And like all good ideas, it was simple.
He couldn’t stop thinking about the man he’d found cut to pieces in the motel three months before the Roberto Lopez shooting. It struck him as something more than coincidental that the man was Salvadoran, as Wally Deaver had told him, even if his credentials and the Bureau ID’d him as an Eduardo Lachine of Panama City, Panama. But one man had seen Lanzman. That was Deaver, in Boston, back when he’d been a DEA agent at the Bush drug summit in Cartagena, Colombia, in 1990.
Why not fax Wally a morgue ID of the stiff? And that way find out if …
He tried to think of what it would mean if a Salvadoran secret agent had been murdered in New Orleans a few months before the assassination of a Salvadoran archbishop unloved by his own country’s regime. But it gave him a headache, and he went back to work.
The general leaned forward, proposing a toast, his white teeth gleaming, his eyes radiant with joy.
“To our friend, Colonel Raymond Shreck. A very great man. A truly wonderful man!”
He raised his glass, which was filled with an expensive wine.
The general was a sleek, smiling man named Esteban Garcia de Rujijo, and at thirty-eight, through great ferocity in a multitude of hardfought campaigns, he had become the commanding officer of the Fourth Battalion (Air-Ranger), First Brigade, First Division (“Atlacatl”) of the Salvadoran Army. His unit was nicknamed Los Gatos Negros, or Panther Battalion, for their jet-black berets.
“Thank you, sir,” said Shreck, in Spanish.
Shreck, eyes hooded, wore his old uniform with Ranger tabs, Special Forces MACV lightning patch, his Corcoran jump boots glossy black, the trousers bloused into them. He carried his green beret under his epaulet. The uniform still fit perfectly and its creases were razors. The Combat Infantry Badge dominated a chestful of ribbons, including the Distinguished Service Cross and the Purple Heart and the Silver Star with two Oak Leaf Clusters, all of which were his.
Shreck and the general—and a third man—sat at a dinner table in a large museum of a house, on two thousand prime acres in the hills just north of the seaport city of Acajutla, in northern El Salvador. The house was not the general’s, at least not yet. It belonged to another man also named de Rujijo—the general’s father. It had been owned by the de Rujijos since the Spanish had conquered the region in 1655.
The third man, who was sitting next to Colonel Shreck, was a small, merry, elderly gentleman named Hugh Meachum, formerly of the Central Intelligence Agency’s Directorate of Plans and, since his rude retirement from the Agency in 1962, a fellow at the Buddings Institute of Foreign Policy in Washington, D.C. If the general was el gato negro, then Hugh Meachum, a connoisseur of pipes and wines and ironies, was el gorrión, the sparrow.
“The general is very pleased with you, Raymond,” said Meachum. “He should be. You certainly saved his bacon.”
“Yes, bacon,” said the general, who had been educated first at El Salvador’s National Military Institute, and then at the National War College in Washington, D.C., and the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“It is not an easy thing to kill a priest,” said the general. “Not even a communist priest.”
“The general believes that Archbishop Roberto Lopez was a communist,” said Meachum. “He truly does.”
Shreck knew this was the sort of thing that amused Meachum. Meachum often privately marveled at the sheer barbarity of these people. They were capable of anything, and it took a great deal of skillful handling to prevent them from going hog wild. They were capable of killing in the thousands. The general had killed in the thousands.
“A most excellent operation,” said the general. “Muy excelente. The world thinks that a crazy American tries to shoot the president of the United States and accidentally hits this pious bystander. And nobody knows it’s really justice reaching out to kill a communist priest.”
He had a pockmarked face and a dark mustache. He was dressed in evening clothes, including a red plaid cummerbund. He wore a high-polish stainless steel Colt 10mm Delta Elite in a shoulder holster. Shreck had noticed its ivory grips when the general had bent to pour the wine.
“It was an expensive operation,” Shreck said.
“Cheap, whatever the cost.”
“And oh-so-very necessary,” said Hugh Meachum. “That archbishop was going to get the Panther Battalion investigation opened again. And he had the president’s ear, too. And how very, very embarrassing for many people that would have been.”
“It was wonderful,” said the general. “Tell me, though, Colonel Shreck. The great shot that brought this communist priest down. A great shot, no?”
“A great shot, yes,” said Shreck.
“Who do you have who could make such a shot? What a shot! It is truly an amazing shot.”
“It was,” said Shreck. He himself wished he knew who hit that shot. Whoever he was, the guy could shoot, maybe better than Bob Lee Swagger.
Shreck looked over at Meachum, who only twinkled, as if he’d had a bit much to drink.
“I would someday,” said the general, lifting his wine, “consider it an honor to shake this man’s hand.”
So would I, thought Shreck.
“We will convey your sentiments, of course,” said Hugh Meachum.
“It was muy excelente,” said the general. “Perfecto. Number One.”
Shreck almost said, Yes, except for the asshole who got away. But Meachum had warned him not to raise the subject. The general was somewhat touchy.
Shreck took a quick glance around the baronial dining room of the de Rujijo estate; outside, in the twilight, a vast garden undulated over rolling land down to a pond, a perfect oval, inscribed into the earth so that the setting sun would reflect dazzlingly off of it at twilight. Beyond was the jungle; and beyond that, the sea, a gleaming band some two miles or so away.
“You should know, Colonel Shreck, that for us it did not go perfectly.”
“Oh?” said Shreck.
“But not to worry.”
“Oh my,” said Hugh Meachum. He took another sip of wine.
“A traitor. Yes. A traitor.”
Shreck nodded, waiting, thinking, oh shit, what now?
“Who learned of our arrangement. And fled.”
“Messy,” said Hugh Meachum. “Very messy. Certain people will not be pleased.”
“Not to worry,” the general repeated.
“And why not, sir?” asked Shreck.
“The traitor was betrayed himself. He was hiding in Panama. When he finally thought it was safe, he flew to New Orleans. To the FBI. But we were waiting. Do you remember the wonderful electronic surveillance vehicle your organization provided to our intelligence service?”
“Affirmative,” said Shreck.
“With this, we tracked him. We made certain it was our Eduardo, and we eliminated him in a manner that communicates to all who know of such matters our seriousness of intentions.”
Shreck nodded.
“And now I drink,” said the general, “to my brave compadres and to the glorious future of our two nations.”
“Hear, hear,” said Hugh Meachum.
Fuck you, thought Shreck.
The next morning, waiting for the helicopter that would take him to the airport for the jet back to the United States, Shreck stood in the meadow before the great house and looked at the sea. It was a gray day, windy and moist, with a chill in the air surprising for the tropics. The chill made him think of the mornings in Korea, when he’d been just a kid, and all the times he’d sworn in Korea that no matter what happened to him, he’d never be cold again in the morning.
But he felt cold.
“Colonel, you are all right?”
It was General de Rujijo, now in his camouflages with his black beret. The high-polish Colt automatic hung in a shoulder holster under his left arm.
“I am fine, sir,” said Shreck.
“You look under the weather, Colonel.”
&nbs
p; “No sir. Not at all.”
“Good. I have a little present for you. From my very own archives.”
He snapped his finger and an aide brought over a briefcase. The general reached inside and pulled out a black plastic box that Shreck recognized as a videotape cassette.
“I record all my battalion’s operations,” said the general. “For training purposes. This is a copy of the action on the Sampul River. You should find it educational, how well our troops mastered their lessons.”
Shreck had an impulse to smash the man’s skull in. But he smiled grimly and took it from him.
“I have many more,” said the general. “You may have that one.”
“Yes sir. Thank you, sir.”
The general smiled with courtly dignity, saluted and when Shreck returned the salute, he turned and walked away.
Shreck looked at his watch; the chopper was late, nothing ever happened on time in this goddamned country.
“Colonel, you seem especially morose today.”
Of course it was old Hugh, who was never quite as drunk as he seemed, even if, at eleven A.M., he had a gin and tonic in his hand and a pinkish hue to his face.
“That asshole just presented me with a tape of the Sampul River job. I guess the point he’s trying to make is that we’re all in this together, like it or not. If he goes down, the tape reaches somebody important and we all go down.”
“The general is a practical man.”
“It makes me sick that a motherfucker like de Rujijo thinks he’s got us. He reminds me of some of those shit-ass gook generals in their fucking jumpsuits who made it out in seventy-five with a couple of hundred million bucks in the sack.”
“Raymond, I’ve always appreciated your tact. You never say what you think, do you?”
“I don’t get paid to think, Mr. Meachum. I didn’t go to Yale, like you did. We both know that.”
“Of course not. Well, the general. The general has his uses. He’s a dreadful man, a war criminal most certainly. A great importer of la cocaína. But he and he alone was not responsible for what happened with the Panther Battalion troops on the Sampul River. We made that mess, too. You, Colonel, too. You were there. Those were your trainers in the field. And, if we are to be responsible adults, we must clean it up.”
That didn’t really satisfy Shreck of course: it was too easy.
“We did what we did,” he said, “in perfect awareness of the consequences and the risks—and the costs. We did it because we believed in the long run it would save far more lives than it took.”
“Indeed we did. That, after all, is the sort of calculus they pay us for, isn’t it? But that same principle extends to this last operation, which you implemented so well in New Orleans. It costs us two men—an intellectual bishop with a surprisingly intractable moralistic streak, and a beat-up war hero who’s a complete gun nut. If we don’t use those men, and somehow the archbishop’s will prevails and it comes out about Panther Battalion, and who did what and why, then the left and the right in this bloody little country will never ever get together. There will be no treaty; the fighting will go on, the thousands will continue to die—”
“Come on, Mr. Meachum, that’s not what worries you. What worries you is that the lefties might win here, even as communism is crumbling or has crumbled all over the world, and we’ve kicked ass bigtime in the Persian Gulf. That’s what sticks in your craw.”
The old man smiled one of his mischievous Meachum smiles, then faded behind a mask of remoteness.
“Well, Raymond, believe what you will and for whatever reason you wish. But agree with me on this one sound operating principle. That this man Swagger must be found and destroyed.”
“We’ll get him.”
“Speaking of which, I had an idea. The Electrotek 5400. State of the art, is it not?”
“You know it is.”
“It seems a shame to let it sit up in New Orleans until the general figures out how to get it back through customs. It occurs to me how very useful it might be to you in your quest.”
“Jesus,” said the colonel.
“Yes, I thought you’d be pleased. You see, Raymond, even though you don’t think so, we do take care of our own. We always have. We always will. And I’d destroy that tape if I were you.”
“I will,” said Shreck, looking at the goddamned thing in his hand.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
He drove through brightness. There was brightness everywhere. The sun was a blaze, a flare; the white sand picked it up and threw it back. He drove squint-eyed because he had no sunglasses. He drove straight on because he did not want to stop to rent a room, knowing his face was the most famous in America. He lived on candy bars and Twinkies and Cokes from desolate gas station vending machines and thanked God he had had a couple of hundred bucks in his wallet. He drove through the pain and the anger; he just committed himself to driving and he drove.
Now it was hot. He was in desert. The spindly cacti that played across the low rills looked as if they could kill him; in some religious part of his brain they looked like crucifixes, though of course he was not a Catholic but some sort of Baptist back when his daddy had been alive. Ahead, the road was a straight, shimmering band in the heat; mirage rose off it in the light and dust devils swirled across it. Onward he drove.
He held right at seventy, just five miles over the speed limit. He was in his third stolen car, a 1986 Mercury Bobcat, but always before he stole a car he switched its plates with another vehicle’s. That was an old trick he’d heard about on Parris Island, from some tough young black kid, probably now long dead in Vietnam.
It was strange: from the long, wet haul across the swamp, hoarding cartridges, hunting to live, taking only the surest of shots; then, when he was down to his last, he came across something like civilization. He threw the gun away and nabbed a car; and then a long eighteen-hour driving stretch that brought him to desert. Ten hours in Texas. New Mexico was shorter. He was now in Arizona. Texas was long past, though it had been a long, long, stretch in Texas. He knew he was almost there. And what was there? Maybe nothing. Maybe this was it. But there was no other choice. He’d thought it out. No, no other place to go that would not get him caught because they’d be looking for him everywhere. But here there was a chance.
He came over a rise. A little town in the desert, a spread of buildings, with bright tin roofs glowing in the sun, lay just ahead. There’d be some kind of law here too, but he didn’t care. Far off, he could see the purple crests of mountains, but for now just this spread of buildings in the desert. He slowed.
The town came up fast.
AJO, ARIZ., the sign said, POP. 7,567.
He drove through, shielding his eyes against the dazzie. Bank, strip mall, convenience store, two gas stations, one main drag, what looked to be some tract houses where a lot of water had produced what passed for green, a McDonald’s, a Burger King, another gas station, Ajo Elementary School, and then, yes, finally, Sunbelt Trailer Park.
Bob pulled in. Drove all this way for such a scruffy little place, huh? Maybe a hundred trailers, maybe a hundred palm trees, it all looked the same to him.
He almost lost it right here at the end. Some pain fired up behind his eyes and his whole body felt itchy or patchy, as if he’d come down with a terrible skin disease. The entry wound hurt something terrible; a low throbbing against his nipple where the bullet had driven through him.
Am I going to make it? he wondered.
He drove up and down the little streets of trailers and saw people out of cartoons, fat Americans in shorts, women with their hair in curlers, lots of sullen, rude little children.
I must look a sight, he thought.
But nobody noticed; they were all sunk into their own dramas.
Then he saw her name on the mailbox, followed by R.N., her profession.
He knew the address from memory. All the letters had been returned unopened, placed in a slightly larger envelope. The flowers, every December, around the fourtee
nth. She probably just threw them out; she never sent a note of thanks. Yet she had never moved. She had not changed her name or made any attempt to become who she wasn’t. She just wouldn’t let him in. He was the rotten past and it carried too much hurt.
Bob looked at her place: the trailer was shabby but well tended, with trim little window boxes, with flowers in them. That was a woman’s gentle way. The trailer was brown, edged in white trim, plastic. Neat, very neat.
And suppose she was not home? But the car was there, what had to be her car. And the name was hers, just as he knew it would be. Suppose there was a man there? Why not? She was a woman, didn’t there have to be a man?
But he didn’t think there would be.
He turned off the engine, and managed to lurch to the door. He knocked.
He’d never seen the woman before, only her picture. But when she opened the door he recognized her instantly. He’d always wondered what she looked like in the flesh, all those times off in Indian Country, looking at that picture. She had been a young beauty then and now she was a not-so-young beauty, but she was a beauty.
The face was a little too tough, some wrinkles, but not too many; the eyes, behind reading glasses, were gray, and miles beyond any kind of surprise. The hair was blond, but just blond. The lanky tall woman before him looked at him with eyes that stayed flat as the desert horizon.
She wore jeans and some kind of a pullover shirt and no makeup and had her hair pulled back in a short ponytail. She held a book in her hand with a bright cover, some kind of novel.
“Yes?” she said, and he saw a little shock cross her face.
He had no idea what to say. Hadn’t talked to women for years.
“Sorry,” he said, “sorry to bother you, ma’am, and sorry to look so bad. My name’s Swagger. Bob Lee. I knew your husband in the Marines. A finer young man there never was.”
“You,” she said. And then again, “You.” A sudden grimace as she bit off the word. He saw her tracking the details; his scrubby face, matted with dirt; his filthy shirt with the blood stain now faded almost rose-colored; the eyes bloodshot, the rank smell of a man beyond hygiene. She probably saw his absolute defenselessness, too. He knew he was simply throwing himself at her. He felt himself begin to wobble.
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