“That’s what I’m saying.” Nuri brushes hair back from her cheek. “Moving on them before we know what they’re after, that doesn’t track smart to me. There’s a larger play.”
“Whatever they want, that’s going to keep them holding their fire.”
“That’s a leap I’m not comfortable making.”
“It’s the one we’re taking.”
“And you’re sure of it, are you, Master Sergeant?”
“Sure as I can be.”
“And if-just if-what they actually want is to make us look like fools, to humiliate us in front of the world? To wait until we make our move and then murder those same people we’re trying to save? What then? AQ tactic is to deliver a first strike then follow up when the responders are on the ground, you know that. Maybe they’re just waiting for us to make our move before they make their next one.”
Bell considers.
“We move faster,” he says.
They stick to the tunnels, cutting south, common sense dictating that they not emerge where they entered. Moving more slowly now, more cautiously, and the minutes continue to tick. Chain on point with his M4 up and tucked at his shoulder, Nuri, now wearing the vest, center, her pistol in both hands, and Bell watching their backs with his own assault rifle high and ready. They pass abandoned maintenance carts and toppled trash bags, dressing rooms with discarded costumes scattered here and there, left where they were dropped in the evacuation; makeup tables with cosmetics and prostheses on them. The scent of soda pop, caramel corn, hot dogs, and burned plastic mixes with the recycled air.
“How we doing this, Top?” Chain asks.
Bell defers the answer, asks Nuri his own question. “Angel? What route did you take?”
“You mean from your office? Used the access in the service area behind the facades.”
Bell considers. The row of buildings that border Wilson Town on the east and west sides are designed to look like individual structures to park guests, but in truth are one enormous building each. Long hallways, hidden from public view and use, run along the rear of both structures, facilitating movement of staff and goods, and each hallway has tunnel access.
“They made your egress, they might have someone watching it.”
“And a welcoming committee,” Chain adds.
“Problem. All other approaches require covering open ground. Puts us on camera, they move to intercept.”
“There’s another option,” Nuri says. “We have mission coms.”
“Effective only above ground. Hold.”
They come to a stop, and Bell lowers his rifle, hands it to Nuri, then removes his combat harness. He offers it to her, takes the rifle back while she puts it on, then returns the M4 to her hands.
“I’m not the expert at clearing a room,” she says.
“I’ll give them something else to look at while you do it. Follow Chain’s lead, you’ll be fine.” Bell checks his watch, the hands faintly luminous in the subdued light of the tunnel. “I have twelve forty-seven. Mark me thirty minutes, move at thirteen seventeen. Contact when you have the CP.”
“Thirteen seventeen,” Chain echoes. “Hey, Top? Don’t get your old-man ass shot again.”
“You won’t be with me,” Bell says. “Think I’ll be all right.”
Chapter Eighteen
The Uzbek has been waiting for months, quite literally, to make this call.
It’s almost a quarter past one in the afternoon in this room at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles, the television on and babbling with anxious glee about the developing situation at WilsonVille. The information is still confused, but the video has done its job, and the media is, as ever, eager to play their part.
The Uzbek’s been impressed with the government’s response, on almost every level. Local authorities have done an impressive job of cordoning off the area, and already the governor has held a press conference, urging people not to panic, explaining that the situation is fluid, in flux, and there is no reason to believe the claims in the video are true. The White House has released a statement saying much the same thing, assuring the American people that everything can and will be done to resolve this crisis, and adding that under no circumstances will the nation bow before the demands of terrorists. The president is monitoring the situation closely.
Helicopter footage shows, live, the streams of automobiles clogging Interstate 5 and the 405 and the state routes. Most people who are able to seem to be heading east, for the mountains and the desert. There’s been some unconfirmed reports of rioting as well, and the Uzbek has listened to two experts on two different channels talking about dirty bombs, about how they’re not to be confused with actual nuclear weapons, about their limitations. These two experts have tried to use facts, but facts are of little interest in the face of sensation.
The Uzbek’s favorite part, as he eats gravlax and washes it down with a modest prosecco, was when one broadcast was interrupted with live footage, telephoto shots of the front gates of WilsonVille. When two of his handpicked men, long guns slung over their shoulders, still dressed in their Tyvek and gas masks, tossed the body out the front gates. The woman dressed as a panda, who hit the ground heavy and wrong and didn’t move. Authorities had imposed a no-fly zone over the park, but one of the news copters violated it and got footage from above, and it made the statement all the more clear, all the more stark.
When that happened, he imagined boys and girls all around the world looking at their own little stuffed pandas in horror and fear. He suspects his master thought much the same thing when he saw it.
Then the broadcast cuts away to more anxious babbling, and the Uzbek turns the television off. He takes out the cell phone he has purchased specifically for this call. He dials slowly, one-handed, using his thumb, emptying his glass with the other, then rises and moves to the window. He has a view of the pool, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, there are still several people around it and in the water, oblivious to or uncaring about what’s happening less than a hundred miles to the south. There are several beauties, wearing strips of fabric that are, at best, coy, and as the phone rings in his ear, the Uzbek wonders if he could fuck one of them. Times like this, he wishes he could fuck them all.
The phone rings several times before being answered. “Jamieson residence.”
“I need to speak to Lee Jamieson,” the Uzbek says.
“Mr. Jamieson is unavailable.” The voice belongs to a man, the accent vaguely Hispanic. “I can take a message.”
“Give him this message, exactly. I will call back in exactly three minutes. I am calling to speak to him about a dead panda.”
The Uzbek hangs up, then powers off the phone, tosses it onto the bed. Checks the time, then takes the second phone, also purchased precisely for this call. He opens the sliding glass door, steps out onto the balcony of his room, smells the smog and heat, hears the water and the laughter and splashing below. There’s a blonde lounging poolside, sunglasses and golden tan. Her legs are long and her breasts barely contained by her top, a belly flat and smooth, and he can almost taste her from here. He watches her unabashedly, obviously, and after a few moments she reaches up and adjusts the strap at her shoulder, then lowers her sunglasses just enough to show him her eyes, meeting his gaze. The Uzbek grins at her, and she returns that, too, lazily. Tilts her head to the side, where it lies against the chaise lounge, and he can feel her looking him over.
The Uzbek raises his free hand, shows her three numbers in sequence, his room number. She seems to laugh. The Uzbek closes his hand, opens it again, five fingers this time.
Then he turns away and dials once more. This time, there is only one ring, and Mr. Money is answering.
“Why the fuck are you calling me? You said there’d be no more contact, you Russian fuck! Why are you calling me?”
“I lied to you,” the Uzbek says, not bothering to correct the man. “You have been following the news?”