Edge of Battle

“Get a decent sofa and a door that locks from the inside, and I’ll be slower, culito.” She smiled like a schoolgirl on her first date—he was the only man in the Federal District who ever had the nerve to swear and talk dirty in front of her, even before he learned how aroused she got by it. “So. Rojas is all worried about the California National Guard, eh? Tell him to stop worrying. The Americans will be gone from the border before you know it.”

She was disturbed that he knew about her adviser’s fears, as if he had been in the meeting with them just now. “The Politicos are not still bugging my office, are they, Felix?” she asked, trying not to make it sound like an accusation.

“I told you I took all of the Politico’s bugs out months ago, my dear,” Diaz said. “I do not need to bug the general’s office to hear what he has to say—a few shots of tequila or glasses of cerveza in the afternoon and his deputies and aides blab like a housewife on her neighbor’s fence. I pretend to be talking on my cell phone in his outer office and I can hear everything he says quite clearly.”

Felix Diaz knew a lot about chatty members of the Mexican government. It was the duty of the Minister of Internal Affairs to protect the republic, constitution, government, and courts from threats from inside the country, a purposely broad and far-reaching responsibility. Along with overseeing the ministry itself, Diaz had control of several other important bureaus and agencies in the government, including the Federal District Police, Political Police, Border Police, and the Rural Defense Force. Felix Diaz had extraordinary powers of investigation and commanded a large and well-equipped paramilitary force that equaled, and in some areas exceeded, the power of the armed forces.

Numbering over five thousand agents, technicians, and support staff, the Political Police, or Politicos, investigated any possible threats to all Mexican political institutions, including the president, legislature, the judiciary, the treasury, the Council of Government, political parties, opposition groups, and insurgent or revolutionary groups. Within the Political Police was a clandestine unit of almost five hundred specially trained and equipped agents called the Escuadrilla Especial De las Investigaciones, but known by their nickname Los Sombras—the “Shadows”—their identities secret to all but Diaz and Jose Elvarez, Deputy Minsiter of Internal Affairs. The Sombras could seize any documents they deemed necessary, wiretap any phone, open any door or safe deposit box, access any record, and arrest any person for any reason whatsoever—or for no reason at all.

Of course, Carmen Maravilloso knew all this—which is why she first appointed him to the position of Minister of Internal Affairs, and then began sleeping with him. At best she could keep an eye on him and use her feminine charms on his postpubescent urges to keep him sympathetic and loyal to her, as much as any man could stay loyal to a woman; at worst, their affair might buy his silence, or at least cause a lot of distrust against him among others in the government. The culture of machismo still existed, even in the highest levels of Latino government—women, even powerful and influential women working outside the home, were not to be taken advantage of. They could be subdued, embarrassed, even silenced. But a man’s power over a woman was assumed to be absolute and universal, and it was in poor taste for a man to abuse his God-given sexual, physical, or anthropological power and authority against the weaker sex.

But it turned out that Felix Diaz was a good choice for the post, because he appeared to have no burning vendetta against any person or political party and didn’t seem to have any sort of resentment against a woman being his superior. His extreme wealth, and his family’s long-standing policy of siding with whoever was in power or soon to be in power, left him with few strong enemies. He had personal political aspirations, of course—it was no secret that he wanted to be president of Mexico, a position that no others in his family had ever attained. But, typically, politicians in Mexico tried to exploit the least little bit of power they attained, and at least as far as Maravilloso’s trained eye could see, Felix Diaz was not acting like a typical Mexican politician.

Even so, she was careful to be forever watchful for any signs of a power grab by this man or any other man close to her. No politician in Mexico could afford to be a nice guy, even nice guys like Felix Diaz. She had made a woman’s mistake by letting him take sexual liberties in this, her base of power—that made her vulnerable. If he ever exhibited any desire whatsoever to take advantage of that vulnerability, she would have to squash it immediately.

Now it was time to challenge him, put him back on the defensive, before he had a chance to even pull up the fly on his pants: “How in hell do you know what the Americans will do, Felix?” she asked.

“One of my agents intercepted a message sent from Washington for the American ambassador here in Mexico City,” Diaz said. “The message stated that effective immediately their Operation Rampart was suspended and all of their Cybernetic Infantry Devices were being withdrawn from the border.”

“So? We already know they have replaced those robots with National Guard troops. They haven’t withdrawn—if anything, they have increased and reinforced their presence.”

“Our informants in Washington tell us that the American President has summoned the commander of those National Guard forces to the White House, as well as the Secretary of Defense and the Attorney General, and that he is not happy at all,” Diaz said, wiping bright red lipstick from his neck and straightening his necktie. “The analysts say he will gradually pull forces back from the border so it will not look like a retreat. He does not want to be seen as backing down in the face of pressure from Mexico. But he will back down.”

“Perhaps—until the next terrorist or smuggler decides to kill an American vigilante or Border Patrol agent,” Maravilloso said bitterly. She looked at him carefully. “You insist these attacks are not being done by Mexicans, Felix, but then you give me reports of yet another videotape being distributed by this ‘Comandante Veracruz’ character, inciting the Mexican people to commit even more atrocities. How sure are you that these attacks are not being perpetuated by him?”

“I am not sure of much when it comes to Veracruz, Carmen.”

Her stare intensified. “You seem to have very good, reliable contacts throughout the world, Felix,” Maravilloso said suspiciously, “but I find it very strange that you cannot tell me very much about Veracruz. Why is that, Felix?”

“Because he is probably not Mexican,” Diaz replied. “All of our internal investigations have come up empty so far, and most foreign governments will not share information on anyone who might have had specialized military or guerrilla training.”

“Well, what can you tell me about him?”

“Just the basics. His name is Ernesto Fuerza, reported in a French newspaper interview a couple years ago but never independently verified. His nationality is unknown. He is in his late thirties or early forties, male, tall, and slender…”

“I mean some real information about him, Felix,” she said irritably. “The whole world knows that trivia—I read all that last week in People magazine…”

“Next to the article on you, I noticed, the one on ‘The New Faces of Mexico.’” She gave him a warning glare, and Diaz’s tone turned serious: “The uniform he often wears looks American, English, or Canadian, and the headdress he wears looks very Middle Eastern—very confusing to analysts. His Spanish is good, but it sounds more South American, perhaps Brazilian or Venezuelan, more sophisticated, more European. He obviously has some military training, judging by the way he speaks and the way he holds a weapon…”

“How can you tell anything by how one holds a weapon?”

“A trained man will never put his finger on a trigger unless he is ready to shoot—he will lay his finger on the side of the trigger guard,” Diaz said. “That is pounded into a soldier from the first moment he is given a gun.”

“What else?”

“Everything is guesswork and speculation—it can hardly even be called ‘analysis,’” Diaz admitted. “One thing is for certain: he is bound to slip up, try to cross the border once too often, or take a shot at the wrong target, and he will either be dead or captured. Revolutionaries do not have much of a shelf life these days, since the Americans started clamping down hard on anyone who might even remotely smell like a terrorist.” Diaz fell silent for a moment. Then, “Maybe we should not be trying to hunt this man down,” he said. “Maybe we should use him instead.”

“Bad idea, Felix,” Maravilloso said. “He is certainly popular all around the world. But the magazine articles state he was—perhaps still is—a drug smuggler. Why would I want to be associated with such a man?”

“I do not think it matters much,” the Minister of Internal Affairs said. “As long as he is truly committed to