Stand Your Ground (21 page)

“My name is Dr. Phillip Hamil,” the man on the screen said.

That came as no surprise to the President. Phillip Hamil had attended more than one state dinner in the White House. The President considered him a friend.

“Recently a great injustice has been done to my Muslim brothers,” Hamil continued. “After being unjustly imprisoned by an oppressive, imperialist American government, some of them for many years, these political prisoners, these freedom fighters, have been incarcerated in a facility known by the unholy name of Hell's Gate. This is a slap in the face of all devout, peace-loving Muslims, and so we have been forced to take action to address this wrong.”

The President's aide said, “I don't understand it. We arranged it so they could be tried in civilian courts. That's what they wanted. Some of them were probably going to be acquitted, for God's sake! Then they could sue the U.S. for millions of dollars.”

“Some things are more important than money,” the President said.

The aide stared at him in surprise.

On the TV, Hamil went on, “A group of my Muslim brothers and I, known from this day forward as the Sword of Allah, have occupied the town of Fuego, Texas, which is near the infamous prison where our other brothers have been locked up. This is a peaceful occupation. The citizens of Fuego are cooperating with us.”

The aide said, “There are rumors that they've killed hundreds of people there.”

The President lifted an elegantly manicured hand and motioned for quiet.

“At this time we are in the process of liberating the prison and freeing those political prisoners. When this is accomplished we will leave as peacefully as we came. In the meantime, to assure that there will be no interference with our efforts in this holy cause, the citizens of Fuego have volunteered to serve as living shields. They have gathered here, in this stadium you see behind me, and any efforts by the American authorities to prevent the Sword of Allah from completing its quest will result in a terrible tragedy.”

The aide couldn't hold it in. He blurted, “Good Lord! He just threatened to kill all those people if anybody tries to stop them! He's probably planning to blow up that football stadium!”

The President turned his eyes away from the TV screen just long enough to give the aide a steely-eyed glare. He said, “You should know better than that, Dan. Our Muslim brothers wouldn't do such a thing. Islam is a religion of peace.”

“But sir, he said—”

“Dan . . . you're starting to sound like a Republican.”

The aide's eyes widened, his face turned pale, and he swallowed hard. There was no mistaking the threat in the President's voice.

On TV, Phillip Hamil was saying, “—accordance with sharia law, all legal and security matters in Fuego are now under control of the Sword of Allah. In the name of religious freedom, we demand the cooperation of all local, state, and federal authorities. All outside military and law enforcement personnel are therefore banned within a ten-mile radius of Fuego until we have achieved our aims, which are holy and legitimate. Any infringement of this ban will result in drastic action for which the followers of Islam are not responsible. Control of the region will be returned to those authorities when the will of Allah is done.”

He paused, then concluded, “
Allahu akbar!
God is great!”

The satellite feed went dead.

The President picked up a remote and muted the TV sound as news anchors and pundits began blathering excitedly. He said, “The Pentagon has already issued a no-fly order around the town, correct?”

“Yes, sir. And Homeland Security has established a perimeter, but I'm not sure if it's as far back as what Dr. Hamil just demanded. We didn't know exactly what they were going to want.”

“See to it that the perimeter is pulled back to the full ten miles. In addition, I want everything in the
next
five miles beyond that evacuated. Use the Army if we have to.”

“Some people will say that you're capitulating to terrorists.”

The President waved that objection away as if it were unimportant.

“Would those people ever vote for me anyway, no matter what I did?”

“No, sir. But after the Casa del Diablo affair, you need to be careful about using the military here at home.”

The President's head lifted, and an arrogant, supercilious sneer appeared on his face.

“Elections have consequences, Dan. We learned that ten years ago. I'm the President. I can do anything I damned well please, and fifty-one percent of the people who bother to vote will still love me and vote for me. So what else matters?”

What else indeed?

One thought kept nagging at the back of the aide's brain as he hurried to do his master's bidding, though.

Those people down in Texas, the ones at the prison and the ones in the little town . . .

They were on their own.

Texas Ranger Lt. Dave Flannery came swimming back up out of darkness, a clinging black oblivion that seemed to have had him in its grip forever. He winced as light struck his eyes, then tried to say something and grimaced again because of the pain in his mouth and across his face.

He remembered seeing a piece of debris flying across the helicopter's cabin at him just before he blacked out during the chopper's crash landing. Obviously that debris had knocked him unconscious.

“The lieutenant looks like he's comin' around,” somebody said. The words sounded hollow and far away to Flannery. Too many loud noises had partially deafened him. He could only hope that his hearing would get back to normal as time passed.

Squinting against the light, he looked around and saw to his surprise that he was sitting in a gully, with his legs stretched out in front of him and his back propped against a dirt bank about ten feet tall.

Quite a few people were clustered around him, including a couple of men in khaki police uniforms, a slender, brown-haired woman who looked like she might be pregnant, and a big, blond teenage kid whose eyes were red and swollen from crying.

“What . . .” Flannery forced out through his painfully swollen lips. “Where . . .”

“Take it easy, Ranger,” the lean, sandy-haired cop said as he hunkered on his heels in front of Flannery. “You're all right for now. Something clouted you a good one across the face, but other than that you don't seem to be hurt.”

“Who . . . are . . . you?”

“Officer Lee Blaisdell, Fuego PD.” He inclined his head toward the other cop, who was young and, Flannery now realized, looked like he might have Down syndrome. “This is Officer Raymond Brady, our dispatcher.”

“Where are . . . the rest of your officers?”

Talking was getting a little easier for Flannery now that he was using his mouth more, but he felt a warm trickle of blood on his chin, too, as it oozed from his cracked, swollen lips.

“I'm afraid we may be the only ones left,” Blaisdell said, “except for one other fella who's down at the end of this arroyo keepin' an eye out for those murderin' bastards.”

“Where . . . are we?”

“About half a mile northeast of Fuego High School. That's where we pulled you and some of your men out of that helicopter that crashed in the middle of the football field.”

“I . . . remember. You say you have . . . the other members of the SRT?”

“The Special Response Team? We got five of you out of there, Lieutenant. The pilot and one of your men were already dead. And I'm sorry to say, another one died of his injuries on the way out here. But there are four of you left who aren't in too bad of a shape, three cops, and six members of the Fuego High School Fighting Mules football team.” Blaisdell clicked his tongue and shook his head. “Thirteen fellas to take back a town from a whole army of terrorists. That's pretty unlucky odds no matter which way you look at it.”

The brunette said, “There are fourteen of us. You're forgetting about me, Lee. Fifteen if you count Bubba here.”

She smiled and pointed at her stomach.

“Dadblast it, Janey—” Lee Blaisdell began.

She ignored him and said to Flannery, “I'm Janey Blaisdell, Lieutenant. And you might not think it to look at me, but I'm a better shot than Lee here.”

“I wish I could say I'm pleased to meet you, Mrs. Blaisdell,” Flannery said. “But under the circumstances . . .”

“I know,” she assured him. She held out a half-full bottle of water. “I'm sure you're probably thirsty.”

“I don't know if I can drink with my mouth like this. And I'll get blood on the bottle—”

“I don't reckon any of us are too worried about a little blood right now,” Lee said. “There's liable to be a lot more spilled before this is over.”

 

 

Lee spent the next fifteen minutes explaining to Lt. Flannery as much as he knew about what was going on in Fuego. One of the other Rangers had told Lee what Flannery's name was while the lieutenant was still unconscious.

While he was kneeling down doing that, Janey stood beside and a little behind him and rested her hand on his shoulder. They had been doing that a lot ever since Lee had rushed into the little rental house with Raymond and Martin right behind him. Touching each other, reassuring themselves that the other one was still alive and unharmed—at least for now.

After all the terrible things that had happened, it was a little hard to believe that both of them were still all right.

Lee didn't have any illusions about things staying that way, though.

While he and Janey were still hugging each other, they had heard the explosion from the nearby football field and since Lee wanted to get out of Fuego anyway and that was on the way, they had gone to check it out.

By the time they'd gotten there, the helicopter was burning, Chuck Gibbs was dead, and half a dozen players from the football team were standing on the sidelines with some unconscious lawmen, not knowing what to do next.

Somebody had had to take charge. Lee didn't particularly want the job, but he figured he was the one to do it.

A whole convoy of vehicles might attract attention, he'd decided. So they had piled the unconscious Rangers in the back of Ernie Gibbs's pickup, along with the weapons the football players had taken from the chopper before it blew up, and everybody had climbed in the back with them except Ernie, Lee, and Janey, who sat between the two men while Ernie drove.

The kid struggled to hold back tears of grief over his brother's death, but he was keeping himself pulled together as well as could be expected.

Lee told Ernie to head for the arroyo where they were hiding now. He was familiar with the place from all the times he had hunted jackrabbits out here. They had followed a dirt road for a quarter-mile or so, then Ernie had driven through a barbed-wire fence and headed across country.

The hole in the fence was liable to attract attention, and the pickup left tracks on the ground that could be followed, but those things couldn't be helped.

Maybe the bloodthirsty sons of bitches who had taken over the town would be content with the havoc they had already wreaked. Maybe they wouldn't come looking for any stragglers who had gotten away.

Lee was going to cling to those hopes, even though logically he considered them unlikely.

Now Flannery had regained consciousness and Lee was more than willing to turn over command to him. He said as much to the Ranger.

“You're in charge, Lieutenant. What do you think we should do?”

Flannery frowned in thought and said, “We need to get in touch with somebody who can help us. Did you get any radios out of the chopper before it blew up?”

Lee looked at the kids. A couple of them shook their heads, and Spence Parker said, “No, we just grabbed guns and threw them out. That's what Ernie's brother told us to do.”

“What about cell phones?” Flannery asked. “You've got to have cell phones.”

“Already thought of that,” Lee said. “Nobody's getting a signal. My guess is that bunch took out the towers somehow. They want to control all the communications in and out of town. Classic military strategy.”

“You served?” Flannery asked.

Lee grimaced slightly and said, “Uh, no, not really. But I've played a lot of war-themed video games, and not just first-person shooters, either.”

Lee thought he heard Flannery mutter something that sounded like “Lord help us.” He tried not to take offense. Sure, he wasn't some ex–Navy SEAL or anything, just a small-town cop who'd barely made it through the community college classes to get certified, but he thought he had done all right so far.

He was alive, wasn't he? A lot of folks weren't. Maybe that was just the luck of the draw, but it was something to consider, anyway. He had gone up against those terrorist bastards and survived.

It might be a different story next time, though.

“There's communications equipment at the police station, right?” Flannery asked.

“Well, yeah, sure, but I don't think we can reach it. Even if we did, the enemy is bound to be in control of it.”

“Who
is
the enemy? Do any of you know?”

“Not for sure,” Lee said.

“They're Arab terrorists,” Ernie put in. “That's what Chuck told me.”

“I've seen some of 'em close up.” Lee tried not to shudder when he remembered how he'd blown that fella's head off with the Mossberg. “Too close for my taste. They all looked Middle Eastern to me.”

Flannery nodded and said, “I think there's a good chance that's what we're facing, all right. How many of them?”

“A lot. Dozens. Maybe hundreds. Maybe even more. It's a small army, Lieutenant. And before you can ask me what they want, I don't know. Maybe just to kill a bunch of Americans. They've been doing a pretty good job of it so far.”

“No, it's got to be more than that,” Flannery said as he shook his head. “It must have something to do with the prison.”

Janey said, “Of course it does. The government just took a bunch of terrorists out there and locked them up. Didn't it ever occur to them that something like this might happen? What were they thinking in Washington?”

“They were thinking about how they can get reelected next time, so they can continue transformin' America into something it was never meant to be,” Lee said. “That's all they ever think about in Washington. You can't expect any common sense from that bunch, Janey, you know that.”

“Yeah, but it's like they—” Janey paused, her eyes widening in realization. “It's almost like they expected something like this to happen. Wanted it to happen.”

“Let's don't get ahead of ourselves,” Flannery warned. “Right now let's see if we can think of some way to strike back at them, weaken their hold on the town.”

Lee doubted if that was going to be possible. He'd been giving some thought to continuing to flee. Getting as far away from Fuego as possible. It wasn't like they could do any real good here, and he had a couple of very important people to consider: his wife—and their unborn child.

They could all get back in Ernie's pickup and head for the interstate highway, which was about fifty miles away. If they went across country and avoided the roads, he didn't think anybody would stop them.

He was about to suggest that when Pete Garcia, one of the football players who had been standing guard at the mouth of the arroyo with Martin, came running toward them and called urgently, “They're coming! The bad guys are coming!”