Greg Rucka - Alpha

“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 some one 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.”

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.