Alpha

Chapter Twenty-four

The Southernmost wall on the Pooch Tunnel makes a noise like a soft clap, then almost immediately makes another, much louder. There’s a blast of rock and concrete dust, the roar of the detonation all the more deafening in the enclosed space, and even with his hands clapped over them, it’s enough to make Bell’s ears ring, to make his head begin aching all over again. Debris sprays and falls, leaving a cloud of mist and dust.

Cardboard steps through the breach. He’s geared, rig and harness over his blue jeans, top of an AC/DC T-shirt just visible above his vest, M4 in his hands, light from one of the fixtures kicking glare off his shaved head. Bonebreaker flows through right behind him, similarly heavy, his jeans black and his shirt the same color, moving like he’s following the steps of a dance. Both men give Bell a nod, and he returns it, then pivots and begins leading them back north, quick-stepping, not quite running.

“Always picking the best vacation spots, Top,” Bone says. He’s as tall as Bell, thinner, and about as white-boy as they come, blond and blue-eyed.

“Yeah, I know how to treat my crew right. Where were you?”

“Orlando.”

“You have eyes on?” Cardboard asks. Of the four, he’s the smallest, a barrel top on lean legs that seem too long for his body. “No change?”

“Situation is dynamic,” Bell says. “They’re taking out the cameras where they can. We have two of their radios, but they’ve cut commo, no traffic.”

“Moving the hostages?” Bone asks.

“What I’d do.”

“What we’d all do,” Cardboard says. “Need to move fast, then.”

“Like our asses are on fire,” Bell says.

They enter the command post, coming through the tunnel at the back of the Sheriff’s Office, then up the stairs. Amy is standing by the door when they enter, and both Board and Bone greet her by name. Bonebreaker moves immediately to the Spartan, but Cardboard stops in front of her, offers an apologetic smile.

“Been a while,” Cardboard says.

“You’ll forgive me, Freddie,” Amy says. “Not long enough.”

“Roger that,” Bonebreaker murmurs.

Bell puts a hand on his ex-wife’s arm. “You stay in this room, you need to stay quiet.”

“Don’t waste time.” She glares.

“I don’t waste time.” Bell turns to Nuri. “Where are we on the Spartan?”

“Just got it recalibrated.” Nuri has stepped out of Bonebreaker’s way, now bends past him, working the keyboard on the biochem monitor. “Sampling for radioactive material, but if it’s a dirty bomb, if they shielded the payload when it was assembled, it’s going to come back negative.”

“Do it anyway.”

“Gets worse,” Chain says. “Tangos have wised up. We’re losing our eyes fast.”

It’s not good news, but it was the news Bell expected. Whoever is calling the hostiles’ shots in the park, he’s not being stupid and he’s not planning on making things easy.

Bonebreaker moves from the Spartan to where Chain is sitting. “Isaiah.”

“Hey, Jorge.”

“Shoshana Nuri, Angel,” Bell says. “Sergeants Freddie Cooper and Jorge Velez, Cardboard and Bonebreaker, respectively. Now we’re done with the pleasantries. Let’s break this down.”

Bell steps to one of the terminals beside the surveillance bank, taps the keyboard, brings up the park map on-screen. Slides his index finger from their position to the northwestern quadrant of the park, settling on Fort Royal.

“Group One consists of seven hostages and two Tangos. Isaiah, show them.”

“Right here,” Chain says, swiveling in his chair to bring up another monitor, a paused video. He clicks and the image springs into motion, two men armed with MP5Ks pacing around a cluster of seven men and women, none of them children, thankfully, all seated in a bunch at the heart of the open courtyard. “They’re in sunlight, getting hot and tired and bored, from the look of it.”

Cardboard nods, almost imperceptibly.

“Group Two,” Bell says, moving his index finger south and even further west, almost to the border of the park. “Flashman Ranch, six hostages, two Tangos. Almost an identical setup.”

“You can see it here.” Chain taps keys, the video changing to show the interior of the Flashman Corral. “The approach here is harder, but there’s tunnel access, and before we lost the cameras it looked like they didn’t even know it was there.”

“Last group, Group Three.” Bell indicates Hendar’s Lair on the map. “Seven hostages, two Tangos. This one is mine.”

Bonebreaker clears his throat. “Top-”

“This one is mine,” Bell repeats. “We have identified eight hostiles at this time; we have three groups, and we have five shooters. There’s no way this breaks into even numbers. One of us is flying solo, that’ll be me.”

“Wait,” Nuri says. “Five shooters?”

Bell turns to her as the phone at the coms desk begins to ring. “You’re coming to the party, Angel.”

She shakes her head, grabs the phone.

“Jad,” Cardboard says. “Athena’s in Group Three, maybe you ought to let me and Chain take that one.”

“You think I’m going to miss?”

“Never on purpose.”

“Then state your objection, Sergeant.”

“If it was my little girl-”

“You’d be on point, Freddie, don’t bullshit me.”

Cardboard shrugs, and Nuri says, “Warlock?”

“I’m not arguing this,” Bell says to Cardboard, then turns to glare at Nuri. “If that’s Brickyard, you tell him we’re about to move.”

“It’s not Brickyard.” Nuri is holding out the handset to him, one hand over the mouthpiece. “He won’t identify himself. He’s asking for you by name.”

Bell stares at her.

“He says he knows where the bomb is,” Nuri says.

“This is Bell.”

The voice that answers is American, soft-spoken, male. Of the men he’s seen on the monitors, Bell wonders which it could be, if any of them. “Hello, Mr. Bell.”

“You know who I am.”

“I was in your office. You don’t really work for WilsonVille, do you?”

“No,” Bell says.

“I didn’t think so. Special Forces, maybe? Are you a SEAL, Mr. Bell? A Navy SEAL?”

“You know where the bomb is.”

The man laughs, and it’s bitter, and sparse. “I do.”

“I’m not sure I believe there even is a bomb.”

“That’s a dangerous mistake, but if you want to make it, you go right ahead. How many people do you think will die if it goes off? I mean, beyond the immediate panic. The cancer cases. Fifty thousand? Twice that? Five times?”

“Maybe. Could be. You tell me where it is, could be no one.”

“That would be nice, wouldn’t it? No one else dying. Be nice if we could arrange that. Let WilsonVille live. That’s the real damage, isn’t it? If it detonates? It’ll kill WilsonVille, maybe kill Wilson Entertainment. They’d have to turn this place into one big parking lot, wouldn’t they? Could scrub and sandblast it for a year and a day, they’d never get people to come here again, bring their children here again. That’s billions, maybe hundreds of billions of dollars. That’s an economic crisis right there. And here we are, struggling out of a recession.”

Here we are, Bell thinks. You’re American. “Yes, it would,” he says. “You think maybe we can arrange something?”

There is a long pause. “What I want,” the man says, finally, “is out. Get on the line to someone with pull. FBI, whoever. You get them on the line, and you tell them this: I’ll give you the hostages and the bomb, but we walk.”

“You want them to just let you go.”

“There are two employee lots north of the park, northwest and northeast. There’s the main lot southwest of the gates. I want a van waiting in each of those lots, identical vans, and nobody in sight of them. Me and my people will walk the hostages out to the vehicles, we’ll leave them there, and we’ll go. Once I’m satisfied we’re clear, I’ll call and tell you where to find the bomb.”

Now it’s Bell’s turn to be silent. Nuri, listening in on the coms headset, is watching him, frowning. He sees Amy at the back of the room, holding her elbow in one hand, looking like she’s gnawing her fingers, and she’s watching him, too.

“No can do,” Bell says.

“Maybe you don’t understand me,” the man says. “I’m offering you an end to this, a walkaway.”

“I understand. It won’t work. What you’re asking for, it won’t work, not like you’re asking. I get on the line to FBI, whoever, you’ve got to know they’ll never let you go clean. They’ll say sure, whatever you like, they’ll give you the vans, they’ll stay clear. But they’ll bug the vehicles, they’ll follow you on the ground, put a bird in the air, but they’ll never let you get away. You know that. And you know I’m not FBI. So between you and me, let’s make this work.”

“How?”

“My team is in the park,” Bell says. “We’re here and staged, you understand me? We are here and we are staged. Our vehicle is parked off-site; the rest of my unit made entry through the tunnels, via the sewer. The keys are still in the truck, passenger-side visor. That’s our vehicle, you understand? You take it, no one will follow.”

“I am not going into the tunnels. That’s a kill zone.”

“I’ll give you a free run. You turn the hostages loose, we stay above ground.”

Another pause as the man considers. “You keep your people clear?”

“In exchange for the hostages. You release the hostages, we’ll move in to collect them, you’ll have a free run.”

“You have two of our radios.”

“We do.”

“Keep one with you. Thirty minutes.”

The line goes dead.

Bell sets the handset down.

“We’ve got twenty-nine minutes to free the hostages and find that device,” he says.