The Viper Squad (20 page)

About a half mile downstream, army engineers worked on a barge and, aloft, in the twisted steel framework of the bridge’s
central span that the rebels had destroyed three months previously. Armored personnel carriers and dug-in gun and mortar emplacements
guarded the approaches to the bridge on both banks.

The three Cubans trained their binoculars on the workers and soldiers at the bridge, and when they tired of that, they lowered
their binoculars and watched the river water flow past and the Salvadoran guerrillas prepare their gear.
Comandante Clarinero stubbornly refused to allow them to take an active role or issue instructions during an operation. Their
function was to observe and to offer constructive criticism and advice
after
the event. Both Cubans and Salvadorans recognized he limited Cuban power with this tactic, and the Salvadoran members of
the brigade greatly enjoyed observing this order strictly. The Cubans’ only revenge was to sit back and watch them going about
something the wrong way and say nothing with superior smiles on their faces.

It can take only one inexperienced man to foul up an operation. The guerrillas usually had no shortage of inexperienced men,
so they were used to things going wrong and rarely bet everything on any single thing happening. It wasn’t the best system,
but it worked.

The company’s lieutenant went over things one last time. “We drop the first barrel in the water in”—he consulted his watch—”ninety-three
seconds’ time; the second barrel goes in when the first is about halfway to the bridge—I will give the signal; and the third
barrel goes in immediately after the first barrel blows.”

The Cubans smiled among themselves, especially about the ninety—three seconds. It didn’t matter a damn about the exact time
the barrel went into the water, since the river currents would control the time of its arrival at the bridge and they had
no idea how fast the currents were. Anyway, Clarinero and the assault companies would wait till they heard the sound of the
first blast before doing anything.

Two of the guerrillas dragged a barrel to the riverbank and, behind the cover of a tree, dropped it into the water. The barrel
was an aluminum beer keg packed with TNT with a radio-activated detonator. Days ago, each barrel had been weighted and tested
to float upright about four feet below the surface. The ten-foot whiplash antenna on each barrel was concealed in leafy tree
branches.

The Cubans watched the barrel float away and followed the six feet of leafy branches that protruded above the
water and that marked the keg’s position as it was taken by currents into midstream.

“Keep an eye on that barrel,” Paulo Esteban told the others. “Once you lose sight of it, it will be hard to pick up again
at a distance.”

“Let’s not depend on our Salvadoran friends to keep track of it then,” Manuel said.

“It looks very natural,” Paulo said. “Just like a branch sticking up from a submerged log.”

“Do you think they’ll have nets protecting them?”

“Clarinero’s men said not, for what that’s worth.”

The third Cuban said, “Manuel tells me that Clarinero knows nothing of the television crew.”

“No, I thought it better not to tell him in case he would try to protect Miss America from them,” Paulo said. “I organized
an escort for the crew while I was in the city—it’s a BBC camera crew here on special assignment from London. If we give them
something worth watching, all the U.S. networks will use it too. Clarinero thinks this raid is being made to boost his image.
He’d be very offended if he knew its real purpose is to show off the girl.”

“The man’s a fool,” the third Cuban said. “Why do we tolerate him?”

Esteban smiled. “Because fools have their uses when you keep them in their place. Clarinero’s use is to steer the people’s
nationalism toward our cause, and his place is out there dodging bullets with a reckless laugh.”

Manuel snickered. “And the girl?”

“She’s in love with him, you’ve seen that.” Paulo snapped his fingers. “She’ll do whatever he says. And he’ll do what we tell
him to.”

“Why is the girl’s presence being made public now?” Manuel asked.

“We can’t trust the Salvadorans. If her father asks politely for her, they’d be quite likely to insist on sending
her back. We have to polarize all concerned on her presence here if it’s ever going to benefit us.”

“Use an American against America?” Manuel queried.

Paulo slapped him on the shoulder. “Now you got it.”

They watched the lieutenant and his men drop the second barrel into the river. It too floated concealed beneath the muddy
water, with only its radio aerial sticking above the surface, camouflaged with leaves and branches. The men readied the third
barrel, to be dumped in the water after the first one exploded.

The three Cubans moved higher on the bank to follow the course of the first barrel. It had to be detonated at just the right
moment—too late, and the river currents would have carried it beneath and beyond the repair work on the bridge and it would
be wasted. Distances were hard to judge across water.

“We’ll wait till we see the aerial branches just about touching the barge,” the lieutenant shouted up to them. The guerrilla
sighted through his binoculars once again and then beckoned to one of his men to fetch the small radio transmitter that would
send the signal to detonate the charge inside the barrel. The man stood next to the lieutenant, the whiplash antenna of the
transmitter quivering above their heads.

Paulo Esteban followed the pitching leafy marker far downstream. It was almost at the black barge upon which a huge crane
was lifting ironwork for the bridge. The barge was moored in midstream, and it seemed that the current of the main channel
would bring the barrel very close to the barge, as they had hoped. Men ran about the deck of the barge as the crane raised
its load of steel T-beams to the damaged span overhead. Tiny figures climbed about in the bridge’s framework high above the
water. Through Esteban’s binoculars, the green leaves concealing the aerial seemed to be almost touching the upstream end
of the barge.

Paulo had to check himself from calling out a command
to Clarinero’s lieutenant, knowing that the Salvadoran would ignore it as a matter of principle, even if it meant missing
the opportunity of blowing the bridge. The Cuban muttered under his breath and stared hard through his binoculars.

“Fire!” the lieutenant yelled to the man with the radio transmitter.

The man pressed the key to send the radio signal that would detonate the charge inside the barrel.

A few yards from him, the third barrel, not yet placed in the water, suddenly expanded into thousands of hot metal fragments
in a scorching blast of yellowish orange light. The lieutenant and his men were lifted off the ground by the blast. Their
flesh was torn from their bones, and their bodies thumped lifelessly back to earth, ripped, gouged, battered.

Paulo Esteban picked himself out of the dirt. He was bleeding from a cut on his neck, and another on his left arm. He could
see that the two other Cubans had survived the explosion also, protected from the main force of the blast, as he had been,
by an earth bank.

“They used the wrong radio to send the signal,” Paulo shouted at the two Cubans, who crouched motionless with shock. “Help
me find the right one before it’s too late.”

Esteban ran among the mutilated bodies of the Salvadorans, searching for the transmitter. He ignored everything except what
he was looking for. He snatched up a shattered plastic box with a snapped aerial. He looked downriver toward the bridge and
pressed the key.

One side of the long black barge rose on a surge of water. The barge might have righted itself again on the river had not
the crane unbalanced it and caused it to tip over. The boom of the crane crashed down on the span of the bridge, crushing
girders and metal supports and bringing the lot down into the water. Men fell from the ironwork like ants from tall grass.

The three Cubans watched the distant destruction in
silence, and then the sound came to them upriver seconds later, their ears still ringing from the first blast they had survived.

Paulo Esteban ignored the mangled Salvadorans all around him, wiped the blood from his neck and nodded his head in satisfaction.

Bob Murphy looked the Treasury Police officer in the eye. “I don’t think I’m such a tough guy. Sure I’ll talk if you torture
me.”

The officer spoke English. “It would be simpler, no, for you to tell me without the torture?”

“I’ll tell you whatever you want to hear rather than be tortured. But first I got to find out what it is you want to hear.”

“The truth.”

Bob smiled patiently. “I’ve already told you that. The truth isn’t what you want to hear. We both’ know that. Me and my friends
were walking down the street and some crazies on a motorbike attacked us. We fought back. You know the rest. Now that’s the
truth. But that’s plainly not enough for you. Tell me what you want me to say, and if it’s not too extreme, maybe I’ll say
it. Of course I’ll deny it when I get back to the States and say you tortured me. That might cost you a few million if I can
get some congressmen to raise the issue.”

The Treasury Police officer smirked. He climbed out of his chair, a bulky, stocky man like Murphy himself, stretched his arms
and cracked the knuckles first in one hand and then the other. He reached for the phone on his desk, dialed a three-number
extension and said a few words in rapid Spanish. He replaced the receiver and nodded to Bob.

“You come upstairs with me.”

Upstairs. All Bob could think was that they usually took you to the basement for torture. Easier to soundproof against your
screams. But this was Treasury Police headquarters
in San Salvador. An occasional scream or two in this building would probably not even be noticed. He hadn’t seen or heard
of Nolan, Hardwick or Waller since they’d been separated on their arrival here. They might be dead already or dying at this
very moment. For an instant he visualized their bodies hanging on meat hooks on a cinder-block wall. He followed the officer
up an ornate curving staircase.

In a narrow room with a high ceiling, Bob sat on a wooden chair. A technician attached electrodes to his skin, plugged in
the wires to a machine on a steel trolley and watched a dial needle.

“First I ask you simple questions we both know the answers to in order to see what your reactions are,” the officer told him.

Bob had hardly been able to keep from laughing as soon as he saw the polygraph machine. He knew the simplest way to beat a
lie detector every time—he had only to firmly clench his anal sphincter as each and every question was asked and answered.
There wasn’t a polygraph ma—chine invented that could sort that out.

The town of Corralitos was proud of its bus service. The two buses ran from opposite ends of the town every half hour and
usually passed each other in the square. They transported chickens, small pigs and all kinds of merchandise, as well as people.
Everyone knew that so long as they could hear the clatter of the buses over the rough cobble—stone streets of the town, everything
was normal. People here lived in the danger zone between guerrillas and government soldiers, so that every little reassurance
was noticed.

Those waiting for the buses found areas of shade from the burning heat of early afternoon. Few people were about in this,
the hottest part of the day. After the. heat peaked, people would emerge from their siestas, and the activities of the day
would recommence. The buses were
late. However, there was nothing very unusual about that, and those waiting either chatted or dozed in the shade.

One of Clarinero’s assault companies filled one bus at its terminus, and the second assault company filled the other at the
opposite end of town. They were waiting for the sound of the bridge explosion as their signal to start.

“There it is,” Clarinero said with a smile, and the men in the crowded bus cheered as they heard the dull thump to the north
of the town.

Clarinero used his M16 to poke the terrified bus driver in the roll of fat about his waist. The man put the bus in gear, and
they set out toward the center of town. Clarinero sat next to Sally. He smiled happily at her and squeezed her hand.

“You promise no one’s going to get hurt?” Sally asked again.

“I’ve already promised you that twenty times,” he said. “I want you to see what we do with your own eyes.”

“Then why do I need this?” she asked, holding out her M16 for him to take.

He pushed it back to her. “So that people will believe you. If you hold only a flyswatter and say you will harm no one, people
will not be impressed. But if you hold an M16 and do not fire a shot, they will remember that.”

At that moment they heard a second explosion.

“They shouldn’t have done that.”

“It’s much too soon.”

“They were supposed to space out the three blasts to create a continuing diversion.”

“They fucked up.”

Clarinero stood in the aisle of the lurching bus, faced back and raised his hands to quiet the men. He had to shout to make
himself heard above the engine and the rattling of loose panels and windows.

They listened and were reassured.

It all sounded crazy to Sally, but, what the hell, she was
going along for the ride. She had come all this way to see something, and now, by God, she would see it.

“Here they come,” one of the men behind them shouted.

A green army truck came thundering toward them on the narrow street. It and the bus squeezed by each other with inches to
spare and without either driver slowing so much as 1 mph. A second military truck grazed the side of the bus farther down
the street.

The guerrillas cheered the courage of their captive bus driver—who now seemed to be enjoying himself—and the stupidity of
the government soldiers rushing out as reinforcements to the river bridge without noticing their enemy on the way in to take
over the town in their absence. Three more army trucks passed them in the town square.