The Shadow of the Shadow (31 page)

"This all? And you call yourselves a bank? What've you got,
a bunch of beggars keeping their money here or what? Let's see
some of those real bourgeois bills," said the robber in shirt-sleeves.
Demonstrating an agility no one would have guessed he had, he
jumped over the counter and started to fill the envelopes himself.

"Ready," said the short man.

"What is it?" asked the man with the Stetson.

"Some kind of document, five pages, and then some kind of
contract or something."

"That's better. That's the way I like it," said the man with the
Spanish accent, carrying off five envelopes full of cash.

"Hey, I could have said `this is a holdup' just the same as the
lest of you. Thele's no al's thele," complained Tomas as the getaway
car sped up Puente de Alvarado toward Tacuba.

"Yeah, and then what? You going to paint your skin white?"

"My skin's not that yellow. I could have passed as a malalia
patient with the mask on."

"A malaria patient with a mask. Hell, that's a good one."

"So read it, dammit, what's it say?" urged Manterola at the
wheel of the Packard.

"Have you got a license to drive this thing, inkslinger?" asked
Verdugo.

"It's a military document, a plan to revolt against the
government. It's dated April 1920. That'd be one month before
the Agua Prieta Revolt against Carranza. Whoever made this plan
got beat to the punch..."

"Who signed it? No, let me guess ...Gomez," said the
reporter.

"Zevada," said Verdugo.

"And Martinez Fierro," said the poet.

"Things ale getting clealel."

"Not too bad, easier than squeezing blood out of a turnip.
Sixty-three thousand pesos, one on top of the other."

THE THREE COLONELS ARRIVED separately. Zevada and
Martinez Fierro drove up in their cars out of the storm, each with
a small armed escort. Gomez was the last to arrive, on horseback,
accompanied only by a trusted lieutenant. He stripped off his
rubber poncho and joined his two associates in the salon, where
they stood drinking wine from cut-crystal glasses.' he five North
Americans waited at the other end of the room. Two of them
relaxed in voluminous green velvet armchairs, puffing away on fat
cigars; a third man with white hair and a glassy stare stood at the
window looking out into the driving rain; two more sat around a
table talking.

"We're all here, then," announced Zevada, a tall ugly man with
a scar that ran from his lower lip down to the point of his chin.

"Colonel Gomez, welcome," said one of the North Americans
in Spanish-Wiliam C. Greene, general manager of the Huasteca
Petroleum Company. "I want you to meet Senator Fall, and Mr.
Doheny, Mr. Sinclair, and Mr. Teagle."

Gomez held his hand out to the senator, then saluted the oil
barons. He clicked his heels once for Standard Oil of New Jersey,
representing a third of all Mexican oil operations, then again for
the owner and namesake of Sinclair Oil, and once more for the
men from Huasteca Petroleum. With these three brief gestures,
he offered up his reverence to what amounted to 30 percent of the
entire income of the Mexican treasury, acquired through export
taxes and drilling rights on 194 million barrels of crude oil a year.
After that, he nodded to his two fellow officers. The three of them together effectively controlled military power in the whole oil
country, from the U.S. border down to the Tampico refineries and
the Huasteca oil fields in the state of Veracruz.

"All right, gentlemen, let's get down to business. The devil
himself is out there tonight and I have to be back in my barracks
at Panuco by dawn."

Greene, acting as host, led the group to an adjoining room
where they took their seats around a large mahogany table. The
manager of the Huasteca Petroleum Co. poured out wine and
offered around a tray of tiny meat-filled pastries. Aside from
the eight men assembled around the table, the huge house was
empty.

"Whenever you're ready, gentlemen," prompted Greene.

The three Mexican officers sat on one side of the table, facing
the oilmen and Senator Fall.

The colonels glanced at one another. Martinez Fierro had risen
to colonel before the others, but it was Gomez who controlled the
key forces in the oil region and he was the first to speak.

"We are ready to take arms against the government, as we
previously agreed. Colonel Martinez will secure the border,
Zevada will take care of Tampico, and I will be in command in
the Huasteca. We've considered the possible flaws in our plan, and
they are minor. Once the insurrection begins, it will be necessary
to eliminate General Arnulfo Gomez, as well as Colonel Lazaro
Cardenas in Papantla. You've got General Pelaez by the nape of
the neck and he will take our side. We have men in our confidence
in the garrisons at Reynosa, Laredo, Tampico, Panuco, Tantoyuca,
Chicontepec, and Tuxpan. Counting the troops under Pelaez, we
will have five thousand men with us after the first few hours of the
revolt."

Greene translated the colonel's words to Senator Fall, and
Doheny did the same for Teagle and Sinclair.

"So far so good," continued Gomez. "We can assume that
President Carranza will order Pancho Murguia against us from the center of the country, that Aguilar will send Guadalupe
Sanchez and his men up from Veracruz, and that General Marcelo
Caraveo will come at us from the West. However, the conflicts
that already exist among them due to the upcoming elections will
immobilize them within a few days, The government can hardly
rely on Obregon and his troops, and even General Pablo Gonzalez
is not a sure thing for them at this point. The situation works in
our favor, but even so, it's unlikely that we can resist for more than
a week. The rest is up to you. If after five days you're unable to
resolve the political question, then you might as well go ahead and
deposit the sum we agreed upon in a bank in Los Angeles, and our
next meeting will take place in your country, gentlemen."

"Senator Fall has asked me to inform you of the following,"
said Greene. "Once you've taken up arms and your intentions
are made public, the State Department will declare that the U.S.
government is taking the entire Mexican petroleum region under
its protection, in the name of safeguarding our national interests.
On the second day of the uprising, you will ask publicly for this
protection, claiming that you cannot guarantee the safety of the oil
wells in the face of government threats to dynamite oil operations
throughout the region. I believe that we can have a squadron of
Marines in Tampico by the third day. You will then declare your
autonomy from the central government and name an administrative
apparatus to coordinate with our expeditionary forces. These
gentlemen"-he motioned to the oil barons-"will apply pressure
on the State Department for immediate intervention."

"Can you guarantee us a Marine landing on the third day?"
asked Zevada. "I can open the border at Reynosa if necessary."

Greene and Fall talked in English in low voices.

"On the third day, you'll have the Marines. In addition, Senator
Fall will sound out the possibility of sending a cavalry regiment
across the border at Reynosa."

"And now, with respect to the economic arrangements we
discussed previously?" asked Martinez Fierro. "In the event that the uprising fails, we will deposit, in each of your names, one
million dollars in a bank in Los Angeles."

"And how do we slice up the pie if we win?" asked Zevada.

"Each of you will get three percent of tax revenues due on
exports and drilling rights."

"One other thing, gentlemen. We plan to form a triumvirate
to govern the autonomous region, and once things calm down a
bit we'll count on you to get rid of Pelaez."

"Consider it done," said Doheny, pounding his fist on the table
for emphasis.

Greene opened a yellow folder and took out five copies of the
same document.

"This, then, is the Plan of Mata Redonda, gentlemen. Read it
over. There's one copy for each of you, one for the oil companies,
and one for Senator Fall, who will make use of it at the appropriate
time."

"Before we sign, we want a copy in writing of your intentions,
including the economic arrangements between us."

The oil bosses spoke together in English and then Doheny
directed himself to the colonels.

"Agreed, with the provision that, should the operation fail, the
information not be made public. What guarantees can you give
us?"

"There will be one copy only, and we'll make sure that it doesn't
go beyond us. Tomorrow morning, I'll send my assistant to pick it
up, and it will then be deposited in a safe-deposit box in the Bank
of Hamburg in Tampico, as if it were a copy of a will or some other
family document."

The copies of the Plan of Mata Redonda made their way
around the table. Gomez, Zevada, and Martinez Fierro signed
without so much as flipping through the pages.

"Have you gentlemen come up with a name for the new
protectorate, should our plan succeed?" asked Greene.

"I thought we might call it the Republic of Black Gold," said Gomez. His words were translated, and the men at the table
laughed.

MANTEROLA WALKED INTO Vito Alessio Robles's office
without knocking. And without saying a word he slid the Plan of
Mata Redonda across the desk of the owner and managing editor
of El Democrata.

Vito Alessio, the brother of Miguel Alessio Robles, Obregon's
personal secretary, was an independent-minded man in the ranks
of Obregon's supporters. He'd built the best daily newspaper in the
country in only two years'time. With an independent outlook, an
excellent labor-affairs section, detailed national news, and a brilliant
crime page, well-designed and provocatively headlined, the paper
easily surpassed its three competitors in circulation. Alessio had
made a policy of paying well for his reporters' genius, enduring
their eccentricities, their manias, their unrepentant bohemianism,
in exchange for an admirable level of journalistic discipline and an
unsurpassed passion for the profession. So he wasn't in the least
surprised to see his star crime reporter walk into his office dressed
as an Indian Maharaja-he settled back to read the document.