Alpha

And ring.

Until finally, Vladimir answers. “That you?”

“It’s me. Our coms are compromised, nothing on the radio, you understand? We use the landlines. You have a cell phone?”

“I have a phone.”

Gabriel rattles off his number. “Call me back.”

He slams the handset down. He feels out of breath, tries to shake it off, to calm himself. In his pocket, his cell phone begins to vibrate. He frees it, answers.

“Matias, what the fuck is going on?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll explain in a bit. What’s your status there?”

“Everything is good. These deaf kids know how to stay quiet.”

The satisfaction, the new confidence, the resolve, all of it trembles, threatens to collapse. Gabriel feels as if his throat is knotted, the adrenaline flooding his system. The beat of his heart speeding, the hunger of his quickened breathing. He is abruptly, acutely aware of the muscles in his right forearm, how they control his hand, how his hand holds the phone, how his thumb rests at the side, along the volume control.

“What did you say?”

“They know how to stay quiet.”

Gabriel swallows. “How many of them?”

“Six.”

“You have seven.”

“Yeah, there’s a park girl with them, knows how to sign. She’s a mouthy one, I keep telling her she doesn’t shut up, I’ll give her something else for her mouth to do.”

Heat blazes up Gabriel’s neck. He is aware of Betsy just outside the door, scanning for more cameras, listening.

“We don’t…” Gabriel begins, doesn’t trust his voice, stops. Clears his throat, then tries again, saying, “We don’t have time for that bullshit.”

“Fuck, I know that. Maybe we can keep a couple of them for later?” Vladimir laughs.

“I’m en route. Keep your hands off them. I mean that.”

“I was joking,” Vladimir says.

Gabriel thinks maybe he isn’t.

It takes another fourteen minutes before they’re at the mouth of Hendar’s Lair, another seven cameras dead along the way, with Gabriel taking just long enough to reach Charlie One and Charlie Two separately over the park phone, telling them that their coms have been breached. From here on out, Gabriel tells them, we use the park phones or our own cell phones.

Now Gabriel ducks the chain, climbs over the treasure chest-themed carts stacked in a line at the platform. Music plays, variations of Hendar’s theme, much louder than Gabriel has ever heard it before in the absence of crowds and the running of the ride. At the entrance of the tunnel, multicolored lights swirl and yellow, wicked eyes shine in the darkness.

“Tell Vladimir to come out here,” Gabriel says. “Take over for him inside. I’ll keep watch.”

Betsy says, “That Uzbek shit, he’s going to fuck us, you know that?”

“I know that.”

“You’re going to let him?”

“I am not. No, I am not. Go get Vladimir. Don’t touch the hostages. We’re going to need them.”

Betsy nods in understanding. “Yeah. That’s good.”

The man heads down the tunnel, following the ride’s track, disappears into the darkness. The music breaks, Hendar growling, his voice rising, seductively dripping poison into the ear.

I smell you…I hear you…I see you…always nice to have someone drop by for a bite to eat.…

Another growl that turns into a rich, sinister laugh.

Come in, come in. There’s so much I want to show you…so much I want to teach you. Why else would you dare enter my domain? I know what you want, and I will give it to you. I will teach you of power. Come…if you dare.…

A growl, then a roar, and screams that Gabriel always assumed were from guests, and now realizes are also part of the sound track. He turns to the control console, wondering if there’s a clearly marked way to shut it off, just to mute it for a moment, and his eye catches on the flickering black-and-white images relayed from inside. Like all the enclosed attractions, Hendar’s Lair has on-site monitoring, similar to the surveillance out of the security office, but local to each ride.

Gabriel looks at the tiny square images, the whites too bright to accommodate the dimness within, and of the eight screens, six show him nothing, just empty trackway. But two of them have angles on the hostages, and he can see Betsy now speaking to Vladimir, gesturing. The cameras are nowhere near as high-resolution as the ones he left in the command post, but he sees what look like six teenagers, seated on the floor and in a line, and a seventh at the end, knees drawn to her chest and an arm around the shoulders of a young woman beside her.

Dana.

Of course Dana. It had to be Dana, and even though the video is blurry, void of detail, Gabriel is certain it is she. The way he was certain the moment Vladimir said the kids were deaf.

He looks at her on this monitor, thankful she cannot see him. Thankful that she does not know he is here, his part in all this.

Fuck the Uzbek and his bomb, Gabriel Fuller thinks. Fuck him, his plan, his devil master, fuck them all. We are done, we are getting out.

“Hey,” Vladimir says, emerging from the tunnel, the other side, where the cars would exit were the ride in operation. He’s got the submachine gun slung, but his pistol is in his hand, and for a second Gabriel wonders if old loyalties count more than new ones, if Vladimir will be with him or against him.

“We lost the command post,” Gabriel says. “We’re down to eight men now, including you and me.”

“Sonny said.”

“Sonny?” It takes a half second before Gabriel understands that Vladimir is talking about Betsy. “He tell you anything else?”

Vladimir digs around in his pockets, finds his pack of cigarettes. Unlike Betsy, he doesn’t bother to offer Gabriel one. He gets his smoke lit, exhales. When he speaks again, he uses Russian.

“That it’s going wrong, badly wrong. That there are shooters in the park, at least two and maybe more. That the Uzbek fucker is maybe hanging us out to dry.”

“That’s what I’m thinking, too.” Gabriel slips into Russian, finds the language stiff and old on his tongue. “I’m thinking he was planning on doing it all along. These shooters, they knew we were coming, Vladimir.”

“You think the Uzbek warned them? Why would he warn them?”

“Fuck me if I know. Does any of this make sense to you? He keeps saying there is a plan, but he never tells me what the plan is. I don’t even know why we’re here. Take the park, hold the park, plant a bomb but don’t arm the bomb. Nothing makes sense.”

“He said-”

“I know what he said. But he told me little more than he told you.” Gabriel turns to face the man full-on, meets his eyes. “Who are you with? Are you with me or are you with him?”

Vladimir blows smoke, eyes Gabriel. “It’s not that simple.”

“It is that simple. We stay here, we die here.”

Another jet of smoke. “You don’t know. The Shadow Man has a long reach and a long memory, Matias. You left and the Uzbek moved in, some of our boys, they got ideas, tried to do their own thing. And the Uzbek, he said that sure, they could do that, good luck with that.

“And they all died, Matias. Not all at once and not fast, but all of them ended up dead. Adam Nikoleyavich, you remember him? You were gone two years, maybe, he got a wife and new baby boy, they found them all dead. What they had done to the baby not even I want to talk about. That is what this Shadow Man does to those who break with him.”

“And you are willing to die for him? For a man who maybe doesn’t exist?”