Justice by Fire

22

As local and federal officers photographed the dead Salvadorans, Agent Gallucci of the Federal Bureau of Investigation surveyed the scene.

Stinking soot and smoke still rose from the ruin of the motor home, the aluminum frame and shell melted and commingled with the ashes of the interior materials.

Scorched human bones lay in the gleaming pools of once-molten iridescent aluminum. Farther away from the smoking hulk, more Salvadorans lay where they had died. As if to declare their identities, the corpses clutched their passports and tourist visas. Their killers had searched their pockets for the identification, then left the official documents in their stiffening hands.

Though the papers stated the young men represented a group of visiting Mexican businessmen, their hard muscles, their military-short hairstyles identified the dead men as soldiers or paramilitary fighters.

Their wounds left no doubt as to the military weapons of their killers. Dismembered by grenades, their heads and torsos torn open by auto-fire, the 5.56mm and 40mm cartridge casings found on the hillside only confirmed what Gallucci immediately recognized.

But the hideous wounds to some of the Salvadorans confused him. How could the gunman who killed the men — obviously with a shotgun — have chambered and fired shells so fast and with such devastating accuracy?

A farmer on the far side of the hill had reported hearing a fury of gunshots and explosions. Before he could cross his equipment yard to his telephone, the shooting stopped. The slaughter of these Salvadorans had taken no more than a few minutes.

The number of wounds in the dead men indicated continuous firing from a semi-automatic short-barreled weapon. No weapon Gallucci knew of could put out the sustained volume of fire indicated by the twenty-one shotgun casings on the hillside — all of a common manufacturer. Only the scratches on the casings' brass bases indicating an unusual extractor mechanism would provide the laboratory with any detail for analysis.

"Mr. Gallucci! Over here." One of the San Jose county sheriffs called him over to a Silverado truck.

"Look at this…" The sheriff pointed to a pattern of holes in the passenger-side door.

Holes of .30 caliber and other holes not much larger than pinpoints created the outline of a man's legs. Chipped enamel indicated where other shot balls had lost velocity as they passed through the man's legs and only dented the truck's sheet steel. A trail of blood from the truck led to a corpse in the weeds.

Gallucci looked up at the hillside to confirm the angle of aim to the door panel. He examined the holes punched into the truck's steel.

The sheriff explained. "Only time I've seen buckshot penetrate a car is point-blank, straight on. But look. I estimate twenty-five yards from where the shotgunner fired. At a twenty-something degree angle. But his pellets — looks like a mixed load, buckshot and bird shot — they went straight through the sheet metal. Except for where that Mexican was standing. And the shot went through him and still dented the door."

"It'll give the lab something to think about," Gallucci told him.

"Me, too. Someone is running around who I don't want to meet."

Gallucci noticed marks in the dust of the road. As if continuing his search for more evidence, the FBI officer walked away from the county sheriff.

On the other side of the Silverado, handprints and the wider prints of knees indicated a man had crawled from under the truck to the other side of the road. Gallucci continued to the roadside. The handprints and scuffs showed where the escaping man had gained the concealment of weeds and trash. Footprints from the trash led toward the highway.

Gallucci glanced around at the other officers. They were combing the hillsides and killing ground. The Silverado blocked their view of him.

As if he only walked back and forth to examine the ground, Gallucci eradicated the marks of his Salvadoran brother-in-struggle who had escaped.

A sheriff called out, "Mr. Gallucci. We got a break!"

"What?" Gallucci walked to the sheriff's department patrol car.

"There's a gunshot case at the hospital."

"Let's go!" Gallucci ran for his bureau vehicle.