Trial By Fire (31 page)

“Last station, this is Presidio Base. Identify yourself and give us your location, over.”

As he prepared to call again, the lieutenant came up behind Jerricks, placing his hand on Jerricks’s shoulder as he leaned over to listen to the speaker. Jerricks repeated his call. “Last station, this is Presidio Base.

Identify yourself and give us your location, over.”

There was nothing. Silence. Both men looked at the radio speaker and waited for a response, just as every border patrolman on that net sat listening, waiting. When there was no further broadcast, the lieutenant ordered Jerricks to have all patrols report in, give their location, and report anything that they might know about the reported shooting.

It took what seemed to Jerricks an eternity for all of their patrols to report in. After each report, there was a pause before the next patrol checked in, just in case the patrol under attack was able to make another report. But there was no further report of an attack. Only the patrols reporting their locations and that they had negative contact came in. After three minutes, all but Ed Kimel and Hernando Juarez were accounted for.

As Jerricks called them by name, an effort that yielded no response, the lieutenant went to the map and traced their assigned patrol route. When he had a fix on the approximate location where they should have been at the time of the reported contact, the lieutenant directed the patrols on either side of them to converge on that spot. Although he knew he didn’t need to, the lieutenant instructed the converging patrols to exercise extreme caution.

North of Indio, Texas

Midnight, ii August

From a distance of two miles, Delapos could see the border patrol jeep come screaming down Highway 170 in an effort to find the missing patrol. Delapos, of course, already knew where the missing patrolmen were. He and four of his men had killed them over an hour ago. After dragging the bodies of the border patrolmen off the road, removing the radio from their jeep, and disposing of the jeep, they had moved farther north and set themselves up in a new ambush site. When his men were ready, Delapos had turned the radio on his jeep to the same frequency that had been set on the border patrol jeep, sent out a frantic distress call, and

waited for a reaction.

As the border patrol jeep approached and his men prepared to fire the two Claymore mines set on the road, Delapos smiled. The reactions of the border patrol had been both timely and, as he had anticipated, predictable.

Two patrols, in two different locations, attacked by the same team, would be a first. Sooner or later, Delapos knew, the border patrol would need to admit that the situation was out of hand. If the double ambush, and the fact that the second patrol was lured in by a false radio call, didn’t convince them of that, then nothing would.

Guns are left to do what words might have done earlier, rightly used.

—John Walker

Abilene, Texas

1845 hours, 12 August

With a few sharp turns of the steering wheel and a casualness that frightened some, Jimmy Sullivan backed his eighteen-wheeler up to the loading dock. Sullivan loved driving the big rigs, and looked forward to the day when he would be able to own a rig himself. Glancing from the left side mirror to the right side mirror, Sullivan eased the truck back until he felt a slight thump, telling him the rear of the truck had made contact with the thick rubber bumper on the loading dock.

Shutting down his rig, Sullivan shoved his portable cassette player into his gym bag, grabbed his clipboard with the manifest on it, and began to climb down. As he did so, his supervisor, Tom Henry, yelled to him from the dock. “Hey, Jimmy, your old lady wants you to call her right away.”

On the ground, Sullivan yelled back. “Did she say what she wanted?”

Without looking up from the clipboard, Henry yelled back, “Yeah, she said some guy at the armory has been tryin’ to get you all day.”

Slamming the cab door, Sullivan threw the clipboard down on the ground. “Ah shiiit. Not again.”

Looking up, Henry watched Sullivan standing next to the truck, with his hands on his hips and his head hanging down, cursing and kicking imaginary rocks with the tip of his cowboy boots. “Hey, Jimmy.”

“What!”

Henry smiled. “Your wife’s pissed too.”

“Thanks, boss, I needed that. I really fuckin’ needed that.” Sullivan picked up his clipboard, straightened out the papers on it, and headed for the phone in the locker room. He knew what the call from the armory was about. Ever since the raids along the Mexican border had begun, rumors concerning the use of the National Guard to seal the border between Mexico and Texas had been running wild. Some of the old-timers in the unit Sullivan belonged to said it was just a matter of time. The new men, denned as people who had joined after the war in the Persian Gulf, were excited. Sullivan, who had been mobilized for that war, did not share their enthusiasm.

The Guard, for Sullivan, had started as a fun thing to do. He had enjoyed his three years in the Army and saw the Guard as a means of making extra income while having the opportunity to enjoy the friendships and excitement he had experienced while on active duty, without having to put up with the chickenshit that the regular Army seemed to thrive on. Soon, the Guard took on a greater importance to Sullivan. With a wife, a son, and another child on the way, his regular income was quickly eaten up by the day-to-day cost of living. His dream of buying his own truck was quickly dying. Only by staying with the Guard, and saving every penny he made during weekend drills, could he keep that dream alive. Combined with a Veterans Administration small business loan, which he would soon qualify for, Jimmy figured he could make it.

Sullivan’s plans, however, were not without their problems. His wife, a good woman by any measure, had no problems with his driving all over the Southwest for the trucking company. That, after all, was what put food on the table. Even the thirty-nine days a year he spent with the Guard were tolerable, since that would make their dream of owning their own truck a reality. For years she had accepted Sullivan’s time with the Guard as a necessary evil. That attitude, however, had changed when Sullivan was mobilized and shipped to the Persian Gulf just before Christmas 1990.

With less than two days’ notice, Sullivan had left his pregnant wife in Abilene as he went to war. Suddenly, because of the actions of a single man, their entire future had been threatened. It was more than putting their dreams on hold. They had done that before. When Sullivan had broken his leg and couldn’t drive for two months, everything they had planned had had to be postponed. The war in the gulf, however, was different. The broken leg could be dealt with. The doctor could tell them when the cast could come off. He could prescribe what therapy was needed for full recovery and how long that recovery would take. And Sullivan and his wife could plan accordingly. The war, however, had been like a huge gaping abyss, undefined, seemingly endless, and very, very black. Sullivan’s call to the colors to serve in the gulf did more than put their future on hold. It had challenged the very roots of their relationship and tested his wife’s character as nothing had ever done before. The war had found both their relationship and her character lacking. As a result, their marriage had never been the same since. Sullivan’s only hope, his only logical plan, to salvage his marriage and start all over again, was to buy a truck and become his own boss. Like a drowning man grabbing for something, he saw that dream as the stick that would save him. And that stick, until he got his loan, was owned by the National Guard.

Once in the locker room, Sullivan grabbed the phone, then paused, trying to decide who to call first. While there were pros and cons for calling his wife first, he decided that it would be wiser to call the armory first.

Perhaps the unit wasn’t being mobilized. Perhaps there was a change on the upcoming weekend drill or an admin problem with his pay voucher.

Maybe this whole problem wasn’t a problem at all. At least by calling the armory, he would be able to find out exactly what he had to deal with.

Mike Lodden, the unit’s full-time training
NCO
, answered. “Sullivan, where you been, boy? We’ve been tryin’ to get hold of you since eight o’clock this mornin’.”

Sullivan wasn’t in the mood for idle chatter or beating around the bush.

“I’ve been out earnin’ an honest living. Now what’s all so hellfire important that you need me for?”

Lodden skipped the pleasantries and got down to business. “The governor’s callin’ out the Guard. Border patrol was hit last night and hit hard.

This mornin’ at six o’clock the head of the region covering Brownsville to El Paso informed his boss in Washington that the situation was out of hand and his boys were refusing to go out on patrol. Till we get there, the border’s wide open. Even the customs boys are pullin’ back.”

Sullivan let out a moan even Lodden could hear. “What about the Army? Why in the hell aren’t they goin’ down there?”

“Jimmy, don’t you lis’n to the radio?”

“No, Mike, I don’t. I’m ignorant, okay? Now tell me, if it ain’t too much trouble, what in the hell are the regular pucks doin’?”

“Well, accordin’ to the news and what the colonel told us, the president and the National Security Council is meetin’ this morning to discuss the matter and review their options. In the meantime, accordin’ to the news, the president doesn’t want to do anything that would upset the Mexicans or might provoke ‘em.”

“Provoke ‘em! Provoke ‘em!” Sullivan’s screams caused Lodden to pull the phone away from his ear. “What in the hell does that fool think the goddamned Mexicans have been doin’ down here? Is he for real?”

Though Lodden wanted to end the conversation, he couldn’t help but throw his two cents in. “Well, that’s what we get for electin’ a bleedin’heart liberal from New England. Anyway, you need to get your butt down here yesterday. The battalion XO is leaving with the advance party tonight.”

Sullivan

paused. “You know, Mike, Martha’s gonna be pissed.”

Lodden chuckled. “I don’t mean to make fun of ya, old boy, but she already is. Damned near blew my eardrum out when I called her for the second time.”

For a second, Sullivan got excited. “Did you tell her already?”

“No, no, of course not. But be realistic, Jimmy. I didn’t have to.

Women kinda know these things. It’s like radar. They can pick up bad news a mile away.” ,

“Yeah, tell me about it. Okay, I’ll be in as soon as I can. When we supposed to move out?”

“Don’t know, Jimmy. But when you come in, don’t plan on goin’

home again. The adjutant general and the governor are in a low hover.

They say every state legislator and big-city mayor from the border area is on the phone every five minutes demandin’ to know where the troops are.

Like I said, they wanted us yesterday.”

With nothing more to say, Sullivan hung up the phone and prepared to call home, then paused. As distasteful as it was, he decided that this was the kind of news he had best tell his wife in person. Turning away from the phone, he shuffled down to John Henry’s office to tell him he wouldn’t be in for work for a while.

.La Sauceda, Mexico

2045 hours, 12 August

No one paid any attention to the tall blond gringo sitting in the back corner with two Mexicans. In this cantina, it was not healthy to stare at anyone for too long, let alone ask questions. No one seemed to notice that the gringo had entered through the back door and everyone pretended that the pistol sticking out of his boot didn’t really exist, although the gringo had taken great pains to make sure everyone could see it.

Of the two men sitting across from Childress, only one was really a Mexican. The other was a former colonel in the Nicaraguan Army whose sole claim to Mexican citizenship was the forged Mexican passport and identification papers he carried. A lifelong Sandinista, the Nicaraguan had found that he not only had a knack for waging guerrilla war, he actually enjoyed it. Peace, and the shift toward democracy in his home country, had left him little opportunity to use his one God-given gift.

Originally sent to Mexico as part of a delegation to assist in the transfer of surface-to-air missiles and antitank guided missiles to the new Mexican government, the Nicaraguan had been recruited by Alaman through a third party to provide a similar service to Delapos’s growing army. It was because of this man that Delapos felt some confidence in his group’s ability to continue its campaign of terrorism against the Texas National Guard with Some hope of success. Deciding on the exact mechanics of dealing with that new threat, and what to do while the Guard was still in the process of deploying and the border was uncovered, was the purpose of this meeting.

The Nicaraguan colonel, though he spoke with great authority and confidence and took the lead in the discussions, was anxious. He wanted to become involved in anything that would embarrass the United States.

Only the presence of the tall blond American across from him kept the Nicaraguan from saying so. Childress, for his part, said little, though he sensed the Nicaraguan’s contempt for him. Instead, Childress merely leaned back in his chair, his right hand listlessly dangling down and within easy reach of the pistol sticking out of his right boot. With his left hand, he slowly turned the bottle of beer on the table, looking at the Nicaraguan with cold, steady, unemotional eyes. Though he knew that what the Nicaraguan was saying made sense, Childress didn’t know whether he agreed or not. Until he could sort out his own emotions, Childress hid them as best he could behind a mask of stone.

For his part, Delapos, the third man at the table, also had concerns and reservations about some of the Nicaraguan’s suggestions. The idea of hitting purely civilian targets, though logical, bothered Delapos. He was a mercenary, yes, but not a murderer. Though many of his own men would argue that such a fine distinction was purely academic, Delapos had for years maintained standards of conduct that had allowed him to keep his sanity and justify his work. A self-imposed prohibition against killing innocent civilians had been one of those standards. Now, it seemed, he Would have to violate that prohibition, for logic told him that regardless of what he personally thought, such actions, in order to achieve what they desired, were necessary. After all, it was the attack on civilians by some of Pancho Villa’s men in 1916 that had brought the American Army south of the border. When Delapos and Alaman had made their pact at the beginning of July, exactly that reaction was what they had hoped for. Now, when such a possibility was there for the taking, De lapos could not hesitate. He had, after all, pledged his personal loyalty to Alaman and his quest. To back off now would be both dishonorable and, for him as a professional mercenary, disreputable. Besides, the project would go on with or without him. Others, men with no moral scruples, would gladly take up where Delapos left off.