Dick Stivers - Justice by Fire

"Mr. Rivera, this is Michael Holt. My father's dead."

A cold fear seized Rivera. Though he dreaded what he must ask, he asked nevertheless, his mouth dry, "An accident?"

"No, sir. He was murdered."

"Who…?"

"We don't know who. But it's important for you to help us now. My father talked of your case. He was on his way to the airport to go to Washington, when they kidnapped him..."

"Los escuadrones de muerte… aqui."

"What, sir?"

"The death squads. Here."

"Floyd Jefferson went to your apartment in San Diego. But your family was gone. We were afraid that..."

"We saw the Immigration. So we left."

"Can we have your new address, please? We need your help. The police won't believe why this happened."

"North Americans don't understand. They killed my son and the North Americans said it was the Communists. They killed Senor Marquez and…"

"Will you talk with the police, Mr. Rivera?"

"If they send us back to El Salvador, we all die. I, my wife, my daughters. Los escuadrones wait for us."

"You will not be deported. You are now material witnesses in a murder investigation. An American murder investigation. My father's law firm will bring you to San Francisco. We will protect you. If you have any difficulties with the officials, we make bail for your entire family. We need your help… Please, we need your address and phone number."

"I have no telephone. We stay at a hotel in Los Angeles..." Rivera gave Michael Holt the name and address of the Main Street tenement.

"Thank you, Mr. Rivera. Together perhaps we can bring my father's and your son's murderers to justice. Tomorrow, a friend of my father will go to Los Angeles. I'll call him now. He's the personal aide to a congressman. He's offered to help us in every way possible."

"I'm am so very, very sorry my troubles have killed your father."

"No, not your troubles. Our troubles. Now we are together in this…"

"What is his name? This man who will come for my family?"

"Robert Prescott."

A night wind from the Atlantic misted the lush tropical garden. Lights hidden among the flowers — transplanted from Salvador — created shadows and translucent colors. Colonel Roberto Quesada walked the cobble-stoned paths of his estate. Though he appeared calm and impassive to the trusted guards stationed at the corners of his property, the colonel's mind raged with anger and impotence. His hands knotted into fists inside the deep pockets of his silk smoking robe. Quesada stared furiously at the lights of Miami.

He cursed his allegiance with the North Americans. The weaklings, incompetent weaklings. But what could he expect of men who would betray their country for Salvadoran gold?

Often, his disgust at his allegiance with the gringos threatened to shatter the mask of diplomacy he maintained. He gave them abrazos of brotherly friendship. He called them his allies in the war against international communism. He contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to their political campaigns.

But they would never have the strength and discipline required for victory. Quesada saw it in their faces. Once, when he made the mistake of including a gringo politician — a Republican who claimed to support the principles of private property and military strength — in a breakfast conversation, an officer joked about "cleaning out the lice" that had populated a region Quesada needed for the production of coffee. The Republican asked why "lice eradication" involved the army. Did the Salvadoran army supervise the use of insecticides? The officers gathered around the breakfast table had laughed. "Only for the eradication of Indian lice." But the Republican went white when he realized the officer had directed the killing of thousands of Indian campesinos .

How the North American had degenerated in only a hundred years! Quesada had read the history of North America. All of North America had been the land of the Indians. The European settlers had marched west over the bones of Indians. Their generals had stated: "The only good Indian is a dead Indian."

"From nits come lice."

Now, as El Salvador attempted to maintain the purity of its Spanish heritage and culture against the Indian and mestizo Communists, the North Americans talked of land reform, of law, of justice, of human rights.

What rights? Perhaps men and women did have rights. But the racially impure? The sickening half-breeds of lustful soldiers and Indian whores? The slothful poor in their filthy slums? The ignorant? The masses of campesinos who spoke their subhuman dialects, their supposed language an affront and slander to the melodious mother tongue of Castile?

The Communists recruited those filthy slum creatures for their wars against the Families. Scum led scum.

But why did the North Americans take their cause also? White people marched in "solidarity with the people of El Salvador." To protest military aid, the educated and prosperous North Americans poured their own blood on the steps of federal offices. Although inflation and unemployment racked their country, North Americans sent medicine, food, clothing, and United States dollars to the revolutionaries.

Only an international communist conspiracy explained the strange phenomenon. Jews and Communists and dreamers funneled their propaganda into the empty minds of North Americans.

The major newspapers of North America — all Communist controlled. The radio and television networks — Communist controlled. The publishers — Communists.

Worse, the elected officials of the United States now mouthed Communist lies.

Land reform.

Elections.

Justice.

What nonsense! Where would the land for the Communists come from? The Families had developed the lands throughout the centuries since their Spanish forefathers brought civilization to El Salvador. Why should the Families give up ancestral holdings? And elections, another joke. Allow the ignorant and poor and subhuman to vote? What would they vote for except the theft of land and wealth? And justice. Prosecute soldiers for killing Communists? Nonsense!

Colonel Quesada had launched the war against the North American Communists to combat the lies threatening the survival of his nation. Victory in El Salvador would not guarantee the future of the Families. Not while North Americans continued their assaults on El Salvador's traditions and culture.

A few North Americans volunteered to join Quesada in his war against the contagion in the English-speaking Americas. Others accepted his gold. All of his North American allies recognized the historical imperative to destroy the nonwhite insurgents, whether they fought in Sonsonate Province or Liberty City.

But their decision to fight did not mean they had the strength and discipline.

Or the will to act as necessary.

Robert Prescott had failed him. When he had the opportunity to kill the black journalist, he did not. The congressional aide had talked with the journalist throughout the night, but had not killed him. Prescott had instead hired two local gunmen. The gunmen failed. Then Prescott had hired black nationalist mercenaries to pursue the journalist and his three guards. Again Prescott's hired gunmen failed.

Now California newspapers carried photos of dead men on the freeway.

Not only had Prescott failed to execute the Communist, he had failed to inform Quesada of the true threat presented by the "three specialists from Washington." He had failed to tell Quesada the three men carried military weapons.

When Quesada dispatched Captain Madrano to intercept the reporter and his three guards, the Salvadorans died in an ambush. True, Captain Madrano should have recognized the trap, but without proper information, any man might have blundered into the ambush.