Remember The Alamo (23 page)

Dave took a deep breath and waited.

Phil kept a tight rein on his thoughts. He didn't want to let
them stray too far from what was going on around him, because if he did he risked having another of those damned
flashbacks. He couldn't afford that now. If trouble erupted, he
would need to be razor-sharp, with all of his instincts and reactions operating at top efficiency.

He jumped a little as a voice said beside him, "Hello, Phil."

His head jerked toward the person who had spoken to him.
"Evelyn!" he said. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Instead of her usual stylish business suit, she wore denim
today, jeans and a jacket over a red silk shirt. Her blond hair
was pulled back in a ponytail. Phil thought she was even more
beautiful than usual.

"You didn't think I'd miss this, did you?" she said in answer
to his question.

"Damn it," he said through clenched teeth, "you know
there's liable to be trouble "

"Of course" She lowered her voice. "That's why I'm packing heat"

Phil closed his eyes for a moment. He wasn't sure he
wanted to know what she meant by that.

"Listen, Phil, I can take care of myself," she went on.
"Texas and the Alamo mean as much to me as they do to you.
That's why I agreed to help y'all. And to me, that means sharing the risks with you"

He gave a curt shake of his head. "That's not the way I
wanted it."

"Well, it's how you've got it, ace. Deal with it."

Phil sighed. There was nothing he could do except go along
with her. Trying to force her to leave would just create a scene,
and he didn't want to do that. He was already worried enough
that the Feds might have followed him and Dave and the others here. He didn't want to draw any more attention than he had
to, at this point.

Of course, when the shooting started-if the shooting
started-they would all be drawing plenty of attention.

And that moment, if it was coming, would be here soon, because Mayor Alvarez was about to speak.

Dieter thought of his wife, dead only a few weeks, and his
daughter, thankfully safe far away from here. Belko thought of
his wife, dead these many years but never forgotten, and the children he saw only occasionally and grudgingly, on their part.
But he still loved them anyway. And scattered throughout the
crowd, the other members of the group pledged to defend the
Alamo with their lives, men recruited from the VFW and Freedom's Guard, thought their own thoughts, mostly of loved ones
they might never see again, of children who would at least have
a chance to grow up in a state and a country that wasn't going
to give in to pressure from foreign governments or from its own
misguided leaders. A state and a country where the voice of the
people still meant something.

But did it really? That nagging doubt was in more than one
mind. Would what happened here today really change anything? The last time terrorists had spilled blood on American
soil, the country had united and grown a backbone-but only
for a little while. Within months, the naysayers and defeatists
had started their whining and bickering again, and within just
a few years, the left's usual tactics of blaming America for
everything and undercutting the military and undermining the
country's status in the world were back in full force. Could anything bad enough ever happen to force the liberals to stand up
and say, Enough is enough America is right, and truly mean
it? Or would they continue to give lip service to supporting the
country while practicing their customary sneering elitism?

Nobody could really know. All the defenders of the Alamo
were certain of was that what was planned for today was
wrong on so many fundamental levels, and if the Reconquistadores had their way, they would take it to a whole other level
entirely, a level of blood and death and terror.

The defenders were pledged to stop that if they could, and
then hold the Alamo as, yes, a symbol of their determination.

Texans had shed their blood for this sacred ground. It would
not be besmirched.

"Welcome to Alamo Plaza, and to the beginning of our
annual Pasco de Marzo celebration. This is a festive occasion,
but also a solemn one, because today we take an important
step in bridging the gap between our country and our wonderful neighbor to the south, Mexico."

Alvarez didn't pause, but immediately repeated what he had
just said in Spanish. Then he stopped to bask in the
applause. When he resumed, it was in English again.

"Today, as I'm sure you're all already aware, we will try to
heal the wounds that were inflicted by a long-ago conflict between our peoples. Although Texas won its independence, was
its own country for a time, and is now part of the United States,
of which it has been a proud member for well over a hundred
and fifty years, this building behind me-" He waved a hand
toward the Alamo. "This building belongs to both countries, to
both peoples. It was built by Spanish priests to minister to citizens of Mexico, and for many years the faces of the people who
worshipped here were all brown"

That brought more cheers from the crowd, and the ovation
was even louder when Alvarez repeated that part of his speech
in Spanish.

"Now, as a symbol of what the Alamo means to Mexico and
to everyone of Mexican descent, I am very happy, as a represen tative of the city of San Antonio and peace-loving, honorable
people everywhere, to sign into law a treaty which will return
the Alamo and this plaza to the government of Mexico, which
will have sole and sovereign authority over it until midnight
Sunday night, at which time it will revert back to American rule.
This gesture is meant to show how much the friendship of the
Mexican people means to us here in San Antonio."

The applause was thunderous. Alvarez translated the words
into Spanish again, then called Ambassador Carranza forward.
The mayor held up the document that had been lying on the
podium until now and made a show of taking a pen from his
pocket. He gave the pen to Carranza, who signed the treaty
with a flourish and a grin. The ambassador handed the pen
back to Alvarez.

Everyone was applauding now as Alvarez held the pen
poised over the treaty. Elena Alicia Obregon was smiling, as
were George Menendez, the City Council members, and
everyone else on the platform. The musicians held their instruments poised just as Alvarez held the pen poised, ready to
strike up the Mexican national anthem as soon as the mayor
signed the treaty into law.

With a huge grin on his face, Alvarez signed the document,
then lifted it into the air proudly as cameras flashed and a huge
roar of approval went up from the crowd.

The noise was so loud no one heard the shot. But the cameras
all caught the instant when the red-rimmed hole appeared in Alvarez's forehead and his head jerked back and the high-powered
round exploded out the rear of his skull, splattering blood and
brains and bone fragments over the impressive cleavage of his
actress girlfriend, who stood there for a second with a surprised,
confused look on her face before she started screaming.

She wasn't alone. A lot of people in the crowd were screaming now, as the shattering reports of gunfire swelled into the air.

Like everyone else, Dave saw the results of the first shot,
but he had no idea where it came from. But only seconds after
Joaquin Alvarez's dreams of becoming president-and everything else-were blasted out of his head by the bullet, a man
only a few yards from Dave whipped out a machine pistol and
began shooting at some of the police officers working crowd
control. The cops were too startled to know where the shots
were coming from.

Dave drew the Colt 1911A1 from under his jacket, racked
the slide, and shouted, "Hey!" The terrorist started to turn
toward him. Dave let him get halfway around before he
squeezed the trigger. Figuring that the guy might have a flak
jacket or some sort of body armor under his clothes, Dave
went for a head shot, and his aim was accurate. The heavy slug
exploded the killer's skull in a crimson spray.

Dave started moving fast toward the Alamo. He saw that
one of the cops targeted by the terrorist he had just shot was
down, blood spurting from a severed artery as the guy's partner tried to help him. There was nothing Dave could do other
than what he had already done, so he kept forcing his way
through the crowd toward the front door of the old mission. Most people got out of the way in a hurry when they saw he
had a gun clutched in his fist. Nobody tried to stop him.

In another part of the plaza, two men also armed with machine pistols surged toward the platform, shouting, "Reconquistar! Reconquistar!" as they mowed down some of the
dignitaries gathered there. George Menendez grabbed the stillstunned Elena Alicia and carried her with him as
he flung himself to the floor of the platform. Tears of fear
and anger and surprise stung his eyes.

The idiotas weren't supposed to be shooting at him! Not at
him! Didn't they know who he was?

He whimpered as bullets burned through the air, only
inches above his head.

Phil's .38 revolver was in his hand by now, and from the
corner of his eye he saw that Evelyn had taken a gun from
under her jacket, too. It was a smaller-caliber pistol, but still
lethal at short range, which this certainly was. The two bastards spraying the platform with automatic weapons fire were
less than twenty feet away when Phil and Evelyn opened up
on them. The men staggered as the bullets struck them, but
they didn't go down. Instead, they swung around toward this
new threat, sparing the terrified survivors of the bloodbath on
the platform for the moment.

Phil grabbed Evelyn's shoulder and shoved her toward the
flagstones. "Down!" he shouted. "Head shots, head shots!"

Easier said than done in the confusion, but Phil knew from
the reaction of the gunmen that they were wearing some sort
of protection from small-arms fire. Crouching, he snapped a
shot at one of them but missed. A second later he had to throw himself to one side in a desperate dive as bullets chewed up
the flagstones where he had been kneeling.

The terrorist spun around as a slug from Evelyn's gun
caught him under the jaw. His companion fired at her, missing as she rolled away. That distraction gave Phil time to draw
a bead on him and send a bullet boring through his right eye
into his brain. The suddenly nerveless body flopped to the
ground.

"You all right?" Phil asked Evelyn as he grabbed her arm to
help her to her feet.

"Fine," she said, although she sounded breathless and
scared.

Phil didn't blame her a bit for feeling that way.

"Let's go!" he told her. "Into the Alamo!"

The plaza was utter chaos by now. Mahone wondered where
the plainclothes cops were, and why the ones posted in the
nearby buildings weren't trying to take down some of the terrorists, who kept shooting and crying, ` Reconquistar!" Everything was playing out just like Dave and Phil had been afraid
it would. The men had been right all along. The politicians had
played right into the hands of the terrorists, setting up what
might turn out to be the worst atrocity in years.

The Reconquistadores fired into the crowd, scything down
innocent people as they tried to flee from the unexpected violence. With the automatic in his hand blazing, Mahone cut
down several of the terrorists in turn. Their deadly hail of
lead started to sweep toward the former director of the FBI,
but before the slugs could reach him, a tall, powerful figure
was suddenly among the terrorists, gunning some of them
with the heavy Colt .45 revolver in his right hand and clubbing down others with his left fist. John Howard Stark broke
up the knot of Reconquistadores, and when some of them tried to flee from the big Texan, they ran right into bullets
fired by Mahone.

Then side by side, the two large, powerful men began
making their way toward the entrance to the old chapel.