Brilliance (52 page)

A flash of an image, San Antonio, the rooftop with Alex Vasquez. Chasing her to the edge of the building, her body a silhouette against the night sky.

Peters heard him when he was about ten feet away, whirled. He said, “No,” and reached around his back. Cooper caught his arm, twisted it forward, then spun to bring the force of his other forearm down against the director’s elbow, which snapped with a sick pop. Drew Peters screamed, and the gun dropped from his limp fingers.

Cooper held him up with one hand, then used the other to dig in the man’s pockets. The stamp drive was in the front right. He took it, then gripped the man by his lapels and marched him backward. Three steps took them to the edge of the building. The skyline burned behind, a wash of lights on marble and monuments. The White House was lit from below, regal and imposing. He wondered if President Walker was there right now, if he was sitting in the Oval Office, or putting on a bathrobe and crawling into bed.

The chopper grew closer. A spotlight speared down from it, swinging back and forth, playing across the buildings. Hunting.

Peters’s face was sheened with shock-sweat, his eyes wide. But his voice was strangely level as he said, “You want to kill me? Go ahead.”

“Okay.” He marched Peters a half step back.

“Wait!” The heel of the man’s dress shoe slipped and scuffled at the edge. “This is bigger than me and you. If you do this, the world will burn.”

“Still hoping I’m a true believer, huh?”

“I know you are.”

“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I still do believe. But not in you, and not in your dirty little game.”

“It’s not a game. It’s the future. You’re going to have to choose sides.”

“Yeah,” Cooper said. “I’ve heard that.” He yanked his old mentor close, then shoved outward with all his strength.

As Drew Peters flew off the edge of the roof, he crossed the beam of the helicopter searchlight. A flailing rag doll a hundred feet above the concrete. And for a fraction of a second, the dazzling beam seemed to hold him up.

But only for a fraction of a second.

It took him an hour and a half to get clean.

If done directly, the walk from the office building at 900 7th Street NW to the bench overlooking the Lincoln Memorial would only take about twenty minutes. Thirty if you strolled, enjoyed the route, which was one of the most famous in the world. Past the East Wing of the White House, the lights burning inside the windows at all hours. The Washington Monument, a spear in the heart of the night, the airplane warning light blinking slowly. The rippling reflections of the pond in Constitution Garden. The shiny black scar of the Vietnam Memorial bisecting the hillside. And finally the epic neoclassical bulk of the Lincoln Memorial itself. The broad marble steps leading up to the fluted columns, the colonnade glowing from spotlights within, somber old Honest Abe staring out in contemplation, as if weighing the country he had led.

But Cooper hadn’t gone directly. His first priority had been getting out of the building. The stairwell had given him access to the street. From there, he’d headed north and then east, hearing the telltale sounds of converging force. Quinn hadn’t been kidding about a small army; Peters must have summoned all nearby law enforcement. This being Washington DC, the most heavily policed city in the nation, that meant not only DAR teams, but also metropolitan police, Capitol police, transit police, park police, Secret Service uniformed division, and God knew how many others.

And as none of them seemed to know what was going on or for whom they were looking, the best description of it was “train wreck.”

Cooper assumed that might have been part of the point, that Peters was focusing on getting maximum manpower in place and then quarterbacking from the air. The confusion would give him plenty of latitude to write the story however he liked; probably, that rogue-agent-turned-abnorm-terrorist, Nick Cooper, had kidnapped his family before being cornered in this building by Equitable Services. All the extra force would look good, a blow for interagency cooperation that still assured the real credit went to the DAR.

Sorry about that, Drew. I guess falling a dozen stories onto concrete is going to mess up your plan.

The good news was that without a quarterback, all those forces spent most of their time tripping over one another. Sirens and lights, SWAT teams and the faceless, barricades and badges. Cooper used the confusion to get a little distance, and after that, the rest was routine. He tracked in and out of buildings, rode the Metro one stop north and then two south, circled the same block twice in each direction, and then finally set off across the Mall.

An hour and a half later, he was sitting on the park bench, staring back at Abraham Lincoln. Still twenty minutes before he could rendezvous with Quinn and Shannon.

Twenty minutes before he could see his children.

Twenty minutes to decide the fate of the world.

Cooper had his datapad out, the stamp drive slotted. He’d logged on and prepped the video file for distribution. He’d learned from John Smith’s mistake; instead of sending it to a handful of journalists who could be silenced, he’d prepped it for upload to a public video sharing system. All he had to do was press send and it would spread like wildfire. In an hour it would have propagated to thousands of people; by morning it would be everywhere, on every news channel, every website. The whole world would know the ugly truth.

All he had to do was press send.

What had Peters said?
“This is bigger than me and you. If you do this, the world will burn.”

It would certainly mean the end of this administration. A president caught on tape authorizing the murder of innocent citizens? He’d be crucified, face jail time, maybe worse.

All of which was fine with Cooper. But the problem with striking sparks was that fire wasn’t easy to control. How far would this one go?

Faith in the government, already at an all-time low, would plummet. In their hearts, Americans already didn’t believe that their leaders cared about them. People thought of politicians in the most jaded and cynical terms, and with some good reason. But it was a big step to discover the government was ordering their murder.

And Equitable Services. To have even a chance at survival, it would have to disavow Peters, claim he was a fanatic operating outside of bounds. But even then, the agency might be destroyed.

Which wasn’t entirely a good thing. Yes, Peters had misused the agency. But the threat from violent abnorms was real. Maybe not every person Cooper had terminated was dirty. But plenty were. Without Equitable Services, there would be no one to contain them.

Not only that, but the video cleared John Smith of the Monocle. It turned him from a terrorist back into a freedom fighter, maybe even a hero. There were plenty of people who would look up to him. See him as a brave new voice. Maybe even a potential leader.

A scary thought. Smith had the intellect and acumen to lead. But Cooper didn’t trust the man’s heart. He’d admitted to planting bombs, to seeding viruses, to assassinating civilians. Smith was innocent of the Monocle, but he was plenty guilty.

Peters might well be right. Sharing this might well set the world on fire.

Of course, there’s another option
.

Cooper could put the video to work for him. By threatening to leak it, he could blackmail President Walker. Take over Equitable Services himself, run the agency the way it was supposed to be run. He could sit in Drew Peters’s chair and make decisions the right way. Fight to prevent a war, instead of to prolong one.

It was a tempting thought. All his adult life, Cooper had fought to protect his country. First from external threats, in the army, and then from a much greater danger—its future. If straights and brilliants came to open conflict, it would be an unthinkably bloody affair, one that would literally turn fathers against sons and husbands against wives.

That would turn brothers against sisters. Would Kate and Todd someday have to take up arms against one another?

He couldn’t let that happen. That was why he had done everything he had done. The good and the bad, the righteous and the misdirected. It had all been for that one belief—that somehow, some way, the children of this brave new world had to find a way to live together.

And if he used this instead of sharing it, he could help make that happen. Change the system from within.

Cooper looked up and out, at the velvety darkness of the Washington night. Low-bellied clouds shaded purple with light reflected off marble and monuments, off the machinery of government. Off a city that was supposed to stand for something.

From between massive columns, Abraham Lincoln stared out with a troubled expression. The bloodiest war in American history had happened on his watch, under his command. Could the country survive a second civil war?

He glanced at the clock on his d-pad. Time to go.

Truth or power?

Cooper thought of his children.

Then he pressed send, set the datapad on the bench, and left it there.

Maybe the world would burn. But if truth was all it took to start the fire, maybe it needed to.

Regardless, his part in this war was over.

Five minutes later, a cab dropped him in Shaw, on a quiet block of small row houses. Founded out of freed slave encampments, the neighborhood had once been the Harlem of DC—both the good Harlem and the bad Harlem—but in the last decades, gentrification had mixed things up, white professionals edging out blue-collar blacks. For good or bad, everything changed.

Cooper paid the driver and got out in front of a tidy Victorian. The ground floor windows were bright, and he could see shapes moving inside. Quinn was leaning against his car, spinning an unlit cigarette. “You made it.”

“Yeah. Took the scenic route.”

“And Peters?”

“His route was scenic, too. But a whole lot faster.”

“Been waiting to say that?”

“Little bit. My family?”

“Inside. I’ve been out here the last hour, haven’t seen any signs of trouble.”

“Shannon? You said she was hurt.”

“Yeah, a nasty hit to the side of the head. Her ear’s all bloody, but she’s okay.” Quinn smiled. “She’s pretty pissed off about it, actually. I think the girl really believed she was invisible.”

“She’s damn close.”

“That she is. Speaking of which.” Quinn reached into his pocket, pulled out a stamp drive similar to the other one. “The security footage from 900. All cameras from half an hour before we arrived through departure. I wiped the local drives before I left. We’re invisible too.”

“You’re a goddamn wonder, Bobby.”

“Don’t you forget it.” His partner put the cigarette between his lips, then took it out again. “So what do you think? Will the agency cop to what happened?”

“I doubt it. I’m sure some public relations bright boy is working on the cover story now.”

“‘Director Drew Peters, infuriated by modern aesthetics, in protest shot up a graphic design company before hurling himself off the roof.’”

“Something like that.” Motion caught his eye. The front door opening, and two figures stepping out. “We’re safe here?”

“The house belongs to a friend of a friend, no connection.” Quinn followed his gaze, saw Shannon and Natalie on the porch. The two women were talking, but even from here Cooper could read the stiffness in their postures, the awkwardness between them.
Ex-wife and new…whatever she is.

Quinn seemed to see the same. “Yikes. That looks awkward. Better go before the knives come out.”

“Yeah.” He started up the walk, turned back. “Bobby? Thanks. I owe you one.”

“Nah,” Quinn said, and smiled. “You owe me a lot more than one.”

Cooper laughed.

On the porch, Natalie tensed to see him. He could read her thoughts, same as ever. Could see the happiness in her, the relief that he was safe, and the anger over what she’d been put through in the last six months. Shannon had gauze on her ear and blood on her shirt. Her usually fluid posture was rigid.

“Hey,” he said, looking from one of them to the other.

“Are we safe?” Natalie asked.

“Yes.”

“It’s over?”

“Yes.”

“You’re coming back to us?”

“Yes,” he said, and saw Shannon stiffen further. “I guess I don’t have to introduce you two?”

“No,” Natalie said. “Shannon took care of that. She’s amazing.”

“I know.” He let his eyes linger on the fine bones of her face. “You both are. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

He didn’t really know what to say after that, and apparently neither of them did either. Natalie crossed her arms. Shannon shifted her weight from one foot to the other. After a moment, she said, “Well. I’ll get out of here, let you be with your family.” She held out a hand to Natalie. “It was nice to meet you.”

Natalie looked at her, and at her outstretched hand. Then she stepped past it and wrapped her arms around the other woman. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you.”

Shannon nodded, returned the embrace a little awkwardly. “Yeah. Your children are beautiful.”