following a routine he had followed for the past fifteen years, was keeping Wittworth performing duties he was neither trained for nor comfortable with.
Despite the fact that Briscoe wore a uniform, Wittworth still considered Briscoe a civilian. The deputy was quite knowledgeable in his duties, but that was not the problem. In the past week, he had been very helpful in showing Wittworth and his officers the area, explaining the lay of the land as well as providing them a feel for local politics and people.
Wittworth was even impressed by the way Briscoe handled himself when dealing with other civilians who had run afoul of the law. Still, Wittworth found Briscoe far too casual in both his dress and conduct when not performing his duties. Even his conversations, when Wittworth allowed himself to be drawn in, were about things that had nothing to do with their mission. In no time at all, Wittworth became convinced that to Briscoe his position as a deputy sheriff was nothing more than a job, a means of earning a living. He lacked, in Wittworth's mind, the singular dedication to duty that separated a professional from a civilian. So Wittworth tolerated Briscoe and used him as necessary, but decided that, if push came to shove, he would use his own judgment and people, people who were dedicated, well-trained, and disciplined.
Seeing that Briscoe was deep in conversation with two of the other patrons of the doughnut shop and in no hurry to leave, Wittworth studied the map board in his lap. On one side of the board was a street map showing a section of southeastern Laredo, where his 1st and 2nd platoons were deployed. On the other side was a topographical map showing the countryside to the south and east of Laredo, where his 3rd Platoon con ducted mounted patrols and manned a roadblock. Both maps were covered in clear acetate on which were marked black triangles with letters in them that represented observation posts, numbers in boxes representing checkpoints, and dotted lines connecting them defining patrol routes used by his company. While necessary, the military symbols, written with wide markers, obscured some of the street names and map symbols under the acetate. Still, enough showed so that even without Briscoe, Wittworth could now find his way about Laredo.
Looking back at the doughnut shop, Wittworth saw Briscoe, one foot up on a chair, still talking to his two friends. Looking at his watch, Wittworth decided to give Briscoe five more minutes before he would leave without him. There was, after all, a limit to how far this civilian military cooperation could be pushed.
Pulling up in front of the bank they had selected, Julio Calles stopped.
From the side door of the white van, decorated with the logo of the pizza shop where they worked, Alverez Calles emerged, holding a large, square pizza warming pouch in his left hand. Leaving the door of the van open, he looked to his left and right before entering the bank. Seeing his two friends, each approaching from opposite directions, Alverez nodded, then proceeded to enter the bank.
Once inside, he looked about for a moment, then turned and headed for the office where the manager of this branch was seated. The guard, a man of about fifty, looked at Alverez quizzically for a moment, then turned to ask one of the tellers standing near him how anyone could stand to eat pizza that early in the morning. In the process of doing so, the guard failed to notice the entrance of either of Alverez's accomplices. One of them, a tall, lanky man with jet black hair and carrying a white plastic shopping bag, stayed at the door. The other, a short stocky man with eyes that darted from side to side, crossed the floor to the far side, turning around once he got there so that he could see Alverez, the guard, and the tall man at the door.
Entering the bank manager's office without pausing, Alverez said nothing when the manager, a man of about forty, looked up. At first, he merely stared, wondering why a pizza deliveryman was standing in front of him. He was about to ask, when Alverez, in one easy motion, reached into the warming pouch and pulled out a black automatic pistol with an oversize magazine protruding from its handle.
Wittworth was looking at his map again when his driver grunted. 'Looks like trouble in the doughnut shop, sir.'
Not understanding, Wittworth looked up at his driver, who was pointing across the parking lot. Wittworth turned and saw Briscoe, without a hat, come flying out of the shop. There was an anxious look on Briscoe's face as he ran for the Humvee, holding his small handheld radio to his ear all the while. As he watched, — the first thought that came to Wittworth was that this was the fastest he had seen Briscoe move all week. In a single bound, Briscoe was up and in the back seat of the topless Humvee, shouting to the driver to get moving and to take a left once they were out of the parking lot.
Obediently, the driver cranked up the Humvee and prepared to move.
Wittworth, however, signaled him to hold it for a moment by holding up his left hand. Wittworth turned to face Briscoe. 'Where we going, Deputy?'
Thrusting his head forward between Wittworth and the driver, Briscoe, sweat beading up on his forehead, turned to Wittworth. 'Some Mexicans are hitting a bank two blocks from here. Shots have been fired and an officer's down.'
For a moment, Wittworth considered his situation. A bank robbery was definitely a civilian matter. Even if Briscoe, a civilian law enforcement officer, felt obliged to respond, Wittworth, an Army officer, wasn't sure he was required to transport Briscoe to the scene. On the other hand, however, the fact that Mexicans were involved changed the nature of the situation. Why the Mexicans would hit a bank didn't bother him. Wittworth knew that, in the closing days of the Civil War, the Confederacy had staged raids from Canada into Vermont, robbing banks in order to finance their war effort. What worried Wittworth was the fact that they were doing this in broad daylight, in the presence of regular Army units.
That, to him, didn't make sense. It was almost as if they had a death wish.
Watching Wittworth sit like a bump on a log, pondering the situation, was infuriating to Briscoe. 'What the hell are you waiting for, Captain?
A goddamned invitation from the governor? Americans are being killed by Mexicans. You gonna sit here and do nothin' about that?'
Briscoe was right. Regardless of the motivation or the question of jurisdiction and authority, the fact was Americans were being killed and he and his company had been sent down to prevent that. The raid by the Mexicans, regardless of why they were doing it, suddenly became a personal affront to him, his company, and the United States Army, an affront that could not go unpunished.
Without further thought, Wittworth ordered his driver to move out and follow Briscoe's directions. Once they were on the street and rolling, Wittworth took the radio hand mike and began to issue orders to his platoons, translating Briscoe's civilian terms into military terms that his platoon leaders could understand.
Sitting on the side of the road near the roadblock established by her platoon on U.S. 83 south of Laredo, Lieutenant Kozak was finishing her breakfast. Carefully picking at an unidentified edible object that the company first sergeant had plopped down in the center of her breakfast plate, she was debating if she should eat it or toss it when Sergeant Tyson, sitting on top of their Bradley, called her. 'Hey, Lieutenant, hot flash from the CO. He wants the company to stand to.'
Looking up at Tyson, Kozak was about to become upset when she realized that he had not been guilty of making a sexist remark, only of poor terminology. Letting that pass, she turned to the matter at hand.
'Stand to? Why?'
'The CO didn't say much, just that the Laredo police were engaging some Mexicans in a firefight in town.'
Kozak looked at Tyson for a moment. Didn't say much? There's a firefight in progress and Tyson thinks the CO didn't say much? Tyson's comments and reactions didn't match. Setting her plate down, Kozak decided she had better contact the CO herself and find out what was going on. Her breakfast could wait. After all, she thought, whatever it was that the first sergeant had served her that morning had been dead for a very long time and could only improve with age.
As his Humvee took a right turn off of Guadalupe Street onto Cedar Avenue a little too fast, Wittworth had to hang on as the centrifugal force threw him over to the left. They were halfway through the turn, veering over into the left-hand lane, when a white van with a plastic pizza attached to its roof came tearing around the same corner, headed in the opposite direction. The speed of the van and the sharpness of its turn, like that of Wittworth's Humvee, was causing the pizza van to veer over into the center of the street. With a flick of his wrists, Wittworth's driver cut the steering wheel as far to the right as it could go, missing the van by inches and, in the process, running the Humvee up onto the sidewalk, and running over two newspaper machines before coming to a jarring stop. In the process, Wittworth watched the van go zinging by. In the open side door, he saw two dark-skinned men holding weapons.
