Alpha (14 page)

“You can’t take that risk!
I
can’t take that risk!”

“The demands are bullshit, pardon me, Mr. Marcelin,” Ruiz says. “If the time frame was longer, I would accept it as plausible. As it stands, twelve hours is impossible, and whoever put this together, whoever had the wherewithal and technical expertise to mount this operation, to spoof the botulinum attack, they have to know that.”

Marcelin meets Ruiz’s gaze. “Then they have the technical expertise to hide a dirty bomb in my park, too, Colonel.”

“In which case,” Ruiz says, “my two shooters are the only people who can make certain that device, if it exists, never goes off.”

“If you’re wrong—”

“If he’s wrong, we are thoroughly and completely fucked,” Wallford says. “And that’s all there is to say about that.”

COMPARED TO
a nuclear device, even a pocket nuke, a dirty bomb is still heavy, and this means Gabriel Fuller is lugging serious weight into the heart of WilsonVille. He’s on coms from the command post, listening to the updates from Hendar, and when the call comes that one of his teams has met the deputy director of park safety, Jonathan Bell, with a group of three kids and one Friend, he’s almost relieved.

“Pick him up,” he tells Hendar. It’s not because the man’s management, though that may prove useful. It’s not because, apparently, Jonathan Bell killed Stripe with his bare hands and then got out of the building without them noticing, though that marks him as far more dangerous than Gabriel had any reason to believe WilsonVille security might be. It’s not even because Gabriel is angry at Jonathan Bell for bringing Dana into the park today, something he knows is irrational yet feels nonetheless.

It’s none of those things, and all of them, and the feeling he had when looking down at Stripe’s corpse. This is going to be trouble. This man, he’s going to make things hard.

When he hears the gunshots, then, he knows. As the echo fades in the park, before Hendar is squawking into his radio, Gabriel Fuller knows. He was right.

“Fuck!” Hendar says. “Fuck, that guy, he and another one, they just took down Bravo.”

“Where are they now?”

“They’re splitting up, he and another guy, some black guy, they’re heading west, north of the river. The rest of them are running for the gate, ten of them. I can pull from Charlie to intercept.”

“How many are we holding?”

“Alpha and Charlie have reported. Holding twenty-seven.”

“Negative.”

“Say again?”

“Negative. Charlie proceeds as ordered, let the ones heading for the gate go.” Gabriel hops down from the platform beside the parked roller-coaster cars. The shots came from the east, and where he’s standing, he can just catch a glimpse of the fleeing hostages before they vanish from sight. He turns northward, but rides and buildings are blocking his view, and even if they weren’t, the foliage bordering the Timeless River would prevent him from seeing anything more. He moves to the control booth for the ride. “Track the other two, I want to know where they go. Are they leaving?”

“Doesn’t look like it.”

“Track them. Keep me posted.”

“On it.”

Gabriel stows his radio, stares down at the control panel for the coaster. It’s idiotproof, a battery of meters and monitors reading the status of each train of cars, their speed and positions, a handful of switches and one lever to control release and pace and movement. One large red button, marked for emergency stop. He reaches for the lever, ready to release the first train, then pauses, goes for his phone instead.

The Uzbek is answering before the first ring has sounded. “Status?”

“We have a problem,” Gabriel says. “We have hostiles in the park, two of them.”

“Do you indeed?”

Something in the Uzbek’s tone makes Gabriel hesitate. “They just took down Bravo element.”

“You’ve placed the device?”

“I’m about to run it up.”

“How many hostages are you holding?”

“Twenty-seven.”

“Break them up into smaller groups. Pick one, put a bullet in his head, and dump the body outside.”

“We separate the groups, I’ll have to break up the elements.”

“I am fully aware of what it means. Give the order, and then take who you need and solve your other problem.”

Gabriel doesn’t speak. Solving his other problem—he understands that, he has no problem with that. There’s no choice, and this Jonathan Bell and whoever is with him, they’ve got to be stopped before they can do more damage to the operation. But shooting a hostage, he can’t help it, he doesn’t like it. He doesn’t want to do it.

“Matias? Is there a problem?”

“The hostages, they’re mostly women and children.”

“That is not a problem. That is a benefit.”

The Uzbek hangs up.

THERE ARE
fourteen of them in here, not counting the men with the guns.

There’s Mom and Dana and the rest of the class, and a half dozen other people—three kids and their parents and someone dressed as Xi-Xi, the panda that Lilac, Lily, and Lavender made friends with when they visited China. All of them are sitting on the floor with their backs to the wall, and everyone is scared, though Mom and Dana are maybe doing the best at trying to hide it.

Athena can tell, though. She would be able to tell anyway, even if her mom wasn’t holding her hand so tight and so hard that it hurts.

It’s hot in here, too, no air-conditioning, even though there’s this big machine that’s been vibrating nonstop since they got here. They’re inside Hendar’s Lair, back in the Wild World, where they’d started the day, though Athena and the others hadn’t actually gone on this ride. It’s supposed to be a kind of interactive haunted house, except it’s not a house but a cave, and it’s not even really a cave because it’s Hendar’s Lair, which means it’s decorated for some reason like a cross between an Arabian prince’s tent and an old dungeon.

The man who shot Mr. Howe led them in here, just pushed the
Friends Only
door open and then the three other men with their duffel bags filled with guns herded them all inside. They came in through the back, Athena thinks, past all these crates and boxes of equipment and supplies, and then into the heart of the ride, where Hendar’s got his bedroom with all the gleaming treasure and silks and so on. Up close, she can see that the glittering treasure is Mylar and glass, and the silks are made of plastic.

They all had to stand in a line then, and the man who shot Mr. Howe searched them while the others pointed their guns. He took wallets and purses and bags but he didn’t seem to care about the money, only cell phones. He wasn’t nice about it, and Athena thinks he likes them being scared of him.

When he searched Mom, Mom tried talking to him. She saw her lips, knew she was trying to explain that Athena and Joel and Leon and Lynne and Gail and Miguel, that all of them were deaf. Dana tried, too, but whatever the man who shot Mr. Howe said in return made them all stop speaking. He finished searching Mom and pushed her, pointed to a space on the floor, and Athena found herself moving forward without thinking about it to push him back, but Dana caught her arm. Mom just shook her head, sitting where she’d fallen by the big fake bed that isn’t as soft as a real bed should be.

Then the man who shot Mr. Howe gestured to the bed, and he must’ve said something, because the other three with guns laughed. He stepped closer to Athena, and Dana still had hold of her arm, and her fingers tightened on it. Athena didn’t look away, trying to see this man’s eyes behind the mask, but the light inside this little cave and the glass or plastic or whatever it is that covers his eyes made it impossible. She could feel her heart racing and she knew she was scared, but she was angry, too, and she wouldn’t look away. Then he put his hands on her, to search her, and they weren’t kind, and he touched her in places that she’d never let anyone touch her before. When he put a hand between her legs, he must have said something else, because Dana moved, then, just enough that Athena could read her lips.

Don’t you dare you leave her alone.

The man who had murdered Mr. Howe left his hands where they were for a moment longer. Then he shoved Athena in the same direction as he had Mom, and she was sitting on the concrete floor painted to look like cave stone, smooth and cool, but not cool enough to keep her cheeks from feeling like they were on fire, or to keep the tears from pushing up in her eyes. Mom put her arms around her.

But Athena didn’t look away, and she saw that when he searched Dana and took her phone away, he was even more cruel than before. He put a hand behind her head, and lifted her hair, and he kept one hand on her breast when he put his other between her legs. Dana didn’t speak that Athena could see, but her jaw was clenched so tightly that the muscles in it trembled.

He did the same to Gail and Lynne, too, and when it was done and all of them were seated on the floor in a line, Athena could feel the anger and the shame. All the worse because the men, the boys, they wouldn’t even look at them, not even Joel.

Then the men with guns, all of them, moved away, to the other side of the room. Heads inclining just enough, and Athena knew they were speaking, and then the one who murdered Mr. Howe said something, gestured, and all of them were taking off their masks. Mom was holding her hand then.

She thought he would look evil, or ugly, or mean, but the man who had murdered Mr. Howe didn’t look that way at all. Younger than Athena had thought he would be, maybe in his midtwenties, but that’s only guessing, she really didn’t know. But his face was smooth and almost handsome. One of the other men saw her looking at him, and he said something, and she missed most of it, but she thought she caught his name.

Vladimir.

Whatever else he said, Athena didn’t know, but it made Vladimir look her way. Then he smiled.

Mom’s grip on her hand got even tighter.

The men take off their white suits and open their duffel bags. They have guns of different kinds and radios. They don’t talk to each other very much at all now, and when they do, Athena can’t see their words.

Once, Mom turns her head to say something to Dana, and Vladimir with the smile points his gun at her. He doesn’t seem angry and he doesn’t seem to shout, and he’s even smiling.

No talking.

Mom takes a deep breath, leans back against the wall, pulling Athena in closer. Vladimir lowers the gun in his hand, then turns his head sharply, and Athena is watching very closely as he picks up a radio and seems to listen to whatever is being said. Watching his mouth with every ounce of her focus, to see what he says in answer, but it doesn’t help, because all she is sure he says is one word.

Understood.

Then he sets the radio down and points to two of the others, and they begin zipping their bags closed again, hoisting them up. Vladimir turns to look at them, all fourteen of them in a line against the wall. He smiles the not-kind smile again, points to Mom and Dana, and then to Joel, Lynne, Miguel, and the dad and one of his kids, a toddler. Last, he points at the woman dressed as Xi-Xi.

Up,
Vladimir says.
Go with them.

Mom and Dana start talking at the same time, each of them signing as they do.

Wait what are you doing?
Mom is signing and saying.

Deaf,
Dana is almost shouting.
They need an interpreter you can’t break them up!

Vladimir considers.

I only need one.

He grins. He points at Mom.

Up go with them.

Dana starts to get up.
I go
.

The grin gets bigger.
Sit down.
He looks at Mom again, motions with the gun in his hand for her to get to her feet.
Up now.

Mom looks at Dana, at Athena, and her expression is nothing Athena can recognize, so beyond anything she has ever experienced from her mother that it takes her a moment before she can name it. Fear, yes, but that has faded in the face of this, and it is the look of someone who is helpless, who doesn’t know what else she can do.

She lets go of Athena’s hand, starts to rise.

“No!” Athena feels herself say, pulling on her mom’s arm, trying to draw her back down, trying to get up with her. “No no no!”

Vladimir starts to come forward, and Mom shouts something to him, and he stops. She’s on her feet, Athena standing with her, still holding onto her arm. She can feel the tears again trying to push their way free, and she shakes her head, repeating herself over and over again until Mom is facing her, bringing her hands in close to her chest.

Dad comes,
Mom signs.
Dad comes soon.

Athena silences herself, feels her lips trembling. Feels an ache in her breast and the pressure behind her eyes. She signs quickly.

Mom please mom no go please.

All okay Dad comes soon all okay.

Vladimir puts his hand on Mom’s shoulder.

Love you
.

Vladimir pulls Mom away, then pushes her to where the two men are gathering the other half of the group. Mom and the family and Xi-Xi together. Vladimir motions to them, says something that Athena can’t see. One of the other men goes to the door, pushes it open slowly, peering out. Then they’re all moving, being shepherded out the door, and Mom is looking back. From the way her mouth is moving, Athena knows that she’s mouthing the words instead of speaking them.

It’ll be all right baby,
she mouths.
It’ll be all right Daddy is coming Daddy is coming.

Then she’s gone, and Vladimir turns back to Athena.

And he smiles.

CHAIN CRACKS
the service door on the east exterior wall of Valiant Keep while Bell covers their rear, his weapon in both hands, constant scan of overwatch. But there’s been nothing, no movement, no contacts since the four hostiles they burned on the bridge. Bell’s counted the cameras as they’ve made their way, thought about dumping a round into every one he saw, but two things speak against that tactic.

First, as of this moment, ammunition is precious.

Second, he wants his command post back, and there’s no point in reclaiming it only to be blind.

“Clear,” Chain says, and slips through the doorway, pivots, gun raised, covering Bell as the larger man ducks past, into the deep shadows of the still-under-construction keep. Chain shuts the door, moves past him, motioning to be followed.

They shadow the outer wall of the keep for twenty feet, then down a short flight of faux-stonework stairs to a large “oak” door that is neither oak nor large, the actual access being concealed in its face. Again Bell covers their backs as Chain checks, motions them through.

Bell backs in, still weapon-ready, feels the sudden temperature drop that comes from moving from above ground to beneath it. He’s starting to turn when he hears the movement, feels Chain snap his weapon up, catches the glimpse of movement.

“Friendly,” Nuri says. “Buzzsaw, friendly, friendly.”

He turns to see the woman emerging from one of the side tunnels, clinging to shadow, gun in hand.

“Took you fucking long enough,” she says.

Bell and Chain move forward, holstering their weapons as Shoshana Nuri does the same. Subdued tunnel lighting makes her skin and hair seem that much darker, part of the shadows she’s been hiding in.

“We made contact,” Bell says. “Four down, no idea how many left to go. Tried raising you, no response.”

“Make it five,” she says, reaching out with her free hand first to Chain, then to Bell, dropping an earbud into each man’s palm before falling into line with them. Chain fits the bud to his left ear, stepping ahead to lead the way. “I was in your office when they hit the command post. Had to take one of them down to get out, headed straight into the tunnels.”

Bell taps the earbud he’s just fitted. “And out of coms. No reception down here.”

“No radios, no phones. No way to contact you unless I went above ground. Staying put for the moment seemed wisest.”

“No question.”

“There’s one benefit. No cameras down here.” Nuri digs into the pocket of her blazer, comes out with a broken, warped piece of plastic that she offers to him. “Take a look.”

Bell does, fragments of plastic and circuit board, with a strip that curls up and away from the underside. A cell phone, he thinks, and he holds the pieces up to one of the light fixtures for a closer examination. Maybe a plastic wrap or a bag that fused to it, melted, and there’s a cloudy, off-white film adhering to it. He hands the pieces back to Nuri.

“That how they did it?”

She nods, barely. “Think it is, at least. Cell-phone IED, inside some sort of wrapper or container holding the botulinum spoof. I could smell the plastic when I got down here, found it near one of the air-con compressors.”

“If it’s not botulinum, what is it?” Chain asks.

“It probably
is
botulinum, just not weaponized. Maybe derived from Botox. The toxin has seven distinct subtypes. If you’re not actually weaponizing it, just making it
look
like you have, it’s conceivably a relatively easy task to make something that would spoof the Spartan.”

“Easy?” Chain shakes his head. “You Company girls.”

“Relatively easy, I said.” She looks to Bell. “What do we know?”

“Minimal. They’re coordinated, and they’ve taken hostages.” He indicates the remains of the IED in her hand. “They’re resourced, and smart enough to do that and to fake weaponizing botulinum.”

Nuri makes a small noise, almost approving. “Hostages to keep the assault force at bay.”

“Big park, lots of places to hide people.”

“And by the time any team breaches and locates where they’re being held…”

“The hostages could be dead and cold.”

Chain has moved on, taking it slower now. Bell is feeling calm, methodical, and while all their guard is still up, the cool and dim of the tunnels is welcome. For the time being, at least, for these next few minutes, they all know what they need to do.

There’s a door along the west wall, and Chain unlocks it with a key he takes from around his neck. Pushes it open and reaches along the inside wall, and a weak energy-saver bulb comes to life, too-white light in the small room. Packed with merchandise awaiting the opening of the Keep, boxes labeled for posters, jackets, action figures, comic books. Chain pops his knife and slices one open, scatters a handful of T-shirts before freeing the first of their gear bags. Bell takes it as he digs out the second, and both men drop to their knees, Nuri watching, as they begin breaking out their gear.

“You cached these when, exactly?” Nuri asks.

Bell doesn’t need to look up to see her expression; it’s all in her tone. “Does it matter?”

“It matters if your people were sitting on intel they didn’t see fit to share.”

Chain mutters something about the Catskill Institute for Acne, continues pulling equipment from his bag. He’s got their long guns out, M4 Commandos, is assembling them with almost magical speed. Bell sits back on his haunches, shucking off his suit jacket, looks up at Nuri. She’s watching them with half an eye, the rest of her attention on the tunnel, gun still in hand.

“You with me?” he asks her.

“Of course I’m fucking with you. I’m standing here.”

“You geared?”

“Not hardly.”

Bell pulls the vest from his gear bag, hefts it up and into her hands. She exhales sharply, taking its weight, thirty pounds of personal protective equipment.

“Put that on.”

“You have one for yourself?”

“I will endeavor not to get shot,” Bell says.

Chain hands one of the assault rifles to Bell, then begins donning his own vest. “First time for everything.”

“Last time I got shot, it was because of you, I recall.” Bell finishes checking the rifle, a cursory, automatic survey that has nothing to do with faith in Chain and everything to do with twenty years of habit. He leans it against the wall, begins removing his necktie.

“Blue on blue,” Chain says. “I barely touched you.”

“How much do you know?” Nuri asks. She hasn’t put on the vest.

Bell begins tucking magazines into the pouches of his combat harness, then moves to slip it on. “Right now? Hostiles in the park, and they have hostages.”

“I’m talking prior knowledge.”

Bell stops, harness open, looking at the woman. “You think we’ve been banking our intel?”

“There’s an inside man.”

“That’s a given.”

“You identified him. One of yours KIA.”

Bell shakes his head. “You think we let this ride? I knew who killed Vesques, I’d never have let things get this far. You’re thinking like CIA, sweetheart, you’re thinking of acquiring assets. You’re thinking little fish leads to the big one, but that’s not our game. Our game was to keep this from happening, and when that failed, to do what we do now. We shut it down.”

“Don’t call me that.”

Bell finishes his gear check. “FB?”

Chain holds up two of the flashbang grenades.

“Makes four,” Bell says, showing two of his own.

“That’s the next move?” Nuri asks.

“They took our eyes. We’re taking them back.” Bell stuffs his coat and tie into the bag, then stows it back in the box it came from. He reloads his pistol. “Contact Brickyard once we’re in coms range, get the Sitrep, proceed from there.”

“You want to take the CP back,” Nuri says. “We take the CP back the hostiles will know, Master Sergeant. They’ll know, and they’ll drop the hostages.”

“I am informed two of our brothers are en route. We’ll wait until they’re in position before we move. Once we have the CP, we’ll be able to locate the hostages. Do what we do.”

“One hundred and fifty-six acres of park, you’re not going to be able to hit anything fast and hard. You’re not thinking this through. We don’t know who they are. We don’t know who we’re up against.”

Chain shrugs, now in his own rig, wearing it over the Star System Alliance Defense coveralls. Bell sees it’s still damp from the plunge Chain took, wonders if Chain has even noticed. “Doesn’t matter.”

“It
does
matter.” Nuri is almost hissing. “We have no idea of their assets, their capabilities, their agenda.”

Chain glances to Bell, raises an eyebrow. Bell notes it, doesn’t return it, still locked up on Nuri. She does not look like a woman who is having a good day, though Bell knows the same goes for the rest of them. Battle banter aside, all of them are aware of the stakes, and more, how many variables are still in play. They all know how much they don’t know. And the woman has a point; if these men who have launched their very coordinated, very smart assault on WilsonVille believe their hostages are of no further use, then they’ll no longer view them as hostages. Rather, they’ll view them as target dummies.

“They want something,” Bell says. “You see that? If this was straight-up terrorism, they wouldn’t have cleared the park. They’d have just suicide-bombed us and been done with it. But they have the hostages for a reason, because they want something.”

“That’s what I’m saying.” Nuri brushes hair back from her cheek. “Moving on them before we know what they’re after, that doesn’t track smart to me. There’s a larger play.”

“Whatever they want, that’s going to keep them holding their fire.”

“That’s a leap I’m not comfortable making.”

“It’s the one we’re taking.”

“And you’re sure of it, are you, Master Sergeant?”

“Sure as I can be.”

“And if—just
if
—what they actually want is to make us look like fools, to humiliate us in front of the world? To wait until we make our move and then murder those same people we’re trying to save? What then? AQ tactic is to deliver a first strike then follow up when the responders are on the ground, you know that. Maybe they’re just waiting for us to make our move before they make their next one.”

Bell considers.

“We move faster,” he says.

They stick to the tunnels, cutting south, common sense dictating that they not emerge where they entered. Moving more slowly now, more cautiously, and the minutes continue to tick. Chain on point with his M4 up and tucked at his shoulder, Nuri, now wearing the vest, center, her pistol in both hands, and Bell watching their backs with his own assault rifle high and ready. They pass abandoned maintenance carts and toppled trash bags, dressing rooms with discarded costumes scattered here and there, left where they were dropped in the evacuation; makeup tables with cosmetics and prostheses on them. The scent of soda pop, caramel corn, hot dogs, and burned plastic mixes with the recycled air.

“How we doing this, Top?” Chain asks.

Bell defers the answer, asks Nuri his own question. “Angel? What route did you take?”

“You mean from your office? Used the access in the service area behind the facades.”

Bell considers. The row of buildings that border Wilson Town on the east and west sides are designed to look like individual structures to park guests, but in truth are one enormous building each. Long hallways, hidden from public view and use, run along the rear of both structures, facilitating movement of staff and goods, and each hallway has tunnel access.

“They made your egress, they might have someone watching it.”

“And a welcoming committee,” Chain adds.

“Problem. All other approaches require covering open ground. Puts us on camera, they move to intercept.”

“There’s another option,” Nuri says. “We have mission coms.”

“Effective only above ground. Hold.”

They come to a stop, and Bell lowers his rifle, hands it to Nuri, then removes his combat harness. He offers it to her, takes the rifle back while she puts it on, then returns the M4 to her hands.

“I’m not the expert at clearing a room,” she says.

“I’ll give them something else to look at while you do it. Follow Chain’s lead, you’ll be fine.” Bell checks his watch, the hands faintly luminous in the subdued light of the tunnel. “I have twelve forty-seven. Mark me thirty minutes, move at thirteen seventeen. Contact when you have the CP.”

“Thirteen seventeen,” Chain echoes. “Hey, Top? Don’t get your old-man ass shot again.”

“You won’t be with me,” Bell says. “Think I’ll be all right.”