Trial By Fire (63 page)

When the door of the shed flew open, the bright light hit her face and blinded her, causing her to roll over and away from it. With her back to the door, she felt someone grab the gag and pull it away from her head, stretching the corners of her dry mouth further. For a second, there was the sensation of cold metal next to her ear, then the ripping of cloth as the gag was cut. When the gag finally fell away from her mouth, Jan let out a series of coughs.

She was still hacking away, trying to catch her breath and clear her dry throat, when the man who had cut her gag reached over her, grabbed her hands and feet, and cut the rope that had bound them together. When the knife cut through the ropes, Jan found she had no control over her arms and legs. Instead, they sprang apart like a rag doll’s. For the longest time, all she could manage to do was lie spreadeagled on the floor, staring at the ceiling as she let the muscle spasms and pain in her arms, wrists, legs, and ankles subside. She was oblivious to whoever had freed her. She was even oblivious, for the first time, to the bugs, insects, and flies that were still scurrying across her body. The only thing that mattered was that she was no longer bound and gagged. Thoughts of escape were the farthest thing from her mind. All she wanted at that moment was for the pain to stop and a drink of water.

After a minute or so, a hand reached around the back of her neck and lifted. Before she knew what was happening, the stranger put a cup to her lips and began to pour water into her mouth. Although Jan wanted to drink the water, her first reaction was to cough and spit it back out. When she did so, the stranger paused for a second, allowing her to catch her breath again, before pouring more water. This time, she was able to swallow it. When the stranger went to pull the cup away again, she panicked, trying to reach up and grab the cup so she could keep drinking.

Her arms, however, would not respond. Instead, all she managed to do was shake and wiggle, causing the stranger to spill water down her face and neck.

“Whoa, lady, take it easy. Relax. There’s more.”

The voice was that of an American. The Army! Delta Force! They were here to save her! Jan opened her eyes. Still blinded by the bright light .coming through the doorway, she couldn’t see the face or clothes.

What she could see was the outline of the man’s head. His hair, she realized, was too long for an American soldier. No, she hadn’t been saved. It wasn’t Scott and the 7th Cavalry. But he had water. And for now, that was all that mattered.

After waiting a minute, the stranger pulled Jan up into a sitting position and offered her the cup of water. Finally able to control her wobbly arms, she took it and gulped it down. Only after she had finished it and sat there in silence, savoring her freedom and the taste of the water, did she begin to look around and wonder who her savior was, and, more importantly, what was going to happen next.

Anticipating her questions, Childress decided to tell her what he thought was safe before she began with a thousand questions. “There’s not much I can tell you. In fact, the less you know, the better off you are. First, your friends are, for the moment, all right. Someone is taking care of them as we speak. Second, I can’t tell you who we are, where we are, or what we are doing. Like I said, it’s to your advantage that you don’t know. Finally, I have no idea what’s going to happen to you. Until my boss hears from his boss, I can’t tell you what is going to happen.”

The woman on the floor played with the cup she held in both hands for a moment before looking at him. “You mean, you don’t know how you’re going to murder us.”

Had the woman slapped him in the face, Childress could not have been more hurt. She was right. He knew that, in the end, Delapos would have no choice but to murder her, the congressman, and the camera crew.

There was simply no way that they could be allowed to live after having seen Lefleur and his people. Such loose ends could not be permitted.

Besides, logic told Childress that the abduction of a congressman, followed by his brutal murder, fit perfectly into Alaman’s strategy to enrage the American military and public. The rape and mutilation of a TV

reporter, especially one who had so recently come out in support of the Mexicans as Jan Fields had, was a bonus that simply could not be passed up. He knew that she was right.

Childress sat there and looked at the woman, her words and his thoughts tearing at the lining of his stomach like a wild cat in a sack. What a loathsome creature he had become. A snake that slithered about on its belly could take greater pride in what it did than Childress could. The snake, after all, killed its victims quickly and only to feed itself or in self-defense. Lefleur, Delapos, and the others, including him, killed for money and to prove that they were real men.

It wasn’t that Childress was having an attack of conscience. He had been a mercenary too long for that. In fact, in many respects, he was like Lefleur, eager to prove to himself and to his peers that he was a skilled practitioner of the fine arts of war. Unlike Lefleur, however, Childress preferred to work at long range, claiming that it took greater skill to take down a man a mile away with a single bullet. While that was true, and many of his peers agreed with him, Childress knew the real reason for his preference. At a range of sixteen hundred meters, it was impossible to see your victim’s eyes. Even with a high-powered scope, the entire process was remote, impersonal, unreal. You couldn’t hear the scream. It was not necessary to watch the shocked expression as the victim’s life drained away. Even the smell of fear, mixed with the sweet scent of warm blood, was missing. It was, Childress thought, more like shooting targets.

This was different. Looking down into Jan’s eyes, he could see the fear and hatred she held for him. When it came time, and he knew that that time would come, there would be no skill involved in killing this woman.

It would be murder, simple and outright murder.

Unable to look at Jan any longer, knowing that he was as responsible for her death as the man who would eventually pull the trigger, Childress stood up and turned away from her. It was incredible, he thought, how far from God and his beloved Vermont he had come. No matter how much he was paid, no matter how anyone dressed it up, what was about to happen would leave Childress no pride, no satisfaction, and worse, no peace.

Without saying a word, Childress dropped the canteen of water he held onto the floor, walked out of the shed, and nodded to the man posted outside to lock it.

Arlington, Virginia

1615 hours, 16 September

Although Megan Lewis knew that her efforts would be futile, she asked the caller if he would hold for a moment while she checked to see if her mother was available. Carefully laying the phone’s receiver on the countertop, Megan left the kitchen, tiptoeing as she approached the door of the den that her father had used as an office. Pausing before she knocked, Megan listened at the door for her mother. When she heard nothing, Megan gently tapped on the door. “Mother, it’s the White House again.

The president’s secretary says that the president would like to talk to you.

He wants to offer you his condolences.”

Megan’s efforts were greeted with silence. “Mother, please say something.

This is the third time he’s called. It won’t hurt to at least listen to what he has to say.” Her pleading, however, elicited no response. After waiting a few more seconds, Megan sighed. “I’ll tell them that you’re not available, to call back tomorrow. Will that be okay, Mom?”

When even that failed to elicit a response, Megan turned and slowly walked back to the kitchen. Her mother, she knew, could be just as impossible as her father when she wanted to be.

Inside the den, Amanda Lewis sat in the chair she always sat in across from Ed’s desk. She knew that her daughter, despite three years of college and grades that assured her acceptance to any medical school in the country, wouldn’t understand. How could she. She was young and just beginning to learn about the real world. Megan had yet to love as she had. Megan had yet to discover that pompous titles and age did little to make some men any wiser or more compassionate. Even Ed, for all his strength, was just a human trying to make sense out of a world that, on occasion, found it necessary to turn and devour its own children in a fit of mindless passion.

When the flashing red light on Ed’s phone went out, telling Amanda that her daughter had hung up, Amanda continued to stare at the phone.

Had it been like that, she thought, for Ed? One minute, there was the flickering of life, a steady glow of life, and the next, nothing? And was that all that Ed’s life had been, a brief and insignificant flickering of light?

Looking about at the stacks of papers and files and books, Amanda wondered if all his efforts, all his dreams, all his hopes that lay hidden in the stacks of files and papers would, like the flashing light, disappear in an instant.

No, she thought. No, Ed deserved better than that. There was a real purpose behind what Ed had devoted his life to. What he had been doing was no illusion, no dream. His efforts to bring peace and sanity may have cost him his life, but that didn’t mean that they, like him, should die.

Although she didn’t quite know what she could do, Amanda decided that the dreams and goals, no matter how unrealistic they appeared at times, would not die. As he had said so many times before, a person must do more than protest an injustice, he must do something to make it right.

Amanda’s refusal to allow the president to ease his conscience by consoling her was a protest, but one that would have no meaning if she didn’t follow it up with action.

Moving around Ed’s desk, Amanda sat in his seat, absentmiridedly opening the first file, that her hand fell upon. Reading the handwritten notes, Amanda began to look for a way to keep her husband’s dreams alive and keep other wives and mothers from going through what she was experiencing. Perhaps she could make someone pay attention to what Ed had been trying to say. Perhaps she could make a difference. She didn’t know if she could, but she could try, if for no other reason than to give the loss of her husband some meaning, some value.

Santa Genoveva, Mexico

1845 hours, 16 September

With two men set at the roadblock, Fernando Naranjo returned to the side of the road where the other two men in his small detachment worked at starting a fire for the coffee that they hoped would keep them alert throughout the coming night. Not that anyone expected all five men to stay awake all night. After all, they were farmers and ranchers. While the duty they performed for the defense of Mexico was important, the necessity of making a living and providing for their families was critical.

Like thousands of other militiamen and members of the Rural Defense Force, Naranjo and his four men were only part-time soldiers, doing what they could when they could. That night, their task and instructions were simple: set up a roadblock just behind Mexican lines and prevent anyone, other than Mexican Army soldiers, from passing through.

Though Naranjo would have preferred to be doing something a little more active, he knew he didn’t belong out there, behind American lines, with his son and oldest grandson. He was too old, too slow. Though he could have insisted on going, doing so would have been foolish vanity.

Besides, someone needed to remain behind to take care of the ranch and the women. His two youngest grandsons could not have done it on their own. So he stayed, doing what he could with the Rural Defense Force when his aging body and work at the ranch allowed him.

With great care, and using his 1898 Mauser rifle to steady himself, Naranjo began to lower himself down onto a blanket across from the two men preparing the coffee when he heard the sound of a vehicle coming up the road. Pausing, Naranjo leaned on the rifle and looked down the road in the direction of the sound, then over to the roadblock. His two men on the road, also aware of the sound, were turned facing down the road, their rifles at the ready. Deciding that perhaps he should wait before relaxing, Naranjo told the two men with him to wait on the coffee. Though he didn’t expect any trouble, he wanted them to stay where they were and be ready to help the men at the roadblock if necessary.

With a push, Naranjo stood upright and headed down to the roadblock just as the lone vehicle came around a bend in the road and into sight.

Asleep, Lefleur didn’t see the roadblock until his driver slowed, then stopped just short of it. Stirring himself, Lefleur, noting that they were not at the base camp, asked why they had stopped. The Canadian mercenary, riding in the backseat, laughed. “It is nothing. Just some old men manning a roadblock.”

Sitting up, Lefleur studied the barrier to his front and the two men, rifles at the ready, standing behind it. When he saw that they were armed with 1898 Mauser bolt-action rifles, he joined the Canadian as they both tried to make a joke of the whole affair. “Which do you suppose,” he quipped, “are older? The rifles or the men?”

When the old man who appeared to be in charge began to approach the vehicle, followed by the two men who had come out from behind the barrier, the Canadian chuckled. “The men. Definitely the men. How much will you bet they are out of breath before they reach here?”

As he approached, Naranjo. saw that the gringos were laughing. This angered him, for he took his duty seriously. Becoming incensed, he decided to make the strangers pay for their laughter. Pointing his rifle at Lefleur, he demanded that everyone in the vehicle show proper identification.

The

sudden belligerence of the old man and the muzzle of the rifle waving two feet in front of his face wiped the smile off of Lefleur’s face. The old fool, he thought, was dangerous. Raising his right hand, palm out, Lefleur gestured to the old man, while he dug in his pocket with his left hand for his false French ID and passport. Deciding that there was no need to antagonize the old simpleton, Lefleur turned over his papers.

The ID, of course, meant nothing to Naranjo, who could not read French. Determined to show that he had authority, and to teach the arrogant foreigners a lesson, Naranjo informed Lefleur that he would need to come back to the village and have the army officer in charge of his militia company check out his papers.