Greg Rucka - Alpha

Gabriel looks at the tiny lead-lined container, the symbols and red-painted warnings. He nods, raises his eyes to meet the Uzbek’s. The other man has never been easy to read, and this time is no different, but Gabriel thinks he sees, perhaps, the hint of a question, the touch of doubt.

“No change?” Gabriel asks the Uzbek.

“No, as we discussed.”

Gabriel looks back at the contents of the box, this seed that can be watered, coaxed to bloom and spread a pollen of illness. Carried by the wind to leave its touch wherever it might fall. Right now, only potential-and it is that potential, more than anything else, that has concerned him, confused him. The instructions here are clear, and yet, through their clarity, indecipherable. Gabriel does not understand.

The Uzbek senses this, puts his mouth to Gabriel’s ear. “Place. Do not arm.”

“Place, do not arm,” Gabriel echoes.

The Uzbek straightens. “Do not concern yourself with the reasons. Concern yourself with the execution.”

The Uzbek shuts the box, locks it once more. Gabriel feels the eyes of sixteen men on him as he takes the key. He turns to Vladimir, asks, “You’ve been briefed?”

“We’ve all been briefed.”

Gabriel Fuller looks at the box holding the makings of a very dirty bomb. He looks at the Uzbek, and at the sixteen men once more.

“Let’s go over it again,” he tells them.

The first thing Bell does is argue with himself. He tells himself that WilsonVille is a popular vacation spot, that people come from all over the country, all over the world, even, to meet there. Family reunions and birthday parties and wedding anniversaries and, yes, of course, school trips to celebrate graduations or team victories or even the end of another year of education. He knows this, it’s not open to debate, it does not require someone to convince him. Summer, too, sees the highest number of visitors to the park, and again, school trips are often scheduled during the summer vacation for all the obvious reasons.

All these things are true, but still, he cannot bring himself to accept his daughter’s impending visit at face value. Whether he’s being paranoid or simply cautious, he doesn’t know, but at the least, due diligence is required. So Bell checks with WilsonVille reservations, asks them to look up the Hollyoakes School for the Deaf, and a bright-voiced woman named Vitoria confirms it for him within minutes; the Hollyoakes school has had their reservation and deposit down for almost twelve months now. Well in advance of his own placement in the park.

That should do it for Bell, that should satisfy, but it’s not enough, and now he knows he’s being paranoid, thinking that the reservation could be backdated. He needs a harder confirmation, and that’s easy enough to find in his position as the deputy director of park safety.

Tuesday morning, he collars Shoshana Nuri as soon as he’s in the office.

“Have a job for you,” he says.

“Sure.”

“Verify a school trip this weekend, the Hollyoakes School for the Deaf, based out of Vermont.”

“Should be in the database.”

“It is in the database. I want a verbal, I want you to call the school.”

“And say what?”

“Whatever you like, I just want the verbal confirmation. I want a confirmation on the dates, when they made the plans. Tell them you’re double-checking, whatever you like. Do it now.”

Shoshana Nuri raises an eyebrow, puzzled, then shrugs. Bell goes to his office, is just settling in when she sticks her head through the doorway.

“They confirm,” she tells him.

Bell nods, and she holds a second longer.

“My daughter’s school,” he says.

“I see.”

“Come in, close it,” Bell tells her.

She does, standing just in the doorway.

“Here’s my problem,” Bell says. “My problem is I don’t want them coming.”

“You have new intel?”

“I have the same intel you do.” He fixes his eyes on hers. “Unless you’re holding back.”

“I am not.”

“I have the same intel you do.”

“So you’re being paranoid.”

“It’s my daughter and ex-wife.” Bell pauses. “Of course I’m being paranoid.”

Nuri considers this for a second, then nods. “Yes.”

“I’m sending it up the line.”

“To do what?”

“To put a stop to it.”

Nuri shakes her head. “You’ll compromise us.”

“It’s my daughter and my ex-wife, you think I care about that?”

“I do, yes.”

For a moment, Bell thinks he might hate her, beautiful, young, smart, and absolutely right. He feels caught, a sudden surge of dread that is almost sickening rising in his gullet. The helplessness of watching an accident unfold with adrenaline clarity, the illusion of slowing time, without the grace of attendant speed.

“Think this through,” Nuri says. She comes closer, approaching the desk, and Bell rises abruptly, suddenly wanting to maintain the space between them. “You think you’re being played, you’re being compromised, but it checks out. The timing checks out, makes this legitimate. This is a flat tire on the Humvee, this is a broken radio, this is a dead battery. That’s all this is.”

Bell doesn’t speak.

“You send this up the line, you’re compromised. They’ll pull you out and have to scramble someone into your place and that will draw attention, will demand questions be asked and answers given. Operational security will be destroyed. They’ll pull you out, and that’ll expose your man, that’ll leave me here, alone, high and dry. I am not a shooter, Mr. Bell. I am not a shooter.”

“I am compromised. I am obligated to inform Brickyard. One way or another, I am obligated to inform.”

She looks at him, her jaw clenching for a second. A nod, reluctant.

“You do what you have to do.”

She leaves, shuts the door behind her.

Wednesday night, the Yard House, louder, and the volume on the televisions is up. Ruiz is waiting at the bar, a long oblong island in the middle of the space, and Bell squeezes in next to him, displacing a squadron of secretaries. Hears one of them remarking on his ass, loud enough to know it’s a come-on, and all it does is annoy him.

Ruiz waits for him to order another of the same IPA, and they detach from the rail, move to a newly vacated standing table. Bell gets a good look at Ruiz’s expression, and the colonel is not looking like a happy man.

“Are you asking me to pull you out?”

Bell has been wondering the same thing. Wondering the same thing and feeling, yet again, the same conflict that destroyed his marriage, the same conflict that divorce was supposed to remove.

“What’s the intel?” Bell asks.

“Same as before. Are you asking to be pulled?”

“You can’t cock-block them? You can’t shut this down?”

“Not without exposure. I need an answer.”

Bell shakes his head, arguing with himself. Too many ifs, and if he knew, if he was certain, he could answer, and as he thinks that, he has his response. They’re coming, Amy and Athena and the rest, they’re coming regardless, unless he goes and stops them himself, and there it is.

Because if, God help him, it comes down this weekend and he’s not in the park, he will never forgive himself.

“No,” Bell says.

Four minutes past eight on Bell’s watch, it’s Saturday morning, and he hears them coming. Deaf children vocalize with joy, and without restraint, without self-censorship, without care. Then they grow, and they discover judgmental eyes, and self-awareness gives way to self-?consciousness. They learn that their voices are unwelcome to many who hear, and they censor themselves. That he can hear them now, Bell knows, speaks to their excitement and their happiness.