Rather than fight their way through the crowed room, Todd and Rollins climbed over the wrought-iron balcony railing, then shimmied down a drainpipe. Todd took Rollins around to the back of the great house, then down a narrow stairway to the dark basement. Therein lay the Wentworth family’s armory. The walls were lined with handguns, rifles, small cannons, swords, pikes, ancient crossbows, and Mexican-made twenty-second–century lasers. Rollins had never seen such a wealth of fine weapons, and he was honored to be given this viewing. Each man took three laser handguns and a lightweight assault rifle. They clipped on to their belts a couple of “fist bombs” (the late twenty-first–century replacement for the hand grenade, but with four times the explosive power and a self-propelling air rocket that allowed the thrower to triple the distance of his natural toss). They took greatcoats to cover their dress uniforms, their breasts of metals, and their ornate epaulettes.
Twenty minutes later, in stony silence, Rollins and Todd walked side-by-side through the dark tunnel. Todd racked his brain to understand what would cause poor Irma give herself over to a Yahoo. Although he tried not to, he clearly visualized Irma’s white skin against the chocolate musculature of the ambassador. One image particularly haunted him: a moment after sex, Irma resting her head thoughtfully against the dark chest of his mortal enemy. These visions passed through Todd’s mind repeatedly, without admitting other notions.
Although he felt great revulsion, he told himself that he must not condemn Irma--if indeed she had given herself to that man. The young Wentworth concluded that she must have been motivated by hopes of escape or a chance to do damage to the Angelenos. He had no doubt that his courageous mistress would sacrifice her life or any part of her body to strike a blow against the enemy. Todd also concluded that Rollins would not perceive the subtlety of her maneuvering. Todd almost smiled as he imagined Irma desperately trying to signal her intentions to the obtuse soldier.
For his part, as they walked, Rollins ruminated over the path he had followed from Isoka’s to the tunnel. He had come down to a road that ran parallel to the frontier of the Shambles. Using the stars for guidance, he had crossed into the brush on the west side of the road, then found his way to this tunnel’s entrance. The route was simple, and although there were no stars on this cold, windy night, he had taken a pocket compass from the Wentworth armory, and he was sure he could find the road, then find his way back. His slow mind filled with other details of the coming danger. Rollins decided where he would post himself as lookout while Todd listened at the window. He tried to remember the exact distance of Isoka’s private house from the fringe of the encampment. He was certain that there would not be a guard, for if Isoka used soldiers for personal protection, there would have been guards around the house the night of Irma’s arrival, and there had been none.
After killing Kout, Rollins had gone after Irma. Only after the murder was done did he have room for thoughts about his former ward. Although Thaddeus had specifically charged him not to bring the woman back, Rollins’ affection for her would not allow him to depart the enemy camp without gathering, firsthand, an appreciation of her conditions. But after a few moments of listening at the window, he became convinced that she was glad to stay with Isoka and that he was pointlessly endangering his own life by watching out for hers. The old soldier vacillated between anger at Irma’s current behavior and the unique, soul-filling fondness he had for his former prisoner.
Suddenly, Todd said aloud, “She’s a warm girl; you have mistaken her gratitude--” His voice dropped off when Rollins momentarily looked into his eyes; at once, Todd heard the self-deceptive falsity in his words. “Forgive me,” he mumbled, for he was ashamed of himself for trying to rationalize. Clear-headedness was a duty of his position, no less than bravery.
The soldier was disappointed in his general’s addiction to this woman. Before this trip was over, Rollins was determined to right Wentworth’s list toward illusion. After a few moments, he said, “Before I left, I had to see if she was safe. I heard them talking. I listened outside a broken window. You can hear quite clearly. When we are there tonight, you will hear.”
Todd snapped, “Hear her crying is what we’ll hear. Her father was murdered last night!”
“We may hear that, too.”
They came to the end of the tunnel. They slipped through the camouflage of rubble that had so successfully stymied the Angeleno search for the entrances. Keeping low, in total silence, they moved slowly southeast through the ruins. After twenty minutes, they came to a wooded area. Rollins and Todd emerged from the brush onto the road that the ALA used to patrol their southern perimeter. The two comrades turned north. A few moments later, they passed the bald hill on which stood the Benharash compound. From the road, all they could see was a boxy wooden house with many candles burning in the second-story windows. They had no idea that behind those windows, the sanguinary general of the ALA reposed with the discomfort of a beached whale. They could smell the marijuana of the guards and hear the faint murmur of their prattle. They could not see them or judge their distance from the road, but the lack of alarm in their voices told them that the guards did not see them either. Rollins dropped to his stomach, rolled off the road, and back into the brush; Todd followed his lead. As he crawled, Todd noted that they had left San Francisco only slightly over a half-hour ago. His body was fresh and free of fatigue, as would be the bodies of future night-raiding forces taking advantage of this self-same trail.
The wind began to dissipate. Having passed the compound without incident and finding no other signs of an enemy presence, the two men, holding their guns at the ready, stood and continued walking, bent low. They had been back on their feet for only a couple of minutes when Rollins pulled up short and raised his hand to signal “stop.” Indistinct voices drifted through the night. Rollins and Wentworth scampered back into the brush. There they lay still.
Coming from the direction of the hilltop compound, two silhouettes, apparently a giant and a dwarf, faded in through the blackness of the night. Four intently watchful guards followed these two. The large man was bent slightly as he listened to his shorter companion. Occasionally, the large man nodded. Rollins could not make out what was being said or who the men were. Todd took in the size and bearing of the tall man and hoped never to meet him on the field. As the two men passed, the larger one said clearly, with a pronounced hissing, “I agree with that and I have no problem saying so. You say that we should not go public? I’ll go along for now, but . . . ” His voice trailed off, but it was unmistakable whom the San Franciscans had stumbled onto.
Rollins and Todd exchanged quick glances. Rollins aimed his rifle and prepared to ambush. Todd placed his hand on Rollins’ gun and shook his head. After a moment, Rollins reluctantly obeyed. Benharash, Puglese, and their guards passed unmolested.
“Killing him would be of great importance,” Rollins whispered.
The sight of the enemy general had briefly taken Todd’s thoughts away from his romantic misfortune. His focus, however brief, on the military situation allowed him to make a split-second assessment. He told his perplexed companion, “As long as he refuses to fight, he serves our purpose. Let Benharash live, and his life will continue to undermine their leadership’s authority.”
With that, they moved on.
Soon, the infiltrators came to the outskirts of the ALA camp. Todd was struck by the awful smell, which he at first took for the reek of the battlefield. The stench, however, was not that of rotting corpses, but of urine and vile bodies. Rollins saw his companion’s face twist with disgust. The old soldier whispered, “These are not clean people.”
Todd shook his head in wonderment. The smell of waste, unwashed flesh, burning things that should not be burned, vomit, and marijuana almost made him gag. He did not realize that they were near a bank of latrines. Keeping hidden behind an unused shack, they could see the Angeleno sentries walking about carelessly, some of them drunk and listing. Hundreds of campfires stretched out across the expansive mud flats. The scene before them was like a Bruegel party scene: men and prostitutes drinking, singing, laughing, fighting. Todd saw that the ALA had no fear of a San Franciscan night attack. If fact, if what he was seeing was typical of the nocturnal debauchery, he wondered how they could fight in the day. He wondered, too, what would happen if this huge army ever sobered up long enough to attempt in earnest a breach of the Shambles.
For the next fifteen minutes, they cautiously made their way through the camp. They blended in with the ALA, for their greatcoats were no different from those of the enemy. Seeing how easy it was to infiltrate, Todd began to consider how best to exploit his foes’ hitherto-unknown weakness. Meanwhile, without breaking a sweat, he followed Rollins’ wendings through the fetid and licentious camp. Each step across the degraded earth strengthened Todd Wentworth’s resolve that the LA Yahoos must never enter San Francisco.
Eventually, they came upon Isoka’s house. Furtively and in silence, the two comrades slipped around the house until it lay between their position and the bivouac. Light poured out of the hovel’s windows, and voices could be heard through a broken pane. Rollins motioned Todd to be still and to be silent. The one-armed soldier made his way to the front of the house and looked around at the various soldiers in nearby encampments. Then he moved back to Todd, who stood, rather stupidly, by the broken window. After motioning that Todd could now safely listen, Rollins scrambled toward the front of the house to keep a lookout.
From inside the house, young Wentworth heard clearly Irma’s magical voice.
“I’ll move into the house. Possession--along with your support--will establish my inheritance.”
Isoka sat at the dining-room table. He smiled, his eyes benignly incredulous, and shook his head. Freedom to leave him, as Irma now saw, was not hers. She began to decipher this new world and its Machiavellian ways; she realized that her father would have been helpful in her new labyrinth. The irony sickened her, made her wipe a tear from the corner of her eye with a finger. Still dressed in black after the evening funeral, which only she and Isoka had attended, Irma paced the squeaking floor. She caressed a cigarette like it was her best friend. Her hand shook slightly, and inside she quaked. Irma knew she had no time to plan or analyze: Whatever her situation (and she was not wholly able to define it), she must react instinctively. She was now human fodder. Errors could jeopardize her freedom, the shreds of her dignity, and her life.
Isoka said, “I have guards on your house. You and you alone can come and go there as you please--”
“But,” she interrupted archly, “I’d be safer staying here with you.”
The ambassador waved his slim, graceful hand as if to say, “Exactly.” They were silent for a moment. She smoked the cigarette to the nub; he watched her every gesture. He studied particularly the tick developing in the corner of her pretty, wide mouth. Isoka exhaled a satisfied breath. Her anxiety would pass when she adapted to the life he would give her back in Los Angeles. He hoped he had yet to impregnate her, for that condition would be dangerous on the trip back to Los Angeles. He would happily accept conception during the trip, for then his child would not be at risk. The ambassador pushed back from these new thoughts of family. The time called not for pleasing domestic dreams, but for settling his chosen woman’s conscience. He sighed and said philosophically, “We bury the dead, and then we scavenge through their belongings.” He heard the falsity of his homily before the words were out of his mouth.
“Don’t be sarcastic,” she said. “His wealth is now mine. I’ll take it without a scruple.”
Isoka shook his head and spoke to himself out loud. “So, she has presence of mind, some money, and my protection. A week out of prison and she has what she needs to keep afloat until the war is over.”
“Your protection,” said Irma with a raised eyebrow. “Last night I had your love.” She smiled at him. Isoka marveled at this young woman’s ability to acclimatize to chaos. Her instinct for survival was at once feral and worldly. She went on teasing. “Without my rich father, I am less attractive to you.” He said nothing. She threw her head back and laughed. “Admit it.”
Isoka leapt up, went to Irma in two great strides. He took her by the arms and kissed her. Then he kissed her repeatedly, her lips, her cheeks, her neck, her breast. She laughed and stroked his hair. After a moment, she slid out of his grasp. She smiled bitterly. “You’d fuck me again tonight if I let you. The night after I buried my father.”
“You drive me to it!” he said huskily, but not without humor.
“Balls!” She laughed. “I’m sad about my father . . . but I don’t know why. Because of him, I have been traded like chattel. And now I am alone amidst armed and drunken apes. When a few days ago--”
Isoka said, “You have nothing to fear.”
“Perhaps.” She considered a moment. He watched her, and felt his heart pounding. Finally, she said, “I have nothing to fear because of you.” She went to him, put her hands on his shoulders, and leaned her cheek against his face. “And I will stay with you because of that.”
“You won’t be sorry,” he said emotionally.
Irma said, “No, I won’t.”
They kissed deeply. Irma pushed him away. Then, after a loud sigh bespeaking resignation to her own nature, she pulled his warm body back to her.
Outside, squatting on his haunches, Todd heard it all. He heard the banter of lovemaking and his heart turned to ice. Nearly faint, he fell back against the house with a thud. Now his frozen heart burned, and from hell’s fire, turned to dust; his face became a sickly mask of tragedy.
Inside, Irma cried, “What was that?” She did not break her embrace with Isoka, and his lips and tongue muffled her exclamation.
Irma’s quick attention to outside stimulus shocked Isoka, for he thought her entranced in his embrace. Turning his attention to the threat at hand, he forcefully pushed Irma back to a wall, where she squeezed herself, for safety, alongside a large wooden chest-of-drawers. The ambassador grabbed his gun and cautiously slid next to a window. Warily, he peered out. The vibration of Irma’s fear cut through him. He scanned the view with his gun pointed outwards. He assumed nothing more than drunken solders stumbling about the house, but one could never tell.
Even in his stupor of heartbreak and dejection, Todd, his face creased and swollen with pain and rage, realized he had revealed himself. He signaled to Rollins that it was time to go.
Rollins scampered back to Todd, slapped him on the knee, and motioned to move out. The one-armed man started away, but looking back, he saw Todd, motionless, squatting against the building with his eyes closed tight, his fist against his forehead. Rollins moved back and roughly grabbed the young man’s shirt; again, he motioned to move out. Now Todd the good soldier responded. He leapt to his feet, clutched his gun, and scampered back into the night.
Inside, Isoka lowered his Mouser. He said, “It was nothing.”
Irma sighed deeply, then rolled another cigarette. She smiled as she felt Isoka’s eyes boring into her. She looked up at the tall man.
After a moment, he observed, “You have good ears.”
Irma lowered her eyes guiltily. After a short silence, she again looked up her now-wary suitor. She smiled and stretched her slender arm out to him.
#
Todd and Rollins ran low along a road leading from the main ALA camp toward Benharash’s compound and the path back to the secret tunnel. Rollins kept one eye on the dangerous road before him and another on his distracted comrade.
Everything around Todd looked alien and flawed. The haunted darkness and the wind-blown trees mocked him with their disinterest in his plight. He saw in Rollins’ eyes tolerance, but not empathy or even concern--other than fear that Todd’s enfeebled state might lead them to a bad end. Not a masochist, he stopped replaying the conversation he had overheard. Todd felt the profundity of his own weakness; the world would have no truck with a lachrymose Wentworth. He tried to focus inward to find strength, but he found only astounding pain. He believed he would die soon, and he welcomed the notion. Now Irma, too, was on the battlefield, and she had acted as needed to survive. As they pushed toward the approach to their exit tunnel, Todd muttered to himself desperately, “The war comes first; there’s no place for the personal.” He chanted those cold words repeatedly. He pushed away thoughts of the sweet week past.
#
The winds died down and a thick mist rolled in off the Bay. Low fog scudded across the forlorn land. Out of the second-story window of Benharash’s house, a soft, yellowish light poured into the swirling fog. A cast-iron wood-stove warmed the bedroom. Overlapping red Pakistani rugs covered the floor. A richly-hued Guatemalan bedspread blanketed the large round bed. Two massive maroon wingback chairs and books, oak tables, and candlestick holders gave a portion of the enclosure the feel of a sitting room. Elise, candle-lit, stood next to the window before a mirror, serenely brushing her long, fine hair. More beautiful and sensual when she was safely away from the gaze of men, Elise moved slowly, dreamily. Her big Labrador lay calmly at her foot. Her general had gone off to watch the camp wrestling-matches, and she savored the genderless solitude.
Outside the house, two of Benharash’s marines stood loosely on guard. One nudged the other and pointed up to the window. Although they could not see her face, they could see her thin hand dragging the brush through her thick yellow hair. One guard grabbed his own penis and shook it hard. They both laughed, all the while cautioning each other not to make a sound. They were not afraid of being caught peeping but feared that she might move out of sight. Suddenly, some brush moved loudly; then again. The two guards froze, tightened their purchase on their weapons. They listened but heard nothing more. It was either a deer or a drunk and his hussy. In either event, the general’s restless brutes hoped to have something to shoot at. They signaled to a third guard at the perimeter. All three scurried to a vantage point where they could see down to the road. But once there, the marines looked at each other and shook their heads, for fog obscured all.
Elise heard the running footsteps, paused, and then went back to her luxuriant grooming. She thought, I bet they’re watching me, the rats! The languid Labrador noticed the noise, opened his eyes without raising his head; then he snorted indifferently and stilled.
One guard cautiously moved halfway down the hill. As the fog shifted for a few seconds, this man saw Todd and Rollins. He squatted, pointed his gun, and yelled, “Halt! What’s up, you two?”
Todd stopped, turned blankly toward the guards. He looked at Rollins out of the corner of his eye. In unison, the San Franciscans dove toward the ground, firing rapidly at the guards; the man who had grabbed his crotch less than a minute before fell dead. The man who had spotted them took a laser through his forehead. At the sound of the gunfire, three more marines appeared at the top of the hill. Todd, Rollins, and their four adversaries fired their weapons without a second’s pause. The noise was deafening; flying dirt turned the fog brown.
Elise turned slowly toward the window. A spray of lead smacked the house. One bullet came through the window and went through Elise’s long neck. She fell slowly, with some grace and a puzzled expression.
The girl lay, eyes open, on the rich carpet. The black Labrador rose and licked her face. He did not yet understand that his mistress was dead.
Outside, the fight raged on. Todd and Rollins were under cover of fog, while at the top of the hill, the campfire gave light and outlined the marines, making them visible to their outmanned adversaries. Two more guards were hit, fell, and rolled down the hill. The survivors retreated to the cover of woodpile. Then they let forth another merciless fuselage. Rollins and Todd broke for the brush that led back to the Shambles and to their escape. They ran for five minutes. The shooting soon stopped.
Once hidden, Todd lay down. He looked back. Rollins, although some yards ahead, sensed immediately Todd’s halt. He, too, dropped flat on his stomach. But after a very few minutes, Rollins wrinkled his brow, looked at the ground, and said, “We must keep moving.”