Marcus Sakey - Brilliance

“There will be no going back. None. You succeed or you die.”

“I know.”

“Even a chance to get rid of John Smith is worth a gamble. If we don’t, he may well tip this country into outright civil war.” Peters looked away and tapped his fingers lightly on his desk. The news channels were playing footage of the explosion, and reflected in his rimless glasses, the Exchange fell again and again.

Finally, he said, “Last chance, son. Are you sure you want to do this?”

“Yes. I’ll kill John Smith for you.” Cooper set his glass on the desk and leaned forward. “But there’s one condition.”

Natalie’s house.

A tantalizing hint of silhouette flickered across one of the curtains. The lights were on, and the windows glowed buttery warm. Del Ray was too much part of the city for the sky to be truly black, but the queasy purple of light pollution was lonelier than night. It made those windows, and the life within them, all the more attractive.

Cooper stared out of the windshield. Took a deep breath, blew it out. There was an emptiness in his stomach, a hollowness he hadn’t felt in years. A childish sort of yearning pain, the way he’d felt when he was twelve and all the rewards he’d ascribed to adulthood—love, freedom, certainty—seemed a million years away. The emptiness of the morning bed after a glittering dream of girls and adventure.

Now that things were in motion, he wanted more than anything to stop it all. To beg the director to call it off. It was too much. The costs were too high.

But then he remembered what this was really about, and he put childish fantasy away.

He climbed out of the Charger—something else he’d have to abandon soon, his beloved car and its even more beloved license-to-speed transponder—and crossed the street. The night air nipped but didn’t bite. Everything smelled clean. He was sore and tired, but he tried to record every detail, to move with heightened awareness. It would be a long time before he could walk this path again.

At the front window, he paused just out of the spill of light. The curtains were parted a couple of inches, and through them he could see his children. Todd was staging an elaborate action-figure battle, the pantheons all mixed up, armored knights fighting alongside World War II soldiers and space monsters. The tip of his tongue protruded from the corner of his mouth as he mounted a robot on a horse. Kate sat on the sofa with a picture book in her lap, turning the pages backward and talking softly to herself. Through the open archway he could see Natalie in the kitchen, washing dishes. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and her hips swayed as she scrubbed, semidancing to music he couldn’t hear. The quiet peace of the scene, the warmth and safety and domesticity, was a jagged knife through his belly. Cooper closed his eyes. You’ve already chosen sides.

He took out his phone and dialed. Through the window he saw his ex-wife dry her hands on a towel and pull her phone from her pocket. “Nick. Are you okay? I called you a bunch of times and left messages—”

“I know. I’m okay. But I need to talk to you.”

Even at this distance, he could see her stiffen. “Is it about Kate?”

“No. Yes. Sort of. Listen, I’m outside. Can you come out?”

“You’re outside? Why didn’t you knock?”

“We need to talk first. Before the kids know I’m here.”

“Okay. Give me a minute.”

Cooper pocketed his phone. Took one last look through the window, felt his stomach slip and his heart squeeze, and then stepped away. He moved over to the lone tree, a maple down to a last handful of leaves. Quick flash of memory, the tree as it had been when he and Natalie had bought the house, a runty little thing held in place by wires.

Natalie came out a few minutes later. She paused on the step, screening her eyes from the porch light, then spotted him leaning. The subtle shifts of expression on her face might have barely registered with a stranger, but each emotion was as distinct to him as if the words had been projected on her forehead. Happiness that he was alive. Guarded concern about the way he’d asked to meet her. Fear of what he had to say about Kate. A quickly overcome desire to run back inside and slam the door. “Hey,” she said.

“Hey.”

She tucked her hands in her pocket and looked him in the face. Knowing him well enough to recognize that he had something to say, and waiting for him to start. That cool, levelheaded forthrightness that he had always loved. A siren sounded nearby, and it quickened his heart. He glanced at his watch. Tick-tock.

“Am I keeping you?”

“No, I—” He took a breath. “I have to tell you something.” He glanced at her, at the yard, at the window. Had that been motion in the curtain?

“For Christ’s sake, spit it out.”

“I’m going to be going away for a while.”

“‘A while’? What does that mean?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe a long time.”

“Something for your job.”

“Yes.”

“Something to do with today.”

“Yes. I was there. Manhattan.”

“My God, are you—”

“I’m fine,” he said, then shook his head. “No, that’s not true. I’m pissed and I’m frustrated and I’m hurting. I was trying to stop it, Nat. I almost did stop it. But I didn’t, not quite, and all those people…”

“Did you try as hard as you could?”

“Yeah. I think so. Yeah.”

“Then it’s not your fault. Nick, what is this? What’s going on?” A miniscule widening of her eyes flashed her fear up at him.

“The explosion today. It was John Smith.”

“You can’t know that yet. Maybe it was—”

“It was John Smith. The worst terrorist attack on America in history, and it was an abnorm who did it.”

“But…that’s going to…things are going to…my God, it’s going to get worse. They’re going to come after abnorms. Really come after you.”

“Yes.” He stepped forward and took her hands in his. “So I’m going after him. John Smith. Not the same as before. Something different.”

“What?”

“The only way to get close is if he thinks I’m on his side. So I’m going to be. I’m going to leave the agency and go on the run.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The bombing. They’re going to blame it on me.”

She stared at him. He could practically hear her mind working. “Wait, no, it doesn’t make sense. He’ll know. John Smith, he’ll know you weren’t in on it.”

“Right. But he’ll also know that all of the DAR thinks I was. That I’m on the run, and that I’m being chased. That the agency I’ve served for years, the one I’ve killed for, has betrayed me. That’s enough to make someone start thinking differently. And what a coup for him if I came over to his side! Think how much I could help him. Not only what I can do, but what I know.”

“But for that to work—”

“Yeah. They’re going to have to chase me. Really, truly chase me. I’ll be designated a target. No one but Drew Peters will know the truth. Everyone will think I really went over.”

“No!” Natalie yanked her hands from his. “No, are you crazy? They’ll kill you.”

“Only if they catch me.” He tried a grin, aborted it quickly. “It’s dangerous, I know, but I can do it. And it gives us a chance to get—”

“No. Take it back. Go to the director right now and tell him you changed your mind.”

“I can’t do that, Nat.”

“Why not? Don’t you understand? You have children . I hate John Smith as much as you do, but if I had the choice between him being dead or Kate and Todd having a father, I wouldn’t hesitate.”