Part's of this chapter will draw inspiration or direct storyline from
@LostInNewDelhi 's 2019 EU entry:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...-of-what-madness-is-this.457877/post-19931191
as well as several of
@Zoidberg12 's EU entries!
Now buckle up for a sweet dump of succulent l o r e and the saga of the Porcelain Sheikh.
OSWALD'S ACOLYTES:
JEHOHANAN HOLYFIELD
Holyfield before his disfigurement (circa 1935)
Jehohanan Holyfield, CEO of the Holyfield Oil Company and the Governor-General of Petroliana, was a handsome man of few words, deep thought, ceaseless calculation and cunning, and rock-solid faith in Fundamentalism. Despite a severe injury in 1942 which saw the loss of much of his lower face, he continued to serve his country until his death. Part businessman and part religious super-soldier, Holyfield was an invaluable tool for President Oswald from day one of his administration. The Holyfield Plan, which saw much of former Gran Colombia redrawn as Holyfield's personal corporate fiefdom, was a program in which the mustachioed general used his own funds and private employees to rebuild infrastructure and restore or build new oil pumps to help supply the frontline during the bloody last days of Manifest Climax. To properly understand this often secretive man of few words, we must peel away the mask and look at his personal history, where it is not difficult to spot the events that changed him forever into the man known as the "Butcher of Bogota."
EARLY ORIGINS:
FAMILY LIFE, HOLYFIELD OIL, AND THE MONO VALLEY WATER WAR
Jehohanan Ipswich Holyfield was born on October 9, 1903, as the youngest son of Abner Albert "Al" Holyfield (1883 - 1942) and Wilhelmina (formerly Newkirk) (1885 - 1953), and was almost entirely of Scottish and Dutch ancestry. In American history, the family first appeared in a document from the workshop of the famous Paul Revere, wherein an Ambrose God-Fear Holyfield is listed as journeyman silversmith training under the famous Midnight Rider. Jehohanan's grandfather Josiah Albert Holyfield (1840 - 1921) was a young soldier during the Great American War, serving in Lincoln's Hammer. After the War, Josiah moved his family to Shicagwa, established a reputable garment company, Holyfield Textiles, and made a small fortune for himself. He was also eager to employ the many black laborers escaping the still racially-oppressive South, and despite his harsh discipline and enforcement of policies, he was much loved by his workers for his honesty, plainspoken words, splendid healthcare benefits and other policies which helped his mostly-poor workforce build careers and families. It was Josiah who ingrained within Jehohanan a steadfast, radical faith in Jev and the AFC, as well a patriotism that was unshakeable and selfless in its nature.
Despite being too young to fight in the Great World War, Jehohanan was nonetheless shaped by it. Following the conquest of the Kingdom of California and its absorption as the State of Pacifica, Josiah ordered his son Al to go west and take control of oil fields outside the ruins of a large city now known in English as Angel Grove. This was an experiment that would prove wildly successful. Josiah had long dreamed of getting into the oil business, and had even sent his son to Old Mexico to study the trade, and this was the chance to become the dominant player in a new industry on the West Coast. Autocars were just becoming affordable for the everyday man, and Josiah knew that this was the business of the future. Despite some initial hangups, the operation eventually not only got off the ground, but boomed. As waves of Yankee immigrants arrived to settle the purged realm of Pacifica, they helped fill the coffers of the Holyfield Oil Company.
Flag of the State of Pacifica
Jehohanan was eagerly studying this industry. He found it not only interesting, but romantic in a rugged, pioneer way. He himself worked alongside the hands, covered from head to toe in black gold, sweating under the merciless Pacifican sun. As the first pipeline was laid and carried their production to Angel Grove, his grandfather was also laying pipe from the Mono Valley's Whackypee River to Angel Grove, supplying water to a growing urban landscape. This aqueduct, which stretched hundreds of miles, was a joint venture with Maxwell McCormick's Bank of the West. Before long, some were nicknaming Angel Grove "Holyfield City," because of the massive success and influx of Holyfield laborers. The Mono Valley was almost entirely dried out by the 1920s, causing the area's squatting Yankee farmers to protest against the Holyfield Oil Company. This led Josiah to create the Holyfield Security Force (HSF), a private mercenary army, to lay down the law on farmers trying to sabotage the pipeline. The HSF also were contracted as private security by the Bank of the West, and were the ones who ended the Coyote Springs Cabal, the last major traditional "Old West" outlaw gang, which reached somewhere around 100 men at its height. In 1921, following the death of patriarch Josiah, Al took over as CEO.
On August 3, 1924, farmers used barrels of gunpowder and surplus GWW munitions to destroy a portion of the Whackypee Pipeline in retaliation for the drought ruining their farms. Josiah was furious and flew into a rage, ordering HSF to march on the Mono Valley and reestablish company rule "by any means necessary." A fresh-faced Jehohanan was among the men shipping out, a mustache just beginning to finally fill in on his upper lip. The Mono Valley Water War truly began on August 10, when HSF forces in Colonel Goodyear trucks disembarked at a Holyfield Oil Station and were confronted by a mob of farmers wearing old GWW gear and carrying bolt action rifles. After a flurry of epithets and curses, someone threw a shamrock shake at one of the trucks, and the HSF opened fire. At least ten farmers and two HSF were killed in the skirmish.
For the next few months, massive numbers of HSF were also joined by Bank of the West-contracted Overton men (including a younger Dick Pennington who would one day lead the Starry Wisdom Revolt), and experienced an insurgency almost as great as that faced by the Army against Californian Papists. The Battle of Big Pine, fought on September 11, would see a Holyfield Company patrol aeroship be shot out of the sky by an old GWW artillery piece, resulting in the total elimination of the 25 man crew aboard. This was the last straw for the Holyfields, and they began a campaign of physical removal, with no one allowed to remain to farm the Mono Valley. Buses arrived and guards forcibly dragged men, women, and children into the vehicles, which were then taken to the Magnum border and dumped at the first available checkpoint. Some 100 farmers remained in the area, fugitives of the company, and fought a guerrilla conflict until late 1926, when the last were tracked down to a cave system and smoked out with petrol fume bombs. They were handed over to RUMP for destruction of legally-built company property and shuttled away to a new prison island off the coast of the state capital of Bayburg named Pelican Point. The island had formerly been used to hold POWs during the Immolation of California years prior. Some high-level Californian prisoners found themselves imprisoned together with veterans of the same war that saw their country destroyed. One inmate, former general Louis Pierre Montenegro, said to an imprisoned GAR vet and Mono Valley rebel,
"We are all Infees now, brother." Due to the influx of Mono Valley prisoners, most all of the few remaining Californian POWs and high-level royalists were eliminated via gas chamber. This also included Napoleon Black Cloud, who, during the GWW, was the last North American native chieftain in history to lead a war party against Yankee troops.
HSF forces parade through Angel Grove
Jehohanan, despite his young age, was declared Emergency Potentate of the Mono Valley and ordered to supervise the rest of the pipeline construction. He took to the job with aplomb and vigor, eager to build a reputation of his own. After a few years at this position, the pipeline was completed and Angel Grove experienced an absolute boom. Around the same time, Pinnacle Chemical of Bayburg was installing the first real home air conditioning systems, running on a new chemical known as "Pinnacle 69," or "P-69." Holyfield Oil purchased PC of Bayburg, leaving the name the same, and utilized it as a brand new chemical wing of the company as the modern era boomed. Although competitors soon arose, PC of Bayburg had a virtual monopoly on air conditioning systems from Oregon to Oxacre by the 1950s and would be one of the companies who helped roll out the "Pinnacle Future" of the Oswald years. With the power of air conditioning, many inhospitable, hot, and humid locales were opened up for year-round settlement. Their air conditioning units would also be invaluable during Operation Manifest Climax, making bases and hospitals far more comfortable as the war raged on.
AN ISLAMIC INTERLUDE:
THE BIRTH OF AN OIL KINGDOM
King Saud Al Rashid
The history of Jehohanan Holyfield was about to take an unexpected turn when, after his 1930 acceptance into the Grand Army of the Republic as a Captain, First Maniple, First Cohort, as part of the fledgling, small, still-unnumbered Pacific Legion, his father was asked by President Steele in 1933 to become the first official Union Ambassador to the Kingdom of Rashidi Arabia, formerly known as the Emirate of Jabal Shammar. Al Holyfield would ask for his son to join him on the expedition as security and for intelligence gathering-purposes. Since the the recent establishment of the Kingdom, word had spread that its liberal monarch, King Saud bin Abdulaziz Al Rashid, intended to forge the nation into the dominant Caliphate in the Islamic world and, through its growing and booming oil industry, would attempt to drag that same world--kicking and screaming--into the modern era.
Looking back on its 19th century history, it is hard to imagine a 20th in which Rashidi Arabia played such a large role and bore such great influence on the world stage. The following excerpt from Prof. Philip Lowe's
History of the Modern Mohammedan (1964, B.A.U.B. Press) reveals the grim outlook the Sunni Muslim world had for its future:
The Aamayn al-Nakba (Biennium of Disaster), or simply the Nakba, is perhaps the only name fit for describing the time between L’Aiglon’s (Napoleon II's) 1855 landing in Gaza to the final Russian demobilization in late 1857. The tearing-off of the Caliphate’s limbs and the crushing of its skull proceeded without respite, without mercy. No heroes emerged from this war to stall the enemy; administrator, soldier and subject alike could do nothing but step back in fear as the machinery of state sparked dangerously and shut down for the last time. And yet, as any fan of the modern horror genre will tell you, there are two kinds of fear. The first is a sudden shock—the events just described. The second is a looming dread—the dread of realizing that an outright majority of the Islamic world’s area and population was now governed by a Crusader state from Saladin’s nightmares, and the remainder was menaced by a country which halved Constantinople’s population in the first year of occupation. The Sultan and his heirs were dead; political and religious turmoil reigned in their place. And the last major Islamic state left in the world… was run by Shiites in Persia.
Religious schismatics they were, but the Persians were not blind to worldly concerns. Refugees from the post-Nakba states flooded into Tabriz and Qazvin, and the question on Persian mind was: What refuge is left to us? To the east, after the quelling of the Durrani and the return of their provinces to the fold, lay Frankish India; to the west, the Franks again. And to the north… It was a great misfortune, Nasreddin Shah Qajar reportedly mused, that Persia’s spiritual heart lay in Khorasan. The city of Mashhad, hometown of Ferdowsi and resting place of Imam Reza, lay directly in the path of any Russian advance out of Central Asia. There was no longer time for wondering about how economic change would dislocate traditional livelihoods, how changes in the army would shake up old aristocracies—Persia would learn the ways of European warfare and production, or it would not even last two years. And so, even as the Vizier declared Tehran’s resolve to protect the realm and was greeted by enthusiastic rallies in the streets, a team of officials from the economic ministries hammered out an agreement with the Dutch. Already manifesting that independent streak which would cause so much grief throughout the 1900s, Amsterdam had no interest in the French or Russians dominating the Indian Ocean and threatening the sea lanes to its flourishing Southeast Asian empire. While it didn’t have the money or men to fight these powers, it could invest both in a country of greater potential. In a series of initiatives the Shah’s propagandists more or less sold as “engagement now for xenophobia later” to his critics, a new officer corps was raised on case studies of Napoleon’s wars in Europe and the VOC’s wars in Java; railways and power lines spiraled out from Tehran and Tabriz; and coal was dug up from pits across the northern valleys, even as hydrocarbon reserves as yet unknown slept beneath the southern Gulf. By the 1880s, Persia had outgrown its dependence on the Dutch to seek out fair trade with the Nordreich, Sweden, and even Scotland, and relied on an increasingly skilled and educated native workforce. But even so, emergent labor protests were crushed, and reports of mine accidents hushed up. Progress was progress, but would it be worth it in the end?
So things proceeded in Persia, which had an intact and functioning state and a religious establishment that had never depended much on Sunni guidance in the first place. Further west, neither of those things were true. In the Near East, the collapse of Turkish power was expected to lead to an Arab renaissance, and the short-lived Second Saud Confederacy did its best to deliver. In previous decades, a spate of town-building had increased the population of the once-marginal region of Najd and imbued its elite with a new sense of superiority. The Saud family, taking advantage of both, raided the Iraqi shrine-city of Karbala in 1801 and conquered Mecca some years later; however, the Ottomans responded harshly, decimating the family and driving its remnants into exile. One such remnant, Prince Faisal, fled Cairo and landed in Jeddah, calling on the tribes of the peninsula to rally to him. They did, and on the 3rd of March, 1861 Faisal invaded Iraq, promising to punish the “apostate” Mamluks. His disorganized force met Iraqi Kurdish troops outside Karbala, and seemed capable of tipping the balance. Unfortunately for him, a Europan contingent that had been helping the Iraqis quell Ottoman holdouts near Tikrit heard of the battle and headed south. While Faisal’s undisciplined troops were ground down, an envoy from the Imperial Governor in Egypt reached Jeddah, assuring the “authorities of Central Arabia” that they could govern themselves as they wished, but that if they ranged outside their area again “the Empire of Europa will exercise its latent right, conferred upon it by guardianship of more Mohammedans than any other state in the world, to provide for the governance of Mecca and destroy all resistance in the surrounding countryside.” Faisal’s first meal after his return to Arabia would be his last; a group of nobles led by the Rashidi family of Ha’il, known sometimes as Jabal Shammar, emerged, blaming the prince’s fatal “illness” on battle fatigue and burying him with honors in Riyadh even as they tossed out the Wahhabi scholars who were the Saud family’s greatest partisans. From this coup was born the state of Jabal Shammar, which dominated the petty realms of Arabia thereafter but accomplished little else for the rest of the century.
Flag of Rashidi Arabia
The dawn years of the 20th century would see young King Saud Al Rashid finally move to strike for status as regional power, inspired in part by author Nadir Abdulrashid's 1903 publication The Status of the Arab World, which called for Pan-Arab nationalism and a new era of modern secular prosperity. As a valuable new oil producing land, Jabal Shammar was a key component of the Tehran Pact during the Great World War, which saw it enter a pan-sectarian alliance with Persia, the Qadirist Revolutionary Islamic State of Egypt, and the Kingdom of Iraq in an attempt to retake the Holy Land from the longtime Papist colonialists. However, following devastating defeats and the manner in which the Pact's best men smashed like so many foundering ships upon the rocks of Grandmaster Cyrille Coste and his under-supplied and outnumbered Knights of Jerusalem, infighting soon broke out. Persian troops who were accused of rape and looting within Iraq were fired upon by Iraqi forces, resulting in the outbreak of war between the two supposed allies. Egypt, faced with increasing resistance to their absolute dictator Field Marshal Qadir, collapsed into a state of civil war, followed by a renewed Europan invasion to reestablish authority there. Qadir attempted to flee to Jabal Shammar and begged King Saud Al Rashid for a safe exile, but the King had him arrested and handed over to the Europans as a peace offering. In exchange for allowing Europan oil companies to exploit some of their resources and a small debt, they were allowed to exit the Great World War. On July 20, 1914, the Tehran Pact was officially declared dissolved and Persia asked for terms with Europa. Morale in Europa, despite the loss of the Rheinbund and the North and South American colonies, still rallied in the face of this great news. The Holy Land would remain in Christian hands. At the Damascus Conference, Persia was forced to give up Oman and Yemen, which became a unified Europan satellite state dubbed the "United Arab Emirates," further strengthening Europan control of the Red Sea and the Gateway to India.
It was in 1929 that King Saud Al Rashid paid off his debt to Europa and decided that he was no longer so keen on
Compagnie Pétrolière Impériale (Imperial Petroleum Company), the Empire's largest oil company, harvesting its increasingly valuable and useful chief resource. Despite the terms of the Damascus Conference stating that CPI would remain in control of 50% of the nation's oil until 1950, with an option to purchase the fields after that date, the King wanted them gone. Protests were growing in the region that Europan oil workers were detrimental and disrespectful to their culture, had raped and robbed, and were, in general, disgusting pests. In 1930, in a legalese attempt to negate the Damascus terms, he rebranded Jabal Shammar as the Kingdom of Rashidi Arabia, adding stripes in the new Pan-Arab colors of black, green, and white to its old gold crimson banner. Needing a more solid point of leverage, and facing increasingly hotter tensions with former ally Hussein bin Ali, the Sharif of Mecca and supposed Caliph of Islam, as well as the fragmented Nejd-based remnants of the Saudi family, the Peninsular War erupted in 1933.
The Saudi family was utterly annihilated, and their daughters taken as wives by King Saud al Rashid and his top men, and Nejd was totally and completely absorbed. Despite a heroic attempt at resistance, his former friend, the Sharif of Mecca, was slain in battle at the Siege of Mecca. Already in control of Medina, the two holiest sites in Islam were now in Rashidi hands. Declaring himself the Caliph of Islam, the King now ordered CPI to evacuate all but 10% of their wells by 1935 and the remainder by 1940 and hand them over to Royal forces. For a brief time, war looked likely, but the King's gamble would eventually pay off and the Europans, busy with unrest in India and problems at home, caved. Allied with Iraq, Rashidi Arabia was now a regional power, the center of the Islamic world, and bordering on Great Power in the future if they played their cards right. Persia disliked this all very much, but was still too devastated by the GWW and the Iraqi War to do much about it. But not inconsequential to the Arab success was Jehohanan Holyfield....
JEHOHANAN OF ARABIA:
TREKKING THE BURNING SANDS
This brings us back to our main character, Jehohanan Holyfield. When he and his father arrived in Mecca, the new capital city, in the winter of 1933, the craters were still smoking and entire blocks were still in ruins. But over it all, that night, the Rashidis gave them an insanely theatrical and opulent welcome. In his diary, Jehohanan wrote:
I asked my father why we were so friendly with these Mohammedans, and they with us, and he told me, "They respect us as Ahl al-Kitāb, People of the Book. They respect us as fellow Abrahamics, and we will show them respect in turn. These are not Inferiors, this is the Pinnacle fragments of the Kingdom of Sheba, the Sons of Solomon, blessed with the bounties of the black gold of the dunes. My boy, we are pilgrims in a holy land, and we are not only on a diplomatic mission, but one of genuine good will. Embrace them, as they embrace us." I had, naturally, some rather hard times accepting these brown-tinted sheiks as Pinnacle-descended Lost Jews, but after a time in their presence, I grew to genuinely enjoy their company that night.
They offered my father and I keffiyeh, the classical Middle Eastern head cloth and band. I veritably felt like David, and I had to keep myself from searching for a sling and shot. Then they presented us with jambiya, decorative curved daggers. Ours handles were forged in the shape of bald eagles, with red-white-and-blue stones inset into the silver and gold. The craftsmanship was remarkable. Linking arms, they proceeded to rock and to and fro to the beat of the tribal drums and ouds, singing praises to God and their King, drawing long, curved swords and raising them on high. King Saud Al Rashid himself appeared about thirty minutes into this ritual, and he presented my father with his own personal sword to join in with the dance as a token of friendship. He told my father, "I am so very proud to meet you. Take this Sword of Islam and be at peace here, among friends, as Ahl al-Kitāb." As the stars rose over Mecca that night, I lost control of myself as I do at a revival, letting ululations exit my throat and giving thanks to the Lord for all things. The King spoke to me in near-perfect American English. "Jehohanan? God's Mercy! Your name means this. It is a splendid name, Captain, a name of the Book. Welcome to Arabia."
These positive first impressions made a massive impact on Jehohanan, and the King was incredibly charismatic and likeable. For the next several weeks, he and his father visited with Saud in his new court, the former residence of the Sharif and Caliph, and visited holy sites. When asked why he didn't bow to Mecca or recognize the Prophet Muhammad, one of his Yankee security detail declared, "There is no God but Jev. And Burr is his Prophet." A Muslim court member responded with, "I see no God but Allah, and Muhammed is his Prophet." Despite an initial outburst of borderline-insults, Al Holyfield shut down the guard by telling him, "These are Pinnacle men of Sheba. They do not understand our ways or what our faith is truly about. Do not spit mantras at them and expect them to understand, anymore than you understand their beliefs."
Several months into their residency, the true purpose Al Holyfield wanted the job to begin with became clear. From all angles, Holyfield Company photographers took pictures of Europan oil rigs, state of the art for their time, and other industrial equipment, by sneaking onto ridges at night with incredibly expensive camera equipment and spying on them for weeks at a time. This business was cut short when a group of radical Wahhabi Muslims had made an attempt at revolting in the so-called "Empty Quarter," a brutal stretch of nothingness filled with the Rub' al Khali desert. Seeing an opportunity to repay his host for his kindness and to attain more military experience, Jehohanan pledged to partake in the expedition to find and eliminate the rebels.
July 1, 1934, was to be the date of the departure of the military force, but the King delayed this so Jehohanan could observe the July 4th "religious observance" with his Father. Dawn, July 5th, saw the column of camels head out from Mecca. By the night of July 20th, they found a the desiccating remains of Royal forces that had been brutally attacked and beheaded by the Wahhabi rebels. Their heads were mounted on pikes and decorated the dunes as a warning to go no further. After taking time to bury the dead and remove the heads, the force pushed on. On July 26, they found their enemy. Wearing his dress uniform and keffiyeh, Jehohanan made himself a glowing target, with a an ancient musket sending a ball straight through the skull of his camel, barely missing his chest. The massive animal went down and pinned his leg. All around the pass, cries of "Allahu Ackbar!" filled the air as men and beast fell like flies. Furious that he had been targeted first, Jehohanan pulled himself out from under the dead camel and pulled his American Col. Pierce buffalo rifle and a satchel of stripper clips and used the beast as a sandbag. One shot after another, his targets fell all across the dunes.
At one point, six Wahhabis with scimitars and daggers crept up on his position from behind, but he wheeled around, drew his Yankee ceremonial sword, and engaged them in hand-to-hand combat. Sparks flying through the air as their blades clashed, he used his free hand to draw his sidearms from its holster and point-blank execute one of them trying to come up from behind. Using the shock of the death of his comrade to his advantage, he drove the Union steel through the throat of the swordsman who engaged him. Then, with one blast that traveled through two men, this left two remaining to fight. After another short duel which ended in him amputating the hand of one, the other turned and attempted to run into the hills. A swift shot to the spine left the man's corpse rolling down the dune like a poached animal, his turban and jambiya flying off as he went.
Turning his attention back to the rest of the battle, the government troops were gaining the upper hand on the rebels, and the momentum of the surprise attack was offset by their better equipment and training. Within the hour, the remaining rebels surrendered and were decapitated on the spot. Holyfield himself carried out some of the executions, still in a seething rage from how close they had come to shooting him first thing, right at the start. The next several months were spent with these same soldiers, patrolling the dunes, interrogating prisoners, executing them, and finding the "ratholes and viper nests that contained these Wahhabi scum." Finally, on the night of October 19, the base camp for the nomadic rebels was finally located. Torches and campfires lit up the sands and the sounds of chanting, drums and ouds filled the air. Organizing the attack himself, as the commanding Arab officer of rank equal or greater to his own and been wounded and was being rushed back to civilization, he ordered a diversion attack on the main entrance while he would take the bulk of his men from behind and destroy them. This plan served to be far more than this militia was capable of dealing with, as within thirty minutes, Holyfield found himself inside of a sheik's tent, sliding his jambiya along the man's throat. blood spraying across his face and tunic, his eyes dilating as he felt the pure adrenaline of conquest. Outside the tent, the pathetic cries of the Wahhabi rebels were cut short as scimitars took off their heads. Ordering their noses removed and loaded into a chest, Holyfield told the men to do as the Old Testament and burn the entire camp, every body, every item, and all gold or silver to be loaded onto camels to be brought as tribute to Mecca. All of it.
It was an unpleasant surprise when, during the ransacking when they discovered obvious ties to Europa. In retaliation for the loss of their oil fields, Europa was funding and equipping Wahhabi rebels from the United Arab Emirates and sending them across the Empty Quarter to raise hell inside Rashidi Arabia. Loaded down with ears, precious metal, and these documents and weapons, they began the long trek back to Mecca. When they arrived some weeks later, they were welcomed as heroes. Word had spread from the wounded officer and other men who had to return home to seek medical attention of Holyfield's brutality and heroism in combat. Chanting "
Jehohanan bin Holyfield," the people lavished their cheers and applause on him. Saturated with sweat, his face reddened beyond belief, and his mustache grown into a bushy beard, he looked not out of place, save for the bloodied, salt-stained dusty khaki Union uniform he wore. After a night of showering and shaving, he appeared at the Royal dinner worse for wear, but once again an American officer. The ears and treasures were brought before the King, as were the Europan documents and weaponry. The Europan embassy was confronted the next day with the evidence by an angry group of Arab diplomats. Faced with such embarrassment that they were guilty themselves of violating the Damascus treaty, the Europans agreed to withdraw their crews from the oil fields. This moment was key, additionally, to the impending independence of India. With a united, powerful Arabia able to threaten Egypt and the UAE, and allied to Iraq, the ability to keep control of India was ever more increasingly doubted in Paris. In thanks to the Americans for their friendship, the King shipped off many Europan oil rigs, state of the art at the time, as a gift to Holyfield Oil. Reverse engineering went a long way to the advancing the cause of the "Pinnacle" Man.
For his service to the the Kingdom, Jehohanan Holyfield was declared a "Protector of Islam" and given the title of Sheikh, despite his young age, as well as a Koran of the highest quality. Despite his sympathy to the Arabs, Jehohanan made his loyalty to AFC clear when he told his father Al, "I am honored by their respect. But there are no rewards as great as those waiting for me with the Prophet Burr in Heaven. I pray that one day, like the Jews, these lost Pinnacles will find the combined power of Christ and the Prophet Burr irresistible." Nonetheless, his military sensibilities, already Old Testament in their nature, took on a decidedly Islamic sense of radicalism and firmness, and during his later years in South America, his penchant for decapitation of enemies with a sword became a trademark. In addition, he began the bizarre and singular tradition of twice daily removing his boots, bowing to Philadelphia, and reciting the Lord's Prayer, in addition to the
American's Recital published by Reverend-Colonel Lovecraft in 1935:
"Jev is the Way.
Christ is the Gate.
The Prophet Burr is the Key and the Guardian of the Gate.
Past, Present, and Pinnacle Future.
All are one in Jev.
For Jev is the Way.
Amen."
OPERATION MANIFEST CLIMAX:
THE BUTCHER OF BOGOTA, LOSING FACE, AND BECOMING THE PORCELAIN PETROL SHEIKH
When Operation Manifest Climax began shortly after the Neutrality Pact's assault on Cuba, Holyfield yearned for the frontlines. Despite this, he remained stationed in Pacifica at Fort Washington, just outside Bayburg, training new officers. When his insistence on going to the front again was shut down, he was promoted to Legate General of the Pacifica Legion. In actuality, his father had secured the promotion from President Steele:
"Please, Mr. President, never let Jehohanan off to the Southern Continent. That lad will get his damnfool self killed instantly down there out of some sort of apocalyptic sense of selflessness. His faith and devotion are admirable, but he has dodged death far too many times already. I speak not only as his father but as an American in saying that Jehohanan is far too valuable an officer to lose to a Neutie bullet inside of a week."
After his father's death of heart attack in 1942, and as the need for skilled men grew even greater at the front, his obstacles had one by one been removed. In August of 1942, he found himself landing on the coast of Peru with half the Pacifican Legion, their first real taste of combat. Landing at a beach the Americans called Port Recall, they faced the full wrath of what remained of the Peruvian military. Landing boats were crumpled like tins can and others were perforated like paper by Neutie grinder nests. Insisting on going in with his men and that Jev would protect him, Jehohanan watched as a boat full of Marines exploded into a red ball mist via mortar and sank beneath the tropic waves. As his boat hit the shoreline, the man next to him was turned to paste by enemy bullets, with one grazing himself on the left arm. Never knowing fear, Holyfield simply looked down at what remained of the young man, muttered something under his breath, looked in the direction of the grinder nest, which was experiencing a jam, raised his sidearm (another bejeweled gift of the King of Arabia, and shot the gunner right between the eyes through the pillbox's firing slit. Then, calm as he ever was, he jogged onto the beach as if he were a grocer running after a man who had left an item at the checkout, not performing the dance macabre across a hellscape of total war. Men fell all around him, and periodically he turned around to see how many men from his boat still followed. When their acquilifer bought the farm, he turned around, patted the dying lad on the shoulder, grabbed the standard, and led the attack once more, bullets glancing off his pot helmet.
Port Recall was one of the bloodiest amphibious assaults of the entirety of Manifest Climax and was where the Pacifican Legion earned their stripes and honed their edges for the first time. Of the 25,000 men who participated, over 7,000 lost their lives, with another 2,000 wounded. Despite these losses, this was the swan song for the Peruvian forces, who were already running low on morale, equipment, and men, and had intended this to be a delaying action to buy time for civilians to flee into the mountains. When the first towns they found were almost entirely empty, Holyfield cursed and ordered them burned to the ground. For weeks, he chased a huge convoy of refugees into the foothills, harassed by guerillas, but just as he was catching up, he received orders to turn around and attack north, at the sectarian fighters on the border with southern Gran Colombia. Furious but obedient, he ceased pursuit and charged north, squashing the Colombians near what had been Guayaquil, but was now renamed Staging Zone Fluidopolis.
For the next year, Holyfield roamed Gran Colombia and Peru, taking command wherever needed, turning the Pacfican Legion's nickname from the "Greenhorn Brigade" into the "Holy Hellraisers." Despite the fact mustaches were in vogue at the time thanks to Steele, Holyfield made his an icon of his own, and virtually any man of his Legion who could grow one, did. Others painted a stylized mustache onto their gas masks. Just like his grandfather had as a factory boss, Jehohanan earned the respect and love of his men he pushed hard every day by getting down in the shit with them. If Legate General Holyfield told the men to take Checkpoint Revere with little hope of success, he would be there with them, using a walkie-talkie to relay his orders and providing covering fire with his trusty scoped buffalo rifle from a distance, sometimes grabbing a battle rifle or drawing his sidearm to join in the charge. It was rumored among the men that he was invincible, and could not be killed. Some spoke of an urban legend that he had discovered Iram of the Pillars, the Atlantis of the Sands, during his time with the Rashidis in the Empty Quarter, and that the Jambiya dagger he always carried was "imbued with the Pinnacle Power of the Queen of Sheeba herself, maybe even King Solomon." During the Second Sack of Bogota, Holyfield was so ruthless in suppression of the civilian resistance that he earned the nickname the "Butcher of Bogota."
But at last, on April 14, 1943, his luck would run out during a routine base inspection. While addressing the troops at Fort Lamplight, in the newly created Territory of Tobiason, sniper shots rang out from the jungle foliage, killing several officers immediately. Out of nowhere, it seemed, a huge force of Hispanic and Indian fighters appeared, guns blazing, many times greater than the force at "Fort" Lamplight, which was in reality little more than a field hospital camp at the time using the crumbling, shelled husk of a Neutie installation that dated back to the days of the Conquistadors. Ordering his men to secure the wounded and gather in the central stockade, Holyfield repeatedly refused to follow them to safety. Instead, he jumped on top of a nearby damaged landship, awaiting new treads, and checked to make sure its .50 caliber was operational.
At the base of the tank, crawled up besides the rusting, damaged treads, communications trooper Private Theodore "Talkiebox" Curtis was holding in his own intestines from one of the initial sniper shots. Stepping down from the landship for a moment, Holyfield wrapped a makeshift bandage around the man's waist and asked him, in no uncertain terms, "Son, do you want to go to Paradise with me today?"
"Sir, I think I'm goin' there whether I want to or not, by the looks of my guts and this fuckin' blood. But hell yeah, I'll follow you to the gates of Hell, Legate General," the soldier grinned, his eyes winced in incredible pain.
"Don't swear, son. That's the way of the infidel. I want you to use that blasted talkiebox of yours and I want you to call in to the mortar crews and have them rain havoc on positions I call out. Do you know the coordinates and callsigns for this area?" Holyfield asked as he tried to prep the communication backpack and charged it up with the crank located on the side before handing him the receiver and placing a pistol in the kid's other hand.
"Aye-aye, sir. I do. I'll do my best, Legate General Holyfield, sir," the young lad of 18 replied.
"I know you will, son. Till Valhalla, brother," Holyfield replied. He scrambled back on top of the disabled landship and began opening fire with the .50. For the next hour, he held off dozens of Neuties, taking down many of them. The green jungle was painted red as the flag of old Jabal Shammar as the bullets whizzed through the foliage and into the tender flesh of the enemy troops. About ten minutes into his one-man rampage, a bullet tore through his right shin. While he fell off the turret momentarily, and the enemy pressed the attack instantly, he pulled himself together, wrapped his fingers around the .50 again, and opened up again. The advancing troops were slaughtered like targets at a carnival game. He called out coordinates when he saw reinforcements on a distant ridge, and Curtis called down the rain. Like distant specks, he could see clusters of men go flying off the cliffs and trails to their deaths, mudslides and rockslides following them down. And still he fired on, blasting away. After twenty minutes, he and Curtis, between the .50 and the mortar strikes, had killed an estimated 130 men. After 30 minutes, 200. 45, 280.
At last, 45 minutes into his rampage, a sniper's bullet entered his right jaw from the side. Teeth and bone and flesh went exploding into a red mist, sending him once more collapsing off the turret. Furious and horrified of the death toll this one lunatic with a death wish had already inflicted on them, the Neuties pressed once more, bayonets and knives, and machetes out, ready to desecrate his body. As they reached the landship, Curtis, barely lucid, emptied his handgun into the crowd of Neuties, determined to make every second count. Five of them collapsed to the ground, sending the others into even more of a murderous rage. They grabbed Curtis from all sides and absolutely butchered him, slicing off his limbs and desecrating his body. Barely conscious and presumed dead, Holyfield, face still a pulpy mess, opened his eyes and saw them killing the young private. "A seething white-hot rage shot through my brain with more power than any bullet," he would later say. He stood himself up like puppet on strings, swung himself back onto the .50, and--lower jaw dangling by tendons and muscles, blood everywhere--blasted the crowd of enemies point blank. A grenade was struck on one of their belts, causing a massive explosion that left him temporarily without any hearing at all (he was already partially deaf from the past hour). Terrified of "
El Demonio," thinking he was possessed by Satan and back from the dead, the remaining Neuties began to flee back into the woods, many eating a few bullets with their spines. When at last the enemy shots ceased, the wounded Holyfield toppled from the landship like a bag of potatoes and hit the dirt.
"The Last Stand" became one of the most celebrated and heroic stories of the entirety of Operation Manifest Climax, and of the Grand Army in its history. When President Steele first heard the story, he ordered a national day of mourning out of respect for the "fallen" Legate General, who had "passed just as his father thought he would." When the advisors told him that Holyfield was still alive, in intensive care, and undergoing emergency reconstructive surgery on his face, he was left speechless. Motivated by the display of courage and insanity, Steele ordered the Army to draw up a new medal fit for such an inhuman feat: the Titan Atlas Medal. A gold medallion was forged displaying the Greek Titan Atlas holding up a globe. The inscription underneath read "Titanic Viribus," or "Titanic Strength."
After a month of surgeries, Holyfield was laying in a hospital bed in the Fort Washington Army Hospital, faced entirely bandaged but for his eyes, when several officers entered his room. "Sir," one of the officers greeted him, raising an arm in salutations, "It is our honor to present you on behalf of our President and Atheling a new medal. Your bravery is so unmatched that President Steele had to have the GAR create an entirely new award for it. Inside this box, your country is proud to present you with the Titan Atlas, for Titanic Strength, Heroism, Valor, Sacrifice, Fluidation, and Dedication, far above and beyond the call of duty, and far above and beyond the call of heroism. Beyond a hero, your nation sees you as living, breathing example of everything it stands for and more. Legate General Jehohanan Holyfield, we award the Titan Atlas." An oak box with velvet lining was opened and revealed the shining neck ribbon-mounted medallion within. The other officers and nearby nurses applauded gaily.
Dead silence filled the room now. Holyfield motioned for a pen and paper. After scribbling for a moment, he shoved the paper at the officer. It read:
"I thank you. I thank the President and the country. But furthermore, go directly to Hell and take this medal with you or give it to the family of Pvt. Ted Curtis, the real hero. He gave his last full measure. I pulled a trigger."
