The Viper Squad (16 page)

They had a celebration dinner that night, at which Bob claimed to be the top man in the group, much to Andre’s annoyance.
Bob beat the waiter at arm wrestling, which he claimed confirmed that he was the champion specimen of manhood on this part
of the Atlantic seaboard. He spoiled this by throwing up out the station-wagon window on the way back to the campground.

Next morning it was back to the daily grind on Assateague Island. They were eating breakfast at the picnic table in the campground
before setting out when they heard the zipper on what they had assumed was Lance Hardwick’s empty tent.

Lance crawled out in his track suit, battered and bruised but ready to go. He said nothing to anyone, sat at the table and
helped himself to a paper plate of eggs, sausages and bacon. From one pocket of his track suit, he produced a Fresca can flattened
and folded to the size of a fifty-cent piece.

Bob took it. “Hey, that’s mine. Remember, Andre, you were pissed off because I disturbed the ecology by throwing it away at
the pickup point?” He looked at Lance. “So you did make it there, after all.”

Lance nodded.

“It’s sixty or seventy miles from the pickup point to here. You hitch?”

Lance nodded again. Next he pulled out a clear plastic bag of cocaine, much larger than the one from the day before. He placed
it on the table before Mike, who tore the bag in half and let its contents run into the sand.

Mike nodded to Andre to pour Lance an enamel mug of coffee.

Nothing more was said.

O
N
Campbell’s orders, they flew from Washing—ton to Miami, bought a ticket there to Guatemala City, and another ticket in Guatemala
City on a local airline to San Salvador. Mike and Cesar flew the first morning, traveling separately but on the same planes.
Andre left alone in the afternoon. Next day the four remaining all traveled separately, with orders that on no account were
they all to arrive on the same plane from Guatemala City to San Salvador.

Six rooms had been reserved at the Ritz Continental, downtown on Avenida Sur, not one of the most expensive and luxurious
hotels and therefore, they hoped, free of journalists and other pests on expense accounts. The rooms had been reserved for
“Mr. Hillman’s party.” No one was to give a false name, but was to write illegibly whenever possible and avoid handing over
his passport.

Mike had asked Andre to come as far as San Salvador with them. He had a room reserved at the Parker House, even less pretentious
than the Ritz Continental and not far away. He was to keep apart from the others as their ace in the hole if things went wrong
in the city. After they left for
the countryside, Andre was to remain in the city of San Salvador as their anchorman. He was not enthusiastic but took what
was offered.

Orders were for everyone to lie low for a few days, see the sights, relax—and stay out of trouble. They could hang out together
in pairs if they wished; but not more than two at a time, since three or more foreigners together were more likely to attract
attention.

The big draw on their second day in San Salvador was a soccer match.

“We’ve got to see this game,” Bob told the others. “I don’t know who El Salvador is playing—Ecuador or Paraguay or somebody,
but it’s an international match, and in my book any game between any country and El Salvador has to be worth watching.”

He waited for Nolan, Waller or Hardwick to ask why. They didn’t, being content to sit back and drink very good Salvadoran
beer, cane spirit—which they called by its Spanish name
espiritu de cana—
and Atlacatl rum. They sat in Bob’s hotel room, figuring that Mike’s prohibition of gatherings of more than two applied to
outings in public only. Between drinks they munched on
gallo en chica,
which was cockerel cooked in hard cider, and
pupusas,
small cakes made of corn, some filled with ground meat and some with cheese.

“I think this goddam soccer game is going to be worth watching,” Bob proclaimed. “Let me tell you what happened when El Salvador
played Honduras in 1969. They had the ‘soccer war.’ The players kicked the shit out of each other on the field; the fans fought
each other in the stadium; the TV and radio picked up the quarrel; politicians traded insults across the border; and the generals
rushed back to their barracks to bring their troops out to settle the final score. The war lasted only four days—”

“Mike said stay out of trouble,” Lance butted in.

Bob looked at him with disgust. “Look at who just found Jesus.”

“Hey, I’m on probation,” Lance said. “I ain’t going to blow it over some fucking soccer brawl. I’ll put my bucks down for
the Rams and the Vikings, but I couldn’t give a shit for Pele and fancy footwork.”

Bob grunted. “So stay home and watch TV.”

At the moment,
Hill Street Blues
was on the set. The guys at the precinct house rattled at each other in Spanish not even closely synchronized to their lip
movements.

Lance laughed. “Okay, I’ll come.”

“I’m going to find me a lowdown whorehouse tonight,” Joe Nolan said, “but I got nothing against good clean fun in the afternoon.”

“Who did you say El Salvador was playing?” Harvey asked suspiciously.

“I don’t know for sure,” Bob said. “I think Paraguay or Ecuador.”

“They communist countries?” Harvey asked.

“Damn, no, Harvey. You think I’d take you to see pinko faggots play ball?” Bob asked with a straight face. “Is that what you
think of me?”

“Okay, I’ll come,” Harvey said, thus reassured.

A huge mob swarmed outside the stadium. Long lines waited at ticket windows. Scalpers held up tickets and shouted prices.
The cheap seats were in the sun, the more expensive in the shade. The scalpers with the most expensive tickets picked on Bob
and Joe. Although Bob was wearing a guayabera, the appliquéd shirt-jacket that many Salvadorans wore, he was easily spotted
as a foreigner by his Aussie slouch hat, khaki in color and complete with puggaree and chin strap. Joe Nolan looked like someone
who had gone for a walk in the Appalachians and, through some kind of space warp, found himself inexplicably in Central America.
A scalper grabbed Joe by the arm and held on, sticking tickets into his face and screaming into his ear.

Joe pointed at the man’s fingers clutching his arm. He
shook his head at the man and said “No” loudly several times. The scalper gave Joe the idea he was not going to let go of
his arm till Joe bought the tickets. If this was his intention, it was the wrong way to go about persuading Joe.

Joe picked the scalper’s little finger off his arm and bent it back, breaking the man’s grip as the other fingers were torn
away to ease the pressure on the little finger. Joe forced the man’s hand back past his shoulder and pressed him down to his
knees on the ground. The ticket scalper screamed, more in terror than in pain, and his sudden high-pitched howl, like that
of a stuck pig, instantly quieted the noisy mob outside the stadium. This sound was something they recognized, something powerful
enough to frighten them into momentary stillness.

Then the crowd began shouting at Joe and Bob. The ticket-seller wandered away, nursing his fingers, but a dozen men lingered,
shouting things at them which they assumed were curses. One tried to knock off Bob’s slouch hat.

“Motherfucker!” Bob yelled and booted him in the gut.

He crumpled like a paper bag.

Two of the downed man’s friends jumped Bob, who shook them off his broad shoulders and kicked one on the side of the head.
The guy went out like a light.

Someone stood over this man and said something, of which Bob understood the word
muerto.

“He’s not dead,” Bob bellowed, “but you assholes will be if you don’t get the fuck away from me.”

He went at them, fists swinging.

Joe joined in, shouting, “Kangaroo, it’s you ’n me agin this whole country!”

Which was how it seemed at first, with two men against a crowd of thousands, although a lot of these did not know what was
going on. Lance Hardwick and Harvey Waller saw the disturbance and waded through the crowd at the
double, pushing men out of their way, in order to help their buddies.

“Kick ass! Kick ass!” Harvey was yelling, smashing any face he could reach as he came. “God bless America!”

All four traded blows with everyone around them, yelling encouragements to one another and obscenities at the roiling mob
about them. A large number of Salvadorans seemed anxious to prove that four gringos could not intimidate four thousand Salvadorans.
Bob and the others would doubtless have been beaten and stomped to death had not a mean-looking individual that Lance had
managed to belt a few times hauled out a pistol from next to his big belly under a loose sport shirt and loosed off three
shots into the air.

Everyone stopped fighting and looked at him. He flashed a badge for all to see, and the crowd slunk off except for a dozen
or so who had some trouble getting up off the ground. These were helped away, and a large space was left around Bob, Joe,
Lance, Harvey, the man with the gun and badge, and an emaciated character who seemed to be the cop’s sidekick.

“You speak Spanish?” the badge asked in Spanish, tucking the gun into his bellyband beneath his shirt.

“I do,” Lance said. “They don’t.”

“You all together?”

“No, him and me came to help these two when we saw they were in trouble with the crowd. We figured on helping two fellow Americans.”

“You do that all the time?” the cop asked. “Help your countrymen in trouble?”

“In foreign places, sure,” Lance said.

“How did you know they didn’t speak Spanish if you never saw them before?”

Lance gestured. “They wouldn’t have got into a fight if they’d been able to speak Spanish.”

“You think so?” The cop looked him over. “I’m going to give you good advice. Don’t go in that football stadium.
I’ll stop a taxi for you over here and you all go back downtown. Tell your friends.”

Lt. Col. Francisco Cerezo Ramirez, of the Treasury Police in San Salvador, climbed the curving marble staircase, and when
he reached the corridor above, noticed Turco peel off the wall and follow him. The colonel had a somewhat acid stomach this
morning, and his henchman was the last person he wanted to see, yet he was afraid to send him away. This was what things had
come to. Here he was, Lieutenant Colonel Cerezo, fearful of dismissing a lackey. But Turco had the ear of many important men
and personally led one of the death squads financed by the Escandell family. The colonel was married to one of the younger
Escandell daughters, and he represented the family’s interest in the Treasury Police. His own family was much less well-to-do
and powerful than the Escandells, and his father and mother were proud of their son’s link to the ruling oligarchy. He had
been promoted to his present rank a month before his marriage.

Turco followed the colonel into his office, closed the door behind them and waited respectfully for the officer to sit before
he did so himself. Despite his uncouthness, Turco had had a strict military training and never stepped out of line in matters
like respect to his superiors, although all knew Turco did as he pleased when their backs were turned. Turco waited politely
for the colonel to wish him good day.

The Escandells had three sons with the rank of general, one in the air force and two in the army. They had cousins and in-laws,
like him, and those beholden to them at every level in all branches of the armed and security forces. Didn’t they trust him?
Is that why Turco had been assigned to him? The colonel knew that Turco had the ear of the three Escandell generals, which
was more than he, their brother-in-law, had. They were often patronizing to him.

This Turco was continually digging up problems that
needed immediate attention. The colonel had to be wary with him because Turco was careful always to get authorization before
proceeding. When Lieutenant Colonel Cerezo did not set limits on what he permitted Turco to do, the man ran amok and claimed
to be operating under Cerezo’s orders.

“Buenas dias, Turco,” Cerezo finally said, twitched his mustache and posed authoritatively behind his big desk. “Como esta,
amigo?”

Turco murmured a courteous reply and handed the officer some papers.

The colonel sighed and impatiently looked through them, obviously waiting for a chance to dismiss Turco from his office.

“From what I can understand,” Cerezo said, “these four norteamericanos involved in the disturbance yesterday at the stadium
are all staying at the same hotel in rooms reserved by a Senor Hillman after two of them denied to you that they knew the
other two; that this Senor Hillman himself has not appeared; and that the passports of these gentlemen have not been properly
registered. Also you say that another norteamericano, and a Hispanic whom you have not seen, occupy another two rooms reserved
by Senor Hillman. So? Get their passports properly registered. Threaten the hotel manager for not following procedure. What
do you want of me?”

“Colonel, the desk clerk thinks the Hispanic member of the group is a Cuban.”

“A Cuban!” The colonel’s system sent a dart of acid into his already sour stomach. “Why didn’t the desk clerk report his presence
before this?”

“Because she is not completely certain. She heard him speak only in English. She is an educated woman and careful of her opinions.
But she is sure enough he is Cuban.”

“Possibly Cuban,” the colonel amended, by now fully awake and thinking hard. “Five norteamericanos who
seem to want to hide their identities and a possible Cuban… not good, not good. Do they have wild hair and beards and wear
peace buttons?”

“No. These ones are dangerous. They are clever, and when they look you in the eye, you can see they are not afraid.”

The colonel wondered for an instant what Turco saw in his eyes when their looks met. “Where are they now?”

“In their rooms at the Ritz Continental. Still recovering from last night, I would say. Adolfo is in the lobby, watching for
them.”