The Last Policeman (30 page)

“Where’d you get the information?”

“Can’t tell you.”

“Come on, Nico.”

I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone. I’m arguing with my little sister, like we used to over the last Popsicle, or over her boosting my grandfather’s car, except this time we’re fighting about some preposterous geopolitical conspiracy.

“There is a certain level of security in place to protect this project.”

“And, just so I’m clear, you don’t really believe that it’s a shuttle to take people to the Moon.”

“Well,” she says, draws on her cigarette. “Well. Some of us do believe that.”

My mouth drops open, the full ramifications of this thing—what she’s done, what she’s doing here, why she’s apologizing—all of it only now sinking in. I look at her again, my sister, and she even looks different, a lot less like my mother than she used to. She is thinner than before, and her eyes are sunken and serious, not an ounce of baby fat to soften the hard lines of her face.

Nico, Peter, Naomi, Erik—everybody hoarding secrets, changing. Maia, from 280 million miles, having her way with us all.

“Derek was one of the saps, huh? You were on the inside, but your husband really thought we were escaping to the Moon.”

“He had to. He had to believe he had a purpose in riding his ATV onto the base, but he couldn’t know the real purpose. Too untrustworthy. Too—you know.”

“Too stupid.”

She doesn’t answer. Her face is set, her eyes gleaming now with
something familiar, something chilling, something like the aggressive religious types in Police Plaza, like the worst of the Brush Cuts, rousting their drunks for the thrill of it. All the true believers batting away the reality of all of this.

“So, the level of security you mentioned. If that had been the real facility, the place you’re looking for, I would have found him, what, in shackles?”

“No. You would have found him dead.”

Her voice is cold, brutal. I feel like I’m standing here with a stranger.

“And you knew he was going to be taking this risk when you sent him in there. He didn’t know, but you did.”

“Henry, I knew it when I married him.”

Nico looks off into the distance and smokes her cigarette, and I’m standing here shivering, not even because of what happened to Derek, not because of this crazy science-fiction madness that my sister has let herself become involved in, not even because I was unknowingly dragged into it, too. I’m shivering because this is it—when Nico takes off, tonight, we’re done—I’m never going to see her again. That’ll leave me and the dog, together, waiting.

“All I can tell you is that it was worth it.”

“How can you say that?” I’m remembering the last part of the story, too, the botched jailbreak, Derek left behind, left for dead. Expendable. A sacrifice. I pick up my bike, heave it onto my shoulder, and walk past her to the door.

“I mean—wait—do you want to know what it is we’re looking for?”

“No, thank you.”

“Because it’s worth it.”

I’m done. I’m not even angry, so much as exhausted. I’ve been biking all day. My legs hurt from my ride. I’m not sure what I’m doing tomorrow, but it’s late. The world keeps turning.

“You have to trust me,” says Nico to my back, I’m at the door now, the door is open, Houdini is at my heels. “It’s all worth it.”

I stop, and I turn and look at her.

“It’s
hope
,” she says.

“Oh,” I say. “It’s hope. Okay.”

I close the door.

THANK YOU

Dr. Tim Spahr, director of the Minor Planet Center at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

Dr. Cynthia Gardner, forensic pathologist

The Concord Police Department, especially Officers Joseph Wright and Craig Leveques

Andrew Winters, Esq.

Jeff Strelzin, New Hampshire assistant attorney general

Steve Walters at Loyola University Maryland

Binyamin Applebaum at the
New York Times

Dr. Judy Greene

David Belson at Akamai Technologies

Dr. Nora Osman and Dr. Mark Pomeranz

Jason and Jane and Doogie and Dave and Brett and Mary Ellen and Nicole and Eric and everyone else at Quirk Books

Molly Lyons and Joelle Delbourgo

Early readers Nick Tamarkin, Erik Jackson, and Laura Gutin

Michael Hyman (and Wylie the Dog)

And thanks very, very, very much to Diana and Rosalie and Isaac and Milly

* * *

Rusty Schweickart, former NASA astronaut and asteroid expert, urged me not to write this book, suggesting I take on instead the vastly more likely scenario of a sub-apocalyptic but still-devastating impact. I failed to honor this request, but I can recommend that everyone visit his work at the B612 Foundation (
www.B612Foundation.org
).

WHAT WOULD YOU DO …

 … with just six months until the
end of the world?

Author Ben H. Winters posed this question to a variety of writers, artists, and notable figures.

Visit
QuirkBooks.com/TheLastPoliceman
to:

And much more!