“But, he’ll find our weapons.”
“Man up, Pa. You need to take the fall and not cause the deaths of the people in here. You’ll serve a few years on weapons charges. You’ll still get plenty of publicity. Folks that believe in our cause will be erecting statutes in your honor.”
Van Zandt stroked his beard for maybe a minute. “Okay. I’ll call Jose. I figure it’ll cost us a hundred grand. Damn drug runners won’t do anything for nothing. ”
Miriam kissed her dad on the cheek. “Thanks, Pa. I’ll get Manny and Bud to have their trucks available tonight.”
35
“Captain, this is Sniper One. There’s a small aircraft approaching from the west. Looks like it’s headed for that landing strip.”
Instantly awake, McCombs dropped from the driver’s side with a scope. He spotted the aircraft just as Sniper One said. What the hell is happening? he thought. That plane’s too small to bring reinforcements. Still, we can’t let it land.
Manny and Bud both had black F 150s. They crept to their trailers and drove them slowly to the runway, one on either side. Van Zandt and Miriam drove to the end of the runway and backed up to it. As on all of the other occasions, when the plane approached, they would snap on their lights.
McCombs had anticipated this might occur. He alerted the snipers. “I’m not sure what is happening. It may be an attempt to pick up Miriam Van Zandt. Whatever it is, we can’t allow it. You are ordered to shoot to kill. Knock the son of a bitch out of the sky if you have to.”
The plane approached the runway and the pickup lights came on along with those of Van Zandt at the end. The snipers started firing, focusing on the two pickups facing the runway, their weapons on full automatic. Having trained to hit a man at a thousand yards, to hit a small plane at a few hundred was like shooting toy ducks with a BB gun on the midway. The first two snipers shot at the plane. The third aimed for the pickups lighting the runway. Suddenly, like a wounded duck, the plane rolled and crashed into the ground in a ball of fire that bounced down the runway, coming to a stop a few yards in front of Van Zandt and Miriam.
The snipers drew return gunfire from the defenders at the corner gunports who could really only aim at the snipers’ gun flashes. Sniper Two took a shot in his right shoulder, his shooting arm. “Captain, I’m hit. Right shoulder.”
“Slide back down the hill, Two. We’ll send help.” McCombs called the command post. “Colonel, you heard Two. Who do you have to check on him?”
Walt Frazier raised his hand. “I’m trained in first aid. Have to be for the governor’s detail. Let Jack and me go.”
Colonel Burnside sized up the situation. He knew that Walt was correct. “Jack, what about you? You use a cane.”
Jack shook his head. “Don’t need it most of the time, just carry it. I’m good to go.”
Colonel Burnside pondered the situation. “Okay. Both of you get rifles from the trailer. Report when you check him out.”
The two men stopped by the trailer and chose rifles. Walt slung a first aid kit over his shoulder. Then they started double timing across the desert with a small flashlight to guide them, knowing it could not be seen from the compound.
After thirty minutes, Walt knew they were close. “Two, it’s Walt Frazier and Jack Bryant. Can you see our light?”
“Roger that. Head toward your three o’clock. You’ll see me at the bottom of the bluff.”
Jack spotted him first. “Over here.”
Walt saw the man sitting up, his back to a rock. His left hand held a compress over the shoulder wound. “Sal, how are you feeling?”
“I’ve been better, but I’ll survive.”
Walt removed the cloth from the wound while Jack held the flashlight. “Could have been worse. No way to put a tourniquet on it. I can strap a compress there, and we’ll get you back to the compound.” He opened his first aid kit and retrieved a large compress with straps. He put it in place and pulled the Velcro ends together and secured them. He was picking up his phone when Jack stopped him.
“I’m staying here.”
Walt looked at his friend.
“You can get him back to the command post alone. I’ll take over here. You know I used to be able to hit a fly at a thousand yards. Can’t do that anymore, but I still go to the range and can match any of the team’s snipers at five hundred.”
Walt nodded and called command. “Colonel, Two took a pretty good shot to the shoulder. I’m bringing him back. You probably need to call an ambulance to get him into Pecos. Jack is going to stay here and observe from his post.”
Burnside frowned at the suggestion. “I don’t like a civilian in harm’s way. Tell him to observe, but nothing more.”
The lights on the two black pickups were dark. The Van Zandts drove slowly back to the compound.
“Pat, the pickup at the end of the runway is moving back to the compound. Request instructions.”
“Let it go as long as no one is shooting.”
Soon, there was nothing to interrupt the night but the crackling and popping of metal in the fire. No one attempted to leave the two vehicles on the sides of the runway.
Van Zandt and Miriam made it back to the town hall, went inside and collapsed in the rockers.
“Shit,” Miriam said, “That was a disaster. You think Bud and Manny are still alive?”
Van Zandt wiped his brow with a bandanna he pulled from his pocket. “We won’t know until we can check their trucks. I’ll call McCombs.”
“Van Zandt, what the hell were you trying to do?”
“Not important now. We failed. Pilot must be dead. Can you hold your fire while we check the men in the trucks?”
“No problem. Only, no weapons. Understood?”
Van Zandt sighed. “Understood. We’ll have two men walk to the strip with no weapons. If you agree, I’ll follow them in a pickup. We won’t move the men or their bodies until I call you back.”
Van Zandt recruited two men to walk in front of his truck to the landing strip. Both were more than a little nervous about the assignment. They checked Manny first. He had a pulse. Bud was dead. Van Zandt called McCombs and reported what he had found. Next he called Miriam to report on their status. Miriam let out a sigh of relief that Manny was still alive.
McCombs conferred with Carol and Colonel Burnside back at the command post. “Van Zandt, you want us to get an ambulance from Pecos? We’ll cease fire until then.”
Van Zandt kicked a sand mound. “Yeah, I don’t have any choice. I’ll bring them to the front gate.”
While they waited, Walt and Sal made it to the command post. Colonel Burnside helped Walt get Sal inside where he checked Sal. “You’re going to be fine, son. I’ve called for a chopper with a medic to take you back to Midland. I doubt if Pecos has a surgeon who can take care of this.”
“Thanks, Colonel. Could I have some water while we wait?”
McCombs stood at the gate when Van Zandt drove up. McCombs sized up the older man and concluded that he knew he was losing. Van Zandt climbed from his truck and unlocked the gate.
“Sorry about your loss, Colonel,” McCombs said. “You’re going to hear a helicopter shortly. One of our men was hit in the shoulder. We’re flying him back to Midland. Let your men know the last thing they want to do is take a shot at that helicopter.”
Van Zandt nodded and returned to his truck where he called Miriam to have her alert the defenders about the helicopter. The wail of a siren could be heard in the distance, and an ambulance arrived within a couple of minutes. The EMTs moved efficiently. They had Manny on a stretcher and an IV in his arm in no time. Next they loaded Bud’s body beside Manny. Then they were headed back to the hospital in Pecos. While they worked, everyone saw a red helicopter circle once and drop below the horizon a few miles back up the road.
Burnside had chosen not to alert the locals other than Sheriff Davis. Now he had no choice but to call the Pecos DPS office and the Sheriff of Ward County to advise them about what had occurred since
a gunshot death would surely attract the attention of local law enforcement. The news would leak from someone in one of the offices. It was only a matter of time before he media started arriving, hoping for another Branch Davidian standoff.
It was afternoon when there was a knock on the door. Miriam was asleep on the floor and her father was dozing in his rocker. He woke with a start. “Come on in.”
Brad Mitchell came through the door. He was one of the younger members of the militia, no more than twenty-five, with long brown hair and a matching moustache and beard. His wife and baby son were in the tunnel.
Van Zandt rose to greet him. “Come in, Brad. Need some water? Everything okay on your side of the compound?”
“Water would be fine, sir.”
Miriam pushed from the floor and went to a cooler to retrieve a bottle.
Mitchell put his rifle beside the door and took off his John Deere cap. “Sir, I suppose I’m a delegation of one. A number of the guys want this over. We know what happened to Manny and Bud.” He twisted the cap in his hands. “Colonel, this ain’t the Alamo. We aren’t fighting for our country. This is a little piece of shit desert, not fit for man nor beast.” He paused. “When me and Alice showed up here two years ago, we didn’t have a pot to piss in. You gave us a trailer. I don’t want you to think I don’t appreciate that, only things have changed. We have a baby. The fracking boom came along and I’ve got a good job. So do a lot of the men.” He sighed. “I don’t know how to say this but direct. We don’t want to die. I don’t believe in your ideal enough to die for it. A lot of the rest feel the same.”
Van Zandt turned red and rose to throw the young man out. Miriam grabbed his arm and spun him around. “Pa, you can’t force these men to do what you want. If they want to leave, you’ve got to let them. You don’t want their blood on your hands.”
Van Zandt’s shoulders slumped and he stared at the floor. Finally, he looked up. “How many want out?”
“I’d say about fifteen men and their families.”
“Let them go, Pa. We’ll make our stand. Don’t matter whether it’s ten or twenty. Just like the Alamo, the message of freedom will ring from here.”
Van Zandt rubbed his face with his hands. “All right. I’ll call the SWAT team and ask for another cease fire. Tell everyone that wants to leave to grab some clothes from their trailers and bring their guns here.”
Van Zandt then called McCombs and told him that a number of people wanted out. They would be unarmed but in their trucks and cars. McCombs told him they had an hour. When he put down the phone, he high fived Carol. “We’ve got them on the run. Get someone to count as they leave. We may be striking sooner than we thought.”
He called Colonel Burnside who made hurried arrangements for several local law enforcement officials to get to the scene. When the evacuating families arrived at the front gate, they were met by an assortment of deputy sheriffs, DPS officers and the RV occupied by Burnside, Jack and Walt. They and their vehicles were searched. Next, they were escorted into Pecos where they were fingerprinted and booked. The men were charged only with resisting arrest since they had no proof of anything more. The women and children were released. The men would remain in the jail until the siege ended and a decision as to their fate would come from the Texas Attorney General.
36
When night fell on the desert, the RV slowly made its way to the back of the APC. The only light that came from the compound was in the town hall off in the distance. McCombs and Klein crept to the RV and entered. After sipping hot, black coffee, McCombs said, “How is the one that survived this morning?”
“He’s going to live,” Walt said. “Sal’s now in Midland and will undergo surgery in the morning.”
“What about the airplane?”
“Fox can make out part of a number on the tail. Best guess is it’s Mexican registration, probably owned by a drug cartel.”
“Interesting,” McCombs said. “So, they may have been allowing drug dealers to use that landing strip. Not a bad plan. Out here in the middle of nowhere at night, it probably would never be noticed. Maybe we can charge the old man with drug smuggling, too. I don’t think the real defenders of the Alamo would have liked that. How many do they have left in the compound?”
“According to Fox, our best guess is about a dozen,” Walt said. “No children and the only woman is Miriam Van Zandt. The old man and Miriam are still in the building. Fox tells us that at dusk there were still four men behind the Alamo façade. That leaves six to either be in the gun ports at the corners or somewhere in the trenches or tunnels. I’m sure the old man has them on full alert, but they’ve got to be walking zombies by now.”
“That’s my thinking, too,” McCombs said as he yawned. “Sorry. We all could use a good night’s sleep. Let’s give it until 2200. Colonel, can you call the helicopter and have it hovering twenty miles away at that time. My goal is not to lose any more lives, particularly our team.” He clicked on his radio to contact the snipers. When the three of them responded, including Jack, he spoke. “We’re going in at 2200. Until I say otherwise, fire over the compound.”
“Captain, this is Jack Bryant. It’s critical that we take Miriam Van Zandt or her father alive. I don’t believe that they hatched these murders in Fort Worth out here in West Texas. Somebody else is behind them. The trail will disappear if they’re killed.”
“Understood, Jack. That’s the plan. Still, you know that plans in a firefight like this often are subject to change.”
At 2150 McCombs turned to Wally. “Okay, up into the machine gun turret. We’re going to make all the racket we can. I want you firing over the heads of the people in the compound. Go slowly from side to side. I want them thinking that the fires of hell are raining down on them. We’ll bust through the gate and stop just this side of the façade. If you can knock some pieces of it off and make them fall on the men on the other side, so much the better. I want four men on the gun platforms on the outside, doing the same thing. Snipers, you’re shooting at the building. Aim for the top. Again, we’re not trying to hurt anyone. Sniper Three, if there’s someone in that gun port down by you, scare the shit out of him. Once we start shooting, the fast rope team will be here. Hopefully, they won’t hear it or won’t be able to distinguish that noise from World War III we’re about to start. The fast rope team will drop behind the building. The helicopter will be in and out in less than a minute. On my mark.”
Four men quietly exited to stand on the armor protected platforms, M240B machine guns at the ready. At 2200, McCombs said, “Go, go, go!”
The driver gunned the engine and ripped through the gate. Wally was spraying shells from side to side. The four men on the platforms did the same. Pieces of the Alamo started to fall.
Within two minutes the helicopter arrived. The fast rope team had practiced this hundreds of times. Two booms were swung out on either side and locked in place. A sixty foot, two inch rope dropped from the booms. Six men, wearing gloves, three on each side, seized the rope and wrapped their boots around it. They slid to the ground in seconds. As the last man hit the ground, the helicopter banked and was gone into the night. Like the rest of the team, the six men wore night vision goggles. They did as the others, shooting randomly at the building and popping holes in the roof.
Inside, Van Zandt was trying to peer out the front window without making himself a target.. “We’re surrounded. Where did those guys in back come from?”
“I think I heard a helicopter, Pa. We better surrender unless you want us all to die like the men in the Alamo.”
Van Zandt rose from his chair. “I will not ask them to surrender. If they do so, it’ll be their choice.” He paused. “There’s one thing that we have to do. They can’t get the computers in my trailer and yours. If they do, they’ll figure out our bank accounts and who’s been paying us.” He paused. “We can’t have that. I owe it to my friends to protect their identities. I gave them my word.”
“Hell, Pa, I just realized tha
t I don’t know who your friends are. The money in my account starts with yours and goes around the world a couple of times before landing in mine.”
Pa nodded. “I set it up that way. I know a lot more about computers and wire transfers than most old farts my age. You’re lighter on your feet than me. I need you to take two grenades. Toss one under my trailer and one under yours. Then get back here.”
Miriam went to a storage bin and retrieved two grenades. She paused to hug her father and was out the door into the night. She slipped off the porch to the right and crawled toward the doublewide. She rose to her knees, pulled the pin and pitched it under the front, toward the kitchen, where she knew the computer would be. She backed away a few feet and watched as the trailer exploded in flames. Debris fell around her.
“What the hell just happened?” McCombs said into his mike. “Anyone hit a propane tank?”
“No, Captain,” Jack said. “That was the old man’s double-wide. Someone blew it up. I see someone coming around it, heading for Miriam’s trailer. Judging from the height, it must be her.”
“Dammit, she’s about to blow her trailer, too. No telling what they’re trying to destroy. Can you hit her in the leg? Wherever you have to hit her, take her down before she destroys her trailer.”
Miriam was now on her feet and running the fifty yards between the two trailers. Jack took a breath and held it as he fired. He hit her exactly where he aimed, in the left thigh. He let out his breath, satisfied that she would live but cause no more harm. He underestimated her. Miriam was down but not out. She crawled toward the trailer to get close enough to pitch the grenade from her prone position. She pulled the pin and tossed it underneath. Miriam turned and tried to crawl to safety. She didn’t make it. Within seconds the trailer exploded like the double-wide. The blast blew her twenty feet. Van Zandt had observed her from a window. He smiled when she blew his trailer. When he saw her take a bullet in the leg and still toss a grenade under hers, he swelled with pride. When her trailer exploded and knocked her twenty feet, he knew she could not have survived. He slumped to the floor, a defeated old man.
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