In an instant, Jan realized that she was no longer in control of the situation. Her first reaction was to turn on the captain and explain that she had to stay with the rest of the crew. That, however, quickly passed from her mind when she noticed for the first time that Juan was not with them.
Instead of defiance, Jan decided to stall in an effort to gain some time to assess the situation..
''Juan, my fixer, is not here yet. We must wait."
The captain, still smiling and still holding her arm with a gentle but firm grip, simply shook his head. "I am sorry, Ms. Fields. Your man has already left. The colonel is quite busy and we must leave, now."
"I assume the man you have driving our van knows where we are going."
The captain nodded his head. "He is a very good man. The van will follow. Please, Ms. Fields, we must go. The colonel is waiting." With that, he gave a slight tug on Jan's arm, a tug she initially resisted.
Wanting the last word, if for no other reason than to show that she was going of her own free will, Jan called to Joe Bob and Ted. "I'll be with the colonel. Keep the camera ready and roll on anything that might be of interest."
Looking at Jan, Joe Bob wondered if she meant that as a threat to the captain, reminding him that they were filming in case he had evil intent, or if she was just giving simple directions. Regardless of what she meant, Joe Bob began to regret leaving his.357 Magnum back home in Austin.
There ain't nothin' more pathetic, he thought, than an unarmed cowboy surrounded by a bunch of pissed-off greasers. "Okay, Miss Fields, we'll be right behind you." Not that we can do squat, he thought.
Guiding her around the van, the captain led Jan to the sedan where Colonel Guajardo waited in the backseat. Jan had hoped to sit up front, preferring to have some distance and a nice seat back between her and the colonel. But the captain took her to the rear door, which he closed behind her with a quick, crisp slam.
Guajardo, without a word, looked over to Jan while she settled herself.
His cold, hard expression hadn't changed. Even when she smiled and told him she was ready, Guajardo said nothing to her, greeting her announcement with a slight nod. Turning to the driver, Guajardo rattled off instructions in Spanish.
To Jan's surprise, instead of a simple nod or si, the driver suddenly stiffened. In the rearview mirror, she could see an expression of shock on his face. The order the colonel had given had certainly upset him, a fact that did nothing to calm the tightness Jan began to feel growing in the pit of her stomach. Moving only her eyes, Jan glanced back and forth between Guajardo and the driver.
When Corporal Fares, the driver, failed to respond to his order, Guajardo leaned forward and repeated it. Fares, his face now contorted with an expression that reminded Jan of the same frightened look Juan had had, whispered what sounded like a hesitant plea in response to Guajardo's second order.
In a flash, Guajardo raised his right hand, made a fist, and pounded his right thigh with it as he hissed his order for a third time. Choking out a
"Si" that was barely audible, Corporal Fares mechanically released the parking brake, shifted the sedan into gear, and began to drive. Satisfied, Guajardo eased back into his seat, not bothering to look at Jan, who was trying to sink into her corner as far as she could.
Once out of the courtyard and on the streets, Jan did her best to avoid attracting Guajardo's attention. Looking out the window, she tried to suppress the fear that was gnawing away at her. Though she had been in difficult spots before, she had never been the focus of attention as she was now. Before, she had always been the casual observer, able to keep herself apart from the event she was reporting or the person being interviewed.
What was happening now was totally out of control. Knowing that she had put herself and her crew into such a situation so willingly and without weighing all the consequences didn't do anything to assist her efforts to calm down and collect her thoughts.
And the presence of Colonel Guajardo was also troubling. Even though she kept her face turned to her window, Jan could sense his presence. In the large room of the Palacio Nacional where they had conducted the interview, she had noticed mud on Guajardo's boots and traces of dirt and soot on his uniform. Now, in the confines of the car, Jan noted the unusual.mixture of odors that permeated Guajardo's uniform.
Without looking at the colonel, Jan began trying to determine what he had been up to by analyzing the scents that emanated from him. The dominant odor was that of a man who had been very active and either not taken the time or hadn't had the opportunity to shower. Jan was familiar with the musky smell of masculine sweat. Her lover, Scott Dixon, who was a lieutenant colonel in the American Army, usually smelled like that when he came back from a field exercise. Guajardo had another smell to him that often permeated Scott's field gear, the odor of hydraulic fluids.
As the operations officer of the 16th Armored Division, Scott often used a helicopter. So it was not uncommon for him to smell like one after a field problem. A third scent, fainter than the others, yet quite distinct, reminded Jan of burned flesh. The question of how Guajardo had managed to pick up that odor intrigued her while, at the same time, it brought her back to the realization that the man sitting next to her was no soapbox politician. The power he held was the result of direct and brutal action.
For a brief second, Jan felt the urge to look at Guajardo's hands to see if there was still blood on them. She quickly dismissed that thought, however.
After all, modern man had progressed a long way from the Old Testament, becoming quite adept at washing hands.
Jan began to concentrate on the scenes that flashed by her window.
Without her noticing it, they had passed from the almost deserted streets of the center of the city to a residential and shopping district crowded with cars, trucks, people, shops, small stands and stalls. Outside, on the street, shoppers, workers, vendors, and beggars jostled each other as they went about their daily business as if nothing had changed in Mexico. Jan sat up when she realized this and began to look for the soldiers that had been so evident in the center city. She saw none. She didn't even see any police.
For all practical purposes, whatever was happening with the government had, so far, had no effect on these people.
When the sedan reached an intersection and stopped for a light, a young man ran out from the curb and came up to Jan's window. He looked at her, smiled, and turned his head. Puzzled, Jan wondered if he was a beggar or peddler. Then, without warning, as he held a lighter inches from his face, he spit out a ball of flame from his mouth.
The sudden feat of the fire-breathing man startled Jan, causing her to jump backward, bumping Guajardo in the process. Guajardo, who had been lost deep in thought as he looked out his window, turned to see what had startled Jan. The fire-breather, finished with his act, had turned back to wait for his reward. Only then did he notice that Jan was seated next to a colonel of the Mexican Army. Slowly, the fire-breather's face turned from a broad smile to a quizzical frown. Still, the man stood there, not moving. He was still staring at Jan and Guajardo, as if in a daze, until the light turned and the sedan pulled away.
Suddenly realizing that she was leaning against the colonel, Jan sat up straight and moved back to her side of the seat, running her hand through her hair. As she began to regain her composure, she glanced over at Guajardo. He was looking at her.