constituents are being shot in their own backyards? The demand for direct and effective action is becoming too compelling to ignore.
That, Colonel, is a political reality.'
Nodding his head, Dixon agreed. 'I understand that. Just as Terry did when he left Fort Abraham Lincoln in 1876 to catch the Sioux, and Pershing went to Texas to punish Pancho Villa. We'll go where we are sent and do what we are told. That, however, doesn't mean that it's the right or proper thing to do.'
Lewis grunted. 'I see you believe in the Pancho Villa theory.'
'Not necessarily. Though that line of thinking is, in my opinion, the most logical, no one can confirm it. And that, Mr. Congressman, is exactly my point. No one is able to confirm or deny any of the theories concerning the raids along the border. Yet, in spite of this lack of solid evidence, everyone is chomping at the bit, demanding that we commit the Army. What's going to happen, to us and the future of our two countries, if we find out, after all the shooting is over, that we shot the wrong guy?
My God, sir! Even the most brutal murderer in the United States must have overwhelming and irrefutable evidence brought against him before he is punished. Shouldn't the Mexican people be given the same courtesy?'
'We are not dealing with criminal law here, Colonel Dixon. This is not a nice, clean courtroom in some city far away. We are talking about the real world. Again, let's do a reality check here. We are dealing with politics and national passions. Both of these can be very irrational and uncompromising. When you add fear and coat that fear with liberal quantities of American blood, like the people who are conducting these raids on our borders are doing, logic goes out the window.'
Dixon was about to answer when Jan came up from behind and grabbed his arm. Leaning over and planting a kiss on his cheek, she turned to Lewis and smiled. 'Scotty sees nothing wrong with our strategy, so long as it includes dinner, soon. Right, dear?'
Dixon looked at Jan. The look in her eyes and her speech told him she was feeling no pain. Taking her hand from his shoulder, he lifted it to his lips, lightly kissed it, and lowered it halfway. 'You, my dear, are drunk.'
Pulling her hand away, Jan protested. 'Drunk? I am not drunk, sir.
Your general's drunk. I'm just hungry, nay, starved. And I demand food, now.'
Amused, Lewis watched for a moment before he cut in. 'I had no idea you two were married.'
Seeing a chance to get away from Lewis, Dixon turned to him. 'Us, married? No way, Congressman. We just sleep together.'
Putting her hands on her hips, her eyes aflame in mock rage, Jan scoJdedDixon. 'Scott B. Dixon, how dare you imply I'm a kept woman?' She turned to Lewis. 'Do you know what the B in his name stands for, Congressman? It stands for 'Bad.' And if he doesn't take me to dinner right now in an effort to make up, it's going to stand for 'bye,' as in bye-bye, gone, adios, adieu, farewell.'
Dixon turned to Lewis and shrugged. 'I'm terribly sorry, Congressman, but duty calls. Perhaps we can continue this later.'
Lewis raised his glass. 'Yes, maybe later.'
After Jan and Dixon had reentered the building and were on their way to the dining room, arm in arm, Jan leaned over to Dixon and whispered in his ear. 'I saw you cornered and figured you needed to be rescued.'
Slowing down, Dixon turned and lightly kissed her cheek. 'And that, my dear, is why I love you.'
The evening shift wasn't half over and already it promised to be a slow and boring night. Tom Jerricks, sitting at the dispatcher's desk, put down the well-worn magazine he had been leafing through, then looked about the office for something new to read. He glanced at the lieutenant, sitting with his feet up on his desk watching television, then over to the shelf where the coffeepot and a stack of magazines sat.
At that moment, they were the only ones there; everyone else was on patrol. Since the beginning of August, everyone had been working twelve-hour days, six days a week. Already, that and the tension were beginning to wear on everyone in the office. No one, it seemed, was getting any smarter and none of the banditos, as the unknown raiders were being called, had been hit, let alone killed, as far as anyone knew.
It was as if they were fighting shadows. Those shadows, Jerricks knew, had teeth. On the blackboard, where the patrols were briefed, was a message, updated nightly, that reminded everyone of that gruesome fact.
Across the top was written, 'Banditos 14, Border Patrol o. Don't Become 15.'
Standing up, Jerricks walked over to the coffeepot, poured himself a cup, and began to sort through the stack of magazines in search of something to read. His back was to the radio when the shrill voice of a patrolman, with the sound of breaking glass and gunfire in the background, broke the silence.
'We're under fire. We're under fire. Presidio Base, Presidio Base, this is…'
Dropping his coffee as he spun around and dashed for the radio, Jerricks grabbed the microphone, hit the transmit button, and responded.
'Last station, this is Presidio Base. Identify yourself and give us your location, over.'
As he prepared to call again, the lieutenant came up behind Jerricks, placing his hand on Jerricks's shoulder as he leaned over to listen to the speaker. Jerricks repeated his call. 'Last station, this is Presidio Base.
Identify yourself and give us your location, over.'
There was nothing. Silence. Both men looked at the radio speaker and waited for a response, just as every border patrolman on that net sat listening, waiting. When there was no further broadcast, the lieutenant ordered Jerricks to have all patrols report in, give their location, and report anything that they might know about the reported shooting.
It took what seemed to Jerricks an eternity for all of their patrols to report in. After each report, there was a pause before the next patrol checked in, just in case the patrol under attack was able to make another report. But there was no further report of an attack. Only the patrols reporting their locations and that they had negative contact came in. After three minutes, all but Ed Kimel and Hernando Juarez were accounted for.
As Jerricks called them by name, an effort that yielded no response, the lieutenant went to the map and traced their assigned patrol route. When he had a fix on the approximate location where they should have been at the time of the reported contact, the lieutenant directed the patrols on either side of them to converge on that spot. Although he knew he didn't need to, the lieutenant instructed the converging patrols to exercise extreme caution.
From a distance of two miles, Delapos could see the border patrol jeep come screaming down Highway 170 in an effort to find the missing patrol. Delapos, of course, already knew where the missing patrolmen were. He and four of his men had killed them over an hour ago. After dragging the bodies of the border patrolmen off the road, removing the radio from their jeep, and disposing of the jeep, they had moved farther north and set themselves up in a new ambush site. When his men were ready, Delapos had turned the radio on his jeep to the same frequency that had been set on the border patrol jeep, sent out a frantic distress call, and waited for a reaction.
As the border patrol jeep approached and his men prepared to fire the two Claymore mines set on the road, Delapos smiled. The reactions of the border patrol had been both timely and, as he had anticipated, predictable.
Two patrols, in two different locations, attacked by the same team, would be a first. Sooner or later, Delapos knew, the border patrol would need to admit that the situation was out of hand. If the double ambush, and the fact that the second patrol was lured in by a false radio call, didn't convince them of that, then nothing would.
11
Guns are left to do what words might have done earlier, rightly used.
