Brilliance. Part 21

"Only straights call him that."

"Why would he speak for me?"

"I don't know. You'd have to convince him. But he's a better chance than a sc.u.mbag like Bobby Z. And if you really want a fresh start, well." She shrugged. "He might understand that."

"I just knock on his door?"

"No. You'd need help."

He sat up, spun his legs to the floor. The radiator kicked on, clicking and banging.

"What would you get out of it?"

"Until I square things with my people, which I need to do face-to-face, I can't use any of my old resources. Not my credit, my IDs, my contacts. And meanwhile, your old friends are going to be chasing me as hard as they're chasing you."

Cooper pretended to think it over. "So I get you into Wyoming, and you get me to Erik Epstein."

"Yeah."

"And how do I know you won't bail the moment we're in New Canaan?"

She shrugged. "How do I know you won't sell me out to the DAR to get them off your back?"

"You're saying we trust each other."

"G.o.d, no," she deadpanned. "I'm saying we make it worth each other's while."

Cooper chuckled. "All right. Deal." He held out his hand, and after a flicker of hesitation, she shook it.

"Deal," Shannon said. "So. First thing."

"What's that?"

"We need to get some drugs."

CHAPTER TWENTY.

"Neurodicin," he'd said, when she explained what she was looking for. "It's a semisynthetic opiate derivative."

"I've never heard of it."

"On the street they call it Shadow or Nada. It's academy-developed newtech, supposed to replace fentanyl. Instead of numbing you, it messes with your memory, so that you forget the pain as it's happening."

"How's it do that?"

"How should I know? Ask the twist who designed it. Anyway, if you want something special for the discerning junkie, Shadow's the trick."

"Where do we get it?"

Which was how they'd found themselves walking north when five o'clock hit and the streets filled with commuters. Before leaving the hotel he'd changed his shirt, and at a tourist shop he bought a Cubs hat and a pair of oversize movie-star sungla.s.ses for her. As disguises went, they were pretty rudimentary, but their real camouflage was the crowd. They stuck to Michigan Avenue: lanes of cabs and buses on one side, towering skysc.r.a.pers on the other, and between, a rush of people.

"This woman, she's a friend of yours?"

Shannon nodded. "And she and John have been friends a long time. Since they were in the academy."

So strange to hear him referred to that way. Not John Smith, the terrorist leader; John, the friend from a long time ago. "If she's a friend, why do you need this stuff?"

"You don't show up at somebody's house without a bottle of wine. It's not polite."

"This is some wine."

"Well, it's some favor I'm asking. It's not like I can phone John."

"How does that work?"

She glanced over sharply. "You digging for operational details, Agent Cooper?"

"No, I just-" He shrugged. "I don't understand how he leads people if they can't find him."

"This isn't like the army. There's no chain of command, no rear echelon. No orders."

"What, he just asks nicely?"

"Yes. He's a very nice guy. Anyway, Samantha won't know where he is, but she'll be able to get word to him."

"I hope you're right. This is a big risk," Cooper said. Thinking, Lady, I will help you steal all the drugs you like if it gets me closer to your boss.

If anything, the crowd grew denser as they started down the Magnificent Mile. Tourists joined the mix, and shoppers loaded with packages. Crowds were always frustrating to Cooper, but it was worse with Shannon. The concept of a straight line was utterly foreign to her. She slipped and slid and quicksilvered along, finding holes where there weren't any, sometimes stopping dead for no reason he could see. It was unmistakably graceful-Shannon moved the way water flowed-but not easy to walk beside.

He was glad when they reached the gray-and-gla.s.s bulk of Northwestern Memorial Hospital. The front entrance was about as inviting as a hospital could be, which was to say not very. The cafeteria was on the second floor. It had fake plants and fake wood trim and smelled like soup and disinfectant. Cooper bought himself coffee, and they took a table in a corner near the door.

"Did you see the cameras on the way in?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Cameras are a problem. I can't shift if I can't see the people looking for me."

"You can't what?"

"Shift." For a moment she looked girlishly self-conscious. "It's what I call it. What I do."

"Shift. I like that." The coffee was better than he expected, dark and strong. "The cameras shouldn't be a problem. They'll record us, but I doubt anyone is monitoring the live feed. This isn't a black-ops facility; mostly the security is to foil junkies and keep hospital staff out of the candy jar."

Shannon leaned back, began to run her hands through her hair, letting it fan out between her fingers. "There are two doctors at the corner table."

He glanced at their reflection in a framed poster. "No."

"Why not?"

"White coats and expensive pens. They're administrators. Maybe they have the access to open the dispensary, maybe not."

Cooper took in the room. About fifty people, with more coming in. There were a few scattered patients. A handful of nurses laughed at one table, but they presented the same problem as the administrators. And residents were out.

"There," he said.

Still toying with her hair, she followed his gaze to a middle-aged man in pale-blue scrubs crumpling his napkin and tossing it atop the remnants of a cheeseburger. "How do you know?"

"The hair on his arms thins out at the forearms, and the skin is pinker. That means he washes his hands all the time, washes them hard. Plus, his nails are cut to nothing. Taken together, that tells me he's in surgery a lot. A surgeon will have the access we need. And look at the circles under his eyes. Exhaustion. Probably working a twenty-four-hour shift. Makes him an easier target."

"You got all that from a quick glance across the room?"

"Yeah, I know, weird way to look at the world."

"No," she said. "No, it was hot."

"Right." He felt oddly self-conscious and gave an aborted laugh.

Shannon leaned back, her expression quizzical. "You need to spend more time with your own kind, Cooper. The straights have you thinking twisted." Before he could reply, she rose and started walking in one smooth motion. It wasn't that she was fast, so much as that she was calculated; as if for every motion she applied the exact force needed. It was like watching a cat jump to a table, instinctively determining the precise force and angle needed to land without an inch or calorie wasted.

The surgeon had risen and was walking his tray over to a garbage bin. Shannon circled the table of nurses, slipped between two sad-faced women, cut back across the floor, and then stepped out of nowhere and into the man's path. They collided. He almost lost the tray, the plate and cup slipping to the edge, then managed to get it under control as he apologized, stepping back and blushing. Shannon shook her head, a.s.sured him it was her fault, laughed, patted him on the bicep, and came back carrying the man's ID badge.

Cooper smiled into his coffee cup.

They finalized their plan in the elevator. As he understood hospitals, small stores of the most commonly needed medications were kept on every floor. But Shadow wasn't standard stuff. It would be kept in a single location, well secured and carefully monitored.

After they split up, Cooper paused at the corner and counted ten Mississippis. Then he put on a confused expression and started forward.

The dispensary was part storeroom, part pharmacy. A counter opened to a window behind which a man and a woman counted pills. Cooper went to the counter. "Excuse me, can you guys help?" Saying you guys to be sure he had the attention of both of them, and leaning on the counter, drawing their eyes away from the back. "I am so freaking lost. This place is huge! It's like a maze. I don't know how you find anything here."

"What are you looking for?"

"I mean, my G.o.d. I'm trying to visit my niece. I started out just the way they said. Turned right, went straight, turned left. I found the elevators okay, but that was the last time I knew where I was. I feel like I've been wandering for weeks. Pretty soon I'm going to have to eat my shoe for provisions."

"Well, tell me where you're trying to go and I'll help you."

Over the pharmacist's shoulder, Cooper saw Shannon cross between a row of shelves. She winked at him. He smiled before he could catch himself, then went with it, said, "Sure, sure. That's just what the last guy said. I think he must have had a bet with someone. See how long he could keep a guy wandering. You're probably in on it."

The tolerant expression was starting to slip. "Sir, I can't help you if you won't tell me where-"

"I told you, I'm trying to visit my niece."

"Yes, but where is she?"

Cooper did a double take. "If I knew that, I wouldn't have to ask, would I? You don't listen too good."

"No, what department. ICU, pediatrics..."

"Right." He slapped his forehead. "Sorry, sometimes I get to talking, and G.o.dd.a.m.n if by the time I reach the end of a sentence I haven't forgotten the beginning. It's like the trail of tears. Only, you know, without the dead Indians."

The pharmacist stared at him. It wouldn't have taken Cooper's gift to read his thoughts: This guy is a moron.

Not far behind it, though, was, Maybe I should call security. It was a hospital, after all. There were legitimately crazy people here.

"She had her tonsils out."

"Okay. Recovery." The man gave him directions, speaking slowly and carefully. Cooper nodded, thanked him, and then went back the way he'd come. He barely kept himself from laughing but let the smile spread.

Until he turned the corner and saw a security guard hurrying toward him, along with the surgeon from the cafeteria. s.h.i.t. They'd hoped the doctor might not need his badge so quickly, and that even if he did, he'd waste time retracing his steps. Instead, it appeared he had gone straight to security- The fact that they're here means they checked the computer system. They know his badge was just used to access the dispensary.

They won't waste time talking to the pharmacist. They'll go for the door.

Which is the only exit. She'll be trapped.

-which left Cooper with no choice. He'd do the security guard first, a quick combination, solar plexus-kidney-kidney, then the doctor. Sprint back to the dispensary, hop the counter, take out the pharmacists if they got in the way. Get the Neurodicin, get Shannon, get out.

Someone tapped his shoulder, and he whirled.

The Girl Who Walks Through Walls stood behind him. "Hi."

"You. But." He turned, saw the guard and doctor hurrying past. Neither glanced at them, focused on their goal. "Oh. Huh."

"What?"

"It's just, I thought you were still in there. I was going to...I was about to-"

"Rescue me?"

"Uhh..."

"I'm not a cat up a tree. I can handle myself." Shannon held up an orange plastic bottle, shook it so the pills rattled. "Let's go."

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE.