Alpha

Chapter Five

Each day starts much the same for Bell. He pulls himself out of his rack at five to five in the morning, coasting on autopilot, at least until he’s outside and stretching. Then he starts his run. He’s living in a condo now, a barely furnished open-plan space with a great view of the ocean, and it’s less than half a mile from his front door to the beach. He runs alongside the surf, early morning mist eager to burn away to a fresh summer day. It takes him roughly forty-five minutes to hit his seven miles, and then it’s a shower, dressing, drinking a hell of a lot of water and a little orange juice.

Then he takes his weapon, checks and loads it, then settles it in the holster just behind his right hip. No-weapons policy in the park be damned; he’s carried a Colt M1911.45 since one was put into his hands after he’d cleared selection. He can still remember Sergeant Mordino, call sign Icestorm, handing it to him.

“Go big or go home,” he’d said.

Mordino had been one of the first on the ground when they went into Afghanistan, had died on a ridgeline in Tora Bora. Their guides had fed them bullshit, left them high and dry in a mortar storm, and Mordino had been out in the open. One of many warriors who lived on in Bell’s memory.

He pauses before heading out the door to stuff two pieces of fruit into his pockets. He’s been enjoying apples lately, but the summer stone fruits are a treat, and the last week, he’s been going with plums, eating them in the car on the way to work, licking spilled juice from the side of his hand as he drives.

It’s six fifteen when he’s pulling out in a leased BMW coupe and his phone starts to ring. Every morning, same time, on the nose. This is the morning briefing, a quick call organized by his superior, the director of park and resort safety, Eric Porter. Bell and Porter are joined by two others, a man named Wallford, who serves as Porter’s assistant, and by Matthew Marcelin. Marcelin normally keeps his silence on these calls, his presence simply there so that he can stay informed, and sometimes Bell wonders if he’s even awake. It’s Wallford who does most of the talking, and the calls are pretty much all the same, a quick rundown on any intelligence they’ve received from sources within government or law enforcement, any warnings, advisories, and so on. If there’s a big group coming to the park, or VIPs visiting, and if so, what manner of VIP they might be. WilsonVille is a favorite stop for foreign dignitaries and their families, and they come to the park so regularly that there is a Secret Service liaison whose job it is to coordinate with park security.

So they go over all these things, and anything else that might matter, and the call normally doesn’t last longer than fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes, five days a week, for almost three weeks now, and that’s been more than enough time for Bell to decide that he doesn’t much like Eric Porter and that the jury is still out on his man Jerome Wallford. More than enough time for Bell to be certain that they don’t much like him, either. Maybe it’s a vestigial interservice cock-swinging contest, maybe it’s just bad chemistry among all involved. But Bell wonders if maybe it’s not something else, something more.

It started early, too, started the moment he met them, the day after Marcelin had hired him. Wallford escorting Bell into Porter’s office, then remaining in the room with them, standing just behind and off to the left, the position deliberate, in the periphery. You are watched, Mr. Bell, you are being evaluated. To prove the point, he wasn’t offered a seat, and Porter remained behind his desk, absorbed in whatever was on his monitor for fully half a minute before bothering to acknowledge Bell’s presence.

“Marcelin should’ve consulted with me before hiring you,” was the first thing Porter said.

“I guess I made a good impression.”

“He says you were army.”

It wasn’t a question, but Bell decided to treat it as one. “Little under twenty years.”

“Doing what?”

“Little of this, little of that.”

“You being coy with me, Mr. Bell?”

“Not my intent, Mr. Porter.”

Wallford, just outside his periphery, said, “You know we can find out.”

Again, it hadn’t been a question, but this time Bell didn’t feel the need to answer.

“Your job is to keep the park safe,” Porter said. “That’s all it is. Keep the park safe, keep the kids under control, keep the breakage to a minimum. You’re not pounding ground here. We have the whole, you have a piece, understand? If the matter goes outside the gates, it’s outside your purview. You understand? If it’s outside the gates, you refer it to Wallford, he brings it to me.”

“Sure.”

“We clear on this? Do you understand, Mr. Bell?”

“Sure.”

The look Bell got told him that his answer lacked something, perhaps enthusiasm, perhaps the requisite sincerity or obsequiousness that Porter felt was his due. The look Bell got told him that Porter didn’t have much faith in the ability of soldiers to follow orders, and if Porter thought that, he probably didn’t think much of soldiers in the first place.

Bell had held hands with the CIA enough in the past to recognize it for what it was: typical Company bullshit.

Less than a week later, during the morning call, things got worse. The Secret Service liaison, a woman named Linda Jovanovic, was on the line with them, going over details for a dignitary visit, and Bell had been holding his tongue, letting Wallford take the lead on Porter’s behalf. They’d proceeded to the issue of coverage while in the park, the close detail work, and Bell finally offered that he’d had some experience in that department, and that Jovanovic’s people could rely on his discretion and aid.

“Jad?” Linda Jovanovic said. “Jad Bell, is that you?”

“How you doing, Linda?”

“I think my blood pressure just dropped ten points, that’s how I am. Fucking relieved is how I am. Give me your number; I’ll have my detail leader contact you directly.”

They’d wrapped the call, and Bell had been parking the BMW, making his way into the park, when his phone rang again. Porter on the line, all indignation and insult.

“You do not overstep, you do not make us look bad,” Porter said. “You fucking do not do that ever again, understand?”

“We’re all on the same side,” Bell said. “Aren’t we, Eric?”

Three weeks, then, Bell feels he’s got his legs under him. It’s not an easy job, not by any stretch, but mostly it’s managing details, and that’s something he’s learned to do very well indeed in the last twenty years. And like the army, WilsonVille has trained its people, and Bell is surrounded by men and women who know their jobs.

One of them, a woman named Shoshana Nuri, has proven very helpful. He met her the start of his second week, found her waiting outside his office with a list of the various group tours that would be hitting the park that day. There were some two dozen, including a couple of graduating high school classes making late celebratory trips, and another smattering of special-needs and developmentally disabled groups. WilsonVille maintains a database of its employees, marks those with supplementary or secondary skills of use, those who can work as translators or interpreters and the like, and Nuri had already prepared a short list of Friends to call upon should extra assistance be required for any of the guests. One family reunion; three church outings; a kid from the Make-A-Wish Foundation, dying from terminal lymphoma.

Nuri handed him the sheet, and Bell wasn’t sure what to do with it at first, mostly because he was staring at her. Shockingly pretty, short coal-black hair and hazel eyes, vaguely Persian features, but that wasn’t why he stared. He’d seen her before, and for the life of him he couldn’t remember where or when.

“The high school kids don’t tend to be a problem,” Shoshana Nuri told him. “They get noisy, rambunctious, sometimes they try to sneak booze into the park, but we tend to catch that during the bag check.”

“You changed your hair,” Bell said abruptly.

She reappraised him. “It was a wig.”

“So I’d guessed.”

“I’m impressed. Most people can’t recognize me outside of costume.”

“It took a while for the penny to drop.”

She kept the same expression, the pun either ignored or disregarded. “Like I said, I think it’s the wig. Throws people off.”

“That must be it,” said Bell, certain that her form-fitting Penny Starr flight suit was a factor as well.

He’s working six days a week. Fridays, during his routine walkabout of the park, he completes the drop from Chaindragger at Terra Space. Isaiah offers him the latest Clip Flashman comic, and Bell takes it, and back in his office he opens it and reads the note that’s been enclosed, always the same. NSTR. Nothing significant to report. He tucks the note away to be burned later, sends an e-mail to Brickyard via an anonymous account, passing it along.

Mondays he takes off, the quietest day in the park. Those days, Bell tries to sleep late and fails, spends a chunk of it reading, catching up on the news. His languages are getting a little rusty from disuse, and chasing newspapers online is a good way to refresh his Arabic, his Russian, his Pashto. There’s a shooting club as well, and he spends an hour on the range, pounding out rounds. Does his laundry, does his shopping, and by the time that’s done, he’s thinking about cooking himself dinner and maybe going to see a movie, which he never does. Doesn’t matter how much he wants to see something in the theater, he can’t bring himself to sit in the dark alone.

His third Monday in, his third official day off, late in the afternoon, he heads to a brew pub he’s been hearing about, place called the Yard House, on one edge of an outdoor mall in Irvine. He finds Colonel Ruiz there, as expected; out of uniform, blue jeans, a black T-shirt, waiting in a booth off to the side when Bell arrives. The colonel is apparently watching three different ball games play out on three different televisions at the same time, and Bell has a sense memory, triggered in the way Ruiz’s eyes flick from one screen to the next, remembering the TOC. For a fraction of a second, he can hear the voices, see the satellite imagery, smell the electronics, the recycled air, the stale coffee of the Tactical Operations Center.

It’s gone as quickly as it comes. Bell takes a seat. The selection of beers available can only be described as overwhelming. He finally settles for an IPA out of San Francisco. The noise in the space is consistent, just shy of loud, with so many people alcohol-lubricated that the volume steals attention. It’s a good place to talk.

“How’s the job?” Ruiz sips from his own glass, eyes flicking from one game to another. This is their first face-to-face since Bell’s placement within WilsonVille. Ruiz speaks casually, conversational volume. Whispering draws suspicion, after all.

“Like any other.” Bell pulls the latest comic book acquired from Chaindragger from his jacket pocket, sends it across the table. Same message as every time before. “Always an adventure.”

Ruiz takes the comic, cracks a grin, flips through it until he finds Chain’s report. He closes the comic again, moves it to rest beside him on his seat. “Tell me.”

“I’m light.” Bell goes silent as the waiter sets his drink on the table, saunters off. “I’m tasked for four. You promised me four. Rest of my team.”

“You may have heard, there’s a war on.”

“Old news. I’ve got Chain.”

“You’ve got Chain plus one.”

“I don’t know my plus one, my plus one wasn’t picked by me, my plus one is a variable and untested and therefore I do not include my plus one.”

“Your plus one checks out.”

“I didn’t do the check. She’s Company. I’m still light.”

“There are a lot of parks to cover, Master Sergeant. I had to put Board and Bone in play elsewhere.”

“Am I getting any more?”

Ruiz shakes his head so slightly it’d be easy to miss, except Bell knew it was coming.

“No change?” Bell asks. “Nothing new?”

“NSTR. Action as before.” Ruiz takes another drink, glances over at him. “Anything you want to share?”

“Vesques.”

“What about him?”

“He was moved before he was murdered.”

“That was our conclusion as well.”

“Moved out of the park.”

“What I’d do.”

“What I’d do, too, if it came to that. But if you had to move him out of the park, that means you initially neutralized him in the park. Which means you had a reason to do it. Which means it’s an internal threat, not an external one.”

“Find the reason he was moved.”

Bell uses his chin to indicate where Ruiz has set the comic. “Chain’s been looking, been looking six weeks now, almost. Negative result so far. If there’s something hidden inside the park, neither of us can find it.”

“Find the reason.”

“I’m light.”

“Yes, you are.”

“But you’re moving people elsewhere. This is the lead. Vesques is the lead. But you’re moving people elsewhere. Unless you’re telling me there’s something hard that’s come up elsewhere.”

“There is not. What there is, Jad, is over five hundred theme parks in this country. Did you know that? Over five hundred theme parks in the United States alone. Add the politics and the interservice bullshit and you’re lucky you’re not working this alone with your dick in your hands.”

“This is the lead. If this goes down, it’ll be on a big park, not on fucking Happy Oaks in Peoria or wherever. Everyone thinks you hit these places from outside, it makes sense, I know that. Wear a vest, take a walk, ruin everybody’s day who’s buying a ticket. I know that. But Vesques was killed inside. This is something else, this is not looking like the playbook scenario. This is the lead.”

Ruiz empties his glass, sets it on the table, rocks it back and forth between his palms. He’s stopped watching the game, brown eyes on Bell. His age is starting to show, the hard living beginning to present its bill. Mostly, it shows around his eyes, crow’s-feet that never go away, a slight sagging of flesh at his cheeks.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Soon.”

“Soon.” The glass stops dancing between his hands. “Anything else?”

“Wallford and Porter.”

“See also: politics. Porter was high in the Company.”

“Wallford?”

“Don’t worry about him. Porter, he’s an asshole, not an enemy.”

“Enemies have assholes.”

“Then don’t stand behind him.”

Bell grins at that, enjoys the joke for a second before letting it fade. “Anything for me?”

“If it rolls, it’ll roll before the end of the summer. Makes the most sense.”

“Only whispers?”

“We had concrete, we’d shut them down. You’re not the only one who’s seeing the scenario as you describe it. But ‘better safe than sorry’ is not a phrase that parses well when billions of dollars are at stake. You can’t just shut these places down on a rumor. Too much money could be lost, and money, always, talks loudest.”

“They’ll lose billions more.”

“They’ll lose more than that,” Ruiz says. He digs his wallet from his pocket, throws a twenty on the table. Grabs his jacket and the comic book. “Keep your powder dry.”

Bell watches him go. Finishes his beer as his phone chimes, a text message incoming. It’s from Athena; it’s from his daughter.

Can u talk?

He smiles, the conversation with Ruiz forgotten for the moment, types his response.

Give me half an hour.

Asshole, Athena tells him.

Do not talk to your father like that, Bell answers. Where is your mother does your mother know you talk to me like that?

She’s grinning at him on the monitor, shakes her head. Bell thinks she’s the most beautiful girl in the world, his daughter, that somehow she got the right genes, all from Amy, no question.

So guess what? Athena asks.

I cannot begin to guess what Gray Eyes.

I am going to see you.

Her smile is self-satisfied, filled with the pleasure of knowing she’s brought joy to someone she loves.

Do not tease me, Bell tells her. You should not tease your father.

Athena mocks a pout, then shakes her head. Her hands fly. No really no teasing!

When?

Next weekend Saturday Mr. Howe and Mom on a class trip.

Bell shakes his head at the same time as Athena reads his expression, her own falling, confusion turning into hurt.

You do not want to see me?

“That’s not-,” Bell starts, stops, then starts again, this time with his hands. No you know better than that I always want to see you.

You could have fooled me the way you look!

Bad timing Athena the timing not great.

She glares at him, hands out of sight. Then they’re up again, and she’s signing so quickly he’s in danger of losing her words. The hurt has turned into anger, but Bell can see the edges of its desperation, see his daughter reaching for it to hide the pain he’s just inadvertently caused her.

You know what? Athena says. Fuck you and fuck timing you never have time always bad time or something or you go someplace or something I thought you would be happy excited to see me but always the same and you left you are the one who left-

They’re signing over one another, now, Bell trying to make himself understood.

I did not leave you your mother and I-

— always did you go and came back and-

Bell gives up. Watches his daughter yelling at him through her hands, waits until she runs out of steam, until the tears are welling in her eyes. She blinks angrily, and then they stare at one another, and Bell is again caught by the power of his daughter’s gaze. Absolute attention, a focus that would make a sniper jealous, and he’s getting it full force now, even across the Internet.

Can I say something now? he finally asks her.

She blinks, cocks her head. Flashes an angry smile, reaching out toward the monitor, toward him.

The screen goes dark. She’s gone, and Bell is thinking that technology has made the whole act of hanging up on someone a much more painful process than ever before.

“What’s this about Howe taking the class to WilsonVille?”

“What the hell did you say to her?” Amy says.

“Are you coming to the park? Athena said you’re coming Saturday.”

“We fly in next Friday, leaving late on Sunday. What did you say to her, Jad?”

Bell stares past his reflection in the window. The sun is setting on the Pacific, golden glare off the water burning his eyes. He turns away, adjusts the phone against his ear.

“I need you to talk to Howe. I need you to postpone this trip.”

“You need? Jad, they’ve been planning this all year. You have any idea how many bake sales your daughter and I made brownies for? How many quilt squares we sewed? This is a class trip; I can’t just tell him it’s suddenly off.”

“Postpone it.”

“We’ve already bought the tickets, Jad!”

“I am asking you to postpone the trip, Amy.”

She knows him well enough to know the tone. There’s a moment’s hesitation. “Can you give me a reason?”

“I cannot.”

“I need to tell him something, Jad. Jesus, I need you to give me something I can tell him.”

“It’s bad timing. You know I wouldn’t ask this if the reason wasn’t good.”

“I thought you were out.” The accusation is sharp and unmistakable, and when the pause has stretched long enough that she knows he’s not going to answer it, she sighs. Resignation. “I’ll talk to him.”

“Let me know.”

“Sir, yes, sir,” Amy says, and hangs up.

Bell stands at his window. The apartment is very still and very silent.

When he was a younger man, he thinks, being alone was not a problem. When he had a wife and a daughter and a home to return to, he could, perhaps, afford to be alone.

When it was a choice.

Amy’s text comes the next morning.

Howe says no way to cancel.

See you Saturday.