cured if properly cared for.'
Guajardo, in a very controlled and even voice, slowly responded, carefully picking his words for effect. 'How naive you are, Ms. Fields.
Naive and arrogant. You come south, into Mexico, from your rich middle-class world in the north where everyone has an education and there is always an answer, always a solution to the problems of the poor.
Yet for all your sophistication and knowledge, you know so little. Or is it that you choose not to know the truth? Cities do kill people, Ms. Fields.
Just look about you, out there in the street, if you care to call it that. It is an open sewer, a dung heap. People and animals who live here leave their waste out there, day in and day out. In the heat of the day, human waste, uncovered, dries and flakes. Tiny microscopic flakes of feces are picked up by the wind, mixed with exhaust fumes from hundreds of thousands of cars, trucks, and buses that run on leaded gas and poor exhaust systems, and are carried about the city. These people, living in these slums, breathe this mix in, every day of their lives. Some, like Angela, aren't strong enough to survive.'
Guajardo paused, looking away from Jan and at the frail figure on the mattress. 'Perhaps she is the lucky one. Her lungs, corrupted beyond repair, will kill her before she becomes a woman. Death will save her from living in a hole like this, scratching out a living and raising a family where the children have no hope, no fantasies, no dreams. Angela will not have to watch her son stand on a corner and breathe fire to make a few dollars a day, killing himself as he does it. Angela will not have to watch her daughters become old and haggard before their time, scrubbing floors or doing laundry in the homes of the rich. And Angela will not have to be told that her husband, or son, was gunned down in the streets by the thugs of a rival drug lord.'
Turning, he began to walk away, but then stopped and looked back at Jan. As he spoke, Guajardo breathed in deeply, struggling to control his anger and tears. Between breaths, his choppy words hammered Jan like blows. 'No, Ms. Fields, if you have tears to shed, shed them for Angela's sister. She is a girl with no future. A child who cannot go to school because she must care for Angela while her mother earns two dollars a day scrubbing floors and her father serves in the military. It is the sister, not Angela, that I can save. And if I fail, if the old system is allowed to return, she will be condemned to live and die in a hole like this.'
Finished, Guajardo took another deep breath, held it for a moment as he looked back at Jan, then left the room, brushing aside Ted and Joe Bob as he did so. Seeing the colonel leave, Corporal Fares quickly bent down, told his daughter something, gave her quick hug, then followed Guajardo out the door.
For a moment, Jan stood at the foot of the mattress, at a loss. Her anger began to swell up in her again. Needing to do something to dissipate this anger, to give it a name and a target, Jan ran out the door after Guajardo, practically running him down.
'And what about you, Colonel? What makes you any different? You knew about that girl. You are a man who is obviously well off, who has the power to help that girl. Why have you done nothing to save Angela?'
To Jan's surprise, Guajardo's response was neither hurried nor angered.
On the contrary, at first, he smiled and merely shook his head. When he spoke, his voice was soft. 'I see. Your solution is to save one child. If I do that, I suppose, I can rest in peace, just like you yanquis do.'
Jan, her anger still unchecked by Guajardo's calm demeanor, asked him why that was such a bad thing.
'I remember, Ms. Fields, when I attended a course in Kansas, I was taken to a restaurant in town that had a small container shaped like a loaf of bread next to the cash register. The sign behind that loaf of bread claimed that a fifty-cent donation could feed a hungry child in a poor country for two days. I looked at that sign and became quite angry at my host and his countrymen. I could not understand a people who could so easily dispose of the poor and hungry of the world and, for such a small amount, create the impression that they had done a good, meaningful deed. For just fifty cents, they could feel good for a whole week, maybe a month, and go back to their homes with their fat children who wanted for nothing and would never know the agony of hunger.'
Stopping for a moment, Guajardo looked about him before he continued.
Jan did likewise. 'No, Ms. Fields, we are playing for much bigger stakes, as you would say up north. I will not rest until not only all of this is gone, but the system that created this is gone as well.'
As he looked at Jan, Guajardo's face suddenly became cold, his eyes narrowing into there slits. 'Yes, you are right! I could save Angela. I could go back there, right now, and take that girl away from here and save her. But who would save the others like her? You, Ms. Fields, with a fifty-cent donation? No, because the screams of hunger or Angela's pain do not reach far enough north for you to hear. We are fighting for the very soul and existence of Mexico. We want nothing less than you want; freedom, security, and a life worth living. That, Ms. Fields, is well worth fighting for and, if necessary, dying for.'
Finished, Guajardo walked past Jan toward the sedan, brushing her aside as he did so. The interview had finally ended. But the anger and confusion that Jan felt hadn't. For the longest time, she stood there, letting his words, mixed with the sights, sounds, and smells of the barrio, hammer away at her. By the time Joe Bob reached her, Jan was able to begin to think clearly. Guajardo was right. He knew it. And so did she.
Now all that remained was for her to figure out what to do with that revelation.
5
He who risks nothing gets nothing.
With nothing to do while they waited their turn to be inspected by their platoon leader, the men designated Group D, for 'Distrito Federal,' shuffled, yawned, and stretched as they stood in the ranks. From across the dilapidated hangar, Guajardo occasionally glanced up from the maps and diagrams laid out before him on a rickety table, watching the inspection with the same detached interest as the men undergoing it displayed.
As of yet, only the captain who was serving as their platoon leader knew where they were going and what their objective was. Even the majority of the helicopter crewmen who would be moving Group D as well as three other groups, did not know where they would be going.
Looking back down at his charts, maps, and diagrams, Guajardo wondered if his intricate scheme of deceptions and precautions had been necessary or effective. At times, during the planning process, even he had experienced difficulty remembering what was deception and what was actual. The need for tight security was not imaginary, since the target was one of the most effective and cunning criminals in Mexico. Referred to as El Dueno, or 'the Manager,' Senior Hector Alaman had created an empire that spread across the entire Caribbean and included in its ranks politicians, police officials, judges, and officers in the armed forces of every country in the region, including the United States.
Alamein did not directly involve himself in the growing, transporting, or marketing of drugs. Instead, he provided services to those who did.
These services included planning, coordinating, and orchestrating all aspects of the business for his clients. With a vast data base that tracked the demand and flow of drugs like those of any commodities market, Alaman and his advisors could provide information to both growers and shippers as to what product would be most profitable and where the best price could be had. Additionally, for a little extra, Alaman's banking associates provided the growers and shippers with a wide variety of financial services for moving and investing profits and business expenses from their illegal marketplace into legitimate banks, institutions, and markets. He even provided insurance policies, either long-term, which were quite expensive, or for single events, such as a shipment. Alaman's insurance, which was nothing more than an elaborate system of bribes, allowed his clients to operate their business free of official interference.
The network of contacts and 'employees' needed to ensure that operations and shipments were not interfered with was created through a variety of methods that ranged from simple bribery to terrorism. Using an intelligence network that provided timely and accurate information on threats and potential threats to the industry from any quarter, Alaman and the members of his ' 'Action department'' sought to neutralize them.
