Trial By Fire (39 page)

Without looking up or stopping what he was doing, Wecas brushed Stolte off by merely mumbling that there was no time. Stolte, however, persisted. “I don’t like this, Buck. We need to tell someone what’s going on before we do this. That target is across the border.”

Spinning about in his seat, his face contorted with anger, Wecas screamed at Stolte. “People are dying out there, Lieutenant. Our people.

And we’re the only ones who can help. I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to sit here and let that happen.” Without waiting for a response, Wecas returned to the
TAC
fire computer and finished inputting the data. When he was finished, he stood up, taking the mike to the radio that the gun section was on in one hand and the hand mike to the radio that Charlie eight eight Bravo was on in the other. When the gun section chief reported that the first round was on the way, Wecas relayed that information to Charlie eight eight Bravo while Stolte stood behind him, watching in silence.

The small submunitions of the first dual-purpose, improved conventional munitions round, or
DPICM
, impacted less than fifty meters in front of Marti’s Lynx. The surprise and shock of the chain of exploding submunitions and the sudden blinding flashes directly in front of him caused Marti” s driver to jerk the steering wheel to the right. This unexpected violent maneuver threw Marti off balance just as he was dropping into the safety of the Lynx’s turret. It took Marti a second to regain his balance, and the driver a little longer to get the Lynx under control again. In that time, three more rounds from the 155mm howitzer platoon that had responded to Wecas’s fire mission detonated over Marti’s Lynx, raining a shower of armor-piercing submunitions down on it.

From their location at Sullivan’s Humvee, Lefleur and the Mexican American mercenary observed the strike of the first volley of artillery fire.

When three rounds engulfed the Lynx that had been moving down to the river, the Mexican-American mercenary turned to Lefleur, a broad grin illuminating his face. “See, boss, I told you the United States Marine Corps did everything right first time, every time.”

Lefleur grunted. “So you did. So you did. In the Legion, however, we never used four rounds when one was all that was needed.” Holding up a pair of night-vision goggles that he had recovered from the body of the national guardsman he had shot, Lefleur looked to the west, across the river. “On top of that, amigo, your job is only half done. There is another recon vehicle out there, three hundred meters west of where you just hit the moving vehicle. Let us see how well you can adjust fire.”

Proud of his handiwork, despite Lefleur’s comment about wasting rounds, the Mexican-American mercenary prepared to call in the adjustment.

“Three hundred meters, you say. Are you sure?”

Without taking the night-vision goggles down, Lefleur responded.

“Yes, three hundred meters, due west.”

The Mexican-American mercenary had just finished calling in the adjustments for the next volley when a flash, followed by the streak of a tracer, announced that the second Mexican Lynx was returning fire at them. Lowering the night-vision goggles, Lefleur announced to his companion,

“I think it is time that we leave.”

As the first round from the Lynx impacted to the left and short of Sullivan’s Humvee, the Mexican-American dropped to the ground. When he looked up and saw Lefleur still standing there watching to the west, the Mexican-American mercenary shook his head. “Okay, you proved you got balls. Now let’s go before you lose both yours and mine.”

The second fire mission was faster and easier. The ice had been broken.

They were committed. Though he was still uncomfortable with what was happening, Stolte did nothing as he watched Wecas process the request for adjustment and a repeat of the fire mission. Standing there, Stolte began to wonder how he had lost control of the situation. Not that he had ever been in control. Through his lack of action, he had surrendered all initiative to his sergeant, who, instinctively, had done what he had done as a young soldier in Vietnam and during numerous training exercises and drills since: receive and process calls for fire. How terrible, Stolte thought, how terrible and tragic it would be if this was all a mistake, all one big tragic and terrible mistake. Who, he wondered, would be guilty?

Who? That thought was still lingering in Stolte’s mind when the gun platoon leader announced that the next volley was on the way.

Noticing that their first round had missed the American vehicle that was not yet burning, the commander of the second Lynx cut short his report to this troop commander and prepared to adjust his gunner’s fire. Though he could hear his troop commander’s yells in the earphones of his helmet, the Lynx commander ignored them, calmly giving his gunner directions.

There would be plenty of time to report once the enemy vehicles were destroyed.

When he was ready, the gunner announced he was firing, providing the rest of the crew time to brace for the shock of firing and gun recoil. As he squeezed the trigger, he closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against the brow pad of his sight. When he felt the gun fire and the Lynx rock back, then settle forward, he opened his eyes and watched the tracer of his second round arch up, then slowly begin its downward descent, holding his breath as it did so. Only after he saw his round impact on the enemy vehicle, obliterating it in a blinding explosion and great clouds of smoke and dust, did he relax and breathe again. He had no way of knowing that everyone in the Humvee had already been killed. Nor did he realize that the breath he was taking was his last, for Lefleur’s estimation of the range had been very accurate, and the 155mm howitzer fire direction center and gun crews had done a magnificent job of computing and firing the mission.

From the rim of the gully where their pickup trucks were hidden, Lefleur looked to the west. When the second Mexican Army recon vehicle began to burn, he turned to the Mexican-American mercenary. “See, three hundred meters. Just as I said.”

There can be no fifty-fifty Americanism in this country. There is room only for one hundred percent Americanism.

—Theodore Roosevelt

Brownsville, Texas

1015 hours, 3 September

The people of Brownsville were used to traffic jams in the summer, especially during holiday weekends as throngs of tourists poured into and out of South Padre Island to escape the Texas heat, or across the border to Matamoros in search of bargains. Labor Day weekend, the end of the summer, was traditionally the busiest weekend of the year. So it wasn’t the volume of traffic or the delays caused by it that was different this year.

It was the nature of the traffic that caused people to pause, stare, and become concerned. Few Americans were prepared for the sight of a twenty-five-ton combat-loaded Bradley fighting vehicle sitting oh their front lawn. Nor were they quite ready to share Main Street with a column of M-1A1 tanks whose 120mm main guns had brought the Iraqi Republican Guard to bay.

Even the sight of the soldiers, American soldiers, armed to the teeth, was unnerving. Most vestiges of their humanity were hidden under thirty five pounds of helmet, special protective sunglasses, flak vest, load bearing equipment, desert camouflage uniform, and heavy boots. Rather than friendly protectors, the soldiers of the 52nd Mechanized Infantry Division appeared like alien invaders. Thus the descent of the United States Army upon Brownsville on Labor Day weekend did little to calm the people of south Texas. Instead of the military’s deployment bringing an end to the panic and terror that had gripped the border communities, the chain of disasters that had befallen the Texas National Guard and the sudden appearance of the regular Army only served to heighten the fears and apprehensions of the Texans.

It should not have come as a surprise, therefore, that people long used to peace and able to take a stable border for granted took refuge in flight rather than face the prospect of living in a free-fire zone. Nor should it have been a surprise to local, state, and federal officials when their pleas to the people of the border areas to stay in place fell on deaf ears. The inability of the National Guard, after a barrage of media hype, to solve the problems along the border doomed claims by the federal government.

And the image of a battery of 155mm howitzers setting up in a public park, broadcast across the nation by the media, with high-explosive shells piled in the lee of a child’s swing, did nothing to calm the public. So, as military convoys moved south, following in the footsteps of Zachary Taylor and John . Pershing, caravans of refugees moved north.

In the middle of this muddle, a term Joe Bob used to describe Brownsville, was Jan Fields. Her “right place at the right time” theory handed Jan and her crew an opportunity that almost matched the coup they had pulled off in Mexico City in late June. For they were there, in Brownsville, to record the reaction of the people when the president of the United States announced that he was federalizing the National Guard of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, as well as deploying four Army and one Marine divisions to the border. Ted’s camera captured the image of the members of the 52nd Division’s advance party as they rolled into Brownsville in the predawn light the day before Labor Day. Joe Bob’s recorder picked up the stiff and stilted conversations between officers of the regular Army and those of the National Guard as the former relieved the latter and issued them their first orders under federal control. And the

ubiquitous Jan Fields, ever searching for the shot that, in a single glance, spoke louder than a tirade of commentary, was seen and heard that night and every night across the nation. In one shot, she was standing next to Mexican Army officers on the southern side of the bridge over the Rio Grande, listening to their comments as they watched American soldiers erect wire entanglements, barriers, and sandbag emplacements complete with machine guns, on the north side of the bridge. In another shot, made less than two hours later, she was seen talking to the commander of the 1st Brigade, 52nd Division, about his mission. Even Joe Bob, a man who was not easily impressed, was becoming awed by Jan’s unerring ability to move through the chaos of the day and sift through the myriad oppor tunities, capturing in a few brief minutes those images and words that brought everything together in a clear, concise, and hard-hitting package.

No amount of technical training, no course of study, could produce a correspondent with the skills that Jan possessed. When asked by a cameraman from another crew to describe her, all Joe Bob could do was look at the cameraman and say, in reverent tones, “That girl’s good. She’s damned good.”

Of course, what made her good, as she always was the first to admit, was luck and hard work. Having been in Brownsville for a week, Jan and her crew knew the city and surrounding area, not to mention where the best shots could be obtained as well as who to stroke and who could do what for them. While other news teams were pouring into the airport at Harlingen as fast as the airlines could get them there, Jan, Ted, and Joe Bob were taping. One New York news team, in an effort to make up for lost time and gain an edge, tried following Jan’s van. When Joe Bob, who was driving, noticed he was being tailed by the New Yorkers, he decided to ditch them. Stopping in the middle of the street, Joe Bob stuck his head out of the window and yelled, “Eat my dust, you Yankee queers.” With that challenge, he took off, driving down alleys and up one-way streets the wrong way as fast as their van could carry them. After ten minutes of fast driving and running two red lights, three stop signs, and one railroad guard that was about to close, Joe Bob managed to lose the New York news team in the worst possible part of town and still get Jan to her next appointment with time to spare. So while everyone else was trying to figure out what stories were valid and what was useless, Jan Fields was coming across with solid, well-orchestrated pieces.

What didn’t come across on Ted’s camera or on Joe Bob’s microphone was Jan’s growing sense of concern and apprehension. Part of Jan’s success was her ability to see and understand the broad context of the story she was covering, and an ability to personalize that story so that it

could be seen and understood by her primary audience, the American public. In most stories, Jan was able to remain aloof, emotionally and intellectually detached from the issues at hand. In this case, however, it was becoming more and more difficult.

The internal changes in Mexico, Jan now understood, were necessary, as was the deployment of some forces, by both the United States and Mexico, to the border. For the United States, it was a matter of defending against the mysterious raids, while the Mexicans were responding to the American buildup. While that was all logical, it was also logical that the military buildup, as well as the shooting incident of four days before, would create situations in which more incidents would be likely.

As frightening as a conflict between her country and Mexico was in itself, the question of where her loyalty went was even more frightening.

After all, how could she, an American, continue to produce objective stories about the Council of 13 when she knew that they were, at that moment, planning how best to kill her own countrymen? Especially Colonel Guajardo. To Jan, he had come to personify the new revolution. He was a man, she was convinced, who was capable of using anyone for whatever he wanted and, if it suited his purposes, of having them disposed of quickly, completely. Though she knew him to be educated, articulate, a family man, and in his own way quite charming, Jan also knew there was a dark side to him, a dark side that was as black and as bottomless as a tar pit.

Adding to her difficulties in reporting the story was the fact that the man she loved, Scott Dixon, was now an active player. As Guajardo represented the Council of 13 in her mind’s eye, Scott was coming to represent the American soldier on the front line. Since the introduction of the National Guard, but even more so in the last two days, Jan found herself surrounded by sights and sounds that only served to heighten her feelings of concern and uneasiness. The American soldiers manning the border crossing in Brownsville were no longer simple props and objects to be used for a news story. They were real people, soldiers, soldiers just like Scott. When she interviewed commanders and senior staff officers, she found herself thinking about Scott, for they looked, spoke, acted, and even smelled like him. The dry, subtle humor and the cocky, “can do”