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  “You cached these when, exactly?” Nuri asks.

  Bell doesn’t need to look up to see her expression; it’s all in her tone. “Does it matter?”

  “It matters if your people were sitting on intel they didn’t see fit to share.”

  Chain mutters something about the Catskill Institute for Acne, continues pulling equipment from his bag. He’s got their long guns out, M4 Commandos, is assembling them with almost magical speed. Bell sits back on his haunches, shucking off his suit jacket, looks up at Nuri. She’s watching them with half an eye, the rest of her attention on the tunnel, gun still in hand.

  “You with me?” he asks her.

  “Of course I’m fucking with you. I’m standing here.”

  “You geared?”

  “Not hardly.”

  Bell pulls the vest from his gear bag, hefts it up and into her hands. She exhales sharply, taking its weight, thirty pounds of personal protective equipment.

  “Put that on.”

  “You have one for yourself?”

  “I will endeavor not to get shot,” Bell says.

  Chain hands one of the assault rifles to Bell, then begins donning his own vest. “First time for everything.”

  “Last time I got shot, it was because of you, I recall.” Bell finishes checking the rifle, a cursory, automatic survey that has nothing to do with faith in Chain and everything to do with twenty years of habit. He leans it against the wall, begins removing his necktie.

  “Blue on blue,” Chain says. “I barely touched you.”

  “How much do you know?” Nuri asks. She hasn’t put on the vest.

  Bell begins tucking magazines into the pouches of his combat harness, then moves to slip it on. “Right now? Hostiles in the park, and they have hostages.”

  “I’m talking prior knowledge.”

  Bell stops, harness open, looking at the woman. “You think we’ve been banking our intel?”

  “There’s an inside man.”

  “That’s a given.”

  “You identified him. One of yours KIA.”

  Bell shakes his head. “You think we let this ride? I knew who killed Vesques, I’d never have let things get this far. You’re thinking like CIA, sweetheart, you’re thinking of acquiring assets. You’re thinking little fish leads to the big one, but that’s not our game. Our game was to keep this from happening, and when that failed, to do what we do now. We shut it down.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  Bell finishes his gear check. “FB?”

  Chain holds up two of the flashbang grenades.

  “Makes four,” Bell says, showing two of his own.

  “That’s the next move?” Nuri asks.

  “They took our eyes. We’re taking them back.” Bell stuffs his coat and tie into the bag, then stows it back in the box it came from. He reloads his pistol. “Contact Brickyard once we’re in coms range, get the Sitrep, proceed from there.”

  “You want to take the CP back,” Nuri says. “We take the CP back the hostiles will know, Master Sergeant. They’ll know, and they’ll drop the hostages.”

  “I am informed two of our brothers are en route. We’ll wait until they’re in position before we move. Once we have the CP, we’ll be able to locate the hostages. Do what we do.”

  “One hundred and fifty-six acres of park, you’re not going to be able to hit anything fast and hard. You’re not thinking this through. We don’t know who they are. We don’t know who we’re up against.”

  Chain shrugs, now in his own rig, wearing it over the Star System Alliance Defense coveralls. Bell sees it’s still damp from the plunge Chain took, wonders if Chain has even noticed. “Doesn’t matter.”

  “It does matter.” Nuri is almost hissing. “We have no idea of their assets, their capabilities, their agenda.”

  Chain glances to Bell, raises an eyebrow. Bell notes it, doesn’t return it, still locked up on Nuri. She does not look like a woman who is having a good day, though Bell knows the same goes for the rest of them. Battle banter aside, all of them are aware of the stakes, and more, how many variables are still in play. They all know how much they don’t know. And the woman has a point; if these men who have launched their very coordinated, very smart assault on WilsonVille believe their hostages are of no further use, then they’ll no longer view them as hostages. Rather, they’ll view them as target dummies.

  “They want something,” Bell says. “You see that? If this was straight-up terrorism, they wouldn’t have cleared the park. They’d have just suicide-bombed us and been done with it. But they have the hostages for a reason, because they want something.”

  “That’s what I’m saying.” Nuri brushes hair back from her cheek. “Moving on them before we know what they’re after, that doesn’t track smart to me. There’s a larger play.”

  “Whatever they want, that’s going to keep them holding their fire.”

  “That’s a leap I’m not comfortable making.”

  “It’s the one we’re taking.”

  “And you’re sure of it, are you, Master Sergeant?”

  “Sure as I can be.”

  “And if—just if—what they actually want is to make us look like fools, to humiliate us in front of the world? To wait until we make our move and then murder those same people we’re trying to save? What then? AQ tactic is to deliver a first strike then follow up when the responders are on the ground, you know that. Maybe they’re just waiting for us to make our move before they make their next one.”

  Bell considers.

  “We move faster,” he says.

  * * *

  They stick to the tunnels, cutting south, common sense dictating that they not emerge where they entered. Moving more slowly now, more cautiously, and the minutes continue to tick. Chain on point with his M4 up and tucked at his shoulder, Nuri, now wearing the vest, center, her pistol in both hands, and Bell watching their backs with his own assault rifle high and ready. They pass abandoned maintenance carts and toppled trash bags, dressing rooms with discarded costumes scattered here and there, left where they were dropped in the evacuation; makeup tables with cosmetics and prostheses on them. The scent of soda pop, caramel corn, hot dogs, and burned plastic mixes with the recycled air.

  “How we doing this, Top?” Chain asks.

  Bell defers the answer, asks Nuri his own question. “Angel? What route did you take?”

  “You mean from your office? Used the access in the service area behind the facades.”

  Bell considers. The row of buildings that border Wilson Town on the east and west sides are designed to look like individual structures to park guests, but in truth are one enormous building each. Long hallways, hidden from public view and use, run along the rear of both structures, facilitating movement of staff and goods, and each hallway has tunnel access.

  “They made your egress, they might have someone watching it.”

  “And a welcoming committee,” Chain adds.

  “Problem. All other approaches require covering open ground. Puts us on camera, they move to intercept.”

  “There’s another option,” Nuri says. “We have mission coms.”

  “Effective only above ground. Hold.”

  They come to a stop, and Bell lowers his rifle, hands it to Nuri, then removes his combat harness. He offers it to her, takes the rifle back while she puts it on, then returns the M4 to her hands.

  “I’m not the expert at clearing a room,” she says.

  “I’ll give them something else to look at while you do it. Follow Chain’s lead, you’ll be fine.” Bell checks his watch, the hands faintly luminous in the subdued light of the tunnel. “I have twelve forty-seven. Mark me thirty minutes, move at thirteen seventeen. Contact when you have the CP.”

  “Thirteen seventeen,” Chain echoes. “Hey, Top? Don’t get your old-man ass shot again.”

  “You won’t be with me,” Bell says. “Think I’ll be all right.”

  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.

  Chapter Nineteen
<
br />   BELL MOVES quicker alone, sacrificing stealth for speed, heading back up the Gordo Tunnel and then turning again onto the Flashman Tunnel, heading east. Jogging easily, pistol in his hands, south again at Betsy. Maybe he should’ve kept the rifle, but appearing on camera with a long gun and full combat rig, that would have tipped his hand, maybe even warned whoever was on the cameras that more were coming, geared and ready. With the pistol, Bell hopes to look like the same threat he was before, hopes his presence alone will be bait enough. Trying to remember the camera emplacements above ground, where he’ll be most easily spotted. The highest concentration is, logically, in the zones around the park perimeter, tapering off the deeper one goes into the park.

  He wants to be seen, and Bell figures Wild World Live! is probably his best bet; it’s close enough to the entrance that he’ll have cameras, but far enough from the Sheriff’s Office, the command post, that—presuming that’s where the hostiles are staging from—they’ll need to cover some ground to reach him. There’s the added benefit that it’s a theater, backstage areas outside of surveillance, with plenty of cover and room to move.

  The mixed scent of the animals greets him as he makes his approach, slowing at the foot of the ramp. Their noise comes next, the anxious chitter and chirp of creatures used to constant tending and near-​constant attention, abruptly abandoned. Perhaps they’ve sensed that something has happened, perhaps it’s simply the breakdown in their routines, but they don’t sound happy.

  He holds in the shadow of the ramp that feeds into the backstage, checks his watch, and finds it’s nine minutes past one. Chain and Angel should be in position and holding, and he frees one hand to press at his earbud.

  “Chain, Angel,” he murmurs. “Warlock, coms check.”

  No response, which he interprets to mean they’re still below ground, still waiting on the clock. As they should be, and it’s what he expected, but it was worth a try. He frees his phone next, sees that it has, once again, acquired a signal. Still holding in the shadows, the noise of the animals in the background, he punches up Brickyard.