Marcus Sakey - Brilliance

Light on his feet, joints supple. The hall ran a handful of feet and then one wall fell away, a railing with cables instead of wooden spindles. Light from below, and the television louder. A great room, connected by a spiral staircase. Three doors: one open, he could see tile on the floor, a guest bathroom. Cooper eased down the hall, setting each step with care. The next door, also open. He squatted low, glanced around the edge. Guest bedroom, dark. The last door was closed, a trickle of light glowing at the bottom. He moved to it, stood outside. No noise he could hear. He gave it a twenty count with breath held, then another thirty breathing. Nothing.

He put his left hand on the knob. Moved to the side of the door. Gently spun the handle, weapon up and sweeping the room as it was revealed inch by inch.

Bookcases, a leather couch, soft and expensive looking. Two chairs facing it. A lamp and an ashtray on a table beside the couch. A door in the far wall, closed, no light from below. A gas fireplace halfway up the wall, the flames dancing; twin flatscreens mounted above it.

Both monitors showing the same video.

Cooper slid into the room, weapon up, eyes forward as he closed the door behind him, and then moved to look at the flatscreens.

The video was taken from a high angle, and showed men walking through a restaurant. Something squeezed inside him as he recognized it. The footage from the massacre at the Monocle on Capitol Hill. He’d seen it a thousand times, knew every frame. What was—

Wait. The flatscreens weren’t showing the exact same video.

At a glance, yes. The motion was the same, the angle, the footage of the bar and the patrons, the judge with his young mistress, the family from Indiana. But in the leftmost monitor, there were four men walking through the crowd. One in the lead, and three behind.

In the right monitor, it was only the three behind, all wearing trench coats.

In the left, John Smith wound his way through the crowd, his soldiers following behind.

In the right, the soldiers walked alone.

In the left, John Smith walked to the back booth where Senator Max “Hammer” Hemner sat.

In the right, the three men approached his booth, but at an odd, indeterminate distance. As though there was a ghost in front of them.

In the left, Hammer Hemner smiled at John Smith.

In the right, Hammer Hemner smiled at three men who had approached his table.

In the left, John Smith raised a pistol and shot the senator in the head.

In the right, a hole just appeared in the man’s head, as if fired from elsewhere in the restaurant.

In both monitors, the three bodyguards shrugged out of their coats, revealing cross-slung Heckler & Koch tactical submachine guns. Each took the time to extend the retractable metal stock and brace the weapon against his shoulder. The red light of an exit sign fell like blood against their backs.

In both monitors, they began to fire. Their shots were precise and clustered. There was no spraying, no wide sweeps.

A vein thumped in Cooper’s neck, and his hands were slick with sweat.

In both monitors, the video froze. Then it scrubbed back ten seconds.

In the left, John Smith raised a pistol and shot the senator in the head.

In the right, a hole just appeared in the man’s head, as if fired from elsewhere in the restaurant.

In both monitors, the three bodyguards shrugged out of their coats, revealing cross-slung Heckler & Koch tactical submachine guns. Each took the time to extend the retractable metal stock and brace the weapon against his shoulder. The red light of an exit sign fell like blood against their backs.

The video froze, and scrubbed backward.

Cooper had the sudden sense he was being watched, whirled, gun up. Nothing. Turned back to the monitor in time to see the action again.

To watch the three shrug out of their coats, the red light of an exit sign falling like blood across their backs. Their weapons rising.

Pause. Scrub back.

The three shrug out of their coats, the red light of an exit sign falling like blood—

There’s something wrong.

Not just that John Smith isn’t in one of these.

Something else.

You were meant to see this. He knows you’re here. This is for you.

But there’s something else wrong.

—across their backs.

Pause. Scrub back.

The three shrug out of their coats, the red light of an exit sign falling like blood across their backs.

Pause. Scrub back.

The three shrug out of their coats, the red light of an exit sign falling like blood across their backs.

It was the same. The red light was the same in both videos.

But in the one on the left, the one he knew, John Smith was between them and the exit sign. His body should have blocked some of the light. Not enough to throw an obvious shadow, but still, the red shouldn’t have reached them. Certainly not the one nearest him.

But if that was true…

Cooper stared, feeling as if the ground had slipped away beneath him, as if he had turned to fog and could slip insubstantial through all that he thought solid.

Then he heard the door open behind him.

He spun, reflexes taking over, the gun coming up, right arm straight, left cradling the butt of the gun, both eyes open and staring down the barrel at the man who stood in the doorway. His features were balanced and even, strong jaw, good eyelashes. The kind of face a woman might find handsome rather than hot, the kind that belonged to a golf pro or a trial lawyer.

“Hello, Cooper,” John Smith said. “I’m not John Smith.”

Cooper stared down the barrel. Instinct had framed the sights square on the man’s chest. John Smith stared back at him, one hand on the doorknob, the knuckles white. His pupils were wide and his pulse throbbed in his throat.

Pull the trigger.

From behind and to one side, Cooper heard an unmistakable sound. What his old partner Quinn had once described as the best sound in the world, provided you were the one who made it.

The racking of a shotgun.

Smith made the tiniest head nod. Without lowering the pistol, Cooper risked a fast glance.

Somehow, Shannon stood in the corner of the room. She looked small behind the pump-action, but had it braced perfectly, the butt against one delicate shoulder. The barrel had been cut down to almost nothing; it was more scattergun than shotgun. Even at this distance, with the right load—and it would be, he had no doubt—there was nothing he could do to avoid it. Shannon’s gaze was steady and her finger had pressure on the trigger.

How did she do that?

“I don’t have your gift,” Smith said. “But I’m pretty sure what you’re thinking. You’re figuring that there is no way she can fire before you do. And you’re right. You can probably get at least one. Odds are decent you kill me. Of course, if you do, it’s certain that she’ll kill you.”

The world had gone wobbly and fast, everything blurring and blending. He felt like his life had become the video loop, pause, scrub back, pause, scrub back, nothing certain, everything changeable. The man was locked in his sights. Smith was nervous, that was clear. He might hope that Cooper wouldn’t do it, but he wasn’t certain.

Everything in Cooper screamed to pull the trigger, to take the shot and drop John Smith and be done with it. To end this before…what?

Smith spoke as if finishing Cooper’s thought. “The thing is, if you do, you won’t find out what happens next. You won’t learn the truth. Though you’ve already figured out the first bit. Haven’t you?”

One gentle squeeze of the trigger, then another as swiftly as possible. Hollow-point ammunition tearing through soft flesh, lead splintering to shivering razor blades, wide gaping wounds. John Smith dead. Mission accomplished.