but he realizes the mission is the same.
They flank the stage, holding at the stairs on either side for a moment, each of them again checking their surroundings, listening and looking. Only the sound of the animals, and even they seem subdued now. Another exchange of hand signals, and together they mount, turn, weapons raised, advancing to the scrim, splitting off at the wings, and still there’s no one and nothing, and they come around into the backstage together, overlooking the depressed holding area, the curtained cages, and Gabriel knows they’re too late.
One dead man on his back, with a dead snake to keep him company. No weapon, no radio. Parted curtains and an open, empty cage. Broken glass and another body, likewise missing his gear. A jaguar with a bloodied muzzle, watching them with yellow eyes as it lies beside the torn form of a gazelle.
“Fuck,” Betsy says.
Gabriel pulls his radio. “Anything?” he asks Hendar.
Hendar doesn’t respond.
“Delta One, respond,” Gabriel says.
Dead air.
Betsy is looking at him.
“Coms check,” Gabriel says. “Alpha One, respond.”
“I have you,” Vladimir answers. “Loud and clear.”
“Stand by. Delta One, respond.”
And nothing.
“Could be power, maybe?” Betsy says. “They would cut the power to the park, right?”
“Park’s on its own generators.” Gabriel shakes his head. If this was a bank, something else, sure, the authorities would have cut the power long ago. But WilsonVille can’t afford a power outage, not when hundreds of people may be on roller coasters and inside haunted houses when a blackout occurs. WilsonVille has its own power.
Hendar isn’t responding, and it’s not because coms have gone down.
Then the phone in his pocket begins to vibrate, and Gabriel Fuller knows the Uzbek is calling.
And he doesn’t know what to tell him.
Chapter Twenty-one
Matthew Marcelin is back from his second press conference, gulping water from a bottle while one of his assistants tries to apply another powdering of makeup in preparation for his third. Looking past his shoulder to the television, Ruiz sees the man again, standing outside and in front of this same building, behind a WE! podium. The volume is muted, but his concern and his competence are both loud.
“Trouble,” Wallford tells Ruiz. “Incoming.”
Marcelin’s office has become, to Ruiz, the war room, and to Matthew Marcelin, he imagines, the crisis management center. Junior executives and personal aides scurry in and out, the flat-screen monitor on the wall now fixed on one of the cable news networks, more telephones than people, and more noise than Ruiz would like. Warlock in his ear, giving him the bullet: two more Tangos down, Chaindragger and Angel have secured the command post, and he is escorting the hostages through the tunnels for evac.
And the ribbon on the package.
“They have my daughter,” Bell says.
“I have the rest of your unit joining me, fifteen minutes,” Ruiz says, watching as Eric Porter enters the room. Coming up on four hours since the park was taken, this is the first time Ruiz has seen the director of park and resort safety, and the part of him not evaluating just how compromised his team leader has now become has to wonder just what the hell Porter has been doing in that time, and where exactly he’s been doing it. There’s a flush to Porter’s cheeks, a sheen of sweat, and maybe it’s the forty pounds of extra meat the man carries on his frame, and maybe it’s the stress, but Ruiz wonders if he’ll be smelling whiskey on Porter’s breath in just another few seconds.
“They have my daughter, Colonel,” Bell says again. “I am securing my wife in the command post, and then I am locating my daughter.”
“That is ill-advised, Master Sergeant. Hold for the rest of your team, we will move to free all the hostages together.”
“You are asking me to wait, sir. Would you wait, sir?”
“That is affirmative, Master Sergeant.”
“Clarify: Are you ordering me to wait, sir?”
“I am ordering you to hold position in the CP until further notice. Confirm.”
He hears Bell’s breath, a ragged exhale that makes Ruiz wonder if he’s been wounded.
“I am holding position,” Bell says. “Out.”
Ruiz kills the connection, pockets his phone. He’s lied to Bell, he knows damn well that if it was his daughter, if he had a daughter, he’d arm up and burn every sorry motherfucker between him and her down to the ground. But he does not have a daughter, he does not have a wife, and right now, that allows him to see with clarity what Jad Bell certainly cannot. They will rescue the hostages, of that Ruiz is sure. But they will do it right, and they will rescue them all.
Marcelin has come forward to meet Porter, his manner a mix between relieved and enraged. “Eric, Jesus Christ, where have you been?”
“Tried to get down on-site when it started, got caught up in the craziness, getting all the guests out.” Porter rubs his mouth with his hand, shakes his head ever so slightly. “Went back to my office to see if I could get any information, then discovered everyone was here. Jerry? Where are we?”
“I’ll get you up to speed,” Wallford says, guiding Porter off to one side, away from the television.
Ruiz turns to Marcelin. “I need a room. Someplace I won’t be disturbed. Plans for the park, underground and above.”
Marcelin doesn’t even ask why, just nods, calls out. “Natasia? Clear one of the conference rooms, and have someone bring up all the plans for the park for the colonel here.”
At “colonel,” Ruiz sees Porter raise his head, searching for him. Meets his eyes, and Ruiz acknowledges with a nod, and then Porter’s attention is back to Wallford, listening intently. On the flat-screen, the news is replaying the footage of Xi-Xi being dumped outside the gates. Marcelin has stopped midconversation beside him, caught by the images as well.
“Jesus,” Marcelin whispers. “Jesus, do we need this on? Do we have to have this on?” He turns in place, speaking to the assembled, his voice rising. “Do we even know who that was? Do we know who she was, at least? Has someone talked to her family?”
Staff stares back, mute.
“Can someone get on that, please?” Marcelin asks. “Someone find out who was playing Xi-Xi today, who isn’t accounted for. Can we identify her? Can we do that, at least?”
Ruiz turns away, finds Wallford and Porter returning.
“That dirty bomb,” Porter says. “Jerry says you’ve got two shooters in the park. That dirty bomb needs to be their priority.”
“We’re not certain that threat is real, sir,” Ruiz says.
“That threat is real. That threat is as real as the woman they dumped.”
“Do you have any proof, sir?”
Porter shakes his head, shakes it again. “You need to put your shooters onto finding that bomb, Colonel. That needs to be their priority.”
“Their priority is the safety and lives of the hostages,” Ruiz says. “That is standard protocol, and until I receive orders directing otherwise, it will remain so. My people are aware of the presence of the device, and they will take steps to identify and neutralize it once the hostages have been secured.”
“We are dealing with terrorists who have made demands, unreasonable, impossible demands.” Porter’s voice drops as he becomes more insistent, more urgent. “They know we will never meet their demands. They know you
