Remember The Alamo (33 page)

"We've gone back on our word half-a-dozen times in the
past fifty years," the veep pointed out, "every time the opinion polls change. We've run out on our allies and let evil win
just because we don't have the stomach to fight it. The days
when our word was our bond are long gone"

"Which side of the aisle did you come from, anyway?" the
president's husband asked with a scowl.

"A side where some of the members are getting damned
sick and tired of the party being run by left-wing extremists.
It's possible to still stand for the things we used to stand for
without bending over backward for our enemies." The vice
president let out a bitter laugh. "I'm sorry, I forgot. We don't
have enemies in the world anymore. We just have fellow nations we need to dialogue with, so that we can reach a consensus and form policies that are sensitive and multilateral."

"Get out," the president said. "I've put up with your treachery long enough"

"Are you firing me again?"

"No, but I don't have to listen to you"

The vice president got to his feet and shrugged. "Fine. I'll
be issuing a statement deploring the situation in San Antonio
and calling on the Mexican government to withdraw its troops
immediately."

The president stared at him. "You can't do that! That's not
the position of this administration."

"No, but it's my position, and the position of a lot of people
in our party. People who voted for you. People who would support just about anything you want to do ... except standing by helplessly while American citizens are under attack by a
foreign army."

The president's husband stood up and took the veep's arm.
He was a head taller than the vice president and at least fifty
pounds heavier. "I think you'd better leave now," he said.

"Don't worry, I'm going." He shook free of the grip and
stalked out of the Oval Office.

On the television screen, the shooting had stopped and the
floodlit plaza in front of the Alamo was deserted again. But
dark blotches on the flagstones were visible, showing where
blood had been spilled.

The sun was up now in Washington, but dawn was still approaching in Texas. The president stared at the screen and
moaned, "What am I going to do?"

"Don't worry, honey," her husband told her. "I'm sure you'll
think of somethin'." A smile lit up his face. "I know! Blame it
all on somebody else! Shoot, that always worked for me ""

A quick check of the defenders inside the Alamo showed
that a few men had suffered minor cuts from flying glass, but
those were the only injuries from the Mexicans' initial assault.
Dave knew they had been lucky.

But they would need luck on their side to survive this.

Only a few minutes had gone by when one of the men at
the windows called, "Hey! They just turned out the lights!"

The brilliance from the floodlights spilling through the
windows had lit up the inside of the Alamo, so the shout was
really unnecessary. Gloom plunged down again, barely relieved by a couple of candles.

"Everybody back in position!" Dave ordered. "Blow out
those other candles!"

He wanted it as dark as possible in there, so they would be
able to see better what was going on outside.

Sunrise was still about forty-five minutes away, but already
the sky was gray enough so that Dave could make out most of
the landmarks in the plaza as he crouched at one of the windows and peered out. Salgado should have killed the lights
before the first attack, he thought. The Mexicans would have
probably lost fewer men if they'd advanced in the darkness.

But the general didn't really care how many men he lost.
Dave's instincts told him that, even though he had seen Salgado only once, and then for only a few minutes. The Mexican commander was ruthless, so he had ordered that first
probe to take place under the lights, the better to judge the defenders' strength.

Something else would be coming now. Something worse.

A cylindrical object flew out of the shadows, landed on the
flagstones with a clatter, and rolled across the plaza toward
the Alamo. It burst open with a little whump! and a dense
cloud of smoke billowed from it. Dave bit back a curse. Between the darkness and the smoke, the defenders couldn't see
what the Mexicans were doing.

They could hear, though, and Dave's ears picked up the
slap of booted feet against the flagstones. "Get ready," he said
to the other men at the windows. "They're probably going to
try to break down the doors!"

Sure enough, several men with gas masks and night-vision
goggles strapped on their heads suddenly loomed out of the
smoke less than twenty feet from the front doors of the old
mission. They carried a heavy battering ram between them.
The Mexican army had abandoned military-style tactics for
the moment and was attacking the Alamo like a SWAT team
instead. Dave had no doubt that if they succeeded in breaching the doors, they would toss in tear gas and flash-bang
grenades, incapacitating the defenders.

So that couldn't be allowed to happen. He snapped his rifle
to his shoulder and fired, aiming by instinct. The other men
at the windows did likewise.

If the smoke grenade had made it a few yards closer to the
Alamo before detonating, the men inside the building might
not have had a chance to stop the attack, because they
wouldn't have been able to see it coming in time. As it was,
Dave's rapid shots and the swift reactions of the other riflemen stationed at the windows knocked several of the soldiers off
their feet. They were wearing bulletproof vests, so even at this
range it was doubtful if the rounds penetrated, but the bullets
still packed enough of a wallop to knock the men down. The
handles of the battering ram slipped out of their hands. It
clanged to the ground.

Dave and the other defenders kept pouring lead into the attackers, wounding them in arms and legs and forcing them to
scramble back into the cloud of smoke, leaving their battering ram behind. Stark and Mahone unbarred the doors and
dashed out to retrieve it so the Mexicans couldn't get it and
try to use it against them again. The two big men handled
the heavy ram as if it were a child's toy. They darted back
inside with it and slammed the door. Other defenders were
waiting to drop the thick, old-fashioned beam that fastened
the doors closed. These weren't the original doors of the
Alamo, but they had been made to look as much like them
as possible, down to the method of barring them.

The firing died away, since there was nothing left to shoot at.

The breeze that still fluttered the Texas flag attached to the
sword gradually dissipated the smoke cloud. The light in the
plaza grew stronger. The sun would be up soon.

It was Saturday, March 7th. One siege had ended on the
6th, all those years ago.

Now it appeared that a new one had begun on the same
fateful date.

Salgado was seething inside, but he tried not to show it.
Twice the Texans had withstood attacks by his troops. The
first time didn't really surprise him; if Salgado were to admit
the truth to himself, he would have to say that that assault had
almost been designed to fail. He wanted some of his men to
fall, so that the others would truly be aware of what faced them. Salgado was sure now that the gringos would never surrender, and he was glad of that. Now he could go in and wipe
them out without worrying about any repercussions.

Not that he was particularly worried about that, anyway. As
a member of the alliance between the Mexican government
and the military, the Reconquistar movement, the GarciaLopez drug cartel, and the terrorist organization headed up
by Yar Ali Al-Khan, Salgado knew that he was powerful
enough not to have to worry about anything.

After all, he had brought the American government to its
knees, had he not?

Still, he was angry with his men for failing on their second
try to reach the Alamo. They should have been inside there by
now, killing those damned Texans.

Time to put on a show again, he told himself as he drew a
deep breath and picked up the bullhorn. This time he remained behind one of the trucks, standing at the rear corner
of it so that he could use the bullhorn and hail the men inside
the Alamo. After everything that had happened, he didn't
trust them not to take some potshots at him now.

"Inside the Alamo!" he shouted through the bullhorn.
"This is General Salgado! Listen to me! Give up this foolish
crusade! Lay down your arms and come out now, before
anyone else is hurt!"

He wondered if any of them were even wounded. Seven
of his men were dead, and another fifteen had been hit and
suffered various degrees of injuries. Was it possible that all
the casualties had been on his side so far? Salgado supposed
it was, given the strength of those ancient walls.

No response came from the Alamo this time. The sun was
rising behind the mission, so its front was still in shadow.
Salgado didn't expect any response, and in truth would
have been disappointed if the Texans had filed out and
surrendered.

He wanted their blood. He wanted to bathe in it.

He wondered idly if Santa Anna had ever felt like that. It
was possible. The big difference between them was that he
was going to succeed where Santa Anna had failed. Give me
enough time, Salgado thought, and I will bring all of Texas to
its knees!

"General!"

The urgent voice made Salgado lower the bullhorn and
turn around. He recognized Ambassador Carranza, and was
surprised to see the diplomat here. He thought that Carranza
had returned to Washington.

"What is it?" Salgado snapped.

"I have new orders for you," Carranza said.

Salgado's upper lip curled in a sneer. "With all due respect,
Ambassador, I am a soldier. I take orders only from other soldiers who are my superior officers."

"These orders come directly from Presidente Guzman. For
the time being, you are to cease any attempts to remove the
trespassers from the Alamo and devote your efforts to maintaining control of the scene"

Salgado stared at the man, for a moment unable to believe
what he was hearing. Finally he exploded, "What! My job
was to root out those Texas devils!"

"Not anymore. Not now. A special session of the United
Nations is being called later today, and Presidente Guzman
will be flying to New York to address it. He wants no more violence between now and then."

Salgado had been angry to start with. Now that anger deepened into rage. For a moment he considered ignoring Carranza's orders and staging a full-fledged assault on the
Alamo. If he threw all the hundreds of his men at the mission,
the defenders would be overwhelmed. Salgado was sure of it.

But then he thought about how Guzman's appearance at the
United Nations might serve to humiliate the Americans even more, and so he gave a grudging nod. "The presidente's
orders are noted and will be followed," he said.

He could afford to wait a while. After all, those stubborn
bastards inside the Alamo wouldn't be going anywhere.

Constance Rodriguez rocked back and forth in the chair,
her arms hugging herself as if she were cold, her eyes fixed
on the television screen. She had been watching it all night.
She had forgotten what sleep was like. And her diligence had
been rewarded by a glimpse of her husband as he leaned out
the doors of the Alamo to plant the Texas flag in the plaza, a
snippet of tape that had been played over and over and endlessly analyzed by the pundits, prognosticators, and prophets
who worked for the TV networks.

What it all amounted to, though, was that Dave was crazy.

Otherwise, he wouldn't be stuck in the Alamo with a
bunch of other crazy people while the Mexican army lurked
just outside waiting to kill all of them.

Constance blinked back tears. She had known for the past
couple of weeks that Dave was up to something. Even before
Silvio and Rita were murdered, Dave had been upset. Things
had built up inside him until Constance was worried that
they would explode somehow. She never would have
dreamed that it would come to this, though.

If her idiot husband came out of this alive, she was going
to kill him.

But first she would throw her arms around him and hold
him so tight, like she was never going to let him go, and she
would give thanks to God that he was still alive.

Then she would kill him, the idiota.

"What are they gonna do, just sit out there all day?"

Phil asked the question as he looked through the window
at the trucks parked on the far side of the plaza. Nobody was
moving around them now. The Mexican troops were still
over there, but they weren't letting themselves be seen.

It was midmorning, and that was the way things had been
ever since shortly after the sun came up. The men standing
guard at the rear of the Alamo reported that nothing was
going on back there, either.