Greg Rucka - Alpha

Nuri handed him the sheet, and Bell wasn’t sure what to do with it at first, mostly because he was staring at her. Shockingly pretty, short coal-black hair and hazel eyes, vaguely Persian features, but that wasn’t why he stared. He’d seen her before, and for the life of him he couldn’t remember where or when.

“The high school kids don’t tend to be a problem,” Shoshana Nuri told him. “They get noisy, rambunctious, sometimes they try to sneak booze into the park, but we tend to catch that during the bag check.”

“You changed your hair,” Bell said abruptly.

She reappraised him. “It was a wig.”

“So I’d guessed.”

“I’m impressed. Most people can’t recognize me outside of costume.”

“It took a while for the penny to drop.”

She kept the same expression, the pun either ignored or disregarded. “Like I said, I think it’s the wig. Throws people off.”

“That must be it,” said Bell, certain that her form-fitting Penny Starr flight suit was a factor as well.

He’s working six days a week. Fridays, during his routine walkabout of the park, he completes the drop from Chaindragger at Terra Space. Isaiah offers him the latest Clip Flashman comic, and Bell takes it, and back in his office he opens it and reads the note that’s been enclosed, always the same. NSTR. Nothing significant to report. He tucks the note away to be burned later, sends an e-mail to Brickyard via an anonymous account, passing it along.

Mondays he takes off, the quietest day in the park. Those days, Bell tries to sleep late and fails, spends a chunk of it reading, catching up on the news. His languages are getting a little rusty from disuse, and chasing newspapers online is a good way to refresh his Arabic, his Russian, his Pashto. There’s a shooting club as well, and he spends an hour on the range, pounding out rounds. Does his laundry, does his shopping, and by the time that’s done, he’s thinking about cooking himself dinner and maybe going to see a movie, which he never does. Doesn’t matter how much he wants to see something in the theater, he can’t bring himself to sit in the dark alone.

His third Monday in, his third official day off, late in the afternoon, he heads to a brew pub he’s been hearing about, place called the Yard House, on one edge of an outdoor mall in Irvine. He finds Colonel Ruiz there, as expected; out of uniform, blue jeans, a black T-shirt, waiting in a booth off to the side when Bell arrives. The colonel is apparently watching three different ball games play out on three different televisions at the same time, and Bell has a sense memory, triggered in the way Ruiz’s eyes flick from one screen to the next, remembering the TOC. For a fraction of a second, he can hear the voices, see the satellite imagery, smell the electronics, the recycled air, the stale coffee of the Tactical Operations Center.

It’s gone as quickly as it comes. Bell takes a seat. The selection of beers available can only be described as overwhelming. He finally settles for an IPA out of San Francisco. The noise in the space is consistent, just shy of loud, with so many people alcohol-lubricated that the volume steals attention. It’s a good place to talk.

“How’s the job?” Ruiz sips from his own glass, eyes flicking from one game to another. This is their first face-to-face since Bell’s placement within WilsonVille. Ruiz speaks casually, conversational volume. Whispering draws suspicion, after all.

“Like any other.” Bell pulls the latest comic book acquired from Chaindragger from his jacket pocket, sends it across the table. Same message as every time before. “Always an adventure.”

Ruiz takes the comic, cracks a grin, flips through it until he finds Chain’s report. He closes the comic again, moves it to rest beside him on his seat. “Tell me.”

“I’m light.” Bell goes silent as the waiter sets his drink on the table, saunters off. “I’m tasked for four. You promised me four. Rest of my team.”

“You may have heard, there’s a war on.”

“Old news. I’ve got Chain.”

“You’ve got Chain plus one.”

“I don’t know my plus one, my plus one wasn’t picked by me, my plus one is a variable and untested and therefore I do not include my plus one.”

“Your plus one checks out.”

“I didn’t do the check. She’s Company. I’m still light.”

“There are a lot of parks to cover, Master Sergeant. I had to put Board and Bone in play elsewhere.”

“Am I getting any more?”

Ruiz shakes his head so slightly it’d be easy to miss, except Bell knew it was coming.

“No change?” Bell asks. “Nothing new?”

“NSTR. Action as before.” Ruiz takes another drink, glances over at him. “Anything you want to share?”

“Vesques.”

“What about him?”

“He was moved before he was murdered.”

“That was our conclusion as well.”

“Moved out of the park.”

“What I’d do.”

“What I’d do, too, if it came to that. But if you had to move him out of the park, that means you initially neutralized him in the park. Which means you had a reason to do it. Which means it’s an internal threat, not an external one.”

“Find the reason he was moved.”

Bell uses his chin to indicate where Ruiz has set the comic. “Chain’s been looking, been looking six weeks now, almost. Negative result so far. If there’s something hidden inside the park, neither of us can find it.”

“Find the reason.”

“I’m light.”

“Yes, you are.”

“But you’re moving people elsewhere. This is the lead. Vesques is the lead. But you’re moving people elsewhere. Unless you’re telling me there’s something hard that’s come up elsewhere.”

“There is not. What there is, Jad, is over five hundred theme parks in this country. Did you know that? Over five hundred theme parks in the United States alone. Add the politics and the interservice bullshit and you’re lucky you’re not working this alone with your dick in your hands.”

“This is the lead. If this goes down, it’ll be on a big park, not on fucking Happy Oaks in Peoria or wherever. Everyone thinks you hit these places from outside, it makes sense, I know that. Wear a vest, take a walk, ruin everybody’s day who’s buying a ticket. I know that. But Vesques was killed inside . This is something else, this is not looking like the playbook scenario. This is the lead.”

Ruiz empties his glass, sets it on the table, rocks it back and forth between his palms. He’s stopped watching the game, brown eyes on Bell. His age is starting to show, the hard living beginning to present its bill. Mostly, it shows around his eyes, crow’s-feet that never go away, a slight sagging of flesh at his cheeks.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Soon.”

“Soon.” The glass stops dancing between his hands. “Anything else?”

“Wallford and Porter.”

“See also: politics. Porter was high in the Company.”

“Wallford?”

“Don’t worry about him. Porter, he’s an asshole, not an enemy.”

“Enemies have assholes.”

“Then don’t stand behind him.”

Bell grins at that, enjoys the joke for a second before letting it fade. “Anything for me?”

“If it rolls, it’ll roll before the end of the summer. Makes the most sense.”

“Only whispers?”

“We had concrete, we’d shut them down. You’re not the only one who’s seeing the scenario as you describe it. But ‘better safe than sorry’ is not a phrase that parses well when billions of dollars are at stake. You can’t just shut these places down on a rumor. Too much money could be lost, and money, always, talks loudest.”

“They’ll lose billions more.”