Remember The Alamo (38 page)

The sun had just peeked over the horizon in Washington.

Phil knew as soon as he woke up that the fever had not
broken. He was drenched in sweat. But his thoughts were
clear again at last, after what seemed like days of wandering
around in his hellish memories of war, and as he took a
breath and felt the pull inside him and heard the rattling
wheeze, he knew he was dying. He was no doctor, but like a
wild animal, he knew his time was fast approaching.

Blinking away drops of sweat that trickled into his eyes
and stung, he looked across the room at Evelyn. She was
curled up in a chair as best she could, sleeping an uncomfortable, awkward sleep. Enough gray light came through the
window for him to be able to make out the curve of her
cheek, the blond hair that fell around her face, the gentle rise
and fall of her chest.

He wished they'd had more time together. Given a chance,
they could have had something special, he sensed.

But the world gave only as much time as it had for each
person, and when that was up ...

Phil was about to call her name and wake her so that he
could tell her he loved her, but at that moment he heard
something curious. It was a faint murmur that gradually
turned into words, coming from somewhere outside. It
sounded like ...

It sounded like hundreds of voices chanting, "Remember
the Alamo."

"Evelyn!" Phil said, a sudden feeling of urgency gripping
him. "Evelyn, wake up. It's happening!"

The insanity was growing. Salgado had to put a stop to it
now, and the best way to do that was to crush his enemies.
Their blood would shut the mouths of that mob.

He gave the order in Spanish, relaying it over the radio so
that all his men would hear it. From the front and the rear and
the side toward the gift shop, the Mexican troops moved
toward the Alamo.

And to add the finishing touch, Salgado pushed a button
that activated the sound system he had ordered set up
earlier.

The mournful strains of the deguello filled the early morning air as the Mexican soldiers advanced. The old music
drowned out the chanting of the protesters, and Salgado felt
his blood stir at its ancient message.

No quarter.

Inside the Alamo, Dave leaned closer to the window
beside the front doors as he heard first the unexpected chanting and then the swelling strains of the grim, bloodstained
music.

"Lord help us," he breathed, then said to John Howard
Stark, "This is it."

"Yeah," Stark agreed. "It's been nice knowing you, Dave."

His heart pounding, Dave said, "Is it worth it? Is it really
worth this, John Howard?"

"It's Texas," Stark said in a half whisper. "What do you
think?"

Dave had his answer. And as a smile touched his face, he
knew it was the right one.

The defenders of the Alamo began firing at the hundreds
of Mexican troops storming across the plaza. Dave could tell
that Salgado was throwing everything he had into this attack.
Gunshots racketed from the rear and side of the chapel, too.
It was a three-pronged assault, and Dave knew that he and
his friends couldn't hope to withstand it for very long.

For reasons of his own, Salgado had held back over the
weekend. But no longer.

A deadly hail of lead slammed into the Alamo, concentrated on the windows and doors. The defenders were forced
away from the doors, and that allowed the Mexican troops to
reach those heavy wooden portals. Crash after crash of a battering ram shook the doors, and finally the beam holding
them closed cracked under the repeated impacts. The weight
of hundreds of men pressing against them forced them open
the rest of the way, and the attackers spilled into the chapel.

Earlier, Dave had expected tear gas and flash-bang
grenades, but Salgado's men weren't using those tactics
today. Instead they poured into the Alamo, firing as they
came, killing the defenders up close and personal. Fighting
side by side with Stark and Mahone, Dave emptied his rifle into the horde, then dropped it and drew the two pistols he
had tucked behind his belt. Shouting in rage, he began to
trigger the weapons. The noise was deafening. No longer
could Dave hear the bloody music Salgado was playing, but
he knew it was still there, providing accompaniment to this
grim slaughter.

In the rear of the Alamo, Dieter and Belko and a handful
of other defenders fell back, firing as the rear doors crashed
open. The Mexican troops ran right into the fierce volley,
and their advance was slowed for a moment as men tripped
over their comrades who had already fallen.

But the delay was only a brief one. Bullets clawed at the
defenders, and Belko fell back against a wall as slugs
stitched a deadly line across his thick-set body.

"Belko!" Dieter shouted.

"Don't mind ... me, kid," the older man grunted as he
lifted the gun in his hand and kept firing. "Get the ... bastards!" He slid down the wall, leaving a crimson streak on it
as he wound up in a sitting position. He kept pulling the trigger, even though the pistol was empty.

Dieter knelt beside him, tears running down his face.
"Belko," he said in a broken voice.

"I said ... don't mind ... cancer was ... eatin' my guts
out anyway!" Belko looked up at Dieter and added, "You're
a ... good kid ... would've been proud to call you ...
son... ."

His head fell forward as he died.

Roaring in rage for Belko, for his wife, for everyone
else who had been hurt by this insanity-Dieter surged up
from the floor, snatching up an automatic weapon that one
of the wounded soldiers had dropped. It chattered and
leaped in his hands as fire lanced from its muzzle. Dieter sprayed the bullets into the troops crowding through the
broken doorway. He felt slugs hitting him, too, but stayed on
his feet until the rifle's magazine was empty.

Then the attackers swept over him. He went down, knowing that he was about to die.

But even as he lost consciousness, he felt a hand grab his
collar and start to drag him free of the welter of corpses.

Phil was sitting behind the desk, a gun in each hand.
Evelyn crouched next to him, also holding two guns. When
the Mexican troops burst into the office, the soldiers were
slammed backward by slug after slug. The heavy desk
stopped some of the shots they managed to squeeze off
before they died.

Some-but not all. Phil was hit, the impact of the bullets
driving him back against the wall. The chair rocked from the
force of the blows. The guns in his hands started to sag.

But then bloody hands gripped his wrists, lifting them so
that the pistol barrels were pointed at the doorway again, and
Phil looked to grin at Evelyn, who stood beside him helping
him. She leaned closer and kissed him, hard.

Then he was pulling the triggers again and the shots were
rolling out and the soldiers were falling.

As the Mexicans closed in around him, John Howard
Stark snatched up a fallen rifle. The barrel was hot enough
to burn his hands as he gripped it, but he ignored the pain
as he began lashing back and forth with the weapon. The
stock shattered after the third or fourth blow, but Stark kept
using the weapon as a club anyway, shattering jaws and driving the broken stock into the throats of the attackers. He
backed up until he was against the thick adobe wall and could go no further. Bodies began to pile up around his feet
as he smashed the life out of any of the soldiers who came
within reach. They could have gunned him down easily, but
caught up in the frenzy of combat, they tried to close with
him and battle him hand-to-hand.

It was a mistake. Mano a mano, John Howard Stark was
one of the deadliest men alive.

But there were too many enemies, and as they began to
close in on him, Stark knew his seconds were numbered.

With an angry shout, Edward Mahone tore into the Mexicans from behind, laying waste to them with a pair of sabers
he had taken from one of the displays. Blood splattered
through the air like crimson rain. Mahone fought his way to
Stark's side and grinned.

"Pulling the old Davy Crockett bit, eh?" Mahone said over
the chaos in the chapel. He might have said more, but at that
moment a slug struck him in the back and threw him forward. Stark dropped the broken rifle and kept him from
falling, but he knew as he looked into Mahone's eyes that it
didn't really matter. The former director of the FBI had suffered a mortal wound.

"You think they'll ... write songs about us, too?" Mahone
gasped.

"They'd damned well better," Stark said. The words came
too late, though. Mahone's eyes had already glazed over in
death.

Stark eased his friend's body to the floor next to the wall and
looked up. He saw the soldiers surrounding him, watching him
rather fearfully because he had seemed so berserk. Stark
reached over and picked up the sabers Mahone had dropped.
As he straightened, he brandished the blades in front of him
and said, "Come on, hombres. I'm ready to die. Are you?"

The defenders of the Alamo put up a gallant struggle, but
all over the chapel, they were falling. The World War II vets,
the men who had shivered in Korea and Afghanistan and
sweated in Vietnam and Kuwait and Iraq, they fought with all
their heart and soul. The close confines of the old mission
worked against the invaders to a certain extent, because in here
their numerical advantage didn't help them all that much. The
battle was fought in small, desperate pockets of action.

Near the front doors, Dave Rodriguez was still on his feet
despite being wounded a couple of times, a bullet graze on
his right thigh and a deeper furrow in his upper left arm. He
had a pistol in his right hand that he had taken from a fallen
soldier, but he had no idea how many rounds were left in it.
Several of the enemy troops were advancing toward him.
Wearily, he started to lift the gun.

Then he heard something, a new sound that came through
the opening where the shattered doors had been. A wall of
noise that resolved itself into hundreds, maybe even thousands, of voices shouting, "Alamo! Alamo!"

They didn't have to remember it anymore.

Because they were here, and they were fighting for it in
this new Battle of the Alamo. Fighting for the old mission
and the men willing to sacrifice their lives to defend it. Dave
stumbled over to the opening and looked out at the plaza, and
he felt his heart soar.

Finally, as he had always known in his heart, the people of
Texas were answering the call. "Will You Come to the
Bower?" he murmured, remembering that the musicians in
Sam Houston's army had played that song as they advanced
into battle with Santa Anna's men.

Different battle. Same people.

Texans.

They were mad, utterly insane, Salgado thought. They
were nothing but a rabble of unarmed civilians.

But there were so many of them, and as they broke through
the barriers set up by his men and stampeded toward the
Alamo, they weren't unarmed for long. They trampled his
men, silencing the screams underfoot, then picked up the guns
that the soldiers had dropped and came on, an inexorable tide
of outraged humanity. Men and women, young and old, all
colors and shapes and sizes, the only thing they had in
common being the anger they felt because their state had been
invaded, their fellow citizens were being killed, and one of the
most sacred places that they knew was being threatened.

And Salgado turned and ran, fleeing from their righteous
wrath.

His flight took him across the plaza, toward the bulletpocked walls of the old chapel.

"My fellow Americans, I have grave news to report this
morning. Reliable intelligence sources have revealed to us
that the notorious Islamic terrorist, Yar Ali Al-Khan, one of
the most wanted criminals in the world, has been sighted at
a villa near Mexico City belonging to General Augusto Salgado, commander of the Mexican forces now operating in
San Antonio. In addition, we now believe there are also ties
between General Salgado and Hector Garcia-Lopez, the
leader of the largest Mexican drug cartel who has also been
responsible for terrorist acts against the United States.