Trial by Fire

11

With a few sharp turns of the steering wheel and a casualness that frightened some, Jimmy Sullivan backed his eighteen-wheeler up to the loading dock. Sullivan loved driving the big rigs, and looked forward to the day when he would be able to own a rig himself. Glancing from the left side mirror to the right side mirror, Sullivan eased the truck back until he felt a slight thump, telling him the rear of the truck had made contact with the thick rubber bumper on the loading dock.

Shutting down his rig, Sullivan shoved his portable cassette player into his gym bag, grabbed his clipboard with the manifest on it, and began to climb down. As he did so, his supervisor, Tom Henry, yelled to him from the dock. "Hey, Jimmy, your old lady wants you to call her right away."

On the ground, Sullivan yelled back. "Did she say what she wanted?"

Without looking up from the clipboard, Henry yelled back, "Yeah, she said some guy at the armory has been tryin' to get you all day."

Slamming the cab door, Sullivan threw the clipboard down on the ground. "Ah shiiit. Not again."

Looking up, Henry watched Sullivan standing next to the truck, with his hands on his hips and his head hanging down, cursing and kicking imaginary rocks with the tip of his cowboy boots. "Hey, Jimmy."

"What!"

Henry smiled. "Your wife's pissed too."

"Thanks, boss, I needed that. I really fuckin' needed that." Sullivan picked up his clipboard, straightened out the papers on it, and headed for the phone in the locker room. He knew what the call from the armory was about. Ever since the raids along the Mexican border had begun, rumors concerning the use of the National Guard to seal the border between Mexico and Texas had been running wild. Some of the old-timers in the unit Sullivan belonged to said it was just a matter of time. The new men, denned as people who had joined after the war in the Persian Gulf, were excited. Sullivan, who had been mobilized for that war, did not share their enthusiasm.

The Guard, for Sullivan, had started as a fun thing to do. He had enjoyed his three years in the Army and saw the Guard as a means of making extra income while having the opportunity to enjoy the friendships and excitement he had experienced while on active duty, without having to put up with the chickenshit that the regular Army seemed to thrive on. Soon, the Guard took on a greater importance to Sullivan. With a wife, a son, and another child on the way, his regular income was quickly eaten up by the day-to-day cost of living. His dream of buying his own truck was quickly dying. Only by staying with the Guard, and saving every penny he made during weekend drills, could he keep that dream alive. Combined with a Veterans Administration small business loan, which he would soon qualify for, Jimmy figured he could make it.

Sullivan's plans, however, were not without their problems. His wife, a good woman by any measure, had no problems with his driving all over the Southwest for the trucking company. That, after all, was what put food on the table. Even the thirty-nine days a year he spent with the Guard were tolerable, since that would make their dream of owning their own truck a reality. For years she had accepted Sullivan's time with the Guard as a necessary evil. That attitude, however, had changed when Sullivan was mobilized and shipped to the Persian Gulf just before Christmas 1990.

With less than two days' notice, Sullivan had left his pregnant wife in Abilene as he went to war. Suddenly, because of the actions of a single man, their entire future had been threatened. It was more than putting their dreams on hold. They had done that before. When Sullivan had broken his leg and couldn't drive for two months, everything they had planned had had to be postponed. The war in the gulf, however, was different. The broken leg could be dealt with. The doctor could tell them when the cast could come off. He could prescribe what therapy was needed for full recovery and how long that recovery would take. And Sullivan and his wife could plan accordingly. The war, however, had been like a huge gaping abyss, undefined, seemingly endless, and very, very black. Sullivan's call to the colors to serve in the gulf did more than put their future on hold. It had challenged the very roots of their relationship and tested his wife's character as nothing had ever done before. The war had found both their relationship and her character lacking. As a result, their marriage had never been the same since. Sullivan's only hope, his only logical plan, to salvage his marriage and start all over again, was to buy a truck and become his own boss. Like a drowning man grabbing for something, he saw that dream as the stick that would save him. And that stick, until he got his loan, was owned by the National Guard.

Once in the locker room, Sullivan grabbed the phone, then paused, trying to decide who to call first. While there were pros and cons for calling his wife first, he decided that it would be wiser to call the armory first.

Perhaps the unit wasn't being mobilized. Perhaps there was a change on the upcoming weekend drill or an admin problem with his pay voucher.

Maybe this whole problem wasn't a problem at all. At least by calling the armory, he would be able to find out exactly what he had to deal with.

Mike Lodden, the unit's full-time training NCO, answered. "Sullivan, where you been, boy? We've been tryin' to get hold of you since eight o'clock this mornin'."

Sullivan wasn't in the mood for idle chatter or beating around the bush.

"I've been out earnin' an honest living. Now what's all so hellfire important that you need me for?"

Lodden skipped the pleasantries and got down to business. "The governor's callin' out the Guard. Border patrol was hit last night and hit hard.

This mornin' at six o'clock the head of the region covering Brownsville to El Paso informed his boss in Washington that the situation was out of hand and his boys were refusing to go out on patrol. Till we get there, the border's wide open. Even the customs boys are pullin' back."

Sullivan let out a moan even Lodden could hear. "What about the Army? Why in the hell aren't they goin' down there?"

"Jimmy, don't you lis'n to the radio?"

"No, Mike, I don't. I'm ignorant, okay? Now tell me, if it ain't too much trouble, what in the hell are the regular pucks doin'?"

"Well, accordin' to the news and what the colonel told us, the president and the National Security Council is meetin' this morning to discuss the matter and review their options. In the meantime, accordin' to the news, the president doesn't want to do anything that would upset the Mexicans or might provoke 'em."

"Provoke 'em! Provoke 'em!" Sullivan's screams caused Lodden to pull the phone away from his ear. "What in the hell does that fool think the goddamned Mexicans have been doin' down here? Is he for real?"

Though Lodden wanted to end the conversation, he couldn't help but throw his two cents in. "Well, that's what we get for electin' a bleedin'heart liberal from New England. Anyway, you need to get your butt down here yesterday. The battalion XO is leaving with the advance party tonight."

Sullivan paused. "You know, Mike, Martha's gonna be pissed."

Lodden chuckled. "I don't mean to make fun of ya, old boy, but she already is. Damned near blew my eardrum out when I called her for the second time."

For a second, Sullivan got excited. "Did you tell her already?"

"No, no, of course not. But be realistic, Jimmy. I didn't have to.

Women kinda know these things. It's like radar. They can pick up bad news a mile away.",

"Yeah, tell me about it. Okay, I'll be in as soon as I can. When we supposed to move out?"

"Don't know, Jimmy. But when you come in, don't plan on goin' home again. The adjutant general and the governor are in a low hover.

They say every state legislator and big-city mayor from the border area is on the phone every five minutes demandin' to know where the troops are.

Like I said, they wanted us yesterday."

With nothing more to say, Sullivan hung up the phone and prepared to call home, then paused. As distasteful as it was, he decided that this was the kind of news he had best tell his wife in person. Turning away from the phone, he shuffled down to John Henry's office to tell him he wouldn't be in for work for a while.

No one paid any attention to the tall blond gringo sitting in the back corner with two Mexicans. In this cantina, it was not healthy to stare at anyone for too long, let alone ask questions. No one seemed to notice that the gringo had entered through the back door and everyone pretended that the pistol sticking out of his boot didn't really exist, although the gringo had taken great pains to make sure everyone could see it.

Of the two men sitting across from Childress, only one was really a Mexican. The other was a former colonel in the Nicaraguan Army whose sole claim to Mexican citizenship was the forged Mexican passport and identification papers he carried. A lifelong Sandinista, the Nicaraguan had found that he not only had a knack for waging guerrilla war, he actually enjoyed it. Peace, and the shift toward democracy in his home country, had left him little opportunity to use his one God-given gift.

Originally sent to Mexico as part of a delegation to assist in the transfer of surface-to-air missiles and antitank guided missiles to the new Mexican government, the Nicaraguan had been recruited by Alaman through a third party to provide a similar service to Delapos's growing army. It was because of this man that Delapos felt some confidence in his group's ability to continue its campaign of terrorism against the Texas National Guard with Some hope of success. Deciding on the exact mechanics of dealing with that new threat, and what to do while the Guard was still in the process of deploying and the border was uncovered, was the purpose of this meeting.

The Nicaraguan colonel, though he spoke with great authority and confidence and took the lead in the discussions, was anxious. He wanted to become involved in anything that would embarrass the United States.

Only the presence of the tall blond American across from him kept the Nicaraguan from saying so. Childress, for his part, said little, though he sensed the Nicaraguan's contempt for him. Instead, Childress merely leaned back in his chair, his right hand listlessly dangling down and within easy reach of the pistol sticking out of his right boot. With his left hand, he slowly turned the bottle of beer on the table, looking at the Nicaraguan with cold, steady, unemotional eyes. Though he knew that what the Nicaraguan was saying made sense, Childress didn't know whether he agreed or not. Until he could sort out his own emotions, Childress hid them as best he could behind a mask of stone.

For his part, Delapos, the third man at the table, also had concerns and reservations about some of the Nicaraguan's suggestions. The idea of hitting purely civilian targets, though logical, bothered Delapos. He was a mercenary, yes, but not a murderer. Though many of his own men would argue that such a fine distinction was purely academic, Delapos had for years maintained standards of conduct that had allowed him to keep his sanity and justify his work. A self-imposed prohibition against killing innocent civilians had been one of those standards. Now, it seemed, he Would have to violate that prohibition, for logic told him that regardless of what he personally thought, such actions, in order to achieve what they desired, were necessary. After all, it was the attack on civilians by some of Pancho Villa's men in 1916 that had brought the American Army south of the border. When Delapos and Alaman had made their pact at the beginning of July, exactly that reaction was what they had hoped for. Now, when such a possibility was there for the taking, De lapos could not hesitate. He had, after all, pledged his personal loyalty to Alaman and his quest. To back off now would be both dishonorable and, for him as a professional mercenary, disreputable. Besides, the project would go on with or without him. Others, men with no moral scruples, would gladly take up where Delapos left off.

Without looking up from the beer bottle that he continued to turn slowly, Childress summarized the major points of their discussions. "As I see it, the colonel has some very valid points. Even with the improved weaponry that he will be providing, and the inside information Alaman is able to provide concerning American operations, the National Guard will be able to achieve superiority over our people every now and then. The National Guard can afford to lose both men and materiel. We cannot." Childress paused, lifted his beer bottle, took a sip, then pointed it at Delapos to drive home his point. "You might be able to explain away the loss of a single team to bad luck. After all, accidents will happen and everyone understands that. But if we start taking casualties, you're going to have some real problems. We are, after all, businessmen, not patriots. There is no profit in becoming a dead hero."

Delapos, looking down at the drink he was holding with both hands, shrugged. "I cannot argue with such logic. We must stay one step ahead of the Americans. We must maintain an edge." Delapos looked up at Childress, then the Nicaraguan. "Like you, my friends, I see that we have no choice." Lifting his drink, Delapos proposed a toast to seal their agreement. "It is time to end this discussion. There is much to do, and the sooner we start, the better."

Both the Nicaraguan and Childress brought their own drinks up, tapped Delapos's drink, and took a long sip. As they sipped, each man watched the other out of the corner of his eye, for each man knew that they were, at best, reluctant partners, temporarily joined by necessity. All three understood that each of the others, and Alami, had his own agenda, one that was self-serving and had limits. In a pinch, each man would betray the next. They were, after all, businessmen.

The hostility that permeated the conference room poisoned every conversation, every comment. Even when no one was speaking, Dixon felt as if his body were being shredded by a deluge of invisible daggers from the governor and his staff seated across from them. It was for him, and all of the Army briefers from Fort Hood, a most difficult experience.

Combat, Dixon thought, was preferable to the verbal and mental abuse they were being subjected to. In combat, at least you could do something.

Here, in the presence of the governor of Texas, his adjutant general, and all their staffs, the only thing the Fort Hood people could do was preach the party line, take their lumps, and keep smiling.

The briefings being presented addressed how the regular Army planned to deal with the problems on the Mexican border. They were to have taken place at Fort Hood in another five days as part of a conference, a real dog-and-pony show meant to reassure the governors of the Southwestern states that the federal government was not ignoring them and had a plan to deal with the Mexican problem. Unilateral withdrawal of the U.S. Border Patrol and the deployment of the Texas National Guard to seal the border, however, had shot that plan all to hell. Instead of controlling the situation and providing a solution that would allow some flexibility for diplomacy, the federal government now found itself reacting to the initiatives of the governor of Texas. Part of that reaction was sending the corps commander and selected officers from his corps, to brief the governor of Texas on the Army's contingency plans for dealing with Mexico. Big Al, along with Dixon and the division intelligence officer, were among them.

The move by Governor Wise was a gamble. In a televised speech, Wise had stated, "Action, only action could protect the citizens of Texas and their property. Direct and unhesitating action, therefore, would be the order of the day in Texas. I am therefore ordering the Texas National Guard to do what the federal government seems incapable of doing, consequences be damned."

While his speech was stirring and his motives understandable, the Texas National Guard, despite its size, simply wasn't up to the task of sealing the border with Mexico. At best, the Guard would be able to establish outposts at critical crossing points along the border and patrol the rest. Even that would be difficult, for the bulk of the state's units were not structured for such operations. The largest unit, the 36th Mechanized Infantry Division, was designed to fight a high-tech foe on a modern battlefield using tanks, heavy artillery, and attack helicopters in swift, sweeping maneuvers. Its force structure, equipment, and training were ill-suited for the task of patrolling and securing the border. And even if the 36th Division, along with other Guard units, could do so, the cost of operating the equipment and paying its troops would soon bankrupt the state. Personnel and operating costs alone would cost the state of Texas several million dollars a day. Without federal manpower and funds, Texas alone could not accomplish what the governor publicly had set out to do.

That was where Governor Wise's gamble came in. Politically, he could ill afford inaction. Although he knew the state could not afford full-scale deployment of the National Guard without federal aid, he also knew that the president, and most of the Congress, could not, politically, afford to do nothing while Americans were being killed and the nation's southern border violated with impunity. What he needed to do was precipitate action. With Texas committed, he hoped to force the president to make a decision, one way or the other. Sending the National Guard to the border was a challenge that the president could not ignore.

Nor was it a challenge that the Mexican government could afford to ignore. Within an hour of the announcement of the deployment of the National Guard along the Texas border, the Mexican representative to the United Nations, supported by every Central American government and most South American governments, called for an emergency session of the UN. Within two hours a representative of the Mexican government was at the State Department demanding an explanation as to why the United States was militarizing the border between their nations. When the secretary of state commented that the action had been a unilateral one on the part of the governor of Texas, and that the president of the United States had not sanctioned such a move, the Mexican ambassador threw back a comment, word for word, that the secretary of state had used on the Mexican ambassador several times in recent weeks. "If, sir, your government is unable to control what is happening along its own borders, then my government will have no choice but to take action to control matters on our side of the border." In addition to the diplomatic moves, the CIA reported that the Mexican Army was finally beginning to stir itself.

For his part, the president had wanted to wait, allowing the Mexican government a period to establish itself and stabilize its own border. Like many in Washington, he and his closest advisors were puzzled by the raids. Privately, he favored the theory that forces opposed to the new regime were attempting to precipitate a crisis between the United States and Mexico. While that was a popular concept, called the Pancho Villa theory, the fact that the Mexican government could not control its borders and prevent such raids from taking place could not be ignored. More and more, the president was bombarded by calls to do what the new Mexican government could not do: to take action to secure the border. With the national presidential convention of his party less than a week away and that of the other party opening the next day, decisions had to be made.

Governor Wise's move, therefore, could not have come at a worse time, or in a worse form. In one fell swoop, the governor of Texas, and the reaction by Mexico, had all but eliminated diplomacy as an option. It was, as one presidential advisor mused, a shotgun wedding, with Governor Wise's finger on the trigger.

The commander of the Tenth Corps nodded to Big Al Malin. He, in turn, leaned over and whispered to Dixon the old gladiator's refrain, "We who are about to die salute you."

Dixon turned and looked Big Al in the eye. "Right behind you, boss."

While Big Al and Dixon stood and moved to the front of the room, the corps commander explained that the 16th Armored Division, with three active brigades and no units out of place due to training exercises, and because of its proximity to the border, was the best-prepared division to move to the border and would probably be the first to do so. The governor of Texas cut the corps commander off, dryly reminding him that the 36th, the division that had spearheaded the first bloody attempt to cross the Rapido River in Italy during World War II, was already headed there and that the 16th would be the second.

What the corps commander did not tell Governor Wise was that the 16th was the only division that had taken this particular contingency seriously and therefore was the only division with complete and updated plans for such an operation. Besides, Big Al and Scott Dixon made an unbeatable pair when it came to conducting a briefing. If they couldn't satisfy the Texans, no one could.

While Dixon managed a blizzard of slides, charts, and maps with overlays, Big Al did his thing. He started by stating that the United States Army, once deployed, had to consider the entire border with Mexico, not just the portion adjoining Texas. That, he explained, represented a grand total of 1,933 miles, or 3,111 kilometers, which included mountains, desert, and urban terrain. With that as a given, Dixon showed a slide that listed the amount of front a typical platoon, company, and battalion could defend, or cover, according to current doctrine, and handed out paper copies of the same slide to the governor and his adjutant general.

Taking great care, Big Al explained the problems that the Army would face if it were sent to the border. "As you can see, Governor, a mechanized infantry battalion, ordered to defend a piece of terrain, can effectively hold ten kilometers of front. To spread that battalion out further would mean leaving holes, or gaps, in the line. Even with this density, however, you are looking at one combat soldier every thirty-three meters.

Were we faced by a mechanized foe, armed with tanks, armored personnel carriers, and such, that density, with the weapons available to the soldiers of a mechanized infantry battalion, would be able to stop the foe.

Unfortunately, we are facing a light infantry threat, a guerrilla force not unlike the Viet Cong. Even with extensive barriers such as barbed wire, land mines, antivehicle ditches, active and passive sensors, and aggressive patrolling, the best infantry unit cannot prevent a determined foe from infiltrating through our defenses. We ourselves train to do just that, and the enemy, whoever he is, has demonstrated that he is both a skilled and clever opponent. Complicating this is the fact that in a typical mechanized infantry division, such as your 36th, only six battalions are infantry.

The other four are tank battalions. In my division, I have the opposite mix, six battalions of tanks and four of infantry. While tank battalions are the cornerstone of offensive operations, they do poorly, almost without exception, in a static defense. The opponent we face would have little difficulty finding weak points and infiltrating at will."

Shifting in his seat, Governor Wise grumbled. "Opponent, my ass, they're goddamned murderers. And it's my people they're murdering."

Big Al paused, allowing the governor to vent his spleen before carrying on. When Governor Wise had settled back into his seat and appeared ready to listen again, Big Al continued. "The orders we received from the Tenth Corps state that my division is to be prepared to seal the border between the United States and Mexico from Laredo to Rio Grande City.

We assumed that 'sealing' means preventing the movement of any hostile force north of the border."

Governor Wise again cut in. "Brilliant damned assumption, General.

Did you come up with this on your own, or did you need some help from Washington?"

Ignoring the governor's attempt to provoke him, Big Al carried on as if-the governor hadn't said a word. "Given that interpretation, we could not accomplish our mission given the forces at my disposal and the length of the border assigned."

The last comment, delivered in such a cool and unemotional manner, almost went over Governor Wise's head. It took him a moment to understand what Big Al had just said. When he did, Governor Wise shook his head and blurted out, "You mean to say that you cannot do what your own commander told you to do? And that the United States Army cannot defend its own borders?"

In the same controlled and unemotional manner, Big Al responded without hesitation. "Yes, sir, that is correct. Let me explain. In order to seal the border, we would be obliged to deploy in the manner shown on this slide, using the deployments and densities we have just gone over.

Now, not every battalion can be on the front. We also assume that this will be a long-term mission, requiring the Army to be deployed for months, perhaps years. You cannot keep a unit on the front line forever.

Therefore, some system of rotating units from the front to the rear would be necessary. One way of doing this would be to have each brigade, with an average of three battalions, hold one battalion in reserve. This reserve battalion, freed from frontline duty and the associated stress of that duty, would be able to rest, train, receive replacements for soldiers whose enlistments have expired, send some of its personnel on leave, and be ready to respond to any penetration of the frontline battalions. This reserve battalion would give us tactical depth, a deeper sector that any enemy force would be required to traverse if it penetrated the front line, and a force available to deal with such penetrations. Assuming each brigade was organized with three battalions, the division, in turn, would retain one battalion, the tenth battalion, as a division reserve for much the same purpose. Using that system, a division would have six battalions forward deployed, allowing each division to cover sixty kilometers of front."

Understanding where Big Al was going, Governor Wise cut in again.

In a briefing presented by his own military people a week earlier, he had been told much the same thing. "Okay, so what you're trying to say is that the United States Army cannot accomplish its most fundamental mission, securing its own borders."

Drawing in a deep breath, Big Al looked at the corps commander, then back at Governor Wise. "In a nutshell, yes. We simply do not have enough troops and units, even with the National Guard and Army reserve federalized, to totally close down the border between the United States and Mexico." Anticipating what was coming, Dixon threw up a slide that showed the total number of divisions and personnel the Army would require to secure the border. "As you can see on this slide, to establish a defensive system like the one I just briefed, which I repeat is by no means solid, would require fifty-two divisions, or an army of approximately two point six million soldiers. That figure is roughly five times the current standing Army authorized today. And that figure does not leave any units left to deal with other national and international contingencies.

Two divisions in Europe, one in Korea, one in the Middle East, and a rapid-deployment force of three divisions would bump the number of divisions up to fifty-nine and the total strength of the Army to just under three million."

Before the shock of those figures wore off, Dixon threw up another slide labeled "Barrier Material." Big Al looked at the new slide, then at Governor Wise. "Now, we all know that we cannot simply put troops out into defensive positions without some sort of barrier to protect their positions and cover the gaps between those positions. Normally, a barrier combining triple strand concertina wire — that is, barbed wire — and antipersonnel mines is used when the threat is primarily dismounted personnel. This slide shows the amount of material needed to construct a simple, continuous barrier, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific."

"Please bear in mind, Governor, that these figures are approximations only and probably on the low side. Various areas, such as the mountainous area around Big Bend National Park, would require more material and time than a flat open stretch of border." The mention of Big Bend National Park caused the governor to wince, as Big Al had expected.

After all, the vision of laying mines and stringing barbed wire through a national park was, to most Americans, a very disturbing thought. If anyone had missed the significance of Big Al's definition of "sealing the border" before, the last series of slides left no doubt as to the magnitude of what that task would entail and, as a follow-on, what it would cost, both financially and, more important to some, politically.

Pausing to allow these figures to sink in, Big Al waited until Governor Wise was ready. "Both you and I know, General, that the American people, and Congress, are not going to give you an army of three million men. On the other hand, the same American people and Congress will not, cannot, tolerate a do-nothing attitude. Surely you must realize that?"

Folding his arms in front of his chest, and looking down at the floor, Big Al nodded in agreement. "Yes, sir, you're right. The Army will be required to do something if our diplomats and the Mexicans don't solve the problem." Big Al then looked up and stared into Governor Wise's eyes. "We know that and we understand political reality. But you, sir, and the people in Washington, must understand military reality. If we are not given an army of sufficient size to defend the United States along its established borders, then we must either move those borders south, establishing a very wide security zone that can be patrolled with the small mobile forces we have, or we must remove the current government of Mexico and replace it with one that can control its own borders. Any way you look at it, the only practical military solutions available to us all start with an invasion of Mexico."

For the first time during the-briefing, Governor Wise remained silent as Big Al let the meaning of his last statement seep in and take root. During this lull, the corps commander caught Big Al's eye. With a faint smile and a slight nod of his head, he congratulated Big Al for wrestling the initiative away from Governor Wise and putting him into a receptive mood. The corps commander knew that the rest of the briefing could now proceed without trouble.

From the doorway of the commander's office, Colonel Guajardo watched soldiers of the local garrison company issue members of the Rural Defense Corps new weapons. In the upcoming confrontation, the Rural Defense Corps, a force of over 120,000 men, would play an important role in the defense of Mexico. These men, peasants from the surrounding countryside, would form the core of a stay-behind force that would provide information on the activities of the invading force and harass the rear areas of that force. It would be a difficult task and, no doubt, a costly one.

After all, these men, who ranged in age from eighteen to fifty, were farmers and part-time volunteers, not trained soldiers.

Organized into eleven-man units called pelotones, they were used under normal circumstances by the governing body of the ejido, or local land-holding commune, to protect the peasants. With training that was limited, equipment which was almost nonexistent, and leadership that understood only the most rudimentary tactics, there was little that would make them an effective guerrilla force. In open combat, against a modern, well-trained, high-tech army, they would be brushed aside like so many flies. Even with their newly issued German-made H-53 rifles and Mexican-produced RM-2 machine guns, man for man, they could not hope to stand up to American mechanized infantry. Guajardo, however, had no intention of pitting them against American infantry.

There was little that Guajardo could give these men, other than the new rifles and one machine gun with 2,000 rounds per peloton, to improve their odds. But that was enough. What they lacked in weapons and skills, they more than made up for in spirit and will. Even without the new weapons, the men of the Rural Defense Corps would have fought. They, and not the politicians in Mexico City, were the true grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Juarez and the Revolution. From early childhood, they had been raised to revere the deeds and struggles of their forefathers, to have faith in the Virgin of Guadalupe, and to jealously protect their land and rights from all quarters. Almost all had, at one time or another, been shown a picture of a relative who had fought in the Revolution. The image of that relative, standing tall in a wide sombrero, bandoliers crisscrossed over a proud chest thrown out, and holding a rifle at the ready, was burned into their memories. Some even had the ancient Mauser rifles that their grandfathers had carried when the picture was taken. Properly used, these men could tie down enemy forces many times their size. And with the prospect of an American invasion becoming more and more likely, the question of how and when to use them, and every other military and paramilitary unit in Mexico, was a question that Guajardo had to answer.

The deployment of the Texas National Guard to the border had come as no surprise. Every member of the Council of 13 knew that the United States would, eventually, do something. The only surprise was that the move had been a unilateral one made by the governor of Texas.

There was no question among the members of the council that some type of reaction to the provocative American move was required. The only questions were what kind and how much were necessary at this time.

The session of August 12, convened late in the afternoon to discuss the issue, had degenerated into a long, heated debate that created the first rift in the council since the June 29 coup.

Colonel Barreda, minister for foreign affairs, had opened the session with a review of the responses he had received through diplomatic channels at the UN and in Washington, D.C. That the movement of American troops would act as an impediment to his ability to deal with the American government could not be denied. "How can they expect us," he said, "to take them seriously when they offer one hand in friendship and talk of peace while they hold a gun in the other hand behind their backs?"

Barreda ended his review with an impassioned speech that was also supposed to be a warning. "Once a sword is drawn," he said, "for whatever reason, it is hard to return it to its sheath without showing some kind of victory. And that victory can only come at our expense." Walk ing about the table, his arms waving, and caught up in the passion of the moment, Barreda continued. "The governor of Texas, no doubt with the sanction of their president and in an effort to test our resolve, has declared, in his own words, a 'holy war' against us, referring to us as evil and murderers." Barreda ended by warning that if they did nothing, if they allowed the United States to dictate policy to them, they, the Council of 13, would lose face and fall. Caught up in the heat of the moment, however, Barreda forgot about his call for moderation and, instead of warning against precipitous actions, swung toward a call to arms. "As our forefathers did in 1846, so must we send our Army to the Rio Grande.

To do less would be criminal and cowardly. And so, as Major General Mariano Arista did in 1846, Colonel Guajardo must be ordered north to the Rio Grande with the Mexican Army to face an American Army sent by their government to threaten us."

Barreda's rhetoric began to sway some of the moderates on the council.

As Guajardo watched the foreign minister deliver his inflammatory oration, more and more members of the council began to nod their heads in agreement. To counter this groundswell of support for military action, Guajardo believed that he had to be the cold, practical realist. He therefore commenced his review of Mexico's military situation by reminding them what had happened when General Arista went north to respond to President Polk's stationing of Zachary Taylor's army in Texas. Arista, with a larger force, had been defeated by Taylor at the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma, leaving his army routed and Mexico open to invasion. Guajardo's task, as minister of defense, was to protect the council from all major threats, both internal, which he emphasized as he looked at Barreda, and international.

The move by the governor of Texas, Guajardo warned, could be a small-scale test to see how they, the Council of 13 and the people of Mexico, would react to an overt military threat. If that were true, then they, the Council of 13, had to do something soon, but something that matched the threat and did not result in an escalation of the crisis. Instead, Guajardo stated, "We must, in this case, play the innocent victim.

Our efforts to defend ourselves must be measured, but not provocative.

Otherwise, we stand to lose any sympathy that we might gain from other nations, not to mention providing the Americans with more justification for these moves and more dangerous ones in the future. No, we must stay the course and continue as planned."

Referred to as the Dark One, Guajardo relied on few for counsel and provided little indication of what he was thinking or planning as he carried out his duties. With the exception of Colonel Molina, few could penetrate the mask of stone that Guajardo wore to hide his thoughts, his feelings, and his fears. Often, his subordinates were told only what they needed to know in order to execute their next mission. In part, this was a holdover from the days before the twenty-ninth of June, when secrecy had been of the greatest importance. But that was not the whole reason.

Guajardo, despite the fact that he had been raised in a society where men used boasts and rhetoric to intimidate their adversaries and promote themselves, disliked boastful men. Instead, he prized men of action, men who did, rather than bragged, men who saw things that needed to be done and did them with little fuss and no need for praise or physical reward. Action and results were what mattered to Guajardo. Everything else was, to him, a waste of time.

The plan that he spoke of staying with was one designed to fill the gaps left by the purges of the federal police and intelligence agencies. The Rural Defense Corps was a critical part of that plan, a plan that had already been accelerated as a result of the mysterious raids just north of the Rio Grande. Though the plan did call for an increase in both readiness and training of regular Army units, it intentionally avoided any increased military presence along the United States-Mexican border. Guajardo ended by stating that any movement of the Army north would only increase the tension that already was building. "I realize that it may be true that the Americans have a gun behind their back. That, however, does not mean that we must put bullets into it for them."

Spurred on by Barreda's stirring speech, Colonel Zavala led the faction calling for full mobilization. Guajardo's actions to secure the northern borders and his call for moderation were, in Zavala's words, timid, insufficient, and dangerous. "To do as our brother suggests," Zavala stated, "is tantamount to leaving our northern border undefended. How can we expect to command the respect of our own people, let alone the Americans, if we do nothing in our own defense? This is no time for half measures." Zavala's conclusion of his appeal to his brothers on the council was an emotional one, one that was meant to embarrass Guajardo as much as to rally support for Zavala's position. "Our honor as Mexicans and the Revolution demand that every inch of Mexican soil be defended. It is the only manly thing we can do at times like this."

Throughout the night, Guajardo continued to appeal to reason and sanity. "We can no more stop the Americans from coming, if they choose, than they can occupy all of Mexico. Sending the entire Army to the border to defend our masculinity is absurd and wasteful. No, we must restrain ourselves from overreacting. We must move slowly and cautiously, or we stand to lose everything that we have gained since the twenty-ninth." Although Molina favored Guajardo's position, as the president of the council, he kept out of the debate, allowing Guajardo to present his position. If the matter came to a tie vote, Molina would throw his behind Guajardo.

That, however, was not necessary. When the final vote was taken just before midnight on the 12th, seven members of the council voted to declare full mobilization and meet the challenge from the north as best they could. So, when President Molina announced from Mexico City that morning that it was with a heavy heart that he was ordering the full mobilization of the Army and militia in preparation to go north to the border, he meant it.

The rearming of the Rural Defense Corps, planned before the current crisis, fell into place with the defensive plan that Guajardo was now developing as a result of the council's call for full mobilization. Even before the current crisis, Guajardo had felt that there was a need for the rearming, and so he had issued the appropriate orders. At that time, he himself could not have explained to his own satisfaction why he felt that doing so was necessary. Events had proved him right, though not for reasons he could have foreseen at the time.

The Rural Defense Corps, on horseback and foot, and supplemented by mechanized cavalry units of the Mexican Army, would patrol the border, providing both a visible presence and information. The last point, the gathering of information, was both critical and, for the Council of 13, a sore point. The Purification had, when it came to purging Mexico's intelligence apparatus and both the national and state police forces, gone too far too fast. While few members of the intelligence community and the police had been arrested, the number of those under suspension had been quite large, accounting for over one-third of all members of those agencies. In addition, many of those who were not affected by these actions deserted, either fleeing north to the United States or back to their home villages. This accounted for another third of the force. Within the ranks of those that remained, morale was almost nonexistent and reliability even lower. After all, as Colonel Zavala pointed out, to the intelligence community and police forces of Mexico, the interests of Mexico and of the PRI had been one and the same. "How can we trust men,"

Zavala had stated before June 29, "who owe everything they have to men whom we are about to kill?"

Perhaps he had been right, Guajardo mused as he watched apeloton of Rural Defense Corps reassemble after receiving their new weapons. The men, smiles on their faces, were busy chatting amongst themselves while they worked the actions on the rifles and machine gun and inspected the sights by aiming at distant objects around the courtyard. These men, who had also been part of the PRI's power structure, would now have to do the bulk of what trained and organized professionals had once done. And their task would be complicated by the need to look both ways, for it was Guajardo's intent to use this force to not only keep track of activities north of the border, but also on their own side. Perhaps, he thought, they, people from the local communities along the border, could discover who it was that was working so hard to start a war between Mexico and the United States. Any information, any clue, any tiny break could make a difference, a difference that could end the current crisis and buy the council the time to work the miracle so desperately needed to save Mexico.

But as far as Guajardo was concerned, time and hope were running out.

Each day brought the possibility of open conflict between the two nations closer. And as that gap closed, the possibility diminished that the United States would believe any evidence offered by the Council of 13 that it was not responsible for the border raids.