Alpha (18 page)

“Hey,” Vladimir says, emerging from the tunnel, the other side, where the cars would exit were the ride in operation. He’s got the submachine gun slung, but his pistol is in his hand, and for a second Gabriel wonders if old loyalties count more than new ones, if Vladimir will be with him or against him.

“We lost the command post,” Gabriel says. “We’re down to eight men now, including you and me.”

“Sonny said.”

“Sonny?” It takes a half second before Gabriel understands that Vladimir is talking about Betsy. “He tell you anything else?”

Vladimir digs around in his pockets, finds his pack of cigarettes. Unlike Betsy, he doesn’t bother to offer Gabriel one. He gets his smoke lit, exhales. When he speaks again, he uses Russian.

“That it’s going wrong, badly wrong. That there are shooters in the park, at least two and maybe more. That the Uzbek fucker is maybe hanging us out to dry.”

“That’s what I’m thinking, too.” Gabriel slips into Russian, finds the language stiff and old on his tongue. “I’m thinking he was planning on doing it all along. These shooters, they knew we were coming, Vladimir.”

“You think the Uzbek warned them? Why would he warn them?”

“Fuck me if I know. Does any of this make sense to you? He keeps saying there is a plan, but he never tells me what the plan is. I don’t even know why we’re here. Take the park, hold the park, plant a bomb but don’t arm the bomb. Nothing makes sense.”

“He said—”

“I know what he said. But he told me little more than he told you.” Gabriel turns to face the man full-on, meets his eyes. “Who are you with? Are you with me or are you with him?”

Vladimir blows smoke, eyes Gabriel. “It’s not that simple.”

“It is that simple. We stay here, we die here.”

Another jet of smoke. “You don’t know. The Shadow Man has a long reach and a long memory, Matias. You left and the Uzbek moved in, some of our boys, they got ideas, tried to do their own thing. And the Uzbek, he said that sure, they could do that, good luck with that.

“And they all died, Matias. Not all at once and not fast, but all of them ended up dead. Adam Nikoleyavich, you remember him? You were gone two years, maybe, he got a wife and new baby boy, they found them all dead. What they had done to the baby not even I want to talk about. That is what this Shadow Man does to those who break with him.”

“And you are willing to die for him? For a man who maybe doesn’t exist?”

“You tell me if he doesn’t exist. You were picked by him, that was what the Uzbek said. You were picked to do his work.” Vladimir takes a last pull, flicks the butt away.

Gabriel shakes his head. “I have never seen him, never heard him. Only ever was it the Uzbek. For all these years, only ever the Uzbek.”

Vladimir’s mouth works, lips together, frowning as he thinks. Looking out along the pathways again, and from the corner of Gabriel’s eye, he sees the man’s fingers open and close around the grip of his pistol.

“We betray these men, we will die.”

“We stay here,” Gabriel says, “we will die sooner.”

Vladimir grunts, perhaps in agreement.

“So what do we do?”

“We make a deal,” Gabriel says.

THE SOUTHERNMOST
wall on the Pooch Tunnel makes a noise like a soft clap, then almost immediately makes another, much louder. There’s a blast of rock and concrete dust, the roar of the detonation all the more deafening in the enclosed space, and even with his hands clapped over them, it’s enough to make Bell’s ears ring, to make his head begin aching all over again. Debris sprays and falls, leaving a cloud of mist and dust.

Cardboard steps through the breach. He’s geared, rig and harness over his blue jeans, top of an AC/DC T-shirt just visible above his vest, M4 in his hands, light from one of the fixtures kicking glare off his shaved head. Bonebreaker flows through right behind him, similarly heavy, his jeans black and his shirt the same color, moving like he’s following the steps of a dance. Both men give Bell a nod, and he returns it, then pivots and begins leading them back north, quick-stepping, not quite running.

“Always picking the best vacation spots, Top,” Bone says. He’s as tall as Bell, thinner, and about as white-boy as they come, blond and blue-eyed.

“Yeah, I know how to treat my crew right. Where were you?”

“Orlando.”

“You have eyes on?” Cardboard asks. Of the four, he’s the smallest, a barrel top on lean legs that seem too long for his body. “No change?”

“Situation is dynamic,” Bell says. “They’re taking out the cameras where they can. We have two of their radios, but they’ve cut commo, no traffic.”

“Moving the hostages?” Bone asks.

“What I’d do.”

“What we’d all do,” Cardboard says. “Need to move fast, then.”

“Like our asses are on fire,” Bell says.

They enter the command post, coming through the tunnel at the back of the Sheriff’s Office, then up the stairs. Amy is standing by the door when they enter, and both Board and Bone greet her by name. Bonebreaker moves immediately to the Spartan, but Cardboard stops in front of her, offers an apologetic smile.

“Been a while,” Cardboard says.

“You’ll forgive me, Freddie,” Amy says. “Not long enough.”

“Roger that,” Bonebreaker murmurs.

Bell puts a hand on his ex-wife’s arm. “You stay in this room, you need to stay quiet.”

“Don’t waste time.” She glares.

“I don’t waste time.” Bell turns to Nuri. “Where are we on the Spartan?”

“Just got it recalibrated.” Nuri has stepped out of Bonebreaker’s way, now bends past him, working the keyboard on the biochem monitor. “Sampling for radioactive material, but if it’s a dirty bomb, if they shielded the payload when it was assembled, it’s going to come back negative.”

“Do it anyway.”

“Gets worse,” Chain says. “Tangos have wised up. We’re losing our eyes fast.”

It’s not good news, but it was the news Bell expected. Whoever is calling the hostiles’ shots in the park, he’s not being stupid and he’s not planning on making things easy.

Bonebreaker moves from the Spartan to where Chain is sitting. “Isaiah.”

“Hey, Jorge.”

“Shoshana Nuri, Angel,” Bell says. “Sergeants Freddie Cooper and Jorge Velez, Cardboard and Bonebreaker, respectively. Now we’re done with the pleasantries. Let’s break this down.”

Bell steps to one of the terminals beside the surveillance bank, taps the keyboard, brings up the park map on-screen. Slides his index finger from their position to the northwestern quadrant of the park, settling on Fort Royal.

“Group One consists of seven hostages and two Tangos. Isaiah, show them.”

“Right here,” Chain says, swiveling in his chair to bring up another monitor, a paused video. He clicks and the image springs into motion, two men armed with MP5Ks pacing around a cluster of seven men and women, none of them children, thankfully, all seated in a bunch at the heart of the open courtyard. “They’re in sunlight, getting hot and tired and bored, from the look of it.”

Cardboard nods, almost imperceptibly.

“Group Two,” Bell says, moving his index finger south and even further west, almost to the border of the park. “Flashman Ranch, six hostages, two Tangos. Almost an identical setup.”

“You can see it here.” Chain taps keys, the video changing to show the interior of the Flashman Corral. “The approach here is harder, but there’s tunnel access, and before we lost the cameras it looked like they didn’t even know it was there.”

“Last group, Group Three.” Bell indicates Hendar’s Lair on the map. “Seven hostages, two Tangos. This one is mine.”

Bonebreaker clears his throat. “Top—”

“This one is mine,” Bell repeats. “We have identified eight hostiles at this time; we have three groups, and we have five shooters. There’s no way this breaks into even numbers. One of us is flying solo, that’ll be me.”

“Wait,” Nuri says. “Five shooters?”

Bell turns to her as the phone at the coms desk begins to ring. “You’re coming to the party, Angel.”

She shakes her head, grabs the phone.

“Jad,” Cardboard says. “Athena’s in Group Three, maybe you ought to let me and Chain take that one.”

“You think I’m going to miss?”

“Never on purpose.”

“Then state your objection, Sergeant.”

“If it was my little girl—”

“You’d be on point, Freddie, don’t bullshit me.”

Cardboard shrugs, and Nuri says, “Warlock?”

“I’m not arguing this,” Bell says to Cardboard, then turns to glare at Nuri. “If that’s Brickyard, you tell him we’re about to move.”

“It’s not Brickyard.” Nuri is holding out the handset to him, one hand over the mouthpiece. “He won’t identify himself. He’s asking for you by name.”

Bell stares at her.

“He says he knows where the bomb is,” Nuri says.

“This is Bell.”

The voice that answers is American, soft-spoken, male. Of the men he’s seen on the monitors, Bell wonders which it could be, if any of them. “Hello, Mr. Bell.”

“You know who I am.”

“I was in your office. You don’t really work for WilsonVille, do you?”

“No,” Bell says.

“I didn’t think so. Special Forces, maybe? Are you a SEAL, Mr. Bell? A Navy SEAL?”

“You know where the bomb is.”

The man laughs, and it’s bitter, and sparse. “I do.”

“I’m not sure I believe there even
is
a bomb.”

“That’s a dangerous mistake, but if you want to make it, you go right ahead. How many people do you think will die if it goes off? I mean, beyond the immediate panic. The cancer cases. Fifty thousand? Twice that? Five times?”

“Maybe. Could be. You tell me where it is, could be no one.”

“That would be nice, wouldn’t it? No one else dying. Be nice if we could arrange that. Let WilsonVille live. That’s the real damage, isn’t it? If it detonates? It’ll kill WilsonVille, maybe kill Wilson Entertainment. They’d have to turn this place into one big parking lot, wouldn’t they? Could scrub and sandblast it for a year and a day, they’d never get people to come here again, bring their children here again. That’s billions, maybe hundreds of billions of dollars. That’s an economic crisis right there. And here we are, struggling out of a recession.”

Here we are,
Bell thinks.
You’re American.
“Yes, it would,” he says. “You think maybe we can arrange something?”

There is a long pause. “What I want,” the man says, finally, “is out. Get on the line to someone with pull. FBI, whoever. You get them on the line, and you tell them this: I’ll give you the hostages and the bomb, but we walk.”

“You want them to just let you go.”

“There are two employee lots north of the park, northwest and northeast. There’s the main lot southwest of the gates. I want a van waiting in each of those lots, identical vans, and nobody in sight of them. Me and my people will walk the hostages out to the vehicles, we’ll leave them there, and we’ll go. Once I’m satisfied we’re clear, I’ll call and tell you where to find the bomb.”

Now it’s Bell’s turn to be silent. Nuri, listening in on the coms headset, is watching him, frowning. He sees Amy at the back of the room, holding her elbow in one hand, looking like she’s gnawing her fingers, and she’s watching him, too.

“No can do,” Bell says.

“Maybe you don’t understand me,” the man says. “I’m offering you an end to this, a walkaway.”

“I understand. It won’t work. What you’re asking for, it won’t work, not like you’re asking. I get on the line to FBI, whoever, you’ve got to know they’ll never let you go clean. They’ll say sure, whatever you like, they’ll give you the vans, they’ll stay clear. But they’ll bug the vehicles, they’ll follow you on the ground, put a bird in the air, but they’ll never let you get away. You know that. And you know I’m not FBI. So between you and me, let’s make this work.”

“How?”

“My team is in the park,” Bell says. “We’re here and staged, you understand me? We are here and we are staged. Our vehicle is parked off-site; the rest of my unit made entry through the tunnels, via the sewer. The keys are still in the truck, passenger-side visor. That’s our vehicle, you understand? You take it, no one will follow.”

“I am not going into the tunnels. That’s a kill zone.”

“I’ll give you a free run. You turn the hostages loose, we stay above ground.”

Another pause as the man considers. “You keep your people clear?”

“In exchange for the hostages. You release the hostages, we’ll move in to collect them, you’ll have a free run.”

“You have two of our radios.”

“We do.”

“Keep one with you. Thirty minutes.”

The line goes dead.

Bell sets the handset down.

“We’ve got twenty-nine minutes to free the hostages and find that device,” he says.

RUIZ IS
still in the conference room, staring out the window. Directly below, the media circus is at a full three rings. There are clown cars with satellite antennae and competing ringmasters strutting and gesticulating in front of camera crews. It’s blown wide, global news, and the political repercussions are already beginning to be felt. Multiple pundits all singing variations on a theme. Is this a state-sponsored act of terrorism, and if so, will the Global War on Terror be opening yet another front in another country? More boots on the ground in Yemen, perhaps? If this is Pakistani in origin, will this be the last straw? Or perhaps somewhere even more problematic—one of the CIS, perhaps, or Southeast Asia?

Speculation only, but not one of the options makes Ruiz happy, and if it’s giving him dark thoughts, he can only imagine what’s being said in the White House Situation Room or the Pentagon. The same White House Situation Room he just finished speaking with, listening as orders have been relayed, from Washington back across the country to California, to the FBI HRT, now staged at the southernmost of WilsonVille’s parking lots and holding, down to the SWAT commander standing with his men less than a mile away. Everyone ready to move on WilsonVille; everyone all dressed up for a party nobody really wants to attend.

My people are in motion, Ruiz told the president. My people are moving to rescue the hostages, they will give the all clear to breach once they are secure.

Your people, can they do this? Your four operators and this fifth, this woman from the CIA?

They are the best in the world, Mr. President, Ruiz said, and he did not add that he believes this despite the fact that his team leader has been compromised. He has not said anything about Master Sergeant Bell’s ex-wife or his daughter. He feels this is a fair exclusion, as no one has said anything about CIA operating domestically, or the military doing the same, for that matter. Everything has been authorized, but should the shit hit the fan, those authorizations won’t matter for spit.

Ruiz hopes he will not regret this silence.

All stations will hold until your all clear, the Commander in Chief said. You have command, Colonel. We are holding on your word.

Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.

Out the window, there’s local law enforcement and federal and there’s a rumor that the governor is coming down from Sacramento, though Ruiz is sincerely hoping that someone back in D.C. has put a stop to that plan. The last thing this circus needs, he thinks, is one more elephant.

Some of those people in D.C., Ruiz suspects, are more than happy to give Ruiz this amount of rope. After all, if this goes wrong, lives will be lost. If lives will be lost, prospects will vanish and futures evaporate. If this goes wrong, far better to let four soldiers nobody has ever heard of and one CIA agent who shouldn’t be operating domestically anyway take the hit. Let them, and their immediate superiors, fall on their swords in failure.

Ruiz raises his gaze, sees WilsonVille two miles away and still for the first time in more than thirty years, minus the one dark day when everything fell silent. The sun is beginning its descent toward the Pacific, but it’s still high enough for the world to be blue and hot, not gold and graceful.

He thinks about the update he just got from Warlock. He thinks about the lies Bell told, and how every one of them was the right and proper one. He’s thinking that, by his watch, things are twenty-five minutes, give or take, from getting bloody.

He thinks about the man Bell spoke to, the man who had been in Bell’s office, who knew Jonathan Bell’s name. The inside man, who he is, and what he is doing right now. No plan is static, and this man would be an extraordinary fool to believe that Warlock would simply sit tight for the half hour he requested. This inside man, who knows the park as well as Warlock or even better. Where that inside man might plant a bomb.

Who are you?
Ruiz wonders.

The door opens, and Ruiz turns, hoping for Marcelin but instead finding Eric Porter. The man is no longer perspiring, but he seems no less agitated, and a moment later, Wallford is coming into the room after him.

“Listen,” Porter says, and he’s making the effort, Ruiz can tell, struggling to keep his voice reasonable, his tone calm. “Listen, you cannot let these people go, Colonel. They clear the park, there is nothing to stop them from detonating that bomb. Nothing at all. And they will do it. They fucking well will do it.”

Ruiz exchanges looks with Wallford, or tries to, but Wallford isn’t having any. The man has shut the door, turning his back to Ruiz to do it, and now makes his way down the opposite side of the conference table, apparently more interested in the PowerPoint maps still displayed on the far wall than in what’s being said.

Not for the first time, Ruiz wonders what Wallford’s true agenda is. Angel is his agent, this much is clear, and certainly Wallford wants the park freed, wants the hostages released, the bomb discovered and disarmed. But there’s more, and now Ruiz thinks more equals Eric Porter. That Angel’s placement was one matter, but that Wallford’s himself was another.

“I understand your concern,” Ruiz says. “But rescuing the hostages is my team’s first priority.”

“These men are terrorists, they have committed a terrorist act,” Porter counters. “You let them go and they’ll be free to do it again.”

“No one responsible is going to leave the park.”

Porter studies him. “You just said—”

“You’re concerned that Master Sergeant Bell guaranteed them free passage. I understand that. Master Sergeant Bell lied to them, Mr. Porter. He’d have told them he would give oral to a bulldog and let them film him while he did it if that was what they wanted and he thought saying so would give him an advantage.”

“And what advantage has he gained?”

Wallford, from the far end of the room, head tilted back to look up at the park map being displayed, speaks.

“C’mon, Eric, you know the game. Whoever they are, they’re cracking. Their plan is falling apart. So maybe the bomb is real, maybe it isn’t, but now the shooters know these guys want out. And they’ve given them a route, maybe even a route they’ll take.”

Wallford turns, shoots a toothy grin at Porter.

“Maybe even get a live one. They do that, we can find out what this was all about. Who was pulling the strings. This isn’t the kind of incident we’ve seen before, after all.”

“We know what this is all about. This isn’t a mystery!” Porter waves his hand, indicating everything around them. “It’s about this! It’s about hitting this, making a statement! Corrupt America! Evil Empire! Destroying the Satanist Culture we export and all that bullshit!”

“Looks that way, maybe.” Wallford is still grinning. “Though I’ve never heard of a true believer willing to negotiate like this before. Have you?”

“Because they don’t want to negotiate. Because as soon as they’re clear, that bomb is going to go off.”

“My men will not allow that to happen,” Ruiz says.

Porter nods in approval at Ruiz. “I’m pleased to hear you say that. These men have to be stopped. Your shooters, they have to understand that. These men can’t leave the park alive.”

“My men will do what is required.”

“This isn’t about intelligence, Jerry,” Porter says to Wallford. “That’s past. This is about ending the crisis now. When it’s over, when it’s done,
that’s
when we can worry about who was responsible.”

Wallford shrugs, returns to studying the map projected on the wall. Porter stares at his back for a second, then nods to Ruiz once more and slips out of the room. The door closes softly after him.

Ruiz waits the better part of a minute before speaking. “How is he involved?”

“No idea.”

“But he is?”

“Sure as hell looks that way, doesn’t it?”

Ruiz considers, then moves down the length of the room, to stand beside Wallford. Wallford is still studying the map.

“If I was a dirty bomb, where would I be?” Wallford asks.

“Come clean, now.”

“That’s against Company policy, you know that.”

Ruiz moves closer, forcing Wallford to turn and face him.

“CIA knew?”

“Same answer you gave Marcelin, Colonel. If we knew, we’d have shut it down. We’re all one big happy intelligence community, remember?”

“Then what is this bullshit?”

“The device, if it’s real, it’s not a baby bomb, Colonel.” Wallford’s game face drops, the cheerful mask fading. “It’s not something some clever grad student managed to put together with cesium 137 or strontium 90 or whatever they could scrounge. We’re talking about a weapons-grade plutonium device. We’re talking the real shit.”

“You know this.”

“What we know is that somebody paid somebody who paid somebody who paid somebody else a metric fuckton of money to get a couple of ounces of weapons-grade plutonium out of Iran. So maybe, yeah, maybe it’s ended up in WilsonVille. If we can recover that device, we might be able to take a signature off the plutonium, determine its source.”

“Iran isn’t behind this.”

“Maybe not, maybe so. They sponsor terror attacks globally, you know that. Could be they sponsored this.”

“I’m slow on the science, but a plutonium dirty bomb, that’s signing the letter. Cesium, strontium, those are more effective agents, more dangerous, more lethal. You pick plutonium for headlines.”

“Maybe. Yes.”

Ruiz shakes his head. “Doesn’t wash. If this is a terror attack.”

“You don’t think it is?” Wallford’s grin returns. “You’re a suspicious bastard.”

Ruiz looks pointedly toward the closed door, then back to Wallford.

“Yeah. I don’t buy him being in bed with the Revolutionary Guard, either. Twenty-seven years with the Company, out with the change in administrations, he takes up with WilsonVille. Unless there’s a bank account we haven’t found, it doesn’t track to me, either.”

“So something else.”

“So some
one
else, yes.”

“Who?”

Wallford brightens. “That’s the question. That’s been the question all along.”

“We’re looking for an inside man,” Ruiz says.

“We’re looking for more than one.”

“Know the man,” Ruiz says. “Win the war.”

“That so?” Wallford shakes his head, stares at the map once more, searching for the one place in a million where someone has hidden a dirty bomb. “Then, as of this moment, we’re losing, Colonel.”