A Mighty Fortress

by H. A. Covington

  “Well, let’s see what else he’s got,” said Barrow, pawing through the CDs. The problem was that Chernilov was a Russian and he had mostly heavy classical stuff. “Okay, looks like we’re going to have to find something to compromise with. Nuts, I have no idea what most of this stuff even is! Well, here we go! Hohenfriedburgermärsch, the Hills of Peace, by Frederick the Great. A good, solid, dignified piece.”

  “The Nazis were very big on Alte Fritz,” agreed Gair. “Okay, that will do.”

  “So instead of a pagan piece about female demons flying through the air we play a Nazi song?” growled McCausland.

  “Enough, gentlemen,” said Cathy Frost calmly from the doorway. “We are in the presence of the enemy. This has to stop, and it has to stop now. If you think that this movement owes me anything, I want you to lay your differences aside and this my way, on just this one occasion. It is the only reward I will ever ask of the Party.” She opened her purse and took out a Walkman CD player. She took out the CD inside. “I asked the Red Cross for this when I was released,” she said, handing it to Waters. “Lieutenant, when the Tricolor begins to go up the flagstaff, please play track number four, as loud as you can. It is my favorite hymn, the one my imprisoned sisters sang for me so I could hear it while I was being tortured under the so-called Dershowitz protocols. Yes, Captain, it is Christian, but it was written by one of the greatest men of our race who ever lived, a German. His name was Martin Luther. The name of it is Ein Feste Burg Ist Unser Gott, which means A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. However you view God or the gods or whatever destiny rules our world, this day could not have come about without the approval of that force. He has been with us, gentlemen, throughout all these terrible years. And even if we have forgotten Him, He has never forgotten us. Play track four, Lieutenant.”

  XII.

  “I think I’m free.” – Jane Chenault

  The Northwest nation was born on a crisp and clear afternoon in the autumn, five years to the day after the Singer family had been burned alive in their home in Coeur d’Alene, rather than allow their children to be torn from their arms by The Beast. Five years to the day after Gus Singer’s neighbors had taken guns from their hiding places and opened fire on the armed forces of the United States, in order to help a good neighbor and a good man fight against the tyrant who came in his power and his arrogance to do them harm. Five years to the day after white males became men again.

  The crowd watched in stunned silence as the group of delegates walked out the front door of the hotel. They and the watching world could hear a rattling from the cable on the flagpole, as the Stars and Stripes which had flown over this land since the days of Lewis and Clark went down for the last time, after something over two hundred years. Human history brings change, and two hundred years in the Northwest was the span that destiny had allotted for the red, white and blue banner that now seemed to drop like a stone down the staff. There was a brief and quick folding, and Barrow handed the flag to Brubaker, who was weeping openly. Barrow stepped back and saluted; Brubaker was too overcome to return it and simply clutched the American flag to his chest. Then Cathy hooked the grommets on the new nation’s banner into the clips and drew it floating and snapping, high into the air, green and white and blue against the sky.

  As the Tricolor went up, music burst forth from the hidden speakers. A Mighty Fortress Is Our God, by Martin Luther. It was a thundering paean to God and human destiny, in the proud and ancient tongue of the greatest and most noble nation among the Children of the Sun. Generations after the heroic immolation in the Berlin bunker, the spirit of a mighty people and their Leader was avenged by a hundred mighty voices, singing in German. Nobody noticed that the hymn came from a public address system. It seemed to come from the sky and earth itself, as if a choir of angels and heroes from Valhalla had descended to earth sing at the new dawn of time .

  The entire crowd suddenly burst into an incredible cacophony of noise. Men and women screamed, wept, cursed, pounded one another on the back, embraced one another in a mad passion of joy that at long last their ancient race was free once again to be who they were. Jeanette Galinsky ran hysterically through the crowd, shrieking and bellowing in Yiddish like a wounded beast. Howard Weintraub fell to the grounds, jerking like an epileptic, white froth coming from his thick lips. No one paid them any attention. Their day was done. Barrow stood staring at the flag, his arm around Jane Chenault. He turned to her and said “So what are you doing after the revolution?”

  “I think I’m free,” she whispered.

  Cody and Emily turned to one another and hugged in unbelieving joy, both of them crying. “This day has to last forever!” Cody whispered into her ear. “Never leave me! Stay with me always!” Her face was buried in his shoulder, and she simply nodded.

  XIII.

  “In the long run, this is the only way. We finally

  understood that.” – Cody Brock

  On the first day of November, Cody and Nightshade were in Camp Murdock outside the appropriately named Battle Ground, Washington. The preparations for the Northwest Defense Force assault on Portland were almost complete. General Delmar Partman had refused a direct order from the President of the United States to comply with the terms of the Longview Treaty, issued a call for her impeachment, and was digging in with the last holdouts, American troops and FATPOs and several thousand hastily-recruited loyalist militiamen. Murdock was the temporary base which the First Corps of the Army of the Columbia was using for its jumping-off point; the move south was already beginning as elements of the rebel army moved out. Carter Wingfield was in command, and by his side was the newly appointed Political Officer for the Army of the Columbia, former U. S. Secretary of State Walter Stanhope.

  “Stanhope was the Third Section agent at Longview?” yelped Cody in astonishment when he heard. “How in hell did that happen? Don’t tell me Threesec has penetrated the Skull and Bones itself?”

  “I had some trouble wrapping my mind around it myself,” admitted Barrow. “That day we met privately in the hotel room, when you and the late unlamented Hadass were circling one another in the living room, we couldn’t really speak because Stanhope himself made it clear that he didn’t know whether or not the room was bugged. I took a paper napkin and put a couple of question marks on it, that’s all. He wrote back, Even a rich man sometimes wakes up one morning and looks in the mirror. I still didn’t entirely trust him, but damned if he didn’t come through. We need a man like him in the Political Bureau, a man who knows how it’s done and can teach the rest of us. Did you meet with your Dad, Cody?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Cody. “He’s changed a lot, of course. He’s actually heading out to Florida. Captain Moore was able to pick up on some information that my sister Gwendolyn may have been sent there. He’s going to try and find her. She may not even want to Come Home, of course, but one way or the other, we’ve got to know.”

  Cody and Emily were now wearing camouflage fatigues and field gear, and new wedding rings on their left fingers. That afternoon a group of Northwest army nurses got off a newly arrived mini-bus, canvas bags over their shoulders and suitcases in their hands. They were wearing NDF camouflage fatigues with white and scarlet Red Cross armbands around their left sleeves. It looked as if the quartermaster had run out of the sassy little female berets, because these women were wearing the Alpine fatigue caps of a line unit on top of braided, clipped, or bunned-up hair. One of them, a tall and lithe girl with a single blonde braid running down her back, came up to Cody. “Excuse me, Lieutenant, can you tell me where to find the Third Mobile Field Hospital Unit?”

  “Down about five hundred yards on your left,” said Cody, pointing. Then he did a double take. “Kelly?” he said in stunned recognition. “Kelly Shipman?”

  “Cody! I hoped I’d meet up with you somewhere!” cried Kelly in excitement.

  “What the…” Cody gestured at her uniform. “How did you…why…I mean, yeah, I guess after what happened and all…”

  “It w
asn’t just the Mitch Newman thing,” said Kelly, shaking her head. “I think maybe I got into this a little with you back at Hillside—God, that seems so long ago!—but even back there, for a long time I understood that I was having doubts. It’s not that I don’t still love acting and want to be an actress and work on set. I do, more than ever. But I always had this odd feeling in the back of my mind that before I could do that, there was something I had to do. Pay my dues, so to speak. I was never really happy with having everything handed to me on a silver platter. Most girls would be, but for me it just somehow seemed off kilter a bit. You have to live for something else, for a while at least, before you start living for yourself. Otherwise, if everything is always about you, how do you grow as a human being? America never gave me that. All America ever gave me was a credit card and the mall. It turned out those weren’t enough.”

  “How about your parents?” asked Cody. “How did they take it?”

  “Not well,” admitted Kelly ruefully. “But at least my staying kept them here as well. I told my Mom and Dad that I had to go with my own people, and do something bigger than just me. They’ll come around. I’m worried about Jason, him still being in the U. S. Army, but this is something I have to do.”

  “It must have been a hard decision,” said Cody.

  “No,” said Kelly. “It wasn’t. That’s what surprised me so much about it, the fact that once I understood there was something in life greater than my own dreams and ambitions, I wanted to shoot higher than just being some pretty face on a movie screen. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I know Hollywood’s out now, and this means I’ll probably end up doing Arsenic and Old Lace in some old renovated theater in Boise instead of starring roles in Hollywood. But I can live with that. In fact, in a way I think I might enjoy being a real actress with a small audience of real people than some kind of icon that multi-national corporations use to sell people junk they don’t need. Good grief! Is that a wedding ring on your finger?”

  “Yeah,” he said, holding it up.

  “Emily?”

  “Yup. She’s around here somewhere.”

  “Right behind you,” said Nightshade, coming up on them and holding up her own ring on her left hand, slung M-16 over her right shoulder. “Well, well, looks like Betty Grable decided to try out for MASH.”

  “Hi, Emily,” said Kelly with a smile. “How’d a skinny broad like you ever beat a hottie like me out for a guy like this?”

  “I’m a good listener, and I laugh at his jokes,” said Emily. “That, and I can suck the lug nuts off a timber truck.”

  “Ooo-kaaay, I don’t think we’ll go there,” said Kelly primly.

  “Speaking of hunks, how’s things going between you and our own 007?” said Emily.

  “I’m kind of seeing him, yes,” said Kelly with a sudden blush. “When we can. He’s off somewhere doing a spot of cloak and dagger, as he puts it. He’s told me a lot about both of you. You’re both up to 007 class, the way he tells it. Boy, did I miss out on you two in school! Still waters run a hell of a deep, don’t they?”

  “Jack Flash a good man,” said Cody seriously. “You could do a hell of a lot worse, Kel. So do you know if you’re coming with us when we move on Portland, which should be any day now?”

  “Somebody’s going to have to sew you guys back together,” said Kelly with a sigh. “I wish there were another way to get freedom and justice besides this.”

  “In the long run, this is the only way,” said Cody. “We finally understood that. Almost too late, but the penny finally dropped. Well, there go the first units down to the north shore of the river,” he said, pointing to a long convoy of camouflaged trucks pulling 155-millimeter and 108-millimeter field guns behind them. “This time, when Partman opens up with his artillery, he’ll get a dose of his own medicine. I’ve noticed that the United States doesn’t like getting a dose of its own medicine.”

  “Yeah, well, screw what the United States of Amurrica doesn’t like,” said Emily with a grin, waving as the artillery train rolled by. “In case you hadn’t noticed, they ain’t in charge any more.”

  The trucks roared southward down the highway, the heavy guns rolling behind them, and the Northwest troopers’ machine guns leveled over the cabs, at the ready to fire on any of the slavemaster’s dogs who dared to bark. Loud over the speakers boomed the rocking battle cry of an earlier generation:

  “Look what’s coming up the street!

  Got a revolution, got the revolution!

  We’re Volunteers of America,

  Volunteers of America…”

  XIV.

  The Storm Set To Sweep Oscars

  Chicago – (Reuters) - As the movie world prepares for its annual Academy Awards extravaganza in an unaccustomed venue, indications are that the combined US/NAR mini-series The Storm is set to sweep the boards. The Storm will almost certainly bring away the Oscars for Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Actress, Best Director, Best Soundtrack, and Best Screenplay, with wins possible in several other categories.

  The Storm made cinematic history not only as the most-watched mini-series of all time, commanding viewer shares in the 90-percentiles in the North American, European, Southern Pacific and Asian markets, but as the first open collaboration between movie-makers and actors in the United States and the Northwest American Republic.

  The Storm raised eyebrows with its unique production technique of two separate plot lines and casts, one cast from the Northwest Republic portraying a band of Northwest Volunteer Army fighters engaged in revolutionary combat against the United States government, and one American cast including minority and Jewish actors from Ad Astra Pictures who played members of the Seattle FBI office and the long-since disbanded Federal Anti-Terrorist Police Organization (FATPO.) Since under the constitution of the Northwest Republic, non-whites and people of Jewish ancestry are not allowed into the country, most of the American cast’s scenes were filmed in Hollywood, while the outside scenes and NVA segments of the movie were shot in Seattle, along with a meld of old news footage from The Trouble which gives The Storm a convincing period flavor.

  White American actors Del Raymond, Sean Carroll, Denise Winters and Pete Parisi, as well as other white cast members from Ad Astra who play FBI agents and FATPO officers, were in fact allowed into the Republic and shot outdoor scenes there, which led to friction and a number of resignations and protests among minority cast members.

  Each cast also used its own American, Aztlan and Northwest writers to produce their own sections of dialog, so that both sides of the conflict were presented in balance. Action sequences were based on actual historic events which took place during the Northwest insurgency, which is known in the Republic as the War of Independence. Director Kelly Shipman supervised Hollywood assistant director Ray Thorne on the Ad Astra set by satellite video conference hookup, and also in person on several occasions until Northwest cast members and personnel were banned from entering Aztlan by the Officio del Diversidad Nacionàl.

  The Storm has been widely praised by drama and film critics as being the most realistic and convincing portrayal of the Northwest conflict yet achieved by the cinematic art. But The Storm also generated another kind of storm, a massive controversy due to the flouting of international sanctions against the NAR which reached its culmination when the annual Oscar ceremony had to be moved to Chicago from its traditional Hollywood venue at the request of the government of Aztlan.

  Presidente de la Raza Mario Fuentes expressed “profound regret” at his government’s decision but said that “we feel it is inappropriate for a nation such as ours, which has been founded on freedom, diversity, and multi-culturalism, to be host for a ceremony which honors a film such as The Storm, a film not only produced in blatant violation of international sanctions and Aztlan law, but which presents a skewed and glorified view of one of the most tragic and horrific episodes in living memory. We regret that the Ad Astra studio saw fit to collaborate in the making of this deeply racist picture, and w
e consider it a sufficiently serious breach of our laws and of simple human decency so that a criminal investigation has been opened.”

  The Storm has been banned from public showing or broadcast nationwide in Aztlan, and also in several American cities with large Jewish and minority populations such as New York, Philadelphia, and Atlanta, on the grounds that it allegedly promotes racism. Legislation is pending in Congress to have the movie classified as hatespeech and possession or downloading of a copy made punishable with a term of imprisonment. The controversy seems only to have swelled the movie’s popularity worldwide. Sales of the movie online and in stores are still at record levels, and everywhere it is shown in theaters it is still playing to packed audiences.

  Director Shipman, from the Seattle-based Cascade Film studio, who is considered a shoo-in for Best Actress tonight, does not deny the controversial aspects of the film. “I’m somewhat at a loss to understand just how we were supposed to deal with actual events involving the establishment of a world-wide Homeland for one race of people, without mentioning race,” she said in a recent interview. “The entire history of the North American continent is based on racial conflict. We tried pretending that race didn’t exist for a lengthy period during the last century, and you see where it got us all.”

  Ms. Shipman is considered likely to carry off not only the Best Director but the Best Actress award for her portrayal of NVA guerrilla and intelligence operative Captain Emmeline Parsons, code name Nightshade.

  Responding to concerns that The Storm’s allegedly heroic portrayal of the Northwest Volunteer Army, who officially are still considered terrorists by the United States and Aztlan legal systems, would offend minorities and people of the Jewish faith, Ms. Shipman said “I have to confess that catering to the sensitivity of the Jews was rather low on our scale of priorities when we were making the film. All I can really add is that with a ninety-one percent viewer share in the United States last April when The Storm was first broadcast, I don’t think it could have been all that offensive. Offended or not, people watched it.”