A Mighty Fortress Read online

  “We need to get her out of their hands,” said Barrow decisively. “Truce or not, she’s always going to be in danger as long as they’ve got her. She’s too potentially embarrassing. That’s going to be the first demand I lay on ‘em. If can get her away from those animals and nothing else, I’ll consider this conference a success.”

  “What they’ve done is they’ve worked out a series of incremental releases of our people by list, with some curves they keep throwing us like deportation of officers or so-called key terrorists to foreign countries, etc. so they don’t come back Home and re-join the NVA,” said Morehouse. “It’s supposed to be what they refer to as performance-based, which means that once the ceasefire goes into effect, the longer we go without killing anybody, the more prisoners they release. We give in on their demand A, they release prisoner list A, we give ‘em demand B, they release prisoner list B, you get the idea. The Old Man is supposed to be the ultimate prize, the last one released once an agreement is signed. They apparently want to keep him completely the hell out of the whole negotiating process, while we of course will need to demand immediate and unmonitored access, telephone conferencing with him, etcetera. So that’s something else you can look forward to a lot of haggling on.”

  “Okay, but I don’t want to get the conference bogged down into a big argument over nit-picking details on prisoner release,” said Barrow. “Or nit-picking details over anything. That’s one way the Americans will try to draw the business out forever, beating one topic to death for weeks and months and then on to another one. We need to keep our eyes on the prize here and not let them drag us off into a hundred and one endless digressions. We are there for one reason and one reason only, to get the United States government the hell out of our country. Let’s get that done and the details will resolve themselves.”

  “I hear the sound of some realpolitik,” said Schuster with a smile. “That is good.”

  “I told you you’d get the hang of this quick, Frank,” said Morehouse with a chuckle. “Yes, that’s what they’ll do. Delay, delay, delay.”

  “And while they’re delaying we’ll be moving on the ground,” said Wingfield. “That’s why the SS has been formed. We will be forming action groups and identifying key targets throughout the Homeland, facilities we need, factories, warehouses of supplies we need, banks, medical facilities, administrative and political centers, you name it. We will be taking advantage of the truce to come out in the open and take over, take out, or help ourselves as need be. While you’re down in Longview talking, the Party will be acting. A lot of your job, General, will be to explain away and smooth over some of the actions we’ll be carrying out. We’ll try to keep the shooting to a minimum, but we have no intention of simply sitting on our thumbs while you guys bat the breeze. As far as the Army Council is concerned, the establishment of the Northwest Republic begins right now.”

  “How long do you want the negotiations to last?” asked Barrow.

  “Between one month and two,” said Morehouse. “Frankly, there will be so many truce violations that it will be difficult for either side to keep up the pretense of civility too much longer than that. Now, there’s an old diplomatic trick to moving forward negotiations when one or both sides really wants a resolution and you’re not just talking to hear your heads roar. You appoint two or three serious subcommittees with members from both sides, working groups to resolve specific issues with the understanding that the main conference will back whatever those working groups decide. You’ll notice I said two or three subcommittees, not ten or twenty. You pick the stickiest, most serious and legitimate side issues, things like prisoner release and borders that really do have to be resolved, and you delegate authority to people in your team to get their heads together with appointees from the other side and solve them, but you yourself don’t get involved. You and your main colleagues keep those five across the table pinned to their seats, and while your team mates are thrashing out the details in the subcommittees, you keep the pressure on for the main points.”

  “And those are?” queried Barrow.

  “Three,” said Anderson. “Well, two, if you want to consider prisoner release a subcommittee issue. First and most important, we want the complete withdrawal of all American armed forces and administrative personnel from territory designated for the future Northwest Republic, with a few exceptions we’ll list for you, people like postal workers and forest rangers and people we will need to run the new country. Secondly, we want the formal cession of authority and recognition of our independence, with a timetable for all of the above. Pin them down on that! None of this performance-based shit on the main point of withdrawal. The treaty we want will consist of a piece of paper which recognizes the Northwest American Republic as an independent nation and sets a firm date measurable in weeks, not months, for the removal of every American hand with a gun in it. That’s all we want from them, all their gun-toters gone and their recognition of the Homeland as real live country. They are going to move heaven and earth to get you off track. You mustn’t let them.”

  “Northwest American Republic?” questioned McGrew. “Why not Northwest Aryan Republic?”

  “Because then for years to come we’d have to stop and explain to people what we mean by Aryan, which will be hard since we seem to be somewhat unsure of that ourselves,” said Morehouse with a sigh. “One thing we learned early on, back when we were building the Party before the war broke out, is to keep everything as simple as possible. We want a name for our country that states who we are without having to go off into a long digression into nineteenth-century racial theory. However, Dan, if you object, you and anyone else will have a chance to say so and put it to a vote. Immediately after the American withdrawal we will convene some kind of parliament or constituent assembly and all of these things will eventually be ratified either by that assembly or in a nationwide plebiscite. Nothing is written in stone. But right now, we don’t worry about that. We take it one step at a time, and the purpose of this step is to get ZOG the hell out of here!”

  “Okay, now let’s get into the nub of it,” said Barrow. “Where do we draw the line, literally? What territory are we asking for?”

  “It’s like that used car deal we mentioned at the picnic. We start with a talk-down position,” said Morehouse. “We ask for more than we expect to get, listen to their screams of outrage, and over time we reluctantly let them talk us down to what we really will accept, kicking and scratching all the way. We start out by asking for the entire states of Washington, Idaho, Oregon, Montana, Wyoming, and all of California north of Highway 299. Say from Redding on north. I’d love to bring Mount Shasta into our country.”

  “In other words, roughly the part of the country where there has been at least some NVA activity. There has also been armed resistance as well as certain parts of Alberta and British Columbia. I know that’s what we’ll claim, but they’re not going to give us all that,” Barrow told them flatly.

  “No. Like I said, it’s our talk-down position. We let ourselves be whittled down.”

  “Whittled down to what?” pressed Barrow. “What exactly is the bare minimum we’ll settle for?”

  “What we will eventually accept is the three core Homeland states of Washington, Idaho, and Oregon, along with a good chunk of western Montana. This is where the majority of the NVA units have fought the revolution, but nothing less, Frank,” warned Brennan. “Any bits and pieces of Wyoming and California you can wrench away from them will be great, but we get those three states plus Montana from Missoula on west, or we go back to war.”

  “What about Alaska and western Canada?” Barrow demanded.

  Red Morehouse sighed. “Alaska is a problem, and Canada more so,” he said.

  “Here is where it starts to get really nasty,” said Brennan grimly.

  “Realpolitik is often a very ugly thing, General Barrow,” commented Schuster.

  “You’re telling me that we’re going to stab our Canadian comrades in the back?” snappe
d Barrow in some disgust.

  “It’s not that simple, Frank,” replied Morehouse quietly. “You know that ever since the first days of the Northwest Migration movement we’ve always wanted to take at least parts of British Columbia and Alberta with us into the Republic. B. C. especially. That part of our land is simply too beautiful to leave to the wogs. But the Canadian situation has always been eccentric, at times running parallel with what’s been going on in the United States, but often developing a life of its own. Canadian politics and Canadian demographics and Canadian conditions are different from ours. The Canadian security forces were never as numerous and as powerful as the American ones, and Canada is a mighty big place, with the result that we have even been able to establish some secure cross-border field hospitals and refuge facilities in B. C. In addition to which we have small but very brave and very effective active service units in Vancouver and Victoria and some other places up there, who have actually been able to reduce the Chinese and Indian subcontinental population of that area by several million and bring down rents and property values to the point where white people can actually live there again. They’re some of our best.”

  “So what’s the problem?”

  Stepanov took it up. “There won’t be any Canadian delegation at Longview. The Canadian government absolutely refuses to participate in any peace talks or to discuss any possibility of independence for western Canada. They always did, even back in the late twentieth century when western Canada had its own non-racial independence movement. You would think that since the Northwest American Republic is going to be on their borders, that the Ottawa régime would at least want to be involved in these negotiations. But they won’t even send an observer. We have asked, both through the Irish intermediaries and the Americans as well, and we have been repeatedly told by both the American government and also by the international arbitrators that the Canadian government refuses to have anything to do with any of this, there will be no Canadian representative at the peace talks, and Canada will not honor any provisions of whatever agreement we reach as it affects their territory.”

  “They haven’t been hit anywhere near as hard as the Americans,” said Wingfield. “Maybe we should have been blowing things up and killing politicians and media people in Ottawa and Toronto as well as in New York and Washington D. C.”

  “Well, you know, that’s hardly surprising,” said Barrow. “Historically the Canadian government has always been the most pro-Zionist régime outside of Israel itself. Their hatecrime laws were always the worst. Worse even than Britain and Germany, in some ways. The Old Man’s books were banned there as early as the 1990s, and they had laws against even private possession of white dissident literature twenty years before the United States brought them in. Those suck-ass shabazz goyim in Ottawa even used to issue Canadian passports to Mossad agents as a matter of routine.”

  “Plus there is a significant element of Jews and American liberals up there who couldn’t wear Jug-Ears and the neo-cons fled to Canada after the 2004 elections, and by now they constitute a kind of intelligentsia for the Canadian ruling élite, who were never exactly brilliant,” put in Schuster. “I suspect this may be that philo-Semitic liberal ruling élite’s way of cocking a snook at their hapless neo-con cousins south of the border who have been so badly shredded by the rebellion that they now have to undergo the humiliation of negotiating with us evil fascists.”

  Morehouse nodded. “Yes, but this isn’t just theoretical. This is going to be a real problem. We have a number of very fine Canadian comrades who have given their lives for the Republic, and who are going to be angry and devastated if we don’t bring at least parts of British Columbia and Alberta into our new Homeland. They will feel terribly betrayed by the NVA, and they will have reason to be. But they have to understand that we are trying to create a legal and recognized new sovereign nation here, and for that to happen the Canadian government has to recognize us. We can’t just strike a deal with the United States and then say ‘Oh, by the by, we’re grabbing X square miles of Canada as well.’”

  “Suppose our Canadian comrades decide that two can play the game of not recognizing the Longview result, and they refuse to lay down their arms when we tell them to?” demanded Dortmunder. “I wouldn’t blame them if they did. Is the new government of the Republic going to back them up if they decide to keep on fighting? Or pull the rug out from under them so we can get our own piece of the pie?”

  Morehouse spread his hands helplessly. “Gentlemen, what can I tell you? This is one of those volatile variables that you must deal with at the conference and later on the government of the Republic will have to deal with, and I just plain can’t predict what approach we’ll take. I agree, it stinks to high heaven. But we can’t afford to throw away this chance to create a Homeland for all our people, including those Canadians who can accept the verdict and move down here. We will be asking white people from all across the world to come here, after all. That’s about the best I can give you now. Maybe we can somehow figure out some way to force the Canadians to the table. But we must keep our eyes on the prize and take it if we can.”

  “I’ll tell you what we can do,” said Barrow. “You make sure we go in there with a list of every Canadian racial and political prisoner, NVA or otherwise, being held by Ottawa and we make it just plain goddamned non-negotiable that Canadian prisoners are to be released and handed over to the Republic, and if the Canucks don’t want to send anyone then we will turn the screws on the American delegation to make it happen. No differentiation between Canadian and American POWS. That much at least we can do. Dammit, Red, if we’re going to stab our own people up north in the back then we need to at least do that much for them! Not leave them sitting in those hellholes like Kingston!”

  “Agreed,” said Morehouse. “And I see no need absolutely to give up hope. You will know that the Army Council and the Political Bureau have already decided it simply isn’t viable to demand that the Canadians be dragged in and forced to part with territory. It could bring the whole deal to a halt. But the American delegation won’t know that. So we need for you to emphasize Canada as much as possible, even though in the final analysis we will allow ourselves to be talked out of it, if that’s the only way to establish the Republic.”

  “Another damned face-saver for ZOG, at the expense of thousands of white Canadian NVA comrades and millions of white Canadians?” demanded Barrow angrily.

  “I don’t like it any more than you do, Frank, but it has to be this way,” said Morehouse. “Trying to force Canada into the pot is simply too risky. It could be a deal-breaker. The same thing with Alaska. Most of our Alaskan comrades ended up coming down here to fight with active service units in the main Homeland states. There simply hasn’t been that much NVA activity in Alaska and there wasn’t all that much Party activity before 10/22 either. What there was up there got mixed in with that kosher conservative Alaska Independence Party crap. We just don’t have a strong enough base in the population to demand that Alaska be included in the Republic, that’s just the way it’s worked out, and the chance that the United States government is going to give us the largest remaining oil reserves in North America is non-existent. My own view is to go ahead and concede Alaska at the first opportunity. They’ll appreciate your not wasting everybody’s time. Maybe you can work some kind of trade-off. We won’t mention Alaska in return for the release of Canadian prisoners, something of that nature.”

  “Realpolitik,” said Schuster again.

  “Realpolitik sucks,” grunted Barrow.

  “It does indeed,” said Morehouse. “Welcome to the majors, rookies.”

  * * *

  A few afternoons after the holiday, Mitch Newman had scheduled dress rehearsals for the three one-act plays that the Hillside High drama class was to perform on Friday night. “Before we rehearse the plays themselves, I want to go over the costumes for each presentation,” he announced.

  That left Cody up in the catwalks above the auditorium with not
hing much to do for a while, as Mitch and his assistant director Suzanne examined and made suggestions on each character’s outfit, among the first being Emily in her platypus get-up, which Cody had to say looked frankly ridiculous. A few minutes later Cody saw her at the end of the catwalk, wearing shorts and a T-shirt and minus the duckbill rig, beckoning to him. He went over to her. “Come on!” she said excitedly. “I’ve got those hacking programs from Doc Doom! This costume mess will keep Mitch busy for at least twenty minutes, more if he can find some excuse to lay his hands on Kelly. His office will be unlocked, and we can crack into his computer!” Cody followed her out into an upstairs corridor, down the back stairs and into the lower floor where the staff offices were, and within a minute they were inside Mitch Newman’s cinderblock cubbyhole. The lights were off, and the teacher’s computer with the plasma screen glowed on his desk.

  “What if somebody walks in on us?” asked Cody.

  “You’re supposed to be my boyfriend, right? So we came in here to snog,” she said. “Here, you sit down at the desk, and if I suddenly fall down into your lap and jam my tongue down your throat, you’ll know the door’s opening behind you.”

  “Yeah, well, if that happens don’t get pissed off if I stick my hand under your bra,” said Cody. “Have to make it realistic, you know.”

  “Why would I wear a bra?” she asked. “Nothing to put in one. Okay, we have to get to the Hatecrime Hotline website first.”

  “Which means we have to log on,” said Cody. He jiggled the mouse. “Okay, I’ve got the log-in screen.” Emily opened the computer’s CD drive tray and inserted an unmarked disc which she took from her shoulder bag. “Now how does this work?” Suddenly the screen changed color and little creatures appeared, dancing and doing handsprings around the school system’s log-in screen. “What the hell are those? Leprechauns?” demanded Cody.