by G. M. Ford
We passed within six feet of one another. Maybe it was the adrenaline, maybe just plain fear, but I felt light-headed and nauseous as we came abreast of them. My back was on fire. I managed a curt, manly nod. Guttural “Heys” and “Howdys” ricocheted among the trees as we passed shoulder to shoulder. I started to stumble and almost immediately felt Gabe grab me by the shirt and keep me upright and moving forward.
Seemed like I’d walked another mile before Gabe let go of my shirt. I staggered over to the side of the trail and leaned against a tree.
“That was him,” I said. “The one with the curly hair and no gun. He’s the one who carved me up.”
Ben appeared from the bushes on the far side of the path.
“Where the hell you been?” Gabe demanded.
“I was pretending to take a piss,” he blubbered. “The guy with the ammo belts across his chest . . .”
“What about him?”
“That’s Milton Forbes. He’s the city hall security guard who shot and killed Matthew Hardaway. Rest of those guys are from Everett too. I know all of them, and even worse, they all know me. Couple of them work for Bickford at the store.”
Gabe snickered. “So much for wondering how somebody got a gun into city hall. Be easy for him. Just smuggle it in and pass it to Matthew on the night of the meeting.”
I leaned harder against the tree. Going to Bickfords Bunker had been a serious mistake. What if Blondie or one of the other people from the store showed up here and saw Gabe and me again? What if one of the other guys from Everett recognized Ben?
Gabe shot me a told you we shouldn’t bring this asshole along look. I’m guessing we were all thinking the same thing, but Ben was the first to blurt it out.
“You suppose that was their plan the whole time?” he asked nobody in particular.
“What plan is that?”
“To take a screwy kid like Matthew Hardaway, indoctrinate him with all this stupid racial hatred stuff, send him to kill Mr. Valenzuela so it’ll stir up all kinds of trouble, and then kill Matthew themselves so nothing washes back on them? Almost sounds like the idea was to get Matthew killed, and Valenzuela was just a convenient way to get it done,” Ben said.
“That’s pretty cold,” Gabe threw in.
Off in the distance, somebody let loose with an automatic weapon. Sounded like fifty or sixty rounds. The sharp cracks bounced around the forest and then went silent.
“Maybe we ought to lay low till the party starts, then get out of here while everybody’s listening to whatever,” Ben said.
“That’s not a bad idea,” Gabe said and looking my way, added, “Don’t know what you got in mind for those assholes who fucked you up, Leo, and you know I’ll back your play no matter what, but we start anything in here, and we’re not walkin’ out alive.”
No denying it. Gabe was right. The situation had suddenly become a live to fight another day scenario. The questions were no longer of the who and why variety. We knew the answers to those. The question had become what, if anything, we planned on doing about it, and where and when, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to be here and now. Much as I hated to admit it, I’d been running on emotion and hadn’t really thought this thing all the way through. I’d sort of assumed that we were gonna find a bunch of yahoos shooting clay pigeons up in the woods, pretending to be cowboys. Running into a heavily armed collection of lunatics and haters had never crossed my mind. Silly me.
I checked my watch. “We’ve got about twenty minutes,” I said. “What say we wander over in the direction of the car. See what the gate security looks like once the festivities start.”
“We may have to leave the car,” Gabe said.
“Enterprise’ll have to get over it,” I said.
Gabe looked around in a circle. Pointed. “Gate’s that way. Maybe half a mile. Let’s take the overland route.”
Nobody in sight. Seven minutes till the speech. I slithered out of the trees and began to edge my way between vehicles, trying to catch sight of the Lexus. Gabe and Ben followed along in my wake as I slipped from row to row. Took me about three rows to realize that we’d originally come into the clearing from the other direction, which was why nothing looked familiar to me.
“The Zionist Occupation Government acts in their own interest, not in ours. The Zionist Occupation Government actively seeks to subvert the goal of racial separation and supports the mongrelization of the white race.”
Before I could internalize this new piece of nonsense, the deep rumble of an engine dragged my attention toward the entrance road.
Big, dusty 4x4 Dodge Ram popped into view. Either black or blue, it was hard to tell under the dust. Two guys, replete with aviator shades and assault rifles, stood in the bed as the truck bounced along. Instinctively, I squatted down. When I checked behind me, Gabe and Ben had followed suit.
We crouched there, mouth breathing and immobile, until the truck faded from hearing.
I peeked up over the hood of a Jeep Cherokee, didn’t see anyone, and then slowly stood all the way up. I made eye contact with Gabe. “It’s over there,” I stage-whispered, pointing in the opposite direction.
If the three of us had been found crouching between cars, I don’t think it would have been possible to explain it away. Even these fuckers weren’t that dumb. That probably would have been the end of us, right then and there.
As it was, we were all upright and moving toward our car when the two guys stepped out from behind the white Chevy crew cab. In true Three Stooges fashion, we bumped to a stop.
Same look as most of the others. Bald, beer bellied, and inscribed mostly all over with jailhouse tattoos.
The one with the tattooed throat asked, “You boys lost?”
Normally, I might have taken the question as an offer to help, except both dudes had their weapons pointed directly at us. Kinda changes your perspective a bit.
“Tryin’ to find our way to the orientation,” I said, trying to sound casual.
“You figure it was gonna be out here in the parking lot?” the other guy wanted to know.
“We figured we might find somebody who could help us if we come over here,” Gabe said.
Throat Tattoo walked over and got right up in Gabe’s face. “Well . . . what we got here?”
“More than you’re lookin’ for,” Gabe said.
Seemed like everything stood still for a second or two. No breath . . . no breeze. The guy looked Gabe over from head to toe. His frown said he couldn’t make up his mind exactly what to make of Gabe. Tension buzzed in the air like wasps.
About the time the air got thick enough to spread on toast, the other guy decided it might be a good idea to let a little air out of the balloon.
“Orientation’s over there,” he said, looking out over Ben’s head to the left of where the barbecue had been. “We’ll show you the way,” he said and started off.
Throat Tattoo formed a rear guard. I kept flicking my eyes in his direction as we marched along. He kept his finger inside the trigger guard as we trooped past the barbecue area and around the corner. Soon as I cleared the forest, I saw it. Another brand-new, red-metal roof poking up through the trees. Looked like what must have at one time been the Job Corps dining hall.
I was trying to stay calm. The sight of the guy who’d carved me up had my ears buzzing with adrenaline and my body vibrating like a tuning fork. And, as if that weren’t bad enough, we were about to go into a room with any number of people who might recognize one of us, at which point we could pretty much count on being dead.
As we approached, the rumble of voices began to fill my ears. Four more Blackshirts manned the door. More clipboards. “Who you?” one of them wanted to know.
“Christian Conscience. Banks, Idaho,” I said.
He looked down, flipped a page, and then looked at the three of us. “Supposed to be four of you,” he announced.
“Boyd’s in the can down in Seattle.”
He shook his head. Spit on the ground. “They
got all the Fresno boys and one of the Oregon contingents too. Buncha assholes gonna get what’s comin’ to ’em,” he said.
The pair of thugs holding down the door stepped aside. The room was full.
Funny thing too. All the black-shirted skinhead types with guns were lined up around the perimeter of the room, holding up the walls. Everybody who was sitting down in the chairs looked pretty much like us. Probably a few more tattoos and ponytails than your average gathering, but other than that, your basic nine-to-five, working-class crowd.
In the front of the room was a raised platform, kinda like the stage in a high school gymnasium. No microphone or flags or anything. Just a bare platform about four feet above floor level. Probably where they made camp announcements from back in the Job Corps days.
We crossed behind the seating area and found ourselves chairs on the left edge of the assembled multitude about halfway to the stage. When I peeked back at the doorway, Throat Tattoo was still there, glaring at us. Still had his finger inside the trigger guard too.
Gabe leaned over and whispered in my ear. “Seems to be some degree of social stratification in here.”
“Yeah, shirts and skins,” I whispered back. “Any ideas why?”
Gabe gave a nearly imperceptible shrug. “Maybe they needed people for whatever they’re doing here, maybe they needed people who could fit in. Not be noticed by their neighbors as white supremacists. Just regular joes.” Gabe waved a hand. “Lot of these guys are gonna attract way too much attention right from the get-go.”
Behind us, the doors banged shut. A quick look said the gang must all be here, and whatever was happening was about to start. There were about forty of us there in the nonskinhead section. Another thirty or so tough guys with guns were spread around the room at precise military intervals.
Mr. Throat Tattoo had gathered half a dozen of his brethren into a tight, glowering knot just inside the closed doors. Judging from the number of furtive glances thrown our way, I had a feeling we were the subject of the discussion.
Up in the front of the room, the party—or whatever—was about to begin. My curly-haired assailant was the first guy to walk onstage. I forced myself to breathe deep and concentrate on the other people who were coming out onto the platform. I recognized one of them as the guy who’d been manning the door the night Matthew Hardaway shot Valenzuela. The rest of them I’d never seen before.
A medium-size guy with rimless glasses stepped to the front and started patting himself down, looking for something at large in his pockets.
Ben Forrester leaned forward and shot me a look. “Bickford,” he whispered.
The news didn’t really register with me. I was, at that moment, transfixed by a pair of onlookers just offstage to the right.
Phil Hardaway was standing just offstage wearing full camo gear. Hands clasped tight behind his back. The brim of his cap nearly obscured his eyes. Ben leaned forward again. I waved him off and leaned closer to Gabe. “Guy in the camo is Matthew’s father,” I whispered.
“He’s got the George Patton stance down,” Gabe commented.
I didn’t think, under the circumstances, there was much chance he’d recognize me. That’s not what had my heart bleating like a car alarm. No . . . it was Blondie standing just off his right shoulder, wearing the same red-satin military jacket she’d been wearing the day she and Curly Hair had changed my life forever.
She’d almost recognized me back at Bickfords Bunker. If she saw me again, the jig was gonna be up, like big-time. I slid lower in the seat, pulled a baseball cap from my coat pocket, and put it on. Wasn’t much of a disguise, but it was all I had.
When I looked up again, Bickford had found whatever he was searching for, which apparently was a much-folded piece of paper.
He stepped to the front of the platform and cleared his throat. “Well . . . ,” he said. “Ain’t no point in preaching to the choir. We all know why we’re here. The time for talkin’ is over. Time’s come to take back that which is rightfully ours. To wash the pollution from our shores.”
A stirring of agreement rolled through the crowd. Gabe and I shared a bewildered glance.
Bickford cleared his throat again. “We been putting this together for a long time. Nobody knows that better than you guys,” he said to the haired-over section. “Lotta you guys made sacrifices to be here today . . . lot more of you might make an even bigger one before this is over.” He looked like he wanted to go on but decided not to. “Now’s the time,” he finished with.
He looked down at the piece of paper in his hand. “Carlsbad, California,” he bawled out over the crowd. Four guys in the front row stood up. The one on the far right, wearing the Dodgers cap, threw a fist in the air and shouted, “Come to Jesus.” Another bigger ripple surged through the crowd. From the offstage area a guy in a lovely pair of baby-blue coveralls appeared.
“You boys go along with Dave here. He’ll handle your orientation. And God bless ya.” We watched as Dave hopped down from the stage and led the “Come to Jesus” quartet out the side door.
It went on like that for another ten minutes. Groups were called out. A new orientation instructor appeared from the woodwork, and then they’d march off toward destinations unknown. ACT for America. American Front. American Vanguard. Fortress of Faith. Repent Amarillo. American Freedom Party.
By my count, thirteen groups in all. As the room began to empty, I started to get a little nervous, thinking that maybe we’d already been found out. Maybe they were going to isolate us and then take us out, but with about only a dozen of us still sitting down, Bickford called out, “Christian Conscience . . . Idaho.”
Another guy in designer overalls hopped down to floor level. Gabe, Ben, and I got to our feet. I kept my face pointed away from the front of the room, hoping Blondie wouldn’t notice. The orientation guy didn’t say a word. Didn’t even look at us as he loped by, heading for the side door. We followed along.
The wind had freshened a bit. I could smell Puget Sound on the breeze. The trees swayed back and forth, rustling like ghostly dancers as the wind waltzed among them.
We followed a pine straw path deeper into the forest until we came to a galvanized cattle gate. Overalls produced a shiny new key, ushered us through, and told us to stay put while he went inside.
No new roof for this building. Or anything else. Matter of fact, the whole rear half of the structure had collapsed into a twisted pile of sheet metal and splintered wood. If the thickness of the moss growing on the remains was any indication, I’d guess it had been communing with the sod for several decades.
Funny thing, though . . . somebody’d bothered to run a yellow electrical extension cord all over hill and dale so this bristly ruin could have electric power. Second weirdness was that there was a big flat-screen TV sitting on a metal stand right to the left of the number one weirdness of all. A FedEx truck. Big-ass, purple-and-green FEDEX on the side. Cursive GROUND beneath it. Nice and shiny and new looking, and about as out of place inside a derelict building as a barnacle in a béarnaise sauce.
The Twin Peaks theme song started playing in my head, and I suddenly had a hankering for pie. I was still trying to recall the name of the damn song when Gabe bent and whispered in my ear.
“Must’ve found ’em a Sears special on those pastel overalls.”
Overalls was walking our way, so I swallowed the urge to smile.
“You boys are from Idaho,” he said.
We reckoned how that was true.
“And you’re down one of your number?”
“He’s in the can in Seattle,” I said.
He nodded gravely. “We can do this without him,” he said without hesitation. “How familiar are you with Boise?”
Before anybody else could speak, I blurted out, “Not at all. We keep about as far away from that pestilential hellhole as we can get.”
Not only did it have a nice overly pious ring to it, but the way I saw things, it was better to be deemed ignorant than to get caught in
a lie somewhere down the line because we’d claimed to know something we didn’t.
Overalls smiled as if he’d known it all along and turned to the TV.
“I know you all must be anxious about what exactly your mission is gonna be. If it makes ya feel any better, even the orientation guys like me have been kept in the dark. All I know about the reckoning is this assignment right here.” He grinned. “You know what the Hells Angels say: Only way three people can keep a secret is if two of ’em are dead.” He paused for the laugh. When he didn’t get so much as a titter, he picked up the remote for the TV and started pushing buttons.
The TV screen came to life. Street scene, some midsize city. I was guessing Boise. I’m clever that way. The six-story building in the center of the shot had like a porte cochere sticking way out over the front doors. “This, gentlemen, is your objective. Champion Cable, Inc., 1324 Empire Avenue, Boise, Idaho. Cable and Internet provider for almost eighty percent of the people in the metropolitan Boise area.”
He pushed another button; the tape turned faster. For the next minute or two we watched in silence as a succession of delivery vehicles—FedEx, UPS, a plumber’s van, a linen-and-uniform service—pulled to a stop in front of the building. More FedEx trucks in several sizes. More UPS. We watched as the drivers found the proper packages and, depending on the size, either carried or wheeled them inside. If I had to average it out, I’d guess they were inside for about five minutes.
“Champion receives between sixteen and forty-five deliveries a day. Nearly half of them from FedEx.” He pointed at the truck. “The word ground there on the side of the truck indicates that this is a long-distance FedEx delivery, so if any of the local delivery guys see you, they won’t expect you to be somebody familiar.”
“So what are we delivering?” Gabe asked.
“Retribution,” the guy said.
Ben opened his mouth to say something. Gabe put a death grip on his leg and shut him down before a single syllable escaped.
