Brilliance (43 page)

“So we’re here,” Cooper said, “for symbolic reasons, right? Two guys waiting for the sunrise. No baggage up here. Can’t climb with it.”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“What you told me last night. It’s true?”

“Yes.”

“That’s how we’re going to do this. I want truth. No agendas, no goals, no manipulation. No underlying reasons, no rationalization. Just truth.”

“Okay.”

“Because, John, I’m in a ragged place, emotionally speaking. And it’s entirely within the realm of possibility that I decide to throw your ass off this rock.”

He saw the words hit, saw that Smith believed him. To his credit—whatever else he was, he wasn’t a coward—Smith said, “Okay. But it goes both ways. You ask a question, I ask a question. Deal?”

“Fine. Did you blow up the Exchange?”

“No. But I was going to.”

“You planted the bombs.”

“Yes. I also had Alex Vasquez set to cripple military response at the same moment, and a few other strikes that I aborted.”

“Why?”

“Because I got beaten.” Smith scowled, and goddamn if there wasn’t embarrassment behind it. “I hate to say it, but it’s true. I underestimated the ruthlessness of my opponent. Fatal mistake.”

“Explain.”

“The Exchange had no tactical value, didn’t hurt me per se. Destroying it was a symbolic stroke. But sometimes those are the most effective. I wanted to refocus the country on the idea that if there’s going to be a future together, then we need to start thinking of it that way.” Smith raised his arms up, stretching them out. “So I planned to blow it up. But when it was empty.”

“That’s easy to claim.”

“It’s not a claim, Cooper. It was the point. If we’re going to coexist, the normal world has to stop trying to find ways to exclude us. Destroying the building was a way of saying that. But butchering a bunch of innocent people, what good would that do me? That would only hurt our cause. As, in fact, it did.”

Shannon had said the same thing. Of course, she would have heard it from him. Cooper said, “You had to know that targeting it put innocent people at risk.”

“A calculated risk. I wasn’t
hoping
it would be empty. I
planned
for it to be.”

“Nice work.”

“As I said, I got beaten.”

“What was the plan?”

“To release a video to every major media organization announcing that I planned to blow up the Exchange at two o’clock the following day. In it I’d say that any effort to disarm the bombs would result in me triggering them early. That they had until then to clear everyone out and evacuate the area.”

“So why didn’t you release it?”

“I did.”

“You—what?” Cooper had been jumping ahead, old interrogation habits, and the answer threw him.

“I did release it. Sent it to seven media outlets. The networks, CNN, MSNBC, even Fox.”

“But—”

“But you didn’t see it.” Smith nodded. “Yeah. That was where I got beat.”

“You’re saying that you sent the warning, and that none of the networks—”

“None of them aired it. Not one. Not before, and not after. Seven allegedly independent media organizations knew that I intended to blow up the building. They knew that it would happen around two o’clock. They knew that if they didn’t broadcast it, people would die. Eleven hundred and forty-three people, as it turned out.”

Vertigo strobed through Cooper again, though he sat nowhere near the edge. “You’re saying someone
blocked
that story?”

“Yes. Spiked it seven times. My turn. Who has the power to do that?”

Cooper hesitated.

“Who can convince, or force, seven independent networks to bury a story? Could a rogue group do it? A terrorist?”

“No.”

“No. Only someone in the system. Only the system itself.”

“Drew Peters again.”

“Maybe.” Smith shrugged. “I don’t know exactly. All I know is, when they didn’t air that video, when I saw that the government wasn’t evacuating, I realized what would happen if those bombs went off. And so I activated my contingency plan.”

“Shannon.”

“Shannon.”

Cooper thought back to that moment six month ago, him running down the hall at her, Shannon looking up, telling him to wait, that he didn’t understand. Jesus.

Would she have succeeded in stopping the bombs if he hadn’t caught her? Was this one more load on his creaking conscience?

“So who benefits from something like this, Cooper? Who benefits from the Exchange blowing up?”

“You asked your question.”

“Call this a follow-up.”

He knew the answer, both the one Smith wanted to hear and the larger truth behind it. Yesterday, he couldn’t have imagined admitting it. But this morning, as the first sharp rays of the sun split the horizon, he just said what his gift told him. “People who want a war.”

“That’s right. People who want a war. People who believe that it will make them richer, or more powerful. A few, even, who might truly believe that a war is necessary. But while there have been a handful of times in history when war truly was necessary, never, not once, has a war against our own children been justified. No, the people who want to start this war, they want to benefit from it.”

“How did the bombs go off if you didn’t trigger them?”

“Is that your question?”

“Call it a follow-up.”

Smith laughed. “All five had a radio trigger with a specific code frequency. No one but me knew the code.”

“So how—”

“Because I warned them.”

He stopped talking, let Cooper work it out. “Your message gave someone enough time to find the bombs and break the code.”

“Again, I didn’t realize just how ruthless my enemy was. I knew they hated me, knew they wanted a war. But even I never believed they would blow up their own building, kill a thousand people, just to foster it.”

“But…why?”

“Men will always find a reason.”

Cooper thought about that. Thought that it was probably true. “Next question. What about the rest?”

“The rest?”

“The other things you’ve done. Assassinations. Explosions. Viral attacks. All of it.”

A long silence. The sun broke the horizon, spilling bloody light across the east. As if on cue, Cooper heard birdsong, though he couldn’t see any birds.

Finally Smith said, “Are you asking if my hands are clean? They’re filthy. I’m sorry, but you wanted truth.”

“You are a terrorist.”

“I’m fighting a war. I’m fighting for my human rights, and the rights of people like me. I’m fighting for you, and Shannon, and the other million of us. Like your daughter.”

Cooper found himself on his feet before he realized he’d moved. “Be careful, John. Be very careful.”

“Oh, come off it.” Smith looked up at him mildly. “You want to kill me? You can. I’m no match for you in a fight. I knew you could last night, and I knew you could when I brought you up here. You don’t want me to talk about Kate? Fine. But I’m not the one who wants to put her in an academy.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

“Why? Because you throw me off this rock?”

“Because…” Drew Peters’s voice in his head.
Your daughter will never be tested. Whatever happens, I’ll take care of your family.

He sank to his knees. No more. Please. Enough. Not them, too.

I’ll take care of your family.

“No one has clean hands,” Smith said. “Not me, not Shannon, not you. But the system is the bloodiest. The new world is being forged one gear at a time, and those gears drip blood. My turn. What kind of world do you want for your abnorm daughter, Cooper? And while we’re at it, what kind of world do you want for you normal son?”

He fought for breath.
I’ll take care of your family.
In his effort to protect them, in his blindness, he’d left them under the protection of the most dangerous man imaginable. To protect his children, he’d let a lion into their bedroom.

No.

“This evidence,” Cooper said. “Shannon said you had evidence. Of the things you’re claiming.”

“That’s a longer story.”

“I’ve got time.”

“After I met Senator Hemner at the Monocle, I headed home. Never made it. I saw police all along my block, my apartment lit up with floodlights. I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew enough to run. Which was what Peters wanted. What’s the point of creating a myth like John Smith if you catch him right away? Better to let him run. To let him lurk out there in the darkness, a national boogeyman. More funding in it.” He laughed without humor.

“So I ran, and I transformed myself from an activist into a soldier. I started building an army. And then I went digging. I wanted to know who my enemy was.

“It didn’t take long to figure out that it was Equitable Services. Your agency benefited more than any other. But that wasn’t proof. I had the why, and the who. So I went after the how.”

“The how?”

“Someone had orchestrated the massacre. That same person had faked the footage of it. That was exceptional work. It had to be perfect, or as near as possible. That meant a gifted. A man who can do with image and media what I can do with a chessboard or what Shannon can do with a crowded room. That was all I needed to know to find him.”

“What happened?”

“I asked him questions,” Smith said dryly.

“You tortured him.”

“No clean hands, remember? This man ruined my life and threatened the existence of my whole race. So yes, I asked firmly. He came clean about the forgery quickly enough.”

The sun was moving fast now, the air warming every moment. Cooper stared into it, said, “If you had proof the Monocle was fake, why not release it?”

“What proof? The word of a twist to a terrorist, given under torture? Who would believe it? Would you? No one would have paid attention. I needed something more.” Smith put his hands down and spun to face Cooper. “And I got it. This man, he also said that your director knew that if the truth about the Monocle ever came out, he’d hang. So Peters made sure he had protection.”

“What kind of protection?”

Smith sighed. “That’s the frustrating part. I don’t really know. Video of some kind, that much is obvious. Something that he could use if the situation ever got dire enough. The forger claimed to have rigged the setup for Peters, but said that he never knew what the content was.”

“And you believe him?”

“My questioning was…thorough.”

I’ll bet.
Cooper put aside the thoughts of torture, focused on what Smith was telling him. Forced himself to be dispassionate, to work it like a problem. To let his gift run free. “So you know this proof is out there, but you don’t know where, and even if you did, you don’t think you can get to it. Not directly. You want me to do it for you.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t have any idea where to start.”

“You’ll figure it out. That’s what you do. The same way you could find Alex Vasquez. And think how much better you know Drew Peters.”

He was right, Cooper knew. Already he could feel himself patterning. It wouldn’t be at DAR headquarters, or at Peters’s house. Both places could be locked down if things went wrong. Peters would have put it somewhere safe, somewhere he could get to it in the kind of dire times he would need it. “Next question.”

“I think it’s my turn. But go ahead.”

“What you’re saying, it’s compelling. Believable. But so was the story Peters told. So was Equitable Services. None of this is proof.”

“That video is.”

“But you haven’t seen it. You don’t know what’s on it. For all
I
know, it proves you’re the monster the DAR says you are.”

“True.” The man said it with the calm of a logician acknowledging the fallacy in an argument.

“All right.” Cooper stood again, walked to the lip of the rock, stared down at the wide bright world. “I’ll find it. Not for you, and not for your cause.” He turned and looked back at Smith. “But you better pray that video shows what you think it does. Because I know you now. I can find you again, and I can kill you.”

“I believe you,” Smith said. “I’m counting on you to take this all the way.”

“Even if that means killing you.”

“Sure. Because only someone that dedicated will have what it takes to face off against Drew Peters. Christ, Cooper. Why do you think I sent Shannon to bring you here in the first place?”

Cooper’s hands clenched. A sick, floating feeling bloomed in his belly. “What?” His gift racing ahead again, providing yet another answer he didn’t want. “What do you mean, ‘sent Shannon’?”

“Ah.” The other man looked disgruntled for a second. “Sorry. I thought you’d figured that part out already.”

“What do you mean, ‘sent Shannon’?”

Smith sighed. He rose, slipped his hands in his pockets. “Just that. I needed you, so I dispatched Shannon to get you. I sent her to that El platform, and I planned your route to me. I made sure you saw Samantha and the uses the world has for her. I had Shannon take you to Lee Chen’s house so you could meet his daughter and her friends. I routed you through Epstein, because I knew he’d sell me out to protect his dream, and because I knew you’d never believe you could get to me without help. And I stood outside last night smoking a cigarette so you’d climb the balcony.

“I’m sorry, Cooper. I’m a chess player. I needed to turn a pawn into a queen.” Smith shrugged. “So I did.”

Even now, three hours later, sitting in a leather chair twenty thousand feet up, the comment still rankled. Which was pointless; Cooper had more important things to deal with than his injured pride.

It’s not just pride. Being upset that John Smith out-planned you is like being upset that Barry Adams plays better football. It’s just a fact.

No, it wasn’t being beaten by Smith that stung. It was that for the first time since he and Natalie had split, Cooper had felt something for a woman. Yes, they were on opposite teams, and there were a thousand reasons a relationship wouldn’t work, but still, those feelings had been real.

Unfortunately, everything they’d been based on was fake. Everything she’d told him was a lie.
Maybe even last night.

He leaned back in his seat. Stared out the window. The jet was just cresting the clouds, baroque castles spilling below him. Usually it was his favorite moment in a flight, a view that managed to stir that childish sense of wonder that he was miles up in the air. But the intricate cloudscape did nothing for him now.