Alpha

Chapter Thirty-eight

It takes Gabriel two minutes and forty-three seconds by his watch to reach the control room at Pooch Pursuit. The same idiotproof console still on power, registering Train One locked at the top of the lift hill, at the summit of the first peak. He looks out the Plexiglas window of the booth, and, yes, the cars are there-224 feet above the ground.

It’s going to be a long climb.

He raises the MP5K, fires a burst into the console, killing the controls. Glass shatters and metal tears, sparks spit and fly. He lowers the weapon, moves to exit, crossing the platform and jumping over the parked cars, one to the other, until he can drop down onto the wooden track. It’s a gradual slope at first, wooden coasters not as radical or tolerant of extremes as their metal counterparts, and the first forty feet or so are an easy ascent, enough for Gabriel to remain upright.

He’s at sixty feet, and the going is becoming rougher, when he glances down and sees Jonathan Bell on the platform, coming after him. Gabriel swings the MP5K off his shoulder, into his hand, drawing the strap taut, trying to sight him. He fires a burst, and the man jumps down between the parked cars. Gabriel takes the opportunity to climb again, fast as he can, and the slope is now more cruel, more than forty degrees, and he has to let the submachine gun dangle from its strap, needing both his hands.

“Gabriel!” Bell shouts at him. “Gabriel Fuller! Stop!”

He keeps climbing, swings out to the edge of the track, reaches around to pull himself into the snarl of support scaffolding. He can see Bell starting to climb the track after him, but now Gabriel has cover, and he leans out, freeing a hand and firing once again. The man drops prone on the track, and for a moment, Gabriel believes he may have hit him, but then Bell is up, coming after him still.

Gabriel pulls himself back into the scaffolding, reaches up, uses his arms, then his legs. It’s a faster ascent this way, but more perilous, like climbing a ladder. His lungs are beginning to burn with the effort, sweat starting to spill down his back. He swipes his hands on his shirt one at a time, keeps climbing. When he looks, Bell is still on the track, now scaling hand over hand, perhaps no more than eighty feet below him and off to the side. The wooden slats provide cover, but that works both ways, and neither man has a clear shot.

Gabriel climbs. He climbs, and he wants to laugh.

Because this is madness, and to participate in it, he must be mad. And he knows he is, he knows he was. To ever have imagined a happy ending to this day, to ever have imagined that the Uzbek would let him go, that the Shadow Man would release him. To ever imagine that the boy from Odessa who murdered Old Grigori with a tire iron could ever keep and hold Dana, and make a life that didn’t need death to pay for it.

Sweat stings his eyes, blisters form on his palms, and still, Gabriel climbs.

And Jonathan Bell, damn him, is climbing with him.

Gabriel reaches, and suddenly there is nothing more for him to grab. He’s at the top of the lift peak, his arms aching, his legs trembling from the effort, and he pulls himself the final inches, grabbing hold of the side of the parked car, and heaves himself inside. Gasping for air, and the duffel and the device are exactly where he left them, and he pulls the device from where it has been waiting on the floor, moves it onto the seat beside him.

He looks for Bell, can’t see him because of the angle. Frees the MP5K from his shoulder, leans out and forward, trying to locate the other man.

From beneath, Bell’s arm shoots out, up, grabs hold of the weapon, twists, pulls. Gabriel feels the gun tear from his grip, almost taking his index finger with it, as the weapon is yanked free. Then he’s lost it, and Bell has tossed it away, straining to reach the side of the car, to pull himself the rest of the way up.

Gabriel leans back, kicks at Bell’s fingers, a bandaged hand, once, twice, a third time, and the man’s grip slips away, vanishes, leaving a bloody smear on the side of the car. He hears something clatter beneath them, leans over to see Bell hanging on to the scaffolding fifteen feet below.

His attention goes back to the duffel bag. He runs the zipper open, shifts the device into his lap. Slides his hands along it, searching for the wires he has to connect to the battery. Finds the first, wraps it to its post, securing it, then the second, repeating the procedure, and the timer face suddenly lights up, blinking at him. Gabriel is surprised to see that it’s set for one hour, a full sixty minutes. More time than he imagined the Uzbek would have given him, and even as he thinks that, he knows that what the clock is telling him may well be a lie.

He hears a helicopter, looks up, and is shocked to see one circling the park, coming in lower.

The thought occurs to him that he might live through this.

He’s turning his attention back to the device and Bell is there, coming up over the front of the car all at once, one hand pulling him up, the other bringing his gun into line. Gabriel lashes out blindly, the duffel falling back into the footwell as he tries to get hold of the weapon, manages to just knock it askew as it goes off. The round sears his shoulder, cutting a furrow in his skin, and Gabriel roars with a new fury, smashes Bell’s wrist against the edge of the car again and again until the gun is gone from his hand.

But he’s still coming, still pulling himself up, and Gabriel punches at him, hits him across the nose, feels it give. Blood splatters, and still Bell won’t let go. Gabriel punches at him again, and again, and again, and then Bell has caught his fist, yanks, twisting, and Gabriel has to push himself back with his legs to keep from toppling out of the car.

He falls backward, into the next set of seats, struggles to right himself, to get his feet beneath him again. The helicopter above swings in closer, lower, the roar from the rotors deafening, buffeting Gabriel with downdraft. Bell is in the front car now, bloody nose, and shouting at him, something that’s lost in the engine whine. Gabriel scrabbles backward into the next car, nearly loses his balance, nearly falls again, manages to swing himself around.

Bell doesn’t pursue, reaching for the device.

Gabriel goes for his pocket, finds his knife, the same knife he used when he was Pooch and had to kill that man. Draws it, flicks it out, and Bell is still hands-deep in the duffel, and Gabriel lunges, cutting at him. The other man sees it at the last moment, jerks back, catches the blade across his forearm, and Gabriel feels it dig deep.

Then Bell’s grabbed his wrist, forcing the blade free from his arm, and both their hands go for it, and Gabriel screams, rage and fury and desperation, throwing all his weight forward. Bell topples backward, doesn’t let go, pulling Gabriel down with him. Hits the front of the car, and Gabriel is on him, literally, trying to shove the knife in and up, and Bell is holding him back. Gabriel can feel it, gravity, so much gravity, and it’s on his side, and he can feel the older man’s strength giving way a fraction at a time, knows it will take just a moment more before it breaks, and steel will slide home between flesh and bone.

Then Bell kicks, rolls, and Gabriel feels gravity betray him, sees a dusk-lit sky and the helicopter swinging around. Feels himself sliding free of the car, losing the knife, bouncing off the edge of the track, wooden slats digging into his back.

He sees the helicopter, and now he can see someone leaning out the side. Someone leaning out the side, with a television camera at his shoulder.

The Uzbek lied.

Gabriel Fuller closes his eyes.

Gabriel Fuller falls.