by Dick Stivers
Justice by Fire
( Able Team - 7 )
Dick Stivers
From New York to Los Angeles, kill squads were murdering career criminals and psychopathic killers.
The public welcomed these “executions” of rapists and murderers whom the courts had failed to imprison.
Silencing critics with death, the death squads blew away outspoken media stars, Black nationalists, Communist agitators… all int he guise of law and order. But the truth was that the squads were working for the enemies of America.
Democracy had ruptured, spilling out chaos. The president responded with his own squad of death-dealing hotshots — Mack Bolan’s Able Team!
Dick Stivers
Justice by Fire
Proofed by an unsung hero.
1
Roberto Quesada, commander of El Ejercito de los Guerreros Blancos, greeted the young Salvadorans with handshakes and abrazos, the Latin American embrace of macho friendship.
Each of the six young men — all wide-shouldered, with the close-cut hair and straight posture of soldiers — spoke for a moment with their commander, then filed through the double-door entry of the ultramodern Miami mansion of concrete and plate glass.
Quesada followed the last man through the doorway, as the limousine drivers unloaded suitcases from the trunks of the Lincolns and Cadillacs parked on the circular driveway.
*
Across Ocean Avenue, in a rental car parked in the night shadow of a flowering silk tree, a reporter braced a motorized Nikon on the car’s steering wheel. He scanned the mansion’s windows. Dwarf palms and ferns screened the interior from his sight. Finally, he took his eye from the camera’s viewfinder. He watched the chauffeurs carry suitcases inside. Snapping the cap onto the 400mm telephoto lens, Floyd “The Cat” Jefferson carefully set down the camera. He noted the time and exposure details in his notebook: 9:38 p.m. Color Kodak 1000 ASA.
He checked a schedule of airline flights. The evening flight from El Salvador had arrived in Miami less than an hour earlier. Floyd Jefferson knew the six soldiers came from El Salvador. To double-check his assumption, he worked out the crosstown travel time from the airport, added time to clear customs. El Salvador.
Who’re they here to kill? Or perhaps they are here only to talk about murder. And torture and mutilation.
Parked a mere hundred yards from the leader of one of El Salvador’s most feared death squads, Jefferson leaned back on the car seat to wait. He wanted more photos. Even with the high-speed emulsion of the film and the camera’s expensive optics, night photography of subjects in motion remained an exercise in luck. He had the good luck of the entryway lighting illuminating the Salvadorans’ faces, but any detail — a wrong guess on the exposure, a flare off the windshield, the turn of a head — might ruin a photo. His story required at least one good shot of every member of the death squad. Perhaps he would not learn why they had come to Miami, but he could prove they came.
Soon, Jefferson would introduce the North American public to the Guerreros Blancos— the White Warriors. North Americans already knew of the Salvadoran death squads terrorizing that nation in the name of anti-Communism. Everyone who owned a television had seen — in lurid color — the bloated, decomposing corpses of students, nurses, teachers and farmers dumped in the ditches and the ravines of El Salvador. Forty thousand civilians had been murdered in the campaign of terror to defeat the Salvadoran government’s attempts to reform and modernize the country.
But the news of one murder — only one man hacked to death, beheaded with machetes — would carry the name of the Army of White Warriors to every citizen of the United States and Canada. Soon, with photos and details and sworn testimony, Jefferson would take the first step on the road of protest.
He had no illusions. There would be no trials of the murderers, not in El Salvador nor in the United States. The American administration went through the twice yearly charade of “human rights” certification. Every six months, the United States Congress and Senate protested the thousands of murders, including eight United States citizens, but noted for the record that the number of murders per night continued to decline. Then the representatives of the people of the United States of America voted to provide more money and weapons for los escuadrones de muerte, the squadrons of death.
Despite his hatred and the horror of what he had seen, Jefferson laughed to himself. Damn right they’re not killing as many. That place is running out of people to kill.
They had hacked his friend to death. Jefferson knew he could not force a trial of the killers, not even an arrest, but the journalists and camera crews would crowd the iron gateway of Quesada’s Miami Beach sanctuary. Quesada would face microphones and photographers every time he left his estate. After a few days of that, perhaps the Salvadoran mass murderer would return to his own country.
Where he could get shot…
A car passed. Fear touched Jefferson when he saw the driver look at him. He glanced in the rearview mirror. The car continued south, toward the lights of the towering tourist hotels at the other end of the island. He saw no one walking on the asphalt or on the tree-shadowed sidewalks. He scanned the fronts of the nearest estates. No guards watched him.
At the Quesada mansion, the chauffeurs waited, standing in a group behind one of the Lincolns. A butane lighter flared. Cigarettes scratched arcs against the darkness as men gestured. Jefferson watched the windows of the mansion.
Why did the drivers wait? Jefferson had seen them carry suitcases into the house. If Quesada’s gang planned to stay with their commander, why the waiting limousines? Did they intend to tour Miami’s nightspots?
Jefferson totaled the numbers. Quesada and his wife and four children occupied the mansion. Plus four bodyguards and a live-in maid. Now six guests. A total of seventeen.
Unless Quesada had installed racks of bunk beds, the six young men would sleep at a hotel. Then why had the chauffeurs carried in suitcases?
Tires screeched to a halt. A light blinded Jefferson. He heard car doors fly open, slam shut. Careful not to move too quickly, he sat up straight as he put both hands on the dashboard, fingers wide.
“What you doing here, boy?” a voice demanded. From the curb side, a flashlight swept over the interior of the car.
“Nothing, officer, nothing at all.”
“Then tell me why you’re doing nothing here.”
“Have I broken a law, officer?”
The second patrolman opened the passenger-side door. “Don’t get lippy, punk. You don’t belong in this neighborhood. Out.”
“Leaving right now.”
“Out of the car!”
“Yes, officer. I’m getting out. Don’t shoot.”
“Shut your mouth!” the second patrolman ordered.
“What’s your name?” demanded the first police officer. “What’re you doing with all this photographic equipment?”
Jefferson managed to leave the car without lowering his hands. He stood on the sidewalk, hands clasped behind his head. The radio of the Dade County Police cruiser blared numbers and addresses into the warm, humid quiet of the luxury district. A slight ocean breeze brought the scents of brine and jasmine.
“Why aren’t you answering, boy?”
“I’m twenty-three years old, sir.”
“I didn’t ask how old you are. Show us some identification.”
“Yes, sir. Reaching for my identification. Here it is, sir.”
“Take it out of the wallet.”
“Keep your hands up!”
Jefferson raised his hands above his head as he slipped his California driver’s license out of his wallet. He held out the license above the officer’s head.
“You think you’re funny?”
“No, sir. I don’t think I’m funny. You told me to keep my hands up. My hands are up. You asked me for my name, you told me to shut up…”
“We got ourselves a California black, here. From foggy San Francisco. So, you explain to me, California boy. What are you doing here? This is an exclusive neighborhood. What do you want?”
“A tan. I heard about the Florida sunshine…”
“Down. Push-up position! Feet wide. Hands wide.”
As Floyd Jefferson stared at the seashell-patterned sidewalk inches from his nose, headlights flashed past. Another limousine swept through the gates of Quesada’s mansion. Jefferson watched the entry. He thought he saw two Anglo faces pass through the entry’s lights, one man with close-cut gray hair, another with blond hair.
“Eyes down!” One of the policemen put his shoe on Jefferson’s back to force his face into the concrete. “What is it you’re looking over there for, boy?”
The other officer read Jefferson’s name and San Francisco address into the radio. “It says he’s a reporter. He’s out here on Ocean Avenue, taking pictures. What of, he won’t say.”
Listening to the patrolman broadcast his identity and profession into the Florida night, Jefferson felt a formless, irrational fear touch his imagination. He thought of police-band scanners and of the thousands of expatriate Cubans employed at every level in the Miami city government. As his imagination threatened to turn his dread into panic, he reassured himself with the knowledge that in a few hours he would return to the West Coast, far from the Salvadorans and Cubans and uniformed bigots of Miami.
Days later, Jefferson would laugh at the naive thought that distance might protect him.
After all, airlines sold tickets to anyone who had the money.
2
In the next apartment, Lucha Villa sang of love and loss from a radio tuned to a Tijuana station. The Rivera family gathered around the table as David Holt spread typed sheets and legal papers in front of Antonio Rivera. An attorney with a lucrative practice in San Francisco, Holt wore the gray-suit uniform of an advocate. Though also an attorney, Senor Rivera wore khaki work pants and a polyester shirt. His hands bore the blisters and torn skin of a professional who now earned his living by manual labor.
A month before, Senor Rivera had served as mayor of a tiny town in the Salvadoran province of Sonsonate. Now he, his wife and their surviving children hid in a one-room apartment in a San Diego barrio. By day, he cleared brush and broke concrete, while his wife Lidia taught their children English with the aid of comic books and television soap operas. Nights, they flipped through the television channels for news of their country.
Day and night, they watched the street for Immigration. They feared deportation to El Salvador more than death. If the United States Department of Immigration and Naturalization Service seized the family and returned them to El Salvador, they would suffer the same horror that had taken their teenage son: death by mutilation, courtesy of the knives and machetes of El Ejercito de los Guerreros Blancos.
“We can prepare a petition proving your fear of persecution if you are deported,” Holt told Senor and Senora Rivera, “but the State Department refuses to recognize Salvadorans as political refugees. First, we must have irrefutable proof of the political terrorism directed against your family…”
Rivera touched the envelope containing the black-and-white photos of his murdered son and his administrative aide. Only sixteen years old, his son had died in the courtyard of the family’s home. Farmers had found the remains of his aide in a ditch. The Riveras never looked at the photos. To show Holt, they had handed him the envelope, then turned their eyes away as he studied the nauseating horror.
“The photos are not enough…”
“And the notes from the Guerreros Blancos…”
Rivera touched the clear plastic that sheathed the blood-marked pages the death squad had left on the bodies. In the stilted Spanish of a university graduate, the notes declared the young Rivera a Communist and an enemy of El Salvador.
“And the articles from the North American and European newspapers,” Rivera continued, gesturing at the thick bundle of clippings reporting the murder of Ricardo Marquez, the San Francisco journalist.
“The murder is the foundation of your case. First, we must prove it happened as you say. The Salvadoran authorities claim the Communists killed Mr. Marquez. They claim you arranged the murder. We may in fact need to fight requests to extradite you to face a trial in a Salvadoran court. If we can somehow prove the death squad committed the murder, and that you witnessed it, we will have a good case for asylum. If not… perhaps we can gather public support for your case. However, the State Department does not recognize rallies and slogans in court.”
“But he was an American,” Senor Rivera protested. “Los Blancosmurdered him. Doesn’t your government want justice? Do they not want to protect the rights of their own citizens?”
Holt shook his head, no. “They will not admit his death was murder. The State Department told the press and the Marquez family that he died in a cross fire, an accident of war.”
“Machine guns that shoot machete bullets…” Rivera laughed bitterly. “I saw the Blancoskill Ricardo. I saw them take his head and put it on a fence post. I told your embassy of what I saw. I identified the Blancos. Then they came to kill my family. Your country is a democracy. You elect your leaders. How can your people elect leaders who lie and deceive and betray?”
The San Francisco attorney struggled to answer, his lips forming the first syllable of a rational and educated explanation of his president’s and nation’s Central American policies. But his voice died before he spoke. He knew no rational explanation for the parody of foreign policy his nation’s leaders presented to the world: the circus parade of ignorance and fictions, and the vainglorious leading democracy to defeat in the undeclared war against the Soviet empire.
Footsteps stopped at the door. A knock sounded, saving the North American attorney from voicing his own despair.
Senora Rivera answered the door, opening it only a few inches. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“I’m Floyd Jefferson. Mr. Holt told me to come here…”
“Floyd!” Holt ushered the young black reporter into the crowded apartment.
“I would’ve called but your office couldn’t give me a number.”
“You have the photos?”
Jefferson passed an envelope to Holt. “Got on the plane as soon as I got them from the lab.”
The attorney introduced the aspiring journalist to the Riveras. “Floyd Jefferson worked with Ricardo. Now he’s working with us. Mayor Rivera, Mrs. Rivera…”
The young man surprised them with Spanish. “Mucho gusto, senor. Senora. Lo siento por las problemas mipais da ustedes. Antes del muerte de mi amigo Ricardo, pienso…” When he paused to think of the correct Spanish phrase, Senor Rivera cut off the apology.
“You are not responsible. Please, we speak in English, so we are not rude to Mr. Holt. Did you study Spanish in college?”
Jefferson laughed. “No, I studied English. I talked Spanish with my mother.”
They sat around the table. “Your mother spoke Spanish?” Senora Rivera asked.
“She came from Puerto Rico. My dad spoke some Spanish, too. And Indian. And Gaelic. He came from New Mexico.”
“You have many bloods,” Senor Rivera commented. “Truly a child of America.”
“I got a lotof different people in me — black, white, red, maybe yellow.” Jefferson laughed. “When people call me black, I want to set them straight, ‘Nah, rainbow.’ Nino del arco iris.”
Holt stopped the small talk. “Floyd has just returned from Miami. Look at these photos. Perhaps…”
Despite the low light and forced development, the prints captured every feature and expression of the Salvadorans. Holt spread the eight-by-ten blowups across the table’s pink Formica. Senor Rivera pointed to one young Salvadoran.
“This one. He was one of the sol
diers who killed Mr. Marquez. This man…” he pointed to the photo of the death-squad commander “…I have seen him in the newspapers. A colonel, I believe.”
“Roberto Quesada,” Holt informed him. “Ex-colonel Quesada. He resigned his army commission in December 1979…”
Senor Rivera nodded. “Yes, after the first junta.”
“He opposed the voting rights and land reforms,” Holt continued. “Now he directs the Army of White Warriors from Miami…”
“Why does your Immigration not deport him?” Senora Rivera asked.
” ‘Cause he’s a rich man,” Jefferson answered.
“Do you recognize any of the others?” Holt asked the Riveras.
“Perhaps this one…” Senora Rivera picked up one photo. “I think… I think maybe I saw him in the village. But… I cannot be sure.”
Senor Rivera waved a hand over the photos. “Why do we look at these? They do not show what happened that day. Pictures from Miami prove nothing.”
“If we can link Quesada to the murder, if Quesada gave the order from Miami to murder Ricardo Marquez in Sonsonate, he is then subject to prosecution under the laws of the United States,” Holt said. “And for the period of the investigation and trial, you and your family will receive protection as witnesses.”
“And perhaps we will not. Perhaps they will come to kill us. If I had not called your embassy in San Salvador, my son would be alive. Now you want us to trust your justice?”
“Yes. I want you to trust our laws. In the United States, no one is above the law. Not even wealthy colonels.”
“Not even the White House?” Senora Rivera asked.
Holt repeated his words. “No one is above the law. The law protects us all.”
“In El Salvador, there are many laws,” muttered Senor Rivera. “There are courts and lawyers. There is a constitution. But the law does not stop the squadrons of death.”
3
Agent Gallucci of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, impatiently drummed his fingers on the desktop. As David Holt detailed the information his firm had gathered on Colonel Quesada, Gallucci stared out of his office window at the smog-gray skyline of Los Angeles.
