Marcus Sakey - Brilliance

If there was a worse place for a bomb to go off, Cooper couldn’t think where it would be.

“ I don’t know nothing about how to make bombs, man. I’m an electrician.” All the hard-guy attitude had vanished from Dusty Evans in the instant his friend skidded across the concrete. “ I just did what I was told. The company I work for did some of the wiring on the new Exchange. Mr. Smith had me steal a key and then use it to plant the bombs.”

“Bomb s ? More than one?”

“Five of them.”

Ahead of them two cops were walking a police barrier into place. Cooper burped the siren, pointed at his chest, then at the street beyond. The nearer cop nodded and rotated the barrier out of their way. Cooper tossed them a salute as he steered the Escalade through the gap. Every nerve in his body was screaming for speed, but in the crowd of tourists and sightseers they had to creep forward at five miles an hour. Someone banged on the back window of the truck. A blonde stopped right in front of him to pose for her pimply-faced boyfriend. Cooper laid on the horn.

1:53.

“What did they look like?”

“Like in the movies. Blocks of gray putty. They weighed about fifteen pounds.”

“Total?”

“Each.”

It had gone on like that the whole ride in, every question leading to an unhappy answer. Eventually Evans had started repeating himself. When it was obvious they’d gotten out of him all they were going to, Quinn had used a second pair of cuffs to secure his hands to his opposite ankles. It was an awkward, uncomfortable position, and the big man was bent nearly in half, weeping softly.

“Shut it,” Quinn said. He’d climbed up to the passenger seat, and when he saw Cooper looking at him, he cocked his head and took a breath, his nostrils flaring. It was a look that read, Well, we’re in it now . “We could evacuate.”

“The politicians, maybe.” Cooper rode up on the curb to pass a cop on a horse. “Not all these people.”

“Some of them. Use the cops, SWAT—”

“It’d be panic, people trampling each other. Besides, we don’t know it’s on a timer. If Smith sees everyone running, he’ll blow it early.” Ahead a row of fast-food vendors had parked right in the middle of Broadway. He grimaced, thought about plowing through the falafel truck, threw the truck into park instead. 1:56. “I’m going to have to try to stop this myself.”

“Yourself? Bullshit. I’m coming—”

“You have at least one cracked rib.”

“I can take the pain.”

“I know you can. But you’ll slow me down. Besides, all I know about disarming bombs comes from old cop shows. Unless I just pull the red wire, I’m going to need help.” He popped the magazine on the Beretta. Eight rounds left. “I need you to get me a bomb squad.”

“They’ll never make it. Not in this crowd.”

“Then get them ready to talk me through it. I’ll be on the earpiece. And call Peters, let him know what’s going on.” He took a deep breath, then opened the car door. The crowd noise enveloped him. “And, Bobby, just in case—”

“—arrange ambulances and emergency services, I know. But make sure it doesn’t come to that, okay?” The fear in his partner’s eyes wasn’t for his own safety or for Cooper’s. It ran deeper than that, and broader. Cooper recognized it because the same thoughts had been running through his head. It was a fear of what would be unleashed if he failed. A fear of the cracking of the world.

Cooper slammed the door and began to push through the crowd. 1:57.

The ceremony won’t start on time. These things never do. And John Smith likes theater. He’ll wait until every camera is watching.

But then he will blow it. Unless you stop him.

He ran, trying to move between the bodies that mobbed the street. Cooper hated crowds, felt assaulted by them. All those intentions crossing and crisscrossing, it was like trying to listen to a thousand conversations at once. But where his mind would turn the noise of a thousand conversations into gray noise he could ignore, he couldn’t tune out body language and physical cues. They came at him all at once and from every direction. All he could do was try to focus, to put his attention on the woman right in front of him and the angle of her shoulder that meant she was about to shift her bag. To the man about to speak to his friend. To the little girl who looked a lot like Kate— no, push that away, no time now to think about Kate —reaching up for her mother’s hand.

When he couldn’t find a hole, he made one, barreling through with one elbow up like the prow of a ship. Yells rose behind him, and curses. Someone shoved at his shoulder.

“Cooper.” Quinn’s voice in his ear. “Peters is trying to reach the officer in charge on the scene, but it’s madness right now.”

“No kidding.” He surged past a cluster of schoolgirls. “What about my bomb squad?”

“Scrambling now. ETA fifteen minutes.”

Fifteen minutes. Damn, damn, damn. There was a bank on the corner, and he raced through the revolving door. The lobby was sweet relief. Velvet ropes, bland colors, stale air, a manageable number of people. He sprinted across. A manager rose from his desk. The security guard yelled something. Cooper ignored it all, focused on making it to the opposite door.

And then he was on the corner of Wall and Broad, where history was about to be made, and the whole world was noise and howling chaos.

People were packed shoulder to shoulder. He winced at the tangled skein of vectors in front of him, at the collective motion of the crowd, the herd, something he could never read or understand, his talents all aimed at the individual, the person, the pattern.

Focus. There’s no time.

To the south was the magnificent façade that had once belonged to the NYSE, with its six massive columns supporting an intricate sculpture above. Beneath was a stage and podium, dignitaries milling nearby, security orbiting them like planets around a star.

He started pushing south, gently where he could, roughly where he couldn’t. Somehow he had to get to the Broad Street entrance. In a door off the lobby he would find a janitor’s hallway and a freight elevator that would take him to the basement, where he could access the wiring tunnels where Dusty Evans had placed his bombs.

Sure, Coop. Just get through the crowd, past the security, through the lobby, down to the basement, into the tunnels, and then all you have to do is figure out how to disarm five separate bombs placed at strategic structural locations.

1:59.

Body odor and thrown elbows, hairspray and curses. He pushed forward one agonizing step at a time. Everyone seemed to be yelling, even when their mouths were closed. A wave of frustration washed over him, and he fought the urge to pull his gun, fire into the air. This was pointless. It would take too long to get to the front, and even if he made it, security would be too tight. He needed a better plan. Cooper pushed over to a newspaper dispenser—quick flash of Bryan Vasquez disintegrating—and climbed up on top of it.

The Broad Street entrance was too tight. But maybe back on Wall Street? There must be side entrances. They’d be guarded too, but security would be lighter, and if his rank didn’t get him in fast enough, then he’d find another way. He scanned the crowd, planning his move, eyes falling across businesspeople in business suits, parents with cameras and weary expressions, locals here for the free theater, a homeless man shaking a Dunkin’ Donuts cup, a group of protesters holding signs, a very, very pretty girl heading west—

Holy shit.