Marcus Sakey - Brilliance

“The Amalfi Coast of Italy,” she said. “That’s where we honeymooned. We rented a room on the side of a cliff, with a balcony where we drank wine. Every day we swam in the ocean.”

“I remember. You looked dynamite in that suit.”

“The red one?” She looked at him through dark lashes. “You always liked me in red.”

“It’s good with your body,” he said, the words spilling out before he could stop them. The memory of last night flashed back, the soft whisper of her shirt sliding off, and the image he’d invented. He felt a little heat in his forehead, glanced over at her.

She wore a half smile. “My body, huh?”

“Your skin, I mean. You said your dad is Lebanese—what’s your mom?”

“French. All burgundy lips and flowing hair. They were quite the couple. He was a businessman, a very sharp dresser with a pencil moustache. The two of them were like something out of an RKO flick.”

“Were?”

“Yes,” she said simply.

“I’m sorry.”

“Thank you.” She set her shoulders, and he read the active change in topic there, marked it to the pattern that she was becoming in his mind.

He was just about to ask where they lived when he saw the Escalade. Traffic had been getting steadily worse as they’d drawn closer to Chinatown, which he’d chalked up to tourists and the lunch crowd. But the truck—

Late model Escalade, black, tinted windows.

Parked half in, half out of the street. Like it stopped suddenly. Right at the intersection of Cermak and Archer, two of the arteries of Chinatown.

Engine running.

Government plates.

Shit.

—sent a warning tingle down his spine. Cooper sat bolt upright, fingers tightening on the wheel. Shannon picked up the move, followed his eyes, said, “No.”

He glanced in the rearview, half expecting to see black SUVs bearing down on them, but there was nothing but a long line of cars. If it was a trap, the other side hadn’t swung shut yet. A U-turn? Conspicuous, a last resort. It could just be a coincidence, a DAR crash vehicle down here for something else, with a different target.

“Lee and Lisa,” Shannon said, and jerked as if she’d been electrocuted. “No, no, no.”

“We don’t know—”

“The traffic,” she said. “Damn, I should have seen it. Stop the car.”

“Wait, Shannon, we can’t—”

“Stop the car!”

He saw it then—the traffic hadn’t just been slowing. It had been creeping to a stop. This wasn’t a matter of a crowded street or a backed-up stoplight. Something was blocking the flow of cars. It could be an accident. A collision, with police on the scene.

Yeah. And I suppose the DAR is here to write tickets.

Cooper bumped the car up over a curb into a small strip mall. Shannon was out the door before the wheels had finished rolling. He shut off the ignition and followed her, the two of them sprinting through the parking lot.

In the distance, a sound, loud and mixed. Not one source, but hundreds overlapping. His first thought was that it was a parade, some sort of festival, but he knew that was wishful thinking. He’d seen SUVs just like that a thousand times, had called them in a hundred times.

The DAR’s private paramilitary police force, a blend of riot cop and SWAT team. They wore black body armor and helmets with visors that completely hid their features. The visors functioned as a heads-up display, enhancing targeting, displaying map coordinates, and allowing night vision. The department called the units tactical response teams.

The public called them the faceless.

Ahead of him, Shannon dodged past the end of the strip mall, leaped a short fence, and sprinted for Archer. Cooper poured it on, hit the fence without breaking stride, and pushed himself over it. She was halfway across the street, dodging through the snarled traffic. A small green space surrounded an apartment building, and she blitzed through the middle of it. He lost sight of her as she rounded the building, leaning into the run, his breath coming fast with the sudden transition to motion.

Half a block to the north, another black Escalade was parked at the entrance to a bank. The doors were open, and he spotted three faceless in defensive positions. Bulky with armor and with blank glass for a head, they resembled predatory insects. Each man held a submachine gun with a folding stock. Shannon was racing south now, right down the middle of the street. Car horns added their screams to the roar of the crowd, closer with every step. Cooper caught up to her just as she made an abrupt turn. He followed.

And saw what was making the noise. The sidewalk and alley were jammed with people, most Chinese, all facing the other direction. They yelled and shook their fists. The group was densely packed and pushing forward without making any progress. Over their heads, Cooper saw a dozen faceless with riot shields cordoning off an alley.

The alley where Lee’s social club was located.

No.

Shannon had hit the crowd already, slipped into it like an arrow into the ocean, her gift showing holes and vectors. Cooper followed as best he could, shoving his way through. The noise was unbelievable, a fury of anger and fear in a foreign language. As he watched, a man at the front scooped up a stone and hurled it. The rock bounced harmlessly off a shield. The commando stepped forward and snapped the shield into the guy hard enough that Cooper could almost hear the crunch of the man’s nose shattering. He dropped, blood pouring, and the crowd roared louder. Cooper looked around frantically, taking in the low buildings, the fire escapes, the alley farther south, trying to find an opening he knew they couldn’t risk.

DAR Tactical Response Team Protocol 43: In the event of an extraction from a dense and hostile environment, first establish a perimeter operating zone. Limit force application unless targets possess a significant strategic advantage and a demonstrated intent to employ that advantage.

Translation: unarmed people on the ground just get hit, but if anybody climbs on a building, shoot them.

Shannon had made it halfway through the crowd before stalling out. Even her gift couldn’t find a way through the mob. The faceless held the mouth of the alley shoulder to shoulder, with Chinatown’s furious residents layered twenty deep against them. Cooper grabbed a man in front of him and yanked, tangling the guy’s foot as he went. The man staggered back into the crowd, and Cooper slid in behind Shannon.

“We need to go,” he shouted over the roar of the crowd. Right now the primary team would be searching Lee’s gambling den and the apartment above. They’d have thermal scans and dogs, and it wouldn’t take them long to realize that he and Shannon weren’t there. “They’ll search the crowd for us.”

“They’re not here for us,” Shannon said. Her cheeks had paled.

“What are you—” He followed her eyes to a prisoner transport van the size of a delivery truck parked halfway down, the back doors winged open. Riot-geared troopers guarded the rear of the truck, weapons at the ready. Another group was shoving two shackled figures down the alley, a balding man and a woman with chic hair, both of them yelling and fighting.

Lee and Lisa.

Cooper’s stomach seized. As he watched, a commando buried the butt of his gun in Lee’s belly. Lisa screamed, tried to get to her husband. Another grabbed her from behind, stuffed a black hood over her head, and pushed her into the waiting wagon. Seconds later Lee was forced in beside her. Something in Cooper’s chest raged and shrieked, railed against the cage of his ribs. He pushed forward, surging against the crowd, feeling more than hearing his yells. He gained six inches, lost them. It was like being caught in a thundering wave; he was rolled and tossed but made little progress. Shannon made even less, her gift useless here. Overhead there was the rotor of a chopper, and sirens from somewhere far away. Glass shattered, a window or a bottle. That triggered a reaction; the faceless locked shields and braced themselves. From behind them, tossed over their head in a lazy arc, came a smoking canister. The tear gas hit someone in the crowd, bounced downward; billows of white streamed up. A second and third canister followed. People began to gag and retch, the motion of the crowd reversing, sweeping Cooper and Shannon along with it.