by Harold Coyle
A shadow blocking Kozak's view of the sky and buildings across from her was the first hint that he was there. Like an apparition that had popped out of the ground, the largest Mexican that Kozak had ever seen was standing in front of her, looking down at her and Gunti. From Kozak's reclining position, the Mexican, holding an assault rifle at the ready, looked like he was over ten feet tall and weighed half a ton.
For the briefest of moments, they looked at each other. Kozak, wide eyed and mouth hanging open, sat with one leg on either side of Gunti's body, hanging onto him ready for the next pull. She was shocked to see a Mexican soldier so close. The Mexican soldier, rifle clutched across his chest, his legs straddling Gunti's body, looked down at Kozak, almost as surprised to see an American woman soldier in the middle of a firefight as Kozak was to see him. It was as if both of them, carried forward by the excitement of the battle, had suddenly come across a situation that neither was prepared for. Kozak, with her rifle slung across her back and Gunti's body half on top of her, could do little to defend either herself or Gunti.
The Mexican, fired up with passion and hate, had been ready to rush forward and slit the throats of the invading gringos. The situation he found himself in, however, left him at a loss. He didn't quite know how he was expected to deal with the wounded man and woman at his feet.
These, he thought, were not the ten-foot-tall norteamericanos who threatened his home and family. They were, he thought, just people, one an injured man and one a helpless woman trying to rescue him. How could he, he wondered, be expected to kill them in cold blood. Without a second thought, he slung his rifle over his shoulder. Bending down, he took Gunti's hands, pulled Gunti up over his shoulder and onto his back.
Without looking back at Kozak, the Mexican soldier began running toward the open door Kozak had been headed for.
Kozak, still trying to get over her close encounter with the Mexican soldier, watched in amazement as he lifted Gunti and carried him away.
As soon as she could recover her composure, she was up and headed for the open doorway where the Mexican and Gunti had disappeared. Rather than hassle with her rifle, she unholstered her 9mm pistol, charged the slide to .chamber a round, and went into the building after the Mexican, ready to save Gunti from capture.
Running into the dark room after.having been in the bright sunlight, Kozak found herself momentarily blinded. She was therefore unable to see Gunti's body, left just inside the doorway, when she came charging in. Tripping over his legs, Kozak went down on her face, bashing her nose and chin on the tile floor. Pushing herself up with her hands, she shook her head, then looked around. Between the stars that floated before her eyes from the collision with the floor, and the adjusting of her eyes to the dark room, she almost missed the Mexican soldier. He paused long enough, however, for her to see him looking down at her. Still at a loss as to what to do, the Mexican, with his rifle in his left hand, raised his right hand, waved at Kozak, whispered "Vaya con Dios," and then disappeared down a dark hall toward the back of the house.
Kozak was still on the floor, looking down the dark hall where the Mexican had disappeared, when someone else came charging through the front door. Like Kozak, the new arrival failed to see Gunti's body just inside the doorway. And, like Kozak, the new arrival tripped and went sprawling, head-first, into the house. Fortunately for the new arrival, Kozak's body cushioned his fall, which shoved her face back down onto the tile floor. Cursing, Kozak tried to push herself up, but found that it was impossible while the new arrival was still on her.
"Jesus, Lieutenant! I'm sorry. I didn't see you." Turning her head, she saw that the new arrival was Sergeant Maupin.
"Apology accepted. Now get the hell off of me!" In a flash, Maupin was on his feet and helping Kozak, all the while
looking about the room. "Where's the Mexican? Did you get the Mexican that carried Gunti in here?"
With her right hand, which still held her pistol, she pointed to the hall while she carefully felt her nose with her left hand. "He went that way."
Maupin, running over to where she had pointed, looked down the hall.
When he didn't see anyone, he looked at Kozak, then at Gunti. "You mean he just brought him in here, then left? Did you get a shot at him?"
It was broken. Kozak realized her nose was broken. Letting it go, she tilted her head back and crossed her eyes in an effort to see how badly her nose was broken. She couldn't. But she could feel the pain, pain that spread across her face like a blanket. And, even worse, she could feel the blood running down her nostrils and around her upper lip. With her nose broken and clogged with blood, she sounded like a person who had a severely stuffed-up nose. "No, I didn't shoot him. What the hell is going on outside?"
"Nothing, right now. I left ist Squad in place to cover us."
Moving to the side of the doorway, Kozak carefully peeked around the corner and looked down the street in the direction that the Mexicans would be coming in. "Any sign of the bad guys?"
Maupin, coming up to the other side of the doorway, also peeked out, then faced Kozak.' 'No. Only one we saw was the one who grabbed Gunti.
But there's got to be more out there. No doubt, they're closing in."
Kozak was still looking down the street while she held her nose with her left hand. "Yeah, no doubt. We need to get outta here." Seeing nothing moving, she turned to Maupin. "Can you move Gunti back to where your squad is or do you need help?"
Looking at Gunti's body, Maupin thought about it for a moment, then nodded. "I can do it. No problem." Looking back at Gunti where they had left him sprawled in the middle of the floor, Maupin asked Kozak how bad Gunti was hit.
Like a shot in the head, it struck Kozak that in all her excitement she hadn't even looked to see where Gunti had been shot and how bad it was.
She didn't even know if he was alive. Glancing back over her shoulder, she stared at Gunti's body. For the first time she noticed the pool of blood on the floor under Gunti. Oh my God, she thought, he's probably bleeding to death and I never looked or did anything for him. "I don't know.
See what you can do for him before you move out. But hurry."
Without a word, Maupin moved over to where Gunti was, leaving Kozak to silently curse herself as she watched for any sign of the Mexicans.
After
several seconds, Maupin grunted. "Geez, LT, this guy's a mess.
I can't do shit for him here. We gotta get him back to the aidman, fast."
Kozak, still at the door, looked back over at Maupin, down at the floor at Gunti, then back to Maupin. While she put her pistol back into its holster and took the rifle off her back, she considered her next move. ' 'All right, Sergeant Maupin. When you're ready, take Gunti out of here. I'll cover you from here and follow once you're clear. If we don't draw fire by the time you reach where the rest of your squad is, keep going. I'll gather them and bring 'em along. Got any questions?"
"No, no questions, LT. Just give me a minute." Maupin slung his rifle over his back and bent down. Grabbing Gunti's hand, he pulled Gunti up and over one shoulder into a fireman's carry. After bouncing up and down a couple of times in an effort to shift Gunti's body into a comfortable and balanced position, Maupin informed Kozak that he was ready.
Hoisting her rifle into the ready-to-fire position and bracing it against the doorway to steady it, she told Maupin to go. As the sergeant ducked and ran under the muzzle of her rifle, Kozak wondered if she should fire some random shots, in the hope of making the Mexicans seek cover, or if she should just hold her fire and,return aimed fire after the Mexicans opened fire and revealed their positions. Maupin, with Gunti on his back, however, was gone before she had made a decision.
Counting slowly to ten, Kozak held her position, slowly scanning the street to her front for any sign of a reaction to Maupin's appearance.
When she saw and heard nothing after reaching ten, she went out the door and headed down the street where 1st Squad waited.
Alerted by Maupin as he
went by, the rest of 1st Squad was ready to move when Kozak came running by. "First Squad, out and back to the river, now!"
As the members of 1st Squad came out of the buildings they had been in, Kozak, standing in the middle of the street, turned and looked back, holding her rifle at the ready and searching for pursuers. Their roles, she thought, were reversed. Her platoon had come into Mexico pursuing the Mexicans, and now they were being chased out of Mexico. Looking over her. shoulder, she yelled to her people to get a move on. Only after the beating of boots on the pavement began to fade did she turn around and follow them at a run, breathing through her mouth and trying hard to keep the blood and snot running down from her broken nose from going into her mouth.
With far more fanfare than it had begun with, the latest incursion by the United States Army came to an end as Second Lieutenant Nancy Kozak, her nose bent to one side and bleeding, came sliding down the embankment, into the Rio Grande, across the river, and into the ubiquitous eye m of Ted's camera.
On television sets across the nation, people barely heard Jan Fields's running commentary. Instead, the image of the lone infantry lieutenant, with blood dripping down her chin, wading back across the river after a brief pursuit of Mexican raiders, stirred viewers' emotions as no words could. Blood had been drawn. American blood. They had watched the body of one of her soldiers carried across the river. They had seen the medics working frantically to save the soldier. Then, when hope was gone, the television viewers had watched as the medics, in disgust, turned away when they realized they had failed. And finally, the young female officer who had led her men in an effort to punish the enemy came back, wounded but undefeated. Such images stirred the passions of a nation and washed away any vestiges of logic or reason that might have remained.
While the National Guard incident could have been a mistake, few could find any defense or justification for this latest spilling of American blood.
In the minds of millions of Americans, the war with Mexico was a reality.
17.
The first casualty when war comes is truth.
--Senator Hiram Johnson
City Hall, Laredo, Texas
1905 hours, 7 September
Working her way through or around barriers was as much a part of Jan Fields's job as shooting a story. A fighter by nature, who enjoyed the fight just as much as the fruits, Jan never took no as an absolute answer.
Rather, it was a signal that the approach she was using wasn't working, and that a different appeal to "be reasonable" or for cooperation was required. Military police were no different. If anything, they were easier to deal with. Well trained to perform specific combat-related tasks, the young soldiers who made up the military police corps often lacked the depth of experience veteran civilian police had when it came to dealing with civilian media. So Jan was able to use her entire repertoire of tricks and pleas to get what she wanted. The only time she ran into serious problems was when the senior MP on site was female.
This evening, this was not the case. The young staff sergeant whose squad was augmenting the sheriff's deputies and the Laredo City police at city hall was an easy mark. The conversation started with Jan insisting that she had an appointment with Lieutenant Colonel Dixon, the G3 of the 16th Armored Division. When the MP sergeant responded that he didn't know who Dixon was and doubted he was there, Jan happily pointed to Dixon's Humvee parked ten feet away from them. Embarrassed at being caught off guard and beginning to wonder if the female reporter badgering him did, in fact, have an appointment, the sergeant sent one of his people into the courthouse to check. Jan, with the confident smile of a cat who was about to pounce on the cornered mouse, waited with the MP sergeant.
Her smile disappeared, however, when the MP sent to summon Dixon returned. Reporting to his sergeant, he stated that Colonel Dixon not only had negative knowledge of an appointment with a female reporter, but couldn't even seem to place the name Jan Fields. Jan blew a gasket. Scott was playing with her and she was in no mood to be messed with. With her eyes reduced to angry, narrow slits, and her forehead furrowed with rage, Jan turned to the MP who was patiently waiting and pointed her index finger at him. "Look, soldier, you march right back where you came from and tell that pompous ass that if he doesn't haul his butt out here in two minutes, it will be a cold day in hell before he beds this broad again.
Got that?"
The MP, taken aback by Jan's response, looked at her with wide eyes for a few seconds, then turned to his sergeant for guidance. The sergeant, not sure what to make of the angry woman with the violent temper, was unsure what to do. If he sent his MP back to the G3 with the message Jan had just relayed, and the G3 really didn't know who this reporter was, he might find himself relieved or something even worse. On the other hand, if he didn't send the MP back with the new message, he would have to deal with the crazy woman standing less than two feet in front of him.
Between the look on her face and her proximity to him, Jan appeared to be the greater of the two threats at that particular moment. Deciding that the old saying that discretion was the better part of valor applied, the sergeant turned to his MP and told him to inform the G3 that the young female correspondent was quite insistent and was threatening him with grave domestic consequences if he did not respond to her request. The MP, trying hard to suppress a grin, shook his head, turned, and disappeared into the courthouse.
By the time Dixon came out onto the steps where Jan had been waiting, she had, for the most part, calmed down. Dixon's appearance, in desert camouflage uniform, along with his web gear arranged for field duty, holster and pistol, protective mask, and helmet, took her aback for a moment. They were serious, she thought. The appearance of Dixon in downtown Laredo, ready for battle, finally convinced her that the government of the United States was really serious about fighting. Without having to be told, and not needing to do any complicated analysis in which she weighed all available evidence, Jan knew that there would be war. In her heart, she knew it.
Still, she had a little fire left from the joke Dixon had played at her expense. When he reached her, Dixon fanned that fire into a raging flame by greeting her with hands held out and a broad smile as if he had done nothing. "Jan, what a lovely surprise."
With her hands on her hips, her upper torso angled forward, and her feet spread shoulder width apart, Jan greeted Scott with a growl. "Scott Dixon, you can be a real jerk sometimes. And don't give me that 'What did I do now?' look either."
Stopping a few feet from her, he paused for a few seconds to admire Jan, who remained standing on the steps below him in her defiant pose.
Her long, dark brown hair was pulled back, probably done up in a French braid. Her oval face, though masked with an angry expression, was tanned from hours of tromping about shooting stories in south Texas. If she was wearing makeup, it was applied with such skill that it blended nicely. The white cotton blouse she wore, no longer crisp and neat after
.a day in the late summer heat of Texas, had the top three buttons undone.
The khaki walking shorts she wore ended just above her knees. Although Dixon found the knees one of the more unimpressive parts of the female body, he admired the calves and thighs that they connected. He was therefore willing to overlook the imperfections that naked kneecaps abounded in. All in all, though fewpeople would call Jan Fields a natural beauty, the image before him, and the person that it represented, had come to mean more to Dixon than anything else. Raising his hands in mock surrender, Dixon called out, "Okay, cease fire, I give up," as he shuffled down the last few steps that separated him from Jan.
Still angry at the fun Dixon had had at her expense and wanting to play out her show of rage and indignation a bit longer, Jan folded her arms across her chest as Dixon approached, and turned away from him. Dixon, stopping on the step above the one Jan was on, looked down over her shoulder, staring at the exposed cleavage that Jan's folded arms raised and accentuated. For a moment he stood there, both to admire the view and to evaluate he
r mood, though he already knew that she wasn't really mad at him. If she were, she would have turned on him like a cat on a strange dog. No, Dixon decided, it was her turn to have some fun with him. He had embarrassed her in front of the MPs, who were still watching at a respectful distance, though they both tried to pretend that they weren't. Without a word, he knew that before they could continue, she would have to have her pound of flesh, or at least an apology appropriate to the offense.
Walking around her and down two steps so that he now faced her on a slightly lower level, Dixon took off his helmet, tucked it under his left arm, extended his arms, palms up, and looked up at her. "Dear Jan, I do humbly apologize for making you look like a fool. It's just that doing so is so easy. And besides, I can't help myself."
Jan looked at him, thinking about what he had just said. He was still mocking her, but she really didn't want to continue to press the point. He was obviously in a playful mood that she didn't feel up to matching. His hair, receding at the temples and graying on the sides, was cut ludicrously short. The sides, clipped in what Dixon referred to as whitewalls, looked more like beard stubble than hair. Jan ran her fingers through the scant hair left on top. She enjoyed running her hands through Dixon's hair, when he had enough, and was always saddened when he had it chopped away. Taking a deep breath and letting it out, she looked into his eyes.
"See you got yourself a haircut."
Dixon, using the palm of his right hand, wiped away the sweat that had beaded up on the right side of his scalp above his ear. "Well, until someone figures out a way to improve the ventilation in the Kevlar helmets, short hair is the way to go."