“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
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?”
