The Brigade

by H. A. Covington

  “God knows how Fields kept the BATFE from finding some excuse for seizing it, lawyers or not,” said Ekstrom, shaking his head in wonder. “The annual license fees alone must have cost him a fortune. Only one of each, but we are now the proud owners of an Uzi with seven magazines, a BAR with four magazines, a Thompson .45 with one hundred-round drum, one 50-round drum, and three stick magazines, one AK-47 with six banana clip magazines and a hundred-round drum, one AK-74 also with six magazines and a drum, one full-auto military-issue M-16 with five magazines, one Czech-made RPK with one drum, an Israeli Negev 5.56-mm with no magazine but I can make some, one MAC-10 with two magazines and one Tec-9, also with two. And last but not least, one World War Two vintage Browning .30-caliber machine gun, belt fed and air cooled, with tripod, decommissioned but only with solder down the barrel, which I can bore out in a jiffy. The ammo and the belts for the Browning will be a problem, and it’s heavy as hell and no good except in a fixed position, which I gather we won’t be defending. Interesting museum piece, though.”

  “I’m sure we can find something to do with it,” said Hatfield. “You know, it’s odd, but one thing we found in Iraq was that when it came time to dance with the hadjis in the dust, it was the older weapons that worked best, the .45s and the M-60s and good ole Ma Deuce, the Browning .50-cal. Armalite and night scopes and plastic parts are fine, but there’s simply no substitute for good old fashioned punching and stopping power and a steady machine gun that can fire all day and throw thousands of rounds at an even pace without jamming or overheating. And that Kalashnikov just can’t be beat. We used to get shat on from a dizzy height from the Baghdad Green Zone for leaving our M-16s behind and going out on patrol or door-kicking with an AK in our hands instead, whenever we could get hold of them and enough rounds.”

  “We don’t need all this fancy new ballistics and small arms tech for the kind of war we’re fighting,” said Charlie. “Most of our jobs are going to be more like Mafia hits or L.A. gang-bangs and drive-bys than pitched battles. A simple revolver or a bolt-action rifle will do us quite nicely, nine times out of ten, just so long as we hit what we aim at. We shoot and then we scoot. The idea is for the NVA to stay light enough and fast on our feet enough so the cops and the feds don’t surround us and bring up all their high-tech toys and super-guns, then slide around back of them while they’re chasing their tails and hit them again in the soft underbelly. Like killing a giant diseased armadillo. They’re hard on top but soft underneath and behind. We will slash that soft underbelly so often ZOG bleeds to death beneath their armor.”

  “You got it, Charlie. How about Bert Field’s ammo, Len?” asked Hatfield.

  “About 20,000 factory rounds and almost as many of Fields’s reloads. A very mixed bag,” said Ekstrom. “Mostly for the handguns and the less exotic long-arms, of course. We’ve got enough 9-mm, .45, .357 and .38 Special to be getting on with for a while, and a fair amount of 5.56 and 7.62 for the rifles and automatics. The .30-06, .22 and 12-gauge shells you can still get locally so long as we don’t buy too much at once, and we can diddle the paperwork so it doesn’t get back to us. I am assuming that the feds will try some kind of gun confiscation very soon and make both weapons and ammo impossible to obtain legally at all, but we’ve got our start, Zack. I should mention that I’ve talked to Fields. He tells me the BATFE has been onto him twice since the initial theft report was filed, and he assumes his phone is tapped. The feds have got a good idea where all those weapons went to, and they’re not happy campers.”

  “Okay, caching?” said Hatfield. “It is absolutely essential that those weapons we’re not using be stored some place safe, and not all in one big arms dump that the enemy can raid and snatch it all back in one big gulp. I’ve got some at my place and Charlie’s got some at his, but we need to get them dispersed, a couple of dozen weapons in each hiding place. There won’t be as many as we’ve got now, since like I said, Brigade will be expecting us to pass a lot of this hardware on up the line.”

  “Zack, did you ever decide what kind of personal issue there should be for D Company Volunteers?” asked Ekstrom.

  “I was told that’s being left to the discretion of each company commander, since everyone’s situation is a bit different,” said Hatfield. “For our boys here, I want every Volunteer to be prepared to fight his way out of any situation, or at least die trying. Unless there is a tactical reason for it, like having to go through a metal detector, we should all be strapped. Boys, I don’t know about you, but I know what’s waiting for me if I allow myself to be arrested, and I have no intention of doing so. I would quite literally rather be dead than rotting and going mad in some place like Leavenworth or Marion. So each Volunteer should have at least one heavy handgun, 9-mm or bigger, powerful enough to do some damage, a .45 or a .357 for preference. As well as that one, they also need a small, concealable handgun, a .38 snub or a .380 automatic, as a holdout, just like cops carry. Both fully loaded and with at least one extra magazine. Okay, that won’t always be practical, like at our jobs, but we need to be able to get to a weapon quick, always. Every Volunteer should also be issued one personal long-arm, something like an M-16 or an AK if we can get them. If not, then a good hunting rifle, and I would also say one sawed-off or very short 12-gauge shotgun for immediate defense in indoor situations, if they come barging in the door.”

  “Which brings us to the next item on the quartermaster’s agenda, premises,” said Ekstrom. “We have our own houses and apartments, but those shouldn’t be used for obvious reasons.” Ekstrom pulled out a map and unfolded it. “I’m going to burn this, by the way, once you guys and this adjutant feller get a look at it. We’re going to have to memorize all these locations and keep them in our heads. Charlie was extra helpful here, since he knows the state forests and logging roads so well. There are all kinds of trailers, shacks, old and current park rangers’ facilities, construction sites, logging camps with pre-fab structures, firefighting stations, you name it out in these woods. They’re not the Hilton hotel chain, but they’ll do. I was thinking about making sure every Volunteer was issued with a sleeping bag and a kind of woodland survival kit, including rations and bottled water. Okay, once ZOG cottons onto it, that might be a bit of a giveaway if their home or car is searched and they find the kit, but if we try stocking these places up with provisions and cots and things, then someone might find the stuff and either steal it or report it, and the feds will put two and two together and lay an ambush for anyone who shows up.”

  “Mmmm, yes,” said Zack, rubbing his chin and thinking. “We should stockpile as little as possible, keep everything we have by way of supplies as dispersed as possible, not just guns and ammo. The Volunteers need to have the stuff on them, but not together in a kit. Just somewhere handy they can put it all together quick so as not to make it obvious to any ZOG gun thug who tosses them that they’re planning a camping trip.”

  “Anyway, some of these places can also be used as arms and supply caches,” continued Ekstrom. “The red crosses are rural retreats of various kinds, shacks and old logging trailers, whatever. You see they run all through Clatsop, Columbia, and Tillamook counties. We’ve got more bolt-holes than we’ll need, I think.”

  “We still need as many as we can get,” said Hatfield. “Charlie, over the next couple of weeks I want to ride along with you, and I want to see all these places myself and check them out, check the lay of the land, look at possible escape routes, anything that could end up being a death trap for us, etc. One thing I want to know is who besides us will know about these places? Also, how visible would they be from the air or from satellite reconnaissance? We need to find as many places as possible that are under a lot of trees so they won’t show up from the air or on satellite recon.”

  “Okay,” said Washburn. “The forestry service started using temps years ago, as you know, or contractors as they’re officially known, so they don’t have to hire anymore permanent people and pay for what few benefits state employees still have. Len tel
ls me your boss Brenda is a cool lady, so I’ll talk to her and I’ll get you on as a temporary survey helper or something starting Monday. My boss will go for it as long as you’re not a Mexican. He despises beaners because he’s had so many problems trying to supervise them and control their behavior on the job, which is always a nightmare. This crap about their being hard workers is an urban legend. McIntyre might eventually be approachable, by the way, but I don’t want to do anything on the job as yet.”

  “Sounds good,” said Hatfield. “I’ll select some of these places out in the woods for use as arms dumps and then we need to start dispersing the weapons and ammo, fast. Len, what are these blue crosses?”

  “Those are actual houses or mobile homes that we can use for maybe a couple of days at a time. The owners are away for the winter, they’re summer homes or vacation or tourist rentals, things like that. My understanding is that we’re going to be sheltering Volunteers down from Portland who need a cooling-off period, and of course our own men as well. They’re going to want things like cooking facilities, showers, a TV so they can keep up with the news and their favorite soap operas, something a bit more civilized than a bare shack in the woods. That may sound facile, but living too rough for too long can wear people down. Once we get the okay to start lifting some green, we can use the money to rent some places, although we’ll need a well-dressed out-of-towner with a good paper profile to do the renting.”

  “We can work something out with Brigade on that,” said Zack. “One kind of individual we really need to see if we can recruit is someone who works in a real estate office, especially one that handles rental housing. A motel owner will be top notch. One of the first things we need to do is waste a few of these Patels and Singhs who run all the motels, drive the rest of them out, and force in some white management, our kind of management. Now, transport?”

  “I spoke with Jerry Lundgaard again today,” said Ekstrom. “You know he’s also got an extensive used-car lot down there, and so long as we can give him some cash to make sure his books balance and his home office doesn’t get suspicious, we can obtain any vehicle we want with full papers. But he made a suggestion on his own. Where is the best place on earth to hide a hot car? In the middle of a used car lot! Jerry can keep a couple of vehicles on his lot down there ready for us at all times, gassed up and perfection-tuned. We will need to get a source for plates, steal them if nothing else, since if we’re out doing hits in a car with dealer plates that will give the game away. We go in after hours and put on our plates, he leaves the keys in a special place for us, we go out and take care of business and then bring the car back, switch the plates back, and he comes in early in the morning and alters the mileage register so it matches on his records. Neat, eh?”

  “Mmm, good idea, but I don’t want to over-use it or become dependent on Jerry,” said Zack. “Some of those cars might come back with bullet holes in them or get otherwise trashed along the way, or get captured by the cops. Have him keep a couple like that for us as an emergency reserve, Len, but mostly I’d like to get other vehicles with registrations that will pass muster in the police computers. Those vehicles need to be stashed in various places, and we will need to find safe houses and other facilities with off-street garages so the cars can’t be seen from the street or from the air. Always remember the Eye in the Sky. Once we start heisting we’ll have the money for Jerry. But we also need to get hold of some old junkers we can fix up for special jobs, with heavy suspensions and whatnot.”

  “What kind of jobs?” asked Washburn.

  “Car bombs,” said Hatfield grimly. “The Iraqis kicked our asses with those things when they weren’t using them to slaughter each other. Okay, Len, good job. Now, Charlie, you’re up. How’s our intelligence sitch?” Ekstrom folded up his map. Washburn took out a list of his own.

  “I need to burn this stuff too once we’ve got it all memorized,” said Charlie. “Okay, here goes. In our operational area of Clatsop, Columbia, and Tillamook counties there are approximately 600 armed police officers, sheriff’s deputies, Oregon State Patrol and correctional officers. That is excluding clerical and non-armed law enforcement bods of various kinds, and also does not include military police and so forth at the Coast Guard station, or the intermittent National Guard and Oregon State Police details at Camp Rilea, who will present a special problem. That sounds like a lot of cops, but bear in mind that we’re talking three huge counties here, over a dozen separate and sometimes overlapping departments and jurisdictions. I haven’t been able to get any racial breakdown, but most of the cops are still white. There’s only a handful of Mexicans and about half a dozen blacks. Also bear in mind that these guys work in shifts, and at any given time most of them will be off duty, or in court, or doing office paperwork, or whatever. I very much doubt if at any given time there will be more than a 150 or so police actually on duty over the area of several thousand square miles wherein we will be operating. Outside of the towns and main highways, our chances of accidentally running into a cop are nil. In the rural areas there are a few highly transient state and U.S. park rangers and game wardens, who may actually cause us more problems than the cops by stumbling onto our hideouts and arms caches. Morehouse was right. The Pacific Northwest is ideal guerrilla country. Once this fire starts burning good and hot, ZOG will never be able to stamp it out.”

  “Some of the police will be sympathetic,” said Hatfield. “I know some of our teams elsewhere have begun their operations by killing certain cops whom they know are antagonistic to the Party and the revolution. That’s their call, but I don’t like the publicity it’s been getting in the media. This isn’t a big city like Seattle or Portland. A lot of these guys are local boys like Ted Lear, men we grew up with and men with families and roots in the community. For the time being I don’t want us targeting any local police except non-whites, who have already been officially ordered out of the Homeland and have no business running around our land with guns and badges. That will be one of our D Company rules of engagement. No white cops unless absolutely necessary, or until we know for a fact that a particular cop is irreconcilably our enemy. The Army Council says for us to see if we can negotiate a live-and-let-live arrangement with them, so they at least don’t come after us actively and we can make the feds do their own fighting. I want to give it a try. At some point in time, I am going to have to sit down and talk to Ted, and that’s going to be pretty tense. One thing, though. We will urgently need intelligence contacts in the police.”

  “Chris,” said Ekstrom quietly.

  “I wasn’t going to mention her unless you did, Len,” said Hatfield with a sigh. “She’s a dispatcher and she’s right exactly where we need someone. She’s also your daughter, and if you bring her into this you could be literally sentencing your own child to death. I can’t ask you to do that, much less order you, lieutenant or not. At the very least you could be putting her into an absolutely impossible position morally. Besides, how do you know she’s even sympathetic?”

  “Do you know why Christina came back from Portland last year?” asked Ekstrom. “She had a good degree and she’d just started a good job. Now she’s back here earning barely minimum wage sitting behind a police radio every night. She wants to be a cop herself. She wants me to take her out to the range shooting all the time. She always wears long-sleeved shirts and dresses or slacks, and never a swimsuit or a halter-top. She broke off with Brad Gibbons, and she won’t date now. Ever wonder why? In Portland, she came home one night and found a couple of nigger crack addicts who had broken into her apartment waiting for her. When they had finished with her they tried to stab her to death with a broken wine bottle. They didn’t kill her, but not for lack of trying. Her body looks like she was fed into a McCormick reaper, inch by inch. It was never mentioned in the papers or on TV because of the press censorship laws Hillary Clinton rammed through on her first year as president, the ones that forbid what they call racial incitement, such as reporting black crimes against white people.”
<
br />   “Oh, Jesus, Len!” whispered Charlie.

  “Why the hell did you never tell us?” demanded Hatfield roughly. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

  “At first, there was nothing to say,” replied Len Ekstrom. “Then Red Morehouse came here, and I said it. I said ‘I’m in.’ In the night she wakes screaming for me, crying out ‘Daddy, Daddy, help me!’ Now when I go to her, I know that I am helping her. It will still be hard, and I confess I don’t quite know how to approach her with this. But she will be with us soon. You were right earlier, Zack. All white people now have our own Sally Wheatleys, our own Christinas somewhere in our past, in our minds. We must make their ghosts rise and show their bloody wounds, and cry out for vengeance until we become men again, and march across this land and drive these animals out of it. Now go on, Charlie. We have business to do.”

  “Okay,” said Washburn, still stunned.

  “What about the Camp Rilea and the Coast Guard station over in Warrenton, Charlie?” asked Hatfield. “That will be the enemy’s base of operations.”

  Hatfield nodded. “Rilea has been semi-mothballed for years, and if memory serves it doesn’t have much permanent party of National Guard, more a custodial staff than anything else. Not surprising since almost the whole Oregon National Guard is in Iraq or Iran along with all their gear. They have some summer training camps there, and the Oregon State Police still run a couple of twelve-week basic courses through there every year, trainees and instructors. No armory, interestingly enough. I heard they moved all the weapons out of there after Coeur d’Alene. I think we can consider Rilea as a pool of potential targets, and one of our tactical goals will be to see if we can pin them down, or better yet run their asses out of there by making it too dangerous and expensive to keep a few men in that exposed position. That will be a strong psychological victory if we can pull it off. But you’re right, if the enemy decide they want to do some kind of full-blown occupation of Clatsop County, that’s where they’ll base the occupation army. We need to watch the place and pick off as many targets of opportunity as we can, but we’ll have to see how that plays out in the long run. I’ll need every map and piece of information we can get about the camp, Charlie, and we need to see if we can dig up anybody locally who’s worked or done duty out there and pick their brains.”