Alpha

by Greg Rucka

  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 someone 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.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  WHAT ATHENA is seeing scares her, because what Athena is seeing is men who are scared.

  Most of the men, that is. The one who stayed with Vladimir when they took Mom and the family away, he’s definitely scared. Athena thinks his name is Oscar, and she’s been watching him get more and more tense, and he’s jumpy, too. Whenever one of them moves, just tries to adjust how they’re sitting on this cold floor against this not-real bed, he’ll spin about. He does that, and he looks like he doesn’t know what they are, like the idea of human beings outside himself is alien and strange. Then his expression hardens, like he’s thinking mean thoughts. He stares most at the boys, Leon and Miguel and Joel.

  Then there’s the new one. Sonny, she thinks his name is, if she’s reading what Vladimir said correctly. He got here just a little bit ago, came in and must have been calling out, because Vladimir and Oscar and Dana all looked in the same direction, and then here he was. Went straight to Vladimir, and they talked quickly, and she caught maybe less than half of that, but the gestures made it clear, and Vladimir left for a couple of minutes.

  Vladimir and Oscar, they carry their guns sometimes like they forget they have them. Like, in one hand, and sometimes Vladimir just lets his hang from its strap, over his shoulder. But not Sonny. Sonny holds his in both hands, and he paces, back and forth, and each time he’s caught Athena watching him, he shouts at her. This last time he pointed his gun at her and came toward her. He was calling her a deaf bitch, Athena could tell, and Dana wrapped her arms around her, could feel her shouting back at Sonny, and Dana’s whole body was trembling.

  But that wasn’t just fear, that was anger, too.

  Leon and Gail have both been crying. They’re all scared.

  Except Vladimir.

  Athena doesn’t know what to make of Vladimir.

  When he came back, he went to Sonny, and he called Oscar over, and he spoke to them. He looked worried, furrowed his brow, and nodded a lot. They were on the other side of the room from where Athena and the rest of the class were seated, maybe fifteen feet away, but standing in the light, and she could make out his mouth. She really focused, too, tried to read everything from his lips and his body language, and he was being very calm, and she thought quiet, maybe, too, but she just couldn’t understand a single word. She signed to Dana.

  What saying?

  Dana shook her head. Different language Russian?

  That explained that.

  Whatever he said to Sonny and Oscar, it seemed like it helped. They both nodded, and then Oscar went into the tunnel on one side, the place where the cars would enter this area on the track, and walked down it with his gun in both hands until he was out of sight. Sonny did the same thing, but in the other tunnel, where the ride would have exited. Vladimir watched them, and when both were gone, Athena thought he kinda smiled, just a little. He walked toward where they were all seated, and Athena felt her stomach ache and tighten, and Dana, still holding onto her, tightened her grip again.

  But Vladimir didn’t say anything to them or even look at them. He just looked down the tunnels in both directions, and then he moved back to the other side of the room, near where there was this open chest of fake gold coins and jewelry. Athena tried to watch him from the side, not looking at him directly, and he was pulling a phone from his pocket. The way he did it, the way he held the phone and turned away slightly, Athena could tell he didn’t want the others to see him doing it, or maybe even to know he had it.

  Vladimir looked at the phone for a second, maybe, pressed a couple of buttons, frowned. Raised his head, and Athena took that moment to rest her own cheek against Dana’s knee, pretending to close her eyes. When she opened them again, Vladimir had the phone to his ear, was looking from one tunnel mouth to the other. He looked at her, and she looked back at him as blankly as she could, and he didn’t seem to care. His mouth started to move.

  It was hard, he was almost too far away, and she couldn’t catch more than every eighth or ninth word as he spoke them. At first, she was sure he was speaking in another language again. Then she thought she saw “scared,” and “fill,” and “men,” and she was sure she made out “move.”

  Then he said “bomb.”

  He wasn’t on the phone for long, not long at all. It couldn’t have been more than a minute. Looking at the tunnels the entire time, from one to the other, and then, when he was finished, quickly tucking the phone away again. His eyes found Athena, and her heart jumped, the fear of having been caught instant and overpowering. But he didn’t do anything, maybe frowned just slightly, and she realized he wasn’t looking at her at all; he was looking at Dana.

  Ignoring Athena because she was deaf.

  Then he opened his mouth and called out something, and Sonny and Oscar came back. There was another brief talk that Athena again couldn’t follow—it was in the other language, what Dana thought might be Russian—and then Vladimir went up the tunnel one more time, and disappeared.

  Athena twisted, pretending to adjust her position, turning her head to look up at Dana. Moved her hands, signing.

  Phone did you hear him?

  Dana shook her head, barely.

  He said bomb, Athena signed.

  Dana bowed her head, and pulled Athena in closer, and held her, and both of them tried not to be scared.

  Now Dana shifts, and Athena lifts her head, and she sees what Dana is looking at. Vladimir has returned, he’s talking to Sonny and Oscar, and again, it’s not taking him long. Finished, he turns and walks over to them, all of them, and his lips are easy to read this time.

  Get up.

  The other men have followed Vladimir, spreading out slightly, holding their guns. Looking at them, and maybe they’re still a little scared, but now they look mean, too. Athena feels Dana speak, and suddenly Vladimir is leaning forward, grabbing her with one hand by the arm and yanking her up so fast that Athena is nearly knocked on her side. Along the line, Joel starts to move, reaching to help Athena, and the one called Sonny steps forward and kicks him in the belly, and then he does it again, and again.

  Athena makes a noise, feels it escaping her throat, and on her hands and knees goes to Joel. Miguel is trying to help him, and Athena finds Joel’s eyes, sees the pain and the tears in them as he lies on his side, holding his arms around his middle. She helps him sit up, sees Miguel gesture, understands that something is happening behind her. Before she can react, before she can turn, there’s a hot pain across the back of her head, the tearing of hairs as someone tries to pull her to her feet. She cries out, trying to rise, but he pulls so hard she’s falling back, hits the concrete. The pain, if anything, gets worse
, makes fresh tears fill her eyes, and she’s being dragged, now, shouting and struggling and maybe screaming, too.

  It stops as suddenly as it started, the pain still echoing as she lies on her back, gasping. Blinking through blurred vision, seeing Sonny standing over her, and Vladimir, and he’s got a fist in Dana’s hair. She sees their guns, not pointed at her but not pointed away. She sees their expressions, and she understands they do not care about her, about Joel, about Dana, about any of them at all. It’s not hatred; that would require feeling something.

  They look down at her like she’s a piece of driftwood. Like she’s gum on the pavement. They look down on her.

  Vladimir shakes Dana slightly, speaking to her, and Dana starts signing. He points his gun at Athena, then at Dana.

  Dana signs, Everyone stand up.

  Athena starts to do as she’s told, but she’s not fast enough for Sonny. He grabs for her again, but she sees it and jerks away. Shouts at him, maybe saying “No,” maybe saying “Don’t,” but she knows it’s loud, feels it ripping out of her, all the frustration and pain and shame, and the noise makes him balk, eyes widening. Athena gets to her feet, angrily clears the tears from her cheeks, the snot from her nose.

  “Fuck you!” Athena shouts. “Goatfucking cocksuckers!”

  The one called Sonny jerks his head back, and she reads his shock, his confusion. Then it turns to rage, and even in the light of Hendar’s Lair, Athena sees the color flooding up into his cheeks. He steps forward, dropping his gun to one hand and raising his other, and she knows he’s going to hit her, and she doesn’t even care, so filled with her own fury that she’s shaking.

  Sees Dana, shouting, Stop!