Trial By Fire (28 page)

Like their lovemaking, Jan and Scott’s approach to life was, some would say, rather unconventional and very unpredictable. A widower, Dixon had no interest in a new wife. He had had one of those already and really didn’t see the need for another. He had loved his first wife, and was sure that she had loved him. But he knew that it would be impossible to find another woman who could fill her place. Wives, he once told a sergeant, after all, were not like replacement parts. You couldn’t, he said, simply wear one out, and then expect to be able to requisition a new one that would be able to fit in where the old one had been. So he had never tried. He didn’t need to, for Jan was there when he needed a friend and lover who could accept him for what he was.

Slowly, Dixon began to find what he was searching for. As he found each item, he took it out with his right hand and passed it to his left in a ritual that he repeated every morning. When he finally had a tub of margarine, a jar of grape jam, and a pitcher of orange juice cradled in his left arm, Dixon closed the refrigerator and turned toward the kitchen table. For a moment, he considered going over to the counter where the bread was kept to pick up his English muffins. That, however, did not seem like a good idea, especially since there was no assurance that there would be any left. As he continued toward the table, the sound of the television being clicked on behind him told Dixon that Jan had joined him and was beginning her breakfast ritual.

Dressed in an oversize pink T-shirt that sported Minnie Mouse, Jan made sure that the kitchen television was set to the proper channel before moving to the coffeemaker. With an occasional sweep of her left hand to push her hair from her face, she went about making their first pot of coffee as she listened to the morning news.

Jan, like Dixon, wasn’t in the market for a spouse. She needed something more than a husband could provide. That is why she valued Scott as a friend, a lover, and a confidant. But a husband, no. Jan, when she described the perfect husband, found herself describing her father. Her father was a sweet and kind-man, and she loved him very much, but he, or someone like him, was the last person in the world she wanted to spend her life with. In her heart, she knew she could never surrender her individuality and freedom as her mother had. Jan’s mother loved her father, and she had no complaints about her life. But she had never been a happy woman. Often, as she grew into adulthood, Jan could see a sadness in her mother’s eyes. It was a sadness born from dreams and ambitions that her mother had never been able to fulfill. For most of her life, she had let her dreams, like hundreds of meals, grow cold while she tended the needs of husband, home, and children. Though she admired her mother, Jan knew she could never be like her. So, she had never tried.

It had taken her years, however, to find that she couldn’t have it both ways, either. The image of a cosmopolitan woman, doing whatever she pleased and passing from one affair to another as she saw fit, was hollow.

She found that she could not be a free-floating electron for her entire life.

In Scott she had found a person she could both respect and enjoy, a person so different from what she was used to, and yet so comfortable, that the thought of being without him was painful. Scott never sought to dominate or change her. Instead, he challenged her, reveled in the diversity and unpredictability that she brought into his life. She, in turn, enjoyed the idea of being a consort rather than a spouse. When asked why they didn’t marry, Jan’s response, only half in jest, was that her love for Scott and his friendship was far too valuable to her to screw up with marriage.

The weatherman’s announcement that it would be another bright and sunny day, with temperatures reaching one hundred and five degrees throughout most of central Texas, failed to get a reaction from either Jan or Dixon. The statement by the bright-eyed and well-dressed female co-anchor that they would have more on the previous night’s attacks along the border after a commercial break, did.

Finished depositing his first load on the table, Dixon turned and headed for the counter where the muffins were kept. “Another bad night for the home team?”

Jan, with another sweep of her hand, shrugged as she continued to I”j6

HAROLD
COYLE

prepare the coffeemaker. “Seems so. I suppose you don’t know anything that you’d care to share with me?”

“Yeah, it’s going to be sunny and hot today throughout central Texas.

How’s that for a beginning?”

Jan was about to make a comment when the news show continued.

With well-practiced tones appropriate for the seriousness of the story, the perky young female co-anchor started with a recap of the morning’s top story. As she had done each morning, with the help of a map in the background, the newswoman enumerated in detail the location, nature, and losses from each of the three incidents that had occurred overnight.

As the newswoman spoke, both Jan and Scott continued to move about in silence, glancing at the television screen every now and then as they continued to prepare their own breakfast. Only when the next commercial cut in did either speak.

“I just don’t understand, Scott, why the
CIA
or the
FBI
haven’t been able to find something. My God, it’s like a plot from a cheap horror movie, bodies cropping up everywhere without a trace or clue.”

Dixon grunted. “Well, my dear, don’t feel like the Lone Ranger.

There’s a whole bunch of people in Washington, including our dear friend Ed Lewis, who are asking the same question. I just hope those people keep asking questions and looking for the answers before someone does something unsmart and buckles under to the demands for action.”

“Is there really the prospect of some kind of military action in the offing, Scotty?”

Pretending not to hear Jan’s question, Dixon pulled his English muffins from the toaster and prepared to spread margarine and jam on them. Jan looked up at him and saw that he was ignoring her, a sure sign that she had hit close to home. Knowing that he would continue to ignore her if she continued to persist in her questions, Jan decided to pull her horns in.

“Busy day ahead of you?”

Relieved that Jan had changed the subject, Dixon turned his attention away from the newswoman’s monotone account of the raids. In another hour he would get a detailed briefing by the division duty officer and on-call intelligence officer on all of that. Moving to the table, Dixon sat down, poured himself a tall glass of orange juice, and began to munch on his muffins, talking to Jan between mouthfuls. “Oh, nothing exciting.

Just the usual stuff. We have a couple of briefings to finish and rehearse, training inspections, and a meeting with some members of Congress and their staff. Seems we lost some facts and they feel the need to come down here and personally find them.”

Though Scott tried to shrug off the congressional visit, Jan knew exactly what it was for, based on the members of Congress who had come. Congressman Harriman, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, along with Congressman Ed Lewis from the House Intelligence Committee, had been dealing with only one subject for the past week; how would the Army secure the nation’s southern border? Harriman’s inquiries into plans to use the military had, to date, been stonewalled by both the White House and the Pentagon. Only Lewis’s investigation into the failure of the
CIA
to predict the coup in Mexico, now broadened to include its inability to find an explanation for the border raids, was yielding any measurable action. The continuation of the raids, however, without producing any worthwhile clues or information, made those efforts appear to be weak and feeble. Jan knew that Scotty was working on some kind of contingency plans, and that eventually both the White House and the Pentagon would have to give in to pressure to do something. Only a show-stopping revelation would stop that.

Still, Jan knew that, when it was ime, she would find out from official sources, just like every other newsperson. She loved Scott Dixon too much to jeopardize her relationship for a fleeting news story. Deciding to avoid the subject, she asked if the reception for the congressmen was still being held that night.

Spitting out tiny chunks of muffin as he spoke, Dixon cynically remarked that such affairs were where congressmen usually looked for the facts they were after. Then, as an afterthought, he asked Jan if she was still going to delay her trip to Brownsville and attend the reception.

With a sweet smile, Jan cocked her head to one side and held her coffee cup out. “Now, Scotty dear, what do you think?”

“Just checking, just checking. You remember how to get to the officers’ club, Jan?”

“Yes, dear, I do. And Scotty, please do me the favor and wash your hands before meeting me there tonight. The last time I went to one of these after-duty things it took me a trip to the cleaners to get the smell of tank out of my clothes and two days to get it off my skin.”

Dixon smiled. “Why, Jan, are you objecting? If you remember, we had some of the best sex we ever had during those two days. You know how excited tankers get when they smell gunpowder and diesel.”

“Scotty, if that’s what it takes to get you up, then I think we need to take a serious look at our relationship.”

Finished, Dixon stood up and walked around the table until he stood behind Jan. Reaching down, Dixon ran his right hand along Jan’s neck and into the wide opening of the oversize T-shirt she wore. With a light, gentle touch, Dixon began to play with Jan’s nipple as he bent over and kissed her on the right side of her neck. “Okay, we’ll talk, but later.”

Mexico City, Mexico

0815 hours, 11 August

While Colonel Salvado Zavala discussed the need to end bread rationing in the southern states with the minister of agriculture, Guajardo looked about the table and considered his fellow council members. How well Molina had chosen them for the positions in which they were now serving.

Colonel Emanuel Barreda, responsible for foreign affairs, was an excellent example.

Since the twenty-ninth of June, Barreda had been in almost constant motion, visiting every capital throughout Latin America as well as Japan, the People’s Republic of China, and many nations in Europe. Publicly, his meetings were aimed at recognition of the new regime and laying the groundwork for economic cooperation. As an aside, Barreda was to sound out fellow Latin American leaders and find out what, if any, cooperation Mexico could expect if the United States attempted to intervene in Mexican affairs militarily. With this last item in mind, Barreda timed his visits so that each one followed, within a matter of days, sometimes by hours, a similar visit by the secretary of state from the United States. So close were their visits that in Buenos Aires, Argentina, the honor guard that had seen the American secretary of state off had to double-time over to the spot where they were to greet Barreda. In this manner, Barreda was able to gain a feel for what the United States was trying to do about the revolution while he was promoting it.

Many of the responses Barreda received were surprising. From the president of Venezuela, who had come to the airport personally to greet Barreda, came the suggestion that if the United States attempted intervention, Mexico should appeal to the Organization of American States for support. The president of Venezuela gave his personal pledge that if Mexico did so, he would support them. In Nicaragua, the minister of state, a former Sandinista general, offered to loan Mexico any weapons the Nicaraguan Army had in its vast inventory if there ever was need to defend themselves from the imperialists. Even those nations in Central and South America that publicly condemned the Council of 13 stated privately that, in a confrontation with the United States, they would support Mexico. It was, as the president of Brazil told Barreda, “time that the United States began to treat Latin American republics as equals and learn that the new American world order is not the only solution.”

These pledges of support, as important as they were, could not, in themselves, protect the revolution or the Council of 13. Mexico needed to present a viable deterrent. That was what Guajardo had to provide.

Again, Molina had shown great wisdom when he had appointed Colonel Guajardo as the minister of defense. Guajardo’s attendance at many United States Army schools had given him a familiarity with and insight into the American way of war that few of his brother officers could equal.

The list of schools was long and diverse, including Ranger and Airborne training at Fort Benning, Georgia, the Armor Officers Advanced Course at Fort Knox, Kentucky, the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and the School of the Americas back at Fort Benning.

All of this had been no accident. Under the old regime, Guajardo had been being groomed to be the attach in Washington, D.C., and the foreign-area expert on the United States for the Ministry of Defense.

Even Guajardo’s assignment to the critical State of Tamaulipas had been part of that plan. Any move into Mexico would include an effort to seize the natural gas areas located in the northern regions of that state and the oil fields in the south. Tamaulipas’s location on the Gulf Coastal Plain also made it the most vulnerable,to American forces, both land and seaborne. Such vulnerability would be too tempting to an invader looking for a quick knockout.

So Guajardo was doing what he was trained to do and what he did best, as he prepared Mexico for an invasion from the north. Like Barreda, Guajardo spent much of his time traveling. Using a pair of Bell Huey helicopters, Guajardo and his small staff crisscrossed northern Mexico, inspecting training and overseeing the arming and reorganization of local militia units. As he did so, Guajardo visited area and garrison commanders, briefing them on the part they were to play in the defense of Mexico.

The plan for this, based on an older version, had been revised by Guajardo before the twenty-ninth of June. He had personally written the threat assessment, providing both the Council of 13 and his subordinate commanders with a realistic view of what the United States was capable of doing, what it would probably do, and how best Mexico could defeat American intentions. Based on this assessment, a plan that included the needs of the Army and militia, down to the smallest detail, had been ready for execution once the council was in power.