But no more. Alas, he was not as hardy as we had thought. His physique was very deceptive. You see, your friend died an hour ago."
For the first time, Lefleur felt a twinge of fear. Though he tried not to, he stiffened slightly at the news of the Canadian's death. For a minute, Lefleur tried to convince himself that the Mexican colonel was bluffing.
They would not beat or torture a man to death. They were professional soldiers. Yet, in the back of his mind, he knew it was true. He had no idea who this colonel was or what he wanted. But he did know that Mexico was a country in the middle of a revolution and at war with the United States. Given those circumstances, and if what the colonel said was true, Lefleur realized that anything was possible. It was time to start cooperating, a little. "What is it, Colonel, that you want?"
Without hesitation, the colonel responded. "I want Alaman."
Lefleur hesitated. The Canadian had talked a lot. Still not ready to roll over, Lefleur shrugged and threw his hands out to his side. "I am sorry, Colonel. I cannot help you. I do not know a person by the name of Alaman."
Though he had expected the Frenchman to play games with him, Guajardo was still angered by the man's manner and arrogance. Looking over to his side, Guajardo snapped, "Juan, your pistol."
Marching from his post at the door, past Lefleur, Juan came up to Guajardo, unholstered his pistol, and handed it to Guajardo. The sound of the pistol's slide being pulled back and released, an action that chambered a round, caused Lefieur to flinch. Lefleur could hear the lieutenant pivot and begin to head back to the door, where he resumed his post. Lefleur noticed that there was a slight smile on his face. It was a wicked smile, a smile that increased Lefleur's apprehension. Whatever was going on, Lefleur realized, had been planned and rehearsed.
"Senior Lefleur, if you would be so kind as to place both hands on the table, palms down and fingers aprt, we can continue our conversation."
Having no idea what was going on, Lefleur complied. He could feel the sweat begin to bead up on his forehead as he placed his hands on the table.
Without a word, without a warning, the pistol flashed past the right side of Lefleur's head. Before he could react, Guajardo placed the muzzle of the pistol on the lower knuckle of the right-hand pinkie and pulled the trigger.
Expecting a violent reaction, Guajardo pulled away and to one side as Lefleur pushed himself away from the table, howling like an injured animal. Guajardo, seeing the chair begin to slide back, stuck his foot behind its rear leg, stopping it from sliding any farther, and causing it to tip over. The chair tilted back, then toppled, sending Lefleur sprawling on the floor, blood squirting out of the nub on his right hand where a finger had once been.
Once he was able to recover from the shock and surprise of being shot, Lefleur grabbed his right wrist with his left hand and looked at the nub.
As he was studying the damage, he began panting, almost unable to breathe. Guajardo, who had taken a step back, looked down at Lefleur and smiled. "Senior Lefleur, you may, if you choose, continue to be stubborn. But I must warn you, I will surely outlast you. You see, I have fourteen bullets left. You, only nine fingers."
Lefleur had had enough. He was, after all, only a mercenary. There was no honor in dying for Alaman. There was nothing worth throwing his life away for. It was not in his own interest to continue with this insanity.
As soon as he had composed himself, he blurted that he didn't know where Alaman was. He was, he explained, only one of many mercenaries.
Guajardo walked over and looked down at Lefleur. "Yes, that may be true. But you are going to take me to the man who does know where Alaman is. You will, my friend, lead me to Senior Delapos and deliver him to me. For if you do not, I will personally see that your death is a slow and painful one, the kind where the victim's voice gives out from incessant screaming days before the body dies. Do we understand each other, senor?"
The calm that Dixon tried to feign fooled no one. Though he was far from being a basket case, Big Al considered putting him on furlough for a week, maybe two. Big Al, however, appreciated that such a move would only serve to magnify Dixon's sense of loss. So long as he continued to function and perform his duties, the division commander would leave Dixon be. In his own time, in his own way, Big Al knew that Dixon would finally come to grips with the loss of Jan Fields.
It was not that anyone had given up. On the contrary, the president, under pressure from Congress and the media, and fueled by Amanda Lewis's agitation, was making every effort to find out what had happened to Congressman Ed Lewis, Jan, and her crew. From the branch of the Red Cross that dealt with prisoners of war, to the United Nations, representatives of the United States were demanding that the Mexican government stop denying any knowledge of the incident and surrender the hostages immediately. The Mexican government, for their part, denied that it had any part in or any knowledge of the incident.
The CIA, working inside Mexico, could not find any evidence that they were lying. On the contrary, their agents reported that several Mexican intelligence and police agencies were also involved in trying to find Congressman Lewis and party. Though some believed that the efforts by the Mexican intelligence agencies were a sham, created to back the Mexican government's claim that it had no knowledge of the incident, it could not be ignored.
Within the 16th Division's sector, ground and air patrols, starting at the site of the abduction and spreading out in ever-widening circles, continued to search for the raiders and for Lewis and party, or for any clue as to where they might have disappeared to. That Lewis and the members of his party might be dead was not discounted by anyone. Included in the instructions of all patrols involved was to keep an eye open for anything that resembled freshly dug graves.
Though Big Al favored these actions, he was concerned that his soldiers, incensed over what the media were calling the brutal murder of the MPs and Lewis's military escort, might seek revenge on innocent Mexicans.
Already there had be.en two incidents in which nervous guards, already on edge due to the sporadic guerrilla attacks that were becoming more and more numerous, had fired on civilians. If this were allowed to continue, Big Al could face a situation that would compel him to quit the area that his division had paid so much to take.
Cerro walked into the current-operations van, ready to relieve his counterpart from the night shift, Captain Mark Grumpf. Cerro was about to slap Grumpf on the back when he noticed Dixon, sitting at a field table in the corner. Alone, his head propped up with his right hand, Dixon was poring through the duty log, reading every entry and report. Cerro leaned over and whispered in Grumpf's ear, "How long has he been here?"
Grumpf looked over at Dixon, then to Cerro. "He left at oh-two hundred this morning and was back in at oh-five thirty."
Cerro stood up and looked at Dixon for a moment. He felt sorry for the man. A few years before, Dixon had lost his wife in a bombing while he was assigned to the Middle East. Though Cerro had been told that they were estranged, the loss had to have been hard on him. Now, in the middle of a war, he had lost his…
Cerro paused. He didn't quite know what to call Jan Fields. What was Jan Fields to Dixon anyway? A lover? A friend? A roommate? It was a strange relationship, at least for the military, which prided itself as being the last great bastion of conservative values and such. No one talked about Jan and Dixon's relationship, but it was one that meant a grpat deal to Dixon, and one that he never tried to hide or apologize for. To be sure, Jan was good-looking, for an older woman. And she had a great personality. In many ways, she matched Dixon perfectly.