Alpha

“I fucking know who he is.” Matias ran fingers through his hair, shot the vodka he’d been drinking down his throat, made his way over. The Uzbek didn’t move, didn’t seem to blink, and for all there was to read in his expression, Matias might as well have been illiterate. Fleetingly, Matias wondered if the Uzbek would just shoot him then and there.

But the Uzbek smiled. “Matias. We haven’t met.”

“No.”

“We should talk. There a place we can talk, without all this noise?”

“You mean alone?”

“I’m not chasing your ass cherry, Matias, you can relax.”

Maybe not literally, Matias thought, but he shrugged and led the way out of the room, through the master bedroom, where two of his boys and three of the girls were contorting themselves without clothes. Matias didn’t care, and from what he caught of the Uzbek’s reflection in the glass doors, neither did the other man. Slid the doors back, stepped out onto the balcony, into the nighttime view of Odessa, down to the Black Sea. You could see lights of the ships moving about the port, life on the waterfront. It was late spring, not cold, but not quite warm enough.

“You a trusting man, Matias?” The Uzbek indicated the drop.

“You want me dead, I’m dead.” Matias shrugged, much as he had before, but he liked the fact that the Uzbek had called him a man. That was something he normally had to fight for.

But the Uzbek undercut it immediately. “How old are you?”

Matias felt the tension race up his back, felt the fleeting satisfaction vanishing. “Twenty.”

The Uzbek shook his head, leaned forward on the railing, and knocked a cigarette from its pack into his hand. He made fire from a lighter, paused before touching it to the tobacco. “You don’t have to lie.”

“I’m not lying.”

“Then that’s a pity.”

“Why?”

A plume of smoke. “We thought you were younger. You look younger. We thought maybe sixteen, seventeen.”

“You like boys.”

The Uzbek exhaled, watched his smoke disappear into the night air. If Matias’s implication had offended or annoyed or even registered, he couldn’t tell.

“We like potential,” the Uzbek said. “But twenty, Matias…that’s too old, I’m afraid.”

“So maybe I’m not twenty.”

“Ah.”

“Maybe sixteen, that’s true.”

“Sure. And you’ve been running your crew, what, four years?”

Matias nodded, thinking that the Uzbek already knew the answers to the questions he was asking; thinking that the Uzbek maybe wasn’t here to kill him, and if not, now wondering just what the fuck this player wanted. He was sensitive about his age with good reason, had needed to fight, even kill people who thought his youth meant he was unworthy of their respect. It was how he’d started, smuggling cigarettes, and Old Grigori had come to him and told him to cut him in or he’d get cut, cut and left to bleed out. Grigori, fifty years old, who hadn’t caught up to the times, and the next day Matias had gone to him under the pretense of bringing tribute, and instead used a tire iron to modify their arrangement. When that was done, Grigori had more gray matter outside than in, and what had been his now belonged to Matias, including his crew, including his customers.

He’d been twelve then.

So now, sixteen-or maybe seventeen, he really wasn’t sure-and he didn’t know what he was feeling. Felt his brow furrowing as he searched out the emotion, and all the while the Uzbek kept his silence, smoking his cigarette and apparently in no hurry to explain himself. It took some digging before Matias found the name to what he was feeling, realized he was curious. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt that.

“So sixteen is good?”

The Uzbek nodded.

“What is sixteen good for?”

Flicking the cigarette away, watching the ember spark orange in the sky until it vanished. “Because we can make something out of you.”

Then the Uzbek explained what that meant.

Still no names, no explanations beyond the most basic. Yes, this meant Matias was part of the same organization, the same machine, that the Uzbek served. Yes, that meant the same protections, the same benefits. Money, sure; comfort, absolutely; respect, that would be earned, but already Matias had respect, enough respect that they would come to him with this offer.

There is a man, the Uzbek told Matias, a man who lives in shadow, a man whose name you will never know. But this man has noticed you, Matias. He likes what he’s seen of you, what he’s heard. He likes that you’re not some brat who thinks a pistol makes him a king, who thinks God is a bullet. Too many fucking kids, they work their muscle, not their mind, and thugs, hell, thugs are cheap, thugs are easy. Thugs are a dime a dozen, right? But this man, Matias, he likes that you can move a half ton of heroin a thousand miles and do it right, without fucking it up, without getting greedy or turning stupid. He likes that you’ve been smart enough to stay out of our way, and he likes that you’re not some broken psycho fuck. You’re not a broken psycho fuck, are you, Matias? We’re not going to find some dog bones under your bed and DVDs of you fucking their entrails, nothing like that?

“Nothing like that.”

What he likes, Matias, is that you have that rarest of combinations found in youth; ambition and restraint. That means you’re a thinker, and that maybe even you’re smart. He calls this potential. Awesome potential.

This man whose name you will never know, he has reach, the Uzbek said, and his reach is increasing. He has a vision and a plan, and someone like you would be welcome within it. Follow instructions, do as you’re told, keep being smart, and it will pay dividends, big dividends. It will make Odessa a memory, and will pave your future with gold.

“What do I have to do?” Matias asked.

“You have to go to school,” the Uzbek said.

It was almost a year later that he arrived in Los Angeles. He traveled under a false name, he couldn’t even remember it now if he tried, because as soon as he arrived, it was done, literally burned. The Uzbek had arranged a condo for him, and a car, and he was enrolled in the community college, and his name was Gabriel Fuller, and he was an American, though his mother had been from Ukraine. He had a bank account and a stipend and papers for everything, and the instructions were simple enough, as they were with Pooch.

One, he was to stay clean. No drugs, no guns, nothing that would make the law look at him twice. Be clean and stay clean, no record, and this was vital, the Uzbek said. No speeding tickets, nothing.

Second, get that language, and get rid of that accent. Know your American, so you can be American.

Third, take the courses at the college, meet the people, blend in. Take whatever you want, but if maybe some sciences are in there, that wouldn’t be bad, you know? Maybe some math and some physics, too, because the more you know, the more useful to us you become, and the more useful, the more respect, the more the reward.

The day his papers said he’d turned eighteen, he received an e-mail from the Uzbek. In truth, Matias had celebrated-a poor word for letting the day pass without note-what he suspected was the date almost six months prior. But on Gabriel Fuller’s eighteenth birthday, at least, there came this e-mail, sent through the anonymous account Matias checked every day, which, for almost a year, had remained empty. So it took him by surprise when he saw the letter, read it, and it was so simple, and he began to truly understand what they were after.

Happy Birthday, Gabriel.

Time to serve your country. Army or marines.

One term of service will be fine.

He went with the army, signed on for the 4YO, four-year obligation, took the training and the pay, regular infantry, learned the weapons and the tactics and found himself in Afghanistan once again, and there were times