Twenty thousand troops bivouacked on the forlorn turf. The vast, drab encampment spread across a rubble-strewn clearing south of Mission. Endless rows of six-man tents fanned out across the rutted mud. A smattering of houses, made of wood and urban refuse, billeted officers; the distribution of these patchwork dwellings exposed the leadership’s predilection for vistas of the foreign bay. Like their San Franciscan enemies, ALA officers lived in threadbare opulence, surrounded with the pilfered furnishings from the once-great town.
A fine rain drizzled on the sea of colorless tents, and the pestering damp fit the sullen mood of the army. Across the grounds, the grim pageant of these thousands included the typical joyless scenes of barracks life: gambling, loafing, grumbling, fighting, drinking, whoring, and, for the more disciplined among them, the maintenance of weapons.
In contrast to their enemies, the ALA soldiers were battle-hardened veterans. They were here for the final payoff, the sack of the richest city in California. Their hateful separation from family and home, and the once-in-a-lifetime event of the Reconqeste (the name this military mission was know by in Los Angeles), had reached its denouement. The end of their long, bloody journey was in sight. Yet there were no high spirits in the Angeleno camp. This filthy and fatigued mass of humanity believed that the war should have concluded months ago; they were virtually unanimous in their dissatisfaction with the current course of the battle. After two years of travail and conquest, they grumbled that they deserved to be home, enjoying what booty they had amassed and savoring the ostentatious gratitude of the Los Angeles. Gone was their enthusiasm for payback and plunderage. The enlisted men’s long faces and mute surliness accented the encampment’s sense of gloomy barbarity.
A large square wooden building sat atop the highest hill in camp. This was the headquarters of the Army of Los Angeles. Gun- and machete-laden guards surrounded the squat building. The guards, hand-picked for loyalty and well rewarded for the same, stood at attention, their keen eyes continuously scanning the dangerous troops below. These guards were of a different makeup from the soldiers on either side. They would never tire of war nor question the chain of command. They were members of the Advance Guard, two thousand elite troops who did most of the battlefield killing. Should a mutiny ever strike the ALA, the Advance Guard would dispatch the rebels with the careless brutality they had used to subdue the state and retake the Aqueduct.
Inside HQ, the low-ceilinged War Room was clean and orderly. The room’s centerpiece was a metal table with five chairs, where were gathered the four grave men of the General Staff. Other furnishings spread across the bare dirt floor were two metal desks, two file cabinets, a narrow bed topped with a brownish-green blanket, and two motheaten easy chairs. On three walls, black-screened windows gave views of the camp, the Bay, the Shambles. A massive communication tower and the tips of San Francisco’s broken buildings could be seen in the distance. Locked gun racks and a large relief map of California covered the west wall. On this map, Los Angeles County was colored blue, as was a large strip marking the California Aqueduct, from Los Angeles to Sacramento inclusive of the Delta. Across the blue swath, bold letters read GREATER LOS ANGELES.
The leader of the General Staff, obvious by dint of his gold-braided uniform, was always and only called “vice mayor.” This tall, svelte man, with a high, shining forehead, an aquiline nose, and large, cold gray eyes, was one of the half dozen most powerful politicians in LA. He was not a military man, but an aristocrat who toyed with government and war. When the plan for retaking the Aqueduct was adopted by the Los Angeles Parliament, precautions had been taken to assure civilian control of the army. The Los Angeles plutocracy knew that, win or lose, an army is a dangerous thing.
The vice mayor was chosen to lead the force because he was known to have a narrow and linear mind, an overbearing regard for his own social class, and powers of manipulation that stood out even among the gaggle of Machiavellis that ran the City of Angeles. The ever-confident vice mayor possessed a wicked gravitas that, in these restive times, had allowed him to remain undisputed head of the Reconqeste. The position was analogous to the political commissars who shared authority with the Bolshevik military commanders. In this system, however, the oligarch had final say in all matters, even those military.
But now the vice mayor was anxious about a mutiny. The General Staff of the ALA carried out the war, but they sat around table with one profoundly empty chair. The vice mayor’s injudicious exercise of power had alienated his brilliant general, the only leader whom the troops truly loved. The most successful and feared military man west of the Rockies as well as the keeper of the Camp Pendleton armory (the region’s largest stash of weaponry), the general had withdrawn from the war effort because he disputed the decision to attack San Francisco. After accomplishing the assigned military goal of the securing the Aqueduct and taking the Sacramento Delta, he felt his mission was accomplished and it was time to go home.
The vice mayor and his advisors, on the other hand, were convinced that as long as San Francisco remained proud and powerful, their vital waterway would never be safe. Launching an offense against the hostile but strategically-located fringe city of San Francisco was their passion. Initially, the enlisted men had leapt to the cause; they anticipated booty and women, and the general found himself alone in his objection to “mission creep.” He stayed at the camp, for he felt it his duty to return the army safely to Los Angeles, but he would not fight--nor would his one thousand elite marines enter the fray.
The vice mayor was charged by the Parliament to ensure that the complete interests of the city were protected. He had thought long and hard about the meaning of this mission and felt in his heart that the only answer was to not merely to seize the Aqueduct, but to render impossible future San Francisco attacks on LA’s new possession. It was his duty to ensure a high quality of life for Angelenos of his time and for their posterity. The vice mayor was passionate about his obligation to “the People,” even though throughout his fifty-odd years, he had had scant contact with persons outside the oligarchy. Even during the campaign, he did not speak to foot soldiers or even low-level officers, other than those in his own personal guard. Onlookers found it odd to witness the vice mayor’s visceral dedication to a class of people that bewildered and repulsed him. Noblesse oblige was the creed of the Angeleno oligarchy--but there was no obligation to speak with or touch their wards.
As for the people protected by these disdainful aristocrats, they were so grateful to their leadership for shielding them from the horrors of the roving armies that dominated the lives of those not living in the great cities, that they gladly accepted the oligarchy’s pompous suzerainty. Whereas the members of the Wentworth dynasty considered their role in San Francisco to be servants of their people, the Angeleno oligarchs took their authority, and its material benefits, as a precariously-held entitlement, the defense of which was all consuming.
Lifelong and unchallenged hegemony had left the vice mayor sublimely unenlightened. He believed that even without his magnificent general, victory would ultimately be his, merely because he willed it so. He had not lost a night of sleep throughout the two years of the campaign. That he might not be invincible never occurred to the self-satisfied and nonchalant warlord.
The most violent and martial among the vice mayor’s General Staff was Chief Aslanian, commander of the Advance Guard. In normal times, Aslanian was the chief of the LAPD, which had paramilitary training commensurate with its role as an elite force. Aslanian used his men as shock troops, always on the attack, even when outnumbered. Day after day, he led his men’s charges with fearless abandon and warlike panache. His keen eye, ability to take a quick read, and tactical instincts served him well in peace and in war. His ill-temper and impetuosity, however, put limits on his every act, so he was always somewhat thwarted and found little satisfaction, even in victory. In his late forties, stocky and broad shouldered, Chief Aslanian wore a well-groomed white goatee and closely cropped, wiry hair. Pink skinned and sharp featured, the choleric soldier had large yellow teeth and small brown eyes. A jagged purple scar covered his forehead, his right eye, and cheek. Half of his right ear was missing, and the remaining half was blackened from a laser burn; a large red dent on the left side of his throat marked a laser wound that had damaged his vocal cords. Aslanian sounded as though he spoke through a fuzzy electric amplifier, adding an eerie dimension to his frequent wrath. Honest and rough mannered, he would never be mistaken for an oligarch.
Next to this creature of violence was Ambassador Isoka, the Afro-Angeleno author of the armistice that the Wentworths had rejected. Laconic, self-assured, and quick minded, Isoka was a man of a quite different ilk. Tall, well proportioned, and stately, he had the narrow features of the African Horn. He served the vice mayor as a political advisor, the conscience of the Parliament--sort of a commissar’s commissar. During the campaign, he had grown into a battlefield leader. Isoka did not have Aslanian’s military background, but, as a young man, he had served two years in the Guard--two years patrolling the San Gabriel and Santa Susanna mountains, day and night, summer and winter. He had always considered those two years wasted, or at least anomalous to his patrician life. Now that rugged apprenticeship had turned out to be the most apt training of his life for the event of his life. He knew what it was to be a soldier on a bad job, so he was able to treat the army with respect and familiarity.
The ambassador could talk to anyone. Throughout the campaign, he had accepted surrenders and made deals to keep third parties out of combat or to enlist them as adjunct forces for his own general. Through handwritten and hand-copied letters carried by runners, he kept in weekly contact with all the conquered communities and the string of forts the Angelenos had build along the Aqueduct. He also wrote the vice mayor’s reports back to Parliament. For purposes of the Reconqeste, Isoka was the face of the ALA; however, no one, friend or foe, mistook him for its leader.
The fourth man was Colonel Wellman, a short befreckled man with a small round nose and dull blue, expressionless eyes. A regular colonel in the Advance Guard, Wellman was an admirable soldier and particularly courageous. Like most of the officers on either side, he was not schooled in offensive warfare, but in defense. The mountain patrols that had been a matter of indifference to Isoka were for Wellman the only environment in which he was truly at home. He was active in battle but did not take to meetings or strategizing; he kept quiet in the meetings and eschewed debates. The troops thought him stupid.
These four men were mutually determined to vanquish the San Franciscans, once and for all. Unfortunately, they were wholly unschooled in large-scale military operations. Aslanian and Wellman were adept at deploying up to a thousand men each, but they were at a loss as what to do with an army twenty-thousand strong. After the general had, with much fanfare and speechifying, led the army to Sacramento, he refused to go beyond his mandate, so these four unprepared men then marched that same army on to San Francisco. Here they bogged down in the scattered and desultory battle on the muddy ruins of downtown San Francisco.
It was now seven months of living in the vermin-infested outskirts of the Shambles, and a sense of failure was in the air. The army had lost faith.
Yet as the ever-jovial vice mayor stood at the head of the table, looking at his three loyal officers, he waved his wine-filled goblet broadly and declared, "Victory is inevitable." His men said nothing; they sat tight lipped and eyed their leader sadly. He looked closely into the eyes of his subordinates. "Isn’t it?" he asked, with a twinkle in his eye.
Ambassador Isoka stood, patted the vice mayor on the back, and walked from the table to a window. He looked out on the camp. The day was moist with heavy fog; filthy, sullen soldiers of every age and race glared back at him, as they did every time a member of the aloof General Staff showed himself in the small windows of their HQ. He searched his mind for a way to raise the vice mayor’s stock in the army’s eyes. The vice mayor’s haughtiness, which so put off the common men, was deeply rooted in his character, and he could not fathom the harm it did him. So it did little good for Isoka to try to refine his boss’s manner or coach him on ways that would endear him to the troops. The vice mayor would never be loved by the masses, here or in Los Angeles.
Therefore, because the vice mayor was incorrigibly un-charismatic and the ambassador and the rest of the General Staff had proven incapable of defeating their contemptibly weak opponents, Isoka saw no other choice than to bring the AWOL general back into the fold. He knew that getting these magnificently arrogant men to come to a common agreement would be like changing the motion of the tides. The insults they had heaped on one another at the time of their quarrel had left insurmountable enmity. Isoka grasped what needed to be done. Smirking, he turned back to the vice mayor and shrugged. “We just gotta keep the army in yoke.”
Aslanian glowered at the black man before the window. "This army won’t dissolve! I’ll shoot a deserter an hour if that’s what it takes to keep these pigs in line. They damn well better stay in yoke.”
The vice mayor stretched out his long arm and waved his goblet; white wine sloshed across the table. "Let’s not be overly dramatic. We take San Francisco, and then we go home. The men know that.”
“But will they abide it?”
The vice mayor laughed. “It’s not negotiable.”
Aslanian nodded vigorously. "The State will be remade," he declared with much bravado. His fellows responded to his call to rally by averting their eyes and remaining silent. Somewhat crestfallen, Aslanian pulled at his half ear.
The vice mayor looked affectionately at Aslanian. He raised his goblet haphazardly and poured a large amount of wine into his mouth, onto his chin, and down to his shirt. He was fully enjoying himself. Aslanian’s war cry pleased him deeply; the vice mayor relished hearing others speak of his intentions in grandiose sentences. Slightly slurring his words, he blurted insincerely, "The vehemence of our will will change history.”
"History doesn’t change so easily,” Isoka said with a patronizing smile. He leaned casually against the wall, next to a rack of rifles. He caught the vice mayor's eye, and the others paused to listen. Affecting a smugness he did not feel, Isoka said slowly, "We are forcing nature and society to fit our design. Nature will fight us at every turn. She follows dumbly her own simple arithmetic . . . until, of course, our will breaks her obstinacy. Once we by force gain the upper hand, natural law becomes our ally."
Aslanian and Wellman stared blankly at him. Isoka shrugged and smiled almost tenderly. "Nature’s a slut . . . she takes the path of least resistance."
Aslanian looked away, lost in dark thoughts. The vice mayor walked to the door and looked out on the troops. Then he turned back to his officers, looking particularly at Ambassador Isoka.
Watching a cockroach scurry across the wall, Isoka said to the vice mayor, "To change history’s destination, we must look to what actions she’s already accommodated. What worked before will work again. We need Benharash."
"Oh, for God’s sake!" Aslanian tried to shout, forgetting that his damaged throat prevented him from projecting loudly or clearly.
Isoka held out his hands and shrugged sympathetically. "I don’t like it either, but we are not generals. He is. We’ve bogged down with superior force because none of us can get the big picture in battle--not the way he did. None of us has the devotion of the whole army. Chief Aslanian, I know your men would fight to the death for you, and yours too, Wellman. But we need the conscripts to engage; we need the hearts of all twenty thousand. And let’s face it: We can’t seem to make that happen. Benharash has proven that he can bring out the best in them.”
"I ain’t gonna kiss his ass," Aslanian spit defiantly.
Walking into the middle of the room, Isoka eyed his three colleagues with solemn frankness. "Bring back their hero and the army coalesces. That is the clear path, the line of least resistance. We’ve tried everything we know. Wentworth has outfoxed us. We need to face that fact. Benharash is our greatest asset, and it is time to call on him."
"Let him lord it over the rest of us? " Aslanian croaked.
The vice mayor looked warily at Isoka. Despite the humiliation brought on by failing to defeat a much weaker foe, no one had up until now suggested supplicating the general. Two emotions rose in the vice mayor. The first was pained pride brought on by hearing the man closest to him suggest that he ask for help from a subordinate, an unfaithful servant who had turned his back on him. Acrid liquid surged to up his esophagus as he considered this. But at the same time, he instantly recognized that Isoka would not have made such an obnoxious suggestion if he had not felt compelled to do so. The vice mayor had come to rely on the ambassador with the blind dependency of an amateur investor listening to advice from a trusted stockbroker. The look Isoka had given him had shot through his heart, and he knew the ambassador had hit the nail on the head. The vice mayor’s political instincts always trumped his emotional needs.
In an instant, he considered the political impact for him back in Los Angeles; after all, he had sent back strongly-worded accounts of Benharash’s insolent adieu. "I’d need to stay in charge. The war cabinet would string me up if I let him get much power. Now the people back in LA are afraid of him. They heard what we told them and it makes it difficult to back down.”
The diplomat glanced uncomfortably at the two others present, for he did not like to speak about political tactics openly with them. His uncompromising political advice was only for the vice mayor’s ear. Nevertheless, he reminded himself that every moment in war needed to be the best moment, and the time had come to take a new approach. He spoke quickly and directly to the vice mayor. “We need to wrap this up. But I fully understand: whatever road we travel must end with you, not Benharash, presenting our victories to Parliament. And to ensure your own best performance, you must have complete peace of mind. As long as we commit ourselves to that ultimate end, what difference does it make if we humor the megalomaniac? I, as you know, don’t think it’s principle that keeps him off the battlefield. I think he’s an immature man who wants to be wooed and begged. His vanity craves our acknowledgment that he’s better than we are. I don’t mind that. I’ve licked lower boots than his. We have a duty to make this work, and if our egos are in the way, then shame on us! We need him; he’s here; so, let’s do what it takes to get him back.”
The vice mayor, who understood perfectly all that the ambassador recommended, shook his head. "Handing the army over to Benharash at this point in time would be a political disaster."
Isoka waved his hand dismissively. "Politics come later. Now what we need is battlefield action. He’s proven he can lead the army, and frankly, we’ve proven we’re inept. I’ll say it again: We need to get this thing over and go back to LA. Don’t forget, you have interests at home, and this stalemate prevents you from dealing with them. I know as well as anyone that we can’t retreat without victory! Under no circumstances. So we are going to have to make some accommodations that’ll get us that victory."
“Who said anything about retreat?” snapped Aslanian.
“My friend, wake up. We face the prospect of our men returning home on their own--at which point, our lives, as well as our careers, are on thin ground. If the troops desert, those Wentworth bastards will hunt us down, publicly torture us, and execute us.”
Aslanian snapped, “I said I’d shoot deserters and I--”
“We aren’t going to shoot our own men,” said Isoka. He had to suppress his impulse to laugh in the chief’s pink face. “My friends, we need a competent battle plan, and we need the men to regain their faith in this mission. The unpleasant General Benharash is the answer to both needs.”
The vice mayor, against his nature, grew serious. He felt Aslanian and Wellman looking to him to reject the odious reconciliation. He looked at Isoka closely and spoke with a familiarity he did not use with the others. "At the end of the day, such a man might turn this army on our own city. That’s exactly what the war cabinet will worry about. Particularly in light of the way we’ve represented his actions to date." He now regretted the hyperbolic dispatches he had sent back home.
Isoka nodded. “We’ve painted a pretty grim picture of his motives, so changing our tone now will take a certain agility.” He walked over to the vice mayor's side and took him by the arm. As he spoke, he looked back and forth between Aslanian and Wellman. His soft, deep voice was comforting, and he used it to great effect. "We can mitigate the danger he poses. Once we get through this last battle, we’ll turn our attention to our political interests and to those in our own camp who might thwart them. Do you understand? For now, Benharash’s discontent is the crux of our problem, the blockage in our path. Things will be different after a victory. The general might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, or even a faithful man; but he is a leader, he is their leader. He is, and we aren’t. We need him more than we need our pride."
Wellman, feeling obliged to have an opinion, finally spoke. "He ridicules our objectives; he takes the piss out of the entire force. Fuck him, I say!" He shook his head for emphasis and to signal that he had had his say. Aslanian slapped his friend’s broad back.
Isoka went over to the map. He rubbed his long brown hand down the blue strip that covered the area from Sacramento to Los Angeles. He looked puzzled as he gazed at the geography of their campaign. Mostly to himself, he said aloud, "He really thinks we should have stopped after the Delta."
Aslanian tried to sound reasonable. He knew how foolish his incessant ill-temper made him appear. He would have given anything to learn how to tame it, but he could not. He knew the enlisted men said his disposition was the result of having a small, soft penis; if for no other reason than that summation of himself, he struggled daily with his ever-simmering rage. But for this man to curb his temper was no easier than it would have been for him to control the ocean storms. Now shaking with anger and his futile attempt at self-control, he said, "If we’d stopped at the Delta, the Franciscans would have blown up our aqueduct. Just like their grandfathers did! That’s a load of crap, that stop at the Delta. That's a load of crap!”
Isoka laughed, spread his hands, and said, "Benharash’s history is victory after victory."
The vice mayor also laughed. "The troops do put a lot of stock in that, don’t they."
Aslanian shook his head. "Either we crush San Francisco, or they’ll fight forever."
Isoka stepped towards Aslanian and spoke rapidly. "We need to demolish San Francisco. Look, all thinking men agree on that! But, Chief, a thinking man didn’t win the hearts of this sorry army! Abe Benharash did. We’re fools if we ignore that."