Trial by Fire

17

Working her way through or around barriers was as much a part of Jan Fields's job as shooting a story. A fighter by nature, who enjoyed the fight just as much as the fruits, Jan never took no as an absolute answer.

Rather, it was a signal that the approach she was using wasn't working, and that a different appeal to "be reasonable" or for cooperation was required. Military police were no different. If anything, they were easier to deal with. Well trained to perform specific combat-related tasks, the young soldiers who made up the military police corps often lacked the depth of experience veteran civilian police had when it came to dealing with civilian media. So Jan was able to use her entire repertoire of tricks and pleas to get what she wanted. The only time she ran into serious problems was when the senior MP on site was female.

This evening, this was not the case. The young staff sergeant whose squad was augmenting the sheriff's deputies and the Laredo City police at city hall was an easy mark. The conversation started with Jan insisting that she had an appointment with Lieutenant Colonel Dixon, the G3 of the 16th Armored Division. When the MP sergeant responded that he didn't know who Dixon was and doubted he was there, Jan happily pointed to Dixon's Humvee parked ten feet away from them. Embarrassed at being caught off guard and beginning to wonder if the female reporter badgering him did, in fact, have an appointment, the sergeant sent one of his people into the courthouse to check. Jan, with the confident smile of a cat who was about to pounce on the cornered mouse, waited with the MP sergeant.

Her smile disappeared, however, when the MP sent to summon Dixon returned. Reporting to his sergeant, he stated that Colonel Dixon not only had negative knowledge of an appointment with a female reporter, but couldn't even seem to place the name Jan Fields. Jan blew a gasket. Scott was playing with her and she was in no mood to be messed with. With her eyes reduced to angry, narrow slits, and her forehead furrowed with rage, Jan turned to the MP who was patiently waiting and pointed her index finger at him. "Look, soldier, you march right back where you came from and tell that pompous ass that if he doesn't haul his butt out here in two minutes, it will be a cold day in hell before he beds this broad again.

Got that?"

The MP, taken aback by Jan's response, looked at her with wide eyes for a few seconds, then turned to his sergeant for guidance. The sergeant, not sure what to make of the angry woman with the violent temper, was unsure what to do. If he sent his MP back to the G3 with the message Jan had just relayed, and the G3 really didn't know who this reporter was, he might find himself relieved or something even worse. On the other hand, if he didn't send the MP back with the new message, he would have to deal with the crazy woman standing less than two feet in front of him.

Between the look on her face and her proximity to him, Jan appeared to be the greater of the two threats at that particular moment. Deciding that the old saying that discretion was the better part of valor applied, the sergeant turned to his MP and told him to inform the G3 that the young female correspondent was quite insistent and was threatening him with grave domestic consequences if he did not respond to her request. The MP, trying hard to suppress a grin, shook his head, turned, and disappeared into the courthouse.

By the time Dixon came out onto the steps where Jan had been waiting, she had, for the most part, calmed down. Dixon's appearance, in desert camouflage uniform, along with his web gear arranged for field duty, holster and pistol, protective mask, and helmet, took her aback for a moment. They were serious, she thought. The appearance of Dixon in downtown Laredo, ready for battle, finally convinced her that the government of the United States was really serious about fighting. Without having to be told, and not needing to do any complicated analysis in which she weighed all available evidence, Jan knew that there would be war. In her heart, she knew it.

Still, she had a little fire left from the joke Dixon had played at her expense. When he reached her, Dixon fanned that fire into a raging flame by greeting her with hands held out and a broad smile as if he had done nothing. "Jan, what a lovely surprise."

With her hands on her hips, her upper torso angled forward, and her feet spread shoulder width apart, Jan greeted Scott with a growl. "Scott Dixon, you can be a real jerk sometimes. And don't give me that 'What did I do now?' look either."

Stopping a few feet from her, he paused for a few seconds to admire Jan, who remained standing on the steps below him in her defiant pose.

Her long, dark brown hair was pulled back, probably done up in a French braid. Her oval face, though masked with an angry expression, was tanned from hours of tromping about shooting stories in south Texas. If she was wearing makeup, it was applied with such skill that it blended nicely. The white cotton blouse she wore, no longer crisp and neat after a day in the late summer heat of Texas, had the top three buttons undone.

The khaki walking shorts she wore ended just above her knees. Although Dixon found the knees one of the more unimpressive parts of the female body, he admired the calves and thighs that they connected. He was therefore willing to overlook the imperfections that naked kneecaps abounded in. All in all, though fewpeople would call Jan Fields a natural beauty, the image before him, and the person that it represented, had come to mean more to Dixon than anything else. Raising his hands in mock surrender, Dixon called out, "Okay, cease fire, I give up," as he shuffled down the last few steps that separated him from Jan.

Still angry at the fun Dixon had had at her expense and wanting to play out her show of rage and indignation a bit longer, Jan folded her arms across her chest as Dixon approached, and turned away from him. Dixon, stopping on the step above the one Jan was on, looked down over her shoulder, staring at the exposed cleavage that Jan's folded arms raised and accentuated. For a moment he stood there, both to admire the view and to evaluate her mood, though he already knew that she wasn't really mad at him. If she were, she would have turned on him like a cat on a strange dog. No, Dixon decided, it was her turn to have some fun with him. He had embarrassed her in front of the MPs, who were still watching at a respectful distance, though they both tried to pretend that they weren't. Without a word, he knew that before they could continue, she would have to have her pound of flesh, or at least an apology appropriate to the offense.

Walking around her and down two steps so that he now faced her on a slightly lower level, Dixon took off his helmet, tucked it under his left arm, extended his arms, palms up, and looked up at her. "Dear Jan, I do humbly apologize for making you look like a fool. It's just that doing so is so easy. And besides, I can't help myself."

Jan looked at him, thinking about what he had just said. He was still mocking her, but she really didn't want to continue to press the point. He was obviously in a playful mood that she didn't feel up to matching. His hair, receding at the temples and graying on the sides, was cut ludicrously short. The sides, clipped in what Dixon referred to as whitewalls, looked more like beard stubble than hair. Jan ran her fingers through the scant hair left on top. She enjoyed running her hands through Dixon's hair, when he had enough, and was always saddened when he had it chopped away. Taking a deep breath and letting it out, she looked into his eyes.

"See you got yourself a haircut."

Dixon, using the palm of his right hand, wiped away the sweat that had beaded up on the right side of his scalp above his ear. "Well, until someone figures out a way to improve the ventilation in the Kevlar helmets, short hair is the way to go."

When he dropped his hand to his side, Jan raised her two hands to his head, running them along his temples and stopping when they came to rest on his cheeks. With a gentle squeeze, Jan held his face in her hands, tilting it up toward hers. "We have nearly an hour until the president comes on TV and enlightens us with his latest pearls of wisdom. All will be forgiven, provided you buy me something cold and wet. I'm dying of thirst."

Dixon smiled. "Your wish, my dear, is my command. I happen to know this great little convenience mart a few blocks from here that sells the greatest thirty-two-ounce drinks this side of the Rio Bravo."

As they walked to the convenience mart, Dixon, for the most part, was silent as Jan talked about the shooting she had done during the past few days as well as what she was planning to do next. Much of her activity had included a healthy dose of the history of Texas, which she was using as background for her stories, and which she now related to Dixon. In one piece, shot outside Meir, Texas, Jan recounted how a small group of Texans, bent on invading Mexico in 1842, had been captured by the Mexican Army. She used this as a lead-in to a story that recounted the problems the Republic of Texas and the Republic of the Rio Grande had had with Mexico after the War for Texas Independence. These incidents, Jan explained, coupled with vigorous lobbying from Texans and expansionists in the United States, had led to what she now referred to as the first Mexican War. That war, Jan told Dixon, had resulted in strained relations between Mexico and United States that had never healed and often resulted in misunderstandings and, at times, incidents like the one that had just occurred in Laredo. In another piece Jan had done, she told of some of these minor border incidents between the American Army and Mexican forces at the beginning of the first Mexican War. Not far from Me Allen, Texas, Jan and her crew visited the site where a patrol of sixty-three U.S. dragoons, led by Captain Seth Thornton, was intercepted and ambushed by Mexican General Anastasio Torrej6n on April 23, 1845. When they shot that piece, Jan had intended to use it for another story. Instead, she explained how she'd use it as a lead-in during her report on the incursion into Mexico by U.S. forces that morning.

After buying their drinks, and as they returned to city hall, Jan told Dixon all was not going well, though. She and her crew had planned to cross over into Mexico to visit several historic sites over the next few days as well as to interview local Mexican officials. That, she pointed out, was highly unlikely after the incident of that morning.

While she spoke, Dixon marveled at Jan's ability to travel about with her little crew and do what she did. Conventional wisdom viewed Dixon's duties, those of an American soldier, as dangerous and difficult.

Dixon, however, didn't feel that way. While being a soldier entailed danger and the requirement to place life and limb in harm's way, on command, what Jan did was often times as dangerous, and infinitely more difficult.. Dixon, especially as a general staff officer, operated within a very large and complex organization known as the United States Army.

The Army delineated his exact duties.and responsibilities, provided training until he mastered those duties, and for the most part then told him what to do, when to do it, and where to do it. To perform his assigned duties, Dixon had a large number of soldiers to assist him. Like Dixon, these soldiers had well-defined duties and the training required to perform those duties, as well as the necessary equipment. In addition, the Army provided for the physical well-being of Dixon and his soldiers by creating and following them with a support system that provided them with their meals, clothing and personal equipment, supplies used to perform their duties, health and comfort items, and medical support. There were even special units, called Greggs, short for "grave registrations," that would tag, bag, and bury Dixon or any of his men should they die in the line of duty. In the United States Army, and all of its sister services, it was an article of faith that the soldiers who had volunteered to go forth and do battle for their country would receive all the support and help that the nation and its government could provide those soldiers.

In Jan's field, by contrast, she was on her own. Everything, from learning the techniques of her craft, to learning how to hustle a news story, was up to her. The only thing she and her crew got from WNN, whom she was now working for, was the equipment needed to shoot and transmit their stories. Everything else, from clothing to lodging, was up to them to obtain. While they did receive a nice per diem rate that was meant to cover all their personal needs, it was far different from having someone hand them to you, like the Army did for Dixon.

Even more significant was the fact that, legally and practically, the rights and protection afforded to Jan and her crew were no different than those of any ordinary citizen. When Jan and her crew were out chasing a story, whether it was in Austin, Texas, or in the mountains of Mexico, they were on their own. They had to protect themselves, and if one of them became injured, they had to fend for themselves. By comparison, even though Dixon was the soldier, he was relatively safe, protected by distance from the forward edge of the battle area, and by units such as the MP platoon assigned to guard the division command post and commanding general. Drawn to where the action was by the need to get her story, Jan had no one and nothing to protect her. Dixon thought on that for a moment, reflecting how strange it was that he, pledged to defend and uphold the Constitution, could, in reality, do nothing to protect his lover from the danger she so readily put herself in. Not that there was anything he would do to change such things. Both he and Jan were adults, two people who had their own aspirations and callings, and at the same time, they loved each other so much that neither wished to change the other.

When they got back to the steps of city hall, Jan and Dixon sat as far away from the main entrance as they could. For a moment, there was a pause as each tried to find something to talk about. Dixon, with full knowledge of the current situation on both sides of the Rio Grande, as well as what the president was going to announce in less than thirty minutes, had to be careful what he said, or even implied. Jan, a reporter by profession and nature, had to suppress her natural desire to probe for the information she knew Dixon had. It was not the nature of the trite conversation that mattered, however; it was the proximity of the person that each loved, the sound of their voices, and the tone of the conversation they fell onto. The time they spent that evening on the steps of the Laredo city hall was, for both, a period of rest and renewal as they drew upon each other's strength in preparation for the ordeal each knew was coming.

Dixon heard the tromp of combat boots approaching on the steps behind him before Jan did. The steps were hurried, which meant the owner of the boots wasn't coming over for a social call. For a moment, he tried to ignore the approaching boots, hoping they were headed somewhere else — but he wasn't that lucky. When the sound of the boots was only a few feet away, the voice of the general's aide called him. "Colonel Dixon, the CG needs to see you ASAP."

Twisting his head around, Dixon watched as the division commander's aide came down and around until he was facing Dixon and Jan. "Sorry to disturb you, sir, Ms. Fields. But we just got this in." With that, he thrust out a sheet of yellow paper, folded in half, that Dixon recognized as a spot report form.

Dixon unfolded the spot report and read it. Jan, anxious to see what was on it, nevertheless restrained herself, concentrating on taking a long, slow sip from the soda she held. Folding the paper in half again and handing it back to the aide, Dixon told him he would be along in a minute. The aide saluted, then went scurrying back up the steps. When he was gone, Dixon reached out with his left hand and put it on Jan's legs.

"Well, my dear, duty calls."

Leaning over so that her right arm was against his left, Jan looked at Dixon, who was staring off into the distance. "Hot date with Big Al?"

Patting her leg, he turned and looked Jan in the eye. "Well, I guess you'll find out soon enough. Seems our friends south of the border aren't going to buy the president's plan."

Jan was intrigued. "What plan?"

Looking away from her, back to the distant object that he had been staring at, Dixon slowly, carefully, explained to Jan. "The president of the United States is going to annodnce to the American public in twenty minutes his proposal to solve our little border problem, a solution that the American ambassador presented to the Council of 13 in Mexico City a little over four hours ago." Dixon paused, took a drink, and then continued.

"In a nutshell, the president is going to announce that the armed forces of the United States are going to establish a security zone south of the Rio Grande, to be patrolled by us, with or without the cooperation of the Mexican government."

Jan sat there for several seconds, absorbing what she had just been told. "How do you know that the Council of 13 is going to reject it? Have they made an announcement?"

Dixon, his face showing no signs of concern, played with his drinking straw as he answered. "No, not that I know of. But there are subtle ways soldiers have of broadcasting their intentions. Take that spot report, for example. It was from the division cav squadron watching International Bridge Number One five blocks fro.m here. Right now, as we speak, the Mexicans are preparing their side of the bridge for demolitions." He turned and looked at Jan. "Call me paranoid, but it seems to me that our friends south of the border are trying to tell us something, and it ain't 'Welcome.' "

With nothing to do while he waited for the doctor to finish working on Lieutenant Kozak, Harold Cerro reread her report concerning her pla toon's foray into Mexico that morning. It didn't get any better with the third reading. Grammatically and structurally, it was quite good, unusual for a junior Army officer. Its tone and content, however, were self demeaning and apologetic in the extreme. Were the investigation into the cause of the border incident to be based solely upon Kozak's statement, an uninformed person would walk away with the impression that Kozak had planned and been responsible for everything that had occurred from the loss of the Alamo in 1836 to the overthrowing of the old Mexican government in June. It was no wonder that Colonel Dixon had sent him to talk to her, both to assess her mental state and to get her to reconsider her first report and rewrite it.

Though Cerro didn't relish his role as a "special projects" officer — which, translated to English, came out as "shitty little jobs" officer — it was better than sitting in the current operations van at the main command post, answering telephones and watching majors thrash about and ping off the walls. It seemed even the most mundane things sent everyone at the CP into orbit on days like this one, especially when no one knew for sure what was going to happen. Staff officers from subordinate brigades, especially the operations officers, were on the phone every hour, asking for current updates on pending orders or changes to the rules of engagement.

Staff officers from the corps command post called more frequently, asking for additional information on the border-crossing incident. It seemed, at times, that the people at corps wanted to know everything about the platoon, down to the names of each individual who had crossed, their ranks, race, the amount of time they had spent in the unit, etc., etc., etc. About the only thing that the corps staff hadn't asked for by the time Cerro left was what color eyes Kozak's people had, though there were bets that someone would get to that question sooner or later. Such questions, in and of themselves, were bad enough. What made it worse was that the staff at corps never appeared to share any information with each other. In one incident, two corps staff officers, who Cerro knew sat next to each other, called within a single ten-minute period to ask the same question. Therefore, when Colonel Dixon had come up to him and handed him the file containing the reports of the incident, notes of the commanding general's initial impression, and instructions to find Kozak, talk to her, and see if she wanted to change her statement, Cerro jumped at the chance.

"Captain Cerro, you can come with me now. The doctor is just about finished with your friend."

Looking up from the report on his lap, Cerro saw the emergency room nurse he had talked to earlier. Far from being an angel of mercy, the nurse that stood before Cerro looked more like a sitcom character. The short, round Hispanic woman, in her late thirties, had a figure that had all the definition of a bowling ball. She wore her hair pulled back from her round face in a bun. The whites she wore, which no doubt had been fresh and clean hours ago, were soaked with sweat and stained with drops and smears of blood. Were it not for those bloodstains, as well as the haggard look and eyes that showed signs of emotional exhaustion, the nurse would have been an object of humor. But she wasn't. While the chaos and pace of her activities differed from Cerro's as night does from day, her look told Cerro that she, like him, had been dealing with the real world too long that day.

In silence, she led him to an examining room, where she entered after looking in at the small square window in the door. Opening the door for Cerro, she let him enter and left without a word, headed for her next task.

Lieutenant Kozak, lying on the examination table, had her legs dangling off the edge, her hands behind her head, elbows out, and eyes closed.

Before he said anything, Cerro studied her. Her boots, as well as the pants of her uniform, were covered with dried mud, which, Cerro thought, was from the crossing of the Rio Grande. From the waist up, she wore only a brown, regulation T-shirt stained with wavy white lines of salt from her perspiration, which made the shirt appear to be tie-dyed.

With her hands held behind her, her breasts, straining against the brown T-shirt, stood like two firm mounds, perfect and round. Since her eyes were closed and the nurse had left, Cerro stood for a moment and gauged, from a distance, their approximate size. He had always pegged her as having a B cup. Now, without the bulky class-A greens or the baggy camouflaged battle dress uniform to obscure them, he could clearly see that young Lieutenant Kozak was a healthy C cup.

Cerro was assessing Kozak's dominant features when the door behind him burst open and a doctor came into the examination room, talking without looking up from a chart he carried. "Well, you're in great shape there, Lieutenant. No concussion, no signs of fractures, nothing broken, except your nose."

The doctor's sudden appearance caused Kozak to take her hands out from behind her head and, grasping the sides of the examination table, push herself up into a sitting position. As she did, she noticed Cerro standing next to the door, blushing slightly, as if he had just been caught doing something wrong. It never occurred to her that he had been standing there eyeing her while she rested.

Looking first at the doctor, Cerro didn't notice that Kozak had sat up.

When he had recovered from the sudden appearance of the doctor, as well as his personal embarrassment, he looked back at the lieutenant. It was only then that he realized he had been so busy staring at her breasts that he had not seen her face. What he saw bore no resemblance to the clean, soft face that he had come to associate with the young lieutenant. Her gentle features were obscured by a swollen nose covered with a piece of wide medical tape. Only the tip, swollen, scraped, and red from soreness, showed below the tape. Protruding from her nostrils were the ends of white cotton packing. As bad as her nose looked, however, the blue-black circles that began at her nose and surrounded her eyes made Kozak look like a boxer who had been knocked out. Without thinking, Cerro shook his head and mumbled, "Jesus, you look like hell."

Unable to turn away from the doctor, who had tilted her head back and was looking at her nose, Kozak was about to give Cerro a cynical

"Thanks" for the less-than-cheerful comment, but thought better of it.

She had no idea why he was here. Even though she was convinced that, at that moment, she didn't have a friend in the world, she didn't want to take any chances and alienate a possible friend. So she held her tongue, letting the doctor complete his examination and allowing Cerro's comment to pass unanswered. She would let Cerro initiate the conversation and set the tone when he was ready.

Assuming that Cerro was there to pick Kozak up, the doctor, finished with his examination, turned away from her and said to Cerro as he prepared to leave, "Well, Captain, she's all yours. You should keep the packing in the nose for twenty-four hours." Pausing at the door, the doctor looked back at Kozak. "Next time something like this happens, don't wait ten hours before coming in. It would have been a lot less painful had we been able to work on your nose immediately after your accident." Without another word, the doctor left. Kozak stared at Cerro, waiting for him to say something.

Feeling awkward, and not knowing how to start, Cerro stalled, moving over to a chair. Taking his Kevlar helmet from under his right arm, he dropped it on the floor from waist level, making a loud clunk that reverberated in the small examining room. Sitting down on the edge of the seat, facing Kozak, Cerro tucked his feet up under the chair but allowed his knees to spread apart. He held the folder containing the reports on the foray into Mexico against his stomach with both hands, and looked at Kozak for a moment, considering how he was going to do this.

From the examining table, Kozak watched Cerro as a bird watches a cat circling the tree it's in. He kept staring at her face, which no doubt looked like hell. At least, she thought it did. If it looked half as bad as it felt, it was terrible. During the initial exam, one of the nurses had looked at Kozak's face with a pained expression. With a sigh, the nurse had grasped her hand, telling her not to worry, that the black and blue would go away as soon as the swelling went down. Instead of serving to calm Kozak, it had only worried her, creating an uncontrollable urge to find a mirror and see what it was that caused everyone to stare. With Cerro sitting there, holding folders that no doubt contained statements and reports concerning the crossing of the Rio Grande, it would be a few more minutes before she got to look at her own face.,

Seeing that Lieutenant Kozak wasn't going to make his task any easier by initiating the conversation, Cerro decided that he might as well just launch into it. After all, diplomacy, subtlety, and regard for someone's feelings never seemed to blend well with the spirit of the bayonet. Praised by raters throughout his career for his direct, frank, and uncompromising approach to all matters, Cerro now found himself wishing he had a few more skills in dealing with people. Sidetracked for a moment by that thought, he wondered if he was concerned about his approach because Kozak was a woman. No, he was sure that wasn't it. On the day he had observed Kozak's squad get overrun, he hadn't even considered the gender issue when he "counseled" her. No, that wasn't the reason he was uncomfortable. Was it because she was hurt? That could be. After all, he felt the same way whenever he had seen any of his own men wounded or injured. But that wasn't it completely, for in the past Cerro had always been able to say something to the wounded. Even when faced with a man from his own unit who had lost a limb, Cerro had been able to work through his natural revulsion of injured people and say something appropriate.

Yet here he was stymied by a lieutenant with a simple broken nose and two black eyes.

That was it. Suddenly, like a bolt of lightning, the reason for the unaccustomed empathy that was hamstringing his efforts to carry on, struck Cerro. Instead of looking at Second Lieutenant N. Kozak, infantry platoon leader, Cerro had been looking at himself. Without realizing it, he had projected himself into Kozak's position as he read the reports and weighed her actions. The feelings that he was experiencing were not those of a male seeking to protect the female of the species. Nor were they of one human experiencing sympathy for an injured fellow being.

Instead, Cerro found himself having trouble dealing with Kozak because he had true insight into the emotional upheaval that she was going through, the same upheaval he, as a second lieutenant, had experienced after his introduction to combat. For the briefest of moments, he was able to see Kozak in a light that transcended all differences. He saw her not as a person of a different rank, or sex, or age, or anything. She was, at that moment, the newest recruit to what W. E. B. Griffin referred to as the brotherhood of war.

With his own emotions in check and a clear idea of how to approach Kozak, Cerro started. "The G3 has sent me to talk to you, one on one, after reviewing all the statements and reports concerning this morning's crossing of the border by your platoon."

Once Cerro finally began to speak, Kozak breathed a sigh of relief. He had, while he had sat there staring at her, made her feel uncomfortable and very vulnerable. It had been as if she were a specimen under a microscope, open to examination and unable to do anything. Now that he had started talking, at least she could respond to his initiatives and comments.

Grasping the edge of the examining table, Kozak nodded, responded with a "Yes, sir" that was barely audible even to herself, and waited for Cerro to play out his initial hand.

Deciding to cut to the heart of the matter, Cerro moved his feet out from under the chair and planted them firmly on the floor, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees. When he was settled in his new position, he looked into Kozak's swollen black eyes. "The G3 believes that you need to rewrite your statement. It is his opinion that you are being far too critical of your actions. Were this report to go forward as is, there is the chance that you might open yourself to undeserved criticism and possible disciplinary action that would be unwarranted."

After a short pause, during which she looked down at the floor, then back into his eyes, Kozak asked Cerro what he thought. Although he knew that she was asking specifically about the proposition that he had presented to her — the rewriting of her report — Cerro understood that what she was really asking for was his opinion of her actions as a platoon leader, as an infantryman, and as a soldier. Deciding that this was no time for great philosophical discussions or subtle mental jousting, Cerro decided to talk to Kozak in a manner that he wished someone had used with him after his first battle. He dropped the folder with the reports to the floor and linked his hands. "Lieutenant Kozak, you done good."

Though Kozak had been hoping to get around to Cerro's assessment of her performance, he had surprised her by doing so right off, and it showed. As before, she sat on the table, in silence, and let Cerro go on.

"What you're going through, right now, is no different than what just about every second lieutenant goes through the first time they survive a firelight. Oh, I suppose there is the odd character who charges into his first battle and walks away from it without a second thought. But those creatures are rare and, if they exist, dangerous. You see, West Point and the Army have filled your head with a lot of ideas and theories about war and leadership that you, under peacetime conditions, cannot possibly understand and sort out. While it's true that we can teach you the technical skills needed to employ the, weapons and people under your command, and provide you with an idea of what it's going to be like through realistic training, there is no way in hell that West Point, sitting in splendid isolation high above the Hudson, or the Army, or anyone, can adequately prepare you for the experience of being shot at and watching people, your people, die. There's just no way."

Since Kozak had expected, at best, an inquisition, Cerro's comments were a welcome relief, at first. Slowly, however, she began to wonder if they were simply fluff, a standard "You're okay, kid, now drive on" speech given to every lieutenant after their first action. Abandoning her position of leaving the initiative to Cerro, Kozak asked him how he'd felt after his first firefight.

Sliding back into his seat, Cerro crossed his legs, allowing his hands, linked together, to come to rest on his stomach. He looked down and a slight smile lit across his face as he let out a small chuckle. "You know, Colonel Dixon, the G3, and I were talking about that just before I came over here. My first action." Cerro looked up at Kozak, and his smile widened. "I was lucky it happened in the middle of a war and not, like yours, alone and on national television, 'cause it was a fucking disaster.''

Cerro paused. "Even today, years later, I still can't think about it without wondering how I survived without killing myself and every man in my platoon." Suddenly, as if someone had hit a switch, Cerro's smile disappeared.

When his eyes locked onto Kozak's, she could almost see a cold emptiness in them. When he spoke, he did so with an even tone that lacked all feeling, all emotions. "It was a night jump to seize an airfield.

We went out at five hundred feet. Though I was in the air less than two minutes, with all the tracers flying this way and that, it seemed to take forever. I hit the concrete runway like a ton of bricks, knocking myself silly. I wasn't even able to unhook myself from my harness for several minutes. Imagine, lying there in the middle of a firefight. Explosions going on all around you, people screaming, officers and NOCs shouting orders, your platoon out there, somewhere in the middle of the darkness and chaos, running about and fighting. And there I was, lying flat on my back after screwing up the simplest of all airborne skills, the parachute landing fall, unable to do squat."

Cerro paused, looking up at the ceiling as he took in several deep breaths. "In those few seconds, I was convinced that I was the dumbest, most incompetent, most worthless piece of shit God had ever placed on the face of the earth." Slowly, his head moved from side to side. "God, I can't imagine anything before or since that compared to what I felt that moment." When he looked down at Kozak again, she could see his eyes were moist, almost as if he were on the brink of tearing. Not that it mattered, for she realized that he was no longer with her. Though he was looking right at her, she knew he didn't see her. Instead, images she could only vaguely picture were dancing before his eyes, images that were burned onto his brain by the fear and horror that his words could never do justice to.

Slowly, methodically, Cerro continued. As he did so, he picked his words with great care, more out of the desire to do justice to the memory of that moment than for impact. "We lost the CO that night. He had a malfunction and creamed into the runway. Didn't find his body till next morning. I lost my first man too. Young black kid from Jersey. He joined the Army to get away from the slums and gangs. Specialist Ellis.

Johnston wasn't the smartest person in the world. Nor was he the best soldier. In fact, he was, at times, a downright pain in the ass. But he was mine. And I lost him. He was blown away by a twenty-three-millimeter antiaircraft gun while I was lying out on the runway thrashing about and trying to recover from my own stupidity."

Leaning forward, with his elbows resting on his knees and the index finger of his right hand pointed at Kozak, Cerro drove his next point home as if he were drilling her with a machine gun. "Now I know, today, in retrospect, that there was nothing I could have done to prevent Johnston's getting killed. He landed three hundred meters from where I did and was drilled by the antiaircraft gun before he got his harness off. Had I been there with him, I would have been killed too. It was just one of those things. But such logic, that kind of clear, uncompromising logic, didn't mean shit to me the next day, when it was all over, as I watched his squad leader dropping the pieces of Specialist Ellis. Johnston into the body bag. It took me over three years to finally see that what happened to him wasn't my fault."

Suddenly, Cerro scooped up the folder from the floor and stood up.

"Johnston was a soldier. He knew what that meant. And what happened to him was no different than what happened to lots of other guys in that war and every war before and since. I knew that, too. VMI, Fort Benning, and every officer and NCO that had trained me had taught me that.

I knew men died. I knew that I could die. I knew that. But at that moment, when I looked down on the shattered remains of a man who had placed his faith in my abilities to lead him and pull him through, I damned near folded up. All the lectures on leadership, all the great examples of famous 'heroes' who had faced combat and come through, all the training in the world didn't mean shit to me or Specialist Ellis. Johnston. He was dead and I wasn't."

There was a sudden, embarrassing pause as Cerro suddenly realized that he was no longer looking af. Johnston, that he was standing there, lecturing to Kozak. Her face, turned up toward his, was masked with an impassive stare that belied the pathos she was trying hard to suppress. He hadn't come to lecture her. He hadn't come to tell stories. Cerro's only task had been to get her to consider rewriting her report. Now, he wondered if he had succeeded or failed. That, however, was no longer the issue. He had tripped out, crashed, and burned on memories he had thought he had buried. Unable to continue, and not really caring, Cerro plopped the folder containing Kozak's statement on the chair he had been sitting on. For a moment, he looked at it, then turned to her. "You did extremely well, Lieutenant Kozak, given the situation you were in. You have nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to regret. I would advise you to do as the G3 recommends and rewrite your statement, taking all the whining, sniveling, self-flagellating bullshit out and sticking with the facts."

Cerro moved to the door, opened it, and started to leave, then stopped.

He spun about and faced Kozak. "If you're half the infantry officer I think you are, you'll rewrite it.'' Without further comment, Cerro walked out, leaving Kozak sitting on the examining table, tears streaking down her cheeks and soaking the cotton packing that protruded from her nostrils.

From the south bank of the river, Guajardo watched his combat engineers, hanging precariously above him from ropes, preparing the bridge for demolition. From dangling pouches they wore, or from pallets held up by ropes of their own, the engineers took blocks of military explosives, securing them to cross members and stringers that supported the roadway above. When enough explosives had been packed up against the cross member or stringer, an engineer carefully took blasting caps from a separate pouch and placed them into the mass of explosives. When the blasting caps were set, a companion followed, wiring them together. This was no easy task. From the main firing line, branch firing lines to the individual blasting caps set in the explosives needed to be cut the same length so that the explosives on a span of the bridge went off simultaneously.

Since several spans were being dropped, the wiring had to be arranged so that the bridge span farthest from the blasting machine, used to initiate the demolition sequence, went off first, followed by explosives on the next span closer in. If the closest span were dropped first, the explosion and the falling debris could sever the wires leading out to the farther span and stop the sequence of destruction.

In addition to the exactness required for the placement of explosives, size of the charges at each location, and wiring sequence, backup systems and booby traps to hinder sabotage were necessary. Less than an hour after the engineers had started working, a group of American Army officers had gathered on the north bank, watching every move. One of them, a lieutenant colonel, Guajardo saw, wore a green beret. To Guajardo, the appearance of the American lieutenant colonel in his green beret was an arrogant challenge. Though Guajardo knew that the Americans would use special operations people to try to prevent the destruction of the bridge, he at least expected those people to be a little more discreet.

This lieutenant colonel, however, made no secret of his presence. By standing there with his green beret on, it was if he were shouting to Guajardo, "Here I am. I'm going to stop you from blowing your bridge and there's nothing you can do."

If that were the lieutenant colonel's intent, Guajardo and his engineers were not about to let his challenge go unanswered. To complicate any efforts to prevent destruction of the bridge by cutting the firing wires, a dual firing system, with one electric and one nonelectric primer, was being emplaced. In addition, the engineers were installing a series of booby traps, some hooked in series, some independent, as discreetly as was possible, as they went along, in such a manner that it appeared to be part of the main demolition effort. Though Guajardo knew that the American special forces were good, and that the odds were better than even that they would be able to prevent the destruction of the bridge, he knew they wouldn't be able to do so without paying a price.

And that, Guajardo knew, was the purpose of this entire exercise: to make the Americans pay the price. In fact, that was what their entire war-winning strategy was based on. No one on the Council of 13 had any illusions about the initial outcome of a confrontation between the United States and Mexico. In the beginning, the American Army, Air Force, and Navy would be able to go wherever they wanted and do whatever they wanted. Guajardo's forces simply would not be able to match the American weapons or technology. Even when the full weight of Nicaraguan and Cuban assistance came to bear, weapon for weapon, they would be outclassed.

But if it were true that the Americans would be able to go wherever they wanted, it was equally true that they would not be able to stay. While Colonel Barreda, the foreign minister, traveled through the councils of the world, screaming righteous indignation and demanding that the Americans be forced to leave Mexico, Colonel Zavala, the minister for domestic affairs, would be mobilizing the people for the great patriotic struggle against the invading Americans. With the forces he already had, those that Barreda could arrange for from the Latin American nations, and those that Zavala could mobilize within Mexico, Guajardo would wage a protracted campaign whose sole goal was to fill body bags with American dead. Eventually, he knew, the American public would tire of burying its young. Though many of his own people would also die, at least they knew what they were fighting for. Some Americans, on the other hand, were already questioning their goals and the methods of their leaders. Guajardo would give them something more to consider. Debate, he knew, would redouble when the flag-draped coffins began to appear in every little town and city across the United States.

Though Colonel Ruiz, minister of justice, cautioned that Saddam Hussein had hoped to do the same in Kuwait and had failed, Guajardo reminded him that they were not Arabs. Instead of drawing lines in the sand and hurling empty challenges, Guajardo told his brothers on the Council of 13, they should fight as the Vietcong and their grandfathers had. "Our war will be a righteous war, a war fought to defend our homes and our honor against the colossus from the north. So long as we do not admit defeat, we cannot be beaten. Remember, our people, like us, have nothing to lose except our pride. And even the most sophisticated missile or the biggest, most modern tank cannot strip that from us. Only we can throw that away. And I, for one, will die leading our people into battle before I let that happen."

Although he had not intended to make such a melodramatic speech to the council, Guajardo didn't regret it. He had meant every word. They were, after all, a passionate people, used to giving way to their passions when appropriate. At least his brothers knew where he stood. Soon, the Americans would too. If the Americans wanted to come, they would. In the beginning, they would find nothing, just poor villages, old men and women, and destruction. In the beginning, their sweep into northern Mexico would, no doubt, be compared to the almost bloodless American victory in Iraq by their own media and the pseudomilitary "experts" they employed. Guajardo had taken great pains to arrange his forces so that it would appear so. But he would watch, and wait. As the great cats of Africa track a herd, his forces would watch the Americans. When the Americans were comfortable and elation over their "success" was at its height, his forces would come, seeking the strays that wandered too far from the herd.

In time, Guajardo knew, they would prevail. They always had. The Americans had come before and, when they had tired of Mexico, they had left. This time would be no different. It never was. And when they left, Mexico and her people would still be there. They always were.