Marcus Sakey: Brilliance

He put a hand on her shoulder. “Please.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Meet Peters. I’ll buy you the time you need.” Something dark and heavy slipped inside of him. “Get my family out of here.”

He wanted to say more, to both of them, but there wasn’t time. He just headed for the door. Shannon followed a moment later.

They moved swiftly down the hall to the elevator corridor and paused just before it.

In his ear, Quinn said, “One man by the elevator. The other is in the lobby behind the desk, pretending to be security.”

Shannon said, “Is the elevator guard looking this way?”

“No.”

She slid around the corner.

Cooper stood still, his body raging. The clock in his head counted down. His thoughts whirled, Natalie and Kate and Todd and men with guns and Drew Peters and President Walker.

This ends tonight. One way or the other.

“Shannon is in position. Go in two, one, now.”

Cooper stepped around the edge of the corner. Shannon had shifted in where the guard wasn’t looking, on the far side, and as Cooper started forward she coughed and pressed the call button. The guard whirled, one hand flying to his coat, and Cooper could read his thoughts, see him wondering how the hell this girl had gotten here without him noticing. Shannon smiled, just an office worker waiting for the elevator. The guard studied her, first relaxing and then stiffening when he heard Cooper’s footsteps. He started to turn.

Too late.

Cooper grabbed his head in both hands and wrenched savagely, put all the anger into it, and the man’s neck snapped and his body went limp and dead.

The elevator dinged. Cooper dragged the body on, pulling by the man’s lolling head. Shannon pushed the buttons for five and ten.

“You two are scary together,” Quinn said in both their ears. “Looks like the lobby guard didn’t hear a thing. Good hunting.”

The doors closed, and the elevator began to rise. Shannon said, “Nick, look—”

He cut her off. “You can do this.”

“I just—”

“Listen,” he said and then kissed her. She was briefly startled but returned the kiss, the elevator pinging off floors as their tongues danced. A kiss for luck and a cry for help and as clear a statement as he could think to make, and then the elevator stopped. He put one hand on her cheek. “I trust you.”

She straightened her shoulders. “Buy me the time.”

“Whatever it costs.”

Shannon stepped off the elevator and turned right. Cooper pressed the door close button, come on, come on , and then the elevator was in motion again.

Nothing to do now but wait for the future to arrive.

Six, seven, eight, nine, ten.

The doors slid open. Cooper took a deep breath and walked through them.

The hallway was corporate chic, gray carpet with a subtle pattern, beige walls, recessed lighting, a backlit glass display board listing the company names. Quinn said, “Turn right, third office on your left.”

Cooper started down the hall. “Any sign of backup?”

“Negative. Local DAR frequencies are quiet, and the only phone I’ve monitored out of the building is on the third floor. A woman explaining to her husband that she’ll be home late.”

The office doors were heavy glass with bright metal handles, business names etched in the glass. He passed a lobbyist’s office and a real estate firm, rounded the corner, saw the third. Hingepoint Productions, the first word spelled out lowercase and boxed in a design. A faint double-chime pinged as he stepped through the door.

Quinn had said this was a graphic design firm, and the décor looked it. The near walls were painted a risky shade of orange that worked, and in place of paintings, skateboard decks were bolted to the wall, each a miniature work of art, robots and monsters, graffiti and skylines.

The floor plan had shown cubicles, but now he saw they were half-cubes, coming up maybe four feet. The ceiling was exposed, conduit and air-conditioning hanging from the girders. Quinn said, “I’ve unlocked all offices on the fifth floor. Shannon has checked the first, no luck. She’s moving on.”

Cooper moved down the aisle and stepped into the office proper. He could see clear across it in all directions. The studio took up a corner of the building, the exterior walls glass from floor to ceiling. With the overhead lights on, they were dark mirrors, bouncing the space back upon itself. In the precise center of the office there was a long conference table surrounded by chairs.

Beside it stood Drew Peters and Roger Dickinson.

Cooper strolled forward. Calm and steady. Taking his time; the longer he could stall, the longer Shannon would have.

Dickinson looked the same as ever. Handsome, good posture, an alert readiness. His right hand was itching to jerk the pistol from his shoulder holster.

“Hello, Nick,” Peters said. For the first time, Cooper noticed that Peters had a rodent-ish look. Something in his neat bearing and small mouth, his rimless glasses. The briefcase he’d been carrying sat on the table in front of him. “Nice to see you again.”

The conference space was wide open. Cooper walked to the table. Stood opposite the two of them.

Remember, they don’t know that you know, or that you have help. If they suspect either of those things for a second, this all comes crashing down. “Where’s my family?”

“They’re nearby.”

“Not good enough.” He took a step back, eyes forward.

“I’ll prove it to you,” Peters said, “but I’ll need you to put down your gun.”

“I don’t have one.”

“Of course you do. But it’s okay. I’ll go first.” Peters reached for the briefcase, opening it slowly. The inside of the lid was a monitor, which glowed to life. The screen held white for a moment, then cut to a video feed.

Natalie sat in a leather chair at one end of a small room, Todd to her left, Kate to her right. The kids had pads of paper in front of them and appeared to be drawing. Kate, younger, was lost in it, but Natalie was leaning into Todd, trying to encourage him. Distracting them, Cooper realized, trying to keep them calm. The wall behind them was glass, the Capitol dome glowing in the distance. The two gunmen stood nearby, weapons out. One looked at the camera, the other at Natalie.

“That’s quite a woman you divorced, Nick. A wonderful mother. And your children. Beautiful.”

Cooper stared at the image, at his children, the reasons for every action he’d taken. Reason enough to set the world on fire. Natalie glanced up, directly into the monitor, as if she was staring at him.

How?

The camera, he realized. They would have set that up in front of them, and she was smart enough to know it would be for his benefit. It wasn’t “as if” she was looking at him; she was staring at him. The look in her eyes a plea. Not for her, but for Kate and Todd.

A plea, and something else. What?

“Now. Your gun. Gently, please.”

It wasn’t that Natalie’s eyes moved. They didn’t. It was that she thought about moving them, thought about flickering them to the left. That thought translated into the tiniest subdermal motion, the kind of thing he could see.

The kind of thing she knows you can see.

She’s giving you a hint.

Warmth bloomed in his chest. The women in his life were amazing.

“All I see is a conference room with the Capitol in the background,” he said. “They could be anywhere.”

“Let’s not play games, Nick. You know how far I’m willing to go. Your gun.”

In his ear, Quinn said, “Checking.”

Cooper hesitated as if thinking about it. Then, slowly, he reached around his back and took out the pistol. Dickinson tensed, a coiled spring begging to explode. Using just his thumb and forefinger, Cooper set the weapon down and pushed it to slide across the table.