Trial by fire: a novel

by Harold Coyle

  Lewis, still turned at an angle, mockingly clapped his hands. "A wonderful campaign speech by any measure, Senator. The only thing you forgot was to mention Mom, apple pie, and the girl next door. The voters back home always love that."

  Infuriated, Herbert was about to tell Lewis to fuck off, but held back.

  Instead, he clenched his fists, turned, and went storming off, leaving Lewis alone and, for the moment, at a loss as to what to do to forestall what he saw as a disaster in the making.

  5 kilometers south of laredo, texas

  1945 hours, 3 September

  While the problem that Second Lieutenant Nancy Kozak faced that evening was, in comparison, trivial to people like Jan Fields, Colonel Guajardo, and Ed Lewis, it was, nonetheless, a very real and pressing matter to Kozak. In the excitement and haste of the 16th Division's load-out and deployment, Kozak had forgotten what time of month it was. It was only that morning, shortly after breakfast, when the first menstrual cramp struck, that Kozak realized she had forgotten to throw a box of sanitary napkins in her rucksack.

  Knowing full well that sanitary napkins were the last thing the company supply sergeant and battalion S-4 would think of, Kozak decided to use a field expedient napkin to hold her over until she could find some.

  In the privacy of the mesquite bushes one hundred meters from her platoon's perimeter, Kozak dropped her trousers and squatted. Ripping open her personal first aid package, she took out the large compression bandage meant to be used for large wounds, and used it in lieu of a proper sanitary napkin. While it more than did the job for the balance of the day, by late afternoon Kozak could feel the compression bandage begin to get soggy. While she could, with effort, hide her discomfort, there was nothing she could do to mask the odor, especially in the close confines of the turret of a Bradley fighting vehicle on a hot summer Texas day.

  Sooner or later, she was going to have to change the bandage. The question was with what? She could always use another compression bandage. The Bradley's larger first aid kit had several of them. But her crew might not appreciate that. That first aid kit was there for a reason.

  It and its contents could mean the difference between life and death if they were hit. No one, even the most sympathetic member of the crew, would look kindly upon Kozak's use of medical supplies in such a manner.

  While she understood that it didn't matter to them what she did with her own compression bandage, the first aid kit belonged to the crew.

  As they rolled down the two-lane road, merrily ignoring the occasional cars and pickup trucks that swerved to give the twenty-five-ton tracked vehicle a wide berth, Kozak continued to work on a solution. She thought about using toilet paper, but quickly discarded that idea. A friend of hers at West Point had tried that one night during a field exercise. The only thing the toilet paper produced was a bloody, soggy mess. The bag of cloth rags they carried for cleaning their weapons and checking the Bradley's oil levels was a possibility, but not a good one. Most of them were already filthy.

  When the Bradley came whipping around a curve in the road, Kozak saw the answer to her prayers. There, on the side of the road, less than one hundred meters away, was a gas station with a convenience market.

  Excited, Kozak keyed the intercom and yelled to the driver to pull into the gas station and stop.

  Surprised by Kozak's order and startled by her high-pitched screech, Specialist Louie Freedman jerked the steering wheel to the right and pulled into the parking area of the gas station, barely missing a pickup sitting at the gas pumps. When the track came to a stop, Kozak dropped down inside of the turret, took off her armored crewman's helmet, grabbed her web gear and Kevlar helmet, and prepared to dismount.

  Her gunner, Sergeant Terry Tyson, looked at her. "What's the matter, Lieutenant? Where are you going?"

  Looking at Tyson for a moment, she considered giving him a line about needing to check something out, but decided not to. Looking him in the eye, she told him the truth. "Well, if you must know, I need to go into that store to buy some sanitary napkins."

  For several seconds, they stared at each other while Kozak's announcement registered. When it did, he blinked. "Oh, okay, Lieutenant. I just need to know in case the CO called."

  Kozak's eyes grew large. ' 'If the CO calls, don't you dare tell him why we stopped."

  "What should I tell him, Lieutenant?"

  "I don't care. Tell him I'm reconning another platoon position or something. Tell him I'm going to the bathroom. Tell him anything but ..."

  "Okay, no problem, Lieutenant. I'll cover you."

  Smiling, Kozak thanked Tyson and hoisted herself up and out of the open hatch. After she had climbed down the front slope of the Bradley and gone into the store, Freedman called Tyson over the intercom.

  "Where's the lieutenant going?"

  "The LT's on the rag and she needs to buy some Kotex."

  Freedman was unable to tell if the tone in Tyson's voice was disgust or impatience. Keying his mike, he decided to harass his sergeant. "Oh, is that what that smell was."

  "Jesus, Freedman, haven't you ever smelled a bitch in heat?"

  "Yeah, Sarge, lots of times. But never in a Bradley."

  With a distinct note of sarcasm in his voice, Tyson replied, "Well, welcome to the new Army. You'd best get used to it."

  "Hey, it ain't so bad. After putting up with your greasy farts for all these months, I can deal with this, provided she buries them herself."

  Watching his lieutenant walk out of the store, a bag under her arm and a smile on her face, Tyson didn't respond to Freedman's last comment.

  Instead, he just watched his lieutenant and wondered if he would ever get used to her. Maybe, he thought, it would be easier if she was ugly. At least then, he wouldn't have to worry about hiding the occasional erection he got when they sat together in the close confines of the Bradley's small two-man turret.

  After she climbed on the Bradley, Kozak put her paper sack down, reached in, and pulled out two cold cans of soda, handing one to Freedman and one to Tyson. As Tyson took his can, she smiled. "Thanks, Sergeant. I appreciate your covering for me."

  Tyson, opening the can, smiled back. "No problem, LT. We're a crew. Ain't that right, Freedman?"

  . After taking a sip of his soda, Freedman looked up at Kozak, then at Tyson. There they were, him a black kid from Cleveland, Tyson, a

  redneck from Georgia, and the lieutenant, a twenty-two-year-old female from some nice middle-class suburb, sitting on the border of Texas, drinking soda. Yeah, he thought, they were a crew, a real far-out crew.

  "Sure thing, Sarge. Whatever you say."

  15.

  There is no approved solution to any tactical situation. --George S. Patton Laredo, Texas

  0905 hours, 7 September

  Neither Alverez Calles nor his brother Julio had any intention of starting a war. All they were interested in that morning was robbing a bank, a task that seemed rather easy to do in America. After all, there were banks all over south Texas, each one lightly protected and most near major roads and highways. It would be nothing, they told their two friends, to walk into any of the branches in the suburbs, threaten the bank staff with automatic weapons, and collect more money in five minutes than they could possibly earn in a year delivering pizzas.

  Alverez, the older of the two brothers, had no problem winning his brother over to his scheme. And their two friends, tired of living in the slums of south Texas, needed little convincing. Living in America for two years had taught them all several hard truths. First, despite the fact that they, as Colombians, were ethnically Caucasians, just like the Anglos, in America they would never be considered white. The second truth, however, served to balance the first. Money, according to conventional wisdom, was the great leveler. With enough money, money that seemed readily available to those bold enough to take it, even they could live as well as the whites.

  The presence of armed American troops didn't bother the Calles brothers and their partners. After
all, armed troops were a permanent fixture in Colombia. Since the Calleses knew that soldiers were the same everywhere, they saw no difference between them and the city police officers who frequented doughnut shops and drove about in big, underpowered American patrol cars. Besides, with two assault rifles, a shotgun, and three automatic pistols, Alverez Calles knew they could discourage the local police from following too closely. Few people, he knew, were willing to lay down their lives to defend the wealth of others.

  While the Calles brothers were in the process of psyching themselves up for their great leap into fame and fortune, Captain Stan Wittworth was in the process of making his morning rounds, or at least trying to.

  Parked across from a doughnut shop, Wittworth and his driver were waiting in his Humvee for Deputy Sheriff Glenn Briscoe to come out.

  Looking at his watch, then across to the shop, then back at his watch, Wittworth became impatient. There were places he needed to go and things he needed to do. Briscoe, liaison from the sheriff's office to Witt worth,

  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 w
as 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.