Greg Rucka - Alpha

The service door on the southeast side of the fort swings open. As Bell watches from cover, two figures emerge, immediately followed by two more. Then three, and another two, and by his count that’s everyone who was in Fort Royal, now all outside. They move in a cluster, staying close, and almost as one begin walking, heading in their direction.

Bell doesn’t move.

Nuri slips his arm, looks past, says what Bell is thinking.

“Shit,” she murmurs.

“Move,” he answers, and they retreat from the kiosk, back toward the wall bordering the Royal Hunt. She goes over it first, Bell after, dropping into the fake foliage, landing between an animatronic gorilla and its mate. Each listening, and each hearing nothing. Nuri begins picking her way carefully through the overgrowth, following the wall, stops after a dozen yards or so, dropping to one knee. Bell leans over her, can see the walkway through a gap in the wall.

Bell brings his left hand to his ear, is about to activate the earbud, but Chain beats him to the punch.

“We have a problem,” Chain says. “They’re mobile, and they’re concealed. Repeat, we cannot identify the Tangos.”

“Same,” Bell murmurs.

“Same,” Bonebreaker says.

“Hold.”

The group is beginning to pass them now. Walking close together, almost touching one another, and all of them, every single one of them, is in some costume or another. They’re not perfect fits: a Gordo whose cuffs drag on the ground, a S.E.E.K.E.R. Robot with one hand out on the back of a fully armored Valiant Flashman. A Pooch; a Rascal with his tail wrapped around his middle like a belt; a Clip Flashman in full encounter suit, including visored helmet; two dressed as Betsy, one in the soccer player costume and the other in traditional cutoffs and a plaid shirt; and finally a Lola, the oversized toucan, wings dragging alongside.

With only a couple of exceptions, Bell can’t see their hands. Sleeves hang empty at the sides of costumes, sway disturbingly with each step. No way to tell who’s armed, who is pointing a weapon, and who has their hands perhaps bound inside the confines of their outfits.

No easy way to tell the good guys from the bad, despite what each costume may say.

The procession passes them by, and not one head turns, not one costume looks their way.

The dead Tango’s radio on Bell’s hip crackles to life.

“Mr. Bell.” It’s the same soft-spoken man, the same voice. “Let’s talk about how this is going to work.”

Gabriel was so worried about Dana recognizing him in the Pooch outfit that he almost missed the obvious.

The pretty, strawberry-blond deaf girl, in the shorts and the Hollyoakes T-shirt. From inside the headpiece, looking past the black grille that serves to hide his eyes inside Pooch’s nose, Gabriel stared and wondered where he’d seen her before.

Then they were all getting into the costumes, and Dana was interpreting, moving along the line of kids, and she got to that girl and handed her the mask. The girl signed something, and that was what did it, maybe, the intuitive leap.

An overtime authorization on Jonathan Bell’s desk for Dana Kincaid.

A photograph, framed, on the corner of the desk.

Jonathan Bell, his wife, his daughter.

Strawberry blondes, both.

Jesus Christ, Gabriel thought. Oh Jesus Christ, it’s his daughter.

He thought, then, that he had damn well better be sure nothing happened to her.

Then a part of him he didn’t like, a very old part of him, that once lived in Odessa, wondered how he might use this knowledge to his best advantage.

From the top of Gordo’s Flying Ball, Gabriel Fuller has a pretty good view. It’s not the highest point in the park by far, but below, he can see Vladimir as Kurkur and the others, Sonny and the other one and Dana in the Betsy costume, all of them in a group, waiting at the edge of Yesteryear Ballpark. He can see the approach, the wide walkway from Town Square heading this direction.

He can see them, and he can see the two men who have now stopped just between the Wilson Restaurant and the Sweets Emporium at the northwest corner of Wilson Town. Inside the giant baseball, Gabriel can see them, but they can’t see him.

He keys the radio in his hand. “First thing you’re going to do is tell your men to lay down their weapons and fall back.”

“Why am I going to do that?”

“Because I’m looking at them right now, Mr. Bell, and they’re looking at a bunch of people in costumes. Unless they are very clever and very quick, they don’t know which of them are hostages and which of them aren’t. I’m sure you’ve figured this out already. Tell them to fall back.”

There’s a pause, dead air on the radio. Gabriel adjusts his position, staying low in the ball. The ride is a simple one: guests climb a set of stairs, or, if they’re handicapped, take a gantry-style elevator up to the giant hollow baseball where he’s now crouched. They buckle up, hold their breath, and the whole thing drops in a free fall, only to bounce up and down, swaying back and forth. This, Gabriel understands, is supposed to be fun.

The two men set their weapons on the ground, two M4s and their pistols, then raise their hands and begin to back away.

“Done.”

“Thank you. Call them back. Call all your people back, wherever they are, tell them they need to form on you.”

“Form on me.”

“That’s what I said.”

“You’re military.”

“What I am doesn’t matter, Mr. Bell. What I can do, what I want you to do, that’s what matters. You see where we’re going with this? Do I need to spell it out?”

“Why don’t you do that? I’d hate for there to be a misunderstanding.”

Gabriel can’t keep himself from laughing, but there’s no mirth in it. “God, no, we wouldn’t fucking want that, would we? Not at this point, no, we wouldn’t want that.”

“I’m listening. Talk.”

Gabriel shifts. The Pooch costume is hot as ever, bulky in the confined space of the giant baseball. With the headpiece and gloves off, there’s some relief, but not much. Not nearly enough.

“You can’t tell us apart, you understand that, Mr. Bell? Everyone is in a mask, everyone is in a costume. Some of the men are dressed as women, some of the women as men, you understand me? Even the deaf kids, it’s mix and match. You don’t want to take a shot you can’t take back, that’s what I’m saying. Someone starts shooting, hostages are going to end up dead. That’s not a threat, now, that’s just a fact.”

“I understand,” says Bell.

“You ever gone on the Terra Space ride, Mr. Bell?”

“Haven’t had the opportunity.”

“No, I imagine you’ve been busy. Once you have your people with you, you’re going to head to the Terra Space ride. You’ll take it up to the Lunar Platform, and you’ll wait there. Once you’re up top, we’ll line up at the bottom. I’ll start sending people up, two at a time. You won’t know who’s a hostage and who isn’t until we’re done, understand? You won’t know if I’m sending my people up along with our prisoners or not. And if you move, if any of you comes off that platform before we’re finished, you know what I’ll have to do.”

“Yeah,” Bell says, and Gabriel swears the man actually sounds bored, if not annoyed. “I get it.”

“One more thing, Mr. Bell. I see that your men here, they had long guns with them. I see any of you with a long gun, I don’t care who’s on the platform and who isn’t, I’m going to start shooting. You have fifteen minutes to be there, or I start killing my hostages.”

“Did you kill Vesques?” Bell asks.

The question takes Gabriel by surprise, so much that he loses his next words.