Remember The Alamo (16 page)

"Won't accomplish shit," Cody said. "I apologize for interrupting, and with all due respect, sir, you're forgetting who's
in the White House and who's running Congress these days.
Once the Reconquistadores are forted up in the Alamo, they'll
claim that it's really Mexican territory and we have no right
to be there. The Mexican government will go along with them
and back up their claim. You know how they've been for
decades now. They claim to be our friend, yet they drag their
feet and get in our way every time we try to actually do some thing about the drug traffic. They bitch about every law we
pass trying to deal with illegal immigration. They grab every
opportunity they can to embarrass us in the eyes of the world.
You wait and see," Phil said. "Once that mock treaty is
signed, some Mexican kangaroo court will declare that it's
real and that we've actually ceded the Alamo to them. Then
they'll dare us to go in and kick out the Reconquistadores,
and we'll fold." The note of bitterness was strong in Phil's
voice as he added, "We always fold these days"

"So what you're saying," Mahone said, "is that the government has no cojones?"

Cody and Rodriguez both stared at him for a couple of
heartbeats; then Rodriguez burst out with a laugh. "Yeah," he
said. "That's right. The government has no cojones"

Mahone put both hands flat on the desk and pushed himself
to his feet. "Well, gentlemen," he said, "I can assure you that
in this office, anyway, that is flat out not true. The FBI will undertake a thorough investigation of your claims and find out
the truth of the matter"

After a few seconds of silence, Cody said, "That sounds
good, but are we really supposed to believe it?"

"Yes, sir, you are, because it's the truth" Mahone went to
the side of the desk and perched a hip on a corner of it. "You're
going to have to give us something in return, though."

Rodriguez sounded wary as he asked, "What's that?"

"Whatever you're planning to do at the Pasco de Marzo festival, call it off."

Cody said, "We don't know what you're talking about"

"Come on," Mahone said. "You've been running around
and meeting with other veterans for several days now. You
talked to Michael Belkowicz and Dieter Schmidt, a couple of
survivors from that Reconquistar attack on the VFW picnic.
You drove down to Del Rio to see a man named John Howard
Stark, Mr. Cody. It's obvious you're planning some sort of protest or demonstration at the ceremony returning the Alamo
to Mexico."

Jaw tight with anger, Cody said, "Last time I checked, there
was still something called freedom of assembly in this
country."

"Of course there is. I can't legally prevent you from protesting, although I can see to it that if there's any disturbance of
the peace, the full weight of the law will come down on you."
Mahone took another piece of paper from the desk and went
on. "All I can do is ask you, as a personal favor to me, if you
want me to put it like that, not to go through with your plan.
Have you seen this?"

He held out the paper, which was a photocopy of a newspaper article. Mahone had read it enough times that he practically knew it by heart.

"That story is about what happened last week at a high
school in California," Mahone continued. "Some Hispanic
students ran a Mexican flag up the flagpole in a display of
pride in their heritage, even though the principal had forbidden them to do so. Another group of students took it down. So
the Hispanic students pulled down the American flag and set
it on fire. That started a riot that engulfed nearly the entire
school. Dozens of kids wound up in the hospital, although,
thank God, none of them were killed. And that took place at a
school in a well-to-do, supposedly progressive community in
California"

"The Granola State," Cody muttered.

"Exactly. Fruits, nuts, and flakes. That shows you just how
high emotions are running on this issue, especially after the
atrocities carried out by those Reconquistar madmen. Imagine what would happen if demonstrations and counterdemonstrations got out of hand in downtown San Antonio."

"Put that aside for a minute," Rodriguez said. "You've been
following us"

Mahone nodded. "Some of our agents have kept you under
surveillance, yes, ever since the conversation you had with
Schmidt and Belkowicz at the funeral of Mr. Schmidt's wife."

"Is that legal?"

"Oh, I think so. Now, what about my suggestion? Will you
give up whatever you've been planning? I don't have to know
the details. I just need your promise that you'll back off"

"Otherwise you'll do what?" Cody asked. "Sic the IRS
onus?"

Mahone smiled. "That is a means of persuasion at our
disposal."

Cody looked over at Rodriguez and said, "I've never been
threatened by the director of the FBI before"

"Me neither," said Rodriguez. "I don't like it very much"

Cody looked at Mahone and started to say, "Go to-" but
Rodriguez held out a hand and stopped him.

"Wait a minute." He met Mahone's gaze and went on. "Do
we have your word that you'll conduct a full investigation of
everything Silvio told me?"

"You do," Mahone said.

"And if you're convinced it's true, you'll do everything in
your power to put a stop to that crazy idea of giving the Alamo
back to Mexico?"

"Everything in my power," Mahone promised.

"You know that'll be hard. Political correctness is a juggernaut, and the idea's got the president behind it. Going
against her could cost you your job"

"I'm a cop," Mahone said. "If I can stop trouble before it
starts, that's what I'm going to do ""

Rodriguez spread his hands. "Then there's your answer."

"What do you mean?"

"Everything we've told you is true. Confirm that, and
put a stop to it, and you won't have to worry about anybody protesting in front of the Alamo ... because there won't be
anything to protest"

Mahone looked at Rodriguez for a long moment, then said,
"I suppose that's right. We'll conduct our investigation, and
then we'll see what happens"

"Deal," Rodriguez said.

"Just for the record, I don't trust you," Cody said. "But I
guess I'm willing to play along for now."

"All right, then. You gentlemen are free to go. Agent Powell
can take you anywhere you'd like."

"Back to my office," Cody said. "I've got another company
car parked there that I can use"

"And my bike is there," Rodriguez said.

"A Harley, right?"

"Yeah. You ride?"

"I used to," Mahone said. "Back when I was a small-town
cop. Seems like a whole different lifetime ago now."

"I guess working for the government will do that to you,"
Rodriguez said.

Mahone was staying in a suite on the twenty-sixth floor of
the luxury hotel in the Rivercenter Mall, just around the corner
from the Alamo. From the window of the suite's darkened
living room later that night, he could see the Alamodome, the
domed football stadium; the 750-foot-tall spire of the Tower
of the Americas at Hemisfair Plaza, left over from the World's
Fair held in San Antonio many years earlier; as well as a grand
splash of lights from the sprawling city.

But he couldn't see the Alamo itself, which was back in the
other direction, or the nearby Riverwalk. From up here, San
Antonio might as well have been any big city in the country,
Mahone thought as he sipped from a glass of Scotch. You had
to get down to street level to see it as it really was. You had to
smell the smells and listen to the sounds.

He had done that. He had spent enough time in San Antonio to love the city. He didn't want to see its streets running
with blood.

That was why he would find out if there was any truth to the
wild-eyed scheme that Cody and Rodriguez had warned him
about. If there was, he would-

He would answer the phone that had started ringing
behind him.

The shrill summons wasn't coming from the room phone
beside the bed. Mahone's cell phone, which he had placed on
the dresser earlier, was ringing. He turned away from the
window, scooped it up with the hand that wasn't holding the
glass of Scotch, and flipped it open.

"Mahone"

"Director Mahone." The cold, angry voice was instantly
recognizable.

"Good evening, Madam President," he said. "What can I do
for you?"

"You can tell me what the hell's going on down there. Why
are you even still there? I thought everything was settled in
San Antonio."

Mahone thought as fast as he could-which was pretty
damned fast when he had to. But no lie he could come up with
was going to fool the president, he realized. He might not like
her at all, but she was plenty sharp, he had to give her that. Just
because someone was a misguided fool didn't mean they were
dumb.

"I'm just supervising a few details relating to the upcoming
ceremony at the Alamo."

"That ceremony is being arranged by the office of Mayor Alvarez, the Mexican consulate in San Antonio, and the State Department. I don't see that the FBI has anything to do with it."

Mahone opened his mouth to talk, but the president didn't
give him a chance.

"Nor do I understand why the FBI is involving itself in local
investigations that involve matters not under federal jurisdiction, especially when the San Antonio police have not requested our assistance."

Shit, Mahone thought. The president had a mole somewhere in the FBI, and there was no telling where. The leak could be anywhere from the field office here in San Antonio
to the Justice Department in Washington.

It shouldn't come as a surprise to him that the president had
an informant, he told himself. Deviousness might as well be
her middle name.

He stalled by saying, "I'm not sure what investigations
you're referring to, ma'am "

"Don't patronize me, Director Mahone. You have men
going around spreading lies about the intentions of the Mexican government regarding the symbolic handover of the
Alamo."

"With all due respect, ma'am, how do you know that what
they're saying isn't true?"

"Because I've just gotten off the phone with Presidente
Guzman, and he assures me that these rumors are nothing
but the paranoid fantasies of a bunch of racist, right-wing extremists. You know how those people are, Director."

Now who was patronizing whom? Mahone thought. Accuse
anybody who disagrees with you of being a racist, and the
black man is supposed to automatically go along with you.
Sho' null, this dumb nigger FBI director gon' let you tell him
what to think, missy, 'cause yo' is some big, smart Eastern
lib'ral who'd never, ever do nothin' to hurt them po', oppressed
black folk....

"No, ma'am," Mahone said coldly. "Tell me how those
people are"

That surprised her. She stumbled for a second, then said,
"Why, they'll do or say anything to make us look bad. They've
been conspiring against us for years"

"Who do you mean by us, ma'am?"

"People who think the right way, of course. Everyone else
is ... is evil."

It might have been funny if it wasn't so sad, but she really
believed what she was saying. The defenders of "tolerance" were the most intolerant people on the face of the earth when
it came to anyone who disagreed with them. That was nothing
new, Mahone thought with a sigh. But it sure did rile him up
whenever anybody assumed they could tell exactly what he
believed by the color of his skin. The president never would
have appointed him, and Congress never would have confirmed him as the top lawman in the land if they had ever
asked him some substantive questions about his beliefs
like the fact that he believed the law should be enforced fairly,
with no pandering to those who could whine the loudest. No,
they had been too taken with the idea of putting a black man
in charge of the FBI to even stop and think about anything else.

"Silvio Cruz was a Mexican national," Mahone said. "He
was murdered on American soil, which means his civil rights
were violated here. I believe that places the case under federal
jurisdiction, ma'am, whether the local authorities requested
our assistance or not"

"That's open to interpretation," the president snapped.

"Yes, ma'am, I suppose so. In the end, most things about
the law are"

"As soon as I get off the phone with you, Director Mahone,
I'll be calling the attorney general and asking him to issue an
immediate ruling on this matter. I will expect you to comply
with that ruling, whatever it may be"

In other words, she was going to tell the AG to tell Mahone
to back off and let things proceed as planned in San Antonio,
and he'd damned well better do it if he wanted to keep his
job. Mahone understood that. The attorney general was his
boss, and so was the president, of course. He worked for them.

But to his way of thinking, he also worked for the American
people. They depended on him to enforce the law. When you
came right down to it, no matter how much tarnishing the image of the job had suffered over the years, people still wanted
him to catch the bad guys.

The problem was, too often in this day and age it was hard
to tell who the bad guys were. Sometimes they were the ones
who were supposed to be running things....

"I look forward to speaking with the attorney general
tomorrow, ma'am"

"Tonight," the president said. "He'll be calling you tonight."

"All right." There was nothing else he could say.

A moment of silence passed, but Mahone could still hear
the angry breathing of the president on the other end of the
line. Finally, she said, "I'm disappointed in you, Edward. I
didn't think you'd be taken in even for a minute by these
fanatics."

"I never said I believed them, ma'am. I just want to find out
the truth"

"The truth is what I say it is, Director Mahone"