Greg Rucka - Alpha

The Uzbek gives this due consideration before saying, “Yes. He is arrogant, and spoke with arrogance, but we knew this about him from the start, his bluster. He is an ideologue, with an ideologue’s ego. But I was never anything less than absolutely cautious, and even, in the worst-case scenario, if he should somehow find his way back to me, it is impossible that he would then find his way back to you.”

The man types immediately, quickly.

Nothing is impossible.

He pauses, then adds:

Vosil.

Watches as the Uzbek reacts to the use of his name. Watches as the Uzbek shakes his head.

“I would die first.”

Yes. You would.

The Uzbek shifts, repositioning himself in his chair perhaps. He opens his mouth to speak, then stops. Removes his glasses, and sets them carefully aside, out of the view of the monitor, the camera. He looks directly at the man no one can name.

“What would you have me do?”

This is a very good question, and the man in front of the keyboard has given it much thought already. He has thought about eliminating Mr. Money, though that seems like an excessive gesture at this time, for two reasons. The first is that doing so would not guarantee their security, and, in fact, could quite possibly compromise it further. There is no way to know what Mr. Money has on them. Killing him will silence the man, but there is no telling what traces or trails he may have left behind. The man no one can name must trust that the fear they have engendered will preserve silence.

So that is the first reason. The second is more pragmatic. Just as the Uzbek represented the man who sits at the keyboard now, he knows that Mr. Money represented others. Men of like mind, and like money, and like power. They have seen what was accomplished, and the man no one can name is certain they will be back, asking for more, and willing to pay.

Your work is finished for now. Return home. New orders await you there.

The Uzbek leans forward slightly, reading the words on his monitor, squinting slightly without the aid of his glasses.

“You may rely on me,” the Uzbek says.

I have, the man at the keyboard thinks. I have, and you have succeeded, and yet you have failed. You are not a pawn, but you are not the king, or even the queen.

The man at the keyboard kills their connection, takes up his too hot, too strong, too sweet tea once again. There was one thing he and the Uzbek did not discuss. One thing that the man now sipping his tea has been considering among all other matters.

This man who was in the park.

He sips at his tea, and wonders how best to make an example of Jad Bell.

You can get an awful lot of intelligence from a cell phone.

The following day, WilsonVille opened at its regular time. Almost all rides resumed operation, with the notable exception of Pooch Pursuit, now closed for maintenance. Attendance was, as expected, poor, with just under three thousand day passes sold.

“It’s three thousand more than I thought we’d sell,” Marcelin tells Ruiz. “It’ll come back. People have short attention spans, and technically, Bell was working for us.”

“So when you tell the media that WilsonVille security played a crucial role in retaking the park and rescuing the hostages, you’re telling the truth.”

“My understanding is that your people don’t want me to tell the truth.”

“That is correct.”

Marcelin nods slowly. “Bell.”

“What about him?”

“I’d like to thank him. Him and the rest of your men.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Ruiz tells him. “He’s on a new assignment. But I’ll be sure to pass it along.”

* * *

When Wallford offers to shake Bell’s hand, Bell grins and holds up his right, showing the bandaged palm.

“Ready for this?” Wallford asks.

Bell nods, the grin fading. He aches-his back, his face, his arm, his hand, all of him. When he fell, he’s certain he tore muscles in his shoulder and arm catching himself. Physical pain, and it rides a dull shotgun with the emotional pain, with the way Athena looks at him now and the way Amy won’t. With Dana Kincaid’s broken heart and broken life, and with Angel, which everyone tells him wasn’t his fault, none of whom he believes.

Wallford pushes open the door to Eric Porter’s office, where the man is seated at his desk, staring vacantly out the window. He turns in his chair, registers surprise as he sees Bell entering behind Wallford. Starts to rise.

“Jerry,” Porter says. “I was about to call you. Mr. Bell.”

Bell says nothing, fixing Porter with a stare.

“You were about to call me?” Wallford says. “That is remarkably ironic, Eric. Let me show you why.”

From his pocket, Wallford produces a cell phone, and sets it on Porter’s desk.

“Know what that is?” he asks.

Porter looks from one man to the other, bemused if not puzzled. “There’s a lot to do today, Jerry. Playing games isn’t one of them.”

“That is the cell phone that Master Sergeant Bell here recovered from Gabriel Fuller,” Wallford says. “Mr. Fuller discarded the phone after killing Shoshana Nuri, but before moving to arm and detonate the device.”

Porter says nothing.

“We got the prelim back on the device, as far as that goes.” Wallford flops into one of the two chairs facing Porter’s desk, throws his feet up on the edge. He’s wearing a suit and a tie, but the shoes, Bell notes, are Adidas. “Couple interesting things about that device. Want to hear them?”

“I’m sure you’ll share them even if I don’t.” Porter’s response is dry, or starts that way, but he looks at Bell halfway through it, and the sarcasm fades.

Bell just stares back.

“Had a timer, set to read sixty minutes from arming. But the timer was bullshit, it was to detonate immediately. Would’ve killed whoever set it off, blown them to pieces even before the radiation did its number. But the radioactive material? That’s very interesting. That radioactive material came out of Iran, the facility at Chalus, we think.”

Porter tears himself away from Bell’s stare. “Iran? Jesus Christ. That’s…that’s huge, Jerry, that’s a fucking act of war.”

“Sure looks that way.” Wallford moves his right foot, nudges the phone. “Gabriel Fuller didn’t have a lot of calls on this thing. Received one or two from a location within the park, one of his compatriots. Received a couple from a dead-end disposable, some guy in Los Angeles. That one was interesting, that took heavy lifting, but we were able to zero the location of origin on those calls, the L.A. calls.”

“You know who made them, then?”

“We do not.” Wallford looks at Porter, gives it a moment, then adds, “But there were other calls from that location, and those calls were to a man in Texas. A man in Texas who called you, Eric. A man in Texas who, it turns out, you’ve been talking with at least once a week for the last three months, and who you talked to three times yesterday. You want to tell us what you and he talked about?

“I-”

“I would think very carefully about how you answer this,” Wallford says. He leans back in the chair, craning his head to look pointedly at Bell, then to Porter.

“Jerry-”

Bell says, “We have a code. One of ours dies, someone answers.”

“One of yours? None of yours died.”

Bell takes three steps forward and grabs Eric Porter by his silk necktie, wraps it once around his fist, and yanks. Porter falls forward onto his desk, a strangled cry, and Bell puts his other hand to the back of the man’s head, pushing down, hard, so that Porter’s neck is caught at the edge.

“Angel was one of mine,” Bell says. “And I think you’re responsible for her death. Tell me how I’m wrong.”