The Brigade

by H. A. Covington

  Annette raised her hand. “Jesus, I feel like I’m teaching school here with you young kids,” laughed Pascarella. “Well, I suppose I am. Okay, the girl with her hand up in the front and only row.”

  “Booby-traps!” said Annette.

  “You got it,” confirmed Pascarella. “Whenever it is physically possible, the NVA always booby-traps the scene of an operation before un-assing the area, any vehicles or other likely receptacles, the dead bodies of any enemies, so forth and so on. This has gummed up the police and the feds no end; sometimes it takes them a whole day to locate and disarm booby-traps, and that’s a whole ’nother day you guys have to cover your tracks. Not to mention the dead and wounded the traps still inflict on the enemy, even at their most cautious. The most common booby traps are black powder pipe bombs or home-made stick grenades with trip-wire or spring-loaded dets, but I’ve heard of everything from hidden shotguns, to bear traps, to door handles wired with electricity, to poisoned beer, to weird concoctions in toilet bowls that react with the ammonia in urine and blow off important parts of federal personnel using them.”

  “Our crew blew a nigger’s head off with a charge we left behind in a john with the seat closed,” said Jason with smug satisfaction.

  Pascarella chuckled. “Okay, now, as to the practical aspect of assembling and detonating ordnance. Every explosive device consists of three basic components. There is the main charge, the dynamite or Semtex or whatever will provide the main blast. There is a much smaller detonation charge, usually a commercially manufactured squib like this,” and he held up a small copper tube about the size of a pencil stub. “This is what is called a blasting or a percussion cap, and there are a lot of different kinds, some with powder, some completely electrical, some with a tungsten filament like a light bulb. A detonator cap can also be improvised with chemical or liquid nitro gel in a bottle, a Molotov cocktail or something like that. A single ordinary Chinese firecracker in a stick of dynamite or TNT works beautifully. The cap explodes and thus detonates the main charge. Thirdly, you have an ignition or detonation system to blow the detonator cap, which can be something as simple as a black powder trail or a burning fuse of the kind you see in old movies, but usually it’s something electric involving a battery or some other device that sends an electric spark into the blasting cap and explodes that, which then detonates the main charge. The key to blowing the enemy into smithereens and not yourselves is simple: you keep these three components disconnected until the last possible minute. There are three kinds of detonation processes, with a few variations. Numero uno, there are timed detonation systems. This might be your basic old alarm clock with a battery attached or something more sophisticated and digital. A timed detonation is when the device is set either to explode within a certain time like five minutes, or else it’s set to explode at a certain time like 3:15 p.m. when you believe your target will be within range.”

  “The ticking time bomb of metaphor,” said Annette.

  “What’s a metaphor?” asked Kicky.

  “Sorry, some of that preppie stuff seeped into my brain,” said Annette apologetically. Annette was in awe of Kicky since the Battle of Flanders Street. Kicky was older than Annette, she was rumored to have been a hooker, she had tattoos and a child, she’d been in jail, and in Annette’s rich-kid eyes she had an irresistible wrong-side-of-the-tracks chic, a weird kind of reverse snobbery that sometimes showed in Volunteers from the upper classes.

  Pascarella ignored them. “Then there’s remote-controlled detonation, which means you need your bombardier or at least a spotter observing the area where the bomb has been laid, and you have to wait for the enemy’s convoy or APC or armored limo or other vehicle, and detonate when he’s on top of the IED. We find that wireless phone mother boards and batteries work peachy keen for this purpose; you put the phone’s number on speed dial and once you connect the battery and board to the detonator cap via a few wires and alligator clips, all you do is hit speed dial and kablooey. The Iraqis taught us that. We used to shoot them in if we caught them with a cell phone anywhere near an IED blast. Just pray to God some telemarketer doesn’t call up trying to sell you a timeshare in some ski resort just as you’re hooking on the clips.”

  “Has that ever happened?” asked Kicky curiously.

  “Haven’t had anybody killed, no, but every now and then an IED goes off prematurely for no reason anyone can figure out, and that may well be the cause, some junk call. Damned telemarketers!” admitted Pascarella. “The third type of detonation system is through a wire or cord, either an electric wire connected to a plunger battery or an actual military det cord, but we don’t use that one much.” Pascarella turned very serious. “Now, listen up, kids—sorry, comrades—because this is important. Safety. What are euphemistically called ‘work accidents’ with explosives will happen in one of two ways. First, you accidentally detonate the blasting cap while it is inserted or connected to the main charge, because you somehow get a closed circuit and a spark from the battery on your ignition device. This is the primary reason why you need to keep your ignition system disconnected or disabled until the very last minute, until the ordnance is in place and the enemy is standing on top of it, if possible. There are also assorted safety precautions we use on remote-control devices, like turning off the phone you’re going to use to blow the charge and actually taking the battery out to make damned good and sure. Never, ever insert a detonator cap into a charge that is connected to the ignition device by any kind of wire or fuse. Cap first, then the disconnected wire, then connect the ignition system, then put the battery back in and arm the ignition system when you are a safe distance away, not when you’re still looking at the charge on your front seat.

  “The second cause of premature detonation is when the main charge itself becomes unstable and is ignited by heat or pressure or static electricity. This is one reason why with one exception, the Portland EOD unit always tries to use properly manufactured commercial or military explosives, and not these weird concoctions that O.C. Oglevy’s boys and some of our other more eccentric comrades like to cook up in the bathtub of some house trailer. The most serious EOD accident the Portland NVA ever had was when two very fine comrades, Volunteers Vladko Kirilov and Paul Strasser, were handling some home-made gelignite and as nearly as we can figure, the damned stuff had become unstable and started sweating nitroglycerine. Both were killed. Never forget, guys, this stuff is deadly dangerous, and if you disrespect it you will pay with your life and maybe the life of a comrade as well.”

  “What kind of explosives does the NVA use?” asked Jason.

  “The most common explosives available to the NVA’s EOD teams throughout the Homeland are good old fashioned dynamite, TNT, and black powder,” explained Pascarella. “Dynamite and TNT are still as common as dirt. They’re vital in construction, urban demolition besides the kind we do, and in mining. The federal government can’t ban these explosives or control them; there’s too much need for them in industries that make the soulless men in the business suits money. There is a special EOD commando unit that travels all over the United States pulling off burglaries and raids on mine compounds and construction sites, and carting off cases of dynamite and TNT by the dozen in specially made vehicles. The one exception I just mentioned is that we do make a lot of our own black powder in several covert powder mills, which is simple and reasonably safe so long as no moron lights up a cigarette. 10% sulphur, 75% sodium nitrate, and 15% charcoal is the most effective recipe, although there are variations. Mix it up carefully and you’ve got what Shakespeare called ‘villainous saltpetre,’ the stuff our ancestors used to take the whole world from the Indians and the Zulus. By the way, always make sure any black powder you use is made and approved by the EOD unit. We had some kids a while back down in Eugene who were making their own and using potassium chlorate instead of sodium nitrate, to give it more kick, which was an incredibly stupid thing to do. Potassium chlorate is unstable as hell. It will go off if a fly lands on it, and one o
f the chemistry nerds blew two fingers off one hand. He was lucky he didn’t lose his head.

  “But the champagne of all insurrectionary explosives is still Semtex, which is now manufactured in a dozen countries as well as the Czech Republic where it was invented,” the lieutenant continued. “While the federal government has succeeded in imposing all kinds of records-keeping, special handling regs, security measures, ethylene glycol and other chemical tagging and so forth on American manufacturers, the original Czech producers are still merrily exporting it all over the globe, and it’s not that hard to get if you have the folding green to pay for it. Semtex is the charge of choice for big jobs when we can lay hands on it. It’s just about the most potent stuff available for our purposes. A pound of it can take down a good-sized house, a briefcase full can decapitate an office building, and in the rare cases where we want to go that distance, a car trunk full of Semtex can send an entire city block to the moon. Gelignite, jellied nitroglycerine, is actually a bit more powerful, but it’s not manufactured anymore and like I mentioned, the bathtub variety is dangerous to work with, so we don’t fuck with it. When Quartermaster GHQ can get hold of Semtex, we parcel it out among the EOD units and we reserve it for special jobs. I mention that because you guys may be called upon to make some pickups or deliveries to Spokane or Seattle or Boise. If so, don’t worry about it. It’s quite stable so long as that detonator cap stays out of it and you don’t hit it with a hammer or do anything to cause compression.”

  “How about C-4, sir?” asked Eric Sellars.

  “When we can get it, it’s great,” said Pascarella. “However, the American military has become so paranoid about our bombing capability that they have actually moved all of the military stocks of C-4 out of the Homeland, and they’ve got it locked up tighter than the gold in Fort Knox in a number of special facilities across the rest of the empire. It practically takes a signed order from the President or the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to get the Army Corps of Engineers or the Green Berets issued with any C-4 for legitimate purposes, if you want to call Amurrica’s purposes legitimate. We do still get hold of some, but it’s actually a lot easier and simpler and more cost effective for us to load up on dynamite and TNT. Now—delivery. This is where you guys come in.”

  The young Volunteers leaned forward. “There are car and truck bombs, of course,” Pascarella told them. “Sometimes that’s the only way, when the attack is against, say, a major military convoy and your only possible ambush site is on a city street, or more often when it’s some Amurrican bigwig in his armored limousine that we can’t breach any other way. But we don’t like doing that, because of the risk of unacceptable collateral damage. On a few occasions we’ve managed to get a car or a truck bomb close enough to crack a Bremer wall or wipe out a watchtower or something of that kind, and I suppose you heard about that helluva prison break last week at the Auburn detention facility up in Washington where Jock Graham’s crew blew a hole in the fence with a truck bomb. But a vehicle bomb is a major operation that has to be looked at from all angles and approved by brigade command or higher. We do not want the streets of Northwest cities turned into Baghdad or the Gaza Strip. Our sharp-eyed lads in the sniper companies inflict more physical and psychological harm on the enemy than a hundred car bombs could do, and they do it surgically and with a panache that excites admiration among whites, not fear and loathing.

  “Most bombing is specifically targeted against indoor installations, the object being to slip inside their defensive perimeters and hit them where they think they’re safe. Have any of you been asked to deliver a package yet?”

  “I have,” said Kicky. “It was my first solo tickle. That faggot bookstore and sex shop downtown with the big cartoon character sign, Homer Erotica. The Red Baron himself made up my package. I was given a fake student ID, and I brought in a shoulder bag full of books on the poems of Sappho and the Joy of Lesbian Sex and all that crap. Each book was cut out, and it had a stick or two of dynamite inside, plus there were six more sticks sewed into the lining of the bag. I had a plastic cell phone loaded with some kind of gunk to serve as the detonator. They didn’t have any dogs, and there was no metal in the bag so it passed the detector. The bugger boy just glanced inside the bag and put it behind the counter to make sure I didn’t try to shoplift a dildo or something. Before he did I put the cell phone into the bag. I browsed the shelves for a few minutes, then slipped out the back, went down the street, and dialed the phone’s number. Blowed up real good.”

  “Good job, comrade, and a typical day’s work for our parcel post,” responded Pascarella with a nod, impressed. “It is entirely likely that you other three will at one stage or other be asked to deliver a package. There is no mission in the Army that requires more courage, more cool-headedness, and more just plain balls, as well as the ability to think on your feet and be a better actor or actress than anyone in Hollywood, which this classy lady here seems to have. Each one of these missions is unique, and I can’t really prepare you for them except to say that you will be given full training in everything you are to carry, its risks and how to handle and use it. You will have to get into your target zone, most likely past armed guards and sniffer dogs and God knows what kind of electronic security gear. Some units in the NVA draw lots for package deliveries. I always ask for volunteers and I brief them personally beforehand to make sure they’re up to it, mentally and emotionally. I have never been disappointed yet. Later on, when your respective companies are brought in on a major attack or ambush, especially if you end up with a flying column out in the countryside, you will almost certainly be involved in preparing and implanting and detonating IEDs, which can vary from a just plain big-ass box of dynamite to daisy chains of home-made Claymore mines. Over here I have some samples of the kinds of casings that we use for IEDs. If you guys will gather around this pallet here, I’ll give you an idea of how we hook them up for detonation.” The four of them surrounded the wooden pallet, and Pascarella’s lesson went on.

  * * *

  As soon as the four young Volunteers’ transport arrived and picked them up to take them home, Pascarella went over to a window and signaled with a flashlight. Then he walked over to one darkened office and knocked on the door. The door opened and Gary Bresler stepped out, a headset on his ears. “You saw and heard what you needed to?” asked Pascarella.

  “Yeah,” replied Bresler. “Didn’t see or hear anything off key, though. Did you get any vibes you didn’t like off any of them?”

  Pascarella raised one of the roll-up doors and a large blue van without lights backed onto the dimly lit floor. Two men got out and opened the rear door, and they began loading the two mortars and the homemade rockets into specially prepared racks. “I think they’re all four bright and dedicated young people, and whoever recruited them knows his job,” replied the explosives officer. “That biker girl, Jodie, she was the chick on Flanders Street with Cat Lockhart that day, right? So she’s already made her bones?”

  “Yep,” said Bresler. “Which doesn’t mean diddly. You know as well as I do that a deep cover informant is quite capable of blowing away a couple of catamites in order to create their bona fides for the Army.”

  “Yeah, I know. Dammit, Gary, I’m a bomber, not a ferret! I don’t like spying on my own people, and I don’t like using my heavy weapons as bait in this little spy hunt of yours. As crappy as they are, those mortars and rockets need to be dropping stuff on American noggins from above, not being driven all over Portland as props in this grim little charade.”

  “It has to be done, Vince,” growled Bresler. “I have at least two more batches I want you to do for me, just like these last two. I’ll tell you where to bring the stuff in a couple of days.”

  “I didn’t say it didn’t have to be done. I just said I don’t like doing it.”

  “Jesus Christ, Vince, do you think I do?” demanded Bresler. Two more men walked in from the darkness outside, special Third Section operatives who had been brought down from
Seattle. “Okay, Zeke, you guys all set up across the street?” asked Bresler.

  “All set up, Lieutenant,” said one of them, a young man named Ezekiel in a neat shirt and tie who looked like a Mormon missionary, which he had once been until he was tied to the garroting deaths of a Mexican police officer and several transvestite prostitutes in Twin Falls, Idaho. His companion was an older man dressed as a wino who was called Pops—what else? Pops’ specialty was maudlin weeping and pissing in his pants when stopped by police and RRT patrols. The old man convinced his interrogator that he was a nothing but a pathetic drunken derelict, making him turn away in disgust so Pops could get an ice pick into his ear with the speed of a striking cobra, while his companions hidden in the darkness took out the rest of the patrol with silenced pistols and rifles.

  “Okay, same drill as before,” Bresler told the two Threesec men. “Stay under cover for at least two days, three if your boss will let you. 24-hour watch on this building, in relays. If our wrong ’un was one of those four, then those mortars and rockets should be a major coup for him or her and a serious temptation for the Mami and the Monkey to risk blowing their rat’s cover in exchange for a big score and seeing their own faces on CNN. If there is any sign at all of any police interest in this building, not just a full-blown door-kicking raid but anything at all odd, strange cars prowling around, copters overhead, mysterious gas company inspectors or UPS deliveries to an empty building, stray pedestrians wandering around who seem to be out of place, you let me know. Hopefully, though, those four young people are all loyal Northwest Volunteers and you guys have got another long and fruitless stakeout ahead of you. Also, if you should spot Lainie Martinez and/or Jamal Jarvis scoping the area, if at all possible try to take at least one of them alive and in a condition to talk. No ice picks or nooses or other recreation until after I talk to them, okay?”