Trial By Fire (59 page)

Almost a kilometer away, on the other side of the road, Captain Garza, the yahoo that Cerro was referring to, decided to break off the attack.

The sudden separation of the rear of the column had come as a surprise to him. From where he sat, it looked as if the Americans had been less surprised than he had hoped, and were responding better than he’d expected.

There was no telling what they were about to do and how they were going to respond. Rather than press his luck, Garza decided to break off the attack.

Firing the red star cluster, he paused for a moment and watched the response of his men. As instructed, some of the men increased the rate of fire while others, under the direction of their leaders, began to move back to their rally points. The mortars also increased their fire, switching to firing all high-explosive rounds instead of a mix of illumination rounds and high explosives. The mortars would be the last to stop, as they covered the withdrawal of the rest of the force. Garza’s planned route of escape took him right past their position. He personally would give them permission to leave.

Satisfied that all was in order, he turned to the militiaman who was serving as his radio operator. “We have done well tonight. Tomorrow, there will be many gringo families mourning.”

In the fading light of the last illumination rounds, Garza could see the militiaman’s face. The young farmer, a boy of sixteen, was smiling.

“And we, el capitdn, will have much to celebrate.”

The morality of killing is not something with which the professional soldier is usually thought to trouble himself.

—John Keegan, The Face of Battle

Washington, D.C.

1045 hours, 15 September

The shock wave generated by the battle of Monterrey, what some were calling America’s second Tet, was just as great in Washington as it had been to the troops who had fought it. Instead of the simple, controlled occupation of a security zone, an image that the president and his advisors had worked hard to cultivate, the American public found itself involved in a full-scale war. Though the battle was technically a victory, since the Mexicans had been forced to break contact and withdraw and all U.S.

forces had more or less reached the southern limit of advance that defined the security zone, few people in America saw it in those terms. In that single attack, and the operations immediately after it, the United States Army had suffered more casualties than it had during the entire Persian Gulf War.

The impact of the battle had been magnified by the news stories, uncensored by the military. In contrast to its policy in the Gulf War, where it held a tight rein on what correspondents could see and what they could release for public broadcast, the military had felt that, due to the nature of the operations in Mexico, no censorship would be necessary.

Both the administration and the Pentagon, however, had soon regretted that decision. To counter statements made during briefings by Pentagon spokesmen, who continued to assure the public that the fight around Monterrey had been a tactical victory, newscasters freely used film footage fresh from the battlefield, showing the devastation. One network newsroom ran a two-minute segment during which the soundtrack of a Pentagon briefing was dubbed over footage showing burning American vehicles, rows of filled body bags being tossed into trucks, overcrowded aid stations, and soldiers, dazed from combat, stumbling back to the rear.

Such techniques, coupled with interviews with soldiers fresh from battle and still reeling from the impact of losing a friend, made the statements by military officials in Washington seem trite and out of touch with the reality of the situation in Mexico.

For those in Congress who had been opposed to the establishment of a security zone in Mexico, warning that such a move was not only dangerous but unnecessary, the news from Mexico was vindication. Congressmen like Ed Lewis, who had been vocal in their opposition, redoubled their efforts, taking every opportunity to drive home the point that the longer U.S. forces stayed in Mexico, the more both nations would suffer. The entire affair, Lewis pointed out, had been ill-conceived and based on too many false assumptions. On the day after the battle of Monterrey, after emerging from a special briefing at the White House for selected senators and congressmen, Lewis summed up the administration’s problem. When reporters asked him what he and the other members of Congress had been told, Lewis smiled. “The president,” he told the reporters, “has assured us that we have that tar baby just where we want it and, any day now, we’re going to teach it a thing or two.”

Into this growing controversy came Jan Fields, bearing her message for the president from the Council of 13. When she was told that it was not possible for her to deliver the message in person, as Colonel Guajardo had requested, by a condescending third-echelon White House staffer, who informed her that the president could not possibly see her, Jan decided not to get mad. Instead, she delivered the text of the message in a special fifteen-minute segment aired by the World News Network. With a summary of the events that had led up to the current crisis, along with her own observations based on interviews with participants on both sides as a lead-in, Jan delivered Colonel Molina’s message. The result exceeded anything Jan could have imagined. The effect was akin to the dumping of gasoline onto a smoldering fire. Within hours, Congress, with Ed Lewis in the vanguard, opened a formal investigation into the administration’s handling of Mexico since the beginning of the June 29

revolution.

That he had been called to the White House along with two dozen other congressmen and senators for a special briefing the day before had come as no surprise to Ed Lewis. That he had been invited back, alone, did.

Perhaps, he thought, the president, stung by his tar baby comment, was going to give him a piece of his mind. That caused Lewis to chuckle.

God, he thought, the last thing this president needed to do was to give anyone a piece of his mind. He already had too little to work with as it was.

Lewis was still in the midst of his private joke when the president’s national security advisor came out of the Oval Office and started to walk over to him. A college professor before joining the White House staff, William Hastert gave new meaning to the word wimp. With men like this to advise the president, Lewis mused, how can he possibly go right? When Hastert reached Lewis and greeted him, there wasn’t a hint of warmth in his handshake or smile. Instead, Hastert only mumbled that both he and the president were glad that Lewis had been able to make time in his busy schedule and come over on such short notice. That Hastert placed himself before the president did not escape Lewis’s attention.

Wanting to understand a little about what was going to be discussed before he walked into the Oval Office, Lewis held onto Hastert’s hand when they finished their perfunctory handshake, much to Hastert’s discomfort.

“Who will be joining us, Mr. Hastert?”

Pulling his hand free, Hastert looked at it, then back at Lewis. “No one else, Congressman Lewis. The president wanted to talk to you in private.

The president is ready to see you.”

Unable to discern the subject of the meeting, and taking Hastert’s less than subtle hint, Lewis decided to trust his luck and skill in dealing with this impromptu meeting. “Well then, Mr. Hastert, we mustn’t keep the president waiting. After you.”

Trailing Hastert, Lewis weaved his way around the desks of the outer office and past two security men standing outside the Oval Office. Once inside, Lewis saw that the president stood motionless at the french doors behind his desk, staring vacantly out into the Rose Garden. That man, Lewis thought, is not a happy one. With his arms folded tightly across his chest, his shoulders rolled forward, and his head down, the president appeared to Lewis to be a man under considerable stress. After Hastert announced that Lewis was there, the president hesitated before turning to face the two men. When he did, he kept his arms folded and his head down, looking up instead at Lewis with eyes that were puffy and surrounded by dark circles. “Thank you for coming over so fast, Ed.” Even when he dropped his arms, motioning as he walked over to an armchair for Lewis to take a seat, the president’s head still drooped down, his chin almost coming to rest on his chest. “Please, take a seat. Would you like some coffee?”

Lewis was about to say no, then reconsidered. Ever since his wife, Amanda, got on her decaffeinated kick, he never passed up the chance to get a real cup of coffee when he thought he could get away with it.

Amanda had even managed to infiltrate his own office in the congressional building, instructing his staff to serve only decaf to him. Though it was a foolish gesture, out of habit Lewis looked about furtively to see if there was anyone in the room who would tell on him before he accepted the president’s offer.

When everyone was seated and Lewis had been afforded the opportunity to savor his coffee, the president started. “As you so eloquently put it yesterday, Ed, we, I’ve got both hands full with a tar baby.”

Lewis sighed. He was almost sorry that he had made that comment.

After all, it had been a cheap shot that not even this guy deserved. Still, there was nothing he could do about that now. Though he thought of apologizing, he didn’t. While it might have been a cheap shot, Lewis decided, in the end it had been aH.too true.

“Ed, I’m in a very bad spot, and you know it.”

Looking up from his coffee cup, Lewis smiled. ‘ ‘You’re sort of like the guy who has his private parts caught in his fly. Even though he knows he needs to do something, and soon, he also knows that, no matter what he does, including nothing, it’s going to hurt like hell.”

While Hastert frowned, the president laughed. “That’s what I love about you, Ed. You have a unique way of putting things.” Then, in a flash, the laughter was gone. “You’re right, of course. We are in a bad spot and need to do something, even though it’s going to hurt like hell.”

For a moment, Lewis looked at the president. He agreed with neither the man’s politics nor his policies. He didn’t even like the president as a man. Still, he was the president, and a person. For a moment, in the president’s eyes, Lewis saw a human being who was in trouble and needed help. Rather than let the president thrash about, trying to save whatever pride he could, Lewis decided to let him off the hook. Besides, it would be wrong to use the president’s current predicament for political or personal ends. Whatever personal satisfaction he might derive from such an effort would be washed away by Lewis’s conscience, something that he still had despite his five years in Congress. “What, Mr. President, can I do to help?”

Relieved of the need for further groveling, the president launched into his proposal. “I need someone to go to Mexico, someone with military experience, and yet not connected with the military, who can give me a clear, unbiased, and objective view of what the commanders in the field are thinking and how they view the situation, from a military standpoint.”

Lewis gave the president a sideways glance. “Are you telling me that you don’t trust what your own Joint Chiefs are telling you?”

“Ed, it’s not that I don’t trust them. It’s just that I do not believe that they can be objective about this anymore. They, like the
CIA
, got caught short by the fight around Monterrey and active participation by the Nicaraguans.

Between trying to explain away their failures by justifying their initial positions and scrambling to make the current battle plan work, everyone in Washington has lost sight of the long-term goal, national security. I need solutions, real solutions, not fixes. And before I can come up with those solutions, I need some solid, unvarnished information.”

Leaning forward toward Lewis, the president looked into his eyes while he rested his elbows on his knees and brought his hands together, almost as if he were begging. “Ed, will you go?”

For a moment, Lewis considered the president’s offer. What a great way, he thought, of getting an opponent out of the way. Was the president, he thought, using the old adage that it was better to make friends rather than multiply enemies? Was he buying time, in the hope that by sending Lewis to Mexico he could appease his critics and hope that the Mexican government would buckle under? Or was the president sincere?

Was he really seeking a real solution? “Who, Mr. President, are you sending with me, whom do I answer to, and what restrictions are there on my comings and goings down in Mexico?”

The president opened his hands. “You may take whomever you like, you report back to me when you are ready, and you will have a free hand to go wherever you want and speak to whomever you feel you need to talk to. You have a free hand.”

That, Lewis thought, was inviting. Turning the idea over in his mind as he took a long sip of coffee, he decided to press for more. After all, if he was going to become involved, he wanted to be part of the solution, to do something meaningful, and not just become a storefront dummy. He looked down at his cup. “If that reporter, Jan Fields, is to be believed, we have not done all we could to reach an understanding and appreciation of the situation that the Council of 13 is dealing with.” With a glance over to Hasten, Lewis continued. “It says a lot when a foreign government is forced to use a TV correspondent as a means of passing messages to us.” As Hasten struggled to contain his anger at the slap Lewis had given him, Lewis turned to the president. “Any solution will need to involve the Mexicans. Unilateral action, as we have seen, is a noncontender.

Therefore, if I go to Mexico, I want to have the ability to travel to Mexico City, with this Jan Fields, and open a dialogue with the Council of 13 on your behalf.”

As if he had already considered that request, the president responded without even bothering to look over to Hastert. “That, Ed, is more than what I had in mind, but you’re right.” The president eased himself back into his seat. Though he didn’t like the idea of Lewis, trailed by a high-speed correspondent like Fields, running around in Mexico City, the president decided that he had little choice. He had, in fact, decided before Lewis had arrived to accept JHSt about whatever Lewis asked, since, as he had put it so eloquently, there would be pain involved no matter what the president did. “You are right. We were, in fact, discussing just how best to respond to the council’s message when you arrived. You, if you would be so kind, can carry my personal message back to the Mexican government.