Alpha

Chapter Thirteen

Bell’s phone bleats at him, the two-tone alert that says Brickyard is calling. He doesn’t break stride as he answers. “Go for Warlock.”

“Sitrep.”

“Biotoxin alarm in the park, evacuation in progress.”

“Can you confirm?”

“That’s negative.”

“Assessment?”

“I think we’re dealing with something else. Trying to figure out exactly what right now.”

There’s a flicker of a pause, long enough for Bell to hear the background static-and-whine characteristic of secured communications. Then Ruiz says, “I’m en route to Marcelin. Let me know as soon as you have something. Out.”

Bell lowers his phone, rounds the south side of Flashman’s Laser Light Show. Ahead, working along the path that’ll take them to the northwest exit, he can see a Lilac trying to rush a group of three along with her. They’re just kids, two boys and a girl, and as he comes closer he can see that all are near tears, their meerkat companion trying to comfort them.

“We’ll find them once we get outside,” Lilac is saying. “I’ll stay with you the whole time, I promise. And you know I always keep my promises!”

“You lied to Hendar that time,” the girl says through snuffles.

“That was different. I did that to save Lavender.” Lilac sees Bell, stops. “They were on the carousel, got separated from their parents. We’re going out the northwest, is that way still open?”

Bell slows, falls into walking with them. All the kids look at him, and one of the boys, the older one, dark-haired and dark eyes shining with tears, reminds him of another boy, playing soccer in a dusty square. He gives them his most confident smile.

“Should be,” Bell says. “I’ll keep you company.”

“See?” Lilac tells the kids. “You find friends everywhere you look.”

“Everyone okay?” Bell’s phone is still in his hand, and he brings up Chain’s number with a glance, thinking to tell him that there’s a change. “Everyone feels all right?”

“It’s a little scary,” the youngest boy says softly.

“Why is the park closed?” This from the older boy, who cannot hide his disappointment. “You guys never close.”

“You know what a gas leak is?” Bell asks. “Natural gas? It’s not dangerous alone, but you have to be careful.”

“There’s been a gas leak?”

“That’s how it looks.” Lilac is watching him as she holds the hand of the younger boy, the one who admitted his fear, tear tracks streaking his cheeks. There’s doubt, maybe curiosity in Lilac’s expression, and Bell is about to ask if anybody is having difficulty breathing when ahead of them, cresting the slight rise onto the bridge that crosses the Timeless River here, he sees one of the hazmat responders.

That’s the moment, that’s when he knows. Every suspicion crystallizes, every doubt, every question. The instant this man first comes into view, thirty-odd feet away, as Bell sees who else is with him. Sees Tyvek suits and gas masks and black boots and black gloves and black gear bags. He knows. He knows that the Spartan was spoofed, that there is no aerosolized botulinum toxin wafting through WilsonVille. He knows it was a lie, and that this is something else, something different.

Something even more dangerous.

Because walking toward them, this man dressed for hazmat response, with another following just behind and to his left, there’s a group of six other people. Six other park guests, men and women and another child, and in the rear, two more dressed as hazmat responders, same as the first two to the last detail. Confused and frightened expressions on the evacuees, no conversation, and the way those six guests walk, he knows that walk. Never mind that they’re heading the wrong way, that they’re heading deeper in rather than making their way out. He knows that walk.

Those six, they’re not walking like evacuees. They’re walking like prisoners.

His thumb presses down, dialing Chain, but he doesn’t raise the phone, just drops it into the pocket of his coat. Takes two steps forward, putting Lilac and the kids to his back, raises his free hand in greeting.

“You guys got here fast,” Bell says. “Only the four of you? I’d have thought there’d be more. We’ve got most of the park cleared out already.”

The group comes to a silent stop in front of him, the nearest only fifteen or so feet away, at the foot of the bridge. In his mind, almost unconsciously, Bell has marked the four men in hazmat gear: Tango Four, rear left, Tango Three, rear right, Tango Two, near right, Tango One, near center. Four and Three have spread out slightly at the back of the group, still on the bridge itself, albeit barely, and now Three is putting his hand on the shoulder of the young woman nearest to him. He turns her slightly, using her to obscure Bell’s view. Sunlight bounces off the black rubber glove, and the woman flinches, just a bit, easy to miss, but if Bell had any doubts left, she’s just burned them away.

The same part of him that has numbered and named each Tango has prioritized targets, has counted out sequence, movement, shots; has shown him the motion, crystal-clear; drawing the weapon riding just back of his right hip, up into his hands, safety down, firing. It isn’t a compulsion, neither is it an automated response, neither is it quite instinct. Yet it is all these things. But that same training, that same tactical brain is also telling him something else, is telling him that there are three children behind him and six hostages in front of him, and he does not know which Tangos are weapons-ready and which are not.

So Bell does not move, not yet, but instead repeats himself. “You guys got here fast.”

Tango One is closing, and Tango Two is raising his free hand, putting it to his left ear. On coms, and that makes sense, this is coordinated, which means, in turn, someone is coordinating, probably someone in the park, perhaps the same inside man who managed the botulinum spoof. A flicker-fast thought: Nuri back at the command post, but she had damn well better be able to take care of herself.

Not his problem, not right now.

“You need to come with us,” Tango One says. His voice is thick, dulled behind the gas mask, and Bell can’t discern an accent. The Tango’s eyes flick to the kids and Lilac before returning to him. “You have to be screened.”

Lilac says, “We have to get these children back to their parents.”

“After they’ve been tested,” Tango One says, not looking away from Bell.

Tango Two has lowered his hand. “We take all of them.” He indicates Bell. “That one’s management.”

“Deputy director of park safety.” Bell smiles.

“You all are going to have to come with us.” Tango Two reaches to unzip the top of his coveralls, and Bell’s back-brain immediately reprioritizes targets, moves this man to the front of the line. At the same time, he registers movement in the background, just below the crest of the bridge, at the railing to his left. Chaindragger, dripping with water from the Timeless River, pulling himself up and over to position himself a dozen yards or so behind Tangos Three and Four.

“Turn around.”

“Sure,” Bell says, and he takes it slow, pivots about to face Lilac and the children. Confused, scared faces, but they don’t understand, not yet. They don’t see it. They don’t know.

Bell feels very tired, suddenly.

“Do what he says,” he tells them. “Now.”

Lilac is the first to react, the first to realize, and maybe she’s seen something, the gun that Bell is positive is about to be leveled at his back. Maybe she sees something else, but she pulls the youngest around with her, reaches out for the hand of the second, the girl, maybe ten years old. The dark-eyed boy, the older one, frowns, his mouth clamped tight.

“We have to find our parents,” he whispers.

Bell puts a hand on the boy’s shoulder. Says with all the quiet certainty he can, “You will.”

The boy turns, and Lilac is starting to move, and now they all are beginning to walk back in the direction they came. Bell follows, one step, another, just walking here, just walking, wrapped in cold calm. Slowing slightly, almost able to feel Tango Two at his back.

He pivots, spins, left hand extending, palm out, his right hand dropping, drawing. Tango Two’s gun has a suppressor, and if it hadn’t Bell wonders if he’d have been shot again, maybe for the final time. But the suppressor makes Tango Two’s pistol that much longer, long enough for Bell’s left palm to connect with its side, knock the weapon out of line and up, and there’s the muffled report as the man fires on instinct, sends a round skyward.

Now Bell’s own weapon is free, and he’s running the count in his head. Tango Two, sight, fire one, fire two, both head, can’t miss at this range; Tango Two down; left hand to pistol, shifting, barely have to even swing about, Tango One beginning to backpedal, and the friendlies don’t even know what’s happened yet, haven’t begun to react. Chaindragger in motion, covered, bad angles, nobody better miss or else they’ll shoot each other, worse, they’ll shoot the friendlies, and have the shot; three, four, five, tracking line, upper thorax, neck, head; Tango One down.

Bell sidesteps left, the.45 high and ready, looking for Tango Three, Tango Four, and Chaindragger has done what he was called to do, both are down. Gunshots echoing, fading, then gone. Friendlies are stunned, they still don’t quite know what’s happened, one of them covering his mouth with both hands, the woman Tango Three had handled standing stock-still. Then she’s shaking, silent tears beginning to fall. The woman beside her wraps an arm about her shoulders.

The entire action has taken less than two seconds from start to finish, from four live Tangos to four dead ones.

Digging out his phone again, Bell turning in place, gun still in hand. Lilac and the others have stopped, staring back, and she’s doing what she can to keep them from looking. The older boy is staring at the bodies on the ground.

“Turn around,” Bell orders. “Turn around.”

The boy does. Bell kills the still-open call to Chaindragger, jabs another button, wishes to God he was on mission coms already.

Nothing.

He remembers thinking that she could damn well take care of herself, and he feels foolish and stupid.

He hangs up, tries again, gets the same, hangs up again. Looks around, feels midday sunlight burning his vision. There’s no one else around that he can see, just six friendlies plus Lilac plus three kids and four bodies spilling red into white Tyvek suits and onto WilsonVille cobblestones.

Chaindragger is coming up beside him, his own weapon held low-ready in both hands. Water from his dip in the Timeless River drips from his Star System Alliance Defense mechanic’s coveralls, pools at his feet, makes his rich brown skin shine.

“Top?”

“Angel was in the command post. No response.”

“Meaning we don’t have eyes.”

“Meaning they do.” Bell scans the immediate area, looking high, for hidden camera placements. He finds three, knows he’s missing at least that number again. Knows that whoever is in the command post is watching, has seen them, will be reacting.

“We’ve got to get these people out of the park.”

“They have our eyes.” Bell indicates one of the bodies. “You see any more of these on your way here?”

“That’s a negative.”

“Check them.” Bell holsters his pistol as Chain drops to one knee, begins searching bodies and bags. Lilac is watching him warily, the boy and girl clinging to her. “You with me? Lilac? Are you with me?”

Lilac nods, hesitantly at first, then again, with resolve, and maybe it’s calling her by her character name that does it, but she takes a breath, stands a little straighter. She is Lilac the meerkat, the heart of the Flower Sisters. Fierce and loyal, yet kind at heart, and she will do what must be done.

“Yes,” she says. “Yes, I am.”

“You get them to the main gate, don’t stop until you’re outside,” Bell tells her, then turns, directing his words at the others. “You understand? All of you, follow Lilac. Follow Lilac. Don’t stop. Run.”

“Lily runs,” the girl says softly. “Lilac dances.”

“Not today,” Lilac says. “Today, we run so fast that Lily won’t believe it when we tell her. Right?”

The girl nods, wide-eyed.

“Go,” Bell tells them.