people rich.”

  “Including a good many of your Boston brahmin forbears,” Barrow reminded him.

  “Including a good many of those,” agreed Lodge. “Oh, not that we’re not a spiritual country as well. We’ve always had more religion than we can stand, as I hear you folks are already starting to find out. God in America has always been foursquare on the side of the big man with the money who drops the parson’s portion into the collection plate. That and it gives Americans yet another excuse to make ourselves feel superior to other people. Why, the Pilgrims had barely gotten their first log cabins built before they were whipping Quakers through the street and driving red hot nails through the tongues of people who said something the church elders didn’t like. America has always had a hell of a lot of religion, just a different kind. Europe produced the great Gothic cathedrals; we have prosperity theology. Europe produced St. Vincent Ferrer and St.
Francis of Assisi; we produced Billy Sunday and the Reverend Ike. I’m not surprised you people have some religious issues of your own. You get this new country of yours, you ought to try prosperity theology as a state religion. Our own native American denomination that fits all. What the hell is wrong with a God who wants you to have a Cadillac?”

  “God’s Cadillac comes with a few too many strings attached,” said Barrow. “Like all those niggers riding free and ripping off the hood ornament, and all those Mexicans who want to chop it down into a low rider. You say that America is about wealth. That’s wrong. America is about race.”

  “The two are inextricably intertwined. Look, I will give you this much,” said Lodge, leaning forward intently. “Race is the American problem. It always has been, ever since one of Columbus’s sailors shot the first Indian with a matchlock musket. Aside from the Civil War of the 1860s, and the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, there has never been any kind of serious attempt by America seriously and honestly to address race. Maybe it’s time that changed. We’ve put it off too long. We’ve got all kinds of different races and cultures on this continent now, and like so many kiddies, they can’t seem to play nice. What do you do when you’ve got a house full of squalling kids who can’t get along and who keep on beating one another with their toys and screaming so loud you can’t hear yourself think? You give them a time out and send them to their rooms until they settle down and ask to come out and decide to play nice. So why shouldn’t we send all of our little minorities to their own rooms and make you stay there until you can play nice?”

  “We get the Northwest and the Mexicans get Aztlan?” asked Barrow.

  “They’ve got it already,” said Lodge flatly. “Yes, that’s coming. Aztlan will simply recognize an established fact. And I don’t think there will be any trouble from them over their versions of articles 83 through 85. The Hispanic peoples have always taken a very pragmatic approach in matters of government and business and the relationship between the two.”

  “I believe it’s called corruption,” said Barrow. “Well, I won’t argue with you, sir, I guess I’ll just have to show you. This morning I’ll formalize it. You sign the six points and we run up our Tricolor on that flagpole outside, or else we go back to the shooting and the bombing, starting with an assault on Portland. This round will be real civil war. I hope you’re prepared to live with that.”

  “Dammit, you know I don’t want anything like that to happen, Barrow!” wheedled Lodge. “Jesus, I’m not some kind of monster! I’m more sympathetic than you might think. After all, if you know anything about me you’ll know that even though I serve a Democratic administration at the moment, I’m considered to be a staunch conservative.”

  “Well, you see, there’s the problem,” replied Barrow seriously. “I’m a National Socialist.”

  “And how do you define the difference?” asked Lodge. “I’m willing to acknowledge to you, in private, that there a lot of similarities, although if you ever repeat that outside this room I’ll call you a liar on worldwide television.”

  “I don’t define the difference,” said Barrow, slowly and carefully. “Commander Rockwell did. He said that a National Socialist is someone who wants to save his race. A conservative is someone who wants to save his money. I have said that race is the American issue, but the problem is we’ve never actually admitted it and resolved the core dispute, which is to whom does the continent of North America belong? The liberals and Reds have always claimed that America was founded by and for white racists and based on white racism. That’s not true, unfortunately. If it was, if we had admitted de jure as well as de facto from the beginning that the white man was claiming this land for us and us alone, then things would have been a whole lot different. But economics intruded, and we just had to trade those barrels of perfectly good sippin’ whiskey for twenty niggers back in 1619. America as we know it was created largely by conservatives, who by virtue of their racial and cultural heritage had the mental and spiritual wherewithal to do so. The result is that this country is a plutocracy, and so it always has been. That is what is going to change, Lodge. I know you don’t believe this, but we’re going to strip you of what you have and give it back to the people who created that wealth. Society will be reduced once more to its organic components, the worker, the artisan, the soldier, the homemaker and the farmer. The businessman as a factor in politics and the civic order will disappear. You want to let us go, Lodge. Believe me, you want to let us go. I just wonder how long it’s going to take you to figure that out.”

  “Do you think we would have come here if we weren’t prepared to at least take a big step in that direction?” asked Lodge.

  “I think you came here to see just how far we would bamboozle,” said Barrow. “The answer is, a hell of a lot less far than you think. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. Well, we’ve been fooled enough. Enough bullshit, Lodge. It’s over. You know what we want and we either get it or we don’t. I’m not going to waste any more time with that so-called draft agreement of yours. You might as well have saved yourself the paper. We’re going to wind this up today and give you one last chance to sign off on our six points and end this war. One way or the other, this time tomorrow morning I’m calling for Chernilov and his copter. When we lift off, assuming you don’t break bad on us and we don’t go down firing, we will either have that signed document with us or we won’t. Either way, we’ll see how it plays out.”

  * * *

  Cody and Nightshade both accompanied the delegation into the conference room that morning for the daily meeting, in order to forestall any possible difficulties with FBI agents who might be investigating the disappearance of Susan Horowitz. In fact, Senator Jeanette Galinsky attempted to bring up the subject immediately. “Barrow! Where is my intern Susan Horowitz?” she demanded.

  “Ask Mr. Stanhope,” said Barrow. “He keeps more track of her whereabouts than I do.”

  “That little Nazi psychopath has done something to her!” shouted Galinsky, pointing at Cody.

  “Not lately, ma’am, no,” replied Cody in a level voice.

  “This is still the United States and you Nazi pigs are still subject to United States law!” shrieked Galinsky hysterically. “There’s a whole corridor full of FBI agents out there and all I have to do is call them and they’ll come in here and arrest you Nazi swine and take you to prison where every one of you belongs!”

  John Corbett Morgan drew out his .44 Magnum and laid it heavily down on the table in front of him. “Call them,” he said flatly.

  “That’s not necessary, John,” said Barrow uneasily. This was unscripted, the first time a weapon had actually been drawn. “I thought you were used to Mommy Dearest and her mouth by now?”

  “Why should I get used to it?” asked Morgan, his eyes glowing dangerously, transfixing Jeanette Galinsky like a snake with a rabbit. “I understand that less and less, as the weeks go by and we sit here and take nothing but abuse and insults from these people. I tell you what, you Jew bitch. You call your FBI men, and you see what happens! FBI die like everybody else. I know. I’ve killed me a few. Including the one who murdered my wife. I watched Special Agent Bruce Goldberg die with a burning rubber tire around his neck, lady. I listened to him die, and that was even better. So for the last time, unless you have something important to say, you’d better keep your goddamned liver lips shut. Because right about now, my patience with you is as thin as a fiddle string.”

  “We all feel that way,” Barrow told him, standing up. “Put the iron away, John. There’s no need. We’re going to go ahead and wind it up now.” Morgan sighed and put the Magnum back in its holster, and everyone in the room breathed a bit easier. “I have an announcement to make,” continued Barrow. “One way or the other, this will be the last session of these proceedings here at Longview. We have been here for almost two and a half months, there has been virtually no progress, and it doesn’t seem there is going to be any. Accordingly, I am going to give you
one last chance to sign the six-point agreement which we have been presenting to you virtually every day for the past ten weeks. If you do not, then we have to assume that the United States is not serious about bringing the present conflict to an end. Ten weeks is enough, ladies and gentlemen, more than enough. We have our border delineated, thanks to the diligent work of our subcommittee, and frankly we got more than we expected, including most of Wyoming and more of Montana than we thought we could glom. Groovy. That was the important part of this conference, but none of that is worth anything so long as we keep dragging this out. It’s time to sign on the dotted line and then we’re outta here. Or not, as the case may be.

  “My comrade’s theatrical flourishing of the weaponry notwithstanding, we know we can’t make you sign at gunpoint. But it is time that you people faced up to the reality of why you are here. A new world is beginning and it wants only your signatures, twice, once on each copy of this simple treaty.” Barrow placed the documents down on the table before him. “There is nothing complicated about getting the hell out of our country in two weeks, and it is well within your logistic capabilities to get all your forces out of the Republic in that time. If you do need any help in getting out, free passage on our highways or gas for your vehicles or anything like that, by all means, we’ll speed you on your way. But this delegation is leaving this room now, and we’re leaving this hotel tomorrow. Early. We’ve eaten our last breakfast buffet in the Sockeye Grill. Our breakfast tomorrow will be field rations with our army preparing for the assault on Portland if your General Partman decides he wants to break bad on us. That need not happen. I assume and hope that being a good soldier, Partman will obey orders. You’ve got until tomorrow to save God alone knows how many lives and give this process of a new nation’s birth some kind of peace and order. Or it can be a bloody mess. It’s your call. Now make it. Because we’re not hanging around anymore waiting on you.”