The Demands of the Dead (8 page)

We left for Hatuey early in the morning. As soon as we were out of the base compound, I asked Chavez to stop at a cybercafe.

As Chavez pulled up to a new cybercafe closer to the edge of town, I thought about how I would tell Maria this.

“Darling, all is well here too. We all miss you. Don't worry about putting uncle out, he actually called us to ask what time you were going to be there while you were on your way, so I'm sure you didn't catch him unawares. Also, I keep trying to reach your friend but I keep dialing the number wrong. I'll keep trying. Love, Beatriz.”

So the State Department had contacted Hoffman while I was in the air and offered us the briefing, and she was having no luck guessing Salant's password.

The cybercafe operators had sharp eyes. Too sharp, too nosy, and altogether too interested in what I was doing with my own disk in their computer. I decided I would write her back later.

I paid for my time and walked out to the car, where Chavez was waiting with a coffee in his hand. There was another one on top of the hood. After studying the basically empty street, I realized he had bought it for me. I took it and nodded thanks, which he ignored, and we got back into the car.

We drove to an airfield an hour out of Tuxtla and flew in a small plane to a strip outside Hatuey. We were picked up there by soldiers in a black GM Suburban, and didn’t talk the whole mountain ride to the base.

Mayo trees that flowered bright orange covered the mountains as the car wound around through the clouds, the beauty of the landscape efficiently hiding the war from surface view.

In the back seat of the suburban, Chavez and I both began to look at our papers. Chavez passed me the photo of the Mexican university radicals and the priest that were among our leading suspects. Like the one Marchese showed me of the French journalist Tourelle, these were blurry photos of intellectual types – not stone-cold ambushers of armed police patrols.

In my own papers, the patrol schedules caught my attention. I made a note to ask Commander Beltran about the schedules, and who made them, once I got to the base.

We were greeted by two surly, low-ranking officers. Officer Madero rolled up small, stocky, and in charge. Officer Escalante strode in behind him, tall, lean, and with a cruel, somewhat vacant look that marked him as the follower in the duo.

Madero spoke crisply and formally to both of us as we got out of the car. No handshakes, no familiarity, and though it was plain that they both knew Chavez, they were avoiding proximity with him like he was diseased. Whatever brotherhood Chavez was a part of in the police hierarchy, he was no brother of these guys.

“
Commander
Beltran will see both of you together. We have quarters for you arranged for one day. Follow us, please.”

I put my bag, increasingly loaded with paper files, down in my quarters. I kept my notebook and my disk on me; my bag had only stuff they knew I had or they’d given me. I assumed they would search it. My bag was very carefully packed so that I would notice anything new or missing. Officers Madero and Escalante would see that quickly enough, if they chose to look.

Madero came back alone, five minutes later, to take us to Commander Beltran.

Commander Beltran sat in a big leather chair behind a medium-sized, steel-framed desk, leaning back as Madero took up a position from standing at attention, then to parade rest, on Beltran's left. I looked around at the office, which had a temporary theme, unlived in. Decorated with posters of tourist attractions in Chiapas, like the pyramids in Palenque, and pictures of him and his men, all in the same black uniforms he and Madero wore now. He indicated a plain steel pot of coffee. Chavez poured into four styrofoam cups. Beltran took his, as did I, but neither Madero nor Chavez made any moves towards theirs. Beltran spoke in loud, brisk Spanish.

“I am recording this conversation. You may as well, if you prefer.” He turned on a handy military-looking tape recorder and put it on the desk behind him.

“In the room are lieutenant Sergio Chavez of Public Security Chiapas, Mark Brown, of Corporate Research and Analysis Resources, Officer Madero of Public Security Chiapas, and myself, Commander Carlos Beltran of Public Security Chiapas, Hatuey. It is 1300 h on April 12, 2000. This interview is part of an investigation which Lt. Chavez and Sr. Brown are conducting independently into the murders of officers Pablo Gonzalez and Hernan Diaz of Public Security, Chiapas, here at Hatuey. These murders occurred on April 5, 2000. These were police officers under my command who were killed patrolling a dirt road less than a mile from this base.

“I will make a statement and then answer any questions you might have.

“This military base was opened in 1994 and Public Security has had a presence here from the beginning. The purpose of the mission is to maintain order. This is done through regular patrols and stops at checkpoints to search for drugs and arms. We have full authority to make arrests. We are concerned about smuggling of both drugs and arms across the border with Guatemala by various armed groups. In our opinion the murders of our officers were committed by one of these armed groups.

“You are in possession of the forensic information and will tour the crime scene shortly. I will not reprise that information now. There are a number of facts which you do not have, however.”

So Beltran was about to tell us things that were too sensitive to put in the written material, even though he knew I would have to report anything that was significant. He was following public relations practice – control the message.

“First, on March 30, officer Gonzalez reported a problem with his rifle, which was replaced on April 3. The complaint and the replacement order are in the file.

“Second, the patrol schedules are typically made by myself or by Chief Saltillo. Although the schedule for the week of the murders has my name on it, it was actually supposed to be done by Chief Saltillo. He was pressed for time and used the previous week’s schedule, modified because we were understaffed by three officers that week, and they were not to be replaced until the following week—this week. Therefore a number of officers had to do extra patrols. Gonzalez and Diaz did one such extra patrol.”

It seemed Beltran had just told us that this was a targeted killing, with participation from at least some of their superiors in the police. “The patrol on which they were killed was not part of their regular schedule?” I asked.

“Correct. Given your special role in this case, I hope these facts do not cause you to jump to any inappropriate conclusions. Rifles are reported defective and replaced all the time. The jungle environment is difficult on equipment. Scheduling delays occur all the time, on a complex mission with rotating staff such as this. These are both routine occurrences in a complex public order operation. I hope you appreciate that we have given you our full cooperation on this,” he said, looking specifically at me.

He turned the recorder off.

“Now,” he said, taking in a full breath, “I am prepared to answer any of your questions.” I took a sip of my coffee, trying to formulate the right question.

“The schedules for the week of the murders and the previous week are enclosed?” Chavez asked, beating me to the punch.

“Yes.”

“Who made the previous week’s schedule?”

“I did.”

That was why his name was on both schedules.

“Who put Diaz and Gonzalez on that morning patrol for the following week?”

“Saltillo.” A considerable amount of nonverbal information was passing between Beltran, Madero, and Chavez, whose relationship with the Commander, and his base, seemed quite adversarial. Beltran outranked Chavez, but Chavez wasn't in his chain of command. Still, we were on the man's base, and I had been expecting a lot more fraternity, the way I always had with the brass back home.

Chavez looked at me. “Do you have any questions, senor Brown?”

I looked at the Commander, and then to Madero, and back to the Commander.

“With your permission?” I asked, with a lifetime of faked deference.

“Of course.”

“Did Officer Gonzalez file any complaint about the replacement rifle?”

“No.”

“Do you have that rifle?”

The Commander stopped, sniffed, and tapped his fingers on the table. “It is in Tuxtla, actually.”

“Why?”

“It is in evidence. There was a need to... test it.”

I waited.

Chavez waited.

Beltran waited.

Chavez broke the silence. “Because it was not working properly either.”

The Commander sighed. “No. There was a problem with the ammunition. Gonzalez tested his weapon on the 3
^rd
of April when it was replaced. But when he attempted to fire it on the 5th, to defend himself from the murderer, it malfunctioned. The bullet in the chamber was defective.”

“It jammed,” I said.

“Yes, but it was the ammunition, not the rifle.”

“But,” Chavez said, “Gonzalez was killed first. It was only Diaz that fired his weapon, wasn’t it?”

Beltran said nothing.

That was what the crime scene report said. That Gonzalez was hit first, before he had fired a shot. Had he seen his attacker, tried to fire, and then been shot down?

As I was thinking about this, Beltran reached into his drawer and pulled out – yet another file.
Here we go,
I thought, waiting for the Commander to distract me from the fact that he had sent two of his men out with defective weapons - on a morning that they just happened to get ambushed and killed - by putting me on to the trail of yet another foreign or domestic Zapatista supporter.

“
I know that Chief Saltillo shared with you some information about some possible suspects and persons of interest,” he said. “I think you will find some of these recent surveillance photos of supporters of the rebels to be of interest, especially since some of them include US citizens. There is
considerable
surveillance in San Cristobal, where all the rebel supporters congregate,” he said, speaking directly to Chavez, “and so we have a few photos of rebel supporters.”

The police photographer had planted himself outside a place called the Cafe Historia and snapped photos at different times or days. First, Francois Tourelle, the French journalist whose picture Marchese had sitting with Chavez for tea, was walking out of the door on a bright sunny day. The next photo had the two university students, Luis and Susana, walking out with the priest, Raul, next to them, all with their collars pulled up against the rain. The third photo, taken in the late evening in bad light, featured a young, thin white woman I didn't recognize, with a black man next to her. He had a baseball cap on and his face was pointed away from the camera.

That was because Walter Manley had good security practice in his bones and knew instinctively how to avoid being photographed.

“This is interesting,” I said. “When were these taken?”

“Less than a month ago. Most of these people travel back and forth between Hatuey and San Cristobal.”

“Do you know all of their names?”

“I believe you were given all of their names.”

“Not these,” I said, pointing to the photo of Walter and the American woman.

“We don't know their names yet either. We are trying to match them with the list of passport numbers we have.”

I stood up. “Well, thank you very much,” I said. “Do you believe we have time to go to the murder scene?”

“Of course,” Beltran said. “Officer Madero will escort you.”

The trail was dusty, red dust that blew everywhere, that I had seen on every pair of boots in Hatuey. It would turn to mud, too, when it got wet, and I guessed that after a rain this trail would be a slippery, muddy mess. It was Chavez, officers Madero and Escalante, two Mexican Army soldiers, and me. I was the only one not in uniform. I was in a plain white shirt and black pants, and sunglasses, though I had a good pair of hiking boots on. Not too hot up here but the sun was strong.

The optics were clear: I was obviously an American spook being led through the jungle by my Mexican allies. Useful to have the Mexican police chief think that, but not so good to have the Zapatistas think it. I hoped we wouldn’t pass anyone from the community on our patrol.

But we
did
pass them. Two middle-aged men carrying wood on their backs in carriers strapped to their heads, were along side us briefly. They managed to nod hello to us gravely.

The killer had taken his shots from a rocky outcropping just upslope, barely visible from the trail. A decent spot for an ambush, although after the first shot muzzle flash and sound would tell.

I imagined the shooting. They come up, the shooter hits Gonzalez in the leg, Gonzalez tries to fire back, weapon failure, he’s killed, Diaz and the sniper exchange fire, Diaz is killed.

Gonzalez, the one with the defective rifle, gets killed first. Diaz fires back, misses, and goes down. If the killer knew about Gonzalez's rifle being sabotaged, he would have shot Diaz first, making Gonzalez a sitting duck.

I walked up the hill to the spot from which the boys were killed and looked down at Chavez and our escorts. I didn’t find any shell casings, and neither had Public Security in their initial crime scene analysis, according to the files.