Trial By Fire (21 page)

During his return to the Ministry of Defense, Guajardo had realized he would not resign. As terrible a burden as his failure would be, to abandon the people’s struggle simply because of a matter of honor would be foolish. Molina knew this, and so did Guajardo. Perhaps, Guajardo thought, this was a good thing. A man, regardless of who he is, needs to be humbled, in order to be reminded that he is only human. Yes, I must learn from this.

Guajardo did not hear the first soft knock at the door. The second, a little louder, caught his attention. Without moving, Guajardo called out,

“Yes?”

The door opened wide enough for the adjutant to slip partway into the room. “Sir, Lieutenant Blasio is here as ordered. Shall I have him wait?”

Looking at his watch, Guajardo noted that Blasio was ten minutes early. “No, send him in.”

The adjutant disappeared, closing the door. A moment later another knock. Again, without moving from his position at the window, Guajardo called out, “Enter.”

Guajardo heard the door open, then close, followed by four short steps ending with the clicking of two heels brought together. “Sir, Lieutenant Blasio reporting as ordered.”

Guajardo did nothing. Up to that moment, he hadn’t thought much of what he would do with the man who had compromised the attack on Chinampas. He had read the reports from both Blasio and the lieutenant who had commanded the platoon Blasio had been transporting. Both men were good men who had done what they had thought appropriate. So what was he to do with Blasio, the man who, through an error of commission, had allowed Alaman to escape?

Turning, Guajardo laid eyes on the lieutenant for the first time. He was still standing at attention, his hat tucked under his arm, his eyes fixed on Guajardo. What, Guajardo thought, am I to do with you, my friend?

Walking around to the front of the desk, Guajardo paused, then leaned back against it, half sitting, half standing. Folding his arms, he continued to stare at Blasio. Was there, Guajardo thought, any difference in my failure in judgment in using so complex a plan for Chinampas, and this lieutenant’s for landing his aircraft due to a relatively minor mechanical problem? And, Guajardo asked himself, were they in fact failures, or simply a series of bad decisions made independently of each other, that, together, had created a failure? Guajardo, after all, knew that he had come so close, so very close to pulling off the raid as he planned. Only Blasio’s forced landing changed that. And why, he thought, place all the blame on Blasio? The infantry lieutenant commanding Group N could have continued immediately with the second aircraft instead of waiting for Blasio to finish. Did that mean the infantry lieutenant was responsible for the failure?

Looking down at his shoes for a minute, Guajardo decided that it would be wrong to punish this officer for doing what his training had dictated. As senior aviator on board the helicopter, he was responsible for the lives of his crew, his passengers, and his aircraft, all of which were valuable commodities in the understaffed and underequipped Mexican Army. Had this been a peacetime exercise, Guajardo knew that Blasio’s decision to land at the first sign of trouble would have been the correct one, just as Guajardo’s plan of attack would have been considered an acceptable option.

Looking back up at Blasio’s face, Guajardo studied the lieutenant for a moment longer before he decided what to do. “Do you know why you are here, Lieutenant?”

Turning his head to look at the colonel, Blasio responded promptly.

“Yes, sir. To explain my actions during the raid of Chinampas and receive whatever punishment you deem fit, sir.”

For a moment, Guajardo hesitated. Blasio, as Guajardo had been, was ready to atone for his error. But we cannot afford such sentiment. Molina was right about that. There is too much to do and there are too few good men. In an instant, Guajardo decided.

“Lieutenant, I do not need you to explain your actions. Your report, and that of the infantry officer commanding the assault force, were quite satisfactory.” Guajardo paused, allowing Blasio to sweat a little longer.

“As for your punishment, you will be relieved from your current posting and be assigned to my staff as my personal pilot.”

Not quite understanding what he had heard, Blasio turned toward Guajardo.

“Excuse me, sir. Am I to understand that I am to be your pilot?”

With an expression that betrayed no emotion, Guajardo responded,

“Yes, that is correct. Now, you will report to my adjutant for further instructions. Once you have found quarters, you will find yourself a good watch. I demand punctuality. Understood?”

Blasio, struggling to maintain his decorum, simply responded, “Understood,”

leaving Guajardo’s office as quickly as possible, as if he feared the colonel would change his mind.

Along the Rio Salado, north of Monterrey, Mexico 2135 hours, 3 July

Finishing their meals, the three men picked at bread or sipped coffee as they talked amongst themselves. Freely switching from French to Spanish, then to English and back in an effort to impress each other, the three men discussed their future plans. Delapos, for all his bluster, would, with little doubt, stay with Alaman. “Things will, eventually, settle down, and when they do, there will be the need for a man like Alaman.”

Besides, Delapos said, they were both Mexicans. Despite the hard times, he had confidence things couldn’t get worse. Childress toyed with the idea of going back north. It had been, he claimed, too long since he had seen real snow. It was time to head back to Vermont and enjoy some of his pay. Lefleur, a Frenchman through and through, talked only of Paris, then perhaps a job in Africa, where he had served with the Legion. It was idle chat, no different than that of any other soldiers who had, in reality, no clear idea of what the future held for them.

From out of the shadows of the doorway of the terminal office where the three men sat, Alaman emerged. He had been listening to their idle chatter for several minutes in an effort to gauge their dedication and attitude. When he was satisfied that he had a feel for where each man stood, he came forward.

The sudden appearance of Alaman caught the three mercenaries off guard. Turning to face the apparition, Delapos began to stand. Alaman indicated to Delapos to keep his seat with a motion of his right hand.

Striding over to the one side of the table where no one was seated, Alaman stood there for a moment before speaking. Then, almost shyly, he asked if he could have a moment of their time.

Since their arrival, this was the first time that Alaman had come forward and addressed them, either separately or together. Now, standing there before them was the man who had once considered his power in Mexico equal to that of the country’s president. Though his clothes showed spots of dirt and were stained with sweat marks, they were neatly arranged, like his hair. With an air of confidence that made him appear larger than he was, Alaman looked at each man without speaking. Each of the mercenaries, realizing that he had a proposal, said nothing when he looked at them in turn. When Alaman began to speak, they were all ears.

“If we are to believe the news on the radio,” Alamdn stated, “there is no possible way for me to reestablish my operations under the current regime in Mexico City. The military appears to have a solid base of power and no viable opposition. In addition, the Council of 13 has gained great popular support from both the middle and lower classes. The council’s program of taking immediate and direct action against corrupt officials and government employees, while encouraging the people to help them track down and identify those officials, seems to have captured the imagination of the people. The people are finally being allowed an op1 portunity to vent their frustrations against a government that has long abused and ignored them and provided us with a ‘comfortable’ environment to work in.”

As Alaman spoke, he began to circle the table. Delapos, always cap tivated by his fellow countryman’s fairy-tale success story, watched every move Alamdn made and took in every word. Childress and Lefleur, on the other hand, began to wonder where Alaman was going with this lecture. Both men shot furtive glances at each other before turning back to watch Alamdn.

“Under these circumstances,” Alaman continued, “there is little that we, the four of us and the handful of guards who survived the raid, can do on our own to remove the new government or alter its policies from within. The climate,” he stated as he paused, lifting his right hand up to his side and holding the index finger of that hand in the air for dramatic effect, “is not suitable for us at this time. But that does not mean that all is lost.” As a conclusion to his meandering introduction, Alaman stated,

“If someone were to remove the new regime, then things could once more return to normal. It is up to us, the four of us, to precipitate that change.”

As Alaman spoke, Delapos nodded every so often in agreement. As a Mexican, he understood. Childress, poker-faced, sat and listened in silence, knowing that the other shoe was about to drop. Lefleur, though he was just as curious about what Alaman had to say as Childress was, feigned a lack of interest. When Alaman paused again, the three men looked at each other, then back at Alaman. As their leader, and the one most loyal to Alaman, Delapos asked the question that was on all their minds. “How, Senior Alaman, do you propose we do that?”

With a smile that lit his entire face, Alamin whispered, as if he were saying a prayer in the Catedral Metropolitan, “The Americans, my friends, the Americans. They will be our salvation.”

Alam£n’s comment caught Childress and Lefleur off guard. They had been expecting something more dramatic, such as assassination or bribery.

Only Delapos understood. In a flash, he jumped to his feet and embraced Alaman. “Brilliant, senor! Brilliant!”

The first law of war is to preserve ourselves and destroy the enemy.

—Mao Tsetung

Capitol, Washington, D.C.

1030 hours, 3 August

There was little enthusiasm that morning for much of anything. Even the ceiling fans gave the impression that they had no great drive as they spun lackadaisically at half speed around, and around, and around.

Below them, the monotone drone of the current witness reading his prepared statement reminded Ed Lewis of a faulty fluorescent light, a low, annoying buzz that quickly got on your nerves. The witness, a third-echelon flunky from the office of the
CIA
director, was as exciting as a white plaster wall, but not nearly as interesting. He was dressed in a dark blue, three-piece suit, a white shirt, and a thin red tie that was decorated with those funny little multicolored shapes that looked like pears and didn’t have a name. The thin, narrow face, accented by advanced balding at the temples and round horn-rimmed glasses, was indistinguishable from the faces of four out of five bureaucrats who wandered the streets of the capital. Lewis had no trouble seeing that the witness would be just as comfortable conducting audits for the
IRS
, handling a divorce trial, or prosecuting a malpractice suit. For a moment, Lewis wished the
CIA
had had the common decency to send over an attractive female spokesperson to deliver the prepared statement like some of the more astute agencies did. At least a well-attired and groomed woman provided a pleasing distraction from the dull, arduous task of patiently listening to drivel while one waited one’s turn to verbally rip the witness to pieces. But, Lewis lamented, no such luck today, as he watched the geek from the
CIA
drone on, and on, and on.

Like most prepared statements, this one was being delivered with a zeal that matched the ceiling fans’ slow and tedious rotations. It was cluttered with redundancies, stuffed with embellishments, and liberally sprinkled with caveats. The prepared statement, in short, was ninety percent grade A, government-inspected horseshit. Still, Ed Lewis listened intently, for he knew that there was no such thing as pure horseshit.

Somewhere hidden in the horde of words the witness was issuing was an idea, a grain of truth, a real and cognitive thought. It was the task of Ed Lewis, and the other members of the House Committee on Intelligence, to capture those few precious thoughts and truths as they whizzed by and beat them to death during the questioning that would follow.

The likelihood of that happening this day, however, was quite remote, and the witness knew that. At least his bosses did, which is why only a relatively low-ranking administrative assistant had been sent to deal with the congressional committee. With the summer recess about to begin, Lewis, by pushing for hearings on-the crisis in Mexico, was fighting the annual drive to finish up or postpone all business that might force the congressmen and their staffs to prolong their stays in D.C. Opposition from every quarter, including an occasional plaintive whimper from his own staff, had threatened to postpone the hearings until the Congress met again in October.

It was only through threats and a few well-chosen comments to the press that Lewis had been able to convince his fellow congressmen on the committee to hold preliminary hearings on the failure of the nation’s intelligence community to predict and accurately track recent events in Mexico. In an election year, when the race was close, the last thing an incumbent could do was appear to be negligent in his duties, especially when they were connected to the crisis du jour.

Lulled into inattention by the lackluster delivery of the prepared statement, the assembled congressmen took a few seconds to realize that the
CIA
man had finished. There was a momentary shifting in seats and reshuffling of papers as people throughout the chamber stirred themselves back into a state of mental awareness. When the chairman of the committee finally roused himself to speak, his voice and comments betrayed his lack of interest and focus. Even his questions were rather perfunctory.

The witness, sitting across from the committee members, stared at them through his large, round, horn-rimmed glasses. With his hands folded on the table, he responded to each of the chairman’s questions with stock answers that were as uninformative and evasive as they were predictable.