Brilliance (48 page)

“This whole thing,” Cooper said. “Everything we’ve done for the last years. All the actions, all the terminations. None of it was about truth, about protecting the public. They were just moves in a game we didn’t know about, made by players who don’t even want to win. No one wants to kill all the gifted. They just want to control them. And the rest of the country. And you know what? They do.”

Quinn said, “The terminations?” Going through the same thing Cooper had the night before, the first nibbles of a horror that would soon sink its fangs deep. “You’re saying that some of the people we killed, they—”

“Yeah,” Cooper said. He pitied the guy, wanted to give him time to process it, to begin to deal with the enormity of everything. But that risked Quinn freezing up, and there wasn’t time for that. “And I’m sorry to say this, but it gets worse.”

“How the hell can it get—”

“They have my children.”

“They—who?”

“Peters.”

“Come on, Cooper. That’s paranoid.”

“It’s not. I called home. Roger Dickinson answered.”

“Oh.” Quinn stared. “Oh shit.”

“What?”

His partner played with an imaginary cigarette and looked away. “I couldn’t figure out why they’d put me in charge of the faceless at the cemetery. After all, Dickinson is the one with a hard-on for you. But just before Peters ordered me there, Dickinson left his office like his ass was on fire. Wouldn’t talk to anyone, just bolted out. He must have been—”

“Going to my house. To kidnap my children.”

“Yeah.” Quinn turned to look at him. “I’m sorry, Coop. I didn’t know. I would have stopped him.”

“I know.”

“So what, they want you to turn yourself in? Dickinson will kill you.”

“If I thought it would save Natalie and the kids, I’d sacrifice myself. But they won’t. By going undercover, I’ve given them too good a hand.”

He watched Quinn work it out. “You’re thinking that from the beginning, Peters let you do this because he’d win either way. Either you found Smith and killed him, or else…”

“Or else I volunteered to be the fall guy for real. Yeah. Everything I’ve done the last six months, it looks guilty. And now that I know about this?” Cooper gestured. “No, if I go in, they’ll claim my cover story as true. Peters really will blame me for the March 12th explosion. He’ll serve up my corpse to the media. A huge win for Equitable Services. Proof that the nation is in good hands. Billions of dollars in additional funding.”

“And he can’t have your ex going on CNN, saying that it’s all a lie. Even if she’s not believed, it spoils the PR value.” Quinn nodded. “But how can he get rid of them? Kind of convenient if they just disappeared.”

“Easy. I came back to kill them. Equitable Services tried to stop me, but they were too late. A tragedy, but at least they took down the bad guy. And perhaps if they had more resources…”

“But why would you kill your own—”

“Because I’m a crazy abnorm terrorist. Who knows how those people think. They’re not even people.”

Quinn said, “Jay-sus.” He blew a long breath. “I don’t want to believe this.”

“But you do.”

“I…” Quinn hesitated. “Yeah. I do.”

“I need your help, Bobby. I need to get my children back. And then we have to make sure that this gets out. They can’t get away with it. We can’t let them.”

“Do you know what you’re saying? You’re talking about taking on the
president
.”

“I’m talking about two terrified children. And I’m talking about telling the truth.”

“Coop, I want to help, but…”

“I know. But remember how I said I wasn’t a DAR agent anymore? Well, are you? After seeing that? You’ve only got two choices, Bobby. You can pretend you don’t know that everything you’ve served is a lie. Or you can help me.”

It really was as simple as that, and Cooper made himself stop. All he’d wanted, back in the cemetery, was half an hour to make the man understand. Now he’d had it. There was no selling Quinn, no convincing him. No rhetorical flourish would make the difference, no appeal to emotion.

Either Bobby Quinn was a good man, or Cooper and his family were dead.

Quinn jammed the pads of his fingers into his eyes. “Shit.” The words were muffled by his hands. Then he straightened and blew a long breath. “So what do we do?”

“Well, to start,” Cooper smiled and tugged at his wrist, “do you think you could unlock me?”

His partner laughed. “Sorry.” He pulled the cuff key from his belt and tossed it over. “The truth shall set you free, right?”

“Something like that. That’s our play, too. We use the video to set a trap for Peters.”

“Sounds like you have a plan.”

“The beginnings of one.”

“Well, that’s a relief. Sure, we’re facing the most powerful covert organization on the planet, and in possession of stolen information that the president would nuke DC to keep private, but at least you have the beginnings of a plan. I was worried for a second.”

“Hey,” Cooper said, “the way I see it, the chance of success just doubled. Now it’s the whole government against two of us.”

“Three,” said a voice behind them.

They both whirled. Quinn went for his weapon, but Cooper caught his partner’s arm.

She stood with her hip popped, one hand leaning on the other side. A pose, cocky and capable, her lips quirked in that sideways grin. “You left without saying good-bye, Nick. A girl might take that wrong.”

Quinn said, “Who the hell are you, and how did you get here?”

Cooper said, “Hello, Shannon.” She looked good. Damn good. He met her gaze, saw all the levels in it, strength, determination, and, beneath it, some hurt. He smiled in a way he hoped was apologetic, then said to Quinn, “She does that.” To Shannon, he said, “When did you get here?”

“About an hour after you.”

“Smith sent you?”

“No, asshole. I came because you need help. John just provided the plane.”

“How did you find me?”

“I didn’t. I found him.” She jerked a thumb at Quinn.

“You’re the girl from the Exchange,” Quinn said. “And the thing with Bryan Vasquez.”

“And you’re Cooper’s playmate.” She pulled out a stool and took a seat. “So. What are we doing, boys?”

Cooper said, “Bringing down the head of Equitable Services and the president of the United States.”

“Oh good. I was afraid this was going to be dull.”

“I try to keep life interesting.”

“Any train rides planned?”

“If I tell you, it’ll spoil the surprise.”

“Don’t do that. I love surprises.”

“Time out.” Quinn looked back and forth, forth and back. “Would you two quit flirting long enough to tell me what the
hell
is going on?”

“Bobby, meet Shannon Azzi. The Girl Who Walks Through Walls.”

“Hiya,” she said, and stuck out a hand.

Looking baffled, Quinn took it.

Cooper laughed. For the first time since he’d heard Dickinson’s voice on the phone, he felt something like hope.

“Jimmy’s Mattresses.”

“This is account number three two zero nine one seven. I need to talk to Alpha.”

“Hold, please.”

The speaker of the disposable cell phone was tinny, but it would serve. They’d picked up a couple of them at a mini-mart en route to Quinn’s apartment, a single in a Mount Vernon Square low-rise. Cooper had been there more times than he could remember, knew the furniture and the layout, had crashed on the couch. Quinn stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows at the night sky; Shannon splayed in a chair, one lithe leg up on the arm.

“Hello, Nick.” Drew Peters sounded the same as ever. Calm, in control. The same as he’d sounded in the video, proposing the murder of innocent civilians. “Are you on your way in?”

“No.”

“I see.”

“I found the drive, Drew. Taped to the back of Teddy Eaton’s coffin. And I’ve watched it. A nasty little snuff film.”

“Omelets and eggs, Agent Cooper.”

“Just Cooper. I don’t work for you anymore.”

“As you like. You understand the situation, though, yes? Roger was clear in his explanation?”

“Very clear. But we’re not going to do it that way.”

“What do you have in mind?”

“An exchange. The drive for my family.”

“I don’t think so. The drive is worthless. You’ll have made copies by now.”

“No. I haven’t, and I won’t.”

A pause. “Why would I believe that?”

“Because you know that
I
know that even if this video got out, you could make sure that my family died. I mean even after you let them go. This would ruin you, but you’d still be able to act. Not all of your resources work for the DAR.”

Another pause. “That’s true.”

“So here’s the deal. We meet somewhere we both feel safe. You bring my family; I bring this. We all walk out. You get to go on running your evil empire. And my children get to grow up.”

“I’m not sure you’re in a position to negotiate. For now, your children are perfectly safe, as is your ex-wife. But Dickinson is a true believer. If I give the order, he won’t hesitate to visit a host of violations on them.”

Fire licked his belly and his knuckles went white, but Cooper kept his voice under control. “You’d suffer quite a few in prison, Drew, while your daughters grew up alone. And this posturing is pointless. We both know that you’ll do anything to get the video back. And I’ll do anything to know my family is safe. So let’s cut the bullshit.”

“All right. How about we meet at the Washington Monument? A public place.”

Cooper laughed. “Yeah. And I’ll never hear the shot from the airship. I don’t think so. No, let’s meet at the L’Enfant Plaza Metro station.”

“Where you can have a news crew at the ready to film everything. I’m afraid not.”

“Okay. We don’t trust one another. So we set it up so that neither of us has time to prepare a surprise. You name a major street downtown. I’ll pick an address. We’ll meet in twenty minutes.”

“Twenty minutes? No.”

“I’m not going to give you time to get set up, Drew.”

“I understand that. But I’m busy cleaning up your mess right now. There was a firefight in a cemetery in broad daylight. It will take time to make sure there’s no connection to the agency.”

“No connection to you, you mean.”

“Those are the same thing. Let’s meet in two hours.”

“Fine. But we don’t pick a location until the last minute. I’ll call you. Have a street in mind, and don’t mess with me. And if anyone in my family has so much as a bruise, deal’s off and I burn you down.”

“If you call this off, your family will suffer more than bruises.”

“So we both better behave. I’ll call in two hours. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“One last thing.”

“What’s that?”

Cooper said, “How the fuck do you sleep at night, Drew?”

“With a prescription. Grow up. This is the way the world works.” The director hung up the phone.

“Two hours.” Quinn shook his head. “Just like you predicted.”

“Peters is the head of Equitable Services and thinks like it. That makes him easy to anticipate. He wants enough time that he can use his resources, see if he can track me down without the hassle of meeting. There’s always the chance that I screwed up, that someone caught my face on a camera, or that I was calling from a known phone number. A long shot, but worth checking, especially for a man with his own security force. But at the same time, he can’t risk giving me enough time that I start to second-guess myself, decide to go to the media with the video. One hour isn’t enough time, three is too long.”

“What’s to keep him from showing up at the meet with an army?”

“He knows I would spot them. He can’t risk spooking me. And since he won’t know the location in advance, he can’t get snipers set up or teams in place.”

“Still. He’s got to know he’s walking into a trap,” Shannon said.

Cooper shook his head. “That’s what we’ve got going for us. He thinks I’m working alone. He knows my capabilities, what advantages my gift offers. He can plan for that. Counter it.”

“So because he thinks you’re alone, he’ll bring a small force, just enough not to scare you. And because you’re
not
alone, you think we can take them.”

“That’s the idea.”

“Gee,” Quinn said. “It’s a good thing you’ve got two other assholes wrapped up in this.”

“Yeah,” Cooper said. He locked eyes with his partner, his friend. He knew what it was Quinn was risking, the same as the rest of them. But while Cooper had no choice, and Shannon had her own reasons, Quinn was doing this because it was the right thing to do.
And because he’s your friend.
Cooper fiddled with the edge of a cushion. Looked out the window. “Look, I want you to know—”

“Stow it,” Quinn said. “Just make sure you pick up the check from now on.”

“Beer’s on me. Forever.”

“You boys are adorable,” Shannon said. “But this is stupid. If Peters picks a street and you pick an address, we won’t be able to plan either. We’ll be walking in blind.”

“No, Ms. Mysterio,” Quinn said. “That’s where I come in.” He glanced at his watch. “Speaking of. I better go to headquarters and gear up. Gimme that burner, I’ll toss it in the river on the way.”

“Be careful, Bobby. They don’t know you’re in this, but Peters will be on high alert. No wrong moves.”

“I’ll be in and out. Hell,” Quinn smiled. “I’ll channel her.”