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"And I will lead them."
"How long do you think you can hold on to the vault?" asked Paul.
"Long enough for ancient-language translators to assess and remove any scrolls pertaining to long-lost mineral deposits."
"That could take weeks. You won't have the time. The Americans will build up their forces and push your people back into Mexico within a few days."
"Not if I threaten to burn the scrolls and destroy the art objects."
Robert patted his lips with a napkin. "My jet should be refueled by now. I'd better return to Mexico and set the operation in motion."
Respect for his brother's inventive reasoning showed in Paul's eyes.
"With their backs against the wall, the American government will have no option but to deal. I like that."
"Certainly the largest horde of people to invade the United States since the British in the Revolutionary War," said Robert. "I like that even better."
They began arriving in the thousands the first day, in the tens of thousands the next. from all over northern Mexico people inspired by the unpassioned mvings of Topiltzin traveled by car, overloaded bus and truck, or walked to the dusty town of Nfiguel Ale across the river from Roma. The asphalt roads from Monterrey, Tampico, and Mexico City were glutted with a continuous stream of vehicles.
President De Lorenzo tried to stop the human wave rolling toward the border He called out the Mexican armed forces to block the roads. The military might as well have tried to stop a raging flood. Outside of Guadalupe, a squad of soldiers about to be swept away by a crush of bodies fired into the crowd, killing fifty-four, most of them women and children.
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.
