This short story appeared in an anthology of war stories edited by Martin Greenberg titled FIRST TO FIGHT II, published in June of 2001.
Below is a sample of R.J. Pineiro's contribution to this anthology.
1 As I enter the crowded bar, the smell of beer, cigarette smoke, cheap perfume, and body odor strikes me like a moist breeze, reminding me of why I hate this damned banana republic. Conversation drops to a murmur and all eyes in the room gravitate towards me, the big stranger with the blond hair and the intense blue eyes. Their gaze conveys either apprehension or despise. In this country they either hate or fear gringos, especially a cat of my size. But I really don't give a damn. I just want to meet with my informant and get the hell back to the embassy as soon as possible--hopefully without having to use the Colt .45 semiautomatic shoved in my blue jeans, by my spine, covered by a black T-shirt. Ignoring the contempt radiating from the patrons, I glance at the bartender, an old, shriveled man with half his teeth missing standing beneath the flickering fluorecents holding a bottle of rum. A burning cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth, he flashes me a nervous smile and extends an index finger toward the back room. He does so because of the fifty bucks I pay him every month to set up a meeting with my informant--though he thinks it's just for me to get laid. I walk up to the bar and shake hands with him, slipping him this month's payment without anyone realizing it. I then march past hookers and their poor clients, drawn here on weekends to forget about the misery of their war-torn country, or perhaps because there isn't much else to buy with their hard-earned colones, which lately have depreciated against the dollar like the sagging tits of the old courtesan sitting by the bar. As I stroll by, she whispers the equivalent of three dollars for one hour upstairs. Six for the whole night. Having learned a long time ago that you don't go around dipping your winky in places like this--lest you have a strong desire to shrivel up and die--I politely decline and press on, my head well above the group, surveying it while avoiding eye contact. My boots click hollowly over old pine boards as I step inside the back room. A pair of red bulbs cast a depressing glow on a ragged pool table. There's no one here except for my informant, sitting in the corner, flanked by two young Latinas--girls not older than my daughter Sarah, still in high school. I can't help a frown. Despite my many years of field service, it disgusts me to see children forced into prostitution, in this case by a civil war that has propelled this country into a deep depression--a depression for anyone but those in power, that is. I'm very much aware that a nice percentage of the U.S. economic aid to this country worms its way into the bank accounts of selected members of this banana republic--a practice that Washington is apparently willing to overlook as long as its puppet regime fights against Communism. One of the young hookers has short hair and a pierced nostril. She smiles as I approach them, exposing herself to show off her pierced nipples. The second girl, plastered with tattoos, regards me with indifference. My informant is a bit older, with long black hair, a narrow face, and large brown eyes. Maria Ramirez grins while saying, "Good evening, Señor Smith." She calls me by the name that I gave her several months ago, when I'd first recruited her to gather information on various left-wing student groups at the local University. Her English is fair, thanks to the two years she'd spent as an illegal immigrant in Los Angeles, before the INS deported her. She's been saving since to make it back north. She hates this country as much as she loves the dollars I pay her. "Hello, Maria," I reply. Maria gets up and holds my hand as we walk toward the stairs. We reach one of a dozen tiny rooms at the end of the stairway, each just big enough to accommodate a single bed and a chair, where Maria sits down and begins to unbutton her blouse. "You have the money, yes?" she asks. "You get it after I get my information." As I say this, I move to her right, my back against the wall, keeping an eye on her while also monitoring the door. Although in the past Maria has come up with reliable intel on the activities of students associated with Commies, I can never be too careful, not in my business. She removes her top and her brassiere. For a moment I stare at her. She has a tiny waist, a smooth torso, and awesome tits, uptilted and with small brown nipples. What a waste. A gorgeous broad stuck in a shithole like this. Maria Ramirez could have easily won the recently televised Miss El Salvador contest, which, like everything else in this place, was rigged. She finishes undressing, doing so as a cover, in case some asshole were to walk in on us. I remove my T-shirt as part of this charade, and also because this broad enjoys looking at my big pectorals. The local male population is short and seldom breaks two hundred pounds, which makes me the jolly green giant. But we never go beyond looking. Although she looks like a phenomenal screw--and I've been divorced for over ten years now and had not had sex for the past year--I don’t wish to share bodily fluids with half of the population of San Salvador. It's also bad business to become personal with an informant. The realities of my business are quite different from Hollywood's view of the espionage world. Naked, she turns very serious. "Tomorrow night, Señor Smith," she says, her narrowed stare pointed straight up at me, like her nipples. "It will happen tomorrow tonight." "How can you be so certain?" "I was at a party last night, just outside the university. I had three of them with me in one room," she says in her heavy accent. "I hear some of their conversation after they fuck me. These stupid students, you know, they think they are smart and speak English thinking that a puta like me don't understand. They say they have the plans on the . . . Embajada Americana. They say it is all ready for tomorrow night, during your fiesta." The information doesn't make sense. Several high-ranking government officials will be there, including Vice-president Orejana, who is also the leader of the Guardia Nacional. That last cat--who actually looks more like a greasy toad with sunglasses--never goes anywhere without five sedans packed with elite members of his guard. The froggy bastard reminds me of some of the Mafia bosses in Jersey, where I grew up. The British and French ambassadors will also be there. The place is going to be crawling with security. And besides, government forces have pushed back the rebels in recent weeks, pretty much turning the tide in this civil war. I don't see how the seriously weakened Commies can mount such an offensive against a highly-protected target in the middle of San Salvador, an area they don't even control. "Are you sure?" Maria shrugs. "I only know what I hear, Señor." "Do you know the exact time?" "They did not say." "Do you know how many people will be involved in this attack?" "I'm sorry, Señor." "Do you have anything else?" She shakes her head. "I left the room after the last one finished." I consider what she has told me, the possibility of a terrorist strike against the embassy--while celebrating the ambassador's birthday. Those left-wing guerrillas are surely getting damned arrogant. Or just plain suicidal. The timing of the attack is also strategically wrong. Congress is currently divided on the vote for an additional military and economic aid package to El Salvador. After all, the U.S.-backed Salvadorian military has not only dealt multiple crippling blows to the rebels in recent weeks, but it's in the process of eliminating the last remaining pockets of resistance. The local military looks capable of completing the job without additional tax payer's dollars. An attack on the embassy would tell Congress that more U.S. military aid is needed. It would further strengthen El Salvador's military rather than weakening it--something Washington doesn't want to do unless it is absolutely necessary to defeat the Commies. It ain't smart politics to overbuild a banana republic's military. These little bastards have turned on us before. We just need to give them just enough dough to achieve our own political goals, and not a penny more. I produce one Ben Franklin and hand it to this broad. She makes a face. "Something wrong?" "It's only half," she says, pouting. "You don't like me anymore?" She winks and rubs her breasts, parting her legs. I drop my lids at her little mound, trimmed in the shape of a heart. I feel a little wood. I guess not getting laid for a year does that to a man. "Cut the crap," I bark, thinking with the right head. "I need to validate your information first." She snaps her legs close and crosses her thin arms, frowning. "And if it is valid?" "Then you get the other half." She apparently decides that it is a fair deal and gives me a single nod. I wait another fifteen minutes before leaving, not wishing to give all of those who had seen me go up with her the impression that I was doing anything else up here but getting laid. What a job. I mess up my hair and Maria smears some of her lipstick on my right cheek and my neck for added effect. A moment later I step out of the bar, welcoming the evening breeze. The streets of San Salvador are poorly-lit and filthy, nurturing the wave of crime that had swept through the city in recent years, compounding the rebel problem in the mountains. Hopefully this time around the military will not just flush the Commies back across the border into Nicaragua, but actually kill them off before they flee. Otherwise, the bastards are just going to regroup across the border, get rearmed by the Sandinistas, and return in a month or two. I use a napkin to wipe the lipstick off my face before raising my hand. A sedan parked down the block rumbles to life, approaches me. I climb into the rear seat. "Everything okay, Boss?" asked Jim Porter, one of seven CIA officers under my jurisdiction, mostly young, like him. He sits in the passenger seat as the driver--another of my officers--floors it. Not only did Langley force my ass to remain down here, threatening to cut off my pension if I refused, but instead of sending me seasoned officers, I got a bunch of college kids fresh out of basic operations training at the Farm, the CIA training center in Williamsburg, Virginia. Please understand that I have nothing against college, even though I never went, opting instead for the Marines right after high-school. I just wish that my fearless leaders back home would provide me with a better mix of seasoned officers and new recruits. "Looks like the Commies might be targeting the embassy, Jimmy," I finally say, rubbing my eyes with the palms of my hands, trying to decide what in the hell to do with the intel Maria has dumped on me. "No shit!" Porter says, excitement filming his young eyes as he turns around, resting an elbow over the back of the seat. The kid survived a shoot-out two months ago. Even got a chance to kill three Commies. He's been bullish ever since. I know that will change soon. "You're sure?" "You're never sure in this business." Porter looks over to his young colleague behind the wheel. "You've heard that, Tom? The Commies are going to try to hit the embassy. Dumb bastards. Don't they know that's fucking suicide." Tom Klein, a young recruit that reminds me of myself at that age, nods before asking, "Do we have a way to crosscheck that, Boss?" That's why I like Klein. He thinks like I do. I reply, "Not before tomorrow night." "Then, what are we going to do?" asks Porter. Good question, but I chose to ignore it, leaning back, closing my eyes. I'm tired, and not just because of the 12-hour days trying to gather intel for Langley on this civil war, running dozens of informants like Maria while making sure that none of my boys get caught spying. I'm tired of the whole damned game, of the deception, of using people, of the risks I take. Almost twenty years with the CIA next month, and I'm still up to my eyeballs in field operations--though I have to admit that until Nicaragua it had been by choice. My entire life I've criticized the desk types at Langley, but when Managua was falling to the Sandinistas in 1979 and I nearly got my ass shot a half dozen times while trying to reach the airport, I'd figure that perhaps it was time to let the young guns run the field show. It was time to let them criticize old farts like me, dispensing orders from within the protective walls and high-security fences of the CIA headquarters. I open my eyes. The streets of San Salvador rush by. I wonder why in the hell Langley kept me in this shithole. You'd figure that after risking my ass with the Marines in Vietnam for two tours, before being recruited by the spooks in 1969 and shipped off to exotic destinations like East Berlin, Kiev, Ecuador, and Nicaragua, the Agency would accept my request to transfer to Langley. But instead of flying me home after my sad hide successfully reached the airport in Managua, the pilot got orders to drop me off in San Salvador. As fate would have it, the CIA station chief here had been killed the week before during a shoot-out between government forces and the rebels, and the Agency needed a substitute. Some lucky cat I am, stuck in the middle of yet another dirty little war. I regard the narrow streets with despise, crinkling my nose. The whole place reeks of death and decay--the results of years of neglect during this long civil war. The geographical locations may change, but the misery of war is always the same--whether in Saigon, East Berlin, Kiev, Quito, or Managua. And San Salvador is no exception. In this former tropical paradise maimed bodies are found on the streets every morning. Rebel forces murder government officials, industrialists, and anyone else supporting the current government--including Americans. In retaliation, right-wing death squads kill left-wing sympathizers. And the vicious cycle continues, day in and day out, in a downward spiral of horror, of insanity. And of course, there's also the kidnappings. Everyone's out to kidnap everyone else to collect a ransom. A process started by the Commies to achieve certain political goals, it was later continued by criminals for money, forcing anyone with means to hire bodyguards. And those who couldn't afford one, simply bought guns--a very easy thing to do in these regimes, turning the whole damned country into something worse than the Old West. I frown. No one is safe. No one. Even the feared Guardia Nacional seldom comes out at night anymore, opting instead to remain garrisoned until daylight, when they go out in numbers and sweep through whatever was left of the previous night's criminal skirmishes. Strength in overpowering numbers and weapons is the way the Reagan administration has commanded puppets like Orejana to fight this war, to keep this nation from becoming the next domino--keep it from propelling Communism to the backdoor of the United States of America. And now they appeared to have finally succeeded. For the first time in the nine years I've been here I begin to get optimistic that the rebel problem might be over in El Salvador. The irony, of course, is that this whole mess could have been prevented years ago if the right-wing government had accepted the will of the people and allowed the newly-elected moderate President Napoleon Duarte into power. Instead, they beat the crap out of the poor bastard and kicked him into exile, before nullifying the elections and announcing their own candidate, Colonel Molina, as the new president of El Salvador. After Molina came Carlos Humberto Romero--not to be confused with the slain archbishop by the same last name--in another rigged election. Then a military coup ousted Colonel Romero in 1979 and created a military-civilian junta. Elections were eventually held, and Napoleon Duarte, freshly back from his exile in Venezuela, swept the nation and finally reached the Presidential Palace. Of course, by then Nicaragua had long fallen to Communism and Castro had his sights on El Salvador as the next red domino, sending rebels across the border in an effort to destabilize the fragile new government. What a fucking circus, I muse as the car pulls up to the embassy's gate, and a pair of United States Marines wave us through. Ten minutes later I'm in my room. Too late to talk to his Excellency. Apparently he has already retired for the evening, I'm told by one of his aides. He must get his rest for the gala tomorrow night. The one targeted by the Commies. However, given that I am, after all, the top intelligence cat, who also doubles as the embassy's chief of security--after the former chief resigned--the aide has promised to get me an appointment early tomorrow. The phone next to the bed rings. I pick it up. "Frank Bossarini," I answer. "Mr. Bossarini, I've set up your appointment for eight in the morning. What should I jot down as the subject of the meeting?" "Critical intelligence for the ambassador's ears only." And not for any of his aides. Silence, followed by, "Very well, Mr. Bossarini. Good night." "Yeah," I say, before hanging up the phone and crawling in bed. I'm too tired to talk to his Excellency anyway.
2 "Are you suggesting that we cancel tonight's event, Mr. Bossanova?" asks Ambassador Randolph Gallard, dressed in a pair of khakis and a polo shirt. He sips from a glass of orange juice. "The name's Bossarini, your Excellency." He shrugs. I bite my tongue. The bastard hates spooks and is always looking for ways to annoy me. We are having breakfast at a wrought-iron table in the rear portico of the main building of the embassy compound. Two hundred feet of manicured grass and a four-foot-thick fence made of reinforced concrete separate us from the unpredictable streets of San Salvador. Years ago, when the country's level of unrest reached an all-time high following the ousting of Romero, the previous Ambassador, Jacob Martin, had all windows replaced with bullet-proof glass, as well as enclosing the entire portico to keep the Commies from taking pot shots at gringos. Martin also added electric wire atop the fence and sandbagged machine-gun emplacements on the roofs of the staff apartment, the office building, the ambassador's residence, and the Marines barracks. He had later added machine-gun emplacements flanking the solid steel gate, and a five-inch-thick steel bar that lifts automatically from the ground any time the gates are closed. With luck, the lessons from Teheran and Beirut would pay off in El Salvador. That old hand, Jacob Martin, had sworn back then not to let any truck bombs or hostile forces on U.S. territory on his watch. By contrast, the new top diplomatic cat in town, a career bureaucrat who'd never spent one day of his life in a Third-World country, was already considering a few cuts on our security budget because in is mind this war had already been won. What an idiot. "Mr. Ambassador," I finally say. "I have information that suggests that the embassy could be attacked this evening by Marxist rebels." I take a sip of coffee and watch his eyes for a reaction. Gallard frowns, giving me the same irritated look that he gave me a month ago, after he arrived from his previous post in Paris--and before that Rome. This guy thinks of us intelligent types as paranoid schizophrenics, always blowing things out of proportion to justify our existence. "Have you cross-checked your data, Mr. Bossarini?" I shake my head. "And I doubt I'll be able to do so before tonight." The Ambassador scoops a forkful of scrambled eggs, chews them slowly, drinks more orange juice, and then says, "Do you realize that this doesn't make any sense whatsoever?" I'm about to reply when he cuts me off. "How?" Gallard asks. "How can the rebels mount such an attack on a heavily-fortified compound like ours, and especially the way they have been crippled? The government reports I read last night confirm our own observations: that the military has pushed the terrorists out of this area, almost to the border. Casualties on the rebel side add up to almost two thirds of their original numbers. We've killed them off. Also, even if they could indeed launch an attack, why would they do it now and give Congress a reason to approve the latest aid package?" "I've been asking myself those same questions since I received this information last night. However, this informant is very close to whatever subversive groups are left at the University of El Salvador. She's the one who tipped us on the ambush last October." Gallard looks away for a moment. "Yes, I remember reading about that in the newspapers. Close call for Ambassador Martin." I nod. We were escorting Martin to the airport for a scheduled trip to Washington, but had changed our route at the last minute because of a tip from Maria Ramirez. Instead, we passed the intel to the Guardia Nacional, who sent a decoy convoy down the suspected street--in addition to sealing off the area with an entire division of army regulars. Thirty three rebels were killed that morning, all armed with automatic weapons and bazookas. They would have slaughtered us. At least Martin had had the sense to listen to my warnings. This imbecile munching on a breakfast sausage across the table would have called me paranoid and gotten us all killed--and then Washington would had blamed the incident on poor intel. Gallard stands. "Mr. Bossarini, I won't stop tonight's events on this limited information, even with your informant's history, because the data just doesn't make sense. Besides, I'm in the middle of delicate negotiations with foreign businessmen and industrialists to reinvest back in El Salvador. Most of them are in town and will be attending tonight's event. Canceling would send the wrong message." "But . . . your Excellency. I urge you to--" He snaps his fingers. "Do not expect me to adjust my schedules because of your inability to perform your duties. I expect a little more than that from my resident chief of security and intelligence. Bring me proof and then we'll talk. Now, if you excuse me, I have my own preparations to make for tonight." This cat's got some nerve! I muster self-control and just let him walk away. Three aides surround him as he leaves the room. His reaction just made my job more challenging. But, hey, that's why they pay me the big bucks, right? Right. I calmly put down my coffee and begin to formulate a plan to keep this embassy safe--in spite of fools like Gallard.
