Remember The Alamo (11 page)

The first impression most people got of John Howard Stark
was size. Stark was a big man, well over six feet, with broad
shoulders and a powerful, rangy form. He had served in Vietnam, so he had some age on him. He was fifty-six, in fact, as
Phil had discovered through his background checks on the
man, and the years showed in his craggy, deeply tanned face
and the streaks of gray and silver in his hair and mustache.

Something else showed in his eyes-loss, and a pain that
would never go away completely, although time had dulled it
somewhat and with luck might dull it more in the future.

Despite that, Stark gave Phil a warm smile of welcome and
extended his hand as they met on the porch of the ranch house
on the Diamond S spread where Stark made his home. The
original house had been destroyed in the conflict between
Stark and the drug smugglers, but it had been rebuilt, just as
Stark had tried to rebuild the rest of his shattered life.

"Thank you for agreeing to see me, Mr. Stark," Phil said.

"Call me John Howard. Come on in."

"I'm glad you answered my c-mails," Phil said as he
followed Stark into a comfortably furnished, neatly kept living
room.

"My boy Pete vouched for you, said you served together
overseas. I'm always happy to talk to another vet" Stark
smiled. "Even if he was a dogface, not a leatherneck."

Phil returned the smile and said, "Well, since you were a
Marine, I'll try to use small words while we're talking."

Stark laughed and clapped a hand on Phil's shoulder. Even
though the gesture was friendly, Phil could feel the strength in
the man.

"You want something to drink?" Stark asked. "Some iced
tea, or a beer?"

This and border country always made Phil's mouth and
throat dry as a bone every time he visited it. "A beer would be
great," he told Stark.

"I'll join you. Have a seat. I'll be right back"

Phil sat down in a comfortable leather armchair and looked
around the room while Stark was gone to the kitchen to fetch
the beers. Several framed pictures sat on a mantel over a fireplace that probably didn't get used much, considering that it
was nearly always warm in this part of the country. Phil recognized the uniformed man in one of the photos-Colonel
Peter Stark. He stood up and went over for a closer look.

The picture was probably fairly recent, since Pete looked
older in it than Phil remembered. Several years had gone by
since Phil had last seen Stark's son. Next to Pete's picture was
a photo of another man in uniform. The family resemblance
was easy to see. That would be Pete's older brother, David.

Next in line was a photo of a very attractive middle-aged
woman, her blond hair touched only lightly with gray. Phil saw
a few places around the edges of the photo where it looked like
it was slightly scorched. The final picture was a wedding photo.
Phil recognized both bride and groom. John Howard Stark's
face was smooth and unlined, and his hair was black. The blond
bride next to him was stunningly beautiful. She had still retained most of that beauty when the more recent picture of her was
taken.

The wedding photo was even more charred around the
edges.

"The pictures of my boys are new," Stark said from behind
Phil. "The one of Elaine, and our wedding picture, I was able
to salvage when our old house burned down. Mighty lucky
those photos survived. They were in a nice thick album that
was only partially destroyed by the fire."

Phil turned to look at Stark, who had come back into the
room with a beer bottle in each hand. As Stark extended one
of the bottles to him, Phil said, "I didn't mean to pry... "

Stark shook his head. "That's what pictures are there for,
to look at"

Phil took the beer and said, "I'm sorry about your wife."

"It was two years ago," Stark said, "or yesterday. Sometimes I forget which."

There was nothing Phil could say to that, so he took a drink
of the beer. It was cold and felt wonderful on his parched
throat.

They sat down across from each other, Phil in the armchair,
Stark on a sofa with heavy wooden arms. Stark asked, "What
was it you wanted to talk to me about, Mr. Cody?"

"Make it Phil. And I'm here about the Alamo."

"What about it? Still there, isn't it?"

"It is, but it's not going to be in the hands of Texans much
longer."

Stark nodded as a frown appeared on his face. "I heard
something about that on the news. Sounds like a bunch of
damned foolishness, if you ask me"

"It's worse than that. It's caving in to the worst sort of political pressure. It's pandering to terrorists and giving them what
they want. It's an embarrassment to every true Texan"

"Can't say as I'd argue with any of that," Stark said. "But
what can anybody do about it?"

"You fought an evil that everybody said couldn't be
opposed," Phil pointed out.

Stark's face hardened. "I took on one evil man, Ernesto
Ramirez, and his gang. You're talking about something that's
being orchestrated by a couple of governments, including
our own"

"That doesn't make it right."

"No, it doesn't," Stark agreed. "But what are you going to
do? I took up arms to avenge the death of a friend and wound
up getting my wife and several more of my friends killed."

Phil shook his head. "The drug smugglers were responsible
for those deaths, not you, John Howard"

Stark's face was bleak as he said, "You didn't come here to
talk about all that"

Phil sensed that he had better go ahead and get to the point.
"Some friends and I are putting together a protest that's going
to take place at the Alamo on March 6th-"

"Anniversary of the day it fell," Stark put in.

Phil nodded. "That's right. And to add insult to injury, that's
the day it's going to be handed back over to the Mexicans."

"Temporarily."

"One day, even one hour, is too long when you're talking
about the Alamo being in the hands of anyone except Texans"

"Happens I agree with you about that," Stark said.

"I'm glad to hear you say that because we'd like for you to
come to San Antonio and join us in letting the world know
how unacceptable this is. We're going to have vets from World
War Two, Korea, Vietnam, and both Gulf Wars. You've heard
of Freedom's Guard?"

"Fellas who ride motorcycles and protect veterans' funerals?"

"That's right. They'll be there, too"

"But you're just going to demonstrate and protest?" Stark
asked. "You're not going to cause any real trouble?"

"We intend for everything to be peaceful."

"Good," Stark said. "For a minute there, I thought you were
going to say you planned to take guns and fort up in the Alamo
to keep the Mexicans from taking it over."

Phil tensed. Stark had no way of knowing it, but that very
idea had lurked in the back of Phil's brain for a short time
before he realized how crazy it was.

"That would just wind up with a lot of people getting hurt,"
Stark went on. "Innocent people."

"We don't want that," Phil said. "We just want people to
know we think this is wrong"

"Why do you need me to do that?"

Phil took a deep breath, not knowing how Stark would react
to what he had to say next. "Because, like it or not, you're a
celebrity, John Howard. You were all over the national news a
couple of years ago"

Stark waved a hand and grunted. "For bein' a damned fool.
Anyway, the way things are today, two years is an eternity.
People have forgotten all about me by now."

"Maybe most of them have," Phil said.

He knew it was foolish to underestimate the shortness of the
attention span of the American people, who seemed to be
more interested in the indiscretions of flighty blond heiresses
and actresses than they were in the fact that a sizable chunk of
the world's population hated America and everything about it
and wanted to see it wiped off the face of the earth.

"But they'll remember when we remind them," Phil went
on. "The news media will want to ignore us, since they don't
want anybody rocking the liberal boat, or worse, they'll
demonize us as crazy extremists."

Stark smiled. "A really smart fella once said that extremism
in the defense of liberty is no vice."

"Yeah, but that was back when words still meant what they
were supposed to mean and nobody had to define is. Bottom
line is, with you on our side, the media can't ignore us, and
they'll have to take us seriously. What do you say, John
Howard?"

For a long moment, Stark didn't respond as he sat there and
frowned, obviously thinking it over. Then he lifted his beer
bottle in a salute. "I say, remember the Alamo."

Phil lifted his own bottle, returning the solemn salute, and
said, "Remember the Alamo."

Dave was under the hood of a car when he felt his cell
phone vibrating in his pocket. He straightened, grabbed a rag,
and hurriedly wiped his hands. Hardly anybody ever called
him at work except Constance, and she didn't call very often
because she knew his hands were liable to be covered with
grease. That meant when she did call, it was almost always
about something important.

When he saw the display on the phone, sure enough, it was
Constance on the other end. He opened it and said, "Yeah,
honey?"

He heard worry in her voice as she said, "Dave, I just got a
call from Silvio."

"Silvio Cruz? My cousin?"

"That's right."

Dave hadn't heard from Silvio in a while. Silvio was a few
years older than him, but they were in the same line of work
and got along well, and Constance and Silvio's wife Rita were
also distant cousins and good friends. The couples had visited
in each other's homes on numerous occasions.

"What did he have to say? Everything all right with him
and Rita?"

"I ... I don't know, Dave. He said they were on their way
up here to visit us, but he sounded ... I don't know. Scared"

Dave frowned as he leaned against the fender of the car he'd
been working on. Silvio and Rita lived in Matamoros, which,
like all Mexican cities these days, was a lot more dangerous
than it used to be. But if they were already in Texas and on
their way to San Antonio, they shouldn't have had anything to
be frightened about.

"He say where he was calling from?"

"Some little restaurant between here and Corpus Christi."

Silvio didn't have a cell phone, Dave recalled. When he was
on the road, he had to rely on finding a place with a landline
phone if he wanted to make a call.

"And Rita was with him?"

"Yes, he said she was waiting for their food. Dave, whatever's wrong, I don't think he's told Rita about it. He was talking quietly, like he didn't want her to overhear."

Dave suddenly wondered how much of Constance's concern was justified, and how much was because she was overreacting and imagining she heard trouble in Silvio's voice
when everything was fine. Constance wasn't given to wild
flights of fancy; she was pretty levelheaded most of the time.
But he couldn't imagine an inoffensive little guy like Silvio
being in a lot of trouble, either.

"He said he wanted you to meet them," Constance went on.

"Why don't they just come to the house?"

"I don't know, but he was insistent on that. He said for you
to come to the Mercado, and he would meet you there"

The Mercado, a few blocks away from the Alamo, was the
largest traditional Mexican-style market outside of Mexico
itself. It was always very busy, and the fact that Silvio wanted
to meet Dave there maybe did smack of trouble. The Mercado
was the sort of place you'd want to meet at if somebody was
after you, because there were always a lot of people around.

"What time?" Dave asked.

"Four o'clock."

Dave glanced at his watch. It was three now. He could make
it to the Mercado in plenty of time, but it would mean leaving
work. Dave hated to do that.

On the other hand, if Constance was right about Silvio being
in some sort of trouble, Dave didn't have much choice in the
matter. Silvio wasn't just a cousin, he was a friend, too.

"If you hear from him again, tell him I'll be there"

"All right, but I don't really expect him to call back. He said
they were coming right on as soon as they could."

"Okay." Dave said good-bye, then went to tell his boss that
he had to leave early because of a family emergency.

Traffic going across town was stacked up pretty badly because of a wreck, but since Dave was on his Harley, he was
able to get around the worst of the tie-up on the shoulder. The
drivers stuck in the unmoving, bumper-to-bumper line of cars
glared at him as he rode past, but that was their problem. They
were the ones who had decided to stick themselves in trendy
luxury cars and mammoth SUVs.

It was three forty-five when Dave reached the Mercado. He
found a place to park a block away and left the bike there. The
market was huge, with a maze of aisles between merchants'
booths divided by wooden partitions or sometimes just screens
of chicken wire. Loud mariachi music played, and the noise of
talk and laughter from the crowd of customers added to the din.