The fractured battleground was dark with the uniforms of swarming Angeleno soldiers. The Shambles echoed with a cacophony of gunfire and grenades. Unceasing explosions downed out the agonized cries from the hundreds of dying and wounded. Dogs and cats hid; rats and cockroaches ran helter-skelter. It was a day like no other: For the first time, the entire Angeleno force took the field. Benharash’s doughty commands drove the raiding army ever onward. The ALA struck where he pointed, applied manpower and force as he prescribed. They cut through the bewildered defenders like a new earthquake slicing the old, wounded ground.
San Franciscan soldiers fled and hid in enclosures and cars, behind rubble and under debris. Many were hunted down and shot at close range. This was no day for prisoners. Benharash’s plan was total war. He had worked his troops into a frenzy of xenophobia and blood lust. In three days, he had changed the slovenly ALA from something little better than mercenaries, waiting only for the spoils of San Francisco, into the righteous saviors of their thirsty families.
To the right of the offensive line, wedged between two ancient bathtubs (perfect shields against a Mouser laser), Puglese sketched. Throughout the siege, the cartographer had watched the battle through Benharash’s telescope and sketched his detailed maps from that vantage point. Occasionally, during relatively quite days, he slipped into the Shambles to pick up the details invisible from his distant perch. Today he stayed directly behind the ALA lines. He found and mapped much that had previously eluded his scrutiny. Puglese had taken care to stain his shirt with blood and when he heard approaching footsteps, he quickly lay down face-first, feigning death.
Not far from the site where Puglese had settled to draw this part of the eternal battlefield, a lone Angeleno soldier wandered. He was the sole survivor of his war band. This soldier was Thaddeus Wentworth. His men had led a counterattack on the unfamiliar and ultimately unbreakable ALA formation. He and a few cohorts managed to cause some damage to the south flank of the tight ALA line. But in the end, his men either ran or were slaughtered. He was now separated from all who wished him well, and deep into the turf of his enemies. He had a sense that the battle was well to the west of his current location. His plan was to get to the nearest tunnel and hide until nightfall. His knowledge of the system was unsurpassed, and the strategic burrows’ complexity and obscurity were to his advantage. As always, he was confident of his own survival. As he walked toward his nearby destination, he found himself mulling over the wicked turn the war had taken. The massacre of the prisoners, the organized aggression and fury of the ALA, had taken him off guard. He knew, of course, the author of his menace: Benharash had entered the fray. Thaddeus thought about his own past actions and cursed his failure to infiltrate the ALA camp with spies. He mistakenly believed the Angelenos got steady news out of San Francisco. He had wanted to respond, but he had never been able to suborn a traitor or find a captive whose fear of the ALA’s vindictive justice was less than that generated by any threats meted out by the basically-civilized San Franciscans. Hindsight, not loss of his men or the dangerous position he was in, occupied Wentworth’s thoughts. As he walked, gun at the ready, his eyes and head constantly moving, he muttered bitterly about his failure to see and use the advantages Todd’s report had shown his tunnels would provide. He had failed to use them to gather intelligence. But then, as happens when a disciplined man allows his thoughts free reign, out of the worthless reflections of hindsight came a clue to a solution for his crisis. The ALA camp! That’s the counterattack. They have every man in the field; I’ll burn their fucking camp!
His musings were interrupted by the muffled sounds of an approaching war band. Thaddeus hid in a partially-buried sewage tube. The soldiers came into view: They wore the colors of his enemies. Thaddeus waited passively as they went by him. He reminded himself that the rules of battle had changed and one could not assume that enemy regulars were eager not to fight. After they passed his position without incident, he moved on with great caution but scant angst. Eventually he found the tunnel by which he had reckoned to escape; but to Wentworth’s horror, the opening to the tunnel was clearly exposed and surrounded by ALA regulars. Stepping back quietly into the rubble, he changed direction and drifted toward the more precarious route back to his own forces.
Twenty minutes later, Thaddeus still had not found his own troops. Never before had he been so alone on the battlefield; never before had his entire war-band been slaughtered; never before had he felt like prey. He was the greatest fighter and the bravest man in the San Francisco militia, yet his heart now quivered. He knew that he would be a great prize to any ALA band that captured him.
Suddenly, he heard a man shout, “Wentworth!”
Thaddeus whirled around. Aslanian and two soldiers emerged from the debris. Thaddeus dove behind what had once been a stove in a Civic Center restaurant. Aslanian, with his great red face, well-coifed goatee, and the menacing uniform of the Advance Guard, glared with hatred at his home’s arch-enemy. That Wentworth had turned tail and run did not surprise Aslanian; since the war had begun, most opponents he had met on the field had run from him. The size of his murderous retinue and the bellicosity of his mien made the little chief one of the most distinguishable and feared personages on the California battlefields. Aslanian saw his enemy in flight, and the day was his. He dropped his rifle and pulled out his Mousers. With a horrible cry, he charged toward Wentworth, firing both pistols repeatedly. The weak laser bounced harmlessly off the stainless-steel oven. Aslanian roared like a furious elephant. He kept charging, and two followers, thus emboldened, ran at his flanks, pouring forth their own laser fire. Thaddeus took careful aim with his assault rifle and shot the storming Aslanian in the forehead. A second shot priced his neck, and the ever-ireful chief of the LAPD fell to the ground, stone dead. Instantly, his followers pulled back.
#
Even the forlorn Shambles turned golden in the afternoon. The killing field filled with light and the sky above grew pink. Yet fighting remained bitter. More Californians killed each other that day than on any day in history. After the initial stunning shock and chaos, the San Franciscans had rallied behind the Wentworths and fought back with a ferocity none but Benharash had expected. Smoke rose from the Angeleno camp, where many tents had been torched. A horn sounded; it was a call for a regrouping of the Army of Los Angeles.
#
Benharash, surrounded by burly bodyguards, made his way back to the clearing where the Central Skyway had once debouched onto Oak Street. This wide spot, three blocks west of Van Ness and halfway between the ALA camp and San Francisco, provided ready access from the invaders’ encampment and easy defense from the Shambles. Mounds of cement and the rotted wood of the demolished Victorian houses covered the hill. It served as the staff redoubt. Over the months of siege, the spot had become well walled and fortified. At Benharash’s insistence, the vice mayor as well as the triage unit and their appendages stayed here, with the food wagon. Benharash set his own guards around the perimeter and checked in frequently, as did the other officers. By doing so, they were able to maintain unprecedented coordination.
As he approached the redoubt, Benharash, swelling with sanguinary victory, found himself confronted by an unexpected and ominous tableau. The grim vice mayor and the blood-drenched Isoka stood with their arms dangling at the sides, their chests heaving with fatigue. They spoke sternly to one another. Benharash could not hear their words, but he read chagrin on their faces.
“What’s this about?” Benharash bellowed, looked down on the rows of laser-burned wounded, who lay across the flattest ground. “We only have an hour of light left. Press on. Where’s Aslanian?”
The vice mayor turned to study the approaching general. The politician, usually wine-numbed into sublimity, ground his teeth and felt his white hands trembling.
General Benharash read all of this in his commander’s mien. He turned to Isoka. “I haven’t seen Aslanian.”
“He was killed by Thaddeus Wentworth!” Isoka told him, keeping the vice mayor in his eye.
Benharash paused. Then he said, “That is a great loss for us.” He heard emptiness in his voice and knew it was because he could feel nothing outside his own grief and hatred. Yet he added, “All the more, we should win this day to honor the chief . . . ” He stopped. He saw that the vice mayor was fuming and in no mood for pep talks.
The latter said, “The Wentworths read our maneuvers, consolidated their forces, held their line.”
Isoka shook his head. “He readjusted so quickly.”
The vice mayor appeared lost, and he looked to his general for comfort. He wanted to be told that his own eyes had deceived him and Thaddeus had not turned the battle. “He frightens me. Fate’s wave seems always at his back; and his strength of mind and arm--”
“Wentworth will soon be dead,” Benharash interrupted. He grabbed the vice mayor’s shoulder tightly and swore, “Before this week ends, the Wentworth line will be eradicated. To the last soul!”
“He pulled in his forces,” Isoka reported. A series of nearby explosions quieted the parley for a few moments. Finally, Isoka went on. “He responded to our wedge with a quickly-assembled wedge of his own. Meanwhile, young Wentworth came around back and attacked our camp. We had to pull back an entire brigade to defend it.”
“You pushed them back?”
“Yes, pushed them back to the Shambles, but he put fire to dozens of tents.”
The vice mayor added, “The men lost their belongings.”
Benharash stared at his civilian overseer, then looked at the sky. He said, “Be a big moon tonight.”
The vice mayor, perceiving the violent man’s desire, huffed his chest magisterially and protested, “No night-fighting in the Shambles. That’s a degree of uncertainty I will not accept. The Wentworths know the field much better than we ever can, even with the most germane of maps. No. At dusk, we hunker down.”
Benharash shook his head. Isoka stepped close to Benharash’s face. He intended to put a sound yet aggressive spin on the “no night-fighting” dictum. “There are seven tunnels now in our possession. We will hold them through the night. Our troops will sleep in them. We will scout them. The night will not be wasted, not a moment of it. We’ll just use the darkness to attain safer objectives.”
As long as forward movement progressed through each minute of twenty-four hours, Benharash was appeased. He deemed the objectives set by Isoka to be worthy. “We set up throughout the night, and then at dawn, we attack through the tunnels at the same time we pound them on the ground. Square formation again. Same quadrants.”
Isoka smiled. “It is a forward tactic.”
“Yes.”
Suddenly the vice mayor seemed happy, his ever-fluctuating spirit revived by the confident words of Benharash. Loudly, he proclaimed, “Agreed. Use this last hour to make it so.”
#
The old Civic Center was rimmed with hundreds of combatants, all fueled by fear and hatred, all firing their weapons wildly. Located in the narrowest section of the Shambles, this wide-open plaza and its columnar ruins lay along the course to the heart of new San Francisco. The fighting in this strategic spot had the face of trench warfare. But, unlike in the Great War, the trenches were scattered helter-skelter; and instead of being dug into the ground, heaps of debris were stacked high as shields. Trench-style fighting spread from Market to Eddy between Van Ness and Larkin. At Eddy, the old Tenderloin, the Shambles became impossibly thick with ever-shifting mounts of cement, glass, and steel.
On this border of chaos, a band of Angeleno soldiers had been lured by their enemies into a dead-end. Surrounded on three sides by unstable towers of rubble, the badly frightened ALA war band squeezed their bodies close together and fired their weapons toward a broad opening in the wreckage, their one escape route. A herd of San Franciscans, led by Todd Wentworth, laughed and poured laser fire toward the outnumbered Angelenos. The late day had cooled rapidly, and the weaker side was haunted by the now sunless and blustery sky. As shadows spread, a twist of fortune, favoring LA, came across this scene: Benharash appeared on site with three dozen reinforcements. They emerged from the broken cement; their numbers and ferocity changed the nature of the skirmish. Now the Angelenos charged and Todd’s band ran away.
Todd negotiated the rocky terrain with the ease of an athlete trained for just such an obstacle course, but most of his men, and their pursuers, were confounded by jagged concrete blocks and wobbling foot grips. Within seconds, Todd found himself alone, looking over his shoulder and preparing to go back to help his slow-footed followers. No sooner did he take his first step back towards the skirmish than a new danger appeared before him: an ALA war band led by a tall, long-muscled black officer. At first, Todd was unsure, but then he shouted with joy tainted by blood lust.
The cries and explosions of the battlefield seemed to fade as the two rivals eyed each other. Todd’s hatred was immense; Isoka’s confidence was crowded by reservations born of romance. Todd threw down his gun, pulled out his machete, and attacked Isoka, who barely had time to pull out his own blade. They fought desperately, equal in strength and cunning. They slashed each other’s arms and torso, but neither thrust home. Their poorly crafted machetes were no match for the violence of their hatred, and the shoddy weapons broke into pieces. The rivals grabbed each other’s skin and pounded each other’s faces. Their sweaty heads were flush against each other. They wrestled closely, and their blood was indistinguishable.
While this lengthy two-man war raged, Benharash and his platoon came upon them. For a moment, the general watched the combatants with the same calm interest he directed toward the camp wrestling matches. He decided that the match was even and that only a fluke would give rise to a winner. Having no interest in a stalemate and eager to move on, Benharash raised his gun and, with all his great force, brought it down on Todd’s head. Wentworth fell to the ground. Benharash took aim, but Isoka held up his hand, stopping his comrade from killing Todd.
“Let’s be rid of him!” Benharash cried.
“Not when he’s defenseless,” Isoka said. “That’s the difference between war and murder.”
Benharash threw up his hands and shouted more to the heavens than to Isoka, “Don’t be a fool!”
Isoka was deciding how far he would go to save Todd’s life. He found himself, that is to say, his heart, inhabiting a world where Todd Wentworth’s safety mattered immensely. The ambassador keenly appreciated what dangerous, illicit, and unlawful actions he might be forced into by his new needs. To spare this prince of his enemies went against all his life stood for: the betterment, at all costs, of Los Angeles. Despite the extraordinary nature of such a dereliction of duty, Isoka accepted his decision with an equanimity that surprised him. He had crossed the moral border wherein his own emotional self-interest overtly overruled his commitment to his home and creed. He said to Benharash, with threatening seriousness, “Let him live.”
Benharash shook his head and aimed his gun at Todd’s face. As though intuiting the danger with a sense beyond consciousness, Todd slowly rolled his shoulder, but then groaned and heaved back into oblivion. “We should kill him,” the general said. “More than that, you should know how much his death would mean.” He stared at his old colleague, whom he now ranked as untrustworthy.
But his final thoughts were never to form, for topsy-turvy fate now brought a new and lethal threat. Thurston Wentworth, backed by a large force of men-at-arms, poured over the rocky rims of the small opening upon which this scene took place. Wentworth looked down and bellowed disturbing threats at his outnumber adversaries. Isoka and Benharash dropped their argument and fled. But before he retreated, Isoka knelt and grabbed with both fists the medals from Todd's chest. When Irma sees this, and I swear into her eyes that I saved your life, she will know the truth, and her resisting pride will be mitigated by my magnanimity.
#
After they had made their way a couple of hundred yards into the Shambles, Benharash and his men stopped running. Panting, the general looked back angrily at his flight path. Twilight had come over the field. Ever so slowly, the noise of war abated. Isoka pressed the general on the back of his shoulders, and Benharash, in return, patted his old comrade’s hand.
A lookout signaled that a band of ALA Advance Guards was approaching. Isoka climbed to the perch and looked out. He saw a small squad, a dozen men, looking very much headed in for the night, still alert but really expecting nothing as they ambled over the wreckage toward the Angeleno camp. The ambassador thought, It’s time we join them. The day was not what I hoped, but our way is clear. Back now for rest. He turned to his approaching comrades, who had been hailed by the outlook and so knew they came to friends. A huge soldier, a lieutenant, led them. He was a man deep in reflection, relying on his bodyguards and regulars for circumspection. When they met close up, Isoka saw this huge soldier had a face scarred by acne as a child and war as a man, a shambles on its own. His eyes were intelligent and confident. As he spoke, the ambassador and the general learned that he was a man who knew the field and had a keen grasp of his enemy’s mentality.
Benharash said, “Stop with us.”
The lead soldier looked around at the haggard faces of his charge. He said, “Shouldn’t we press until the twilight grays?”
Benharash said, “We will.” He turned to his own bodyguards and gave them private instructions. The huge soldier waited, in awe, while his general kept him needlessly standing. Finally, Benharash turned his stern attention back to the leader of newcomers. “Leave two guards to lead these troops, and the rest of you come with me.” The other was uncomprehending. Seeing the man’s confusion, Benharash pulled the soldier aside. The general spoke quietly, confidentially. “We are going to hunt down Thaddeus Wentworth. Avoid all other fights. Just hunt down their chancellor and kill him.”
The lieutenant said, “But, General, these men are ready to--”
Benharash rasped, “Don’t stop now, soldier. He’s near. I hear his thoughts.”
“Yes, sir. Yes.”
“If Thaddeus dies tonight, the city falls tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir. Yes, sir.”
Benharash smiled darkly and put his fist to the lieutenant’s immense chest. Huskily he said, “You will be my sword! And you will be remembered as such. ”
The general walked briskly back to confer with Isoka. While those two spoke in hushed tones, the lieutenant saw that the thing could be done; the war could be turned on a moment that now approached him, laurel in hand. This thing has made me, he thought. The power and integrity of Benharash’s active goodwill would forever change the man’s position in civilian life. A slight smirk cracked his tight, grim lips. He resolved to provide aid to his general and slay the darkest Wentworth. He resolved, too, to live, to save his own life first, so that he could soon wallow in the fruits of this day. With that in mind, at Benharash’s side, the huge soldier strutted back to do more battle.
#
The last gray shreds of twilight came over the Shambles. Most of the shooting had stopped. As happened every night about this time, white-coated Angelenos and San Franciscans combed the field to find their wounded. They followed the groans and the cries. Dogs would likely eat causalities unable to cry out, so the aid-givers desperately sought the muted. The war band led by Thaddeus Wentworth had, after several belligerent engagements, been cut in size. This was common because the junkyard war afforded few lots where large groups of soldiers could be in visual communication with each other; hence, compatriot groupings morphed into and out of one another throughout any one day’s battle.
After picking up a few wayward militiamen, remnants of annihilated bands, the chancellor had twice approached entrances to his war-tunnels; twice he met ALA regulars surrounding his exit. Across the field, Thaddeus found himself blocked by antagonists at every turn. He pressed on. He and his small band of nearly shell-shocked regulars came upon an out-of-the-way clearing and, exhausted and hungry, stopped there. “We’re still far from any tunnel,” Thaddeus said. He kept his voice low, so as not to give away the location of his small complement. Even though fighting stopped at this time each night and the search for the wounded became paramount for both sides, he knew the ALA would attack him any time it could do so. He looked at his compass. “We’ll have the moon to see by; let’s rest a few moments. Then we head north-west-west. We’re going to have to make our way back to the city overground.”
The men, feeling the nearby safety of darkness quickening upon them, lay back against rocks, reflecting on the brutish day. The moist air felt holy on their sunburnt faces. They drank small gulps of warm water from their plastic canteens. Their grips on their guns never loosened. They did not close their eyes for fear of sleep. Their task was now to maintain absolute silence. To be still.
The silence deepened; and then came the cawing of gulls, descending to pick at the freshly dead. Soon the barking of dogs and the rats’ scuttle would join the morbid sounds. Camp-following vermin would encrust the open graves. Thaddeus and his men knew what time it was: time to stop fighting and go home. The birds, the quiet, and the late twilight set the stage for normalcy. A couple of men even smiled.
Tomorrow, thought Thaddeus, we’ll dynamite the captured tunnels. Send a quarter of my forces south, have them hit their camp. Burn what they can and retreat. And every day I’ll hit them as they hit me. And I will make myself sturdy; hunker down. And I will lash out with wide spread slaughter, and they will know me. They’ll attack with their new madness. So be it. I will kill them all day long.
Thaddeus pushed himself away from the comfort of the cement slab so as not to give breath to fatigue. Thoughts of tomorrow’s battle intruded on his focus, and the danger lurked everywhere, especially at night.
Suddenly, an outlook called out, “Yahoos encircling!”
Thaddeus’s next thoughts were how few steps he had taken between that warning and the icy moment that he found himself looking at a surrounding force of ALA, led by Benharash and pointing their guns at him. Stunned but fully grasping the situation, Thaddeus and his men quietly disarmed. The numbed chancellor said bravely, “The moment is yours.”
General Benharash pinched his tired eyes, looked up at the almost-dark night. He glanced around at his men, all of them firm-jawed and tensely gripping their weapons. He shook his head, looked over at the huge soldier and said calmly, “You see, Lieutenant. We have done it, and we have done it before dark.” The huge solider could not suppress a grin of pride. Benharash sat on the rubble and began to roll a cigarette. Capturer and captive alike stood in silence, watching the hairy general. He lay back against a slab of rubble as though it were a beach lounge. He blew smoke into the air, then waved carelessly and breathed, “Kill him.”
“So this is what you are!” Thaddeus shouted.
Thirty lasers converged on the chancellor’s body. The force of their fire caused him to whirl around three times before dropping to the rocks beneath his feet. And that was it. Thaddeus Wentworth was dead.
Benharash walked over to Thaddeus’ body and kicked it hard in the right arm. To his prisoners he said, “Go back and tell your city what you have seen. I expect surrender at dawn. I’ll make no further offers.” He cocked his head and looked down at the smoking corpse. He bent down and took the chancellor’s machete, then ripped a gold chain from his neck. He turned to his men and said, “Take what you like.”
The advance guards set to their task. The huge soldier found a cigarette lighter he liked.