“If we knew it was going to happen, we’d have stopped it before it could start,” Wallford says. “Believe me.”
“You placed your man in my organization.” Marcelin points at Ruiz. “You knew something was coming.”
“Sir,” Ruiz says. “What we suspect and what we know at any given time are often, regrettably, radically different things. We suspected some sort of incident, and our analysis showed that in such an event, WilsonVille would be a priority target. How seriously we took the threat is measured by the presence of two of my very best people in your park, not to mention one of Mr. Wallford’s.”
Marcelin’s jaw clenches, as if to literally keep himself silent, and this lasts for several seconds as he processes what they’ve just told him, what he already knows, what he must now conclude. Outside the office, phones are ringing, voices overlapping.
“Doesn’t matter, not now,” Marcelin says, finally. “What can you tell me?”
“Bell confirms that the botulinum alarm was faked, we don’t know how yet.”
“Thank God for that.”
“Yes, sir,” Ruiz agrees. “However, he further confirms the presence of hostiles in the park, and that they are taking hostages.”
Any relief Marcelin feels vanishes. “How many? Do we know?”
“We do not.”
“What do they want?”
“Unknown. What I require from you is an accounting of your personnel working in the park today, and some means of confirming if they’re out or not.”
“What about the guests?”
“Personnel is the priority.”
“You think someone’s on the inside?”
Before Ruiz can answer, Wallford snorts. “Something like this? At least one, maybe more.”
That gives Marcelin pause, forces him to look aside as he digests the implications. He draws a breath, again bringing himself back to point, asks Wallford, “And where’s Porter in all this? He in on this with you?”
“Eric Porter is not part of my operation,” Wallford says.
“Operation.” Marcelin echoes the word, displeased by it, then moves to his desk, where he lifts the handset to his phone. Dials with an index finger, then adjusts his glasses with his thumb. “I need someone in personnel.”
Wallford takes the moment, turns half away from Marcelin, leaning in to Ruiz, says in a lowered voice, “The hit on this is going to be massive. This is minutes away from blowing wide. There’s not a corner of the globe isn’t going to hear about this.”
“Which is the only reason to do it. Why do it this way is the question.”
Wallford glances to where Marcelin is still on the phone. “It was always the question. Unless there are an incredibly large number of hostages inside, suicide run at the front gates would’ve pulled a bigger body count. So it ain’t about the body count.”
“Someone’s making a statement.”
“A suicide bomb is a statement. And on American soil? What this is, this is a different statement, Colonel.”
Two-tone beep, and Ruiz puts a hand to his earbud, and even before he does, Wallford’s phone is demanding his attention, too. Coincidence is no longer in the offing, and Ruiz knows as he answers that whatever bad news is coming his way, Wallford is getting the same from a different source.
“Charlie Foxtrot,” the duty sergeant says with the same complacent calm as ever. “Hit the BBC first, but it’s spreading, CNN just got it. Video uploaded to YouTube, NSA is already onto it.”
“Tell me.” Ruiz picks up the remote control resting on the edge of Marcelin’s desk, points it to the flat screen on the wall. The television flicks on to the WilsonEnt channel-WE! — an animated sword fight between some rough-and-tumble pirate and a host of shambling one-eyed beasts. Begins flicking channels quickly, the line still open in his ear.
“Hostages, ultimatum, and demands,” the duty sergeant says. “Hostage numbers are unknown. Demands, as follows, quoting, ‘the release of all unlawfully imprisoned soldiers of God held at Bagram, Guantanamo, and those secret installations around the world.’”
“Soldiers of God?” He doesn’t look away from the screen, wondering just how many goddamn channels he’ll have to wade through before he can find anything like information. Marcelin has hung up his own phone, coming around the desk to his right.
“That’s the line, yes, sir.”
“Or else?”
“They claim to have a radiological device they will detonate if their demands are not met within twelve hours.”
“Direct quote?”
“Affirm. They’re giving us until just before midnight.”
The flicking pays off, a ticker running beneath a talking head who stands in front of a glowing world map, and 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.”