able to feel Tango Two at his back.
He pivots, spins, left hand extending, palm out, his right hand dropping, drawing. Tango Two’s gun has a suppressor, and if it hadn’t Bell wonders if he’d have been shot again, maybe for the final time. But the suppressor makes Tango Two’s pistol that much longer, long enough for Bell’s left palm to connect with its side, knock the weapon out of line and up, and there’s the muffled report as the man fires on instinct, sends a round skyward.
Now Bell’s own weapon is free, and he’s running the count in his head. Tango Two, sight, fire one, fire two, both head, can’t miss at this range; Tango Two down; left hand to pistol, shifting, barely have to even swing about, Tango One beginning to backpedal, and the friendlies don’t even know what’s happened yet, haven’t begun to react. Chaindragger in motion, covered, bad angles, nobody better miss or else they’ll shoot each other, worse, they’ll shoot the friendlies, and have the shot; three, four, five, tracking line, upper thorax, neck, head; Tango One down.
Bell sidesteps left, the.45 high and ready, looking for Tango Three, Tango Four, and Chaindragger has done what he was called to do, both are down. Gunshots echoing, fading, then gone. Friendlies are stunned, they still don’t quite know what’s happened, one of them covering his mouth with both hands, the woman Tango Three had handled standing stock-still. Then she’s shaking, silent tears beginning to fall. The woman beside her wraps an arm about her shoulders.
The entire action has taken less than two seconds from start to finish, from four live Tangos to four dead ones.
Digging out his phone again, Bell turning in place, gun still in hand. Lilac and the others have stopped, staring back, and she’s doing what she can to keep them from looking. The older boy is staring at the bodies on the ground.
“Turn around,” Bell orders. “Turn around.”
The boy does. Bell kills the still-open call to Chaindragger, jabs another button, wishes to God he was on mission coms already.
Nothing.
He remembers thinking that she could damn well take care of herself, and he feels foolish and stupid.
He hangs up, tries again, gets the same, hangs up again. Looks around, feels midday sunlight burning his vision. There’s no one else around that he can see, just six friendlies plus Lilac plus three kids and four bodies spilling red into white Tyvek suits and onto WilsonVille cobblestones.
Chaindragger is coming up beside him, his own weapon held low-ready in both hands. Water from his dip in the Timeless River drips from his Star System Alliance Defense mechanic’s coveralls, pools at his feet, makes his rich brown skin shine.
“Top?”
“Angel was in the command post. No response.”
“Meaning we don’t have eyes.”
“Meaning they do.” Bell scans the immediate area, looking high, for hidden camera placements. He finds three, knows he’s missing at least that number again. Knows that whoever is in the command post is watching, has seen them, will be reacting.
“We’ve got to get these people out of the park.”
“They have our eyes.” Bell indicates one of the bodies. “You see any more of these on your way here?”
“That’s a negative.”
“Check them.” Bell holsters his pistol as Chain drops to one knee, begins searching bodies and bags. Lilac is watching him warily, the boy and girl clinging to her. “You with me? Lilac? Are you with me?”
Lilac nods, hesitantly at first, then again, with resolve, and maybe it’s calling her by her character name that does it, but she takes a breath, stands a little straighter. She is Lilac the meerkat, the heart of the Flower Sisters. Fierce and loyal, yet kind at heart, and she will do what must be done.
“Yes,” she says. “Yes, I am.”
“You get them to the main gate, don’t stop until you’re outside,” Bell tells her, then turns, directing his words at the others. “You understand? All of you, follow Lilac. Follow Lilac. Don’t stop. Run.”
“Lily runs,” the girl says softly. “Lilac dances.”
“Not today,” Lilac says. “Today, we run so fast that Lily won’t believe it when we tell her. Right?”
The girl nods, wide-eyed.
“Go,” Bell tells them.
Chapter Fourteen
Ruiz is racing his Mustang through traffic at speeds no one would call reasonable or safe, listening to the duty sergeant in his ear delivering the bullet. What they know, and more, what they don’t, and then the interrupt he’s been waiting for comes at last.
“I’ve got Warlock,” the duty sergeant says, her voice as implacably calm as ever. Ruiz used to wonder if anything would faze her or the others of her kind, those who staff ops rooms and duty posts in bases and secret and secured rooms all around the world. All hell breaking loose in WilsonVille, worst fears being realized, and that didn’t do it, which makes Ruiz believe nothing ever will.
“Put him through.” A pause.
“Warlock, go for Brickyard.” Hiss-click on the line, background whine of the scrambler, then Jad Bell’s voice.
“Brickyard, I’m in the park. It’s a take.”
“What do you have?” Ruiz asks, wrenching the wheel around an F-150 driven by maybe the only person in Southern California who is actually slowing to stop at a yellow. Horns blare, and Ruiz stomps on the accelerator.
“It’s a take,” Bell repeats. “Chain and I have four neutralized, repeat four neutralized, estimate at least three times that number left in the park, cannot confirm.”
“Assessment?”
“They’re taking hostages and they’re taking the park.”
“Can you confirm they have hostages?”
“Cannot confirm, but highly probable. We have ten, repeat ten, freed and heading out now.” Bell pauses. “We’ve lost contact with Angel. May have been taken when hostiles took the security offices.”
“KIA?”
“Cannot confirm.”
“They have control of the surveillance?”
“Affirmative.”
Ruiz spins the wheel about, the Mustang embracing its notorious heritage, fishtailing into the Wilson Entertainment corporate lot. In the rearview, he can see one of the security guards in the gatehouse he just blew past running after him, yelling into a radio. He’s killing the engine and climbing out as he continues speaking to Bell. “If they’re taking hostages, the botulinum is a hoax.”
“Agreed.”
“I’m putting Bone and Board into play, should have them on the ground and staged for you in three hours. This is the opening move, Warlock, not the endgame. We need to get ahead of them.”
“Understood. Out.”
“You,” Ruiz says as the line goes dead in his ear. He’s facing the visibly jumpy Wilson Entertainment security guard closing on him. The man is unarmed but for a radio, but Ruiz holds out one hand anyway, showing an empty palm, while his other dips into his jacket. Wearing blue jeans and a black T-shirt and a windbreaker, he lacks the authority of a uniform, knows he has to make up for it with his voice and manner.
“Colonel Daniel Ruiz to see Matthew Marcelin. I am aware of the situation in the park. Take me to him now.”
The security guard hesitates, tries to be clever about it, reaching out for the ID. Ruiz shakes his head.
“I need to see that, sir.”
