Alpha

Chapter Eighteen

The Uzbek has been waiting for months, quite literally, to make this call.

It’s almost a quarter past one in the afternoon in this room at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles, the television on and babbling with anxious glee about the developing situation at WilsonVille. The information is still confused, but the video has done its job, and the media is, as ever, eager to play their part.

The Uzbek’s been impressed with the government’s response, on almost every level. Local authorities have done an impressive job of cordoning off the area, and already the governor has held a press conference, urging people not to panic, explaining that the situation is fluid, in flux, and there is no reason to believe the claims in the video are true. The White House has released a statement saying much the same thing, assuring the American people that everything can and will be done to resolve this crisis, and adding that under no circumstances will the nation bow before the demands of terrorists. The president is monitoring the situation closely.

Helicopter footage shows, live, the streams of automobiles clogging Interstate 5 and the 405 and the state routes. Most people who are able to seem to be heading east, for the mountains and the desert. There’s been some unconfirmed reports of rioting as well, and the Uzbek has listened to two experts on two different channels talking about dirty bombs, about how they’re not to be confused with actual nuclear weapons, about their limitations. These two experts have tried to use facts, but facts are of little interest in the face of sensation.

The Uzbek’s favorite part, as he eats gravlax and washes it down with a modest prosecco, was when one broadcast was interrupted with live footage, telephoto shots of the front gates of WilsonVille. When two of his handpicked men, long guns slung over their shoulders, still dressed in their Tyvek and gas masks, tossed the body out the front gates. The woman dressed as a panda, who hit the ground heavy and wrong and didn’t move. Authorities had imposed a no-fly zone over the park, but one of the news copters violated it and got footage from above, and it made the statement all the more clear, all the more stark.

When that happened, he imagined boys and girls all around the world looking at their own little stuffed pandas in horror and fear. He suspects his master thought much the same thing when he saw it.

Then the broadcast cuts away to more anxious babbling, and the Uzbek turns the television off. He takes out the cell phone he has purchased specifically for this call. He dials slowly, one-handed, using his thumb, emptying his glass with the other, then rises and moves to the window. He has a view of the pool, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, there are still several people around it and in the water, oblivious to or uncaring about what’s happening less than a hundred miles to the south. There are several beauties, wearing strips of fabric that are, at best, coy, and as the phone rings in his ear, the Uzbek wonders if he could fuck one of them. Times like this, he wishes he could fuck them all.

The phone rings several times before being answered. “Jamieson residence.”

“I need to speak to Lee Jamieson,” the Uzbek says.

“Mr. Jamieson is unavailable.” The voice belongs to a man, the accent vaguely Hispanic. “I can take a message.”

“Give him this message, exactly. I will call back in exactly three minutes. I am calling to speak to him about a dead panda.”

The Uzbek hangs up, then powers off the phone, tosses it onto the bed. Checks the time, then takes the second phone, also purchased precisely for this call. He opens the sliding glass door, steps out onto the balcony of his room, smells the smog and heat, hears the water and the laughter and splashing below. There’s a blonde lounging poolside, sunglasses and golden tan. Her legs are long and her breasts barely contained by her top, a belly flat and smooth, and he can almost taste her from here. He watches her unabashedly, obviously, and after a few moments she reaches up and adjusts the strap at her shoulder, then lowers her sunglasses just enough to show him her eyes, meeting his gaze. The Uzbek grins at her, and she returns that, too, lazily. Tilts her head to the side, where it lies against the chaise lounge, and he can feel her looking him over.

The Uzbek raises his free hand, shows her three numbers in sequence, his room number. She seems to laugh. The Uzbek closes his hand, opens it again, five fingers this time.

Then he turns away and dials once more. This time, there is only one ring, and Mr. Money is answering.

“Why the fuck are you calling me? You said there’d be no more contact, you Russian fuck! Why are you calling me?”

“I lied to you,” the Uzbek says, not bothering to correct the man. “You have been following the news?”

“Jesus Christ, yes.” The man sounds breathless, as if he’s taken a beating to the stomach. The Uzbek wonders how he’ll sound in just a few more moments. “What the hell are you people doing? This isn’t what I paid for, I didn’t pay for that! That woman, they just dumped her-”

“The device is in place,” the Uzbek interrupts, voice mild. If Mr. Money thought that WilsonVille could be taken and held without loss of life, he was actively deceiving himself. He steps back into the room, leaving the door open behind him. “Exactly as you requested. In order to effect the result you commissioned, you understand that the device had to be legitimate, yes? It has to do what we claimed it would do. And it does, I assure you. It does exactly what it is supposed to do.”

There is a pause, just a moment, and the Uzbek admits he is surprised at how quickly Mr. Money puts two plus two together.

“You motherfuckers.”

“Hmm.” The Uzbek might be agreeing with him. “You will pay, as before, the same sum, as before, or the device will be armed and detonated. Do you understand?”

“You…motherfuckers.…” Mr. Money is breathing heavily, almost wheezing into the phone. “You would, wouldn’t you? You sons of bitches, you…you would…”

“Of course we would,” the Uzbek says. “You’re the one with an ideological agenda, sir. We are simply a business.”

“I can’t free that sum, not in this amount of time, not…not without it being tracked. You’ll expose me, you’ll-”

“Do you think that concerns us in the least?”

The wheezing stops, the line going silent for long enough that the Uzbek wonders if Mr. Money has suffered a heart attack or some similar event. Then his voice returns, trembling in its rage, or perhaps in its determination.

“I refuse. This isn’t what I paid for; I paid for the statement, the message, not this.”

“I would urge you to reconsider.”

“No, you listen to me. You were paid, your people, they were paid.”

“Your answer is no, then?”

“I wouldn’t even if I could.”

“Hmm,” the Uzbek says. “Very well. I wish you a good day.”

“Wait just-”

The Uzbek hangs up. Purses his lips, checks his watch. It’s coming up on one thirty now. There is a knock at the door. He opens it, and there is the blonde, her towel wrapped about her hips, chewing her lower lip in nervous affectation.

“Hi,” she says. “I’m Taylor.”

“Taylor. Please, come in.” He steps back, sweeping his arm and ushering her inside, closing the door after her. She steps in slowly, leaning forward to look about the room, and the Uzbek takes the opportunity to slap her towel-hidden backside. She jumps, squeaks, turning to grin at him.

“You don’t waste time.”

“Nor do you, I think,” the Uzbek says. “Make yourself comfortable. Pour yourself a drink. I have one more call to make.”

“Comfortable, huh?”

He nods her toward the bed, then ignores her entirely. He can feel his erection, already full and determined, and he wonders what is thrilling him more: the thought of fucking this woman who is giving herself up so easily, or the thought of fucking all of Southern California, the United States of America, and that piece of shit, Mr. Money.

He dials Matias’s number, thinking that it’s all fucking the same things.