during that deployment that he wondered if this had been a good idea or not. Moments when his unit was taking fire, when his friends died. They were his friends, truly, because he was Gabriel Fuller, and even if he had only been pretending, those bastards trying to kill them sure as hell were using real bullets and rockets and grenades.
He was Gabriel Fuller, and he was a soldier in the army of the United States of America, and he didn’t need the Uzbek to tell him why he was doing this. Free training from the most advanced, best fighting force anywhere in the world.
He could see how that might be useful.
He was out after his second tour, had made himself a specialist before departing, and the army wanted him to stay. But the Uzbek, who had been silent since wishing him happy birthday so long ago, reached out again, and said that was enough. Perhaps he might want to explore what the GI Bill had to offer?
Perhaps he might like to pursue a degree in engineering, in fact? Or economics? Or chemistry?
His fifth semester at UCLA, he and some friends had gone to the movies in Westwood, seen a film about this chick who was wrongly accused of being a spy. He hadn’t been paying much attention to the movie, because among the friends was this girl, Dana, and he thought maybe she liked him the way he liked her, and about minute forty he discovered that she did. So he missed most of the film, instead tasting her mouth and letting her taste his, and it wasn’t really until the next morning, when they parted and he was heading to class, that he found himself thinking at all about what he’d seen, what he’d heard while lost in the taste and touch and feel of Dana.
A sleeper agent, someone on the screen had said. A long-term sleeper agent, placed and forgotten, known to no one. Until the day comes, the call arrives, and the sleeper is activated. Until the sleeper awakens.
It stopped him, standing just outside of Royce Hall, and he felt like a fucking idiot.
And it occurred to him then that if this was his dream, if he was asleep, as sweet as this dream had become, it would end. He would wake. When the time came, he would wake, and he wouldn’t have a choice in the matter.
He would wake, whether he wanted to or not.
The Uzbek contacted him in late winter, the same way he had every time before.
I am coming for a visit in the spring, to talk about your summer job.
Dana was studying special education, working with the developmentally and physically disabled, and she was making summer plans along those lines. But she wanted them to spend the summer together, and so she asked what he was going to do, and even though Gabriel knew he shouldn’t, he told her the truth.
“I’m working at WilsonVille,” he said. He had applied immediately after the Uzbek’s visit, as instructed, had already received word that his security screening had been approved. He was due to attend his first orientation and training seminar that weekend.
She laughed, then, thought he was joking. Saw from his look that he wasn’t. “Seriously?”
“Already applied and was accepted.”
“To do what?”
“Whatever they’ll let me.” He shrugged. “Probably picking up garbage. What about you?”
“I was thinking about going home. There’s this camp for the deaf I used to volunteer at, I was going to work there.” Her family was from Illinois, outside of Chicago someplace. They were talking in her dorm room, and she looked at him thoughtfully for a couple of seconds after saying that. Then reached over to the foot of her bed. A small collection of stuffed animals resided there, would inevitably end up on the floor whenever they made love. She picked up one of them, a sweet-looking gazelle.
“But now I’m thinking maybe not,” Dana said. She was still holding the animal, one index finger slowly stroking its breast up and down as she looked at him. The curl of her lip formed a slight smile as she met his eyes, and the gesture had nothing to do with the little gazelle in her hands. The thrill it gave Gabriel took him by surprise, made him want her right then and right there.
“We could get our own place,” she said. “Just for the summer, you and me.”
And despite everything the Uzbek had said, despite everything he already knew and everything he was beginning to suspect, Gabriel Fuller nodded. The Uzbek would give him hell when he found out, of course. The Uzbek wouldn’t like it.
But the Uzbek, Gabriel Fuller thought, had never been in love.
“I’d like that,” he said.
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.”
