Trial by Fire

18

Reaching over with her right arm, Amanda Lewis spent several minutes of fruitless searching before she realized that the only thing her hand could find on Ed's side of the bed was crumpled sheets and a vacant pillow. With her mind clouded with sleep, she was not quite up to the challenge of solving the mystery of the missing husband. Satisfied that she had done all she could, she rolled over and began slowly drifting back to sleep, until the muffled voice from downstairs began to bring her back.

Opening her eyes, as if that would help her hear better, Amanda listened for a moment. From the direction and the tone, she could tell that Ed was still on the phone., yelling at someone. Squinting in order to read the digital numbers on the clock, Amanda debated whether she should stay in bed and let Ed vent his spleen or go down and lend him some moral support. After listening for another minute and noticing no change in Ed's pitch or tone, she opted to go down. At least, she thought, she could try to calm him, though she doubted it. Once Ed Lewis started chasing windmills, only a punch in the nose or a bout of high blood pressure could stop him. Though she couldn't fend off the former, at least she could try to do something about the blood pressure.

Throwing on a robe, Amanda quietly went down the stairs to the kitchen to brew a pot of decaffeinated coffee. She didn't even pause as she passed the door of Ed's home office. Even through the closed door, Ed's words could be heard clearly down the hall and in the kitchen.

Tuning out his outburst, punctuated with an occasional pause while the other party talked, Amanda busied herself preparing a tray for their coffee.

When all was ready, she took the tray and headed for Ed's office, reaching the door just as Ed slammed the receiver down. Leaning over to listen at the door, Amanda didn't hear a sound. Deciding that he was finished with whoever he had been talking to, she balanced the coffee tray in one hand while opening the door with the other.

Walking in as if nothing were out of the ordinary, Amanda began searching for any flat surface free of stacks of books, folders, papers, and magazines. She moved to a small table that appeared to offer a reasonably level spot on top of a small stack of books. Even on her way to the table she had to be wary, taking care to step over a briefcase, assorted books, and one of Ed's shoes. As she crossed the room, she watched her husband from the corner of her eye.

Seated at his desk, his chair turned sideways to face the corner of the desk where the phone was, Lewis had yet to acknowledge her presence.

Instead, he merely sat there, reclining in his chair, hands folded on his stomach, staring at the phone. Even when Amanda finished preparing his mug of coffee, leaning over his desk to hand it to him, Lewis didn't look at her. Mechanically, he reached out, took the mug in one hand, and slowly brought it to his lips, holding it there for a moment with both hands, all the while watching the phone.

It wasn't that Ed was ungrateful or rude. When it came to a loving husband and an understanding father, there wasn't any better and Amanda knew it. After twenty-two years of marriage, the only regret that she had was that she had given in to his desire to run for Congress. Even his tour of combat duty in the Persian Gulf as a battalion executive officer had not been as hard on her as his five years in Congress. In those years, she had watched the man she loved begin to turn solemn and cynical. Though he denied there were any differences in him, Amanda knew better. These changes, along with a growing threat of hypertension accentuated by a poor diet due to long hours of work, threatened to destroy the only man that Amanda had ever loved, the man to whom she had devoted her entire life. Quietly taking her mug of coffee, Amanda moved over to a chair across the room from him, bending down to remove several file folders from the seat cushion. Sitting down, Amanda Lewis began to sip her coffee as she watched Congressman Ed Lewis and waited patiently for him to finish his thoughts.

When the phone rang, Amanda jumped. Lewis leaped forward, grabbing for the phone with his right hand. Without looking, he swung his left arm, holding the coffee mug, toward the desk, and set the mug precariously on top of a jumbled stack of papers. Amanda was about to say something when Lewis responded to the party on the other end of the line.

"Yes, I'll hold."

Settling back in her seat, Amanda watched Lewis, while casting an occasional glance at the coffee mug that threatened to topple over from its awkward perch. Only when he began speaking did Amanda understand his lack of concern.

"Yes, Mr. President, this is Ed. I am sorry for waking you at this hour, but I wanted to ask you one more time to reconsider your decision."

Amanda's eyes narrowed. Bullshit, she thought. Ed wasn't sorry for waking the president. Nor was she sorry that he had.

"Yes, sir. I understand your position. And I understand the need to do something about the raids across the border. Hell, Mr. President, I'd rather be down there, on the front line, than stay here in Washington any day of the week."

With her eyes narrowing even more, Amanda felt like shouting "Good, let's go, tonight, and get the hell out of this rat race," but restrained herself.

Lewis continued. "No sir, I have not changed my view. It is, and will remain, a mistake to take direct military action against the Mexican government. I am convinced that they are as anxious to stop those raids as we are."

As she lowered her mug to her lap, Amanda shook her head. You'll never give up, she thought. You'll never give up chasing those windmills, you old fool.

"No sir, I do not believe what the CIA, the DIA, the NSA, or the FBI are saying. They're full of shit and you know it."

Looking over to the clock behind Lewis's desk, Amanda knew the conversation would be ending soon. Presidents, after all, don't have to listen to congressmen curse like that at one o'clock in the morning. She was sure the president got enough of that during the day.

"In the first place, they have a piss-poor record, starting from when Fidel took Havana all the way up until now and every point in between.

Second, and most importantly, the Mexicans will fight. Both you and I know we will never be able to bring the Council of 13 down. Hell, even with the whole world behind us and his armed forces shattered, we couldn't get rid of Saddam. What makes you think this is going to go any better?"

Odds, Amanda thought. After all, any Vegas gambler knew that if you threw the dice enough, you would eventually come up with a winning number. After Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, and Iraq, some president had to get lucky. Suddenly, she realized that she was beginning to sound as cynical as Ed. With a shake of her head, she stood up and moved over to the tray to pour herself another cup of coffee.

"You, Mr. President, may be committed. But I am not obliged to follow. This is a dumb move, a move that neither you nor I, in the end, will pay for. I just pray that next week, when the body bags start coming back, you can find a way to explain to Johnny Jones's mother that her son died for political necessity." After listening for another minute, Lewis heaved a sigh. "Yes, Mr. President. It will be a long day. But not near as long for us as it will be for our people moving into Mexico."

Without any further response, Lewis hung the phone up. Turning away from the tray, Amanda saw him sitting there, still holding the receiver with his right hand while bending over, staring at the floor in silence.

He had lost, again. Heaving a great sigh, Amanda felt the urge to go over and take him in her arms. But she knew that this wasn't the time for that. Instead, she lifted the pot of coffee and quietly went over to his desk.

As he heard more coffee being poured into his mug, which still sat teetering on the papers he had put it on, Lewis sat up and turned to his wife. For the first time, he took note of her smiling face framed by her long, ruffled hair. When she was finished and began to return to her seat, leaving the pot on the tray as she did so, he reached over for his mug, taking a sip before saying anything. When he did speak, it was in a low, almost plaintive tone. "This, my dear, isn't a good night to be an American."

Resuming her seat and picking up her own cup, Amanda gave him a sympathetic smile. "I heard, dear. How about telling me all about it."

For the briefest of moments, the sky above Laredo lit up. Though she couldn't hear the muffled explosion over the whine of her Bradley, Kozak knew someone had blown something up somewhere. She had no way of realizing that she had just witnessed the explosion that claimed the first American dead of the day. The war of attrition, a war the Mexicans felt that they couldn't possibly lose, had begun.

Turning her attention back in the direction in which they were moving, Kozak squinted slightly, searching through the dust thrown up by the lead vehicles for the chem lights marking the Bradley to her immediate front.

It took her a few seconds to identify the faint glow of the three red chem lights hanging vertically from the back of the turret of the 1st Squad's Bradley, the lead track in her platoon. Each company in 2nd of the 13th Infantry used different colors to identify their vehicles. Her company, A Company, used red stripes painted on the base of the 25mm cannon for visual recognition during the day and red chem lights or red-filtered flashlights at night. B Company used white, C Company blue, D Company yellow, and all headquarters vehicles green. Within the company, platoons were identified by the number of stripes or lights used. First Platoon had one stripe or light, 2nd Platoon two, 3rd Platoon, her platoon, three, and the company commander's Bradley used four. By using such a system, commanders, at a glance, could tell who they were looking at in the heat of battle when a friendly vehicle appeared on their left or right.

Satisfied that her driver was keeping the proper interval, Kozak twisted about, looking behind for the 2nd Squad's Bradley, which was supposed to be following hers. The 3rd Squad, with Sergeant Rivera, was taking up the rear of the platoon and the company. As she looked, it occurred to Kozak that she had fallen into the habit of assigning missions and establishing the order of march for her platoon in such a manner that it was always 1st Squad in the lead, 2nd Squad next, and 3rd Squad in the rear.

Although Staff Sergeant Maupin was the most experienced and competent of her squad leaders, it wasn't fair that he should always lead. Kozak had been taught that such a practice had a tendency to make the other squad leaders lazy, dependent on the map-reading skills of Maupin and secure in the knowledge that Maupin's Bradley, and not theirs, would catch the first land mine or antitank round in a firefight. The same considerations put continuous pressure and stress on the men of the 1st Squad. That such feelings were real struck home when Kozak noticed that two riflemen from Maupin's squad had scribbled "First to Fall" on the camouflage bands of their helmets. The use of such graffiti, thinly disguised as humor, was a subtle method used by soldiers to communicate dissatisfaction with leadership or unit policies or practices. That Maupin, who had to have seen the slogan, allowed the two riflemen to continue to display it, told Kozak that he agreed with its sentiment.

Not that she could blame her own people for feeling that way. With Captain Wittworth's habit of placing her platoon at the rear of the company column during every road march, or in reserve during most operations, she was beginning to sympathize with the feeling of the men in 1st Squad. At first Kozak had accepted Wittworth's practice of putting her platoon in the rear without much thought. When she began to notice that he continued to do so, she had passed it off as common sense. Wittworth, she told herself, was simply giving her a chance to learn her trade without the added pressure of being in the lead. That rationale, however, began to wear thin when Wittworth rotated ist and 2nd Platoons, while keeping Kozak's in the rear or sending her on every mission that required a platoon to be detached from the company. Though she tried hard not to become paranoid, Kozak began to wonder if Wittworth was trying to discourage her or keep her at arm's length. Regardless of the reason, it was becoming apparent to her, and to her platoon, that Wittworth was, in his own way, telling the 3rd Platoon that it wasn't good enough yet to be part of the company.

Besides the psychological cold shoulder, there were practical concerns.

Being the trail platoon meant that the 3rd Platoon had the honor of eating the entire company's dust on long road marches. When traveling on dirt trails, especially on the tank trails at Fort Hood, where the dust had been ground into fine powder by the passage of thousands of tracked vehicles since 1940, the dust clouds could reach great heights and linger forever.

It was not unusual to end a road march covered with a thick layer of dust that clogged every pore, violated every crack, crevice, and opening on your body, and turned dark green camouflage uniforms almost white. For Kozak, whose nose was still stuffed with cotton wadding and who was still breathing through her mouth, this was particularly annoying. In fact, she had even considered scribbling a motto of her own on her helmet, such as "The Dust Devils" or "The Last of the Least." But Nancy Kozak was an officer, a new and junior officer, who was being watched and evaluated by everyone who outranked her, which, to a second lieutenant, seemed like everyone in the Army. So she bit her tongue and did as she was told. Her day, she knew, would come. Until then, all she could do was follow and, for the time being, eat more dust, a commodity that 2nd Platoon was currently supplying lots of as they headed south into Mexico.

Each page of the thick document sitting on the breakfast table served only to discourage Childress, though he didn't show it. There was a reason, he knew, for his being shown this particular report. When he asked Delapos, who sat across from him, sipping coffee and eyeing the waitresses, how he had managed to obtain it, Delapos smiled. "The Council of 13, my friend, no longer thinks as one." If, in fact, the document he was reading was authentic, then Delapos's words were true, and Alaman, the manager, had succeeded in penetrating the belts of security that had surrounded the council.

The summons to meet Delapos at South Padre, along with the announcement that U.S. forces had crossed into Mexico that morning, had cheered Childress like nothing else in a long time. While waiting for Delapos to meet him in the restaurant, Childress had wondered why he had felt that way, for he had quickly realized that his sudden euphoria was more than the satisfaction one gets when a difficult and well-paying job is coming to an end. He had finished many other jobs, a few even more difficult than this one, and had never felt like he had that morning. Nor was the elation due to his anticipated return to his beloved Vermont mountains, though the prospect of being there for foliage season was, in its own way, exciting. It wasn't until he had met Delapos and found out that Alaman had decided that their campaign of provocation and agitation, rather than ending, needed to enter a new and more deadly phase, that Childress finally understood the reason he had been overwhelmed with joy when he thought his role in provoking the war was over. Despite denials to himself, Delapos, and other Americans employed by Alaman, Childress had never been able truly to reconcile himself to the fact that his actions were resulting in the deaths of fellow countrymen. The idea that his actions were treasonous was never far from his mind. The document he read, and the new instructions from Alaman, only served to reinforce that idea.

The document Delapos had handed Childress was a white paper, dated three days after Lefleur's incident with the National Guard, which summarized what Colonel Guajardo called the Council of 13's war-winning strategy. Written by both Guajardo, the minister of defense, and Colonel Barreda, the foreign minister, it laid out their strategy, not only for defending Mexico, but for achieving clear and unchallenged power as well as legitimacy for the council as the sole and rightful governing body of Mexico.

As a preamble, the paper stated in clear and uncompromising terms that, barring an unforeseen act of God, Mexico had no hope of achieving any type of military victory over American forces. In the next breath, however, the report stated that, so long as the Council of 13 and the Mexican people acted with prudence and restraint, the final political victory, the one that mattered, would be theirs. Guajardo, carefully citing American experience in Vietnam, pointed out that despite the fact that the American military had never lost a major engagement to either the Viet Cong or the People's Army of Vietnam, politically they had lost everything in Southeast Asia. The report discounted the apparent evidence of recent American military prowess demonstrated in Grenada, Panama, and the Persian Gulf, pointing out that in all three cases, the opposing governments had underestimated the American willingness to use force and its effectiveness, and had overestimated their own military position. Even more importantly, however, Guajardo pointed out that the opposing governments had lacked the type of popular support, and the willingness of their people to endure the kind of sacrifice, necessary for the conduct of a protracted war of attrition. In Guajardo's words, "The Americans won in the Persian Gulf, not by breaking machines, but by breaking the will of the soldiers and the people it fought. In Mexico, the Americans will find, as they did in Vietnam, that we have few machines to break, and a people that cannot be broken. A people who will not admit defeat cannot be defeated."

The heart of the report was an astute blend of military and political maneuvering that never left the realm of reality. In all, it was an effort that would have brought tears of happiness to the eyes of Machiavelli, the fifteenth-century Florentine theorist who had elevated modern political military thinking to an art. Knowing full well that the American president would never be able to muster the support needed from either the American Congress or the people for a full declaration of war, and citing past American incursions into Mexico, Barreda anticipated that the issue the American president would use to justify their invasion was that of security.

Guajardo, in turn, pointed out that, like Winfield Scott in 1848, and John. Pershing in 1916, the American military lacked the forces necessary to occupy all of Mexico. Therefore, Guajardo went on, the American Army would instead seize whatever terrain it determined was necessary to meet the stated objective of ensuring the security of its people, property, and land.

Three key considerations would dictate the amount of territory seized by the Americans and its location. The first was the size of force available to the Americans to seize it and hold it. Initially, this task would fall to the regular Army, consisting of twelve divisions, and the Marine Corps with two. Of these, only seven Army and one Marine division could be deployed, since two Army divisions were still in Europe, one was in Korea, and the sole American airborne and air-assault divisions could not be committed by the United States without emasculating its ability to respond to unexpected contingencies outside of Europe, Korea, or Mexico.

The use of reserve and National Guard units, Guajardo pointed out, would be limited by law as well as readiness.

Once committed, the American ability to keep its forces in Mexico would limit their effort. Supply lines, called lines of communications or LOCs for short, from the United States, through occupied territories, to the most advanced American unit, would have to be established and kept open. In 1848, Winfield Scott had gambled when he intentionally severed his lines of communications with the sea at Veracruz and marched overland into Mexico City in order to end the war. Unlike that of his modern counterparts, his army consisted only of men, mules, and horses, allowing him to live off the land as he went. That option, given the size and sophistication of the modern American Army, was out of the question. A single M-1A1 tank could consume over 500 gallons of diesel fuel in a day. In comparison, the case of rations consumed by its crew was negligible.

A division, with over 300 such vehicles, would require 150,000 gallons a day for its tanks alone. Added to the fuel needed to run the tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, self-propelled howitzers, helicopters, and supply vehicles were specialized lubricants, spare parts, medical supplies, engineer material, ammunition, water, food, mail, and a host of other items that a modern American army found indispensable. In the end, the needs of the American Army would place a requirement for moving anywhere from 100 to 200 pounds of supplies per soldier in Mexico each and every day he was there.

The final limiting factor, one few outside the military profession ever considered, was the difficulty the Americans would encounter in controlling, feeding, and administering any local inhabitants that remained in the territory occupied by American forces. Once a territory was occupied, it fell to the occupying force to administer, feed, and care for the people in that territory. Modern conventions and law, as well as moral and ethical codes, demanded that. As all civil-military units in the United States were reserve units, and they were few, the number of populated areas that could be effectively governed and administered by those units, not to mention supplied, was limited. Matamoros alone had close to 400,000 inhabitants, and Monterrey nearly four million. These populations would need to be supported by the conquering Americans.

Given an analysis of American capabilities, and assuming that American goals would be limited to the establishment of a security zone, Guajardo estimated that the American limit of advance into Mexico would be north of a line defined by Tampico, Ciudad Victoria, Monterrey, Chihuahua, Hermosillo, and Kimo Bay. Whether or not the cities mentioned would be included in the security zone depended on the American ability to support the population of those cities versus the value of controlling the road and rail networks that converged in them. Though the occupation of Veracruz could not be ruled out, such an action would be inconsistent with the announced limited objectives.

It was at this point that Barreda took the lead again. Mexico, he pointed out, should allow the United States to define the parameters of the conflict.

Once the Americans announced their goals, they would be hard pressed to change them unless the Council of 13 did something to justify an escalation or change in goals. The occupation of Veracruz, located on the eastern coast of Mexico well south of the Rio Bravo, would be inconsistent with the stated goal of establishing a security zone to protect the American border. Such inconsistencies, Barreda pointed out, if they occurred, would be useful in driving a wedge between the American president and his supporters. If the council could fuel the political and moral debate that already existed within the United States, support for the war would erode faster and demands for a negotiated settlement would only be a matter of time.

On the international level, not only would the UN and the Organization of American States be used to apply pressure, but the establishment of a coalition of Central American countries would add to the pressure on the United States. Already, a combined military command, under Mexican control, including forces from Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Panama, Colombia, and Venezuela, had been formed. Though the contribution of some of the countries was insignificant, the there formation of such a coalition, Barreda pointed out, could not be ignored by either the United States or the world community. Mexico, by using the rallying cry of oppression by a superpower, would be able to bring pressure to bear from those nations who wished to embarrass the United States or repay real or perceived past transgressions.

A benefit of this whole process, Barreda emphasized, was that the Council of 13 would, out of necessity, receive recognition as the legal government of Mexico, almost by default. Barreda ended his section by stating, "By casting ourselves in the role of the oppressed, and ensuring our military operations are conducted in accordance with all international accords and protocols governing warfare, the same international system that the United States has so successfully manipulated in the past to achieve her national goals will give us our ultimate victory."

Childress paused when he read this, noting that the section, "ensuring our military operations are conducted in accordance with all international accords and protocols governing warfare" was underlined, twice. Without any need for explanation, he knew what Alaman had in mind. Sliding the document back into a plain manila envelope, Childress looked up at Delapos. "How sure are you that this is real?"

Taking a sip of coffee, Delapos glanced about the room before answering Childress. "As I said, the Council of 13 is no longer of one mind. There are those who feel the manipulation of internal American politics is a game that is far too dangerous to become involved in. It is, as one of the members of the council said, like twisting the tail of the bull.

These same men are also ashamed of what they call a strategy of cowards.

Rather than surrender Mexican-territory, they demand that every effort be made to defend every inch or perish in the effort. Yes, my friend, this document is real."

Although Childress had, by now, pretty well figured out what Alaman was now demanding of Delapos, Childress wanted Delapos to tell him.

Perhaps, Childress hoped, the actual plan was not as outrageous, or as gruesome, as what he was then picturing in his mind. Eager to tell Childress, Delapos explained how he and Alaman saw things happening. "The Americans will, or I mean, have invaded, moving south to secure a line similar to the one defined by Guajardo. The Mexican Army will offer only token resistance to that advance, just enough to appease Mexican ma chismo and provide the people with new heroes and martyrs that could be used to rally the nation behind the Council of 13. Once the Americans reach the limit of their advance, a stalemate will settle in, during which the Americans will try to clean out any groups of bandits or criminals within the security zone it occupies, while the Council of 13 applies diplomatic pressure, as well as manipulating antiwar sentiment within the United States, in an effort to force the Americans out. Eventually, Senior Alaman sees negotiations that will end with the United States claiming its goals have been met and withdrawing. The Council of 13, for their part, will be able to claim victory, pointing out that they had prevented the total defeat and occupation of Mexico. In the end, a status quo ante bellum will be rees tablished and relations between the two nations will resume, with the Council of 13 formally recognized, by both the people of Mexico and the world, as the sole and legal government of Mexico.''

Pausing, Delapos looked at Childress for a reaction. When he saw that he would not get one from the poker-faced American, he continued. "To prevent this from happening, Senior Alaman intends to move our teams south again, once the American forces reach the limit of their advance.

Operating from base camps behind Mexican lines, we will conduct raids against isolated outposts and along the extended supply lines that the Americans will have to use. Though we expect the Mexican Army to do the same, those conducted by our forces will be brutal, committing the most vicious and heinous atrocities possible. By doing this, we will cause the Americans to overreact and either retaliate in kind or, even better, modify their limited war aims to include the overthrow of the Council of 13."

Childress, for his part, remained calm. Delapos, however, was animated by his own dialogue. His face lit by glowing eyes and a smile, he continued, talking faster and faster and waving his right hand as he proceeded. "That such sentiment can be mustered in the United States is possible. Many Americans, after the war in the Persian Gulf, felt that it was a mistake to leave Saddam Hussein in power. The atrocities committed against the Kurdish rebels in the north and Iraqi refugees in the south by a man left in power were a stain that marred an otherwise brilliant feat of American arms. If we can make the Council of 13 appear to be as evil as that Iraqi dictator, the Americans may demand that steps be taken to prevent a repeat of their failure in the Persian Gulf, especially since the victims, this time, would be Americans."

Finished, Delapos again waited for Childress to respond. In Delapos's eyes, Childress could see both excitement and joy. After having listened in silence, struggling to avoid any emotional response, Childress finally had to say something. Several thoughts ran through his mind. First and foremost was the realization that he was, despite years of self-denial, still an American. The idea of being a man without a country, which had been appealing to him in his youth, was wearing thin as he began to look for a life that held more than just danger, excitement, and adventure. At thirty-five, Childress wanted to make peace, with himself and with a country he had so long ignored.

Hand in hand with this realization was the impression that, just as he was too much an American, Delapos was too much a Mexican. The same forces of heritage, birth, and experience that made Childress undeniably American made it impossible for Delapos to be anything but a Mexican.

In his enthusiasm to follow Alaman, a man Delapos had begun referring to as a great Mexican patriot, Delapos was ignoring the stupidity of using mercenaries in an area contested by two standing armies. Cold hard logic told Childress that, regardless of how vast the area of operation and how dispersed the opposing forces were, of how good and secretive the mercenaries were, and of how inept the Mexican Army was, the mercenaries would eventually run out of luck — or, worse, their usefulness to Alaman would end. How easy, Childress knew, it would be for Alaman to arrange for information regarding the location of his mercenary base camps to fall into the hands of the American CIA or Mexican intelligence. Once this was done, every asset from high-performance bombers to special operations forces would be used to eradicate the mercenary teams, relieving Alaman of the necessity of paying them.

Despite the reservations he harbored, however, Childress found himself seriously considering going along. Such a risky venture, he knew, would require that Alaman pay top dollar to his mercenaries. It would take little effort to convince him, through Delapos, that all payment had to be in advance. Childress, therefore, saw an opportunity for one last hurrah, one more job that would, if he survived it, let him leave his chosen profession and retire to.his beloved Green Mountains. Though the idea of building his future on the bodies of his fellow countrymen was never far from his mind, Childress was able to keep those thoughts in check. He was, he told himself, just like the American politicians in Washington, D.C., who were enhancing their political careers by sending Americans to fight another war that was, by any measure, wrong, immoral, and unwinnable.

With the passing of the scout helicopters, quiet returned to the arroyo.

That they had once again escaped detection by the Americans both surprised and worried Guajardo. For he knew that, as good as the sensors and optics of the American recon aircraft were, the camouflage and positions of his men were bad. Not that the men, or their leaders, were slack or undisciplined. On the contrary. The morale and spirits of both leaders and led were high, almost euphoric. Though much of the euphoria was nothing more than a thin veil to hide their nervousness, Guajardo could tell there was a true desire to do well in the soldiers he had selected to fight the rearguard actions. No, Guajardo knew, it wasn't really their fault that things were not perfect. It was just that they were not as well trained as they should have been, and lacked the experience that served to both motivate and focus one's efforts in combat.

To some extent, he blamed himself, for the mechanized cavalry platoon waiting in ambush was from the military zone he had been responsible for before the June 29 revolution. During his tenure as their senior commander, part of his responsibility had been to train and prepare them for this day. That he felt uneasy now, when his soldiers were about to engage in their first battle, was natural. That he also saw only the negatives, and imagined the worst possible outcome, was also natural. His admonishments to subordinates during peacetime training exercises, telling them that perfection in war was an illusion, did not, at that moment, help relieve the anxiety he felt, for he knew that errors cost men their lives and lost battles.

Yet, despite his reservations, there was nothing, in reality, that he could do. Technically, by all measures, Guajardo had done everything expected of a senior commander. He had formulated his strategy, had it approved by the council, issued the necessary orders to implement it, and done everything that was prudent and within his power to ensure that his subordinates carried it out. Now, all he had to do was have the courage of his convictions and see those plans through. The most difficult part of command, Guajardo was beginning to realize, was letting go, trusting in subordinate commanders and allowing them the freedom to do their jobs.

Still, there had to be something he could do, some way that he could influence the battle. This very question had, in the past, often nagged Guajardo. Over the years, he had studied how various commanders, both Mexican and foreign, had sought to exercise command and control, to influence their subordinates by thought, word, and deed. At an early age, Guajardo had rejected the manners and techniques used by his fellow Mexican officers. They were, he felt, too self-serving. While some of the battlefield exploits of his ancestors provided stirring accounts and inspiration, they offered little in the way of practical war-winning advice.

While the story of the young cadet who plunged to his death wrapped in the flag of Mexico at the Battle of Chapultepec on September 13, 1847, made a great and inspiring legend, it scarcely provided a commander with a solution to command and control problems on the modern battlefield.

At first, Guajardo thought American leadership techniques could provide an answer. Quickly, however, he found that American commanders depended far too much on sophisticated equipment, equipment that Guajardo knew the Mexican Army would never have. In addition, and to his surprise, he found that the practices of many American officers, too, were quite self-serving. In their own way, the "professional" military officers in the United States made just as many decisions based on domestic and international political considerations as did officers in Mexico, although no one would ever admit to such a thing. Finally, the American character, both national and individual, greatly influenced their system. American professional journals and doctrine preached a policy of centralized planning and decentralized execution, in which the subordinates supposedly had great latitude in deciding how to perform assigned tasks. In practice, however, sophisticated communications systems provided very senior commanders, commanders who were conscious of the fact that their careers depended upon the success or failure of their subordinates or who were lacking confidence in those subordinates, the ability to actively intervene in operations in which they had no business. Rather than having freedom to fight their own battles as they saw fit, American commanders, Guajardo found, were hamstrung by demands to submit frequent and detailed reports and were often victimized by recommendations and advice from commanders too far removed from the reality of battle.

Rejecting the American way of war, Guajardo briefly considered the Soviet technique. In many ways, it was attractive. Its reliance on standardized battle drills and clear, concise doctrine took much of the guesswork out of the decisions of junior commanders. But this, too, was rejected by Guajardo as being too inflexible. The conformity demanded by Soviet techniques was unsuited to the Mexican temperament. It was too mechanical, too cold, too precise. His men, he knew, were men of flesh and blood, men of passions. Such men, Guajardo knew, could never be made into the machines the Soviet techniques required. While one could not build a system using only the example of the Ninos Perdidos of Chapultepec, the occasional display, of passion, courage, and sacrifice, which Mexicans abounded in, and which the Soviet system discounted, was needed to stir a fighting man's blood.

It was only after many years that Guajardo had realized that he would never find, in a foreign army, an ideal technique that could be grafted onto his army. Instead, he opted for a mix, a hybrid system combining the strengths of his army with suitable techniques and practices from other armies. Of all the armies he studied, the system he followed most closely was the German. Though it was the system that the Americans pretended to follow, Guajardo knew they had lost focus when they diluted it with particular American practices and idiosyncrasies. Guajardo, on the other hand, chose only two features of the German system that he knew he could implement and influence. The first was a small, well-trained staff that created plans, coordinated them, and then provided necessary synchronization when the plans were implemented. The second feature, which Guajardo himself endorsed, was leadership from the front. It was only from the front, Guajardo knew, that officers could see and understand what was happening. A man sitting in a safe, comfortable bunker, miles from danger, could not possibly feel or understand a battle in progress. Only a leader standing shoulder to shoulder with his men could gauge what was possible and what wasn't. Besides, Mexican character responded to such leadership. It, in fact, demanded it. So Guajardo found little difficulty in justifying why he, the senior military commander in Mexico, was standing in a hastily dug position on the forward edge of the battlefield. After all, how could he demand that his subordinates lead from the front if he himself didn't. And it was only by using such excuses that he was able to escape the chaos of the capital and go where he could be with men he understood and do what he was trained to do.

A young captain of cavalry, who commanded the mechanized cavalry units in this area, lightly tapped Guajardo on the shoulder to get his attention, then pointed to the north, toward the road. Taking his time, and making a great show of a calmness that he really didn't feel, Guajardo hoisted his binoculars to his eyes and began to search in the direction indicated by the captain.

At first, Guajardo didn't see what the captain was pointing at. Then, as if it simply had popped out of nowhere, he saw a dark green vehicle moving down the road. With his binoculars, he studied the vehicle. It was a Bradley, probably the scout version. If that was so, there had to be another, somewhere near. Following the road back to the north, Guajardo searched for another vehicle. He saw none. Perhaps it was halted, covering the lead vehicle from a concealed position. Without stopping his search, Guajardo asked the cavalry captain if he saw any other vehicles.

The captain responded with a curt no, he did not.

Guajardo grunted. Perhaps, he told the captain, the scout vehicle was being overwatched by attack helicopters. Still searching, the captain responded that he had thought of that, but saw no dust or shaking vegetation that normally betrayed the presence of a hovering helicopter. Again, Guajardo responded with a grunt. "Perhaps," he said, "we have a careless scout."

The captain of cavalry lowered his binoculars, scanning the horizon with his naked eyes before responding. "Perhaps, Colonel, that is true.

The only way to be sure of that, sir, is to fire."

Guajardo, his binoculars still riveted to the enemy scout vehicle, didn't react at first. Then, understanding that the captain was seeking permission, he turned his head, calling over his shoulder while still holding his binoculars up. "Then, Captain, perhaps you should do so."

Unfamiliar with the proper etiquette for starting a war, the captain snapped to attention, saluted, and responded to Guajardo's comment with a resounding "Si, Colonel."

As the captain of cavalry issued the order to open fire, Guajardo chuckled.

In time, he knew, after they had been brutalized by combat, such giddiness would be gone. Only then, when the enthusiasm of the first battle had been washed away by blood, would he know if his soldiers could do what was expected of them.

Though he knew where the Panard recon vehicles were hidden, Gua jardo could not see them as they pulled out of hidden positions and into their firing positions. Even after they fired, throwing up plumes of white smoke and dust from the muzzle blast, Guajardo still could not see the two vehicles.

Neither, he noted, could the American. Both Panards had fired within a second of each other. And both missed. The round of one Panard impacted on the road just in- front of the American Bradley while the round of the second hit the shoulder of the road to the left of the Bradley.

Even before the dirt thrown up by the near misses began to fall back to earth, the Bradley jerked to the left. For a second, Guajardo caught a glimpse of the Bradley's commander as he dropped out of sight and pulled his hatch shut. It was obvious that the driver, seeing the explosion to his immediate front and not the one to the left, had reacted instinctively and without guidance from his vehicle commander, for his maneuver was taking the Bradley right into the guns of the Mexican Panards. Of course, Guajardo thought, maybe the Bradley driver did know what he was doing. After all, standard drill in an ambush was to turn into the ambush.

That possibility, however, was quickly dismissed when the Bradley began belching smoke from its on-board smoke generator. Rather than hide the Bradley, which the white billowing smoke would have done if the Panards were behind it, the smoke now silhouetted the Bradley, making it an ideal target. Not that the smoke was necessary. The first round that had impacted to the front of the Bradley had landed short because the commander of the Panard that had fired it had made an error in estimating the range. By turning toward the Panard's position, the Bradley had closed the range, eliminating the ranging error. The commander of the Panard, unable to see the strike of his first round because of the muzzle blast and the dust kicked up by it in front of his vehicle, fired a second round without making any corrections. Thus, the actions of the Bradley's driver, and the failure of the Panard's commander to make any corrections, established a perfect ballistic solution for the Panard's second round.

Striking just below the driver's hatch on the Bradley, the Panard's 90mm high-explosive antitank, or HEAT, round detonated. A HEAT round has a shaped-charge warhead which, when detonated, forms a superheated, pencil-thin jet stream of molten metal molecules. These molecules, which come from the metal cone in the warhead that forms the jet stream, can exert over 125,000 foot-pounds of pressure against a single point. In the case of the Bradley, this force easily defeated the vehicle's aluminum armor. In a span of time that lasted less than a second, the superheated molecules in the jet stream from the Panard's round literally pushed the molecules of the Bradley's armor out of the way. Once inside the Bradley, the superheated molecules of the HEAT round, now joined by molecules from the Bradley's own armor, cut through anything that stood in their way, including the chest of the driver. As it ripped through the crew compartment of the Bradley, the jet stream cut through anything it made contact with, igniting fires as it went. When the stream hit one of the TOW antitank guided missiles stored in the Bradley, itself a HEAT round, and penetrated the thin aluminum skin of its warhead, a chain reaction was initiated.

From where Guajardo stood, the impact of the 90mm round on the front slope of the Bradley, followed by secondary explosions, was spectacular.

One second the Bradley was there, blindly charging for all it was worth toward the Panards. In an instant, a sudden flash and a great puff of thick black smoke obscured the Bradley. Then, before the puff of smoke disappeared, the Bradley shuddered and threw off a coat of dust, like a dirty metal toy that had been hit by a hammer. Almost instantaneously after that, the hatches on the turret and in the rear of the Bradley blew open, venting great sheets of flame that leaped up for a split second, then disappeared. Still, the Bradley rolled forward, trailing thick, dirty white and black smoke from numerous openings. A second series of internal explosions, caused by the detonation of more warheads stored on board, caused the Bradley to shudder again. This time, as the sheets of flame, which were caused by the burning of the TOW missiles' rocket fuel, appeared, the Bradley slowed, veered to the left, then rolled to a stop.

The lone scout was dead.

The scene elated the captain of cavalry. "We have done it, Colonel Guajardo. We have killed the Bradley. And with only three rounds!"

Watching the burning Bradley, Guajardo's response was cold. "Four rounds, Captain. Your Panards fired four rounds. The second round of the other Panard flew over the Bradley. The commander of that vehicle either overcompensated, adding too much of a correction, or did not take into account the fact that the American, headed toward him, was reducing the gun-to-target range." Turning away from the burning Bradley, Guajardo looked into the eyes of the surprised captain of cavalry. "Either way, you need to talk to both of those commanders. They were in ambush. They should have known the exact range to the road before the American came.

Such errors in the future will cost us dearly if we do not make corrections now. Is that understood?"

Snapping to attention, his face showing confusion because of what he took to be a rebuke, the captain of cavalry responded with a crisp "Si, Colonel."

After an awkward moment, Guajardo placed his right hand on the captain's shoulder. "It was a good kill, Captain. I do not begrudge you that. But it was only one kill. The American 16th Armored Division alone has 316 Bradleys. If we hope to make an impression upon them, we must make every shot and every life count. You understand, don't you?"

The captain of cavalry looked down at his feet, then up to Guajardo's eyes. "Yes, Colonel, I do. Forgive me for being so foolish. This is, you see, my first battle."

Grasping the back of the captain's head, Guajardo shook it. "You do not need to apologize. This is new to all of us. Now, quickly, move your people before those other 315 Bradleys come thundering down on us."

"Colonel Dixon, the 9th Cavalry is in contact!"

The sudden announcement, blurted over the helicopter's intercom, caught Dixon dozing off. Up since 0200 hours that morning after less than two hours sleep, Dixon had been on the move since then. He had been on hand in Laredo when the Mexicans had blown up two of the three bridges on the Rio Grande in the faces of the Special Forces teams that had tried to seize them at H-Hour, 0400 hours. After that, he had driven south of Laredo to watch the river crossing of the 2nd of the 13th Infantry, lead unit of the 2nd Brigade. When he saw that all was going well there, he had flown over to Roma, where the 1st Brigade had its forward command post, to see how their.initial operations were going. Only after Dixon had been satisfied that all was in order did he return to the division tactical command post, or TAC CP, located outside of Laredo, to monitor the battle and confer with the corps G3 over a secure land line.

Arriving at the TAC CP shortly after 1000 hours, Dixon had been off again by 1200 after receiving an update from the division assistant intelligence officer, his own current operations officer, and conferring with Big Al, the commanding general, whom Dixon had met coming in as he was going out.

It was not surprising, then, that the steady beating of the helicopter's blades and the rhythmic vibration of the engine were all that was needed to put Dixon to sleep. Blinking his eyes, Dixon looked about for a moment in order to get himself oriented. Once his head was as clear as it was going to get, he hit his intercom button. "Say again that last report, Chief."

His pilot, Chief Warrant Officer 3 Bomaster, realized, from Dixon's voice, that he had been asleep. "We just heard a spot report over the division command net that 1st of the 9th Cav had made contact. No grids or specifics were given, sir."

Taking a deep breath, Dixon pulled the map case that had partially fallen off of his lap up to where he could see it. In one corner of the map case was a small card that had the call signs and frequencies of selected division units on it. Finding the frequency for the 1st of the 9th Cavalry Squadron's command net, he reached over to the command and control console of the helicopter, and set that frequency on one of its FM radios.

As soon as he did, the silence of the headset he wore was shattered by a string of excited conversations. The use of illegal call signs, and familiarity with the voices, made it easy for Dixon to identify who was talking on the radio. The squadron commander, using his nickname Scout 6, was grilling his A Troop commander, who responded to the call sign Alpha 6. Every now and then, the squadron operations officer, with the handle Scout 3, would cut into the conversation with a question. The operations officer, however, was for the most part ignored, as squadron commander talked to troop commander.

"Alpha six, say again the location of the ambush, over."

"This is Alpha six. I do not have a six-digit grid on it. We have only an initial contact report, over."

"This is Scout six. As I recall, an initial contact report includes location and nature of contact. If you have that information, then pass it on.

If not, tell me, so I can get division off my back, over."

There was a pause. From the squadron commander's tone of voice and questions, Dixon could tell that he was about to lose his temper. Not that he blamed him. It was obvious, from the short conversation that Dixon had already heard, that the troop commander was waffling, that one of his lead elements had screwed up and been caught, and that the troop commander was in the process of trying to cover either his own stupidity or that of one of his subordinates. Dixon could almost picture the A Troop commander, sitting in his command post, trying to come up with at least some kind of useful information to mollify his enraged squadron commander.

The urge to protect his troopers, not to mention his own pride and career, Dixon knew, was strong. While such sentiment was laudable and acceptable by many in peacetime, in combat, when timely and accurate reporting meant the difference between success and failure, there was no room for such sentiments. Failure equaled lives lost for nothing and that, to Dixon, was intolerable. Unable to restrain himself, Dixon was about to key the radio and turn the screws another notch. The squadron commander, however, beat him to the punch.

"Alpha six, this is Scout six. Okay, lad, answer me, yes or no. Do you know where the contact took place, over."

"This is Alpha six. Negative."

"Do you have contact with the element in contact or anyone who can observe them, over."

"This is Alpha six. Negative."

"Do you have any idea of the size, location, or nature of the enemy force that was engaged, over."

"This is Alpha six. Negative."

There was a pause. When the squadron commander came back, he did not bother to hide his anger. "Alpha six, do you fucking know anything?

Over!"

Again, there was a pause before the troop commander replied. When he did, his voice was low, almost sheepish. "This is Alpha six. Roger.

A scout track from the Alpha two one element moving south on the main red ball called in that he was under fire. Alpha two one has been unable to contact him after that report. Over."

The squadron commander articulated the anger that Dixon felt. "You mean to tell me that you had one Bradley, all by itself, running down the main road? That you may have pissed away the lives of five men just to find out there's Mexicans out there who are willing to fight?"

After a moment, a moment that Dixon knew had to be the most difficult one in the life of the young A Troop commander, he came back and answered his squadron commander. "This is Alpha six. Affirmative.

Over."

Having heard enough, Dixon turned the radio off. For a moment, he merely stared out the window of the helicopter, watching the sparse vegetation of northern Mexico go by. Why, he thought, did every war have to start the same way? Why did young soldiers always have to pay with their lives so that their leaders could learn their trade? As much as Dixon felt sorry for the troop commander, he knew that he had to go. Not only had he sinned by sending out a single vehicle on recon, he had tried to cover up his mistake. Officers, especially cavalry officers, who thought that it was permissible to submit false or inaccurate reports in combat could not be tolerated. Too many lives rode on the decisions that were made based on what the cavalry reported. Besides, after the verbal beating and public humiliation the troop commander had received on the open-air radio net, Dixon knew the troop commander's confidence would be broken beyond repair. So, to the five scouts who everyone was now assuming were out there somewhere killed or wounded, Dixon added a sixth casualty, the troop commander, who would become a psychological casualty, probably for life.

In the current operations van, located in the division main command post, Cerro turned the FM radio frequency from the cavalry squadron command net back to the alternate division command net. Like Dixon, he had been listening to the squadron commander, eavesdropping as they called it. Like Dixon, he was depressed after listening to the conversation, but not for the same reasons. The A Troop commander, Cerro felt, had been incredibly stupid. Relief, Cerro felt, would be too good. For what the commander had done, anything less than public castration would be too light a punishment. The thought of sending a lone scout out into hostile territory was, doctrinally as well as in terms of common sense, nothing less than criminal.

No, it was not the fate of the scouts or their troop commander that concerned Cerro. It was the death of innocence that depressed him. Right up to H-Hour, just before the Mexicans dropped the bridges into the Rio Grande, there had been division staff officers who had believed that the Mexicans, knowing full well that it would be futile to resist any American military initiative, would do nothing. After all, as the division G2 pointed out, in 1916, when Pershing chased Pancho Villa into Mexico with three U.S. Army brigades, the Mexican Army had done nothing other than put on a show of force. This attitude, with reports from J-Stars and long range ground recon teams, which had reported that major Mexican units had already withdrawn south, had encouraged the feeling that this exercise would be a piece of cake. The G3 plans officer, a major of great intellect, had thought that the division would push south to Monterrey unopposed, occupying and patrolling its assigned sector while the two governments negotiated. When all the media hype had died down, which he estimated would take no more than six weeks, and both sides could reach agreement without losing face, he had predicted, U.S. forces would declare the operation a success, disengage, and withdraw north.

The shedding of blood, on both sides, however, made such a scenario unlikely. As the sinking of the HMS Sheffield and the Argentine cruiser General Belgrano during the Falklands War had demonstrated, once blood has been shed and the resulting national passions unleashed, talk of logic and common sense is drowned out by the cries for revenge and victory to justify the sacrifice. Blood, once spilled in the name of God and country, could only be satisfied with more blood. That the Mexicans would have allowed the Americans to enter their country unopposed had, in Cerro's mind, been a foolish notion to begin with. All that remained to be seen, at this point, was how much Mexican pride was worth, how much the American government was willing to sacrifice to support an ill-chosen policy, and how much of a sacrifice the American public would tolerate once it found out that there could never be a clean, decisive victory.

Standing up, Cerro looked about the van. Such thoughts were, at times, mind-boggling, especially for a not-so-young-anymore infantry captain. Turning to the operations NCO, he asked what was for lunch.

Reaching down into a box of MREs under his desk, the sergeant grabbed a brown plastic sack, pulled it out, and read the label.

"Gee, sir. You're in luck." Tossing the plastic sack to Cerro, he waited until Cerro had caught it before he announced, with a great flourish,

"And the captain gets, ta-da, pork patties."

Making a face, Cerro looked at the black lettering on the pouch to confirm the sergeant's verdict. Then he turned to the other people in the van and said, "Well, it's a dirty job, but someone's got to eat 'em." With that, he pivoted and left the van in search of a quiet, shady spot where he could choke down his lunch unmolested by the thoughts and noise of war.

More accustomed to critics, Jan was, for a moment, speechless. The sincerity of the compliment, given at such a time, by a man who had much to do, struck a chord in her heart. Here, she thought, was a man of great passions and thought. A man who, despite his heavy duties, felt the need to take the time to personally thank her for something she would have done anyway. For the longest time, she struggled in an effort to come up with a response that was appropriate. In the end, she could not. The best that she managed was a simple thank you, whispered in tones that told Guajardo her words were heavy with emotion.

For a moment, there was an awkward silence, the kind of silence that fills a room when great passions are alive and where there are a man and a woman, alone. Clearing his throat, Guajardo offered Jan another cup of coffee. Though she didn't want one, she accepted his offer. Freed from the silence by action, Guajardo leaped from his seat and walked to where the coffeepot sat, and back to Jan's chair. As he poured for her, he turned to the next matter at hand.

"You realize, Senorita Fields, that you are the only American who has availed herself of the opportunity to talk to each and every member of the council since the twenty-ninth of June?"

Jan hadn't thought of that. In a way, the idea appealed to her. She could use that angle. Then, in the next instant, what he had just told her hit her like a slap in the face. Her country, her beloved America, which at that moment was in the process of invading his country, had not taken the time to sit down and talk to the people who were its declared enemies.

How could that be? Looking up as Guajardo resumed his seat across from her, she pointed out that she knew that the American secretary of state had met with Foreign Minister Barreda on three different occasions and that a special White House envoy had been to see Colonel Molina, the president of the council, twice.

Guajardo chuckled, leaning back into his seat. "You did not listen to what I said, senorita. I said, talk to us. Your representatives did not talk to us. They lectured us, they threatened us, they even tried to dictate to us. But talk, as you and I have, never. Not in July. Not in August. Not ever. A meaningful dialogue cannot be established between men when one enters the room with an arrogance nurtured by an assumed superiority that his culture and position encourages. Though each of your nation's representatives was an educated man, each thought — correction, knew — he was right and we were wrong. Every representative that your president sent could never overcome the idea that the person he was talking to, my brothers, were poor, misguided soldiers, untutored in the skills of politics and diplomacy. In the same way that Lyndon Johnson viewed Ho Chi Minh as a peasant and terrorist and based his policies accordingly, your representatives see us as petty dictators and buffoons."

Guajardo paused. He realized that his tone had turned bitter and harsh.

He could see it in Jan's face. Grasping the arms of his chair, he looked up at the ceiling, taking deep breaths in an effort to compose himself before he continued. Ready, he looked back at Jan, who sat wide-eyed and waiting.

"Forgive me, Senorita Fields. But these are very trying times. I did not mean to frighten you or take my frustrations out on you. I am afraid that your pleasant visit has been ruined by my lack of self-control."

Jan shook her head and shrugged, telling him that it was no problem, that she understood.

"Senorita Fields, I would like you to do one more thing for me, a personal favor, if you would?"

Jan told him she would, anything.

"Your CIA, no doubt, knows,you are here this morning. I made no effort to keep it a secret. They, the CIA, will, no doubt, contact you. When they do, tell them you have a message from the president of Mexico, a personal message that is for the ears of the American president only."

Jan blinked. God, she thought to herself. Joe Bob was right. She should have stayed away. Now she was becoming involved in secret messages, the CIA, and God knew what else. Still, she simply nodded and said she would do her best. What else could she do? To start with, she was, she realized, at that moment the original captive audience. The image of Princess Leia telling Darth Vader to piss off popped in and out of her mind in a flash.

As real as that thought was, accompanied by an uncomfortable feeling of vulnerability, it was not the deciding factor that made her accept Guajardo's "request." The idea of being offered an opportunity to do something real, something tangible to end this war, was very compelling to Jan. It was more than a sense of duty to God and country, though that was present. Instead, she was being offered the chance to do something that would take Scott out of harm's way, to do something to protect the man she loved from the dangers he so willingly thrust himself into. That alone was justification to deliver Guajardo's message.

"Tell your president about us. Tell him what you think of us. Use your words to create in his mind an image of each of us, as people, not as members of the enemy government. Then tell him what you saw, and what you think of us, of Mexico, and what we are doing. If you have gotten this far, and he is still listening, then give him this message. We do not want trouble with the United States. Our futures, like our histories, are interwoven. One cannot exist without the other. We are, in many ways, the same. We are both, in our own eyes, great people, with a pride in our heritage and dreams for a better future. All we ask for is an opportunity to work for that future, in peace, as we see fit. We are asking for nothing that we do not already have, except peace and respect. And tell him, Senorita Fields, if he cannot see fit to grant us peace, then tell him we have no choice but to fight for that respect on the field of battle, a field of his choosing."

Arriving late in the afternoon by helicopter, Guajardo prepared himself for the first major confrontation between his forces and the Americans.

Noting the time on a wall clock, he knew it would be dark soon, time for his soldiers, like the predators of the desert, to begin to stir.

From a command observation post hidden near an old mining operation, Guajardo could observe American units moving into positions.

Though he was interested in what units they were and where they were, he also knew that, like his own, they would reshuffle themselves under the cover of darkness. Much of what the Americans were allowing him to see was for his benefit, a deception. Like a poker player, the American commander was holding his good cards close to his chest until it was time to play them.

Not that it would make any difference. What the American commander in this sector did in the next few hours, and during the upcoming battle, would not cause Guajardo to change his own plans for the defense of Monterrey. After having exercised great caution, with a few exceptions, in their advance south, the American 16th Armored Division had paused, closing up its combat power north and northeast of Monterrey. With one brigade concentrated north of Monterrey around Lampazos, another south of Vallecillo, and the third, to the south of Agualeguas, the 16th Armored Division was positioned for a move on Monterrey.

The distance between American brigades told Guajardo that the commander of the 16th Armored Division was not concerned about a counterattack by Mexican forces. Had he been, he would have kept his brigades closer together, deployed so that they could provide mutual support. Superior communications, as well as numerous aviation units capable of patrolling the gaps between the brigades, provided the Americans the ability to disperse their combat power and threaten Monterrey from three directions. Any offensive action against one of the dispersed American brigades by a mechanized unit larger than a company would be easily detected and parried by ground attack aircraft and attack helicopters well before the Mexican force could close with American ground units.

Guajardo, however, had no intention of throwing his valuable mechanized units away in a futile counterattack, at least not yet. He, like the American commander, used deception. Like a poker player with few blue chips, he did not want to throw them away early in the game. So, from the beginning, Guajardo was prepared to cede this hand, the battle of Monterrey, to the Americans. It was, after all, theirs for the taking.

But while he had no intention.of playing any blue chips in the defense of Monterrey, neither was he ready to give the hand away cheaply.

Though he could not beat the Americans here, he could bleed them a little, perhaps make them a little cautious. In the course of the play, if Guajardo was attentive enough, he might even be given an opportunity to cause real damage to the Americans. Such opportunities, Guajardo knew, had to be made. So Guajardo prepared his units to play the opening game for Monterrey.

With that thought in mind, he deployed his forces. Two battalions of infantry, both militia units, were deployed to the north in and around the city of Villaldamo. There, they would be able to delay an attack coming down the valley from the north by the American brigade located at Lampazos.

In the Mamulique Pass, two infantry battalions, one militia and one regular army, reinforced with an antitank company, covered the direct route from Laredo, to the northeast, into Monterrey. To the northeast of Monterrey lay the Sierra Picachos, with the Mamulique Pass in the west and open flatlands to the east and southeast. In that area, centered on a town named Nuevo Repueblo, a small regular army brigade with one infantry battalion, one mechanized infantry battalion, one militia battalion, two batteries of artillery, and a mechanized cavalry troop were deployed to defend against a sweep south of the Sierra Picachos. It was here, in the east, that Guajardo expected the American 16th Division to make its main effort. A move from Lampazos would force the Americans to advance down a long, narrow valley, dotted with many villages and towns. An attack through the Mamulique Pass would force the Americans to fight on ground favorable to the defender. Only in the south, around Nuevo Repueblo, was the ground favorable for wide, sweeping maneuvers by mechanized forces. The American commander had, to date, used every advantage he had to avoid direct assaults on positions that could easily be defended. Guajardo did not expect him to change.

For that reason, he stationed the only powerful force he intended to sacrifice in the defense of Monterrey, a battalion of Nicaraguan T-72 tanks, south of the city in the town of Marin. From there, the Nicaraguan tanks could move to the north to hit an American force coming south out of Mamulique Pass, or east to hit an American force moving through Nuevo Repueblo. These tanks had been moved from Nicaragua under great secrecy. Every trick had been used. The thirty tanks that composed the battalion had been moved at night, along the most roundabout routes, individually. It had been a great effort, too great an effort in the opinion of some, especially since even Guajardo expected American attack helicopters to make short work of this force. Still, it was not their added combat power that Guajardo counted on. It was the there appearance of Nicaraguan tanks, especially T-72S, this close to the United States and so early in the campaign, and the resulting shock that such an appearance would generate, that Guajardo aimed to achieve.

Not everyone agreed with the use of the Nicaraguans this early in the fight. Guajardo's decision to deploy them was opposed by some of the Council of 13, a body of men that was becoming more and more divided.

A few felt that by using the Nicaraguans, they would be forcing the Americans to broaden the conflict. The threat of an invasion of southern Mexico, or a bombing campaign throughout Mexico, to isolate the country from the rest of Latin America frightened some of the council. It would not be wise, they warned, to anger the Americans in this way.

Others insisted that the initial part of the conflict should be an all-Mexican affair, keeping other national forces out of the fighting. It would not do, they insisted, to give their rivals to the south the impression that Mexico could not fight its own battles.

Both Guajardo and Barreda, however, agreed that it would be a good thing to let the Nicaraguans bleed a little. While it was true that such an action would broaden the conflict, the same action would also serve as a warning to the Americans, showing that the war could be broadened beyond their control. The Americans had, after all, come to Mexico in search of security, not to start an intrahemisphere conflict. Furthermore, if the council involved its allies early, and let some of their blood be shed, those allies would be more committed. So long as the other Latin American countries were left out of the actual shooting, it would be easy for them to change their minds and withdraw their forces and support. Once bloodied, however, they could not do so without losing face in the eyes of their own countrymen and the other Latin American nations. Blood, Barreda pointed out, would bind them together.

In private, Guajardo confessed to one more reason for committing the Nicaraguans. He knew that he could not win the battle of Monterrey. He knew that the fight would be quick and bloody. A defeat involving only Mexican forces would be an embarrassment and would leave the ability of the Mexican Army open to question. By involving the vaunted Nicaraguan Army, and allowing them to share the defeat, Guajardo could humble some of the Sandinista officers who were trying to tell him how to do things, and show them, and the other allies, that American technology and combat power were not to be taken lightly.

With his plans set and dispositions completed, Guajardo's role in the upcoming battle would be simple. He had only two decisions to make, and two orders to issue. The first involved where and when to commit the Nicaraguan tanks into battle. Once he knew where the main American effort was, he would make that decision and issue the appropriate code word to launch that counterattack. The second decision would be when to break off the battle. That decision would be made when, in Guajardo's opinion, his forces had done all they could do and further sacrifice would be pointless. When that point was reached, he would have the code word transmitted that would allow his subordinate commanders to break contact with the Americans. Withdrawing to new positions south and west of Monterrey, they would regroup and wait as the initiative moved back into the hands of the politicians and diplomats.

With nothing to do before the lead units of the division crossed their lines of departure, and too keyed up to sleep, Big Al and Dixon sat in the G3

Plans van in the division main CP and rehashed how they saw the battle developing the next morning. Of the three options available to the division, Dixon still favored punching through the Mamulique Pass with the main effort. It had, he pointed out, the advantage of being the least likely choice while being the most direct into Monterrey. Eventually, since the hills on both sides of the pass needed to be cleared anyway, an assault on the pass would be necessary. The division, Dixon claimed, had more than enough direct and indirect firepower to suppress the defenders in the pass while dismounted infantry were airlifted to the flanks and rear of the defenders to isolate them. Once in control of the high ground, the dismounted infantry would be free to rout out those defenders still wanting to resist.

It was not that Dixon lacked imagination or was, by nature, bloody minded. It was important, he pointed out to Big Al, and anyone who would listen, to demonstrate early in this war the effectiveness of American firepower, the damage it could inflict, and the American resolve to use it. In a set-piece battle, such as Dixon was advocating, all the weight of the division could be brought to bear on a single point. The slaughter of the defenders, which would be great, could not be ignored. Besides, by taking the best-defended and most difficult position, the division would be making it clear to the leadership of the Mexican Army, in a less than subtle manner, that no position, regardless of how well defended, could be held. The technique of attacking into the teeth of apparent strength was often used by the Opposing Force Brigade at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin in order to shake the confidence of units training there.

Dixon, having been on the receiving end of one of those attacks, understood the psychological value of such an action.

Big Al, however, was a maneuver man, a soldier who preferred to use the tracks of his tanks rather than their guns to achieve victory. The end run south of the Sierra Picachos, where the ground was more open and therefore more conducive to maneuver by mechanized forces, appealed to him. The Mexican defenders, notoriously weak in mechanized forces and totally lacking modern antiarmor weapons, would be quickly overwhelmed by a mounted attack. Besides, Big Al's preference just happened to coincide with the general order from the Department of the Army that major confrontations that would result in high casualties and protracted combat be avoided, when possible. That order, coupled with a restriction on both Air Force and Army aviation that limited it to no more than fifty kilometers from the forward edge of friendly forces, bothered Dixon. It was as if,Dixon quipped, they were being ordered to kill the Mexicans only a little. Though Big Al agreed that it was ludicrous to establish such limitations now that they were engaged in a shooting war, he, as the commander, had no choice but to comply.

With the time for debating and decision-making over, and the success or failure of the next day's operations in the hands of the captains and lieutenants, Big Al and Dixon compared Zachary Taylor's campaign of 1846 with their own. Their one lament was the amount of control people outside the theater of operations exerted on their current operations. Had Taylor been burdened with the communications that the current president had at his disposal, Dixon pointed out, the 16th Armored Division would be preparing to seize Kansas City, not Monterrey.

The promise of action in ten minutes, after a sudden and unexpected road march, no longer thrilled Second Lieutenant Nancy Kozak. In part, this was due to the road march that had taken the 2nd of the 13th Infantry from the division reserve at Vallecillo to their current location behind the 3rd Brigade. Moving all night, the 2nd of the 13th had arrived in its new assembly areas just as the sun crested the horizon to the east. Rather than being thrown into the growing battle around Nuevo Repueblo, as the battalion commander had expected, the 2nd of the 13th had been placed in reserve again. The situation that had existed when the 2nd of the 13th began its move had completely changed. Instead of achieving a breakthrough, as the 3rd Brigade commander had expected to do when 2nd of the 13th was released to his command, he had encountered unexpected resistance on the part of the Mexicans which had changed the entire picture by the time 2nd of the 13th arrived in the 3rd Brigade's area.

At an update held by Captain Wittworth after he returned from the battalion CP, Nancy Kozak found out that, rather than giving ground without a fight, the Mexicans facing the 3rd Brigade's sweep south of the Sierra Picachos mountains had merely moved to other positions under cover of darkness. The lead elements of the 3rd Brigade's attack, finding that those Mexican positions that had been occupied earlier were vacant, had assumed the Mexicans had withdrawn. Ordered to switch from conducting a deliberate attack to a headlong pursuit in an effort to catch the fleeing enemy, the two lead battalions of the 3rd Brigade had been in the process of changing formations, on the move, when they made contact with the actual Mexican fighting positions. The resulting combination of surprise, stiff enemy resistance, and the change of formations during a night battle resulted in confusion that stalled, then halted, the 3rd Brigade's advance. Rather than continue thrashing about in the dark, and risk fratricide, the commander of the 3rd Brigade had ordered all units to break contact and assume hasty defensive positions. The attack, Wittworth told his platoon leaders, would begin again, after dawn, using only those elements that were currently in contact. Until such times as the situation was fully developed, the 2nd of the 13th would remain, as it had been since the beginning of the invasion of Mexico, in reserve.

For Kozak, this was not all bad. The reason she accepted the role of being in reserve, again, was a feeling that things in her platoon were not right. Despite the fact that she could not quite put her finger on exactly what those things were, she did not feel comfortable with the way her people had been acting the past few days. Though she was mentally ready for combat, she wasn't sure that her platoon in general, and her platoon sergeant, Sergeant First Class Rivera, were ready. Since entering Mexico, the attitudes of both had changed, and she wasn't sure if the two changes were related.

When she had mentioned her observation to Staff Sergeant Maupin the day before, he had admitted, in an unusually candid conversation, that he hoped that they would be allowed to do something worthwhile, which, to Maupin, translated to being committed to combat. He went on to explain that the prospect of getting mauled or killed didn't thrill him or anyone in his squad. While everyone in his squad wanted to go back north, meaning back to the United States, they wanted to do it under their own power. It was just that the idea of going through the entire operation with all the discomforts, fears, and stress that go with an active campaign in the field, not to mention family separation, without having an opportunity to shoot someone, was, in his words, "shitty."

That her men felt that way was a revelation to young Lieutenant Kozak.

That she felt the same way was a shock. She kept telling herself that this was not, after all, a video game. That the next time she put the sights of her Bradley onto a target, it would be a live target, manned by real people. Still, the idea of going into battle, and the thought that she was finally going to be given an opportunity to prove to herself and everyone else that she had "the right stuff," fascinated her like nothing else ever had. That real people would have to die in order to satisfy this urge seemed unimportant, a remote consideration at best.

As difficult as this was to deal with, Rivera's strange conduct was more difficult. Though Captain Wittworth had discussed the possibility that some of the soldiers of Hispanic origin might be reluctant to engage in combat, Kozak had never imagined that her platoon sergeant, the cornerstone of the platoon, would have second thoughts. That he did was becoming more apparent every day. Instead of the dynamic, hard-driving NCO he had been back at Fort Hood, Rivera had, since the border incident on September 7, kept to himself. Though he performed his assigned duties, he did so in an impersonal and mechanical manner, almost by rote. Even the soldiers, used to being jumped on by Rivera for the smallest infraction, began to mumble, loud enough that Kozak could hear, that Rivera had gone off the deep end.

Though something needed to be done, and done soon, Kozak didn't quite know how to approach the matter. On the single occasion when she tried mentioning that she had noticed a change in his attitude, he had all but snapped at her, asking her to enumerate exactly what he was doing wrong. When she responded that he wasn't doing anything really wrong, Rivera had surprised her by telling her that if she wasn't happy with him, then she should relieve him and find someone who suited her. Frustrated by the direct approach, Kozak had mentioned the conversation and her concerns to the company first sergeant. He hadn't proved to be much help. With a simple shrug, the first sergeant told Kozak not to worry.

Everyone, he said, got a little funny in a war. The first sergeant assured her that, when the shooting started, the old Sergeant Rivera would pop out, as if by magic, and everything would be back on track. Though the first sergeant's words did little to allay her concerns, she dropped the subject. Maybe, she thought, he was right. He was, after all, a first sergeant and a combat veteran. Surely he, if anyone, knew what he was talking about.

Looking at her watch, then at those vehicles that she could see, Kozak decided there was little more to be done. All was, as far as she could tell, ready. Bringing her hands up to her face, she carefully rubbed the sides of her nose with her index fingers. Damn, she thought, as a flash of pain ran through her body. When will this damned nose stop hurting?

While Second Lieutenant Nancy Kozak made every effort to sort out the problems within her platoon, her peers in the two lead battalions of the 3rd Brigade had more immediate concerns to deal with. After shifting through all information available concerning the location of Mexican positions, including reports based on a hasty recon by division air cavalry scouts, the commander of the 3rd Brigade ordered the lead battalions to conduct a movement to contact commencing at 0600 hours. It was his intent, stated in a verbal order issued to his battalion commanders at 0400 hours, to find and fix the enemy. Once the brigade and battalion commanders had a firm grasp of where the enemy main positions were, they would pile on with everything he could get his hands on. Without realizing it, the commander of the 3rd Brigade had lost sight of the division commander's concept, moving away from an operation based on maneuver and gravitating toward one based on the direct approach and use of overwhelming firepower. It was an approach to war that was more familiar to American soldiers and resembled Dixon's original approach.

Though all this was, to the brigade and battalion commanders, important, it didn't matter what approach they used if the young captains and lieutenants in command of tank and mechanized platoons couldn't get their people motivated and moving. Even a professional soldier gets tired.

No amount of battle drill, no amount of physical training, no amount of benefits, real or imagined, could change the fact that a human body and mind can only go so long without sleep, real sleep, before it up and quits.

The soldiers of the 3rd Brigade were fast approaching that point.

On the previous day, in order to deceive the Mexicans, the brigade had been shifted to an assembly area twenty kilometers east of Nuevo Re pueblo. Only after darkness on the night of 11 September had the brigade been moved to its actual attack positions. That movement had been orchestrated in such a manner that, just as the last unit was closing on the attack position, the lead elements of the brigade were crossing the line of departure and going into the attack. Timed to commence at 2200 hours, or ten p.m., the attack had appeared to go well at first. Initial contact, made at 2215 hours, had been light and along the line where the brigade had expected to find the enemy. When, by 2235 hours, contact had been broken and initial reports were stating that the lead units were overrunning many abandoned positions, the brigade commander had ordered the lead units to shift from a deliberate, attack into a pursuit.

It was at this point, while the lead battalions were changing from being dispersed for an attack into the tighter formations used in a pursuit, that contact with the main Mexican positions, positions that had not been identified by earlier reconnaissance, had been made. As these were initially believed to be delaying positions, used to cover the withdrawal of the main body of troops, preparation for the pursuit had continued. It was not until sometime after 2300 hours, probably 2320, that the truth had become known. By then, companies lined up in columns of platoons, with artillery units limbered up and closed up on top of them, had been decisively engaged in close combat.

In several places, company commanders reacted by redeploying their units and conducting hasty attacks on the fly. Some of these attacks succeeded, allowing the company commander to press on to the southwest toward his distant objective. Other attacks failed, with the company thrown back onto itself. A few company commanders, unable to assess what was going on, simply stopped where they were, coiled their units up into a tight defensive posture, and waited for orders. Within minutes, effective command and control at battalion level and above ceased to exist.

Confusion was not limited to the battalion and brigade commanders alone. Command and control also ceased to exist within some companies.

A failed night attack, at its best, bears a striking resemblance to a nightmare.

Burning tracks, both tanks and Bradleys, cast an eerie illumination over the area where the attack had taken place, an area still dominated by fire from enemy positions and artillery that the attack had failed to destroy.

Into this area medics and recover teams, under the control of the company first sergeant, must move to save the wounded and retrieve damaged vehicles. Sometimes these people, in the process, also become casualties.

While all this is going on, the company commander, if he has survived, is trying to rally the survivors of the attack, count noses to find out who he still has, figure out what happened so that he can submit a timely and accurate report to his battalion commander, and reorganize his unit. This entire effort usually is complicated by the fact that sometimes leaders, including the company commander, are among the casualties that the first sergeant is trying to recover. When that happens, platoon sergeants — or if they are also gone, squad leaders — must step forward and assume the duties of platoon leader, doing things they have never trained for, under the worst possible circumstances.

A failed attack almost always appears worse than it actually is. It takes time, however, to sort that out. And even when a unit is finally reorganized and recovered, the psychological impact of the failure, coupled with the exhaustion from the physical exertion, stress of combat, and trauma of a confused night battle, is usually enough to make the unit combat-ineffective for hours. It is at this time, in the midst of a seemingly impossible situation, that the young officers who lead the companies and platoons earn their pay. For inevitably, from out of the darkness, through the use of the magic we call radio, the voice of some unseen staff officer comes to the young captain or lieutenant, giving him new orders, orders that will require his unit to expose itself again to the horrors it has just survived.

It is at this moment, in the brief span of time that separates the commander's acceptance of his new orders and the issuance of his own orders to his own unit, that many young combat leaders experience a loneliness and despair that knows no bounds. Exhausted himself, the company commander must find, from the depth of his own soul, not only the courage and fortitude to propel himself forward again into combat, but enough to motivate almost one hundred men to follow him as he does so.

Some call this courage. Others, simply a commander's duty. Regardless of what it is called, it is hard, and some people simply cannot do it.

By midnight, the entire 3rd Brigade was in disarray. Some companies were pressing on, unchecked, toward Monterrey. Other companies that had initiated hasty attacks and failed were scattered about and in the process of recovering. As the chances of units becoming isolated, or firing on other friendly units in the confusion of the night, became more and more likely, the brigade commander had to face the fact that his brigade was falling apart. Once he accepted this reality, and being unwilling to expose his units to unnecessary risks, it was easy for the brigade commander to issue — the order shortly after midnight to break contact, assume hasty defensive positions, and be prepared to conduct a movement to contact at 0600 hours.

In those six hours, there was no time for battalion commanders, their staffs, company commanders, and platoon leaders to rest. Instead, they scurried about the battlefield, assessing the status of their units and their personnel, arranging for and supervising the rearming and refueling process, and receiving and issuing new orders for the next operation. All of this, done under the cover of darkness, after a failed attack, took its toll on what little mental and physical strength those leaders had. The commander of the 3rd Brigade, himself feeling the effects of the long, hard night, knew that his unit had only a few good hours left before it could go no further. Hence, the need for the division reserve battalion. In a three-way conversation with the division commander and the division G3, the 3rd Brigade commander explained that he intended to punch through whatever Mexican positions he encountered with his own battalions.

Once he was sure they had cleared the main defensive belt, he intended to commit the division reserve, pushing the 2nd of the 13th Infantry through the gap created by his lead battalions and toward Monterrey.

Though Big Al did not like the idea of plowing head-on into the Mexican defenses, he was under the mistaken impression that the 3rd Brigade was too heavily committed to break contact and maneuver, an impression created by the reports submitted by the 3rd Brigade staff.

Dixon, seeing the situation in the same light as the 3rd Brigade commander, had come up with the same solution. Dixon therefore endorsed the option selected by the 3rd Brigade commander. Trusting in the judgment of the commander on the scene, and himself suffering from lack of sleep and nervous tension, Big Al approved the plan that would throw Second Lieutenant Kozak's platoon, ready or not, into the heat of battle.