Alpha

by Greg Rucka

  They see him the instant he emerges from the store, and he gives them a nod, exaggerating and slowing the gesture so it carries through the mask. They fall in together, heading toward the Sheriff’s Office. At the doors he nods to the one he’s named Hendar, the tallest of the four, and the man steps up and pushes his way inside.

  The room is empty.

  Gabriel points to the front desk of the fake precinct with one hand, then moves to the half-concealed interior door that leads to the stairs that, in turn, lead to the command post on the second floor and the safety offices on the third. When he gives the door a push, he’s not surprised to find that it’s locked.

  The one he’s calling Betsy is at the front desk now, vaults it lightly, disappears behind the counter. Gabriel looks up at the surveillance cameras, raises a hand in greeting, indicates the door. He and the others wait for what seems like a painfully long pause. If they’ve been picked up on the cameras in here, then someone will be coming down to let them inside, certain that they’re here to help. If they haven’t been seen—and why would they be, when all eyes should be watching the exterior, watching the evacuation of the park?—so much the better. But whatever the case, they will have the element of surprise.

  There’s a subdued clunk from within the wall at Gabriel’s elbow, and Betsy is coming back over the counter, rejoining the others. Gabriel waits until he’s ready, has his bag back in hand, and then shoves the door open, leads the way into the stairwell. Quick glance up the stairs, all around, and not a camera to be seen here. Five of them in the hallway is a tight fit, and he presses his back to the wall, trying to make enough room for them to spread out. The gas masks leave their ears uncovered, and Gabriel knows they’re moving quietly, very quietly, but the rustle from the Tyvek suits sounds too loud all the same.

  The door swings shut on its hinges, the bolt again latches in place. Gordo and Stripe have their pistols out of their duffels, are screwing the suppressors into place at the end of each barrel. Finished, they hoist their bags onto their backs, then give Gabriel a thumbs-up with a free hand. Gabriel returns it. He can feel perspiration beginning to slide down his spine, feel the tightness in his chest that reminds him of patrols in Afghanistan. There’s a slow cloud of condensation beginning to rise in his gas mask, and his pulse is strong at his temples.

  The door at the top of the stairs has a sign affixed to it that reads SAFETY OFFICE—AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. There’s the hint of noise beyond the door, a voice, then another. Gabriel, still in the lead, turns his head so his uncovered ear can be that much closer to the sound. Two, maybe three people, but he can’t make out the words, the conversation subdued.

  Gabriel straightens, looks to the four men waiting behind him. He points to Gordo and Stripe, then to the door, and each man nods. He moves, presses his back to the wall to give them room as they pass him, now in front, entry positions, and their entry positions aren’t that far from what he was taught in the army. Betsy and Hendar have their weapons out now, too, ready to act as the second wave. The sound of conversation in the room beyond stops, and for a moment, Gabriel can imagine whoever is inside has sensed what is coming.

  But they haven’t. The moment they’re through the door, Gabriel knows that the two men and the one woman reacting to their entrance never saw it coming at all.

  Gordo takes out the coms first, the woman, the one wearing the headset, before she’s even finished turning toward them, just as her eyes go wide. Then the gunshots, soft snaps from the suppressed pistol, and she slumps in her seat, topples to the floor at the same moment as one of the men, balding and gray, falls backward against his bank of monitors, collapses like overcooked pasta. The third one, he opens his mouth, and then Gabriel sees his body jerk, both Stripe and Gordo putting shots into him, and then this man, too, falls, sinking to his knees before pitching facedown to lie on the floor and twitch.

  Stripe steps in, takes a position to the left of the door, on one knee, as Gordo mirrors the movement. Betsy and Hendar follow, remain standing, their weapons out and ready, swinging a slow track about the room, searching for the next target. There’s silence but for the whirr of the machinery, the bleat from one of the monitors. Then Stripe raises a hand to Gabriel, motions him forward.

  “Sweep,” Gabriel says, voice dulled by the gas mask. “Make sure we’re clear.”

  Stripe nods, gets to his feet, moves off toward the door at the back of the room, the flight of stairs that leads to the third floor. Gordo is up just as quickly, moving from body to body, pausing only long enough to dump a round into each head. Gas masks start coming off, and Hendar takes one of the headsets from the communication console, presses it to his ear. Listens for a moment, then nods to Gabriel, gives a new thumbs-up. He drops the headset, hoists his duffel, pulls a slim black box from inside, and sets about connecting it to the radio set on the desk.

  Gabriel takes another half second to absorb the room. His only visit prior to this had been during orientation, on his way up to the second-floor conference room, down the hall from here. It’s an impressive array of surveillance equipment, almost overwhelming, and it takes several more seconds before he can decipher the layout, before he understands what he’s seeing on multiple screens. Coverage is comprehensive, and if there are gaps anywhere, he certainly doesn’t see them. Exterior views from the gates, all the exits, are showing crowds milling about outside, still being shepherded by WilsonVille Friends. The parking lots seem to be the main gathering points, and Gabriel sees a couple of new fire engines arriving.

  On one camera, the one covering the northeast access, there’s already an engine parked, just as planned. That was Vladimir’s element, and on an adjacent monitor, he can see what must be Vladimir’s group entering the park, dressed in their Tyvek. They’re just coming through the gates, and people are giving them a wide berth.

  Gabriel removes his own gas mask. Gordo is already settling himself in front of the surveillance monitors, and Betsy is helping Hendar. One of the machines is bleating, and on its screen Gabriel can read the botulinum alert. It takes a couple of seconds before he can figure out how to silence the machine.

  “We have their coms,” Hendar says. “Secure and scrambled.”

  “Contact all elements, tell them we have control.”

  “We still have people in the park,” Gordo says, indicating several of the monitors. “Stragglers.”

  Gabriel looks over his shoulder, can see clusters of park guests still making their way to the gates. More Tyvek suits, too, and he sees that Vladimir’s group has taken hostages already, is moving southward, crossing one of the bridges that spans the Timeless River. On another monitor, he can see a Lilac trying to encourage a small group of people to follow her, another element in Tyvek closing on their position. A man in a suit is jogging past the camera by Nova’s Tower, roughly in the same area, and he can see still more staff, this one in a Terra Space mechanic’s suit, walking quickly by the now-stopped Race for Justice.

  The one in the suit earns a double take. Nobody comes to WilsonVille wearing a suit, not like that. Navy coat and tie, park-​approved wear, but a business suit on a ninety-degree day at the end of July? The only people who dress like that while in the park are management, upper management.

  “That one,” Gabriel says, pointing at the monitor. “Can you give me a better view?”

  Gordo takes a moment, flicking through monitor settings, and then manages to pick up the same man again, now turning north. He’s still jogging along, looking around, clean-shaven, early forties, perhaps. No radio, no flashlight, but with a phone to his ear. Then he’s out of camera, the next view distant, devoid of detail.

  “Hey,” says Betsy. “Where’s Dmitri?”

  They find him upstairs, the man Gabriel had named Stripe.

  He’s lying on his back beside the desk in the largest office on the floor, his tongue swollen between blue-tinged lips, his cheeks puffed and his eyes open, wide and staring, broken blood vessels painted in dead white or
bs. His gun is gone. One hand is at his throat, and when Gabriel moves it away, he can see that the man’s trachea has been crushed, or, more precisely, cracked.

  He feels the pistol in his hand, turns and looks at Betsy, is about to speak, when his eye catches a photograph on the desk. He steps closer, sees the same man he saw earlier, the one on the monitor. It’s a picture of him with a woman and a girl, all of them smiling, the girl a strawberry blonde, the woman with hair the same shade. He casts an eye over the desk, the paperwork that has been scattered there, and it doesn’t take long to find the name, the name of the man who belongs to this office. Bell, Jonathan, Deputy Director of Park Safety.

  Then he sees something else. An authorization form, signed, granting Dana Kincaid time and a half for today’s work.

  This may be a problem, Gabriel thinks.

  Chapter Thirteen

  BELL’S PHONE bleats at him, the two-tone alert that says Brickyard is calling. He doesn’t break stride as he answers. “Go for Warlock.”

  “Sitrep.”

  “Biotoxin alarm in the park, evacuation in progress.”

  “Can you confirm?”

  “That’s negative.”

  “Assessment?”

  “I think we’re dealing with something else. Trying to figure out exactly what right now.”

  There’s a flicker of a pause, long enough for Bell to hear the background static-and-whine characteristic of secured communications. Then Ruiz says, “I’m en route to Marcelin. Let me know as soon as you have something. Out.”

  Bell lowers his phone, rounds the south side of Flashman’s Laser Light Show. Ahead, working along the path that’ll take them to the northwest exit, he can see a Lilac trying to rush a group of three along with her. They’re just kids, two boys and a girl, and as he comes closer he can see that all are near tears, their meerkat companion trying to comfort them.

  “We’ll find them once we get outside,” Lilac is saying. “I’ll stay with you the whole time, I promise. And you know I always keep my promises!”

  “You lied to Hendar that time,” the girl says through snuffles.

  “That was different. I did that to save Lavender.” Lilac sees Bell, stops. “They were on the carousel, got separated from their parents. We’re going out the northwest, is that way still open?”

  Bell slows, falls into walking with them. All the kids look at him, and one of the boys, the older one, dark-haired and dark eyes shining with tears, reminds him of another boy, playing soccer in a dusty square. He gives them his most confident smile.

  “Should be,” Bell says. “I’ll keep you company.”

  “See?” Lilac tells the kids. “You find friends everywhere you look.”

  “Everyone okay?” Bell’s phone is still in his hand, and he brings up Chain’s number with a glance, thinking to tell him that there’s a change. “Everyone feels all right?”

  “It’s a little scary,” the youngest boy says softly.

  “Why is the park closed?” This from the older boy, who cannot hide his disappointment. “You guys never close.”

  “You know what a gas leak is?” Bell asks. “Natural gas? It’s not dangerous alone, but you have to be careful.”

  “There’s been a gas leak?”

  “That’s how it looks.” Lilac is watching him as she holds the hand of the younger boy, the one who admitted his fear, tear tracks streaking his cheeks. There’s doubt, maybe curiosity in Lilac’s expression, and Bell is about to ask if anybody is having difficulty breathing when ahead of them, cresting the slight rise onto the bridge that crosses the Timeless River here, he sees one of the hazmat responders.

  That’s the moment, that’s when he knows. Every suspicion crystallizes, every doubt, every question. The instant this man first comes into view, thirty-odd feet away, as Bell sees who else is with him. Sees Tyvek suits and gas masks and black boots and black gloves and black gear bags. He knows. He knows that the Spartan was spoofed, that there is no aerosolized botulinum toxin wafting through WilsonVille. He knows it was a lie, and that this is something else, something different.

  Something even more dangerous.

  Because walking toward them, this man dressed for hazmat response, with another following just behind and to his left, there’s a group of six other people. Six other park guests, men and women and another child, and in the rear, two more dressed as hazmat responders, same as the first two to the last detail. Confused and frightened expressions on the evacuees, no conversation, and the way those six guests walk, he knows that walk. Never mind that they’re heading the wrong way, that they’re heading deeper in rather than making their way out. He knows that walk.

  Those six, they’re not walking like evacuees. They’re walking like prisoners.

  His thumb presses down, dialing Chain, but he doesn’t raise the phone, just drops it into the pocket of his coat. Takes two steps forward, putting Lilac and the kids to his back, raises his free hand in greeting.

  “You guys got here fast,” Bell says. “Only the four of you? I’d have thought there’d be more. We’ve got most of the park cleared out already.”

  The group comes to a silent stop in front of him, the nearest only fifteen or so feet away, at the foot of the bridge. In his mind, almost unconsciously, Bell has marked the four men in hazmat gear: Tango Four, rear left, Tango Three, rear right, Tango Two, near right, Tango One, near center. Four and Three have spread out slightly at the back of the group, still on the bridge itself, albeit barely, and now Three is putting his hand on the shoulder of the young woman nearest to him. He turns her slightly, using her to obscure Bell’s view. Sunlight bounces off the black rubber glove, and the woman flinches, just a bit, easy to miss, but if Bell had any doubts left, she’s just burned them away.

  The same part of him that has numbered and named each Tango has prioritized targets, has counted out sequence, movement, shots; has shown him the motion, crystal-clear; drawing the weapon riding just back of his right hip, up into his hands, safety down, firing. It isn’t a compulsion, neither is it an automated response, neither is it quite instinct. Yet it is all these things. But that same training, that same tactical brain is also telling him something else, is telling him that there are three children behind him and six hostages in front of him, and he does not know which Tangos are weapons-ready and which are not.

  So Bell does not move, not yet, but instead repeats himself. “You guys got here fast.”

  Tango One is closing, and Tango Two is raising his free hand, putting it to his left ear. On coms, and that makes sense, this is coordinated, which means, in turn, someone is coordinating, probably someone in the park, perhaps the same inside man who managed the botulinum spoof. A flicker-fast thought: Nuri back at the command post, but she had damn well better be able to take care of herself.

  Not his problem, not right now.

  “You need to come with us,” Tango One says. His voice is thick, dulled behind the gas mask, and Bell can’t discern an accent. The Tango’s eyes flick to the kids and Lilac before returning to him. “You have to be screened.”

  Lilac says, “We have to get these children back to their parents.”

  “After they’ve been tested,” Tango One says, not looking away from Bell.

  Tango Two has lowered his hand. “We take all of them.” He indicates Bell. “That one’s management.”

  “Deputy director of park safety.” Bell smiles.

  “You all are going to have to come with us.” Tango Two reaches to unzip the top of his coveralls, and Bell’s back-brain immediately reprioritizes targets, moves this man to the front of the line. At the same time, he registers movement in the background, just below the crest of the bridge, at the railing to his left. Chaindragger, dripping with water from the Timeless River, pulling himself up and over to position himself a dozen yards or so behind Tangos Three and Four.

  “Turn around.”

  “Sure,” Bell says, and he takes it slow, pivots about to face Lilac and the children. Conf
used, scared faces, but they don’t understand, not yet. They don’t see it. They don’t know.

  Bell feels very tired, suddenly.

  “Do what he says,” he tells them. “Now.”

  Lilac is the first to react, the first to realize, and maybe she’s seen something, the gun that Bell is positive is about to be leveled at his back. Maybe she sees something else, but she pulls the youngest around with her, reaches out for the hand of the second, the girl, maybe ten years old. The dark-eyed boy, the older one, frowns, his mouth clamped tight.

  “We have to find our parents,” he whispers.

  Bell puts a hand on the boy’s shoulder. Says with all the quiet certainty he can, “You will.”

  The boy turns, and Lilac is starting to move, and now they all are beginning to walk back in the direction they came. Bell follows, one step, another, just walking here, just walking, wrapped in cold calm. Slowing slightly, almost able to feel Tango Two at his back.

  He pivots, spins, left hand extending, palm out, his right hand dropping, drawing. Tango Two’s gun has a suppressor, and if it hadn’t Bell wonders if he’d have been shot again, maybe for the final time. But the suppressor makes Tango Two’s pistol that much longer, long enough for Bell’s left palm to connect with its side, knock the weapon out of line and up, and there’s the muffled report as the man fires on instinct, sends a round skyward.

  Now Bell’s own weapon is free, and he’s running the count in his head. Tango Two, sight, fire one, fire two, both head, can’t miss at this range; Tango Two down; left hand to pistol, shifting, barely have to even swing about, Tango One beginning to backpedal, and the friendlies don’t even know what’s happened yet, haven’t begun to react. Chaindragger in motion, covered, bad angles, nobody better miss or else they’ll shoot each other, worse, they’ll shoot the friendlies, and have the shot; three, four, five, tracking line, upper thorax, neck, head; Tango One down.