The Brigade

by H. A. Covington

  For the next hour, they simply sat around the kitchen table and talked. Kicky calmly went over her whole life, such as it was, from her childhood to the present, and with the exception of the events of the past couple of weeks, every bit of it was true. However deeply they had investigated her background, she knew it would all check out. “I was going back to the life to try and make money so I could get out of Oregon, and take Ellie,” she admitted. “But I knew it was only a temporary fix. It Takes A Village is everywhere, and whatever file they have on me and Ellie would catch up with us, eventually. Then I recognized your guy Lockhart in Jupiter’s Den that day. I thought about it all day, and that night I was going to ask Lenny to introduce me, but he ended up dead. The rest you know. I don’t know what else to tell you guys,” she concluded. “If I’m going in that hole in the basement tonight, you’d better go get the shovel.”

  “I didn’t think to bring one,” said Wingo.

  “So what happens now? What do you want me to do?” asked Kicky.

  “The next step is that we will arrange for you to receive a copy of the old Party Handbook and the new NVA General Orders,” said Ma. “The General Orders you need to memorize, and I do mean memorize, and then destroy the sheet of paper that they’re printed on, because if you’re caught with them in your possession it’s a federal felony carrying a death sentence. No kidding. These tyrants are killing people now simply for having a single sheet of paper. You need to have the General Orders committed to memory not just for your own security, but because you will be expected to obey them. Always. Without fail.”

  “And not obeying the sheet of paper carries a death penalty from our side,” concluded Kicky, careful to use the word our. “Okay, I get it.”

  “I hope you do, honey,” said Ma with a sigh. “The Handbook you need to read because it explains a lot of other things you need to know, deeper and more complicated things. It explains the nature of the corrupt and satanic society in which we live, why it must be brought to an end, and how we will accomplish that. The big picture, so to speak. Copies of the Handbook are too large to be destroyed except at necessity, although if you think you or your premises are about to be searched, for God’s sake hide it or destroy it. The Handbook is just as deadly dangerous to be caught with as the General Orders. Once we get a copy to you, you need to read it right away, because we can only let you have it for a few days and then we’ll need to get it back from you to pass on to the next person.”

  “So when do I get to be a Northwest Volunteer?” asked Kicky.

  “You don’t, not at first. We need to take a good long look at you and see how you perform, like any job,” said Wingo. “To begin with, you’ll be what some crews call an asset, what others call a candidate member. If we were niggers we’d use the term wannabe, if we were the Mob we’d call you connected but not yet made. That taxicab of yours still intrigues us,” he continued. “We have people and materials that need to do a lot of moving around. We start you out simple. We arrange a lot of business for you, posing as street hails because calling your dispatcher and asking for you specifically would raise suspicion. You drive people and stuff from point A to point B, you dummy up your records to make sure it all looks copacetic on paper, and we’ll pay you the meter and a good tip so you can actually make a nice legal income. If everything works out and you’re looking good to us in a few months, we start giving you some more stuff to do.”

  “Okay, there is one thing I need to tell you guys right up front,” said Kicky hesitantly. “I know this may make you suspicious of me, but I can’t lie about it.” She took up a deep breath. “I don’t know if I can kill anybody. I know what I said about wanting revenge and all, and it’s true, but I just don’t know if I could point a gun at anybody and pull the trigger myself. I’m not saying I couldn’t, you understand. Hell, maybe I can. But I just don’t know, and if that’s the kind of test you want to give me to become a member, I’m not sure I can pass it.”

  “You won’t be asked to make your bones for a good while,” said Wingo, “And even then, it will be voluntary on your part. This is not a regular war. Our people have to carry an immensely personal and crushing burden on their shoulders, and that goes far more so for the shooters and the bombers. Only a small number of people have the right combination of steady hand and nerves of steel, along with—oh, hell, I suppose you’d call it a lack of introspection, the ability to just do the job and then not worry about it afterwards. If they’re not right for it, their conscience gets to eating at them, they start losing their nerve and going to pieces and muttering about finding Jesus and getting forgiveness. No offense, Ma.”

  “None taken,” said Ma. “It does happen, and then there are problems all across the board. White people are the greatest killers the world has ever known, but we have in fact been subjected to that century of social engineering and behavior modification through propaganda that I mentioned earlier, and in a lot of our people, that predator gene does seem to have been bred out. The NVA understands that as badly as we need combat soldiers, it’s just not a good idea to force somebody into that position. Kicky, we have got some women in this outfit that will shoot a man just as soon as look at him, if he is an enemy of our race. I know because I’m one of ’em. Maybe you’ll be one of ’em one day, maybe you won’t. You will never be asked to do anything that is beyond your strength. But you will find that as time goes on, and you come to understand who you are, that your strength is greater than you think. Now I reckon you and Thumper better be getting on back into town so you can finish your shift.”

  Kicky went back out to the cab. Wingo hung back. “What’s the verdict?” he asked Ma.

  She sighed. “That girl’s got something eating at her, but from what we know of her, it could be any one of a dozen things. If we excluded everybody with secret sorrows and secret sins in their hearts, there wouldn’t be too many Northwest Volunteers. I can’t down-check her.”

  “Hardly a ringing endorsement,” commented Wingo.

  “We can’t get so paranoid that we can’t function,” said Ma. “I’ll tell Oscar I think you should try her out, just keep her at arm’s length, which is what we do with new recruits anyway.”

  “Got it. Say hello to Carter and Rooney and Shane for me when you get back to Dundee,” said Wingo as he headed out the door.

  On the cab ride back, Wingo ran down for Kicky the procedures that would be used for providing her with her “special” fares, simple pickup codes via text message and cell phone for her rendezvous points with Volunteers needing transport, etc. As they neared the center of town, Kicky asked him, “What did Ma mean when she said you had a bug up your ass about women?”

  Wingo sighed. “Same thing you probably feel about men. I’ve just been betrayed once too often. Nothing personal. I think that’s the worst thing that the Jews have done to us, in a way. Made white men and women hate and fear and mistrust one another. I know it’s wrong. I know all white women aren’t like the one who sent me to prison, and I figure you’re smart enough to know that all white men aren’t like Lenny Gillis.”

  “Yeah, I know it in my mind,” said Kicky. “It’s just common sense that there have to be some good men left out there somewhere. But why the hell don’t I ever meet any?”

  “The mutual consensus seems to be that white women are all neurotic and treacherous bitches teetering on the edge of outright insanity, who view men as enemies to be overcome and humiliated and scored off, while white men are all overgrown adolescents who are still playing with toys at age forty, and who don’t ever intend to grow up and take on any responsibility in life,” said Wingo. “And you know, there is a hell of a lot of truth in both those assessments. That’s what the Jews have done to us, may God damn them all to hell.”

  “Does the NVA have a lot of women members?” asked Kicky.

  “Mmm, some. Look, I’m afraid I still presume most white women are write-offs, but I will say this: the few remaining exceptions have more range than men do. The good o
nes are better, the smart ones are smarter, the brave ones are braver, and the vile ones are viler. Okay, tell you what, let’s just leave that subject. I know it’s rude, and there’s no call to be rude.”

  “Well, I will say, you have yet to make any snide cracks about my lurid past,” admitted Kicky. “That’s encouraging.”

  “You’ve already said that you know where you’ve been,” said Wingo with a shrug. “No call for me to remind you. Here, pull over on this corner. You’ll probably start getting some of our special trips tomorrow night. One of the people you drive will give you a copy of the Handbook and the General Orders. I’ll repeat what Ma told you, because this is important. Memorize the General Orders and then live by them. There’s only ten of them, just like the Commandments, and like the Commandments they’re just what they say they are: orders, not suggestions. You’ll have a couple of days to read the Handbook, and then you need to give it back to the next comrade who will ask for its return. Do not show it to anybody else or allow yourself to be caught with it, Kicky. Possession of a copy of the Party Handbook or the Army General Orders is considered by the ZOG court system to be prima facie evidence of NVA membership or association, and gets you a short ride strapped to a gurney into a little room with a needle in it. We’re not joking about that.”

  “I know you’re not,” She pulled over and he opened the door. She did not look back at him. “Hey, Thumper, do I get some way to contact you if I need to?”

  “Not yet,” he said. “No offense.”

  “None taken,” she replied. “One more thing: if Ma had given you a thumbs down tonight, would you really have killed me?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Does that bother you?”

  “It would have bothered me more if you’d lied about it,” she said, looking back at him. “Have a good one.”

  “You too.” Then he was gone. The car door hadn’t been closed for twenty seconds before her phone vibrated. Kicky picked up another fare and didn’t call in until twenty minutes and several vibrations later.

  “Why the fuck didn’t you call when I vibed?” yelled Lainie Martinez.

  “They were obviously following me for some time without my knowing,” said Kicky calmly. “Suppose they still are, and someone saw me open my cell phone as soon as the guy got out of my cab?”

  Lainie sighed, but got a grip. “Yeah, okay, I can buy that. As soon as you get off work and check your cab in, we’re picking you up at the bus stop and bringing you in here for a full debriefing. I want to know all about this Thumper character.”

  I hope you meet him some day, bitch, thought Kicky. I hope he kills you before he kills me, so at least I get to watch you die.

  * * *

  Kicky received the documents she had been promised from the NVA a week after her trip to Gresham to meet with Ma. In the interim she had picked up a dozen “special” passengers after she received code words as text messages on her phone, telling her to go to a specific airport terminal or one of the major downtown hotels. Apparently transportation was at a premium in the Portland NVA. The fare would then give Kicky the real place they wanted to go, and Kicky would make up a false destination for her trip sheet of approximately the same mileage and call it in to dispatch. In most cases she took them to a street corner somewhere in the greater Portland area, but sometimes it was an office building, a restaurant or a park or other public place. Also, these fares would sometimes appear out of nowhere at any time of the day or night and flag her down on the street, which she found unnerving. So far they were all men, youngish to middle-aged, and twice there had been two men. They engaged her in no conversation during the ride, paid their meter plus a generous tip, and exited the cab. They always identified themselves by giving her the code signal of first asking her to drive them to the St. Anthony’s Fire Hot Sauce Company. “One of those bastards must think he has a sense of humor,” snorted Lainie contemptuously when she and Kicky went over this part.

  “How do they know where to find me?” asked Kicky in apprehension. “I don’t even know I’m going to some of these pickup points, then I get there and drop off and all of a sudden there’s a Hot Sauce trip. Are they following me or watching me, testing me to see if I’m being tailed by the cops?”

  “Maybe. Then again, we’ve got a GPI on you, maybe they do as well,” said Lainie. “They could have planted one on you somehow while you were in that house in Gresham talking to those two.” This did wonders for Kicky’s paranoia.

  The police had done a quick surreptitious entry into the Gresham house the same night and dusted it for prints, but otherwise found absolutely nothing. “It’s a vacant rental house,” Jamal Jarvis reported back. “Looks like it’s just a once-off drop. We can go rattle the agency handling it, Keystone Properties, but there’s all kinds of ways the goots could have got hold of the keys, and if they have somebody on the inside at Keystone it might tip our hand if we show too much interest in that house.”

  “I agree,” said Lainie. “Put Keystone in the raw file. At least we’ll find out who Thumper and Ma are from their prints, if they’ve got records. Slowly but surely we’re picking up little bits and pieces of the puzzle. Eventually they’ll all come together.” Immediately after the Gresham trip, of course, Martinez and Jarvis had talked to McCafferty about putting some kind of concealed fiber-optic camera and recording device in the taxi itself, to get pictures of the people Kicky picked up, but the problem was that Kicky was given a different vehicle every afternoon when she came in to the garage. Getting her assigned the same car to drive every night so it could be properly bugged would have entailed bringing her lustful dispatcher Achmed Singh in on the operation, and Martinez surprised Kicky by agreeing that a sexual harasser probably constituted a security risk. “He might try to take advantage of the situation even if he didn’t know the whole story about what’s going on,” Lainie said. “Men only think with their cocks.”

  McCafferty looked through some technical manuals and came up with a field expedient, a fiber-optic wireless camera on a wafer-thin silicon circuit board designed to be inserted into cigarette packs, which could be slid in behind the cab license ID card with Kicky’s photo on it that hung on the back seat so the passenger could see to whom he or she was entrusting their life in Portland traffic. There were several problems with this device, though, the first being that it was incredibly expensive, and the second that the Portland PB didn’t have one. It could be acquired through Operation Searchlight’s almost unlimited budget, of course, but that would take time and also draw the unwelcome attention of the federal law enforcement authorities, whose sources of information on what was going on in local police departments were just as thorough as its knowledge of the NVA was almost non-existent. A second problem with the little camera card was that its effective range was only a couple of miles. “Can’t it be set to transmit to us through normal wireless phone channels, so as she moves around it will move as well from tower to tower?” asked Lainie.

  “We can relay through cell sites or via satellite, yes,” McCafferty told her. “But that blows the element of security. Cellular traffic is pretty much open transmission, and not only could anyone who knows what they’re looking for track our surveillance cam down and monitor it, but there’s always the chance it might bleed over into somebody’s video conference or private videophone. You have to remember that while our applied technology improves every year, the infrastructure it has to work within hasn’t been updated since the early 2000s. Far be it from me to suggest that we abandon our gallant little ally Israel, but the fact is that fighting four overseas wars at once at any given time over the past generation has left the cupboard bare for all kinds of things here in America, like upgrading cell switching sites and opening new frequencies, not to mention the power grid and the highway system. The airwaves are as crowded as a termite colony, and just about anyone who’s curious or malicious and who has the necessary skills and minimum gear can hack into any wireless transmission he wants. The only solution to that would
be to encrypt on both ends, and even that doesn’t work sometimes. We know the NVA has some pretty good techie geeks who have already hacked and cracked some pretty serious government traffic. Just how secure do you want this operation to be?”

  “Tight as a drum and no careless loose ends,” said Lainie. “Alright, I’ll talk to the Chief and see if she can finesse this gizmo for us without alerting the FBI that we’re running a major undercover, and when we get it we won’t worry about it transmitting. We’ll just set it to record and look at the footage at the end of our girl’s shift every morning. We’ll have the live transmission from her body mics so we’ll know who to look for. But getting hold of the device will probably take some time.”

  It did, and it was in the interim between the ordering of the fiber optic card and its delivery that Kicky got a delivery of her own. She was parked at a cab rank outside the downtown Nordstrom on Broadway, when a shabby wino came up to her cab, and without being asked began to squeegee her windows with soapy water from a plastic bucket he carried. She rolled down the window and said “Piss off!” in irritation. The man set down his bucket, held his finger to his lips, and from underneath his coat he pulled a bulky manila envelope, which he thrust at her through the window. Without a word, he picked up the bucket and shambled off down the street. Kicky was by now becoming hardened to surprises during her shift. She said “Fucking homeless squeegee street person!” clearly out loud, speaking to the listeners in the operations center whose ears she carried over her shoulders. She slid the envelope into her handbag and with immense self-discipline, she waited until she got home at the end of her shift to take it out.