Alpha

by Greg Rucka

  “Brickyard, go.”

  “Warlock. Chain and Angel are in position to take back the CP, ten minutes.”

  “We have new information,” Ruiz says.

  “Tell me.”

  “Confirm hostages on the ground. One has already been executed. Hostiles are claiming they have a radiological device, will detonate if demands not met, will detonate if any attempt is made to retake the park. Bone and Board are en route to my location, estimate deployment fourteen forty.”

  Bell leans back against the wall, eyes on the mouth of the tunnel, up the ramp. There’s been no movement, but still, he won’t look away, even as he considers what Ruiz is telling him. A dirty bomb changes things, and changes them radically, but it throws a whole new sheet of doubt up, as well. Whoever these people are, they’re savvy enough to have coordinated taking the park, to have put at least one person on the inside, to have spoofed the botulinum. Bell can believe in their ability to construct and place a radiological device.

  But believing its existence and then believing that, whoever these people are, they’re willing to set it off—that’s something else. Unless they’re willing to die for their cause, they’ll be exposing themselves to the same radioactive debris as their targets. Outside of immediate ground zero, a dirty bomb does slow work, attacks economies far more effectively than it does individuals. Contamination from the debris would take years to manage, cost literally billions to clean up, and even then, the park’s reputation would be destroyed. A dirty bomb detonating in WilsonVille would kill the park just as thoroughly as if it were shot in the base of the skull, and would kill Wilson Entertainment with the same slow inevitability as cancer, the same cancer hundreds of thousands might contract as a result.

  Death might come slowly, but it would come all the same, to friend and foe alike.

  “Are they true believers?” Bell asks.

  “They talk the talk,” Ruiz says. “But they’re walking funny.”

  Bell wants to grin at that, but can’t bring himself to do it. “The CP has the Spartan. We get it up and running, we can scan for radioactive material.”

  “You trust that Spartan?”

  “Either that or wait. Are you telling us to hold?”

  Ruiz answers without hesitating. “They’re killing hostages.”

  “Understood.”

  “Out.”

  WilsonVille itself isn’t equipped to house the animals who perform in the Flower Sisters Mystical Show and Wild World Live! on-site. Rather, they’re brought into the park each morning, escorted by their staff of handlers and overseen by the chief vet. For every animal used in the show, there’s at least one, sometimes as many as four, left to figuratively—and often literally—wait in the wings. Three separate jaguars are required for Real Live Hendar, for example, none of which are allowed to work for more than thirty minutes a day. A tired cat is a dangerous cat, and, from a management point of view, a lawsuit waiting to happen. The same can be said for the lionesses that perform as Real Live Lavender, though as Bell understands it, there are only two gazelles because, as it was explained to him, gazelles are actually really fucking stupid.

  He’s not sure about the snakes.

  He’s thinking about all this as he comes off the ramp from the tunnel and into the animal holding area of Wild World Live!, hears the growl from one of the big cats hidden nearby. It’s a wide, sunken space, feeding into backstage, covered overhead by a massive awning meant to shield those below from the sun. The holding areas themselves are separated by sixteen-foot-tall curtains, and he imagines this is done to keep the animals from eyeing one another, though clearly it does nothing to hide their scents. The cat—or perhaps a different cat—growls again, and maybe the beast is smelling Bell, or maybe it’s just pissed off at having been left alone on this scorching day.

  It’s a sound that sinks through flesh and awakens primal warnings that evolution has done nothing to dull. It’s a sound that makes his muscles tense, and draws his attention unconsciously from what he’s doing and where he is to the more urgent need to be certain—absolutely certain—that some pissed-off jaguar or indignant and hungry lioness isn’t about to make a meal of him.

  This is why Jad Bell doesn’t spot the Tango until it’s too late.

  This is what he tells himself later, at any rate.

  He’s coming around one of the holding pens, this to his right, the heavy, high curtains blocking the sight lines of one animal to another. The stage is to his left, the literal backstage, and another curtained block lies dead ahead. He hears a snarl, this one unquestionably a warning, a declaration, catches the scent of fresh blood and offal, all suddenly clear; the ammonia tang of urine. He hears what he thinks is the sound of a baby’s whimper.

  The curtain beside him flutters, parts. Head turn, a quick flash, a cage, a jaguar, a dead gazelle torn open stem to stern, organs spilling into a burgundy pool on the concrete ground. And the Tango, most important, the Tango: Caucasian, no more than his midtwenties, still in Tyvek, no mask, no gloves, black hair and startlingly blue eyes. A submachine gun in his right hand, and Bell identifies the weapon without thought, an MP5K. The man is grinning, opening his mouth to speak in the moment before he realizes Bell is standing, unexpectedly, in front of him.

  Bell pivots, raising his weapon and trying to take a half step back all at once. The Tango is fast, or maybe he’s panicked and that makes him fast, but his left snaps up, into Bell’s hands, knocks the .45 out of line and out of his grip, sends the gun clattering to the concrete. Mouth opens, and he starts an inarticulate shout of surprise, but Bell is now stepping forward, snapping his forehead into the Tango’s nose. The cry is stifled, turns to a choke, his nose shattering, and he staggers back.

  Bell presses, pursuing, trying to put his fingers through the man’s trachea. But the Tango is swinging the submachine gun up, wild, and the weapon begins to speak and spit even before it’s in line, and Bell throws his left forearm up instead, blocking the swing. He’s inside the man’s guard, drives his right at the Tango’s throat, hits his chin as the other man instinctively tries to protect his neck. Still surging forward, smashing the Tango’s back against the bars of the cage. The jaguar within roars, meal threatened.

  The MP5K shouts again, another rattle of shots, wild, deafening in Bell’s left ear. He shifts, moves from the waist, gets his right onto the Tango’s wrist, slips to a finger, twists and pulls, feels bone snap. The Tango shouts as he loses his weapon, pounds his left down, trying to catch Bell at the back of the neck. Misses, the punch just low, hitting the spine and the mass of muscle. Bell grunts, right forearm rising to cross, again going for the throat, and now each man has a grip on the other; Bell can feel the Tango’s fingers clawing at his face, straining for his eyes even as Bell tries to force the man’s head back, tries to crush his windpipe with his arm. The Tango drops his weight, Bell’s purchase vanishes, and he feels half his wind rush free as his back collides with the cage. Punches with his left, hard and fast twice to the man’s midsection, and the Tango takes both punches and is now trying to crush the back of Bell’s head against the bars, through the bars. The jaguar roars again, and Bell feels a searing heat blossom at his lower back.

  There is an awful clarity, a pristine knowledge, that comes to Jad Bell then and there. He is getting old, he is getting tired. He is a hard man, a warrior soul, a soldier, but this man, this Tango, is younger and faster and maybe stronger. This Tango, he fights like they taught Bell to fight; he fights dirty, for his life, and to win.

  Jad Bell is about to lose this fight.

  He strains to move his head against the Tango’s pressure, turns his mouth enough to find the meat at the side of the man’s hand, bites. Tastes sweat, copper, feels his teeth tearing skin, struggling to meet. This time, the Tango screams, uses his other hand to punch Bell in the face, breaking the bite, lurching backward. Bell lunges, again trying to press his small advantage, and the two are grappling again, out of the pen, into the open, clutching at each
other, pulling at clothes and flesh.

  Tango twists, using Bell’s momentum, trying to shake him, swinging him about. Bell hangs on, lungs burning, gasping for breath. This much exertion, sweat is pouring off him, pouring off the other man. World spins, peripheral information, all the things that fight-or-flight take in when fight is at full. He can discern the velvet-like fabric of the black curtains, sees a new set sweeping wide, revealing another Tango, armed, cage behind him. People in that cage.

  He thinks he sees Amy.

  Then they’re gone, out of sight, heavy fabric enveloping him, opening, as he and the man trying to kill him spin into a new pen. The Tango brings his knee up, sharp, catches Bell in the hip, frees one hand, follows the blow with another attempt at the neck. Bell shields, catches it on the jaw, light sparking behind his eyes and blood spilling in his mouth, and his grip is gone and he smashes into something hard and smooth. Feels it give way and an instant later, the shattering of glass.

  He hits the concrete, feels the abrasion on his cheek, the weight of the Tango falling on him as he tries to roll. Vision clearing, and he snaps an elbow back, catches the other man a glancing strike to the head, too high for the temple. Rolling over broken glass, hearing it snap, and Bell sees dirt and rock and branches spilled on the ground, the cases on their stands, the snakes in their cases.

  He’s on his back now, the Tango over him, feels his vision burst again, a rock-heavy impact and another, punched twice more in the face. Trying to bring one leg around, to lock the other man, but he doesn’t have it left in him, there is not enough air, there will never be enough air, and sweat stings, drips off this Tango into Bell’s eyes. Feels the hands at his throat, the cloud pressing into his mind, slowly trying to blind him. He flails, right hand straining amid the debris at his side, broken glass beneath his fingertips.

  Something hisses like steam escaping a relief valve, the hood of a cobra spreading in the corner of Bell’s eye. The Tango’s grip loosens for a moment, the man looks, he can’t not, and the shard of glass is cold under Bell’s hand. He feels it cutting his palm as he takes hold, pours all the strength that remains into his right arm, striking up and in, feels the sadly familiar sensation of stabbing a living body. The Tango’s eyes snap wide as Bell shoves the piece of glass into the man’s neck, driving it upward, carotid, jugular, trachea, twisting it to make the wound crueler and quicker.

  The Tango dies, blood pouring out of him and down Jad Bell’s arm. He goes to dead weight, and Bell wants to stop then, wants to stop there, hurting and breathless and aching, knows he can’t.

  Because there’s one more Tango, and he thinks there’s Amy, too, thinks he can hear her voice calling for him.

  He hears the cobra warning him again, angry, and Bell shoves the dead man off him, toward the snake, struggles to his knees. More broken glass on the ground and no weapons but for the knife on his person, and he’s about to go for that when the cobra rises, swaying, swings toward the curtains that are suddenly sweeping apart, reacting to the sudden motion. The remaining Tango, another MP5K, searching, seeing them.

  In one move, Bell grabs the cobra above the tail, flings the snake at the Tango even as the creature tries to arch, to snap back at his hand. Flies through the air, a writhing length of cord, the Tango panics. His weapon hits the ground, hands coming up, trying to shield and catch and backpedal all at once, through the curtains. Bell dives, finds the submachine gun with both hands, sliding forward, beneath the edge of the curtain. Sights and fires, a three-round burst that lands groin, gut, thorax.

  The remaining Tango drops, still holding the cobra, the snake’s fangs latched at the man’s collar, pumping venom into a corpse. Bell thumbs the selector down, aims, and takes its head with a bullet.

  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.”

  Chapter Twenty

  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 d
one 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.”