"Did you help her code the virus?"

Vasquez looked stunned.

"We know about it, Bryan. We know she was working on a virus to incapacitate the guidance of military aircraft." He leaned into the table. "Were you the one who was going to execute it?"

"No." His voice came out weak, and he started again. "No. I helped with the technical specs. Alex knows everything there is to know about computers. But airplanes," he laughed, "I'm not sure she'd know how to buckle her seatbelt. But the virus needed to be released inside military firewalls, at root level. It would take someone with clearance way, way higher than mine."

"Who?"

"I don't know." His eyes were steady, his pulse elevated but no higher than it had been. He was telling the truth. Cooper said, "So how would it work?"

"I'm supposed to deliver it to someone the day after tomorrow."

"Who?"

"I don't know. I just show up and he'll approach me."

"How do you know it's a man?"

"That's what Alex said."

"Where?"

Bryan Vasquez crossed his arms. "You think I'm an idiot? I won't tell you for nothing. I don't even know for sure that you have Alex."

d.i.c.kinson leaned in, his face hard. "Do you have any idea the world of s.h.i.t you're in? I wasn't kidding about vanishing you." He turned to Cooper. "Was I?"

"No," Cooper said, watching for the reaction. Saw it, the bob of the Adam's apple, a bead of sweat on the cheekbone. But Bryan held himself together, said, "I'm not the only one in trouble. You are, too."

"How do you figure?" d.i.c.kinson with that wolfish grin again, the dangerous one.

"Because whatever the attack is, it's coming soon, and it's big. Big enough that what we were doing was only a corollary to it. Do you understand?" Bryan leaned in. "Alex and I were crippling the ability of the military to respond to the real attack. So you tell me, who's in a world of s.h.i.t?"

Cooper thought back to his conversation on the plane with Bobby Quinn, how Quinn had said there was a lot of chatter, that everyone was keyed up. Equitable Services routinely monitored phone and digital communications on a national basis. If an attack of significant scale was planned, it would be preceded by all kinds of coded communication. Cooper saw Alex Vasquez again, just before she jumped off the building. The turn of her head, the golden glint of her pendant. The way she tucked her hands in her pockets.

"I don't get it," d.i.c.kinson said. "You're normal. Why help her?"

Bryan looked as if he'd bitten something foul. "That's like asking why a white man would march with Martin Luther King. I'm helping because it's the right thing to do. Gifteds are people. They're our children, our brothers and sisters, our neighbors. You want to label them and track them and exploit them. And those you can't control, you kill. That's why."

Cooper kept his face bland, but his mind was racing. He was getting a read on Vasquez. Helping his sister was only part of the agenda. He also thought he was David, taking on Goliath. The undiscovered hero with the potential for immortality. It was precisely the kind of personality a revolutionary leader would exploit. Could he really be just one level of contact away from John Smith?

The idea was staggering.

Seventy-three people dead at the Monocle alone. Hundreds at his orders since then, and G.o.d knows how many to come. The most dangerous terrorist in the country, and this man might lead you to him.

d.i.c.kinson let the silence linger just long enough for Vasquez's righteousness to cool. "That's nice. It's kind of moving, even." His tone was metered. "Thing is, you aren't marching beside Dr. King, a.s.shole. You're making planes fall out of the sky."

Vasquez looked away. Finally he murmured, "She's my sister."

The fluorescent lights hummed. Cooper weighed a play in his mind, turning it over. Decided to try for it. "Bryan, here's the thing. Thus far, you aren't really guilty of much. But your sister is in serious trouble. She'll go to prison for the rest of her life for that virus. That's if she's lucky."

"What?" Vasquez straightened. "No. She didn't execute it. Legally, you can't charge her just for planning-"

"It's a terrorist attack against the military," Cooper said, "by an abnorm. Trust me when I say that we can, and we will."

Bryan Vasquez opened his mouth, closed it. "What would I have to do?"

"Lead us to the meeting."

"That's all?"

Cooper nodded. "a.s.suming your contact shows, of course. If he doesn't, or if you warn him, deal's off."

"And in return-"

"I'll personally guarantee that we won't charge your sister."

d.i.c.kinson's head jerked sideways to stare at Cooper.

"That's not good enough," Vasquez said. "I want it in writing."

"Fine."

"Cooper, are you-"

"Be quiet, Roger." He locked eyes with the other agent, saw the man wrestling with himself, remembering that Peters had named him primary, weighing that against a deal to free a known terrorist. Saw d.i.c.kinson wondering if it was a twist thing, if he was showing sympathy to one of his own kind.

Vasquez looked from one to the other, then said, "And I want to see her."

"No."

"How do I even know that you have her?"

"I'll prove it," Cooper said. "But you're not going to see her until after. And if you mess with me, you'll never see her again."

Orange hate radiated in waves off Bryan Vasquez's face. Cooper could see him trying to decide if he was the kind of man who would jump a table and attack a government agent. See him knowing that he wasn't that man, that he never had been, and that fury didn't change facts. Finally, Vasquez steepled his hands in front of his face and blew a long exhale into his palms. "Okay."

"Good. We'll be back in a minute with your doc.u.ment."

The interview rooms were kept stuffy on purpose-warm, thick air made people sleepy, which led to slips-and the air-conditioning in the hallway felt great. He waited till he heard the door of the interview room click shut before he turned around.

"Are you out of your mind?" d.i.c.kinson's eyes were bugged. "Letting a terrorist-"

"Get that doc.u.ment drafted," Cooper said. "Make it simple and clear. If Bryan does what we want, we won't charge his sister, period."

"I don't work for you."

"You do now. You got proactive, remember?" Cooper stretched, popped his neck. Tired. "And when you're done with that, go downstairs and get a necklace from Alex Vasquez's personal effects. It's gold, a songbird. Bring that back up for Bryan, to prove we have his sister."

d.i.c.kinson looked confused. "Downstairs?"

"Yeah. In the morgue." He turned and started to walk away, then spun back. "And Roger, make sure there's no blood on it, would you?"

PIERS MORGAN:.

My guest tonight is David Dobroski, author of Looking Over Our Shoulders: The Crisis of Normalcy in the Age of Brilliants. David, thank you for coming.

DAVID DOBROSKI:.

My pleasure.

PIERS MORGAN:.

There have been no shortage of books about the gifted and what they mean. But yours frames things differently.

DAVID DOBROSKI:.

To me, it's a generational issue. A generation is born, it matures, it comes into power, and eventually it pa.s.ses that power on to the next. That's the order of things. And yet it's been disrupted. People fixate on technological advances, or the New Canaan Holdfast in Wyoming, but what it comes down to is far simpler-the natural order of things has changed. And my generation is the one facing that.

PIERS MORGAN:.

But doesn't every generation fear the one after them? Doesn't every generation believe the world is, if you'll pardon the expression, going to h.e.l.l in a handbasket?

DAVID DOBROSKI:.

Yes, that's perfectly natural.

PIERS MORGAN:.

So what's the difference?

DAVID DOBROSKI:.

The difference is we never had our time. We never got to shine. I'm thirty-three, and I'm already obsolete.

CHAPTER FIVE.

"You let him think his sister is alive?" Bobby Quinn smiled over the lip of his coffee. "You, my friend, are a bad, bad person."

"Whatever. I don't disagree with what he said about abnorm rights, but blowing s.h.i.t up isn't the way to fix it. He and his sister would have killed hundreds of soldiers, and I'm supposed to be weepy about lying to him?" Cooper shrugged. "Not feeling it."

Last night's rain had given way to one of those pale, chilly DC days. A patchwork of clouds pressed down on the city, shading the daylight a tarnished silver. The wind was cold, but Cooper finally had a coat on. That and the half-dozen hours of sleep he'd s.n.a.t.c.hed had done wonders for his mood.

12th and G, Northwest. Bland office buildings loomed on all four corners, the windows reflecting back the cold sky. Between them was a public square of concrete and stone. Escalators ran up from the open mouth of Metro Center Station, vomiting men and women in business attire, all of them checking watches and talking on cell phones. According to Bryan Vasquez, all he was supposed to do was show up and stand on the corner. His mysterious contact would do the rest.

"It's a mess," Quinn said. "High visibility, multiple escape options, way too many civilians."

"And whoever is meeting Vasquez could watch from any one of these buildings." Cooper leaned back, spun in a slow circle. "Perfect position to make sure he's not being followed."

"It could be a team, too. Spotters in the buildings, maybe security on the ground. An extraction crew. Decoys. Plus, we won't know who we're looking for until they make contact. Tactically, they have every advantage."

"Can we do it?"

"Sure." Quinn smiled. "We're gas men."

"Never liked that nickname."

"You know where it's from, right? Victorian era, the streetlights used to have to be extinguished by hand. The people that did it they called-"

"Yeah, I know, professor. My point is, doesn't it seem a tad bloodthirsty?"

"Well, we terminate brilliants. We're lifeguards at the gene pool."

"So that's a no."

"That's a no."

"May the lord forgive you your wicked ways." Cooper made the sign of the cross. "All right, you're my planner. How do you want to set it up?"

"Teams there," his partner gestured with the coffee cup, "and there. Put 'em in a FedEx truck and a phone company van. Plus a couple of agents dressed as civilians on the street. Women, preferably. If the bad guys are amateurs, they'll be less likely to suspect women."

"Are Luisa and Valerie back?"

"This afternoon, commercial flight. Luisa wanted to know, and I quote, 'whose n.u.t.s.a.c.k she needs to gargle' to score a seat on the jet next time."

"Woman has a way with words."

"She's a poet." A bus pulled up to the corner, the brakes loud. Quinn gestured at it. "Check it."

The side of the bus had been tagged with graffiti. Letters six-feet high, orange and purple. I AM JOHN SMITH.

"Are you kidding me?" Cooper shook his head.

"Been seeing that all over. Other night I was at a bar, somebody had put that on the wall above the urinal. And somebody else had added, 'AND I AM PEEING ON MY SHOES.'"

Cooper laughed. "When do we get the teams in place?"

"We can get the phone company van here today, have the team sleep in it. The FedEx we'll roll up half an hour before the meet. We'll stuff it with packages, get an agent running in and out of the building. We should plant a tracker on Vasquez."

"Two."