Treasure

The American Army's floodlights, joined by those of the television crews, brightly illuminated the turmoil swelling across the river.

The soldiers stared in uneasy fascination at the tragedy and the human wall advancing toward them.

General Chandler stood on the roof of Roma's police station in the center of the bluff. His face was gray under the lights, and there was a look of despair in his eyes. The scene was far more appalling than his worst fears.

He spoke into a small microphone clipped to his collar. "Can you see, Mr. President? Can you see the madness?"

President stared fixedly at the huge monitor in the Situation Room.

"Yes, General, the transmission is coming in clearly."

He sat at the end of a long table, flanked by his closest advisors, cabinet members and two of the four Joint Chiefs of Staff. They all gazed at the incredible spectacle that was displayed in stereophonic sound and vivid color.

The fastest boats had touched shore, and their passengers quickly scrambled out. Only when the first wave was fully across and the fleet on its way back for the next passengers did the mob assemble and press forward. The few men who had crossed over were walking up and down the shore with bullhorns, encouraging and urging the women forward.

Clutching their candles and their children while chanting in the Aztec language, the women began scrambling up the bluff like an army of ants gathering around a rock in expectation of joining again on the other side.

The terror-haunted looks of the children and the determined faces of their mothers as they stared into the muzzles of the guns were shown by the cameras. Topiltzin said his divine powers would protect them, and they fervently believed him.

"Good lord!" exclaimed Doug Oates. "The entire first wave is made up of Women and little kids."

No one commented on Oates's alarming observation. The men in the Situation Room watched with growing dread as another crowd of women began to lead their children across the bridge and toward the tanks and armored cars solidly blocking their way.

"General," said the President. "Can you fire a volley over their heads?"

"Yes, sir," replied Chandler. "I've ordered my troops to load blank rounds. The risk of hitting i

"A sound decision," said General Metcalf of the Joint Chiefs. "Curtis knows what he's doing."

General Chandler turned to one of his aides. "Give the command to fire a blank salvo."

The aide, a major, barked into a radio receiver. "Blank salvo, fire!"

The thunderous roar spat a wall of flame into the night. The concussion came like a gust of wind, blowing out many of the candles held by the throng. The ear-splitting clap from the tank ca

Ten seconds. Ten seconds it took between the commands to "fire" and

"cease fire," and for the rumble to echo back from the low hills behind Roma.

A paralyzing silence, pierced by the pungent smell of cordite, fell over the stu

Then the screams of the women shattered the quiet, quickly joined by the shrieks of the terrified children. Most dropped in horror to the ground while the rest remained standing, frozen in shock. A great outcry followed from the other side as the men, held back from crossing with their wives and children, feared the fallen were dead or wounded.

Pandemonium erupted, and for the next few minutes it looked as though the immigrant invasion had been stopped dead in its tracks.

Then spotlights from the Mexican shore blazed to life and were beamed to a figure standing atop a small platform supported on the shoulders of several men in white tunics.

Topiltzin stood with arms outstretched in a parody of Christ, shouting through speakers, ordering the women who were hugging the ground to rise up and press forward. Slowly the shock diminished and everyone began to realize there were no bloody, mangled bodies. Many laughed hysterically to find they were neither injured nor dead. A rolling cheer went up that turned deafening as the throng mistakenly thought Topiltzin's powers had miraculously swept aside the destruction and shielded them from harm.

"He turned it against us," said Julius Schiller ruefully.

The President shook his head sadly. "Just as it's happened so many times in our nation's history, our humane efforts backfire."

"Chandler's in for it," said Nichols.

General Metcalf nodded very slowly. "Yes, it all falls on his shoulders now."

The time for the fateful decision had arrived. There was no dodging the agonizing issue any longer. The President, sitting safely deep in the basement of the White House, remained strangely silent. He had deftly passed the time bomb to the niiliL-uy, laying the groundwork for General Chandler to become the sacrificial scapegoat.

He was between the proverbial rock and a hard place. He could not allow an army of foreigners to simply storm across the borders unhindered, but neither could he risk the downfall of his entire administration by directly ordering Chandler to slaughter children.

No President ever felt so impotent.

The chanting women and children were only a few short meters away from the troops entrenched a short distance back of the shoreline. Those at the head of the snakelike column of candles crossing the international bridge were already close enough to look up at the gun muzzles of the tanks.

General Curtis Chandler had a long and illustrious military career to look back upon, but nothing to look forward to except a guilt-stricken conscience. His wife had died the year before from a long illness, and they had no children. A onestar Brigadier General, he had no more rank to attain in the short time before his retirement. Now he stood on the bluff watching hundreds of thousands of illegal inunigrants flood into his nativ land and wondered why his life had cruelly culmanated at this place and time.

The expression on his aide's face bordered on frantic. "Sir, the order to fire."

Chandler stared at the little children nervously clutching their mothers' hands, their candles revealing their wide, dark eyes.

"General, your orders?" the aide implored.

Chandler mumbled something, but the aide couldn't hear it over the chanting. "I'm sorry, General, did you say 'Fire'?"

Chandler turned and his eyes glistened. "Let them pass."

"Sir?"

"Those are my orders, Major. I'm damned if I'll go to my grave a baby killer. And for God's sake don't even say the words 'Don't fire,' in case some dumb platoon commander misunderstands."

The Major nodded and hurriedly spoke into his microphone. "To all commanders, General Chandler's orders; make no hostile move and allow the immigrants to pass through our lines, repeat, stand down and let them through."

With immeasurable relief, the American soldiers lowered their weapons and stood stiff and uneasy for a few minutes. Then they relaxed and began flirting with the women and, kneeling down, playing with the children and gently cajoling them to wipe away their tears.

"Forgive me, Mr. President," said Chandler, speaking into a camera. "I regret I must end my military career by refusing a direct order from my Commander-in-Chief, but I felt that under the circumstances .

"Not to worry," replied the President. "You did a magnificent job." He turned to General Metcalf. "I don't care where he stands on the seniority list; please see that Curtis receives another star."