Brilliance. Part 2

"I started in San Antonio."

"Someone you were chasing?"

He nodded. "A woman. Programmer."

"Did you have to kill her?" Natalie looked at him steadily. She'd always been blunt, to the point that people sometimes mistook her for cold. In truth, she was one of the warmest people he had ever met. It was just that she had the honesty of someone with nothing to prove. That was part of what had drawn him to her, all those years ago. He rarely met people whose thoughts and words and actions so closely synced.

"She killed herself."

"And you feel bad."

"No," he said. "I feel fine. She was a terrorist. The computer virus she was working on could have killed hundreds-maybe thousands-of people. Crippled the military. Only thing that bugs me is..." He trailed off. "Sorry. Do you really want to know?"

She shrugged, the ripple of her trapezii graceful beneath her thin T-shirt. "I'll listen if you need."

He wanted to tell her, not because he was troubled by Vasquez's death or because he needed Natalie's benediction, but simply because it felt good to talk, to share his days with someone. But it wasn't fair anymore. They'd always love each other, but it had been three years since the divorce. "No, I'm okay." He sipped the wine. "This is good. Thanks."

"You're welcome."

The room was warm and comfortable, scented with cinnamon from a candle on the coffee table. Outside, the rain fell soft and steady. A gust of wind stirred the trees. He wouldn't stay long-they were good about boundaries-but it felt nice to sit in this sanctuary with his children asleep above him.

Until Natalie took a tiny sip of wine and then leaned forward to set the gla.s.s on the table, swinging her legs to the floor. She took a breath and folded her hands in her lap.

Ahh, s.h.i.t. "What is it?"

Nat glanced at him sideways. "You know, that used to drive me crazy. Just because you can tell I've got something on my mind doesn't mean you shouldn't shut up and wait for me to get to it."

"As I recall, there was an upside to me being able to read your body language."

"Yes, Nick. You were very good in bed. Better?"

He smiled. "What's on your mind?"

"It's Kate."

He stiffened, immediate paternal protectiveness leaping, the part that would always fill in the worst possible ending to any statement that began, It's Kate. "What is it?"

"She arranged her toys today."

It was such an innocuous statement that he almost laughed, his head full of all the sentences he'd imagined: It's Kate, she fell down and hit her head. It's Kate, the neighbor has been touching her. It's Kate, she has meningitis. "So? She likes things neat. Lots of girls do."

"I know."

"You like things neat. Look at this place." He gestured to the framed photos, dustless and aligned, to the square edges of the rug and the couch, to the basket on the coffee table that organized remote controls. "She's just trying to be like Mom."

Natalie stared at him for a long moment. "Come with me." She stood and started for the arch into the kitchen.

"Where-"

"Come on."

Reluctantly, Cooper rose, bringing the winegla.s.s. He followed her through the kitchen to the sunroom that doubled as the playroom. Three walls were gla.s.s; on the fourth Natalie had painted a mural, a scene from The Jungle Book, the big bear Baloo floating on his back in a river, Mowgli lying on his chest. She was a capable artist; she had once filled notebooks with sketches, back when they had been teenagers who thought love was a noun, a thing you could possess. Natalie flipped on the overhead light. Todd's side of the room was chaotic, the lids of toy bins open, a train under attack from a stuffed panda, an unfinished Lego creation that might one day be a castle.

Kate's side was neat as a surgery. Her toy box was closed, and the spines of her picture books looked as if they'd been aligned with a ruler. A low shelf held dolls and stuffed animals-Raggedy Ann, a brontosaurus, a plastic crocodile, a boxy fire truck, a stuffed Goofy missing an eye, a parrot, Tinkerbell, a pudgy unicorn-all in line like a Marine formation.

"I get it," he said. "It's neat."

Natalie made a short, sharp sound. "Sometimes I don't understand you, Cooper."

It was never a good sign when she called him by his last name. "What?"

"You have these amazing abilities. You can look at someone's credit card statements, what books they've read, their family photo alb.u.m, and from that know where they'll run, what they'll do. You can track terrorists across the whole country. Can you really not see this?"

"It doesn't mean anything."

"Doesn't mean-aren't you the one who says that if you want to understand how abnorms think, all you need to know is that the whole world is patterns? That all the rest of it-whether a gift is emotional or spatial or musical or mathematical-is secondary to the fact that brilliants are more tuned in to patterns than everybody else?"

"Let's just give her some time. There's a reason testing isn't mandatory till age eight."

"I don't want to get her tested, Nick. I want to deal with this. I want to figure out what she needs."

"Nat, she's four. She's imitating. It doesn't-"

"Look at her stuffed animals." Natalie walked over and pointed, but her eyes stayed on him. "They're not neat. They're alphabetical."

He'd known that, of course, had spotted it the moment the lights flickered on. But his little girl, tested and labeled? There were rumors about the academies, the things that happened there. No way would he let Kate end up in one.

"Look at the spines of her books," Natalie continued, relentless. "They're arranged by color. And in the spectrum, from red to violet."

"I don't-"

"Kate's an abnorm." Her tone was matter-of-fact, a simple statement. "You know that. Probably for longer than I have. And we have to deal with that fact."

"Maybe you're right. Maybe she is a twist-"

"Not funny-"

"-but maybe she's just a little girl whose father is one. Maybe it's not you she's imitating. Maybe it's me. Or maybe she does have a gift. What do you want to do? Test her? What if she's tier one?"

"Don't be cruel."

"But what if she is? You know that means an academy."

"Over my dead-"

"So then-"

"I'm saying that we need to deal with this. Figure out what her gift is and help her explore it. She might need help, tutoring. She can learn to control it."

"Or maybe we could leave her alone and just let her be a little girl."

Natalie squared her pelvis and put her hands on her hips. It was a pose he knew, his ex-wife digging in her heels. Before she could speak, his phone rang. Cooper gave her a what can I do? shrug and pulled the phone out. The display read QUINN-MOBILE. He hit talk, said, "Not a good time. Can this-"

"Sorry, no." Bobby Quinn's voice was all business. "Are you alone?"

"No."

"Call when you are." His friend hung up.

Cooper slipped the phone back in his pocket and rubbed at his eyes. "That was work. Something's going on. Can we talk later?"

"Saved by the bell." Natalie's eyes still had fire in them.

"I was always lucky."

"Cooper-"

"I'm not saying we can't talk about it. But I've got to go. And there's no need to decide tonight." He smiled. "The academies don't accept entrants at this hour."

"Don't joke," she said, but she wrinkled her nose, and he knew the topic was safe for the moment.

She walked him to the door, the hardwood floors creaking with each step. The wind gusted outside, the storm picking up.

"I'll tell them you came by," Natalie said.

"Thanks." He took her hands. "And don't worry about Kate. It will be okay."

"It has to be. She's our baby."

In that moment, he remembered Alex Vasquez just before she'd gone off the roof. The way the light had caught her from below, throwing her features into contrast. The determination in her pose. The way her voice had softened as she spoke.

You can't stop the future. All you can do is pick a side.

"What is it?" Natalie asked.

"Nothing. Just the weather." He smiled at her. "Thanks for the drink." He opened the front door. The rain was louder, and the wind cold. He gave his ex-wife a final wave, then jogged down the path. It was one of those soaking storms, and his shirt was plastered to his shoulders by the time he reached his car. Cooper yanked open the door and slid inside, shutting out the storm. I really need to invest in a jacket.

His phone was DAR issue, and he activated the scrambler before he dialed, then tucked it between ear and shoulder as he pulled the case from beneath the pa.s.senger seat. "Okay." The case was brushed aluminum, locked with a combination. He popped the latches. The Beretta was nestled in the clip-lock holster atop black foam. Funny, all the ways the gifted had jumped the world forward, and firearms technology remained fundamentally the same. But then, it hadn't changed all that much since the Second World War. Guns could be faster, lighter, more accurate, but a bullet was essentially a bullet. "What's going on?"

"Are you secure?"

"Sure."

"Coop-"

"The scrambler's on, and I'm sitting alone in a car in the middle of a hurricane outside my ex-wife's house. What do you want me to say?"

"Yeah, all right. Sorry to interrupt, but get here. Someone you're going to want to talk to."

"Who?"

"Bryan Vasquez."

Alex Vasquez's older brother. The burnout with no last-known address. "Stuff him in an interview room for the night. I'll get to him tomorrow."

"No can do. d.i.c.kinson is already with him."

"What? What is he doing with my target's brother?"

"I don't know. But you know how our records showed that Bryan was a loser? Turns out, not so much. He's actually a big shot at a company called Pole Star. His sister must have hacked their records, and ours. Pole Star is a defense contractor. Know what they specialize in?"

Cooper switched the phone to his other ear. "Guidance systems for military aircraft."

"You've heard of them?" Quinn sounded surprised.

"Nope."

"Then how-"

"Alex needed someone to plant her virus. They were working together?"

"Yeah," Quinn said. "Not only that. He claims they were working with John Smith directly."

"Bulls.h.i.t." Cooper picked up the Beretta, checked the load, then leaned forward and attached the holster to his belt.

"I don't know. You should see the light in this guy's eyes. And there's more." Quinn took a deep breath, and when he spoke again, his voice sounded m.u.f.fled, as though he were cupping a hand around the receiver. "Cooper, he says there's going to be an attack. A big one. Something that makes his sister's virus look tame."

The air in the car had grown cold, and Cooper's flesh goose-b.u.mped under the wet shirt. "Her virus would have killed hundreds of people."

Bobby Quinn said, "Yeah."

"Some of my best friends are normal. I mean, not that there's anything wrong with that."

-Comedian Jimmy Cannel

CHAPTER THREE.

Like most inst.i.tutions of its kind, the Department of a.n.a.lysis and Response wasn't much to look at from the street. There was a granite sign fronted by a neatly tended flowerbed, and half a dozen security gatehouses. A dense line of trees screened everything beyond.

The guards who stepped out were trim and serious looking, dressed in tactical blacks with submachine guns slung on shoulder straps. One of them circled the car, a heavy flashlight in one hand; the other moved to the driver's side window.