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
