So when the order came down to 2nd Platoon, Company A, to report to the division's headquarters commandant, Kozak was hard-pressed to hide her relief. Back at the division CP, tucked safely in the division rear areas, she would have time to sort herself out. She needed time to absorb the horrors of combat. Like her nose, the wounds of her spirit and mind needed time to heal.
Like clouds on the distant horizon that foreshadow a coming storm, forces were in motion that would deny Kozak what she needed most, time.
The operational pause that was meant to provide the people in Washington with time to reassess their policy toward Mexico was a godsend to Senior Alaman. It provided him and his mercenaries with conditions that couldn't be more perfect for what they intended to do. With U.S. forces deep in Mexico, spread very thin and operating in the midst of a hostile population that provided cover for an active guerrilla force, it would be easy for Delapos's teams to move about and attack isolated American outposts and columns. That the Mexicans would be blamed for both the attacks and the atrocities Delapos's people would commit was without doubt. And for the American soldiers who would witness the results of the atrocities and have to live in fear of them, the desire to exact revenge from the nearest Mexican would, Alaman knew, soon become overpowering.
With atrocity repaying atrocity, it would not be long before the bloody cries for revenge drowned out the calls for diplomacy and reason.
It was now simply a matter of timing. As with the raids along the Texas border, Alaman warned Delapos to take his time and set the stage properly before acting. "It would be a shame," Alaman repeated at every chance, "to come this far and lose everything because we were in too much of a hurry. Time now is a friend that we can use freely. So long as we are willing to be a little patient, the opportunities that will bring us success will come our way."
All of this, to Jean Lefleur, that evening, was purely academic. He seldom bothered himself with the details of his bosses' ambitions or goals. His needs were few. In fact, his only needs were money and job satisfaction. So long as someone was willing to provide both, he was happy. As he sat in the passenger side of his newly acquired four-by-four, feet up on the dash and headed toward Sabinas Hidalgo, there was a smile on his face as he hummed old marching songs from the French Foreign Legion.
At that moment, it seemed like he had it all. Alaman's call for the mercenaries to continue their agitation in Mexico, at triple the pay they had been receiving, paid in advance, was an offer only a fool would turn down. That in itself would have been more than enough to satisfy Lefleur.
What really capped the offer was a change in his status within Delapos's small army. The American, Childress, who had served as Delapos's unofficial deputy and advisor, had fallen out of favor. Lefleur couldn't tell for sure what had caused the problem between Childress and Delapos.
Part of it, he knew, was the fact that Childress was lukewarm to the idea of committing what Childress called murder. Though the atrocities they intended to carry out exceeded what they had done in the past, however, that in itself was not enough to explain Childress's mood.
No, Lefleur thought. That was not at the heart of the problem. The real problem, Lefleur suspected, was the obvious one, one that neither man was willing to admit. Childress, despite all his training and years as a mercenary, was and would always be an American, just as Delapos could never be anything but a Mexican. The impressions and beliefs left by the cultures that had spawned them and raised them left a mark upon the two men that no amount of money could ever wash away. Childress did little to hide the agitation he felt when Delapos bragged about the manner in which the Mexican Army had beaten the arrogant gringos. Nor could Delapos ignore Childress's use of the words dago, greaser, and such when referring to Mexicans. As the war between their homelands expanded, so too, Lefleur knew, did the gap between the two men. And it was into that gap that Lefleur intended to insert himself.
No longer able to trust Childress, Delapos began to turn to Lefleur for the advice that Childress used to provide. For Delapos, so anxious to please Alaman, had great difficulty making major decisions on his own, a fact that both Childress and Lefleur had used to their own advantage so many times before. Needing someone he could trust to help him talk his way through to a decision, and unable fully to trust Childress any longer, Delapos accepted Lefleur's counsel more and more. Even the grueling task of reconnaissance, long hours of driving about coupled with the need to dodge or bluff through both Mexican and American outposts and lines, provided another chance for Lefleur to increase his value to Delapos, not to mention his salary. While Childress was left to organize and defend the base camp, Lefleur went out on reconnaissance, familiarizing himself with the ground and seeking routes that could be used for infiltration and vulnerable spots that were susceptible to attack. With intimate knowledge of the terrain and unit dispositions, Lefleur, not Childress, would be able to influence Delapos and future operations.
Armed with a false passport and other ID that identified him as Paul Perrault, a real correspondent for the French National News Network, Lefleur had no trouble moving about the American sector. Since the other men who traveled with Lefleur carried IDs that supported Lefleur's, and enough camera and sound equipment to support their claims, few Americans at roadblocks and checkpoints bothered to search them or their vehicle. Even if the Americans had found the MP-5 submachine gun under Lefleur's seat, or the weapons each of his men kept concealed within arm's reach, Lefleur felt that he could easily talk his way out of any difficulty. There were, after all, banditos about, and he as well as his crew had the right to defend themselves.
So when Lefleur and his men came up to a checkpoint manned by half a dozen MPs at the entrance to the gap between mountains that led to Sabinas Hidalgo, where the CP for the American 16th Armored Division was, Lefleur didn't give it a second thought. Still, he instinctively evaluated the situation and assessed his chances should it become necessary to fight his way out.
After they stopped a respectful distance from the wire entanglement the MPs used to block the road, a lone MP, armed with an M-16 rifle, approached them on Lefleur's side. From the rank on his helmet and collar, Lefleur guessed that he was their leader. Behind him, at the wire entanglement, stood two more MPs. One was armed with an M-16 slung over her shoulder, while the other had an M-203, which is an M-16 with a 40mm grenade launcher attached to the front hand guard. The two vehicles belonging to the MP squad were sitting on either side of the wire entanglement. Lefleur identified them as armored Humvees. Though the vehicles could easily protect the American MPs from the automatic weapons he and his team had hidden but ready, none of the MPs were, at that moment, availing themselves of that protection. Even the MPs manning the weapons mounted on top of the Humvees, an M-60 machine gun on the left and an M-19 40mm grenade launcher on the right, were fully exposed as they sat on top of the Humvee in order to escape the heat of the vehicles' interior. A sixth MP, a female, sat in the shade of the Humvee on the right. With her helmet off and her M-16 leaning against the side of the Humvee, she was busy eating from a brown plastic sack, paying Lefleur and his people no attention. Even before the MP sergeant reached him, Lefleur already had decided that, if push came to shove, they could easily take the Americans.