by Greg Rucka
“Bonebreaker, Bonebreaker,” Chain says. “Bonebreaker, respond.”
Training trumps passion. Bell shifts, throws himself to his left, against the retaining wall along the side of the path. Can smell the flowers planted there, feels his pulse thrum, the .45 in his hand. Bonebreaker isn’t responding.
“Cardboard!” Bell says.
“I’m pinned, Bone is down,” Cardboard comes back immediately. “No shot, no shot.”
Bell moves to break cover, hears another burst of shots, hears rounds whine past as they skip high off the ground.
“Bonebreaker is down,” Chain says. “Bonebreaker is down. Angel, do you have the shot?”
“No shot, I have no shot. Two Tangos moving back, they have a hostage, they have—”
She cuts off, another fusillade, the echo off the wall beside Bell disorienting, making it seem as if the shooters are somehow behind and above him. Chain swears in his ear.
“Warlock, move, move, move,” Chain says. “I have eyes on Tangos, go, go, go.”
Bell pushes away from the wall, sprinting forward, pounding his way upslope, pistol low and ready in both hands. More shots, the rattle from the MP5Ks, and Cardboard curses. Bell crests the rise, finds eight figures lying on the ground, and back toward Wilson Town, he sees Kurkur the Unending disappearing around the side of a building, Pooch chasing after him.
Eight figures on the ground, blood pools, soaks a Gordo, saturating his costume. Clip Flashman lies dead, his helmet in fragments around his head. Smooch face down, his trunk trapped beneath his body, and Bell hears a girl sobbing from within the costume. A Betsy is struggling to get out of her own outfit, her hands already free, a Hollyoakes student on either side of her, and she’s using ASL. He sees Dread Flashman, the same boy whom Athena was flirting with hours before, lying with his arms around his belly. Cardboard is coming up on Bell’s right, Angel behind him, already out of her helmet.
He doesn’t see Athena, he doesn’t see his daughter, and he knows what that means.
“Chain,” Bell says. “Track them.”
“On it, looks like they’re going for the tunnel at Dawg Days.”
Cardboard is moving past, toward the bowls of Rascal’s Tailspin. “Bonebreaker!”
The woman in the Betsy costume is moving now, pulling masks from more of the students, pausing in between to struggle out of her costume. Frightened faces blink up at them, some recoil, some try to hide, and Bell scans them all, and still, he cannot see his daughter.
“Got him!” Cardboard calls.
“He okay?”
“He’s a lucky motherfucker.”
Bell spares a look, sees Cardboard is helping the larger man make his way out of the ride. Three distinct tufts of Kevlar curl from Bonebreaker’s chest, the material white and willowy against the black fabric covering it. The vest held.
“Ribs,” Jorge manages to say. “Fucking ribs.”
Bell nods, pops the magazine from his pistol, replaces it fresh, readies the weapon. Looking over the students, his eyes finally settling on the woman now out of the Betsy costume.
“Angel,” Bell says. “Take the tunnels, swing around to Gordo from the north.”
Angel is kneeling by Dread Flashman, and she looks up at him. All around them, the Hollyoakes class minus his daughter is signing in a flurry, too fast for Bell to hope to understand, the shorthand the deaf use among themselves. Tears and relief and fear.
“This kid’s hurt,” Nuri says. “He’s in shock, I don’t know what’s wrong.”
“Tunnels,” Bell repeats. “Go.”
She nods, getting to her feet. Bell looks down at the boy, the boy his daughter was walking with. His skin has taken an ashen cast, his lips touched with gray, pinpoints of perspiration on his forehead, his cheeks, his upper lip.
“Top,” Cardboard says.
Bell ignores him, turns to the woman who isn’t Betsy. “Dana Kincaid? You are Dana Kincaid?”
She’s signing to three of the kids at once, stops abruptly, looks at him in alarm. “I am. I’m…you’re Mr. Bell, aren’t you? You’re Athena’s father.”
“I am.” He extends one hand to her. “I need you to come with me. Now.”
“What?” She looks confused, on the verge of despair. “I don’t understand. I need to stay with the kids, they need an interpreter—”
“You know Gabriel Fuller?”
“Gabe? Yes, I know Gabe, he’s—”
“Your boyfriend has my daughter hostage,” Bell says. “You’re coming with me, now.”
He doesn’t wait for her agreement, steps in, puts his hand on her back, turns her with him.
“Top,” Cardboard says.
“Help the others.”
Bell and Dana Kincaid move into Wilson Town, together.
Dana Kincaid tries to keep pace with him as Bell jogs along. She opens her mouth to speak, but Bell raises his hand to silence her, listening to Cardboard in his ear.
“One of these kids is hurt,” Cardboard says. “He’s decompensating. We need a medic.”
“On it,” Chain responds. “HRT is at the front gate, waiting confirmation to breach.”
“Tell them to fucking move it.”
“I’m coming down,” Chain says.
Cardboard says, “Top, Brickyard wants status.”
“Keep HRT out of Town Square,” Bell says. “Going to try to talk a surrender.”
“Good luck with that,” Chain says.
“Surrender?” Dana Kincaid asks. “I don’t understand! I don’t understand, what’s going on? Why do you want to know about Gabe?”
“Gabriel Fuller has my daughter.” Bell keeps one hand on the woman’s back, the pressure as light as he can manage, guiding her.
“No. No, that’s not right. Stop that!” She twists, turns out of his touch, stopping in front of him. Confusion on her face, masked with defiance. “No, you’re wrong.”
“Then you’ll prove me wrong. Do you love him?”
She stares at him, taken aback by the question.
“Do you love him?” he asks again.
“I—yes! What…he isn’t, he…” She falters, trails off, and there’s a new look in her eyes, and Bell sees the realization. “He plays Pooch. He plays Pooch, there was a Pooch, he never said anything.…”
“Gabriel Fuller is involved in this, in what has happened today. He is involved, Dana, and he now is holding my daughter. And I will kill him to get her back, I will do that, do you understand?”
Dana Kincaid opens her mouth, but cannot find words. She nods, just barely, then nods again.
“If you love him, if you do not want that to happen, you will talk him down.” Bell is staring into her eyes, forcing the eye contact, giving her nowhere to look and no way to escape. “Do you understand me?”
“Yes.” She swallows, nods again. “Yes, I understand you.”
“Good.” Bell starts moving again, and she stays close by his side now, and he can see she’s processing what he’s said, still grappling with it, but she knows it is true, and he can see that as well.
They reach the double doors at the entrance to the Dawg Days Theatre. Bell stops, looks to her.
“Does he love you?”
She doesn’t pause, and answers with confidence. “Yes, he does.”
“Don’t let him forget that,” Bell says. “Stay close to me, move when I tell you. Don’t speak until I tell you.”
Bell goes through the doors, weapon up and ready, into dim light and air-conditioning that has made the empty theater too cold. The sound effects of a cartoon playing on a loop, the squeak of a mouse, Pooch’s unmistakable bark. He drops one hand from his weapon, reaches back for Dana Kincaid, finds her hand. She returns the grip, and he leads them into the seating area, advancing as quickly as he dares, up to the lip of the stage. He hears a voice, loses its words behind the sound track.
Up, Dana Kincaid’s hand still in his, and Bell scans the arc of the stage, gun leading, then pushes through the curtains.
Seeing nothing. Another voice, another man’s, and he advances toward it, deeper into the backstage and toward the door at the rear of the theater, the one that leads into the little square courtyard that leads, in turn, to the mouth of the Gordo Tunnel. The door is ajar, left open during the evacuation.
Bell takes the wall, releasing Dana Kincaid’s hand, breathing through his nose. Trying to steady himself. If he has the shot, he will take it, but when he ducks his head forward to peer through the gap, he sees nothing, just the empty courtyard, the discarded pieces of Kurkur and Pooch, the top of the flight of stairs that leads down to the tunnel.
He looks to Dana Kincaid. “Call for him.”
She nods, takes a deep breath, raises her head.
“Gabriel?”
There is no response, but Bell didn’t immediately expect one. He pushes the door farther open, thinks he hears the echo of movement from the stairs, the entrance to the Gordo Tunnel.
“Gabriel, it’s Dana. I’m here with Mr. Bell. I’m here with Mr. Bell, he says you took his daughter. He says you’re involved in this, in everything that happened today. I don’t want to believe it. I don’t want to believe him.”
Still no answer, nothing, and Bell pushes the door farther open, then slips back, pausing, before moving again, stepping through and out. Gun high, quick scan, and the courtyard is clear. He holds back, not wanting to expose the top of his head to the bottom of the stairs, freezes in place, listening. The park is still silent, but he can hear a distant helicopter, wonders how much longer the no-fly zone is going to last.
Dana steps through the doorway, and Bell moves a hand to catch her, to hold her back. She presses against him, not trying to get past, he thinks, but rather using him as her excuse to not move.
“God, please, Gabe,” Dana Kincaid calls. “Answer me, please! Are you there, baby? Please, this isn’t you, this was never you. They made you do it, your friends, those people you were meeting. I knew something was wrong, I knew it. Why didn’t you tell me?”
There is no answer, no noise at all. Just the distant sound of the helicopter coming closer.
Then, from the tunnel, he hears his daughter scream.
He hears shots.
He runs.
Chapter Thirty-four
ATHENA IS tasting her own blood, salty and warm and wrong. It’s running from her lip, and she wipes at her mouth with the back of her hand, sees it bright red on her skin.
They’ve stopped, and she’s not sure why, just stopped all of a sudden in the middle of this tunnel. The one who hit her, Vladimir, he’s standing to her right, keeps looking from the direction they were heading in to the direction they came from, looking at the man who was dressed as Pooch. That one, the one who made Vladimir stop hitting her, he’s a little closer to her left, looking back the same way as well. The stairs they came down, maybe fifty feet away, and Athena can’t see anyone there. But the man who was dressed as Pooch, his chin is raised slightly, and the gun in his hands is pointing down a little bit, and she knows he’s listening to something.
The look on his face makes her think he’s going to cry.
Vladimir keeps looking back at them. Keeps looking back at him, really, only ever barely looks at her, and when he does, she can tell he doesn’t think she’s worth the trouble at all. She can tell he wants to kill her, that he’s thinking about doing it. Her chest hurts, and her head, and it’s not just from being hit.
She saw Uncle Freddie and Uncle Jorge and she saw Dad, and none of them came to get her.
She understands that she is going to die, maybe die right here, and the terror of it makes it hard to stand. It takes the strength from Athena’s legs, and makes her sink against the cool concrete wall of the tunnel. Opposite her, there’s a painting of Gordo, grinning and happy, pointing in both directions, the way they came and the way Vladimir is supposed to be looking when he’s not looking back at the other man.
Gordo looks so happy, Athena thinks, and it’s so a lie. All of it is a lie, everything WilsonVille is a lie. Friends and fun and sun and rides, and Mr. Howe died right in front of her, she saw his brains. Joel on his side, shaking and crying, maybe dying, too, and all the other people, the bodies. Her mom, they took her mom away, and she can feel the tears trying to get out again, and she hates that, she’s fighting that. She doesn’t want to cry. But they took her mom, and for the first time, Athena thinks that means she’s dead.
And now Athena is going to die, too.
And she is so scared.
She knows she was angry before, wonders when that left. Was it when Vladimir hit her, and hit her again, and then hit her again, and wanted to keep doing it? Was it when he picked her up and made her come with them? Was it when Uncle Jorge fell down, and she was sure he had been shot?
Or was it when she saw her dad, and he didn’t save her?
The man who was dressed as Pooch moves, takes a half step in the direction of the stairs. She wishes she knew what he’s hearing, what Vladimir is hearing. Now Vladimir is looking back at him again, then to her, just for a second, then down the tunnel once more. His shoulders shift, rise slightly, then fall.
Suddenly, Athena understands the phone call she saw Vladimir make back in Hendar’s Lair. She understands the words she read on his lips, and understands that she was wrong about them. Maybe whoever he was talking to, maybe he was telling Vladimir to kill her and Dana and the others. But it is more than that, and she can see what Vladimir is about to do before he does it, the start of the movement.
She doesn’t want to die.
Athena screams, uses the last of the strength in her legs to throw herself at the big man, throws herself off the wall and into him, trying to hit and bite and everything at once. He’s bringing his gun up, starting to turn, and she’s not large enough and she’s not strong enough to move him more than a step or two back, but it’s enough. She feels the vibration of the world, the feeling of gunfire, and Athena is clawing at him, clinging to him, hanging on that arm with the gun. He hits at her, and a flare of light and heat crosses her vision, blinds her, and she feels him hit her again, and she’s losing her grip. Then she’s falling back, flailing. Her back collides with someone, the man who wore the Pooch suit, she thinks, and she knows it’s over, that Vladimir is raising his gun and will kill them both.
She feels the air shake with gunshots, and her vision resolves, and Vladimir is standing in front of her, only a half dozen steps away. Pointing his gun at them, just as she knew he would be.
The top of his head is missing.
Vladimir falls down, and Penny Starr is standing there with a gun in her hands. The man who was Pooch pulls Athena against him, and she sees his gun come up, and Penny Starr is shouting. Athena feels something hot and hard hitting her cheek, spitting from the side of the man’s gun, feels the vibration in the air one more time.
Penny Starr falls to her knees. Her mouth is open, but she’s not making words that Athena can read.
Then the man who was Pooch is shoving Athena away from him, and he’s running, running away, down the long tunnel, and Athena’s legs finally abandon the last of their strength, and she falls to her knees, too. Penny Starr is trying to get up again, but she can’t do it, leans against the wall instead. Athena pulls herself to her, sees that the woman’s eyes look flat, like they’re cooling.
Penny Starr opens her mouth, and bright red blood runs out of it. She’s trying to tell her something, but Athena can’t read it. Shakes her head at the woman. Penny Starr tries again, then points past Athena’s shoulder.
Athena looks, sees what Penny Starr wants her to see. Understands the word she was saying.
Dad.
Chapter Thirty-five
SHOSHANA NURI, call sign Angel, is dying when Bell reaches her.
Slumped against the side of the Gordo Tunnel, blood slicking her form-fitting flight suit, the last trickle escaping her mouth, her eyes are open, fixed on his approach. Athena sits before her, still and silent, and Bell stops another ten fee
t past them, in time to see Gabriel Fuller rounding the corner onto the Flashman Tunnel, heading east and out of sight.
He doubles back, and Dana Kincaid is coming down the stairs, rushing toward them. Bell takes a knee beside his daughter, reaches out for Angel, but the woman shakes her head weakly, blinks with what appears to be a supreme effort. Her mouth works.
“Hold on,” Bell says. “Hold on.”
Cherry-red blood froths over her lips. She’s saying something, the same thing, over and over again, weaker and weaker as she stares into Bell’s eyes.
“Didn’t,” she says.
She says it four more times, until it is her last word.
Bell reaches out and closes her eyes. He looks at his daughter, and Athena answers with an expression that breaks his heart, that will haunt him for the rest of his life. It is the look he has seen on children all around the world, on boys and girls, young men and women, who have seen too much and felt too much and suffered too much. The light and joy that was his daughter is gone.
He puts a hand to his daughter’s cheek, puts his lips gently to her forehead. Meets her eyes again.
“I am so sorry,” he says, because in this moment, his duty will not allow him to release the gun in his other hand. In this moment, he cannot sign. He says it again, and he says, “Mom is safe. I love you.”
He gets to his feet, hoping that she understands why he cannot stay with her. Hoping that she will not think him the monster her mother does. Hoping that somehow, someday, she will forgive him.
“Get her out of here,” Bell tells Dana Kincaid.
He heads down the tunnel, after Gabriel Fuller.
Chapter Thirty-six
AT FIRST, he’s just running, he doesn’t even know where he’s going. Painted park characters flash past him on the walls, and his legs keep pumping, and he turns, turns again, until he realizes he’s coming up on Agent Rose’s Safe House, the entrance to the Speakeasy. He pushes through the door, stumbling, knocks over one of the tables, nearly trips himself against first one chair, then another. Makes it to the stairs and stops, leaning against the rail fixed to the wall. The MP5K is still in his hand, and he pops the magazine reflexively, replaces it with the last of his fresh ones.
