“Hell, I’ll toss a couple more canisters into the lobby just for devilment on the way out,” said Randall.
* * *
On the day before the Oscars, for the first time, Task Force Director’s Cut was all gathered in one place, a large private home with a green lawn and hissing sprinklers on 20th Street in Santa Monica. It was very risky, and some of the crew were on sentry duty and would be briefed later by their team leaders, but this was the most important operation that the Northwest Volunteer Army had undertaken to date. Every single man or woman was being utilized in some capacity or other, and every one of them had to be brought into the big picture. The only people missing were the local contacts who would participate, i.e. Barry Brewer, Sterling Farrell, and Erica Collingwood. They had no need to meet the entire Portland task force, and the task force had no need to meet them.
They were all gathered in the large living room. “Before we begin, I think we need to congratulate Quartermaster Lieutenant Ekstrom on her first active service operation,” said Hill with a smile, standing up in front of them. There was a scattering of cheers and applause.
“Stealing a police car is active service?” asked Christina.
“If you risk getting shot at, it’s active service,” said Hill. “Are both the squad cars hidden away somewhere safe?”
“Yes, in that private garage I showed you,” said Christina. “Volunteers McReady and Gearhiser do good paint work, and they have re-detailed both squad cars already, to change the numbers. You can’t tell the difference. I want to add a vote of thanks to the absent but very Talented indeed Mr. Ripley. In addition to all our luxury accommodation, well, luxury compared to what we’re used to, he’s been fantastic about getting me everything I need, mostly from the prop and costume rooms of the movie studios themselves, if you can believe it. We’ve got two Los Angeles cop uniforms complete with belts and accessories, those A/C mechanic outfits Mick and Cat used the other night, six tuxes for the rest of the team, you name it. He even offered to try and dig up a formal evening gown with some kind of long sleeves and high back to hide Kicky’s tattoos if she wanted to go in that way.” There was laughter.
“Which would mean me having to run around and fight in high heels. I don’t think so,” said Kicky.
“I’ll run the operation down for you from beginning to end,” said Hill. “Hit the lights please, somebody.” The lights dimmed and one overhead projector cast a floor plan of the Kodak Theater onto the wall, while a second showed the plan of the Hollywood Royale hotel. “The actual infiltration of the theater and the assault will be carried out by seven personnel. Red fire team will consist of Volunteers Lockhart, Wingo, and McGee. Gold team will consist of Volunteers Kolchak, Gauss, and Washburn. Lieutenant Randall will be in command as assault group leader, with Third Section assets also on the inside. You have been briefed on the general situation, so that you know we intend to conceal ourselves prior to the attack right in the middle of the enemy, on the fourteenth floor of a hotel full of partying movie stars, possibly the most unusual camouflage ever attempted in the history of warfare since the Trojan Horse. We thought that our contact was going to be compelled to obtain a suite on a floor below the two that have been reserved for the Hollywood celebrities, but I have been informed that we will in fact have access to a suite that is on the lower of those two party floors. I will not release the room number except to the personnel who will need to know. But we should be able to move out of the Hollywood Royale and into the Kodak completely undetected, since the security cameras have been turned off on those floors to prevent the recording for posterity of these high-toned people’s gross behavior, with the subsequent risk of sale of compromising clips to tabloid newspapers, blackmail, etc. As always, comrades, the gods favor us. I’ve noticed that happens a lot since we decided to quit running around street corners holding signs and wearing silly costumes, and took up the gun.”
“Amen,” spoke up one of the Volunteers. “Never doubt that He is with us. Or They, as some of us prefer.”
Hill smiled. “The suite has now been obtained and occupied, and some of our material already deposited there, including certain crucial electronic key cards. The assault group’s entry to the hotel will begin at eight o’clock tomorrow morning on the receiving dock of the Hollywood Royale hotel, when Comrades Bishop and Valdemar will appear in the guise of delivery drivers bringing in some boxes for a party to be held in the penthouse. Those boxes will contain the weapons, ammunition, and equipment that will be needed for the assault. You’ve got that covered, Chris?”
“Mr. Ripley again,” said Christina. “LA Lightning Delivery van, two sets of coveralls, hand trucks and all.”
“Good,” said Hill. “Comrades Bishop and Valdemar will be met at the loading dock by a person who is a Third Section asset, and they will be assisted past the check-in and into the service elevator. They will deposit their boxes in the hotel suite, and then they will be clearly seen by the security cameras to leave the same way they came.”
“What person, sir?” asked Sue Valdemar.
“Right, let’s deal with that subject, for you inside people,” said Hill. “There will be someone in the hotel, and in the theater later during the ceremonies, who is shaping up to be a vitally important asset to the cause of Northwest independence in this matter, and who will continue to be invaluable in the future. If you have ever watched much TV or seen many movies, the chances are that you will recognize this person. Or think you do, because as far as we are concerned this person does not exist. He or she was never there, and you will forget that you ever saw him, or her. You will not mention his or her name, not to your comrades, not among yourselves, not to anyone else, not until long after the war when military secrecy regulations are repealed. This person is risking their life and everything they have in the world, in order to help our new country come into being, and he or she has a lot more to lose than most. It would be tragic and heartbreaking if he or she perished because somebody got star-struck and couldn’t keep their lip zipped. I repeat, he or she does not exist. Even under torture, if it comes to that, this person was never there. Are we all clear on this?”
“I never met this person, yet already I don’t remember them,” said Lockhart.
Hill nodded. “Good. Now, once the weapons are in place, the infiltration of the Hollywood Royale hotel will begin shortly thereafter. Each team member will enter the hotel separately. You will be dressed as civilians, reporters and fans and bit actor types, and you’ll go in at roughly one-hour intervals, unarmed in the event you have to pass through any metal detectors. The hotel is going to be full of people having various things to do with the Academy Awards, so you should be able to pass unnoticed. Lieutenant Randall will go first.
“You will make your way without exciting any suspicion to the hotel suite number you will be given. You will also be given a code knock. Once inside the rooms, you will collect your weapons, change into tuxedos, including Comrade McGee, which will be of some benefit to her since if she wears male attire, the enemy may not realize afterward that they’re looking for at least one female suspect. You will be given party masks so that if you have to go out into the hall, people will assume you’re doped and drunken celebrities and entourage headed up to the penthouse for the main orgy. A word of advice on the tuxes: make sure you are wearing good, well broken-in black men’s shoes. Kick, you need to get a pair of black running shoes or something you can live with in there with the morning delivery, or wear them when you enter the hotel. You guys are going to have to be running and maybe climbing, and you don’t want to be doing that in new, hard patent leather shoes that will blister your feet and distract you. While in the hotel room, you will also assemble your web belts. This belt will hold a radio and a throwaway cell phone. The cell phone is for emergency contact with the outside, at numbers you will have already pre-programmed into the phone. The teams will actually communicate with each other and with Lieutenant Randall using the radios, not the phones. The belts
will also contain two each hand grenades, one gas mask, one smoke grenade each, and a holstered automatic with a silencer, mostly .22s but a few .380s as well. You guys can sort out who gets what handgun when you’re getting ready to roll.”
Charlie Randall took up the thread. “We intend to strike during the acceptance speech for Best Screenplay, which starts at approximately 6:48 p.m. I am informed these ceremonies run on rails to make sure all the sponsored advertising gets in, and we can pretty much assume that everything will be on time. This means that allowing several minutes for the presenter’s reading the nominations, we open fire at about 6:51. We’re in luck again; the schedule calls for no film clips from the nominated movies to be shown for Best Screenplay, so we’ll be able to get into the projection booths without interrupting anything in progress. At 6:30 p.m. sharp I myself will leave the hotel suite, dressed as an air conditioning maintenance bloke like I was the other night. I will enter the private elevator and take it to the hotel garage level. I will then enter the corridor leading to the Kodak Theater with an electronic key card that will have been provided for me. Volunteers Lockhart and Kolchak will also have one of these cards. Let’s hope it works, or the whole mission is an abort. I will enter the theater, and I will make my way along a route that I have determined with one of our inside assets to be the best and least likely to be surveilled. If I am challenged, I will eliminate the challenger with a silenced pistol. I will enter the interstitial area here, and take up my position,” he indicated with a cursor on the diagram. “In the meantime, at 6:40 p.m., the rest of the team will depart the hotel suite, having first donned latex surgical gloves. Your faces will be concealed in party masks and you will be wearing your web belts, and you will be carrying your heavy weapons in canvas gym-type bags that we will provide. You will take the same route and enter the Kodak theater.”
“And there are no cameras at all along this underground route, you say?” asked Machine Gun Mike Gauss incredulously.
“Not until you reach the open archway door into the backstage bay and storage area,” confirmed Randall.
“It’s ironic that we are taking advantage of a deliberate lapse in security on the part of the enemy, which was created so as to allow these most privileged members of the American ruling élite to commit acts of revolting perversion and debauchery unimpeded by any observation or censure,” said Hill with a chuckle. “There are no security cameras or guards in these corridors and elevators here and in the Kodak in order to save the stars from the consequences of their behavior, an immunity that they have enjoyed for generations. Now tomorrow night, some of them are going to pay for that immunity with their lives. Poetic justice, I’d say.”
“I’ll go over with you how to get past the one rotating camera and into the jumping-off area, which is the mouth of this corridor under the stage leading to the orchestra pit, here,” said Randall, pointing with his cursor. “The fire teams will need to get into the jumping off point, get your heavy weapons out of the bags, assembled, and locked and loaded, and all the extra ammo pouches and gas mask carriers onto your web belts.”
“Oh, and each of you will have been issued a standard dark blue wool ski mask,” said Hill. “When you get under cover in the orchestra pit passageway, in addition to getting all your weapons together, I want you to take off the party masks and stow them, and put on the ski masks. I don’t want this historic hit to be carried out by Volunteers wearing the faces of Bozo the Clown, Beavis and Butthead or Bill Clinton, or any nonsense like that. I want those security digitals to show proper terrorist ski masks, okay? I know that sounds silly, but we don’t want the public to see images from the cameras of our Volunteers dressed like clowns or Dracula. That’s the kind of thing that sticks in people’s minds. Once you get everything out of the bags, fold them up and put them all into one bag, the big duffel. And remember that on your way out you must stop briefly and pick that bag up and take it with you. We don’t want the FBI finding it and getting fingerprints and hair and whatnot off the party masks.”
“Right, I figure about two minutes for all of that once you get undercover in the corridor entryway,” picked up Randall again. “I need to hear from you when you are in place and ready to move out. I will already have removed the intake vent grill from the air conditioning duct. I will be watching the progress of the ceremonies on my hand-held phone with the wireless TV. When I hear that you lads and lassie are in place, and the Best Screenplay presenter is making her opening spiel, I will put on my own gas mask and pop three CS grenades into the intake vent. I give it thirty seconds before everybody’s out of that control room, blind and puking. We also have the promise of some kind of diversion in the lobby from one of our Threesec people, so hopefully no one will notice anything in the theater itself. Three canisters is a lot of gas, and there may be some blowback through the air vents. Do not put on your gas mask unless you feel the gas actually starting to hit you. Hopefully we’ll be out of there before it really starts to permeate through the building, which will further hinder enemy recovery and first investigatory efforts as well. Thirty seconds after I pop the gas, Cat, I’m going to yell on the radio for you to go, and then you go, go, go!” said Randall. “There shouldn’t be anyone in the control room left to see you. The two fire teams will leave the jumping-off place and move on the double up the stairs to the third floor, pop the guards with silenced pistols, get into the projection booths, disable the projectionists however indicated by their race, and assume firing position. The full auto cover men, Comrades Wingo and Gauss, will position outside at the mouth of the little hall that leads to each booth, and will cut down anyone who comes down the main corridor, thus protecting the other two Volunteers in their team while they take out the targets. Cat, you get to open the festivities, and I’ve already indicated when. Try to take both those bugger boys down with your first shots.”
“It’s done. They’re outta here,” said Lockhart.
“We want a Mad Minute of Shock and Awe,” said Hill. “The maddest ever, because remember, this is going to be on live nationwide TV. Cat, you and Ron will both fire twenty well-aimed rounds apiece, and remember, after those two initial faggots for camera effect, you’re going for the Burger Kings, the Big Kikes. Mark your targets, put a round in them as close to dead center as you can in all the chaos, and then try for another. It’s going to be hard, I know, like firing into a tornado and trying to hit a specific straw. One round per target unless you know you’ve got a really big sheeny in your sights, like Sid Glick or Allen Adler or Hymie Hirschfeld. The grenadiers will throw both their grenades, one each as soon as the firing begins, and a second after approximately thirty seconds. They will also open fire on full automatic, into what will almost certainly be a screaming vortex of sheer madness, concentrating on the VIP circle in front of the orchestra pit. There will be no innocent parties down there. Anyone who rates a seat in that section is Hollywood up to their eyeballs, and guilty as sin. Ideally not one glitterati pig or bitch who sits down at one of those little Parisian café tables to pose for us unwashed masses in all their haute couture glory should make it out of that theater alive. But especially not Jews. Bear in mind what all this is in aid of, comrades. Hollywood is possibly the greatest weapon the Jews have against our race, maybe even more powerful and dangerous in some ways than their control of the federal government and of international banking. Hollywood is the biggest leg of that unholy tripod, and we have to knock it out from under them.”
“Oh, and by the way, could you also see if you can spare a few bursts for the private boxes you’ll see across the way?” asked Randall. “You snipers too, make sure you take a look up there and see if you can spot some of our main targets who will be swanning themselves, especially studio execs.”
“Ron will be a little slower to fire than me, because he packs an M-24, which is bolt action and has only a ten-round magazine capacity,” pointed out Lockhart. “He’ll have to reload. But we all get the idea. Okay, now, the big point we’ve all been wonde
ring about. Extraction. Once our Mad Minute is up, how do we get the hell out of there?”
“Same way you came in, only a lot faster and with a lot less stealth,” said Hill. “Back down the stairs, making sure you pick up that duffle bag with all the other folded bags and masks and bits and pieces in it on the way out, back into the Trap Door, at the double, and anybody who gets in your way or shoots at you gets knocked out of the way. Once you get out through the Royale end, you do not go back up into the hotel, you go through the underground garage along the far wall, down low behind the parked cars, which should keep you out of range of the cameras in the Royale security control room. At the Highland Avenue entrance you will be met by Volunteers Eckert and Pilefski, each wearing the uniform of a Los Angeles police officer and each driving a brand spanking new LAPD squad car, courtesy of Ace and Christina’s hotwiring ability. Red team goes in one car, Gold team goes in the second, they hit the sirens and you’re outta there.”
“What about Comrade Dundee, sir?” asked Kicky.
“I will follow, but I have to make a little detour,” explained Charlie. “I have to get back into the Royale, get into their security control room, and pop out the hard drive containing their digital recordings of the day’s activities in the hotel, so that the feds will hopefully have some difficulty in figuring out how we pulled it all off. I have my own E&E route planned from there. Well, mates, that’s the skeleton of it. There’s still a lot of detail to be fleshed out, but any questions so far?”
“Worst case scenario, Oscar,” spoke up Lockhart. “Suppose something goes wrong after we get in, and it’s obvious before we can get into position and make our coordinated move that they’re onto us?”
“If that’s the case, or if you do not get the go signal from me by the time the Best Screenplay presentation ends . . . what’s next, Oscar?” Randall asked Hill.
“Best Director,” said Hill.
The Brigade Page 61
