Brilliance. Part 42

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN.

He might have cried, sitting in that smelly toilet stall in the s.h.i.tty mall in the heart of DC. He might have. He couldn't really say.

There seemed to be a few moments missing from his personal history. And he was having a hard time wanting them back.

What he did know was that at some point, he'd stood up, opened the stall door, and walked to the sink. Held his hands under the faucet until it finally came on, then splashed lukewarm water on his face. Again, and again. Paper-toweled dry.

Stared in the mirror. At a dead man, most likely, the father of murdered children.

But not a man who would go quietly.

Cooper tossed the towels in the trash, walked back to the payphone, inserted his last coins, and dialed another number.

Forty-five minutes later he walked into a pub called McLaren's. Oak and worn stools, coasters with the Guinness logo. A smallish crowd of post-work drinkers, mostly men, mostly watching the game. He'd been there once before, years ago, some work party of Natalie's. Cooper walked to the bar, signaled the man behind it.

"What can I getcha?"

"You guys have a back room, right?"

"Yeah. Not open now, but if you want to rent it for an event, I can get you the manager's-"

"I'll give you..." He opened his wallet and took out a handful of bills. "Three hundred and forty bucks to let me use it for an hour."

The man looked left, then right. Shrugged, folded his hand around the bills. "Right this way."

He followed the guy around the end of the bar. The bartender jangled out a ring of keys, found one, and turned the lock. "You want anything?"

"Just privacy."

"Don't mess it up, okay? I'm the one who cleans."

Cooper nodded, said, "Privacy," then pushed into the back room.

It was a smaller twin of the main room. A bar along one side, the taps unscrewed, pitchers racked, washcloth dangling. Without anyone there, it had an air of sad expectation. Cooper flipped on the lights, then sat down at the abandoned bar. He laid his datapad down, then spread his arms, put them palm first on the polished surface, and waited.

Ten minutes later, he heard the door open. Very slowly, moving only his head, he turned to look.

Bobby Quinn had on the same suit as earlier. His posture radiated fight-or-fight, and screw the other option. One hand rested on his weapon, the holster unsnapped.

"I'm not moving, Bobby. Legs crossed, hands on the bar."

Quinn glanced around the room. Didn't relax, but did step inside. He let the door click behind him, then drew the gun. Didn't point it, which was something.

"Half an hour," Cooper said. "Like I said on the phone. Then you'll understand."

His partner moved to the end of the bar. With his off hand, he reached around his back and came out with a pair of handcuffs. Slid them to Cooper. "Keep your right hand on the bar. Use your left to lock it to the rail."

"Come on, Bobby-"

The gun came up. "Do it."

Cooper sighed. He picked up the cuffs, careful to move slowly. Snapped them around his right wrist.

You do this, you're helpless. If you're wrong about Quinn, then it's all over.

He fastened the other end to the bra.s.s rail. Gave an experimental tug. A clang and a bite. "Better?"

Quinn holstered his weapon. Walked closer. His face was unreadable, too many things happening at once. "I'll give you your half hour, because I said I would. But when time is up, I'm going to call a team to bring you in."

"Like I said on the phone, if you do, I won't resist." He tried for a grin. "Much."

"You resist at all, and I'll kill you." It was a simple statement of fact, and all the more jarring for coming from Bobby Quinn, to whom sarcasm and irony were akin to oxygen. "Start talking."

Cooper took a breath. "I've been in deep cover for six months. Since March 12th, when you and I almost stopped the bombing of the Exchange. I was inside. No idea how I survived, but I woke up in a triage tent. When I could walk again, I hitched a ride with a bunch of Marines and went to see Drew Peters. I pitched him a crazy plan: I'd go rogue. Everyone would blame me for the explosion. I'd become a bad guy. Be hunted."

He talked fast, didn't waste time on embellishments, just laid out the facts. His time on the run. Building a reputation as a thief. His coming-out party on the El platform. The trip to Wyoming. Meeting Epstein.

"Why? Why do all this?"

"I told you, so that I could get to John Smith and kill him."

Quinn shook his head. "That's the goal. I asked why."

"Oh. My daughter."

"Kate?"

"She was about to be tested. She would have been sent to an academy. Peters promised to keep her out." His stomach soured. I'll take care of your family. "Everything I've done, I did for her."

"Did you find Smith?"

"Yes."

"Did you kill him?"

"No."

"Ah-so."

Cooper started to lean back, stopped when the cuff bit his wrist. He said, "You don't believe me, do you?"

"No. And in twenty minutes, I'm going to bring you in."

"Jesus, Bobby. I've been a DAR agent for the last six months. I mean, teams came after me four times. Four. And in that time, I never killed one agent. Never even hurt one, more than his pride. Why do you think that is?"

"You just killed one." Quinn's eyes hard. "In the cemetery."

"Yeah," Cooper said. "Well, I'm not an agent anymore. And once you take a look at that," he jerked his head toward the datapad, "I don't think you will be either."

"What is it?"

"Drew Peters's dirtiest secret. It's what I was picking up in the cemetery."

"I thought you were after Smith."

"So did I. Turns out, I was wrong."

Quinn wanted to pick up the datapad. Cooper could see it, could read it on him clear as morning sunlight. "Go ahead."

Bobby looked at him, and Cooper said, "Jesus, man, I'm handcuffed to the bar. What do you think I'm going to do, turn into a bat and fly away?"

A muscle twitched in Quinn's cheek, and Cooper realized his partner had been about to make a joke. He didn't, but Cooper knew the man, had sat alongside him for hours, days, years. You're getting through to him. "Okay, look, I'll do it. Okay?"

"Slowly."

Slowly, Cooper picked up his d-pad. Propped it on the rail so they both could see. Clumsy with his left hand, he activated it. Then started the video.

The same room he'd seen before, a hotel or a safe house. Matching furniture with no sense of style, walls painted putty. There was a window, and through it trees.

Director Drew Peters paced. He was younger here. The man's hair and style hadn't changed in the whole of the time Cooper had known him, but the lines on his forehead, the sagging beneath his eyes, those had deepened with time.

"When is this?" Quinn asked.

"Five years and between eight and nine months ago."

"How can you be so-"

"Watch."

On the screen, Peters walked to the table, picked up a gla.s.s of water, sipped at it. There was a knock on the door.

"Come in."

Two men in plain suits entered. The kind of men who looked like they were wearing sungla.s.ses even when they weren't. They nodded at Peters, then checked the room. Finally, one spoke into a middle distance. "We're clear, Mr. Secretary."

A man walked into the room. Average height, good smile, conservative suit.

"Hey," Quinn said. "That's-"

"Yes."

That had been Cooper's first clue as to the age of the video. It had to be at least five years old, because the man who walked through the doors was, at the time, the secretary of defense. A connected man, a savvy politician, the kind people treated respectfully not only because he knew where the bodies were buried, but because he'd put his fair share in the ground himself. Secretary Henry Walker.

Only now, his t.i.tle was different. It had been for five years. Since 2008...when he'd won his first presidential election. The first of two. Cooper had voted for him in both.

Even watching it again, knowing what was coming, how much worse things got, Cooper felt like he couldn't breathe. The president's famous March 12th speech echoed in his inner ear.

Let us face this adversity not as a divided nation, not as norm and abnorm, but as Americans. Let us work together to build a better future for our children.

A cry for tolerance, for humanity. A call to all people to work together.

A lie.

On the screen, the two men shook hands, exchanged pleasantries. Walker dismissed his security. Quinn said, "Okay, Cooper, other than the fact that I feel a little dirty watching this, what's the point?"

"I'll show you." With his left hand, he scrubbed forward to 10:36.

Walker: It's the liberal hand-wringing that drives me bats.h.i.t. Don't people understand that civil rights are a privilege? That when it comes to defending our way of life, sometimes they're a luxury we cannot afford?

Peters: The public doesn't want to believe a war is coming.

Walker: G.o.d willing, they're right. But I was always taught that G.o.d helps those who help themselves.

Peters: My feelings exactly, sir.

To 12:09: Walker: It's not that I hate the gifted. I don't. But only a fool doesn't fear them. It's a lovely sentiment to say that all men are brothers. But when your brother is better than you in every way, when he can out-plan, out-engineer, out-play you...well, it's hard to be the little brother.

Peters: Normal people need a wake-up call. They need to remember that our very way of life is at stake.

To 13:35: Peters: Sir, I understand your desire to choose your words with care. So let me be the blunt one. If we don't do something, in thirty years, normal humans will have become irrelevant. At best.

Walker: And at worst?

Peters: Slaves.

To 17:56: Walker: The thing is, there's two ways to go into a fight. You can do it wearing body armor and slinging a rifle, or you can show up in your skivvies. Not only that, but the guy who looks like he can fight rarely has to.

Peters: That's it exactly. I don't want genocide. But we need to prepare ourselves. We have the right to fight for our own survival. And this is not a war that can be fought with tanks and jets.

Walker: You've heard rumors about the congressional investigation into Equitable Services.

Peters: Yes. But that's not why- Walker: Don't soil yourself. I'm not threatening you. But I do wonder whether this plan of yours is patriotism or self-preservation.

Peters: Mr. Secretary- Walker: What's the target?

Peters: Are you sure you want to know the operational details, sir?

Walker: All right. You're right.

To 19:12: Walker: How many dead are you thinking?