Welsh finished swallowing before he said, "Look, my man, you may be right and I may not be an asshole. I also try my best not to be an idiot. There's no way I'm going to spend a quick week sleuthing around Guatemala and find out who killed those Marines. Every official I talk to is just going to jerk me off like a pro and patiently wait for me to fly home. If I'm lucky I might get invited to cocktails. All I can hope is the word gets around I know how to keep my mouth shut. I don't take notes, name names, write cables, or talk about sensitive matters on the telephone. So if anyone wants to whisper something in my ear, get something off their chest, no one will ever be the wiser."
Alonso gave him a look of fresh appraisal and rammed his doughnut into his face. "Sounds like you've got the right handle on the job," he said while he chewed. "Good luck."
Chapter Eleven
Nicholas Marshall, the United States Ambassador to Guatemala, had previously been one of the bright lights of the New York City financial scene. Marshall, Big Nick to his acquaintances and the tabloids, liked to say that the millions he'd accumulated could in no way match the pure satisfactions of public service. Welsh had heard in Washington that Big Nick had exponentially increased his contributions to the party in power after the Securities and Exchange Commission began inquiring into some of his deals. He'd decided that a change in scenery might do him good, and his ego settled on an ambassadorship.
Welsh would have paid good money to be in the room when the President called to tell Big Nick where he was going. Even now, months later, the Ambassador was said to wear the stunned expression of a man who had cut a very large check only to find out that it wasn't large enough to buy what he wanted. And not realizing that in politics there were no money-back guarantees. A shark in one game might be just a bait fish in another.
Big Nick was one of those guys who left your hand still shaking even after he'd released it.
"Great to meet you, Rich," he told Welsh. "I've heard a lot about you."
"My pleasure, sir," Welsh replied, fighting off a perverse desire to wipe his hand on his trousers.
"Be sure you give the Senator my best," Big Nick ordered.
"Consider it done," said Welsh. He decided to drop the sir. It only brought out the worst in these guys.
"I can't tell you how broken up we were about the Marines," said the Ambassador. "My wife took it even harder than I did. It was like losing our own sons."
Welsh only nodded, fighting off the temptation to wager Big Nick a hundred dollars that he couldn't remember any of the Marines' names.
Coffee was served, and after they were comfortable, Big Nick leaned forward in his chair and asked confidingly, "Tell me, Rich, what's the prospect for a change in the capital-gains tax law?"
They wouldn't want to waste the whole morning talking about dead Marines, though Welsh. "I wouldn't count on any change in the immediate future." Jeez. Pretty soon the bastards would be demanding freedom from all taxation and the right to flog their servants in public. Not that Congress wouldn't give it to them.
"What a fucking shame," said Big Nick.
And the rich guys really loved to swear, Welsh had noticed. Marines did it just to make themselves understood. But for the rich guys, it was a way of announcing that no one else had the weight to make them watch their language.
The Ambassador's phone rang, and he picked it up. "Yes," he grumbled. "Is it?" He looked at his watch. "All right, all right." He turned to Welsh. "Rich, I'm sorry, but I've got to run. I've got a signing ceremony with the Minister of Agriculture."
"I didn't know we'd negotiated anything to do with agriculture lately," said Welsh.
The Ambassador mumbled something unintelligible.
"I'm sorry?" said Welsh.
"It's a joint screw-worm fly-eradication program," Big Nick said eventually.
Welsh must have given off some kind of involuntary wince, because the Ambassador said, "Hell, I really don't mind that stuff. What I can't stand are these cables I keep getting from the Vice President. I average about one a month, telling me to tell the Guatemalans to stop cutting down the rain forest."
Welsh knew that the Vice President, besides having a lot of time on his hands, was an ardent environmentalist. Especially with the environments of foreign lands, where there was no political price to be paid for a unambiguous moral stand.
"When I bring it up to the government, most of them have the good manners to just smile and say they're working on it," Big Nick continued. "But once in a while you run into one like the Minister I was talking to last time. He tells me that since we in the U.S. logged all our old-growth forests when we industrialized, just who the fuck are we to tell Guatemala what to do? Harvard-educated little prick."
It struck Welsh that Big Nick hadn't quite gotten the hang of international diplomacy.
On his way out the door, Big Nick said, "Oh, you need anything?"
"Just a car and a driver." Welsh didn't drive in foreign countries if he could help it, especially ones with Latin driving habits. Or no rules, as Alonso would say. He'd learned that lesson a long time ago.
"Jeez, we're a little short," said Big Nick. "Budget, you know. Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee loves to squeeze our balls."
"He thinks spending the taxpayers' money on anything besides farmers and campaign contributors is socialism—not that he really knows what that is either, except is sounds like something everyone should be against," said Welsh. He paused, and then, as if it was an afterthought. "It's just that it might be embarrassing if I rented a car and anything happened to me."
Big Nick processed that information. "Arrange it with Alonso."
"Thanks." Welsh had always believed that with the right lever, and the right timing, you could move the world.
Big Nick started moving again, then stopped abruptly. "By the way, we're having a reception. Make sure my secretary gives you your invitation."
Chapter Twelve
The embassy offered to arrange a meeting between Welsh and the Minister of Defense. Welsh didn't see what that would accomplish besides the opportunity to drink more coffee and listen to the Minister tell him that of course he knew none of the details but was sure the investigation had been carried out properly.
He knew he was going to have to talk to someone official on the Guatemalan side, if only to check off that box on his report. But he hoped it might be someone at least fairly interesting.
As it turned out the Guatemalan government had already contacted the Embassy and scheduled Welsh an appointment with an Army lieutenant colonel who they said was currently supervising the murder investigation.
At Army headquarters, Lieutenant Colonel Armando Gutierrez kept Welsh waiting in his outer office for nearly thirty minutes, a little comment on their relative status. While Welsh waited, he was given excellent coffee and the opportunity to take note of the lack of activity. Welsh was already feeling a little over-caffeinated, but of course he couldn't refuse. The low-energy office was more interesting. There were no ringing telephones, no aides bearing urgent documents. It was all quite relaxed.
A captain finally ushered him into the colonel's office. A highly polished wooded desk and padded leather chair. The typical display of framed diplomas from military schools and courses; plaques presented by previous units or as tokens of visits by other military forces. A guerrilla flag with a few dramatic bullet holes was mounted on one wall, with a brace of captured AK-47's alongside. A crucified Christ so realistic it made Welsh rub his palms hung on the opposite wall. Placed prominently on the colonel's desk was a blue-steel Smith and Wesson .44 magnum revolver, the Dirty Harry model with the six-inch barrel. Big gun—little dick, was the first thing Welsh thought. The revolver was positioned so the barrel was pointing directly across the desk at Welsh's chair.
The colonel was a small man. Welsh had some experience with short guys in the military. For the best of them, that enormous chip they carried around on their shoulders meant that only perfection in the performance of thei
r duty was acceptable. Not only were they always up for anything, but they'd rather die than let it be known that they left you hanging. But for the worst, the uniform and authority were all they were about, the most back-stabbing, brown-nosing, careerist weasels imaginable.
Colonel Gutierrez was dapper in dark green service dress with flashy outsized filigreed insignia. He brusquely shook Welsh's hand and announced, "We speak no English here," in perfect U.S. Army School of the Americas English.
Welsh took a seat, slightly surprised. Not at the sentiment, since foreigners who had been educated at U.S. military schools almost always ended up disliking the United States. It was just that he'd been expecting a seduction, an attempt to get him on their side. He'd been so sure of it that the only question in his mind was whether it would be subtle or crude. Then again, maybe the stick before the carrot was seduction Guatemala-style. Poker-faced, Welsh reached across the desk and shifted the .44 magnum so it was pointing at a neutral wall. He noted that the pistol was loaded.
Then, though not quite sure how well his by-the-book Castilian would hold up under hard use, he said in Spanish, "Then we will speak Spanish."
The colonel nodded brusquely and dismissed the captain, who had stayed to translate, with a flick of his wrist. "Your Spanish is quite adequate, Mr. Welsh."
"The colonel is too generous."
The colonel swung his chair around and picked up a Kalashnikov assault rifle from the table behind him. He passed it across the desk to Welsh. "This is one of the weapons the Communists used to kill your Marines."
Out of pure weapons-handling reflex, Welsh removed the magazine, pulled the bolt to the rear, and inspected the chamber. The weapon had been cleaned and oiled recently. So much for the preservation of evidence. As he replaced the magazine, his eye fell upon a photograph on the colonel's desk. An extremely voluptuous woman wearing a bathing suit, a beauty contest sash, and a tiara. The picture was so incongruous in that setting Welsh couldn't help staring.
"You think she is beautiful?" the colonel asked.
Welsh was about to answer frankly, but something in the colonel's voice made him stop. He looked up quickly.
"You are attracted to her," the colonel stated. He was smiling, but there was a wild gleam in his eyes.
"No, no, no," Welsh quickly insisted, shaking his head for emphasis.
"You do not think she is attractive," the colonel demanded, now even more upset.
"I meant that she has a great dignity," Welsh said, backpedaling as fast as he could. "A purity, like...a Madonna."
The colonel calmed down instantly. "Do you really think so?" he asked, reaching over the desk.
For a second Welsh thought the little wacko was going for the pistol and, since the distance to the door was too far to run with any reasonable hope of making it, almost lunged across the desk to club him with the AK.
But the colonel picked up the picture. "This is my wife."
"My respects," Welsh said weakly, not daring to wipe the sweat off his upper lip.
The colonel had already forgotten about it. He carefully replaced the photo and sat down behind his desk.
Welsh remembered the rifle in his hands, and passed it back to the colonel.
"You know weapons," the colonel said. "Let me show you my favorite."
Anything to change the subject. Welsh dutifully followed him across the room. The colonel handed him a compact assault rifle. Once again Welsh pulled the charging handle to the rear to make sure there was no live round in the chamber. He was amazed, because the rifle was an M-4A1, the short-barrel, sliding-stock carbine version of the standard U.S. M-16.
"You are familiar with the model?" the colonel asked.
Welsh nodded.
"We have obtained these through your Drug Enforcement Administration," the colonel said, answering Welsh's question.
In 1954 the President of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, after winning a free election in which he was supported by both Guatemala's Army and tiny Communist Party, committed the enormous sin of promoting land reform. In particular, the 42 percent of Guatemala's land owned by the United Fruit Company, a large, politically well-connected U.S. corporation used to having its own way in Central America.
The United States government's response was to sponsor a coup, executed by the CIA. In Guatemala, it was not regarded as a coincidence that Allen Dulles had been United Fruit's counsel before he became the Director of the CIA.
The coup succeeded only by accident, and would be remembered today as a piece of sheer comic opera buffoonery, except that it snuffed out every hint of democracy in Guatemala for two generations.
The military took over the country, and not too surprisingly land reform went out the window. Constitutional guarantees were suspended, and the left was crushed.
In 1960 there was an internal military revolt over the CIA's ham-fisted appropriation of the country as a training ground for the Bay of Pigs invasion force. Inspired by the example of Cuba, some rebel officers took to the mountains and began studying Marxist-Leninism, laying the seeds of a modem guerrilla movement. The U.S. helped the government out with Special Forces advisors and military aid.
While guerrilla movements are almost always led by middle-class sociopaths, the rank and file are almost always peasants. It took a lot of governmental abuse for peasants to leave what little they had and head for the hills. A simple end to the abuse, along with schools and clinics to give people a stake in the existing government, would have gone a long way toward ending the guerrilla problem, or a least rendering it ineffective.
But the status quo was just fine with the families that made up the Guatemalan elite, and whom the Army officer corps worked for. They were doing just fine, and weren't keen on getting along with any less.
After carefully studying the U.S. experience in Vietnam, they decided that the answer was more My Lai massacres, not less.
In the cities, anyone with a left-wing affiliation, like university students, trade unionists, or teachers, got disappeared by right-wing death squads. That is, you were killed, but your body never turned up. In the countryside, anyone suspected of dealing with the guerrillas was killed, and villages in guerrilla areas were either wiped out or moved en masse.
Historically, such tactics always resulted in more vengeful recruits and new guerrilla supporters than actual guerrillas killed by governments. But the Guatemalan military was so spectacularly, extravagantly brutal that a large percentage of the population was cowed. And though the government and Army were despised, the guerrillas destroyed things, like power lines, that made people's lives a little easier; when they stopped buses to collect war taxes, they were holding up the poor. It was a classic stalemate. The guerrillas and whatever sympathy there was for them among the population wouldn't disappear, but they could make little progress against the government.
The cost was 100,000 dead, forty thousand disappeared, 250,000 children orphaned, and a million people driven from their homes, out of a population of only ten million or so. At the height of their power there were never more than 7,500 guerrillas.
Now, after more than thirty years of guerrilla war, and an elected government that had dragged the rnilitary kicking and screaming into signing a cease-fire with the guerrillas, in Welsh's opinion any action by the U.S. that would make the Guatemalan military stronger was pure and simple madness.
But it was the latest trend in the War on Drugs to turn to the militaries in the producing and trafficking countries, on the theory that soldiers were less corruptible than the police. This was only true to the extent that since armies usually had no role in enforcing drug laws, the traffickers hadn't bothered to corrupt them.
And in the case of Guatemala, where some of the military leadership were already allegedly involved in protecting cocaine traffickers and marijuana cultivators, getting them further involved in law enforcement was criminally stupid.
But the Drug Enforcement Administration was only responding to the "just do something" school of
fighting the war on drugs, and it was always easier to do something in foreign countries than at home. Welsh often despaired at how often the really smart people in his government instinctively did the wrong thing.
"Your mission in our country is to investigate the deaths of your Marines, is not?" the colonel demanded.
"At the request of my Senator," said Welsh, the scare over the picture having sharpened his senses.
The colonel leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his belly. "You have been provided with the official report?" he asked blandly.
"Yes, of course," Welsh replied. "I have only a few quest…"
"The report carries the seal of the President of the Republic," the colonel informed him abruptly. "The report is clear. The report is complete."
"Certainly," said Welsh. "But…"
"You must tell your Senator this," the colonel commanded. "The drug traffickers and their communist supporters in Venezuela have killed your Marines. Perhaps now you in the United States will see their true nature and realize that we need much more aid to fight this battle."
Jesus, thought Welsh. That was a bolt out of the blue. Either the colonel was both insensitive and unwilling to pass up an example to hammer his point home, or the implications of that statement were enormous.
"You are a military man," the colonel added, "not a diplomat. I know that with you I may speak as a soldier."
Nice of him to tell me how much he knows about me, thought Welsh.
The colonel glanced at his watch. "You must excuse me now, Mr. Welsh. I have much work to attend to."
Welsh was a little annoyed at being given the brush-off, but it was no time to get bitchy. "Perhaps we may meet again?"
"Perhaps. And please, Mr. Welsh," the colonel said, in a soft, solicitous tone that raised the hairs on the back of Welsh's neck. "As you go about our country to ask your questions, please do so with the greatest care. I regret that Guatemala is very dangerous for North Americans at the present."
William Christie 02 - Mercy Mission Page 8
