Alpha (13 page)

BELL’S PHONE
bleats at him, the two-tone alert that says Brickyard is calling. He doesn’t break stride as he answers. “Go for Warlock.”

“Sitrep.”

“Biotoxin alarm in the park, evacuation in progress.”

“Can you confirm?”

“That’s negative.”

“Assessment?”

“I think we’re dealing with something else. Trying to figure out exactly what right now.”

There’s a flicker of a pause, long enough for Bell to hear the background static-and-whine characteristic of secured communications. Then Ruiz says, “I’m en route to Marcelin. Let me know as soon as you have something. Out.”

Bell lowers his phone, rounds the south side of Flashman’s Laser Light Show. Ahead, working along the path that’ll take them to the northwest exit, he can see a Lilac trying to rush a group of three along with her. They’re just kids, two boys and a girl, and as he comes closer he can see that all are near tears, their meerkat companion trying to comfort them.

“We’ll find them once we get outside,” Lilac is saying. “I’ll stay with you the whole time, I promise. And you know I always keep my promises!”

“You lied to Hendar that time,” the girl says through snuffles.

“That was different. I did that to save Lavender.” Lilac sees Bell, stops. “They were on the carousel, got separated from their parents. We’re going out the northwest, is that way still open?”

Bell slows, falls into walking with them. All the kids look at him, and one of the boys, the older one, dark-haired and dark eyes shining with tears, reminds him of another boy, playing soccer in a dusty square. He gives them his most confident smile.

“Should be,” Bell says. “I’ll keep you company.”

“See?” Lilac tells the kids. “You find friends everywhere you look.”

“Everyone okay?” Bell’s phone is still in his hand, and he brings up Chain’s number with a glance, thinking to tell him that there’s a change. “Everyone feels all right?”

“It’s a little scary,” the youngest boy says softly.

“Why is the park closed?” This from the older boy, who cannot hide his disappointment. “You guys never close.”

“You know what a gas leak is?” Bell asks. “Natural gas? It’s not dangerous alone, but you have to be careful.”

“There’s been a gas leak?”

“That’s how it looks.” Lilac is watching him as she holds the hand of the younger boy, the one who admitted his fear, tear tracks streaking his cheeks. There’s doubt, maybe curiosity in Lilac’s expression, and Bell is about to ask if anybody is having difficulty breathing when ahead of them, cresting the slight rise onto the bridge that crosses the Timeless River here, he sees one of the hazmat responders.

That’s the moment, that’s when he knows. Every suspicion crystallizes, every doubt, every question. The instant this man first comes into view, thirty-odd feet away, as Bell sees who else is with him. Sees Tyvek suits and gas masks and black boots and black gloves and black gear bags. He knows. He knows that the Spartan was spoofed, that there is no aerosolized botulinum toxin wafting through WilsonVille. He knows it was a lie, and that this is something else, something different.

Something even more dangerous.

Because walking toward them, this man dressed for hazmat response, with another following just behind and to his left, there’s a group of six other people. Six other park guests, men and women and another child, and in the rear, two more dressed as hazmat responders, same as the first two to the last detail. Confused and frightened expressions on the evacuees, no conversation, and the way those six guests walk, he knows that walk. Never mind that they’re heading the wrong way, that they’re heading deeper
in
rather than making their way
out
. He knows that walk.

Those six, they’re not walking like evacuees. They’re walking like prisoners.

His thumb presses down, dialing Chain, but he doesn’t raise the phone, just drops it into the pocket of his coat. Takes two steps forward, putting Lilac and the kids to his back, raises his free hand in greeting.

“You guys got here fast,” Bell says. “Only the four of you? I’d have thought there’d be more. We’ve got most of the park cleared out already.”

The group comes to a silent stop in front of him, the nearest only fifteen or so feet away, at the foot of the bridge. In his mind, almost unconsciously, Bell has marked the four men in hazmat gear: Tango Four, rear left, Tango Three, rear right, Tango Two, near right, Tango One, near center. Four and Three have spread out slightly at the back of the group, still on the bridge itself, albeit barely, and now Three is putting his hand on the shoulder of the young woman nearest to him. He turns her slightly, using her to obscure Bell’s view. Sunlight bounces off the black rubber glove, and the woman flinches, just a bit, easy to miss, but if Bell had any doubts left, she’s just burned them away.

The same part of him that has numbered and named each Tango has prioritized targets, has counted out sequence, movement, shots; has shown him the motion, crystal-clear; drawing the weapon riding just back of his right hip, up into his hands, safety down, firing. It isn’t a compulsion, neither is it an automated response, neither is it quite instinct. Yet it is all these things. But that same training, that same tactical brain is also telling him something else, is telling him that there are three children behind him and six hostages in front of him, and he does not know which Tangos are weapons-ready and which are not.

So Bell does not move, not yet, but instead repeats himself. “You guys got here fast.”

Tango One is closing, and Tango Two is raising his free hand, putting it to his left ear. On coms, and that makes sense, this is coordinated, which means, in turn, someone is coordinating, probably someone in the park, perhaps the same inside man who managed the botulinum spoof. A flicker-fast thought: Nuri back at the command post, but she had damn well better be able to take care of herself.

Not his problem, not right now.

“You need to come with us,” Tango One says. His voice is thick, dulled behind the gas mask, and Bell can’t discern an accent. The Tango’s eyes flick to the kids and Lilac before returning to him. “You have to be screened.”

Lilac says, “We have to get these children back to their parents.”

“After they’ve been tested,” Tango One says, not looking away from Bell.

Tango Two has lowered his hand. “We take all of them.” He indicates Bell. “That one’s management.”

“Deputy director of park safety.” Bell smiles.

“You all are going to have to come with us.” Tango Two reaches to unzip the top of his coveralls, and Bell’s back-brain immediately reprioritizes targets, moves this man to the front of the line. At the same time, he registers movement in the background, just below the crest of the bridge, at the railing to his left. Chaindragger, dripping with water from the Timeless River, pulling himself up and over to position himself a dozen yards or so behind Tangos Three and Four.

“Turn around.”

“Sure,” Bell says, and he takes it slow, pivots about to face Lilac and the children. Confused, scared faces, but they don’t understand, not yet. They don’t see it. They don’t know.

Bell feels very tired, suddenly.

“Do what he says,” he tells them. “Now.”

Lilac is the first to react, the first to realize, and maybe she’s seen something, the gun that Bell is positive is about to be leveled at his back. Maybe she sees something else, but she pulls the youngest around with her, reaches out for the hand of the second, the girl, maybe ten years old. The dark-eyed boy, the older one, frowns, his mouth clamped tight.

“We have to find our parents,” he whispers.

Bell puts a hand on the boy’s shoulder. Says with all the quiet certainty he can, “You will.”

The boy turns, and Lilac is starting to move, and now they all are beginning to walk back in the direction they came. Bell follows, one step, another, just walking here, just walking, wrapped in cold calm. Slowing slightly, almost able to feel Tango Two at his back.

He pivots, spins, left hand extending, palm out, his right hand dropping, drawing. Tango Two’s gun has a suppressor, and if it hadn’t Bell wonders if he’d have been shot again, maybe for the final time. But the suppressor makes Tango Two’s pistol that much longer, long enough for Bell’s left palm to connect with its side, knock the weapon out of line and up, and there’s the muffled report as the man fires on instinct, sends a round skyward.

Now Bell’s own weapon is free, and he’s running the count in his head. Tango Two, sight, fire one, fire two, both head, can’t miss at this range; Tango Two down; left hand to pistol, shifting, barely have to even swing about, Tango One beginning to backpedal, and the friendlies don’t even know what’s happened yet, haven’t begun to react. Chaindragger in motion, covered, bad angles, nobody better miss or else they’ll shoot each other, worse, they’ll shoot the friendlies, and have the shot; three, four, five, tracking line, upper thorax, neck, head; Tango One down.

Bell sidesteps left, the .45 high and ready, looking for Tango Three, Tango Four, and Chaindragger has done what he was called to do, both are down. Gunshots echoing, fading, then gone. Friendlies are stunned, they still don’t quite know what’s happened, one of them covering his mouth with both hands, the woman Tango Three had handled standing stock-still. Then she’s shaking, silent tears beginning to fall. The woman beside her wraps an arm about her shoulders.

The entire action has taken less than two seconds from start to finish, from four live Tangos to four dead ones.

Digging out his phone again, Bell turning in place, gun still in hand. Lilac and the others have stopped, staring back, and she’s doing what she can to keep them from looking. The older boy is staring at the bodies on the ground.

“Turn around,” Bell orders. “Turn around.”

The boy does. Bell kills the still-open call to Chaindragger, jabs another button, wishes to God he was on mission coms already.

Nothing.

He remembers thinking that she could damn well take care of herself, and he feels foolish and stupid.

He hangs up, tries again, gets the same, hangs up again. Looks around, feels midday sunlight burning his vision. There’s no one else around that he can see, just six friendlies plus Lilac plus three kids and four bodies spilling red into white Tyvek suits and onto WilsonVille cobblestones.

Chaindragger is coming up beside him, his own weapon held low-ready in both hands. Water from his dip in the Timeless River drips from his Star System Alliance Defense mechanic’s coveralls, pools at his feet, makes his rich brown skin shine.

“Top?”

“Angel was in the command post. No response.”

“Meaning we don’t have eyes.”

“Meaning they do.” Bell scans the immediate area, looking high, for hidden camera placements. He finds three, knows he’s missing at least that number again. Knows that whoever is in the command post is watching, has seen them, will be reacting.

“We’ve got to get these people out of the park.”

“They have our eyes.” Bell indicates one of the bodies. “You see any more of these on your way here?”

“That’s a negative.”

“Check them.” Bell holsters his pistol as Chain drops to one knee, begins searching bodies and bags. Lilac is watching him warily, the boy and girl clinging to her. “You with me? Lilac? Are you with me?”

Lilac nods, hesitantly at first, then again, with resolve, and maybe it’s calling her by her character name that does it, but she takes a breath, stands a little straighter. She is Lilac the meerkat, the heart of the Flower Sisters. Fierce and loyal, yet kind at heart, and she will do what must be done.

“Yes,” she says. “Yes, I am.”

“You get them to the main gate, don’t stop until you’re outside,” Bell tells her, then turns, directing his words at the others. “You understand? All of you, follow Lilac. Follow Lilac. Don’t stop. Run.”

“Lily runs,” the girl says softly. “Lilac dances.”

“Not today,” Lilac says. “Today, we run so fast that Lily won’t believe it when we tell her. Right?”

The girl nods, wide-eyed.

“Go,” Bell tells them.

RUIZ IS
racing his Mustang through traffic at speeds no one would call reasonable or safe, listening to the duty sergeant in his ear delivering the bullet. What they know, and more, what they don’t, and then the interrupt he’s been waiting for comes at last.

“I’ve got Warlock,” the duty sergeant says, her voice as implacably calm as ever. Ruiz used to wonder if anything would faze her or the others of her kind, those who staff ops rooms and duty posts in bases and secret and secured rooms all around the world. All hell breaking loose in WilsonVille, worst fears being realized, and that didn’t do it, which makes Ruiz believe nothing ever will.

“Put him through.” A pause.

“Warlock, go for Brickyard.” Hiss-click on the line, background whine of the scrambler, then Jad Bell’s voice.

“Brickyard, I’m in the park. It’s a take.”

“What do you have?” Ruiz asks, wrenching the wheel around an F-150 driven by maybe the only person in Southern California who is actually slowing to stop at a yellow. Horns blare, and Ruiz stomps on the accelerator.

“It’s a take,” Bell repeats. “Chain and I have four neutralized, repeat four neutralized, estimate at least three times that number left in the park, cannot confirm.”

“Assessment?”

“They’re taking hostages and they’re taking the park.”

“Can you confirm they have hostages?”

“Cannot confirm, but highly probable. We have ten, repeat ten, freed and heading out now.” Bell pauses. “We’ve lost contact with Angel. May have been taken when hostiles took the security offices.”

“KIA?”

“Cannot confirm.”

“They have control of the surveillance?”

“Affirmative.”

Ruiz spins the wheel about, the Mustang embracing its notorious heritage, fishtailing into the Wilson Entertainment corporate lot. In the rearview, he can see one of the security guards in the gatehouse he just blew past running after him, yelling into a radio. He’s killing the engine and climbing out as he continues speaking to Bell. “If they’re taking hostages, the botulinum is a hoax.”

“Agreed.”

“I’m putting Bone and Board into play, should have them on the ground and staged for you in three hours. This is the opening move, Warlock, not the endgame. We need to get ahead of them.”

“Understood. Out.”

“You,” Ruiz says as the line goes dead in his ear. He’s facing the visibly jumpy Wilson Entertainment security guard closing on him. The man is unarmed but for a radio, but Ruiz holds out one hand anyway, showing an empty palm, while his other dips into his jacket. Wearing blue jeans and a black T-shirt and a windbreaker, he lacks the authority of a uniform, knows he has to make up for it with his voice and manner.

“Colonel Daniel Ruiz to see Matthew Marcelin. I am aware of the situation in the park. Take me to him now.”

The security guard hesitates, tries to be clever about it, reaching out for the ID. Ruiz shakes his head.

“I need to see that, sir.”

“Son, you have a terrorist incident developing in your park,” Ruiz says. “What you need to do is bring me to Matthew Marcelin, and you goddamn need to do it now.”

Ruiz starts toward the entrance of the building, not quite running, but strides that force the guard into a jog to catch up, then keep pace. The man falls in, glancing his way, but doesn’t speak, and at the doors he’s there first, pushing them open and then running ahead, clearing the way. There’s a mural of the Flower Sisters looking sweet on the wall, cavorting with friends, and there’s a crowd in the lobby, executives milling around. Ruiz suspects that the building is being cleared, security protocol, perhaps, fear of another attack or a response to the biotoxin threat.

A threat that is unequivocally false, Ruiz is now certain. The security guard is holding an elevator for him, and he steps in, finds Jerome Wallford inside on his phone, sport coat and slacks and mop of blond hair, looking ten years younger than Ruiz knows he is. Wallford acknowledges him with something like a nod, the guard reaches around, presses a floor, then backs out. Doors close.

Wallford covers the mouthpiece of the phone, still at his ear, with a hand. “You confirm mobile in the park?”

“I have two shooters in the open, they have engaged and neutralized one element. The botulinum—”

“Bullshit, yeah.”

“They lost contact with your girl.”

“
I’ve
fucking lost contact with my girl.” Wallford uncovers the mouthpiece, says, “Then get onto NSA and shut it down before it starts a panic. Anything else, you call me.”

“Shooting down the balloon.”

Wallford lowers the phone, scowling. “Twitter, Facebook, everyfuckingthing.”

“This won’t stay quiet.”

“It’s already not quiet, it’s already being shouted from the mountain. Media is en route both here and to the park.”

“My man says they’re taking hostages. Means something else is coming.”

“Something else is most definitely coming,” Wallford agrees. “The question is what.”

For a man trying to ride chaos, Ruiz thinks Matthew Marcelin is doing a damn fine job of not losing his head. He’s standing in his outer office, tie loosened and collar open, a Bluetooth in his left ear and a landline held to his right. When Ruiz and Wallford enter, he cuts off midsentence, staring at them.

“You I know,” Marcelin says to Wallford. “Him I don’t.”

“Colonel Daniel Ruiz. Master Sergeant Jonathan Bell belongs to me.”

There’s a heartbeat’s pause, and then Marcelin says the same thing to each of his phones, “Call you back.” The landline goes to one of the assistants standing in the room, the Bluetooth comes out of his ear, and Marcelin gestures to his office, moves to enter without waiting for them to follow.

Wallford shuts the door behind them once they’re inside.

“You bastards knew this would happen?” are the first words out of Marcelin’s mouth. “You
knew
this would happen to my park?”

“If we knew it was going to happen, we’d have stopped it before it could start,” Wallford says. “Believe me.”

“You placed your man in my organization.” Marcelin points at Ruiz. “You knew something was coming.”

“Sir,” Ruiz says. “What we suspect and what we know at any given time are often, regrettably, radically different things. We suspected some sort of incident, and our analysis showed that in such an event, WilsonVille would be a priority target. How seriously we took the threat is measured by the presence of two of my very best people in your park, not to mention one of Mr. Wallford’s.”

Marcelin’s jaw clenches, as if to literally keep himself silent, and this lasts for several seconds as he processes what they’ve just told him, what he already knows, what he must now conclude. Outside the office, phones are ringing, voices overlapping.

“Doesn’t matter, not now,” Marcelin says, finally. “What can you tell me?”

“Bell confirms that the botulinum alarm was faked, we don’t know how yet.”

“Thank God for that.”

“Yes, sir,” Ruiz agrees. “However, he further confirms the presence of hostiles in the park, and that they are taking hostages.”

Any relief Marcelin feels vanishes. “How many? Do we know?”

“We do not.”

“What do they want?”

“Unknown. What I require from you is an accounting of your personnel working in the park today, and some means of confirming if they’re out or not.”

“What about the guests?”

“Personnel is the priority.”

“You think someone’s on the inside?”

Before Ruiz can answer, Wallford snorts. “Something like this? At least one, maybe more.”

That gives Marcelin pause, forces him to look aside as he digests the implications. He draws a breath, again bringing himself back to point, asks Wallford, “And where’s Porter in all this? He in on this with you?”

“Eric Porter is not part of my operation,” Wallford says.

“Operation.” Marcelin echoes the word, displeased by it, then moves to his desk, where he lifts the handset to his phone. Dials with an index finger, then adjusts his glasses with his thumb. “I need someone in personnel.”

Wallford takes the moment, turns half away from Marcelin, leaning in to Ruiz, says in a lowered voice, “The hit on this is going to be massive. This is minutes away from blowing wide. There’s not a corner of the globe isn’t going to hear about this.”

“Which is the only reason to do it. Why do it
this
way is the question.”

Wallford glances to where Marcelin is still on the phone. “It was always the question. Unless there are an incredibly large number of hostages inside, suicide run at the front gates would’ve pulled a bigger body count. So it ain’t about the body count.”

“Someone’s making a statement.”

“A suicide bomb is a statement. And on American soil? What this is, this is a
different
statement, Colonel.”

Two-tone beep, and Ruiz puts a hand to his earbud, and even before he does, Wallford’s phone is demanding his attention, too. Coincidence is no longer in the offing, and Ruiz knows as he answers that whatever bad news is coming his way, Wallford is getting the same from a different source.

“Charlie Foxtrot,” the duty sergeant says with the same complacent calm as ever. “Hit the BBC first, but it’s spreading, CNN just got it. Video uploaded to YouTube, NSA is already onto it.”

“Tell me.” Ruiz picks up the remote control resting on the edge of Marcelin’s desk, points it to the flat screen on the wall. The television flicks on to the WilsonEnt channel—WE!—an animated sword fight between some rough-and-tumble pirate and a host of shambling one-eyed beasts. Begins flicking channels quickly, the line still open in his ear.

“Hostages, ultimatum, and demands,” the duty sergeant says. “Hostage numbers are unknown. Demands, as follows, quoting, ‘the release of all unlawfully imprisoned soldiers of God held at Bagram, Guantanamo, and those secret installations around the world.’”

“Soldiers of God?” He doesn’t look away from the screen, wondering just how many goddamn channels he’ll have to wade through before he can find anything like information. Marcelin has hung up his own phone, coming around the desk to his right.

“That’s the line, yes, sir.”

“Or else?”

“They claim to have a radiological device they will detonate if their demands are not met within twelve hours.”

“Direct quote?”

“Affirm. They’re giving us until just before midnight.”

The flicking pays off, a ticker running beneath a talking head who stands in front of a glowing world map, and Ruiz thinks they’re so early that the news networks haven’t even had time to work up their graphics. He’s been channel surfing on mute, but he doesn’t need the sound up to know the words being spoken by the earnest beauty staring anxiously, meaningfully into the camera. Then she vanishes, replaced by a video.

“Hold,” Ruiz says.

“Holding.”

He brings up the volume, taking in the image on the screen. Minor pixelation from the video camera, but it’s simple, straightforward. If the analysts will draw anything from the image, Ruiz can’t imagine how. White-wall background and a ski-masked man standing before it, dressed in black from head to toe, even his eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses. Not a bit of flesh to be seen. The voice that perhaps belongs to this figure speaks in English, is heavily digitized, has been run through filter after filter, warped and stretched. Ruiz wonders at the polish on display, the lengths to which whoever has crafted this message has gone to preserve anonymity. This is something new, he realizes, an order of magnitude above the terrorism he and his men have faced for the last several years.

That, as much as the figure’s words, worry him.

Video flicker, an edit, and the figure in black is gone, and there is, again, the glimpse of the white wall, and then there is nothing. The talking head reappears, manages to get as far as saying, “Local authorities are urging residents around WilsonVille not to panic—” before Ruiz turns the television off.

There is a moment where none of the men speaks.

“Mother of God,” Marcelin finally says.

Ruiz looks to Wallford, finds the CIA man watching him. His expression mirrors Ruiz’s thoughts.

“You have two shooters in the park,” Wallford says. “Can they confirm there’s a dirty bomb on the ground?”

Ruiz shakes his head slightly. “Only by eyeball, they’re not geared for it.”

“Your shooters.” Marcelin is speaking carefully. “You’ve got to get them out. If they’re spotted…they’ll get the hostages killed.”

“They already took down four,” Ruiz says. “Too late for that.”

“You heard what he said.”

“I heard what was broadcast, yes.”

“They’ll get the hostages killed,” Marcelin repeats.

“If there even are hostages,” Wallford says. “We have no confirmation.”