Brilliance (19 page)

And when he landed, he’d pushed that kind of thinking aside and begun to act. Now he stared across the table at the director, at the man’s pale, calm eyes, and he said, “I can do this.”

“There will be no going back. None. You succeed or you die.”

“I know.”

“Even a
chance
to get rid of John Smith is worth a gamble. If we don’t, he may well tip this country into outright civil war.” Peters looked away and tapped his fingers lightly on his desk. The news channels were playing footage of the explosion, and reflected in his rimless glasses, the Exchange fell again and again.

Finally, he said, “Last chance, son. Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yes. I’ll kill John Smith for you.” Cooper set his glass on the desk and leaned forward. “But there’s one condition.”

Natalie’s house.

A tantalizing hint of silhouette flickered across one of the curtains. The lights were on, and the windows glowed buttery warm. Del Ray was too much part of the city for the sky to be truly black, but the queasy purple of light pollution was lonelier than night. It made those windows, and the life within them, all the more attractive.

Cooper stared out of the windshield. Took a deep breath, blew it out. There was an emptiness in his stomach, a hollowness he hadn’t felt in years. A childish sort of yearning pain, the way he’d felt when he was twelve and all the rewards he’d ascribed to adulthood—love, freedom, certainty—seemed a million years away. The emptiness of the morning bed after a glittering dream of girls and adventure.

Now that things were in motion, he wanted more than anything to stop it all. To beg the director to call it off. It was too much. The costs were too high.

But then he remembered what this was really about, and he put childish fantasy away.

He climbed out of the Charger—something else he’d have to abandon soon, his beloved car and its even more beloved license-to-speed transponder—and crossed the street. The night air nipped but didn’t bite. Everything smelled clean. He was sore and tired, but he tried to record every detail, to move with heightened awareness. It would be a long time before he could walk this path again.

At the front window, he paused just out of the spill of light. The curtains were parted a couple of inches, and through them he could see his children. Todd was staging an elaborate action-figure battle, the pantheons all mixed up, armored knights fighting alongside World War II soldiers and space monsters. The tip of his tongue protruded from the corner of his mouth as he mounted a robot on a horse. Kate sat on the sofa with a picture book in her lap, turning the pages backward and talking softly to herself. Through the open archway he could see Natalie in the kitchen, washing dishes. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her hips swayed as she scrubbed, semidancing to music he couldn’t hear. The quiet peace of the scene, the warmth and safety and domesticity, was a jagged knife through his belly. Cooper closed his eyes.
You’ve already chosen sides.

He took out his phone and dialed. Through the window he saw his ex-wife dry her hands on a towel and pull her phone from her pocket. “Nick. Are you okay? I called you a bunch of times and left messages—”

“I know. I’m okay. But I need to talk to you.”

Even at this distance, he could see her stiffen. “Is it about Kate?”

“No. Yes. Sort of. Listen, I’m outside. Can you come out?”

“You’re outside? Why didn’t you knock?”

“We need to talk first. Before the kids know I’m here.”

“Okay. Give me a minute.”

Cooper pocketed his phone. Took one last look through the window, felt his stomach slip and his heart squeeze, and then stepped away. He moved over to the lone tree, a maple down to a last handful of leaves. Quick flash of memory, the tree as it had been when he and Natalie had bought the house, a runty little thing held in place by wires.

Natalie came out a few minutes later. She paused on the step, screening her eyes from the porch light, then spotted him leaning. The subtle shifts of expression on her face might have barely registered with a stranger, but each emotion was as distinct to him as if the words had been projected on her forehead. Happiness that he was alive. Guarded concern about the way he’d asked to meet her. Fear of what he had to say about Kate. A quickly overcome desire to run back inside and slam the door. “Hey,” she said.

“Hey.”

She tucked her hands in her pocket and looked him in the face. Knowing him well enough to recognize that he had something to say, and waiting for him to start. That cool, levelheaded forthrightness that he had always loved. A siren sounded nearby, and it quickened his heart. He glanced at his watch. Tick-tock.

“Am I keeping you?”

“No, I—” He took a breath. “I have to tell you something.” He glanced at her, at the yard, at the window. Had that been motion in the curtain?

“For Christ’s sake, spit it out.”

“I’m going to be going away for a while.”

“‘A while’? What does that mean?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe a long time.”

“Something for your job.”

“Yes.”

“Something to do with today.”

“Yes. I was there. Manhattan.”

“My God, are you—”

“I’m fine,” he said, then shook his head. “No, that’s not true. I’m pissed and I’m frustrated and I’m hurting. I was trying to stop it, Nat. I almost did stop it. But I didn’t, not quite, and all those people…”

“Did you try as hard as you could?”

“Yeah. I think so. Yeah.”

“Then it’s not your fault. Nick, what is this? What’s going on?” A miniscule widening of her eyes flashed her fear up at him.

“The explosion today. It was John Smith.”

“You can’t know that yet. Maybe it was—”

“It was John Smith. The worst terrorist attack on America in history, and it was an abnorm who did it.”

“But…that’s going to…things are going to…my God, it’s going to get worse. They’re going to come after abnorms. Really come after you.”

“Yes.” He stepped forward and took her hands in his. “So I’m going after him. John Smith. Not the same as before. Something different.”

“What?”

“The only way to get close is if he thinks I’m on his side. So I’m going to be. I’m going to leave the agency and go on the run.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The bombing. They’re going to blame it on me.”

She stared at him. He could practically hear her mind working. “Wait, no, it doesn’t make sense. He’ll know. John Smith, he’ll know you weren’t in on it.”

“Right. But he’ll also know that all of the DAR thinks I was. That I’m on the run, and that I’m being chased. That the agency I’ve served for years, the one I’ve killed for, has betrayed me. That’s enough to make someone start thinking differently. And what a coup for him if I came over to his side! Think how much I could help him. Not only what I can do, but what I know.”

“But for that to work—”

“Yeah. They’re going to have to chase me. Really, truly chase me. I’ll be designated a target. No one but Drew Peters will know the truth. Everyone will think I really went over.”

“No!” Natalie yanked her hands from his. “No, are you crazy? They’ll kill you.”

“Only if they catch me.” He tried a grin, aborted it quickly. “It’s dangerous, I know, but I can do it. And it gives us a chance to get—”

“No. Take it back. Go to the director right now and tell him you changed your mind.”

“I can’t do that, Nat.”

“Why not? Don’t you understand? You have
children
. I hate John Smith as much as you do, but if I had the choice between him being dead or Kate and Todd having a father, I wouldn’t hesitate.”

“It’s not that simple,” Cooper said, and held her gaze. It only took a handful of seconds. He watched the revelation hit. Her mouth fell open and her eyes widened.

“Kate.”

“Yes,” he said. “Kate. If I do this, she won’t be tested.
Ever
. That was my price. She gets to grow up and live a normal life. She won’t be taken from us. She’ll never see the inside of an academy.”

Natalie steepled her hands over her nose and mouth. Her fingers were shaking. She stared at his chest. Cooper knew enough to wait her out.

“She’s tier one, isn’t she?”

“Yes.”

She rolled her shoulders and straightened her back. “There’s no choice?”

Cooper shook his head.

“The things we do for our children.” Natalie managed a thin, tight smile. “When do you have to go?”

“Soon. I want to see the kids first.”

“Do you want to…you could stay. The night.”

A warm feeling bloomed in his chest. When they’d split up, they’d both agreed that sleeping together was a bad idea, that it would confuse the kids and maybe risk complicating the friendly relationship they had. It had been a mutual decision and a good one; much as they loved each other, neither wanted to be involved romantically, and so it had been years since they’d shared a bed. For her to offer that, now, tonight, it touched him. “That’s a tempting offer. I really wish I could. But they’re going to be looking for me.”

“Already?”

“Soon.”

“All right. You’d better come in, then. What are you going to tell them?”

“Nothing. Just that I love them.”

She blew another breath, wiped at her eyes, then started across the yard. Her shoulders slumped and the muscles of her neck were coiled cables. Cooper caught up with her, took her hand, and spun her around.

“Listen,” he said, then realized he had no idea what to say next. Tell her that there was nothing to be scared of? There was. Even as they stood here, Director Peters was designating him a target. The most powerful agency in the country would be hunting him, thousands of people with billions of dollars. And even if he could manage to escape them, he was walking into the monster’s den and begging for an audience.

“I’ll be okay,” he said.

And for just a second, a tiny moment, he could see that she believed him.

It was enough.

My fellow Americans.

Today our nation, our very way of life, suffered an attack of the most grievous nature. The victims were men and women of all kinds, all walks of life. Social workers and attorneys, bankers and artists. Mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of lives were snatched away in the most cowardly fashion imaginable—by terrorists who planted bombs in the heart of our great nation.

The individuals responsible want to disrupt our way of life. By killing innocent people, they want to cow us, like children afraid of monsters shivering beneath their blankets.

But this is not a society of children. We do not hide from monsters. We find them, and we defeat them.

Our intelligence community is united in the belief that this attack was perpetrated by gifted terrorists. Our military and security forces are the strongest in history. They are already at work to track down the people responsible. Make no mistake: we will find them, and they will be brought to justice. Anyone who aids them, anyone who hides them, anyone who supports them in any way will face our wrath.

Since the emergence of the gifted thirty-two years ago, our world has faced a challenge never seen in all of history. A small minority of human beings now possesses a massive advantage. How can men and women on both sides of this divide live together, work together, form a single more perfect union?

The answers will not be simple ones. The road will be difficult. But there are answers. Answers that do not include bombs and bloodshed.

And so tonight, as our nation mourns its dead, I ask you all for tolerance and patience and great humanity. The gifted as a whole cannot be held responsible for the actions of a violent fringe. Just as those who hold hatred in their heart cannot define the rest of us.

It’s said that the strongest partnerships are formed in adversity. Let us face this adversity not as a divided nation, not as norm and abnorm, but as Americans.

Let us work together to build a better future for our children.

And let us never forget the pain of this day. Let us never yield to those who believe political power flows from the barrel of a gun, to the cowards who murder children to achieve their aims.

For them, there can be—will be—no mercy.

Good night, and God bless America.

—President Henry Walker, from the Oval Office, on the evening of March 12.

March 13, 2013
Op-Ed: AMERICA DIVIDED, AMERICA EXPOSED

Since the end of the Cold War, America has been the world’s only superpower. And yet yesterday we learned that we are vulnerable. That no amount of power can protect from a truly ruthless enemy, one willing to abandon the rules of warfare and attack the innocent.

In the days and weeks to come, there will be endless discussion of responsibility. As you read this, our intelligence communities are drawing up a list of likely suspects. One name is certain to top it: John Smith, the activist-turned-terrorist who has long embraced violence as a means to achieve his ends.