Alpha (16 page)

There is an aching, awful silence, broken at first by his ragged breathing.

He hears Amy.

“Jad! Jad! God, please, Jad! Answer me!”

Bell knows what she’s going to say next. Knew it the moment he saw her, but didn’t have the time to realize it. What has to be, because she’s here, knows it the same way he knows that these two Tangos thought putting the hostages in the gazelle’s cage, and putting the gazelle in with one of the jaguars, made perfect sense.

Makes perfect sense.

“Oh, God, Jad.” Amy, hidden from view, and her voice, trying to stay steady even as the words themselves betray her. “They have our baby, Jad. They have Athena.”

WHEN THEY
lost them at Valiant Keep, Gabriel considered going into the tunnels in pursuit, but he didn’t consider it for long. He’d spent too much time beneath WilsonVille already, and the thought of a gunfight down there wasn’t just stupid, it was suicidal. He’d either end up playing cat and mouse, or pouring his people into a fatal funnel. Less than three hours into the operation already, and he’d lost five of his men. He didn’t want to spend any more of them unless he was certain of the result. Army tactics: engage the enemy on your terms and your grounds, pick your battle.

Fighting fair gets you killed. So you don’t fight fair.

That meant waiting, hard to do already, harder still after he’d heard the gunshot, after he knew that one of the hostages had been killed. He was making his way back to the command post, Hendar still on coms, Gordo and Betsy still on surveillance, watching for a sign of Jonathan Bell and his friend, but after the execution, Gabriel had to ask.

“Who was it?”

“Some woman,” Hendar said. “Dressed like one of those bears, you know, from China?”

“Xi-Xi.”

“Whatever.”

Whatever, Gabriel thought. Whatever.

And then he thought that maybe he knew this Xi-Xi, maybe they had exchanged words in some changing area, or backstage at some show. Shared a joke, a drink of water, maybe bitched about management, and he stopped that line of thought as quickly as he could.

Not quickly enough.

Not knowing where Jonathan Bell might emerge, Gabriel has Betsy join him outside Dawg Days Theatre. He’d have preferred to draw another shooter off one of the remaining teams, thinks he can probably afford to do it, but he doesn’t like the idea of leaving any of the hostages under weak guard, especially now that Alpha and Charlie have been broken into separate elements. Up until now, he’s kept the faith in the Uzbek’s plan, trusting that both he and the Shadow Man know what they’re doing, that there is a purpose to everything they have asked Gabriel to do.

Now, for the first time, Gabriel Fuller is beginning to have doubts. Seventeen men to take and hold the park? A dirty bomb that might or might not be real, that might or might not be armed? Almost thirty hostages, but no orders to ransom or release them, and one of them already murdered for display?

It doesn’t make sense. None of it makes sense. He doesn’t understand.

And the nagging, persistent, and now growing fear that the egress plan isn’t much of a plan at all. That despite the Uzbek’s assurances that Gabriel is too valuable to leave to die here in WilsonVille, his escape is anything but assured.

All these things, and this variable, this Jonathan Bell and his friend in the Star System Alliance Defense coveralls. Friends and Management, bullshit. They were in the park, they were armed, they took down Bravo before any of Gabriel’s own people could fire a shot. That means only one thing.

That means someone knew they were coming.

There was never supposed to be opposition
inside
the park. All the things they accounted for, all the details they covered, and they never considered opposition within the park, because that was never, ever, supposed to happen. They were to clear the park, hold it, use the hostages as a deterrent. They were to place the device, not arm it. They were to take the command post to monitor any approach to WilsonVille, any effort to breach the walls, and they were to shoot dead anyone who got too close. Then they were to wait until the Uzbek contacted Gabriel to say their demands had been met and to tell him to prepare the egress.

Thus far, Gabriel has done everything right, everything the Uzbek ordered. He’s done everything right.

But it feels like it’s all going wrong.

The only thing to do, then, is to kill Jonathan Bell and his Star System mechanic friend, and hope that puts the plan back on track. But he’s down five men, and he can’t spare any from the hostage groups, so finally he orders Betsy to join him, and tells himself that, when the time comes, they’ll have the element of surprise.

Don’t fight fair,
Gabriel Fuller reminds himself.
Fight to win.

They wait in the foyer of the theater. Betsy has brought the submachine gun that Stripe was using, has one of his own. Gabriel watches as the other man leans back against the wall, beneath a painting of Willis Wilson with his arms spread wide and welcoming, pulls a pack of cigarettes from a pocket, and knocks one free. Betsy lights it, then offers the pack to Gabriel, who just shakes his head, thinking that there’s no smoking allowed in the park.

He keys his radio. “Any movement?”

“Nothing. No sign of him or the other one anywhere.”

“Check the teams. I want their status.”

“Hold on.”

Betsy flicks ash onto the royal blue carpet, squints out the open doors at Town Square, sunlight kicking back off the bronze heads of Gordo, Betsy, and Pooch, where their statues stand at the heart of Wilson Town. Gabriel shifts the submachine gun in his hands, looking down at the weapon, not quite seeing it. It was the same when he was in Afghanistan. The waiting is always the worst.

“Charlie has broken into two groups,” Hendar says. “Six and seven hostages each. Alpha’s the same. Have three of the elements on camera as well, so we can monitor.”

“Why only three?”

“Alpha Two, the one that took the panda, they’re holding their group in one of the backstage areas of some animal show, out of camera. Why the fuck aren’t there any cameras backstage?”

“The same reason there aren’t any cameras in the tunnels.” Gabriel stops for a moment, steps out from the theater a couple of steps, into the sunlight, looking around. The sun beats down so hard it feels like his hair is aflame. “The cameras are for the guests, not the Friends.”

“The Friends?”

“Employees. Staff.”

Hendar chuckles, says, in Russian, “Fucking Americans.”

“Keep it in English,” Gabriel snaps. “Tell Alpha Two to move into camera range. We need to see them.”

“Understood.”

“Just two guys,” Betsy says, stepping up beside him and flicking his butt away. “You’re too tense. Just two guys, we can take them.”

Gabriel gives him a look that says exactly what he thinks of this unsolicited opinion. Betsy shrugs.

“We may have a problem,” Hendar says slowly.

“What?”

“Second Alpha element…they’re not responding.”

Immediately, Gabriel starts running, cutting between the Wilson Restaurant and the Sweets Emporium, Betsy close on his heels. “Get them on radio!”

“That’s what I’m fucking trying to do!”

Betsy stays close at his heels, following as Gabriel vaults the turnstiles at Cannonball Plunge, runs alongside the waterfall, feels its spray on his skin, feels the water evaporate almost instantly. Cuts between two concession stands, submachine gun in his hands, legs pumping. Hendar is silent in his ear, the whole park silent, and he realizes he hasn’t heard gunfire, no shots, and for a moment he can allow himself to believe this is just a coms error, a clusterfuck breakdown. It could be perfectly innocent, if innocence still manages to reside anywhere within WilsonVille.

This doesn’t have to belong to Jonathan Bell.

Then he hears the gunfire, the reports rolling through the park, distant, its direction impossible to determine. But he knows where it’s coming from, he knows where it has to be. Just as he knows the source, and the reason.

“Still no response,” Hendar reports. “Nothing, not a thing—”

“Watch the perimeter!” He’s rounding the cluster of giant mushrooms that house the toilets between the two live animal shows, realizes he doesn’t know which one he’s heading for. “Where are they? Exactly!”

“The animal show, they’re—”

“There are two of them!”

Hendar says “Shit” in Russian, shouts to Gordo. There’s another battery of shots, this time quicker, a three-round burst, and Gabriel immediately cups one of his ears, closes his eyes. A breath later, a single report, and he
thinks
it’s south of where he’s standing now. Sets off again as Hendar comes back, still no idea where, why the hell aren’t there cameras backstage?

“Watch the perimeter,” Gabriel says. “Watch the fucking perimeter, I don’t want any more surprises!”

Then he’s threading the chain-marked queue at Wild World, half spinning as he comes through the entrance at the side of the amphitheater. He pauses here, presses himself against the wall just outside the seats. Benches rise along one side of the bowl, allowing an unobstructed view of the stage below. There’s no movement, no motion that he can see. With his left hand, Gabriel signals to Betsy, orders him to move around to the other side, to take a flanking position. He hears an echo, faint, the source lost in the acoustics of the amphitheater; metal clanging on metal, then nothing more.

“Tell me you have something,” Gabriel hisses to his radio. His hands are perspiring around the submachine gun, and he shifts his grip, wipes his palms against his T-shirt. “Tell me you have something.”

“Nothing, no movement.”

Across the bowl, opposite him, Gabriel sees Betsy raise a hand in signal, in position. He raises a fist in response, indicates the direction he wants Betsy to take. Settles his grip on the submachine gun, begins to advance in parallel, both men working their way down the aisle, toward the stage. Closing, he catches the scent of the animals, hears them in the distance. The radios have gone silent, no traffic, and Gabriel feels the same adrenaline apprehension he would feel on patrol, in the dust and scrub. Search and destroy, and the environs have changed, but he realizes the mission is the same.

They flank the stage, holding at the stairs on either side for a moment, each of them again checking their surroundings, listening and looking. Only the sound of the animals, and even they seem subdued now. Another exchange of hand signals, and together they mount, turn, weapons raised, advancing to the scrim, splitting off at the wings, and still there’s no one and nothing, and they come around into the backstage together, overlooking the depressed holding area, the curtained cages, and Gabriel knows they’re too late.

One dead man on his back, with a dead snake to keep him company. No weapon, no radio. Parted curtains and an open, empty cage. Broken glass and another body, likewise missing his gear. A jaguar with a bloodied muzzle, watching them with yellow eyes as it lies beside the torn form of a gazelle.

“Fuck,” Betsy says.

Gabriel pulls his radio. “Anything?” he asks Hendar.

Hendar doesn’t respond.

“Delta One, respond,” Gabriel says.

Dead air.

Betsy is looking at him.

“Coms check,” Gabriel says. “Alpha One, respond.”

“I have you,” Vladimir answers. “Loud and clear.”

“Stand by. Delta One, respond.”

And nothing.

“Could be power, maybe?” Betsy says. “They would cut the power to the park, right?”

“Park’s on its own generators.” Gabriel shakes his head. If this was a bank, something else, sure, the authorities would have cut the power long ago. But WilsonVille can’t afford a power outage, not when hundreds of people may be on roller coasters and inside haunted houses when a blackout occurs. WilsonVille has its own power.

Hendar isn’t responding, and it’s not because coms have gone down.

Then the phone in his pocket begins to vibrate, and Gabriel Fuller knows the Uzbek is calling.

And he doesn’t know what to tell him.

MATTHEW MARCELIN
is back from his second press conference, gulping water from a bottle while one of his assistants tries to apply another powdering of makeup in preparation for his third. Looking past his shoulder to the television, Ruiz sees the man again, standing outside and in front of this same building, behind a WE! podium. The volume is muted, but his concern and his competence are both loud.

“Trouble,” Wallford tells Ruiz. “Incoming.”

Marcelin’s office has become, to Ruiz, the war room, and to Matthew Marcelin, he imagines, the crisis management center. Junior executives and personal aides scurry in and out, the flat-screen monitor on the wall now fixed on one of the cable news networks, more telephones than people, and more noise than Ruiz would like. Warlock in his ear, giving him the bullet: two more Tangos down, Chaindragger and Angel have secured the command post, and he is escorting the hostages through the tunnels for evac.

And the ribbon on the package.

“They have my daughter,” Bell says.

“I have the rest of your unit joining me, fifteen minutes,” Ruiz says, watching as Eric Porter enters the room. Coming up on four hours since the park was taken, this is the first time Ruiz has seen the director of park and resort safety, and the part of him not evaluating just how compromised his team leader has now become has to wonder just what the hell Porter has been doing in that time, and where exactly he’s been doing it. There’s a flush to Porter’s cheeks, a sheen of sweat, and maybe it’s the forty pounds of extra meat the man carries on his frame, and maybe it’s the stress, but Ruiz wonders if he’ll be smelling whiskey on Porter’s breath in just another few seconds.

“They have my daughter, Colonel,” Bell says again. “I am securing my wife in the command post, and then I am locating my daughter.”

“That is ill-advised, Master Sergeant. Hold for the rest of your team, we will move to free all the hostages together.”

“You are asking me to wait, sir. Would you wait, sir?”

“That is affirmative, Master Sergeant.”

“Clarify: Are you ordering me to wait, sir?”

“I am ordering you to hold position in the CP until further notice. Confirm.”

He hears Bell’s breath, a ragged exhale that makes Ruiz wonder if he’s been wounded.

“I am holding position,” Bell says. “Out.”

Ruiz kills the connection, pockets his phone. He’s lied to Bell, he knows damn well that if it was his daughter, if he had a daughter, he’d arm up and burn every sorry motherfucker between him and her down to the ground. But he does not have a daughter, he does not have a wife, and right now, that allows him to see with clarity what Jad Bell certainly cannot. They will rescue the hostages, of that Ruiz is sure. But they will do it right, and they will rescue them all.

Marcelin has come forward to meet Porter, his manner a mix between relieved and enraged. “Eric, Jesus Christ, where have you been?”

“Tried to get down on-site when it started, got caught up in the craziness, getting all the guests out.” Porter rubs his mouth with his hand, shakes his head ever so slightly. “Went back to my office to see if I could get any information, then discovered everyone was here. Jerry? Where are we?”

“I’ll get you up to speed,” Wallford says, guiding Porter off to one side, away from the television.

Ruiz turns to Marcelin. “I need a room. Someplace I won’t be disturbed. Plans for the park, underground and above.”

Marcelin doesn’t even ask why, just nods, calls out. “Natasia? Clear one of the conference rooms, and have someone bring up all the plans for the park for the colonel here.”

At “colonel,” Ruiz sees Porter raise his head, searching for him. Meets his eyes, and Ruiz acknowledges with a nod, and then Porter’s attention is back to Wallford, listening intently. On the flat-screen, the news is replaying the footage of Xi-Xi being dumped outside the gates. Marcelin has stopped midconversation beside him, caught by the images as well.

“Jesus,” Marcelin whispers. “Jesus, do we need this on? Do we have to have this on?” He turns in place, speaking to the assembled, his voice rising. “Do we even know who that was? Do we know who she was, at least? Has someone talked to her family?”

Staff stares back, mute.

“Can someone get on that, please?” Marcelin asks. “Someone find out who was playing Xi-Xi today, who isn’t accounted for. Can we identify her? Can we do that, at least?”

Ruiz turns away, finds Wallford and Porter returning.

“That dirty bomb,” Porter says. “Jerry says you’ve got two shooters in the park. That dirty bomb needs to be their priority.”

“We’re not certain that threat is real, sir,” Ruiz says.

“That threat is real. That threat is as real as the woman they dumped.”

“Do you have any proof, sir?”

Porter shakes his head, shakes it again. “You need to put your shooters onto finding that bomb, Colonel. That needs to be their priority.”

“Their priority is the safety and lives of the hostages,” Ruiz says. “That is standard protocol, and until I receive orders directing otherwise, it will remain so. My people are aware of the presence of the device, and they will take steps to identify and neutralize it once the hostages have been secured.”

“We are dealing with terrorists who have made demands, unreasonable, impossible demands.” Porter’s voice drops as he becomes more insistent, more urgent. “They know we will never meet their demands. They know you have shooters in the park. They will detonate that device, Colonel. They will do it.”

Ruiz glances to Wallford, is surprised to see that the man has apparently been paying their conversation no attention, is instead now standing in front of the wall of windows, his cell phone to his ear. They match eyes in the reflection off the glass, and Wallford’s expression is dead, mouth moving as he talks, but staring at the colonel at the same time, and Ruiz wonders what the meaning is in this, what the man from the CIA is trying to tell him by not saying anything at all.

“They will do it, Colonel,” Porter is repeating. “God help us all if we let that happen.”

Marcelin’s assistant, Natasia, the one tasked with getting the plans and the conference room, calls out from across the room. “Colonel Ruiz? There are two men here to speak with you.”

“If you could have them meet me in that conference room you acquired, I’d be grateful,” Ruiz says.

“Listen to me.” Porter shifts, moving in front of Ruiz, trying to keep him from leaving for just a moment more. “You have to forget about the hostages. Those are what, ten, twenty lives? We’re talking tens of thousands dead, hundreds of billions of dollars wasted.”

“Mr. Porter, sir,” Ruiz says. “I have my orders, and I will follow them.”

“Who’s your commanding officer, then?” Porter pulls out his phone. “I haven’t been out so long I don’t have pull, Colonel. Who’s giving you these orders?”

Ruiz shakes his head. “Sir, you do not want to make that call. If you’ll excuse me.”

“Who? Damn it, who do I need to talk to for you to get this straight? The hostages don’t fucking matter!” Porter is shouting, and the room comes to a halt, making his words seem that much louder, and that much more poorly chosen. “Tell me who’s giving you your orders!”

Ruiz exhales, squares his shoulders.

“You need to call the White House, sir. Then you will need to ask to speak to the president of the United States. Again, if you’ll excuse me, I have men waiting to be briefed.”

Natasia escorts him to the conference room where Cardboard and Bonebreaker are waiting, gear bags resting on the floor. Board stands, already studying the blueprints displayed in PowerPoint on the wall. Bone sits, boots on the table, leaning back in his chair, and neither man acknowledges Ruiz’s arrival. Ruiz thanks the young woman, waits just inside the door as she turns and leaves. Bone watches her go, craning his head to catch the last glimpse of the woman as she departs.

Then they’re alone, and Ruiz closes, locks the door. Bone gives him a nod of acknowledgment, moves to sit beside Board at the table.

“The mission is to rescue the hostages, to rescue the hostages,” Ruiz says, indicating the blueprints still being displayed. “Your secondary objective is to locate and verify, and in the event of verification, to disarm the radiological device believed to be in the park.”

“We have numbers?” Board asks.

“At this time we believe there are between fifteen and twenty hostages still in the park.” Ruiz pauses for a fraction. “There is a complication. Six of those hostages are deaf. Warlock’s daughter is one of them.”

Both of the men, already attentive, already focused, shift. Boots come off the table, spines straighten a fraction, and Ruiz feels the transformation, the easy slip from professional to personal. Their community is a small one, the bonds between them precious and forged quite literally under fire. What strikes at one comes to strike all, and never more so than when it strikes their Top. Of Warlock’s team, Cardboard has been with him the longest, Bonebreaker a year shy of that, Chaindragger the most recent member. Of Warlock’s team, Cardboard is divorced with two children, Bonebreaker recently married with one on the way, Chaindragger single.

All of them know Jad Bell, and all of them know Jad Bell’s family. All of them know Amy, and all of them know Athena, and Cardboard, in particular, has memories of piggyback rides and birthday parties, his children and Bell’s.

This strikes home.

Hard.

“He knows we’re here?” Cardboard asks, swipes his hand over his shaved head, clearing it of perspiration. “You have commo?”

“Just cleared. He and Chain burned another two, liberated a group of six, have them safely in the park’s security office, used as a command post. They have an additional asset, CIA-placed, call sign Angel.”

Cardboard slides a look at Bone, then both men are looking at Ruiz.

“He’s holding?” Bonebreaker asks.

“Warlock is holding on you gentlemen,” Ruiz says. “Let’s not keep him waiting.”