“My guess: they walked right in the fucking front door, and they already had their weapons and gear and maybe that key card already waiting for them. That means they must have brought the stuff in much earlier, because from a couple of hours before the ceremonies started, the Royale was part of the LAPD security zone, never mind all the rent-a-cops and hotel employees all over. Yet no one reported any suspicious groups of people entering the building. So how did they get all the weapons and explosives in?”
“Uh, in suitcases or trunks something?” speculated Danziger.
“Most likely, yes. So when does someone bring suitcases or trunks into a hotel?” asked Shulman rhetorically.
“When you’re checking in!” said Danziger with a frown. “Gevalt, Marty, I see what you’re getting at. That would mean . . .”
Shulman nodded. “It would mean that rather than try to slip a commando team and an arsenal of weapons into the Hotel Royale during the ceremonies, the shooters entered the hotel a lot earlier than the cops thought at first. The day before, even, maybe earlier. I think they were already inside the building when the security cordon went up. Hiding in one of the rooms.”
“But the police and the FBI have identified and interviewed every single person who was a registered guest at the Royale, not to mention all of the staff,” said Danziger. “They all checked out as being exactly who they said they were, and they all had a plausible explanation as to why they were there.”
“Exactly,” said Shulman. “One of those registered guests was the second inside man. Now I am going to find him. Or her.”
* * *
In a Brentwood townhouse, a grim group of Northwest Volunteers sat or stood in front of a large plasma screen TV. They were watching the first columns of FATPO, the Federal Anti-Terrorist Police Organization, rolling into Portland, headed for their newly constructed, fortified Green Zone in North Portland. The Fatties, as they were already being called in the NVA and throughout the Northwest, were riding in armored trucks escorted by Stryker and Bradley fighting vehicles bristling with weaponry, painted a deep blue so dark as to look almost black. The men were swathed in body armor, helmets, and goggles. No faces could be seen, although it was known that the new force was predominantly black and Hispanic. “Smart place they picked for their base of operations,” commented Cat Lockhart. “Right in the middle of niggertown. Any whites who go in there to scout the place or hit ’em on the street will stand out like a statue.”
“The commentary says there have already been some ‘terrorist contacts’ in Portland, whatever that means and however far we can trust anything they say,” said Christina Ekstrom. “They may be making it up. You can never tell with anything you see in the American media.”
Lieutenant Wayne Hill scowled at the TV. “Their orders are to provoke incidents with the local people if they can’t lure us out to take potshots at them, then to shoot first and ask questions later. They call it ‘establishing a dynamic and proactive community presence,’ otherwise known as letting the peasantry know who’s boss.”
“Damn, I wish we were back home now,” said Lockhart with a sigh.
Hill shook his head. “It may be that part of their plan, one reason Hillary committed them early, is to try and raise such hell in the Homeland that we pull our task force out of Los Angeles to fight these new goon squads back home, and thus relieve pressure on Hollywood,” he told them. “We need to redouble our efforts here to cripple the Dream Machine and prevent the enemy from using it to prop up his régime and spread propaganda. That’s more important than ever now, since we don’t want the media and the entertainment industry making Chuck Norris-style action heroes out of these criminal and unconstitutional gun thugs. We have to bear in mind that in Hollywood, ZOG has a weapon far more potent than anything those goons are toting. Since our major human targets have been depleted somewhat, we’ll be making more use of Pascarella and his team, building more car bombs to physically destroy their plant, their sets, their equipment. Remember, in a colonial war the generals never surrender, the accountants do, and we are going to drive Hollywood’s accountants into despair as we trash more and more of their toys and run up their bills sky high.”
“Sir, you told us once that we’ve known these sons of bitches are coming for over a year now,” said Lockhart. “Not asking for any confidential information, but how will the Army be dealing with this?”
“The first effect this will have is to increase significantly the manpower available to ZOG for search-and-destroy, house-to-house searches, security checkpoints, neighborhood lockdowns, so forth and so on,” said Hill. “Out in the countryside where guys like Zack Hatfield operate, that won’t be too much of a factor. The Pacific Northwest is a mighty big place, and even throwing an extra 50,000 men into the mix isn’t going to cover that huge territory too much more effectively than with what ZOG has in there already by way of police and regular military. Where it will affect us most is in the densely populated urban areas like Portland, Seattle and the Puget Sound metroplex, Spokane, a few smaller cities like Boise and Eugene and so on. It will mean they can concentrate more firepower more quickly when there is a tickle. The Greater Seattle area is huge, and I think it might not be quite so bad there, but Portland is comparatively much smaller and much more densely populated, and we will be more seriously affected. Remember the famous Surge of 2007, when Bush Two and his little Jewish neocons friends tried to secure Baghdad with an influx of troops? It didn’t work then, but the Sea Hag doesn’t seem to have learned anything from Jug-Ears’ mistakes. That’s what this FATPO thing is all about, basically, securing the cities and reducing the level of violence at least to a manageable level, and keeping the federal control from breaking down completely, as it already has done over vast stretches of countryside. In theory, once they get the cities secured they can try moving in on smaller towns like Zack in Astoria. I’ll be interested to see how that plays out.”
“So how are we going to counter this, sir?” asked Christina.
“Same way the Iraqis did in 2007,” Hill told them. “He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day. We’re evacuating the central Portland area, re-establishing ourselves in a necklace of safe houses and ops centers around the periphery of the greater Portland area, the far suburbs and out in the rural counties, and we’ll be striking inward and attempting to lure them out into ambushes. They may successfully reduce the level of revolutionary violence in the city itself, for a time, but overall their own casualty levels will rise, since we now have more targets to shoot at. The whole secret to successful guerrilla warfare, the key to defeating a numerically and logistically more powerful enemy, is to pick your pressure points and make sure that in every small action, you outgun them at that point, even if overall you’re outnumbered 20 to 1. They’re trying to change that equation, and now more than ever, our watchword has to be don’t let them surround us, trap us in some house or building or small enclosed area where they can bring their superior numbers and firepower to bear. We have to stay light, stay mobile, never let ourselves be trapped, and above all we have to hit, hit, hit! Ideally no one should ever turn on the television in the Northwest and see what the Fatties and the cops are doing. People need to see what the NVA is doing. We need to do our bit, and make sure they have something besides drunk and stupid celebrities to watch on Showbiz Tonight.”
“What’s the latest on our own security sitch, sir?” asked Lockhart.
“We’ve been busy planting fake trails, calling in fake leads to the tip lines and whatnot to waste their time and run them in circles, and that’s helped a lot,” said Hill. “Now Ripley tells me that the FBI has gotten tired of working hard and they’re going to try working smart, as they see it. They finally seem to have understood that we must have some kind of local assistance to be able to conceal ourselves and move around effectively in Los Angeles, and so they’re digging like hell into all of their old intelligence files and rattling the cages of anybody who has even the remotest connection
with the Pacific Northwest, which is going to be yet another monumental waste of their time and effort, not to mention upsetting and alienating a lot of perfectly loyal Americans who won’t be so loyal after getting rousted by our friends in the silk suits.”
Hill didn’t know it, but at that moment just such a person was finding that her life had suddenly turned to excrement, because of a completely innocent connection with the Northwest. 31 year-old Julia Lear, an up-and-coming assistant television producer at Fox Entertainment’s Los Angeles studio, came in to work that morning to find her co-workers falling silent in the elevator and staring at her as she entered the admin area. Julia, tall and slim and poised in her usual flawless business suit, went into the break room to put her fully organic lunch in the refrigerator, and was puzzled when the employees sitting at the tables sipping coffee and munching bagels rose silently and left the room. She walked down the hall to her own office and said to her Asian secretary, “Lin, is my deodorant not working this morning? The weirdest thing just happened . . .” Then she caught the Oriental girl’s angry glare. Lin pointed at Julia’s office, where she found two hard-eyed FBI agents, one black and one white, calmly going through her desk and riffling through her appointment book. “What the hell are you doing?” she shouted in astonishment. The agents looked up, reached into their pockets, and flipped their badges and IDs.
“I’m Agent Redfearn,” the white guy told her, “This is Agent Webb. We’re with the FBI. Here’s how it’s going to work, Ms. Lear. You’re going to sit down and you’re going to answer every single question we ask of you, immediately and fully, and you are not going to give us one single syllable of crap or attitude. We are investigating one of the worst acts of mass murder and terrorism in this country’s history, and we will accept nothing less than your complete cooperation minus any noise, minus any evasion, minus any deceit. Neither will your employers. We have already spoken with your boss Myron Silverstein about you. At the end of our conversation, we will decide whether or not you come downtown with us to talk to a very unsympathetic lady with a set of needles, and Mr. Silverstein will decide whether or not you still have a job.” Redfearn sat down behind Julia’s own desk, and the black agent Webb closed the door. Redfearn pointed to the chair in front of the desk. “Sit down.”
Julia was stunned. “But I don’t understand . . .”
“Sit down!” roared Redfearn. Webb grabbed her shoulders, shoved her down into the chair, and quickly lashed both her hands to the arms of the chair with plastic handcuff ties he pulled from his pocket.
“What are you doing?” Julia shouted. “You can’t do this! You have no right . . .” From behind her Webb took hold of both her earrings, twisted her lobes, and pulled hard, tearing the rings out of her pierced ears. Julia shrieked at the sudden pain and stared in horror as Redfearn leaned forward and spoke quietly.
“Don’t even think about trying to tell us again what we have the right to do and what we don’t, Ms. Lear. I don’t know where you have been for the last few years, but we have both the legal and the moral right to do whatever the fuck we want, to you or to anybody else in pursuit of these terrorist murderers who are trying to destroy our freedom and our American way of life. Now, I will ask the questions and you will answer them. If I don’t like what I hear, you’re coming with us, and not only do you get to tell your lies to the needle lady, but tonight in the holding cell you will be introduced to a whole new diverse and multicultural sexual lifestyle. And when the men are through, we’ll throw you in the women’s bullpen for yet more total immersion in America’s gorgeous mosaic. They got some big black mamas and some hot Latina ladies in there who want to rock your world. Do you understand me? Now, how well do you know one Zachary Ellison Hatfield and when did you speak with him last?”
“Son of a bitch!” sobbed Julia. “My brother is a cop, he’s the sheriff in Clatsop County, Oregon, and if you hurt me he’ll come down here and he’ll . . .” Webb leaned over and applied the tangs of a taser set low power to the nape of Julia’s neck, and for several seconds she screamed in agony until Redfearn impatiently signaled for the black man to stop.
“She has to be able to hear the question and answer,” he said. Julia shivered in the chair, her head hung low, the blood from her torn ears dripping down both sides of her neck and onto her collar and blouse. “Zack Hatfield,” said Redfearn coldly. “Zack Hatfield. Now, Ms. Lear!”
“I haven’t seen or spoken with Zack Hatfield in years,” said Julia sullenly, still unable to believe this was happening when not ten minutes before she had been on her way up the elevator to a day of meetings and script work and a lunch date with a director. “What about him?”
“You know what about him,” said Redfearn coldly. “You know what he’s been doing for the past two and a half years?”
“Yes, I know,” said Julia. “He’s with the NVA now. That’s what this is about? You’re torturing me because of someone I knew fourteen years ago?”
“You lay down with a dog, maybe you got up with some racist fleas,” said Webb from behind her, his voice low and mean.
“That brother of yours doesn’t seem to be doing a very good job of catching him,” said Redfearn. “Perhaps we’re talking to the wrong Lear, but you’re the only one who’s down here in the same city where a mass murder took place on nationwide television, so we’re starting with you. What is your relationship with Zachary Ellison Hatfield?”
“I dated him in high school back in Astoria, then he was drafted and I went on to college,” Julia told them. “That’s it. I really truly don’t remember when the last time I spoke to him was. I don’t get home that much.”
It went on for over an hour, on and on, the same questions. When had she last met or spoken with Zack? When had she last spoken with her brother, Sheriff Ted Lear? When had she last been back to Astoria or anywhere in the Northwest? Who else from Astoria did she know who was in the NVA or who might harbor racist sympathies? Who did she know in Los Angeles who was from the Northwest? They shoved pictures of people she had never seen before under her nose and demanded when she had met them last. They wanted to know where she’d been on Oscar Night, every minute of her time, which was a bad point since she’d been at home alone watching the ceremonies on television. She tried to tell them that she had been genuinely shocked and horrified at the slaughter, that she was not a racist, that she had no sympathy with the NVA, whom she genuinely considered to be murderers and madmen. They simply kept on pounding her with questions, shouting at her, abusing and threatening her. Webb hit her in the side of the head when her answers were slow, and tased her once again just for good measure. Once he came around the chair and spit on her. Julia knew that the whole floor must be able to hear her screams and pleas for mercy and the shouting and bullying of the FBI men. No one came to help her.
Then abruptly Redfearn looked up at Webb and said in disgust, “Shit. She doesn’t know anything. Let’s wrap it.” He got up from behind the desk, Webb opened the door, and without another word the pair of them walked out of the office. Frightened eyes stared at the two FBI men from the over the tops of cubicles as they stopped by the elevator. Webb punched the button and pulled a notebook out of his pocket, making a couple of notations. “Who’s next on the list?” asked Redfearn conversationally. The elevator door opened with a ding, the two agents stepped inside, and the door closed. The floor was quiet except for Julia’s muffled sobs coming from the open door of her office.
No one went into the office. A few minutes later a uniformed security guard, a middle-aged white man, appeared from the hallway and walked down to the office door. He looked inside and quietly went over to the woman in the chair. He took a pocketknife out and cut the plastic ties that bound her, and helped her to her feet. “I’m going to take you to the ladies’ room, Ms. Lear,” he said gently. “I’ll let you get cleaned up a little. Then I have to get all your keys and swipe cards and your employee ID from you, and make sure you get any personal items out of your office. I’ll
get a box for you to put your stuff in. Mr. Silverstein says you’re terminated effective immediately, and I have to walk you out of the building. He also said to tell you don’t bother applying for any more jobs in Los Angeles or anywhere in show business. He said some other things about you that I won’t repeat. I am so sorry, ma’am. I always liked you. We all did.”
“You didn’t like me enough to help me,” Julia sobbed bitterly. “You heard what they were doing to me in there. All of you heard!” she screamed into the line of cubicles. “Why didn’t any of you lift one fucking finger to help me?” she shouted.
“Why don’t white people ever help other white people?” asked the guard with a sigh. “Because they were afraid. You know that. We’re all afraid.”
“Not all,” whispered Julia with a sniffle as she opened the door of the ladies’ room. “I know one white man who isn’t afraid.”
XXIII
Into The Lion’s Den
Take thy fortune; thou find’st to be too busy is some danger.
Hamlet—Act III, Scene 4
Once he had decided that the NVA’s inside man in the Hotel Royale was most likely someone with a room that the hit team could hide in, Marty Shulman’s approach was methodical and thorough. He went down the list of every registered guest who had been in the Royale on Oscar night, and looked at them from every angle until he felt he could cross them off the list. He tracked each one down and talked to them personally, with varying degrees of politeness and couth according to their respective rungs on the Hollywood ladder. This took him two weeks of legwork. In some cases Shulman had to fly across the continent and even to Europe to catch up with a former guest on his list. First class, of course, given his bottomless expense account. There were tourists, legitimate business travelers, journalists and media people from out of town who were covering the Academy Awards, assorted people who were guests of the studios or studio heads, fringe celebrities, and various others registered on the lower floors and who appeared to have some legitimate reason for being checked into a Hollywood hotel that night. After Shulman had crossed these lesser fry off his list, there remained the suites on the two top floors and the penthouse, the party zone, the rooms that had been rented to the big-name stars, the shakers and movers.
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