Marcus Sakey - Brilliance

The Girl Who Walks Through Walls pointed, alarm in her eyes. Cooper narrowed his, risked a quick glance over his shoulder. Passengers leaving the train, men and women, tourists and businesspeople, a flight attendant, a couple of students…and two men in suits.

Roger Dickinson said, “Damn it. I was sure he’d double back.”

“You want to check the train again, sir?” Bobby Quinn had a dryly insubordinate tone, but it was the “sir” that caught Cooper’s attention. Peters must have promoted the man, probably given him Cooper’s old position. That was bad news. Whatever else he might be, Roger Dickinson was very good at his job.

“No, I don’t want to check the train again, Bobby. You know what I want? To know you’re on the right side.”

“I told you, I don’t believe Coop’s a terrorist.”

“Yeah? Even though he blew up the Exchange?”

“He didn’t blow up—”

“Right. He just went there seconds before it blew up, then vanished and started robbing DAR labs. And that woman he was holding hands with, she’s the one who killed Bryan Vasquez. So tell me again. How is Cooper one of the good guys here?”

“I don’t know.” Quinn’s voice was dogged. “But I still don’t believe he’s with Smith.”

“Get it through your head, Bobby. Your girlfriend, he’s a—”

“Doors are closing. Please hold on.” There was a loud bing-bong , and then the train started moving. Cooper barely had time to grab the lip of the car. A strange and awful heaviness tightened his stomach. He’d been cocky there, had almost stepped right in front of his old colleagues. He’d seen how fast Dickinson was. And Cooper was unarmed. If I’d jumped down, he’d have killed me.

When he turned to look at her, The Girl Who Walks Through Walls met his gaze briefly. Then she looked away.

It was a far cry from an executive suite at the Continental.

Bland and generic and mildly soul-killing, the Howard Johnson was on the unfashionable end of State Street. The afternoon light through the curtains was funereal. Behind him, the Girl Who Walks Through Walls said, “Now what?”

“We wait.” He moved to the edge of the bed, sat down.

She stepped in as though uncertain whether to stay. Ran a finger along the desk. “Nice digs.”

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t expecting company.” Cooper began to unlace his shoes. “This is just a place to ride out the storm. Once they realize we slipped past them, they’ll make a last-ditch effort to catch us while we’re close. They’ll fan out across the Loop. They’ll co-opt the CPD video camera system. They’ll get cops to do door-to-doors, popping into every bar and restaurant, looking in the restrooms. They’ll check hotels for new arrivals.”

“Last I looked, this was a hotel.”

“I booked it a week ago. Under the name Al Ginsberg.”

She said, “‘I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked…’” She parted the curtains, looked out at the brick wall opposite, and the street below. “Never really understood the poem, but I like the way the words taste.”

“Yeah.” Cooper pulled the shoe off, shook it until the flashbang remote fell out into his hand. “Me too. Why’d you do it?”

“Huh?” She turned.

“The Exchange. Why blow it up? You killed eleven hundred people.”

“No,” she said. “I tried to tell you then. I was there to stop it.”

“Bullshit.”

“It was supposed to be empty. We’d called earlier that day, announced we had bombs in the building, that we would trigger them if they started searching. I was there to make sure it didn’t blow, not with all those people there.”

“Bang-up job. I noticed on the news how it didn’t explode.”

She crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Destroying it was supposed to be a symbol. The Exchange was built to counter us, to exclude us. We wanted to show that they can’t build a future that doesn’t include us. How would killing people have made that point?”

Cooper looked up at her. The width of her pupils, the calm in her fingers, the steady pulse at her neck, none of it suggested she was lying. But this woman could find a way to hide in an airplane bathroom. Controlling her body is part of that.

“Anyway, who are you to talk? You’re the killer. Not me.”

“Yeah? What about Bryan Vasquez?”

Her lips drew into a tight line. “He betrayed the cause.”

“The defense of every terrorist masquerading as a freedom fighter.”

“Said the storm trooper who protects the state by murdering its citizens.”

He started to reply, caught himself. You’ve got three hours to convince her that she should help you. If she vanishes, you lose. He tied his shoe. His fingers were clumsy with post-adrenaline shakes, and his ribs hurt from where he’d hit the balcony. Cooper stood, went to the minibar fridge beneath the television. It opened with a squeal. He pulled out two miniature bottles of Jack Daniels for himself. “You want a drink?” He rifled through. “They’ve got red wine, cheap champagne—”

“Vodka.”

“There’s orange juice, I could make a screwdriver.”

“Just vodka and ice.”

“You want to watch me pour it? Murdering storm trooper and all?”

She stared at him for a long moment, and then one corner of her lips quirked up into a smile. “Gimme the drink already.”

The world’s tiniest ice tray was in the freezer. He cracked it, shook the cubes into a plastic cup, splashed Smirnoff over them. He passed it to her, then poured his bourbon. The soothing warmth went right to work on his aches and shakes.

“So how long do we need to hang out here?”

“A couple of days.”

“A couple of days? ”

“I’ve got some canned soup in the closet, we’ll eat it cold. But I was only planning for one, so we’ll have to ration our provisions.”

Her eyes went so wide they seemed to bulge. He cracked, smiled, said, “I’m kidding. Just till the evening rush, so we can get lost in the crowd.”

The Girl Who Walks Through Walls laughed. It wasn’t a throaty or sultry thing, a laugh as a pose; it was an honest sound of amusement. Cooper said, “That’s better.”

“Than what?”

“Than calling each other names. Which reminds me—”

“My name is Shannon.”

“Nick Cooper.”

“I’ve heard,” she said dryly. “So what, we just walk out of here and that’s that?”

“Were you thinking we’d pick flower arrangements, send out invitations?”

“Thing is, Nick—”

“Cooper.”

“—you’ve put me in a bit of a bind.”

“How’s that?”

“You’re not dead.”

“Pardon?”