De Lorenzo had unwittingly played into Tbpiltzin's hands. It was exactly the reaction Robert Capesterre had hoped for.
Riots broke out in Mexico City, and De Lorenzo he had to back off or face mushrooming unrest and the lighted match of a possible revolution.
He sent a message to the White House with his sincere regrets for failing to stem the tide, and then he called off the soldiers, many of whom deserted and joined the crusade.
Unrestrained, the throng swarmed toward the Rio Grande.
The Capesterre family's hired professional planners and Robert's Topiltzin followers raised a five-square-kilometer tent city and set up kitchens and organized food lines. Sanitation facilities were trucked in and assembled. Nothing was overlooked. Many of the poor who flooded the area had never lived nor eaten so well. Only the clouds of dust and exhaust smoke from diesel engines swirled beyond human control.
Hand-painted banners appeared along the Mexico bank of the river proclaiming, "The U.S. stole our land,"
"We want our ancestors' land returned,"
"The antiquities belong to Mexico." They chanted the slogans in English, Spanish and Nahuatl. Topiltzin walked mnong the masses, agitating them into a frenzy rarely seen outside Iran.
Television news teams had a field day taping the colorful demonstration.
Cameras, their cables meandering to two dozen mobile field units, stood tripod to tripod on top of Roma's bluff, lenses panning the opposite shore.
Unwary correspondents who wandered through the crowds did not know that the peasant families they interviewed had been carefully planted and rehearsed. In most cases the simple, impoverished-looking people were trained actors who spoke fluent English, but answered quesfions in a stumbling, broken accent. Their tearful appeals to five permanently in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas drew a wave of sob-sister support across the nation when the segments ran on the evening news and the morning talk shows.
The only ones who stood grim and unimpressed were the dedicated men of the U.S. Border Patrol. Until now, the threat of a massive incursion had only been a nightmare. Now, they were about to witness the realization of their worst fears.
Border patrolmen rarely had call to draw their firearms. They treated illegal immigrants humanely and with respect before shipping them back home. They took a dim view of the Army covering the U.S. side of the river like nests of camouflaged ants. They saw only disaster and slaughter in a long line of automatic weapons and the twenty tanks whose deadly guns were trained on Mexico.
The soldiers were young and efficient as fighting units. But they were trained for combat with an enemy who fought back. They were uneasy about facing a wave of unarmed civilians.
The commanding officer, Brigadier General Curfis Chandler, had barricaded the bridge with tanks and armored cars, but Topiltzin had planned for that contingency. The riverbank was packed with every kind of small boat, wooden raft and truck inner tube gleaned within two hundred miles. Footbridges made of rope were stretched out and knotted to be carried across by the first wave and positioned.
General Chandler's intelligence officer estimated an initial rush of twenty thousand before the flotilla returned, loaded and ferried the next wave. He couldn't begin to guess the number of swimmers. One of his female agents had penetrated the dining trailer used by Topiltzin aides and reported the storm would be launched in the late evening after the Aztec messiah had whipped his devotees into near-frenzy. But she couldn't learn which evening.
Chandler had served three tours in Vietnam; he knew first-hand what it was like to kill fanatical young women and boys who struck without seaming out of the jungle. He gave orders to fire over the heads of the mob when they began their move across the water.
If the warning barrage did not stop them-Chandler was a soldier who performed his duty without question. If ordered, he would use the forces under his command to repel the peaceful invasion rrgardless of the cost in blood.
Pitt stood on the second-story sun deck of Sam Trinity's store and peered through a telescope used by the Texan to gaze at the stars. The sun had dropped over the western range of hills and daylight was fading, but the staged spectacle on the other side of the Rio Grande was about to begin. Batteries of multicolored floodlights burst out, some sweeping patterns in the sky while odiers beaxned on a tall tower that had been erected in the center of the town.
He focused on and magnified a tiny figure wearing a white ankle-length robe and colorful headdress who stood on a narrow platform atop the tower. Pitt judged it-from the upraised and brisk movement of the arms that the center of attraction was engaged in a fervent speech.
"I wonder who the character is in the jazzy costume stirring up the natives?"
Sandecker sat with Lily, examining the underground profile recordings from the survey. He looked up at Pitts question. "Probably that phony Topiltzin," he grunted.
"He can sway a crowd with the best of the Evangelists."
"any sign they'll attempt the crossing tonight?" asked Lily.
Pin leaned back from the telescope and shook his head. "They're hard at work on their fleet, but I doubt if it will come for another forty-eight hours. Topiltzin won't launch his big push until he's certain he commands the lead news story of the day. "
"Topiltzin -s an alias," Sandecker informed him. "His real name is Robert Capesterre."
"He's got himself a thriving racket."
Sandecker held up one thumb and forefinger an inch apart. "Capesterre is that far away from taking over Mexico."
"If that convention on the other side of the river is any indication, he's after the entire American Southwest too."
Lily stood up and stretched. "This sitting around is driving me crazy.
We do all the work, and the army engineers get all the glory. Preventing us from watching over the excavation and keeping us off Sam's property-I think it's rude of them."
Pitt and Sandecker both smiled at Lily's feminine choice of words. "I could put it a little stronger than rude, " said the Admiral.
Lily chewed nervously on the tip of a pen. "Why no word from the Senator? We should have heard something by now."
"I can't say," replied Sandecker. "All he told me after I explained Dirk's setup, was that he'd somehow work a deal."
"Wish we knew how it was going," Lily murmured. Trinity appeared on the stairs below wearing an apron. "Anybody care for a bowl of my famous Trinity chili?"
Lily gave him an uneasy look. "How hot is it?"
"Little lady, I can make it as mild on your stomach as a marshmallow or as fiery as battery acid. any way you like it."
"I'll go with the marshmallow," Lily decided without hesitation.
Before Pitt and Sandecker could put in their order, Trinity turned and stared through the dusk at a stream of headlights approaching up the road. "Must be another army convoy," he announced. "Been no cars or trucks come this way since that General closed off the roads and rerouted all the traffic to the north
Soon they counted five trucks led by a hunner, the vehicle that replaced the durable jeep. The truck bringing up the rear pulled a trailer with a canvas-covered piece of equipment. The convoy did not Turn off the road toward the engineers' encampment on Gongora Hill or continue into Roma as expected. The trucks followed the hummer into the driveway of Sam's Roman Circus and stopped between the gas pumps and the store. The passengers climbed from the hummer and looked around.
Pitt immediately recognized dirty faces. Two of the men were in uniform while the third wore a sweater and denims. Pitt climbed carefully over the railing and lowered himself until he was only a few feet off the ground. Then he let go and landed directly in front of them, uttering a low groan at the sudden pain from his wounded leg. They were as startled by his sudden appearance as he was by theirs.
"Where'd you drop from?" asked Al Giordino with a broad smile. He looked pale under the floodlights and his arm was in a sling, but he looked testy as ever.
"I was about to ask you the same thi
ng."
Colonel Hollis stepped forward. "I didn't think we'd meet up again so quickly."
"Nor I," added Major Dillenger.
Pitt felt a vast wave of relief rush over him as he grasped their outstretched hands. "To say I'm glad to see you has to be the year's understatement. How is it you're here?"
"Your father used his powers of persuasion on the Joint Chiefs of Staff," explained Hollis. "I'd hardly finished my report on the Lady Flamborough mission when orders came down to assemble the teams and rush here by vehicle transportation, using back-country roads. All very hush and classified. I was told the field commander would not be apprised of our mission until I reported to him."
"General Chandler," said Pitt.
"Yes, steel-trap Chandler. I served under him in NATO eight years ago.
Still thinks armor alone can win wars. So he's got the dirty job of playing Horatio defending the bridge."
"What are your orders?" asked Pitt.
"To assist you and Dr. Sharp on whatever project you've got going.
Admiral Sandecker is to act as a direct line to the Senator and the Pentagon. That's about all I know."
"No mention of the White House?"
"None that's down on paper." He turned as Lily and the Admiral, who had taken the long way down the inside stairs, walked out the front door. As lily embraced Giordino, and Dillenger introduced Hollis to Sandecker, Hollis pulled Pitt aside.
"What the devil is going on around here?" he muttered. "A circus?"
Pitt grinned. "You don't know how close you are."
"Where do my special forces fit in?"
"When the free-for-all starts," said Pitt, g deadly serious, "your job is to blow the store."
The backhoe the Special Operations Forces had transported from Virginia was huge. Wide treads moved its massive bulk up the slope to a site marked by one of Lily's small marker flags. After ten minutes of instruction and a little practice, Pitt memorized the lever functions and began operating the steel behemoth on his own. He raised the two-and-a-half-meterwide bucket and then brought it down like a giant claw, striking the hard ground with a loud clang.
In less than an hour a trench six meters deep and twenty meters in length had been carved on the rear slope of the hill. That was as far as the excavation progressed when a Chevrolet four-wheel Blazer staff car came barreling through the underbrush with a truckload of armed soldiers following in its dust.
The wheels had not yet stopped turning when a captain with a ramrod-straight back and the eyes of a man driven by an inspired dedication to army discipline and standard operating procedure jumped to the ground.
"This is a restricted area," he snapped smartly. "I warned you people personally two days ago not to reenter. You must remove your equipment and leave immediately."
Pitt indifferently climbed down from his seat and stared into the bottom of the trench as though the officer didn't exist.
The Captain's face went red and he barked to his sergeant, "Sergeant O'Hara, prepare the men to escort these civilians from the area."
Pitt slowly turned and smiled pleasantly. "Sorry, but we're staying put."
The Captain smiled back, but his smile was scorching. "You have three minutes to leave and take that backhoe with you."
"Do you care to see papers authorizing us to be here?"
"Unless they were signed by General Chandler, you're chewing air."
"They come from a higher command than your general."
"You have three minutes," the Captain said flatly. "Then I will have you forcibly removed."
Lily, Giordino and the Admiral, who were sitting out of the sun in Trinity's borrowed Jeep Wagoneer, walked over to take in the show.
Lillie was wearing only a halter and tight shorts. She saucily paraded up and down in front of the line of soldiers.
Women who have never worked the streets as hookers cannot walk with a seductive swing and sway that appears in a natural phenomenon. They tend to exaggerate, to the point of slapstick. Lily was no exception, but the men could not have cared less. They ate up the performance.
Pitt began to tense with anger. He knew pompous people. "You have only twelve men, Captain. Twelve engineers with less than a hundred hours of combat. I have forty men behind me, any two of whom could kill your entire force in less than ten seconds with their bare hands. I'm telling you to back off."
The Captain made a casual three-hundred and sixty degree scan, but all he saw besides Pitt were Lily standing in front of the troops, a man named Sandecker, who was unconcernedly puffing a large cigar, and a man he hadn't seen before wearing an arm sling. They were both leaning against the Jeep as if they were half-asleep.
He glanced quickly at Pitt, but Pitts eyes gave no hint of emotion. He made a forward motion with his hand. "Sergeant, move people the hell out of here."
Before his men had taken two steps, Colonel Hollis seemed to appear as if by magic. The colors of his camouflaged battle fatigues and grease-blurred hands and face were incredibly faithful to the surrounding foliage. Standing less than five meters away, he blended into the underbrush nearly to the point of invisibility.
"Do we have a problem?" Hollis asked the Captain about as charitably as a sidewillder eyeing a gopher.
The Captain's mouth dropped open and his men froze in position. He took a few steps closer and gawked at Hollis more carefully, seeing no obvious sign of rank.
"Who are you?" he blurted. "What is your outfit?"
"Colonel Morton Hollis, Special Operations Forces."
"Captain Louis Cranston, sir, 486th Engineering Battalion."
Salutes were exchanged. Hollis nodded toward the line of engineers, their automatic weapons at the ready. "I think you can give the order for your men to stand at rest."
Cranston was unsure what to make of an unfamiliar colonel who appeared out of nowhere. "May I ask, Colonel, what a Special Forces officer is doing here?"
"Seeing that these people are allowed to conduct an archaeological survey without interference."
"I must remind you, sir, civilians are not permitted in a restricted military zone."
"Suppose I told you they have the authority to be here."
"Sorry, Colonel. I am under direct orders from General Chandler. He was very explicit. No one, and that includes yourself, sir, who is not a member of the battalion is to be allowed to enter-"
"Am I to understand you intend to throw me out as well?"
"If you can't present signed orders from General Chandler for your presence," Cranston said nervously, "I will obey my instructions."
"Your hardnose position won't win you any medals, Captain. I think you'd better reconsider."
Cranston knew damned well he was being toyed with and he didn't like it.
"Please, no trouble, Colonel."
"You load up your men and return to your base, and don't even think of looking back."
Pitt was enjoying the encounter, but he reluctantly turned away and climbed down into the trench. He began probing the dirt on the bottom.
Giordino and Sandecker idly strolled over to the edge and watched him.
Cranston hesitated. He was outranked, but his orders were clear, He decided his stance was firm. General Chandler would back him if there was an investigation.
But before he could order his men to clear the area, Hollis took a whistle from a pocket and blew two shrill blasts.
Like ghosts rising from the graves of a horror movie, forty forms that looked more like bushes and undergrowth than men suddenly materialized and formed a loose circle around containing Cranston and his men.
Hollis's eyes turned venomous. "Bang, you're dead."
"You called, boss?" said a bush that sounded like Dillenger.
Cranston's cockiness collapsed. "I . . . must report this . . . to General Chandler," he stammered.
"You do that," said Hollis coldly. "You can also inform him that my orders come from General Clayton Metcalf of the Joint Chiefs. This can be verified through communi
cations to the Pentagon. These people and my team are not here to interfere with your excavation on Gongora Hill or get in the way of the General's operations along the river. Our job is to find and preserve Roman surface artifacts before they're lost or stolen. Do you'read, Captain?"
"I understand, sir," replied Cranston, gazing around uneasily at the purposeful-looking men, whose facial expressions appeared frightful under the camouflage makeup.
"Found another one!" Pitt shouted, unseen below ground.
Sandecker excitedly waved everyone to the trench. "He's got something."
The confrontation was momentarily forgotten as the Engineers and SOF men clustered around the rim of the trench. Pitt was on his hands and knees, brushing away loose dirt from a long metallic object.
In a few minutes he pulled it free and very carefully passed it up to Lily.
The flippancy was gone now as she examined the ancient relic.
"Fourth-century sword with definite Roman characteristics," she announced. "Neatly intact with little corrosion."
"May I?" asked Hollis.
She held it out to him and he gently clasped his hand around the hilt and lifted the blade above his head. "Just think," he murmured reverently, "the last man to hold this was a Roman legionary." Then he graciously passed it to Cranston. "How'd you like to fight a battle with this instead of an automatic firearm?"
"I'd prefer a bullet any day," Cranston said thoughtfully, "to being hacked to shreds."
As soon as the Engineers left on the short drive back to their encampment, Pitt turned to Hollis.
"My compliments on your camouflage. I only detected three out of your whole team."
"It was eerie," said Lily, "knowing you were all around us but not visible."
Hollis looked genuinely embarrassed. "We're more used to concealment in jungle or forest. This was a good field exercise for semi-arid terrain."
"An excellent job," added Sandecker, pumping Hollis's hand.
"Let's hope General Chandler buys the good Captain's report," said Giordino.
"If he bothers to hear it," Pitt replied. "The General's most urgent business is to stop half a million aliens from flooding across the border and grabbing the Library's art and knowledge. He doesn't have time to fool with us."