A Mighty Fortress Read online

  The rest of the NVA delegation, all promoted to officer rank if they weren’t officers already, were officially classed for the record as aides of various kinds. Cody was now a lieutenant who was on the list as aide de camp to General Barrow, giving him a sit-in behind the general at most of the actual negotiating sessions, which was turning Lieutenant Emily Pastras green with envy. She was an administrative aide to the delegation’s public relations officer, Captain Jane Chenault. “You get to watch history being made, while I get to sit in a hotel room with a laptop computer and a printer and print off press releases and send other people’s e-mails,” she groused. “Beautiful!” But she was mollified when she was taken off to one side by Colonel Daniel “Dangerous Dan” McGrew, who came down from Seattle to see her, and given a special intelligence-related assignment. Cody politely forebore to ask her about it, and she did not discuss it with him beyond telling him, “I’m supposed to seduce the Secretary of State,” a line Cody wisely decided to leave alone.

  Every aide had some kind of unofficial left-hand job. Cody was the Yiddish-speaker, and he was to listen in under any circumstances possible and see if he could catch the Jews in the enemy delegation in what they thought was private nattering. Nightshade had her secret assignment. Lieutenant Olaf Olafsson was to liaise with the Swedish UN peacekeeping team who were theoretically there as guarantors of the peace, although being unarmed there wasn’t much they could do should the United States decide to violate its pledged word, a by no means unknown event in history. Lieutenant Phil McMurrough was to keep an eye on all the enemy police and security details and troop presence, noting everything he could about their weapons, placement, movements, etc. in case the negotiations went really bad and there had to be a mass breakout and E & E. Lieutenant Lisa Napolitano was to keep an eye on the comings and goings of the hotel staff and try to make sure that no one was poisoned. Even so, the delegation members were cautioned not to accept any suspicious special gifts of food and eat only at common meals or things that were canned or seal-wrapped. Lieutenant Jack Cannon was to collect and collate all reports, gossip, and information he could about the movements of the enemy delegation, who was meeting with whom behind the main conference’s back, who from the outside was meeting with the American representatives. He would be assisted in this through the electronic surveillance derring-do of Lieutenant Stanley Waters, aka Doctor Doom, who would be smuggling in via the delegation’s diplomatically protected baggage enough electronic bugging, communications, and computer gear to open his own Radio Shack. Doc Doom’s job would be first off to bug everything he could, and secondly to de-bug as much of the Federal surveillance gear as he could.

  Emily’s immediate ostensible superior was a statuesque and impeccably groomed, late thirty-something blond woman who had been a fairly late addition to the NVA delegation. She had arrived only on the morning of July 30th, in fact. At that day’s briefing Morehouse had called her before the group in the antique-bedecked conference room and said, “Comrades, may I introduce Captain Jane Chenault? Comrade Chenault will be acting as our public relations officer during the negotiations, meaning that she stands up in front of the cameras and reads all our official statements and all that kind of thing.” Cody had to admit privately that Captain Chenault filled out the khaki uniform shirt much better than Emily. “That is her official role. Unofficially and more importantly, she will be acting as our agitprop and psychological warfare officer. She has a degree in psychology from McGill University in Montreal, and a masters in marketing. She has been working with the Third Section’s Agitprop department in one of our covert installations across the border in B. C., and she’s the closest thing to a trained publicist we’ve got. Nor will I deny that part of her presence here has to do with the fact that she’s probably the most photogenic spokesperson we could find.”

  “Yeah, you don’t want me giving a press conference and spitting tobacco in the middle of it,” agreed John Morgan. “It kinder gets caught in muh beard.”

  “Well, Jane’s more than a pretty face, I promise you,” said Morehouse. “She is responsible for most of our internet propaganda, and she’s why it looks so good and says so much in a ten-second pop-up. You need to listen to her on anything regarding image and presentation. I can’t emphasize enough that you’re not only going to be negotiating with a team of enemy government officials, you’re going to be trying to convince an entire nation, and indeed the whole world, that this is the best thing that could happen.”

  “Thank you, Colonel Morehouse,” said Jane Chenault. “I’m sorry I’m getting here so late, comrades, but since the President’s speech the RCMP and Canadian military have stepped up their security along the border of the Republic, and I had to walk over near Oroville and then make the necessary connections. What I will be doing is vetting the media image that the NVA delegation to the Longview conference presents to the media. It’s true that this isn’t going to any kind of referendum or popular vote, but whatever treaty or agreement is worked out will presumably have to be confirmed by the United States Senate or perhaps by both houses of Congress, and so to some extent we’re playing to the members of Congress as an audience. As you know, elections haven’t meant much of anything in the United States for a very long time, but the U. S. is still very much a poll-driven and PR-driven society, a marketing-based society if you like, and the American negotiators are going to be responsive to the public mood. That is to say, whatever mood the multi-national corporations who control the media and the government decide to create for the public, eh? I know that the media reaction has thus far been almost completely negative, but I will be very interested to note what kind of spin the corporates put on things as the negotiations progress. In other words, does the power structure in the U. S. A. really want this to happen? If they do, they’ll really be trying to sell it. If not, we should be able to tell from analyzing the media coverage. Spin always comes from the top down.

  “Now, all of you are going to be under intense pressure by the enemy media representatives. They are going to try to peel you off from the main body of the delegation, get you off alone somewhere, and they will flatter you and cajole you, try to bribe you, try to trip you up. They want to get you to say things. It’s going to be very hard for you to avoid dropping offhand remarks, eh? Even just to tell the media reptiles to piss off. But you have to resist that temptation, because you never know when even a casual remark will be picked up, and misconstrued, and twisted into something significant that could impact the negotiations. The slightest thing you say could upset the whole apple cart. You must not do any independent media interviews, and you must report all media contacts to me so we can analyze them and see who’s up to what, and how we can put our own spin on it. I’ll confer with General Barrow and we will have daily media briefings for the press contingent, and by that I mean not just briefings for the media, but briefings within the team itself, bringing you up to date on what the media is saying about us and how we need to present ourselves. Most of you comrades have been in combat. I admit, I haven’t, although I have been shot at a few times including on my way down here, if that helps you with my bona fides. But I think most of you will understand that psychological warfare is just as important as actual fighting, and I don’t think it’s too exaggerated to say that this coming battle in Longview will be won largely on psychological grounds.”

  After the meeting Barrow called Captain Chenault aside into the broom closet with the Chippendale desk and the rotary fan that was serving as his office. “You’re Canadian, comrade?” asked Barrow.

  “Yes, sir,” the woman replied. “I was born and raised in Hull, which is in Ontario, but my husband and I moved to British Columbia when the NVA began its campaign there after 10/22. I knew some people who were involved in what was left of the old Social Credit party, and they were able to steer us to the NVA. I’m actually wanted in Canada for hatespeech and possession of hate literature.”

  “That carries life imprisonment in Kingston Prison, now
, I believe. But you stayed up there anyway with Agitprop?” asked Barrow.

  “It needed doing, and it’s not as if I would have been in any less danger down here, eh?” she said with a shrug and a little laugh.

  “You know that the Canadian government is not participating in the peace process?” asked Barrow.

  “Yes, sir, I know.”

  “You also know that’s going to make it damned near impossible for us to take any part of Canada with us into the Republic? I have to admit, I feel somewhat uncomfortable and ashamed at having you along,” said Barrow. “All I can tell you is that I will do my very level best to bring at least part of Canada with us into the Northwest Republic.”

  “Look, General, you have other things to worry about, eh?” she said. “Yes, I hope that you can bring in at least part of Canada, but this whole thing is about the greater good of the white race worldwide. I firmly believe that one day the spark we have lit here in the Northwest will catch fire all over the white world, or what’s left of it, and that someday not just the western provinces but all of my country will be free of Zionist rule.”

  “Do all of our Canadian comrades feel like that?”

  “No sir,” she admitted. “A good many of them feel very bitter and betrayed.”

  “And so they should,” replied Barrow with a heavy sigh. “You understand this thing could get very rough? That the word of the United States isn’t worth a bucket of warm spit, and if they don’t like the way things are going they could simply murder us all out of pure malice?”

  “Then I’ll die in my people’s Homeland, sir,” she replied calmly. “That border exists only in people’s minds, and it has ceased to exist in mine.”

  Morehouse must have seen Captain Chenault leave Barrow’s tiny office, because when he knocked and came in he began by saying. “In case you’re curious, I don’t know if she’s available, but Dan says she’s not with anyone.”

  “Oh?” asked Barrow. “She mentioned her husband.”

  “Widow. Her husband was Volunteer Marc Chenault. Killed early on, in an RCMP ambush in some alley in Vancouver. Just thought I’d mention it. How are we shaping up, do you think?” asked Morehouse, taking the seat recently vacated by Jane.

  “I’m still not sure I can pull this off, Red,” Barrow confessed. “It’s like I’m going into the lion’s den. Up until now, we’ve been forcing them to play our game. Now we’re going to have to beat them at their own.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s not as if genuine statesmanship is something we have any experience with,” said Morehouse glumly. “Back in the days before 10/22, or at least before the Party finally made its appearance on what little political landscape we had, white nationalists always had this terrible habit of running away from politics, I mean the real deal, not those stupid dog and pony shows we had every four years.”

  “All Americans had that habit,” Barrow reminded him. “Politics was so corrupt that whole generations of Americans grew up deliberately avoiding it. We didn’t want to think about it because we knew damned well there was nothing we could do. Government and the state was simply something you avoided as much as you possibly could.”

  “Yes, I know, and that was one of the biggest advantages ZOG had over us. Thank God, we intend to establish a republic and not a democracy here in the Northwest. Who was it who said that from democracy steps forth the cruelest of tyrants?”

  “De Tocqueville, I think,” said Barrow.

  “But there was no excuse for our refusal to become involved in serious politics. It was just plain cowardice on our part, trying to get out of doing the heavy lifting. Plus I think it was an almost ingrained disgust at the whole corrupting, sickening process of democracy. My God, look at the kind of leaders all this wonderful democracy gave us since Abraham Lincoln trashed the Founding Fathers’ old Constitution and butchered half a million Americans to keep the Northern capitalists in power! Since 1865 America has always been led by criminals, incompetents, maniacs, mediocrities, pathological liars and heartless mass murderers. Grant, Cleveland, that drunken buffoon Teddy Roosevelt who was followed by that unspeakable hypocrite Woodrow Wilson who was followed by the greasy thief Harding. That syphilitic monster FDR. Kennedy the would-be Caesar, Jimmy Carter with his skull full of mush, the greedy crazy Bushes and the vicious perverted Clintons. And that’s just the presidents! Never mind all the Aaron Burrs, Boss Tweeds, Boss Prendergasts and Daleys and Willie Browns and Alger Hisses and Jesse Jacksons. How can anyone look at American politics and not vomit?”

  Andrei Stepanov walked in on Morehouse in mid-babble. “That was something about Americans that Europeans never understood,” he said. “To us, politics was life’s blood. In our own countries, the hate laws were so Draconian that most of us could be arrested or sent to prison for even so much as mentioning immigration statistics or raising our palms above shoulder height, or singing a proscribed song from our country’s past, or mentioning a prohibited name from among our forefathers. Any serious participation in the political process was always denied to European nationalists after 1945. The best we could do was to create pale imitations, quasi-parties that merely hinted at the true agenda, which didn’t fool anyone in authority, and which were suppressed on a regular basis.

  “Yet here in America, up until 10/22 white nationalists had legal status, at least technically. For decades you could actually get up and say what you wanted to say even if you immediately lost your jobs, and the system was rigged so that no one could hear you anyway. In Europe we would have sold our soul for that kind of opportunity. I think that in Britain and in Germany at least, and also in Eastern Europe, if nationalism had ever been given anything even approaching a level playing field within the political process, without the threat of Red terrorism and government retaliation, then we might not have had to pick up the gun in this country. But Americans were so afraid of politics that they never made anything like full use of legal status while they could. God alone knows what could have been accomplished if everyone had just been willing to stand up, tell the world that they were racists and proud of it, and engage in serious, adult political activity.”

  “But we didn’t,” said Barrow with a sigh. “Now none of us knows how to do it at all.”

  “We did everything but,” said Morehouse, nodding in agreement. “We took refuge in conspiracy theories, or religion, obscure scholarly anti-Semitism, or survivalism, or crackpot economics, and then when the internet came along we retreated into the cool of our basement rec rooms and the warm glow of our computer monitors, where we could sit hunched over a keyboard in safe anonymity, with a bowl of nachos and a cold brewski by our side, and pretend that we were doing some kind of good.

  “I remember how many people flooded the internet in those days, with grandiose screen names like [email protected] or stupid rubbish like that. Guys who were pretty clearly janitors or something of the kind in real life, who crapped in their pants in terror that someone might actually find out who they were and come knocking on their door. We leaped on any one of a dozen excuses to avoid the rough and tumble of real politics, the agony of having to get out there, get right up close and personal into the faces of our own people, talk to the people, argue with them, reason with them, refute them, scuffle and fist-fight with them if we had to, and convince them that we are right and the United States is wrong. Our skins were as thin as tissue paper, and we were like neurotic children who couldn’t handle rejection or contradiction without going off into a corner and sulking. We were weaklings and crybabies. Our egos were so fragile we couldn’t stand for anyone to disagree with us and call us names. Now, with the benefit of hindsight, I can understand why we did that. Nothing is more frustrating than constantly having to work with stupid, sleeping people who don’t want to wake up. It’s like trying to drag kids out of bed in the morning to make them go to school, and when you live your whole life like that it can drive you bonkers.”

  “But the fact is, Frank, that we’re facing the same problem now
,” Stepanov said. “At some point in time the Northwest Migration movement must take the leap from being a tiny revolutionary vanguard to being a mass movement.”

  “That time is now,” said Morehouse. “We have to obtain the consent of the governed that has already been forfeited by the United States. That means we are going to be forced to get out there, go to ordinary dumb-ass people, and convince them that we are right. Not just beat them into submission. If we try that, then we’ll lose in the long run. Yeah, I’ve heard Bobby Bells expound on his ideas about baseball bats, and up to a point he’s right. We always have to have the baseball bat as a backup if nothing else, because otherwise no one will listen to us at all, and because there comes a time when the deliberate, willful refusal to understand can become criminal in itself, when it threatens the race. But if we are going to create a new society, gentlemen, here in the Northwest, then there is simply no substitute, no short cut, no easy way out. We have to get down in there in the shithole of politics and start shoveling.

  “We can’t do this with the Party alone, create a whole new nation. The overwhelming majority of the people are going to have to buy what we’re selling. They’re going to have to want us to rule them. They are going to have to voluntarily participate in the creation of a new order and willingly put up with all the problems and sacrifices that entails. Otherwise even if we do take over, they’ll simply run away back to the same old poisonous American way of life they’ve always known, like a caged lion that escapes will return to his cage, or if he makes it back out into the wild, then he’ll just pace back and forth in a space the same size as his cage used to be. Like a dog returning to his vomit, if you want to get Biblical about it. This is why it is so vitally important that we cannot, must not, dare not appear to be anti-Christian! Whether we like it or not, facts are facts, and the fact is that the majority of people on the North American continent grew up with a thousand and one Christian points of reference in their daily lives which cannot be made to disappear in the twinkling of an eye, or even with the flourish of a gun. Our people think in Christian terms, and while any revolution must necessarily change the thinking of the people involved in it, it simply is not possible to completely alter the outlook of a whole people and a whole culture overnight.”