Ruiz thinks they’re so early that the news networks haven’t even had time to work up their graphics. He’s been channel surfing on mute, but he doesn’t need the sound up to know the words being spoken by the earnest beauty staring anxiously, meaningfully into the camera. Then she vanishes, replaced by a video.
“Hold,” Ruiz says.
“Holding.”
He brings up the volume, taking in the image on the screen. Minor pixelation from the video camera, but it’s simple, straightforward. If the analysts will draw anything from the image, Ruiz can’t imagine how. White-wall background and a ski-masked man standing before it, dressed in black from head to toe, even his eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses. Not a bit of flesh to be seen. The voice that perhaps belongs to this figure speaks in English, is heavily digitized, has been run through filter after filter, warped and stretched. Ruiz wonders at the polish on display, the lengths to which whoever has crafted this message has gone to preserve anonymity. This is something new, he realizes, an order of magnitude above the terrorism he and his men have faced for the last several years.
That, as much as the figure’s words, worry him.
The grotesque monument to the depraved and decadent blasphemy that is America, exporter of corruption and lust, the land where the pigs and dogs of the United States come to bloat themselves on sin, WilsonVille, now belongs to us.
We demand the immediate release and repatriation of those soldiers of God imprisoned by the immoral government of the United States and her allies. Those men now tortured and trapped in Guantanamo, Bagram, and elsewhere, held in secret prisons around the globe, are to be freed.
Unless these demands are met by twenty-three hundred hours, we will detonate the radiological device we have planted in WilsonVille. The yield of this detonation is large enough to render the park and the surrounding area uninhabitable, and will scatter radioactive material along the I-5 corridor, as far south as Camp Pendleton and San Diego, and as far north as Los Angeles and the Valley, as well as into the Pacific, to be carried along the coastal tides.
We hold hostages within the park. Any attempt to retake WilsonVille will result in their summary execution and the immediate detonation of our device. We are willing to die for our cause. We will not negotiate. This will be our only communication. We will know when our demands have been met.
God is great.
Video flicker, an edit, and the figure in black is gone, and there is, again, the glimpse of the white wall, and then there is nothing. The talking head reappears, manages to get as far as saying, “Local authorities are urging residents around WilsonVille not to panic-” before Ruiz turns the television off.
There is a moment where none of the men speaks.
“Mother of God,” Marcelin finally says.
Ruiz looks to Wallford, finds the CIA man watching him. His expression mirrors Ruiz’s thoughts.
“You have two shooters in the park,” Wallford says. “Can they confirm there’s a dirty bomb on the ground?”
Ruiz shakes his head slightly. “Only by eyeball, they’re not geared for it.”
“Your shooters.” Marcelin is speaking carefully. “You’ve got to get them out. If they’re spotted…they’ll get the hostages killed.”
“They already took down four,” Ruiz says. “Too late for that.”
“You heard what he said.”
“I heard what was broadcast, yes.”
“They’ll get the hostages killed,” Marcelin repeats.
“If there even are hostages,” Wallford says. “We have no confirmation.”
“You can’t take that risk!
“The demands are bullshit, pardon me, Mr. Marcelin,” Ruiz says. “If the time frame was longer, I would accept it as plausible. As it stands, twelve hours is impossible, and whoever put this together, whoever had the wherewithal and technical expertise to mount this operation, to spoof the botulinum attack, they have to know that.”
Marcelin meets Ruiz’s gaze. “Then they have the technical expertise to hide a dirty bomb in my park, too, Colonel.”
“In which case,” Ruiz says, “my two shooters are the only people who can make certain that device, if it exists, never goes off.”
“If you’re wrong-”
“If he’s wrong, we are thoroughly and completely fucked,” Wallford says. “And that’s all there is to say about that.”
Chapter Fifteen
Compared to a nuclear device, even a pocket nuke, a dirty bomb is still heavy, and this means Gabriel Fuller is lugging serious weight into the heart of WilsonVille. He’s on coms from the command post, listening to the updates from Hendar, and when the call comes that one of his teams has met the deputy director of park safety, Jonathan Bell, with a group of three kids and one Friend, he’s almost relieved.
“Pick him up,” he tells Hendar. It’s not because the man’s management, though that may prove useful. It’s not because, apparently, Jonathan Bell killed Stripe with his bare hands and then got out of the building without them noticing, though that marks him as far more dangerous than Gabriel had any reason to believe WilsonVille security might be. It’s not even because Gabriel is angry at Jonathan Bell for bringing Dana into the park today, something he knows is irrational yet feels nonetheless.
It’s none of those things, and all of them, and the feeling he had when looking down at Stripe’s corpse. This is going to be trouble. This man, he’s going to make things hard.
When he hears the gunshots, then, he knows. As the echo fades in the park, before Hendar is squawking into his radio, Gabriel Fuller knows. He was right.
“Fuck!” Hendar says. “Fuck, that guy, he and another one, they just took down Bravo.”
“Where are they now?”
“They’re splitting up, he and another guy, some black guy, they’re heading west, north of the river. The rest of them are running for the gate, ten of them. I can pull from Charlie to intercept.”
“How many are we holding?”
“Alpha and Charlie have reported. Holding twenty-seven.”
“Negative.”
“Say again?”
“Negative. Charlie proceeds as ordered, let the ones heading for the gate go.” Gabriel hops down from the platform beside the parked roller-coaster cars. The shots came from the east, and where he’s standing, he can just catch a glimpse of the fleeing hostages before they vanish from sight. He turns northward, but rides and buildings are blocking his view, and even if they weren’t, the foliage bordering the Timeless River would prevent him from seeing anything more. He moves to the control booth for the ride. “Track the other two, I want to know where they go. Are they leaving?”
“Doesn’t look like it.”
“Track them. Keep me posted.”
“On it.”
Gabriel stows his radio, stares down at the control panel for the coaster. It’s idiotproof, a battery of meters and monitors reading the status of each train of cars, their speed and positions, a handful of switches and one lever to control release and pace and movement. One large red button, marked for emergency stop. He reaches for the lever, ready to release the first train, then pauses, goes for his phone instead.
The Uzbek is answering before the first ring has sounded. “Status?”
“We have a problem,” Gabriel says. “We have hostiles in the park, two of them.”
“Do you indeed?”
