Remember The Alamo (24 page)

Menendez halfway expected Elena Alicia to crawl over to
Alvarez's body and throw herself on the corpse, sobbing. Instead, she clawed at his coat and shrieked, "Get me the fuck
out of here!"

So much for loyalty. Well, the reconciliation was still pretty
new, Menendez supposed. And it had only been for show to
start with.

He crawled toward the back of the platform. If that bitch
wanted to be rescued, let her do it herself.

He reached the edge of the platform, rolled off, fell the five
feet or so to the ground, and landed awkwardly, banging a
knee on the flagstones. Pain shot through his leg, but he managed to push himself to his feet.

Just then, one of the gunmen came around the corner of the
platform, brandishing a pistol. The man's lips pulled back
from his teeth in a grimace of hate as he pointed the gun at
Menendez, who stuck his hands in the air and screamed in
Spanish, "Don't shoot, don't shoot! I'm a friend of General
Salgado's! I'm George Menendez!"

The terrorist lowered his pistol a little and said, "Menendez?"

"Yes, yes! This is all a mistake! I'm a friend of General
Salgado!"

He said Salgado and amigo a couple more times before
the Reconquistador said, "Si, Senor Menendez."

Menendez closed his eyes and sighed in relief that the man
understood.

That was why he didn't see the shot that killed him, as the
Mexican terrorist blew his brains out.

Since the plan was to fight back against the Reconquistadores and converge on the entrance of the Alamo at the same
time, it wasn't surprising that Dieter and Belko arrived almost
together, only seconds apart. They got there in time to see one
of the killers shoot some political hanger-on in the head. They
had the terrorist in a cross fire. Belko put a round through the
guy's right knee, knocking him off his feet, while Dieter
slammed a couple of shots into his body. Those bullets didn't
penetrate whatever sort of armor the terrorist had under his
clothing, but one of them ricocheted into his arm and made
him drop his gun.

He was scrambling to retrieve it when Dieter stepped up
and blasted a couple of slugs into his skull, thinking, This is
for Beth.

Of course it didn't bring her back, or make the pain of her
loss any less.

But at least this bastard would never bring any grief to anybody else.

As Belko came over, Dieter saw that the older man was
limping. He looked at the stain on the leg of Belko's trousers
and said, "You're hit!"

"Just a scratch," Belko insisted. "Nothin' to worry about.
Come on, we gotta get inside."

Before they could reach the door, more bullets whipped
around them. They turned to see half a dozen of the Reconquistadores coming at them. Dieter swallowed, knowing that
he and Belko were doomed but determined that they would
sell their lives dearly.

Shots lanced into the group of terrorists, scattering them
abruptly and killing several of them. Dieter saw Stark, Mahone, Dave, Phil, and some pretty, middle-aged blond woman, all
with guns in their hands. He drew a breath of relief, and turned
to throw open the heavy wooden doors that led into the Alamo.

More of the defenders began to show up with each passing second. While screams and shouts still filled the air,
most of the shooting had stopped. The unexpected resistance
that the terrorists had met had broken the back of their
treacherous attack. Quite a few people were down in the
plaza, either wounded or dead, but the toll in human suffering would have been much higher if the group of valiant
Texans hadn't been there to fight back and rout the terrorists.

"Inside!" Dave called to the defenders as he used the hand
holding his Colt to wave them into the Alamo. He and Phil
were on one side of the doors, Stark and Mahone on the other.
Phil told the woman with him to go on inside and help break
out the arms that were concealed there. She nodded and hurried into the old building with the others.

Everyone knew what to do. They had been drilled enough
the past few days so that the plan was now second nature to
them. They spread out through the Alamo, securing each
chamber in turn. Evelyn Harlow and several other members
of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas who had stayed
behind when the shooting started opened the crates of
weapons that had been hidden in storage rooms and passed
them out. Men now armed with rifles and shotguns took up
positions at every door and window, ready to repel attacks.
The thick walls of the Alamo would stand up to anything
short of heavy weapons, as they had proven so well during the
siege some hundred and seventy-five years earlier.

Dave had been counting as the defenders hurried past him,
and he was amazed when he reached the number fifty-four.
Everybody had made it; none of them had been killed in the
fighting so far.

"That's everybody," he called. "Let's go!"

None of the four men wanted to be the first to duck through
the open doors, but after a second Mahone did so, followed by
Stark. Then Dave entered the Alamo, grabbing one of the
doors to swing it shut, and Phil came last, dragging the other
door with him.

Just before the doors slammed together, Phil grunted and
took a staggering step toward Dave. He put a hand out, slapping it against the wall of the vestibule to brace himself.

"Phil!" Dave said.

Phil smiled, although the expression was strained, and fell
to his knees. Dave lunged forward and caught him before he
could pitch forward on his face, and as Dave's hand touched
Phil's back, he felt the hot wetness there.

"Phil," Dave said.

"I'm not ... hit that bad," Phil grated. "Don't worry ...
about me. Just hang on and ... keep those bastards ... outta
here"

Dave knew exactly what his friend meant.

He and the other defenders were now in possession of the
Alamo.

All they had to do was hold it.

Even though the Reconquistadores who had survived the
battle in Alamo Plaza had fled, the scene in front of the old
mission was still chaotic and horrific. More than a dozen
bodies were sprawled on the flagstones, unmoving in death.
Blood was splashed on the ground. The howl of sirens filled
the air as emergency vehicles forged their way toward the
plaza through streets thronged with panic-stricken people
trying to get away from the killing ground. Nothing like this
had happened in the middle of an American city in years, and
even though the devastation and the death toll were very small
compared to Oklahoma City and New York, the same feelings
of shock and horror followed the incident, not only in San Antonio but across the country, as broadcast and cable networks
broke into regular programming to issue the so-far sketchy details of what had happened.

Several of the dignitaries on the platform had been killed,
including Mayor Alvarez and some of the City Council members. Ambassador Carranza and the other members of the delegation from the Mexican government had been spared. No
one gave too much thought to that just yet. With all the bullets that had been flying around, it seemed that anyone could have
been killed, and that those who survived did so by sheer luck.

Many of the fallen in the plaza were police officers. Most
of the other cops who had been working there were wounded
and, as they reported to their superior officers who made it to
the scene, the terrorists had seemed to be targeting them
specifically, taking them out so that they couldn't oppose the
Reconquistadores when the Mexican terrorists started trying
to take over the Alamo.

"You don't know that's what they were planning to do," Detective Obrador said to one of the cops who was getting a
bullet wound in his arm patched up by an emergency medical
technician in a field hospital set up in the Long Barracks.

"They were yelling `Reconquistar, reconquistar' as they
gunned us down, and they were headed for the front doors of
the Alamo," the officer responded. His face was pale from the
pain of his wound. "What else could they have had in mind?"
The cop, whose name was Marty Sanchez, glared at Obrador.

The detective was already tired and wished this whole mess
would just go away. But there were questions that had to be
asked.

"Did you see some guys ... mostly Anglos, I imagine ...
who were trying to stop them? The terrorists, I mean"

"Damn right I saw them. One of them saved my life. He
shot down one of those Reconquistadores who was about to
blow me away."

"Then they were armed and shooting innocent people, too?
They were part of the attack?"

"No offense, Detective, but weren't you listening to me?
They saved my life. They probably saved the lives of a dozen
or more cops and who knows how many innocent people. And
they risked their own lives to do it. In my book, that makes
them heroes"

"They're not heroes," Obrador snapped. "They had no right to be here and do what they did. They're criminals, just as
much as the Reconquistadores are. Terrorists, just like them"

Sanchez just stared at the detective as if he couldn't
believe what he was hearing.

The orders had already come down from high up in the
police department, though. The men who had fought back
against the Reconquistadores and then holed up in the Alamo
were to be considered lawbreakers, and dangerous ones at that.

Wearily, Obrador scrubbed a hand over his face and looked
around for somebody else to interview. But he knew already
that he would get the same story. Rodriguez and Cody had
been right all along. The terrorist attack had been well planned
and coordinated. It was no spur-of-the-moment operation.
Killing a lot of innocent people and taking over the Alamo had
been the goal all along.

The question now was whether the Reconquistadores had
just taken advantage of the goodwill gesture of returning the
old mission to Mexican rule for the weekend-or if they and
their sympathizers had been behind the whole thing all along.

Obrador looked at the closed doors of the Alamo and wasn't
sure he wanted to know the answer to that question.

In the little anteroom off the Oval Office, the president
stared in shock and disbelief at the television screen. The networks all had the same satellite feed, taken from one of the
local affiliates in San Antonio. It showed Alamo Plaza with
police officers, firemen, and medical personnel hurrying
everywhere, stepping around shapes on the ground that had
had canvas covers hastily thrown over them. Dark stains
showed on some of those makeshift shrouds. In the background
were thousands of flashing lights from the police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks that were crowded into the streets surrounding the plaza. Most of the civilians had been evacuated by now, except the ones who were wounded and still being
worked on by the EMTs.

"How could this have happened?" the president snapped at
the woman who was in the room with her. "This is terrible, just
terrible."

FBI Director Louise Hamilton took a deep breath and
started to agree, "Yes, it certainly-"

"This will be part of my legacy," the president broke in. "Instead of `She was the first female president,' people will say,
`She was the first female president, and she let this happen."'

"I'm sure that won't be the way you're remembered,
ma'am."

"It had damned well better not be. I worked too long and
put up with too much to finally get here. I won't allow my
place in history to be ruined."

Hamilton's jaw tightened. She was in complete agreement
with the president's politics, but at times like this she wished
the bitch was a little less self-centered. But then, the president
never would have made it to the White House without an enormous ego and lust for power, Hamilton supposed.

The door opened and the president's husband stuck his head
into the room. "I heard what happened," he said. "Is there anything I can do?"

"There never has been," the president said. "Why should
that change now?"

With a sheepish smile on his puffy face, the First Gentleman nodded. "I guess you're right, dear, as usual," he said as
he withdrew.

After a moment of strained silence, the president said, "All
right, Louise, what are we going to do about this?"

"Well, I suppose you'll have to issue a statement. At times
like this, the people like to know that someone's in charge."

"Of course. But what do I say?"

"I'm no political advisor, ma'am-"

"You've known me for twenty years, Louise. What do
I say?"

"Just tell the people how deplorable and cowardly an attack
like this is, and promise them that we'll track down the people
responsible and see to it that they're brought to justice-"

"We don't have to track them down," the president broke in.
"We know where they are"

Hamilton frowned. "Ma'am? I thought they said on TV that
the surviving terrorists had fled"

"They're in the Alamo."
"