Ralph Peters

by The war in 2020

  Meredith stood before the man who seemed so much older than the few years separating them. And he found it very difficult to bring himself to speech, to articulate the decisive words he had so carefully prepared.

  "This looks serious," Taylor said, and the lieutenant could not be sure whether or not there was a flavor of mockery in the voice.

  "Sir, I request to be relieved and reassigned to conventional duties."

  Taylor looked up at the younger man, eyes hunting over his face. It was always difficult for Meredith to read Taylor's expression under that badly mottled skin. He felt perspiration breaking out on his forehead and in the small of his back. The major was taking an unreasonably, an unconscionably long time in responding. Meredith had expected shock . . . perhaps anger, perhaps disappointment. But this silent consideration was as unexpected as it was intolerable.

  When Taylor finally responded, he offered Meredith only a single word:

  "Why?"

  Meredith reached for the appropriate response. "Sir ... I do not believe . . . that I'm suited for this job."

  Taylor nodded slightly, but it was symbolic of thought, not agreement. Then he tensed and leaned forward slightly, like a big cat who had spotted something that just might be of interest.

  "Don't beat around the bush. Merry. What you mean ... is that you think you fucked up. And you're feeling sorry for yourself." He brought the tips of his fingers together. "All right then. Tell me what you think you should have done differently today."

  Meredith had no ready answer for the question. Instead, he felt himself seethe, defiantly childish in his incapability. Was Taylor trying to humiliate him? He searched for a sharp, tough answer that would set this acting commander straight.

  But it was hard. He had done everything by the drill. He had taken the actions prescribed for such circumstances. There had been no warning, no intelligence that so big an affair was in the wind. Try as he might, he could think of no practical way in which he might have changed the day's events. It would have required a quality of foresight no man could claim. He had done his best, playing his assigned role. The only other thing he might have done would have been to die with Rosario and the others, and, even in his fury, he recognized the senselessness of that.

  And the boy dying in the street? His eyes, his words? What was this all about, anyway? Had his parents been right? Was he just an oversize boy playing a very dangerous game with living toy soldiers? He was too emotionally excited to answer himself rationally. He wanted to feel guilty. But he could not help detecting a tone of falsity in these attacks on his long-held convictions.

  "Sir, I don't know. But I know I failed."

  The fright mask of Taylor's face never changed expression.

  "Bullshit. I'll be glad to let you know when you're fucking up, Lieutenant. In the meantime I need every officer I've got." Taylor breathed deeply, as if disgusted at Meredith's childishness, refusing to make any attempt to understand. "Request denied."

  "Sir . . ." Meredith began, in a peevish fury. He did not know what he might say, but he sensed it was now utterly impossible for him to go on performing this mission. He would not go back into those streets. At least not in uniform.

  "Lieutenant," Taylor cut him off, "it would be a wonderful thing if military service consisted of nothing but doing the right thing when the choices are easy, of kicking the shit out of some evil foreign sonsofbitches with horns and tails, then coming home to a big parade." Taylor's eyes burned into his subordinate's. "Unfortunately, it also consists of trying to figure out what the hell the right thing can possibly be when the orders are unclear, the mission stinks, and everybody's in a hopeless muddle. A soldier's duty ..." Taylor intoned the last word in a voice of granite, "is to do an honest day's work in dishonest times . . . and to make the best out of the worst fucking mess imaginable. It means . . . believing in your heart that some things are more important than your personal devils ... or even your personal beliefs. It means the willingness to give up . . . everything." Taylor sat back in his chair, never breaking eye contact. "And sometimes it just means lacing up your boots one more time when the whole world's going to shit. You got that, Lieutenant?"

  "Yes, sir. I've got it," Meredith lied, feeling only confusion in his mind and heart.

  "Then get out of here and get some sleep."

  Meredith snapped to attention and saluted, hoping that this outward display of self-possession would hide his inner collapse. He did a crisp about-face and marched toward the door. He was no longer angry with Taylor. He simply hated him for his strength, his superiority.

  "Oh, Lieutenant?" Taylor called, just as Meredith was about to step into the safety of the hall.

  "Sir?"

  "I heard that you killed a man today. First time, I believe?"

  "Yes, sir."

  Taylor considered the younger man across the emotional vastness in the room. "Did you . . . happen to notice the color of his skin?"

  Meredith felt an explosion of fury within himself beside which his earlier anger had been inconsequential.

  "Sir. I killed a black man, sir."

  Taylor nodded. He looked at Meredith calmly, ignoring the rage, the disrespect in the lieutenant's tone of voice.

  "Lieutenant, it is my personal belief . . . that self-pity has ruined more good men than all the bad women in history. Decide who the fuck you are by tomorrow . . . and, if you still want to transfer out, I'll expedite the orders. Carry on."

  Meredith returned to his billet and beat his locker with his fists until the knuckles bled and he could not stand the pain any longer. He did not know if he had broken any of the bones in his fingers or hand, and he refused to care. In the brackish hours before dawn, he decided, with the firmness of stone, that he would take Taylor up on his offer first thing in the morning. Then he fell asleep, torn hands burning, to the distant music of helicopter patrols.

  He woke to a knock on his door. It was a Hispanic lieutenant Meredith had never seen before. The new man looked embarrassed.

  "Sorry to wake you up."

  Meredith mumbled a response, straining to clear his head.

  "I'm Manny Martinez," the new officer said, thrusting out his hand, "the new supply officer. You're Lieutenant Meredith, right?"

  "Yeah."

  "The operations center sent me down to get you. Lieutenant Barret's down sick, and Major Taylor wants you to pull his duty for him. I told him I could do it, but—" Meredith looked at the new man as they shook hands. Earnest. He seemed very young, although Meredith recognized that they were, in fact, approximately the same age. The visitor spoke with an accent that declared, "I'm from Texas and I'm educated, by God," with no trace of a Spanish drawl.

  "It's okay," Meredith said, recognizing that he could not be a party to any action that sent this unblooded officer out into the streets in his place.

  "—the ops sergeant said it's just a routine convoy. Same route you had yesterday." The new lieutenant spoke nervously, infinitely unsure of himself. "I told them I'd be glad to do it."

  "Take it easy, man. It's okay," Meredith said. "I just need to get some coffee."

  3

  Mexico

  2016

  "They call him EL DIABLO," the scout said, still breathless from his climb. The arroyo in which the guerrillas hid their vehicles lay far below the mountain village. "The country people say he has risen from the dead."

  "What's he saying?" Captain Morita, the unit's Japanese adviser, demanded. His Spanish was limited to a very few words, and he showed little interest in learning more. Everything had to be translated into English for him.

  Colonel Ramon Vargas Morelos did not mind that so much. He was very proud of his English, which he had learned in the border towns where he had worked hard as a drug runner in the days before he became a Hero of the Revolution. And the Japanese officer's lack of Spanish made him easier to control.

  Vargas purposely delayed answering the Japanese. The man's tone was too insistent, almost disrespectful. Var
gas was, after all, a colonel, and he took his time with the translation, glancing arrogantly around the smoky brown interior of the cantina. A litter of unmatched tables and chairs. An old dog who scratched himself with the imprecision of a rummy. Vargas stretched the moment, examining everything in the room except the Japanese. Disordered ranks of bottles behind the bar, a mirror split diagonally by a frozen fork of lightning. Fading postcards from Tucson and Pasadena, garish in the light of the storm lantern.

  Finally, he turned to face Morita. "He says," Vargas began, "that the new gringo commander has brought a nickname with him. People call him 'The Devil.' " He did not bother to translate the matter of the American's supposed resurrection. It was one of those things that the Japanese officer would not understand, and Vargas had already suffered enough remarks about the backwardness of his countrymen.

  Morita grunted. "That is hardly useful intelligence."

  Vargas briefly turned his back on Morita and the scout and leaned onto the bar. "Hey, you fucking dog," he called to the bartender. "Bring me two fucking tequilas."

  The bartender moved very quickly. Contented, Vargas rolled his torso around so that he faced the scout again, with his back and elbows resting on the long wooden counter.

  "Go on, Luis," Vargas said. "Tell me about this devil who fucks his mother."

  The scout was covered in sweat. The night was cool up in the desert mountains, but the climb up the trail to the broad, bowllike plateau where the village hid had drained the man's pores. That was good. It told Vargas that the man took his responsibilities seriously. Had he strolled into the cantina looking too easy and rested, Vargas would have shot him.

  "There is a great fear of this one, my colonel," the scout continued. "The gringos brought him in from San Miguel de Allende. They say he was a bastard there. They say he has the face of a devil. He wears silver spurs, and he whistles an old Irish song. They say that no man who hears those spurs and the sound of his whistling will live long.

  Vargas picked up one of the small glasses of tequila and gestured for the scout to help himself to the other. He had long since given up on offering drinks to the Japanese, who never accepted them.

  "What does he say?" Captain Morita asked impatiently.

  Vargas looked coldly at the Japanese, then made a sharp, dramatic gesture of downing his tequila.

  "He says the American is a clown. He wears spurs. He whistles."

  "He told you more than that," Morita said curtly. "What else did he say?"

  "He said the American is one ugly cocksucker."

  "What about his background? Did your man gain any information about the new commander's operational techniques? What kind of threat does he pose?"

  Vargas laughed. Loudly. Then he wiped the back of his hand across his stubble. "Man, what kind of shit are you talking about? He don't pose no fucking threat." Vargas stuck his thumb in his gunbelt. It was made of soft black leather with a circular gold device on the clasp. "You know where I got this, Morita? I took this off an American general. Everybody said, 'Hey, Vargas, this guy's a tough customer. You better look out.' And you know what I fucking did? I cut his throat, man. Right in his own fucking house. Then I fucked his old lady. And then I fed her his eggs." Vargas spat on the plank floor.

  "Ask your man," Morita said sternly, "whether he managed to collect any real information on this new commander."

  Vargas gestured theatrically to the bartender. Two more. "You worry too much, man," he told the Japanese. But he turned his attention back to the scout. "Hey, what the fuck is this, Luis? You come in here with ghost stories. We don't need no stinking ghost stories. You tell me something serious about this dude."

  The scout looked at him nervously. "This guy, my colonel, he don't play by the rules. He does crazy things. They say he's very different from the other gringos. He speaks good Spanish and carries himself like some kind of big charro." The scout paused, and Vargas could tell that the man was weighing his words carefully. "He brought his own people with him. He has this black guy who's pretty as a girl—"

  "Maybe they fuck each other," Vargas said. The scout laughed with him. But not as richly as the man should have laughed. A question began to scratch at Vargas.

  "Also, my colonel, he has a Mexican from north of the border. That one, he don't speak Spanish worth shit, but he talks real fancy English."

  "That's good," Vargas said definitely. "All Mexicans go soft up north."

  "And there's an officer who speaks with an accent. They say he is a Jew. From Israel."

  "Another loser," Vargas said. "Luis, this fucking devil don't sound so bad to me."

  The scout laughed again. But the sound was noticeably sickly. It was the laugh of a nervous woman. Not of a revolutionary soldier.

  "You know, Luis," Vargas said, moving close enough so that the scout could smell his breath and get the full sense of his presence, "I think there's something else. Something maybe you don't want to tell me. Now I don't know why you don't want to tell your colonel everything."

  "My colonel ..." the scout began.

  Vargas slapped a big hand around the back of the scout's neck. He did it in such a way that the Japanese would simply think it a personal gesture. Happy, dumb Mexicans, always touching each other. But the scout understood the message clearly.

  "Here," Vargas said. "You drink another tequila. Then you fucking talk to me, Luis."

  The scout hastily threw the liquor into his mouth, ignoring the usual ceremony.

  "My colonel," he said, with unmistakable nervousness in his voice, "they say he is the one who killed Hector Padilla over in Guanajuato."

  Vargas froze for a long moment. Then he made a noise like a bad-tempered animal. "That's bullshit," he said. He pulled his hand off the back of the scout's neck, then held it in midair in a gesture that was half exclamation and half threat. "Hector was killed in an accident. In the mountains. Everybody knows that."

  "My colonel," the scout said meekly, "I only tell you what the people say. They say that the accident was arranged. That El Diablo infiltrated men into Commandante Padilla's camp. That—"

  "Luis," Vargas said coldly. "How long have we known each other?"

  The scout counted the months. The months became a year, then two. "Since Zacatecas," he said. "Since the good days. Before the gringos came."

  "That's right, my brother. And I know you well. I know, for instance, when you got something to tell me. Like now." Vargas swept the air with his hand. "All this shit about Hector Padilla. When we're not really talking about Hector at all." Vargas stared into the scout's inconstant eyes. "Are we?"

  "No, my colonel."

  "Then who are we talking about, Luis?"

  The scout looked at Vargas with solemnity in the yellow light of the cantina. "About you, my colonel. They say this gringo has been sent to . . . take you."

  Vargas laughed. But the laugh did not begin quickly enough, and it was preceded by an unexpected shadow of mortality that fell between the two men.

  Vargas slapped the bar. Then he laughed again, spitting. "What are you talking about?" the Japanese adviser demanded. "What's he saying?"

  Vargas stopped laughing. He gestured for the scout to leave the cantina, and the man moved quickly, in obvious relief. Vargas shifted his broad-footed stance to face the tiny yellow man who sat so smugly behind his table. Vargas did not trust the Japanese. He never imagined that these people were aiding the revolution out of the goodness of their hearts. It was all about power. Everything was about power. The relationship between men and women, between men and other men. Between governments and countries. The Japanese were very hungry for power. Crazy for it. As crazy as an old man who had lost his head over a younger woman.

  It was a shame that the Japanese weapons were so good. And so necessary.

  "He just said," Vargas told his inquisitor, "that I got to kill me one more fucking gringo."

  "There was more than that," Morita said coldly. "A great deal more. Under the terms of the agreement between
my government and the People's Government of Iguala, you must provide me with all of the information I require to do my work."

  Yes, Vargas thought. The great People's Government of Iguala. What was left of them. Hiding like rats down in the mountains of Oaxaca. The glory days were over. Thanks to the fucking gringos. Now it was a matter of survival. Of holding on to your own piece of dirt, your own little kingdom. They had come a long way since they had paraded down the boulevards of Mexico City under the banner of the revolution.

  Vargas snorted. "Government of Iguala, government of Monterrey—it don't mean a fucking thing up here, man. You know what the government is, Morita?" Vargas drew out the ivory-handled automatic he had taken from the American general and slammed it down on the table in front of the Japanese. "That's the fucking government."

  Vargas watched the Japanese closely. The man was obviously trying not to show fear, but the situation was getting to him. Morita was new to Mexico, to the food and water, to the simplicity of death. He was a replacement for an adviser lost months before. The system was breaking down. Vargas's men had received their late-model antiaircraft missiles without readable instructions, without training. Vargas had suffered through a season of relative defenselessness against the American helicopters. He had only been able to stage small operations—raids, bombings, robberies. Then, finally, this impatient captain had made his way up through the mountains.

  Now they were ready for the helicopters. Vargas thumped the bar. More tequila. When the bartender came within reach of Vargas's arm, he found himself yanked halfway across the bar.

  "You're slow, old man."

  The bartender paled. White as a gringo. It made Vargas smile. They were ready for the helicopters now. And they would be ready for this devil in spurs.

  The gringos were always too soft. That was their problem. They never understood what a hard place Mexico had become. They were too respectful of death.