"Evening, sir."

"Hey, Matt. I told you, it"s Cooper."

The man smiled, looked down at the ID Cooper held, then back up at his face. His partner shone the flashlight into the backseat of the car, the fingers of his right hand resting lightly on the grip of his weapon. "h.e.l.l of a night, huh?"

"Yeah."

The flashlight spearing through his rear windows snapped off. The guard glanced over the car roof, then said, "Have a good one, sir."

Cooper nodded, rolled the window up, and pulled through the gate.

To a casual eye, the road might have seemed designed for aesthetic reasons, winding as it did around nothing in particular. But the design concealed the protective measures. The curves limited speed, reducing the chance a car bomb could reach the complex. The manicured grounds a.s.sured excellent sight lines for sniper towers not quite hidden by cl.u.s.ters of very precisely pruned trees. Half a dozen times the steady hum of his tires hiccupped as he rolled over retracted spike strips. From the parking lot, Cooper could just make out the tips of the antiaircraft cl.u.s.ters mounted on the roof of the building.

h.e.l.l of a long way from the beginning. Had it really been seven years ago that he"d followed Drew Peters into the old paper plant? Cooper could still taste that faded fart stink, could see the slanting shafts of sunlight through high factory windows. The building had been shuttered for a decade, cheap, clean s.p.a.ce hidden back in a Virginia industrial park. The director had led the way, followed by Cooper and eighteen others, all handpicked, all nervous, and all trying not to show it. Twenty highly skilled individuals who comprised the newest division of the DAR, the razor tip of a unique spear. Equitable Services. "The believers," Peters had called them.

And for eighteen months, belief was about all they had. They worked on card tables in that drafty warehouse. Funding was so tight that there"d been a couple of months when they"d gone without pay. After the first terminations, the justice department launched an investigation to shut them down. Half the believers quit. Drew Peters remained steadfast, but circles began to form beneath his eyes. There were rumors of a pending congressional subcommittee, of a public excoriation. What they were doing was extreme, a privilege never granted to an agency-the right to hunt and execute civilians. Peters had a.s.sured them that he had support at the highest levels, that what they did was outside the traditional legal system. But if he was wrong, they"d face jail and possibly the death penalty.

Then an abnorm terrorist named John Smith walked into the Monocle, a Capitol Hill restaurant, and butchered seventy-three people, among them a US senator and six children. Suddenly, Drew Peters"s vision didn"t seem so extreme. Within a year, the paper plant hummed with activity; within two, Equitable Services had earned a reputation as the most prestigious subgroup of the DAR.

The rain had downshifted to a drizzle as Cooper parked and jogged to the front door. The internal security measures were just as stringent: a two-stage entrance, each requiring an ID scan and a video capture, a metal detector that his ID allowed him to bypa.s.s, an explosive-trace detection system that it did not, all overseen by men with body armor and automatic weapons. He went through it on autopilot, mind replaying the conversation with Quinn, running the angles. Wondering if it was possible that Alex and Bryan Vasquez really did work for John Smith. Wondering what it would mean if they did.

The vast portion of the department was given over to the a.n.a.lysis side of the job, which employed thousands of scientists and bureaucrats. They funded research and explored theory and advised politicians. They designed and redesigned and forever refined the Treffert-Down Scale, the test administered to children at age eight. They maintained the files on tier-one and tier-two gifted, tracking and collating every piece of data in the system from medical records to credit history. They facilitated budgets and logistics and questions of jurisdiction. It was work done in cubicles and conference rooms, over the phone and the net, and the offices looked pretty much like any corporate headquarters.

Equitable Services, not so much.

The command center was dominated by a wall-size tri-d map of the United States. Actions and interventions were highlighted across the country. a.n.a.lysts constantly fed data into the system, tracking the movements of targets. Cooper paused to scan the board, taking in the shifting colors, green to yellow to orange: the Unrest Index, a visual representation of the mood of the country that aggregated everything from frequency of graffiti tags to information on tapped phone lines, from protest marches to target terminations, mixed it all up and laid it over the map like weather patterns. A red pinpoint in San Antonio marked yesterday"s takedown of Alex Vasquez. Not a terribly public action, but even so, the people in the bar, on the street, they"d been affected. No matter how smoothly you tossed a stone into water, there were always ripples.

Alongside the tri-d, monitors and digital crawls ran news from every major source. There was a low hum of m.u.f.fled phone conversation; direct lines ran to the Pentagon, the FBI, the NSA, and the White House. The air had a faintly ionized taste, like biting a fork.

The command center was the hub of the wheel, with hallways spoking off. He ran his ID through a reader and yanked open a heavy door. The clerk glanced up from behind a desk, his expression changing from boredom to sycophancy as he recognized Cooper. "h.e.l.lo, sir. What can I-"

"d.i.c.kinson. Which interview room?"

"He"s in four, along with his suspect."

"My suspect." Cooper unclipped the holster from his belt, dropped it on the man"s desk.

"Yes, sir. But..."

"Yes?"

"Well, Agent d.i.c.kinson asked not to be disturbed."

"I"ll be sure to apologize." Cooper walked down the hall, shoes squeaking on the polished tile floor. He pa.s.sed wooden doors with- d.i.c.kinson knows Alex Vasquez is my case. He"s risking a beat down for meddling above his pay grade. Possible reasons: One: Bryan Vasquez turned up in a separate investigation. Unlikely.

Two: d.i.c.kinson heard about the John Smith connection and is risking p.i.s.sing me off for a chance to catch the big fish.

Three: d.i.c.kinson is trying to find evidence that I mishandled Vasquez.

Four: Both two and three. a.s.shole.

-reinforced gla.s.s windows centered in them. Two of the first three were occupied by nervous men and women sitting at plain tables under bright light. There was a rumor-a joke? Hard to tell at the DAR-that the fluorescent bulbs were the result of a multimillion-dollar program specially engineered to offer the most hopeless light possible. Cooper didn"t know about that, but they did make everyone look two-weeks dead. Even Roger d.i.c.kinson, who had the kind of strong-jawed good looks of quarterbacks in football movies.

The heavy door of interview room four m.u.f.fled the shouting within, rendering the words indistinct. But through the window Cooper could see d.i.c.kinson leaning over the table, one hand planted knuckles down, the other up and pointing, inches from the face of a man with the same cheekbones and brow line as Alex Vasquez. d.i.c.kinson was stabbing the air with his finger, jamming it back and forth as if he were pushing a b.u.t.ton.

Using the shouting as cover, Cooper gently opened the door and slipped inside, catching it with one hand as it closed and easing it shut.

"-had better come clean with me, do you hear? Because this isn"t some speeding ticket. It"s not an eight ball of blow. You"re looking at terrorism charges, my friend. I will vanish you. Just," d.i.c.kinson straightened, held his hands out in front of him and stared at them in mock bewilderment, "where"d he go? Wasn"t there a guy here a minute ago? Some twist lover? Poof, he"s gone, no one knows where, never seen again." He leaned forward again. "Do you hear me?"

"I hear you," Cooper said.

The agent whirled, one hand blurring to his empty holster. Man, he"s fast. When he saw Cooper, he looked briefly sheepish, but that faded quickly, buried by naked dislike. "I"m in the middle of something."

"Yeah? What?" Cooper spared a glance at Bryan Vasquez, saw no sign he"d try something stupid, so turned his attention back to d.i.c.kinson. "What exactly are you in the middle of? Which case? Who"s the target?"

d.i.c.kinson gave a wolfish smile. "Just following a lead. Never know where it"s going to go." The other agent squared up to him. "Until I get there."

Cooper flashed to a schoolyard brawl, one of a hundred. Military brats were always the new kids in town, the outsiders. They always had to fight for their place. But being an abnorm in a world that had only just begun to acknowledge the phenomenon took it to a different level. Seemed like every time he landed in a different school some bigger kid wanted to play Pound the Freak.

One time he"d tried to submit, see if that made things easier. His father had just been posted to Fort Irwin, a couple of hours outside Los Angeles. Cooper was twelve at the time, and the bully was fifteen, a big-toothed kid with red hair. Red seemed no more dangerous than any other bully, so Cooper decided to let him get a few hits in. Maybe if the kid got to show off for his posse, exert his male dominance, then he"d move on with no real damage done.

It might have worked if Cooper had been a normal kid, one in a line of victims. But he was different. And difference, as he learned that day, inspired a particular kind of savagery.

His algebra teacher had found in him a bathroom stall, curled at the base of a toilet, the porcelain bowl drenched with his blood. His eyes had been swollen shut, nose broken, t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es bruised, two fingers crushed. The kicks he"d taken on the ground cost him his spleen.

Dad had asked who"d done it, and so had the doctors and the teacher who found him, but Cooper never said a word. He just gritted his teeth and bore up for the three months it took to heal.

Then he went looking for the bully and his posse. And that time, Cooper didn"t submit.

"Something on your mind, Roger?" He met the man"s posture and gaze. The ritual was stupid and primitive, and he didn"t enjoy it, but it was a dance that needed dancing. "Something you want to say?"

"I said it." d.i.c.kinson didn"t blink or flinch. "Want to let me work?"

He"s not a coward. An insubordinate bigot with boundless ambition, but at least not a coward. So what do you say, Coop? How far do you want to take this?

"Gentlemen." The voice behind them was cotton padding over hardened steel. It snapped the schoolyard moment like a twig. Cooper and d.i.c.kinson turned as one.

With his conservative suit, rimless gla.s.ses, and impeccable shave, Drew Peters looked like a clerk or a pediatrician, not a man who routinely ordered the murder of American citizens. "Join me in the hall."

The moment the heavy wooden door slammed shut, Peters turned. "What was that?" His voice quiet and firm.

Cooper said, "Agent d.i.c.kinson and I were just conferring about the best way to handle Bryan Vasquez."

"I see." Peters looked back and forth. "Perhaps that kind of discussion should be had in private?"

"Yes, sir," d.i.c.kinson said. Cooper nodded.

"And how is it, Agent d.i.c.kinson, that you happen to be interviewing Vasquez at all?"

"My team discovered that the files on Bryan Vasquez had been altered. The current file lists him as a loser with no last-known address. But the original file showed he lived and worked in DC."

"Someone hacked our system?" For the first time, Peters sounded genuinely annoyed.

"Yes, sir. Either that, or..." d.i.c.kinson shrugged.

"Or?"

"Well, it could have been done by someone inside the agency."

Cooper laughed. "You think I was covering for Bryan Vasquez? All us twists hang out together on Friday nights?"

d.i.c.kinson shot him a glare. "I"m just pointing out that it would have been easy to alter the files from inside the department. Under the circ.u.mstances, I thought it best to detain Vasquez immediately. Since Agent Cooper wasn"t present, I began the interview myself."

"Very proactive," Peters said dryly. He turned to Cooper. "Take over as primary."

d.i.c.kinson said, "But, sir-"

"Vasquez is his target, not yours."

"Yes, but-"

The director c.o.c.ked one eyebrow, and d.i.c.kinson swallowed whatever he had been about to say. After a moment, Peters said, "Grab a coffee."

d.i.c.kinson hesitated, then said, "Yes, sir," and started away. To Cooper"s eyes, the tension and fury radiating from every muscle made the man seem almost wreathed in flame.

Cooper said, "He"s a problem."

"I don"t think so. He"s a good agent, almost as good as you. And he"s hungry."

"Hunger I appreciate. It"s running a one-man witch hunt that I don"t like."

"The man who burns a witch-does he do it because he likes seeing people on fire, or because he believes he"s fighting the devil?"

"Does it matter?"

"Enormously. Both men are doing a terrible thing. But the first is entertaining himself, while the second is protecting the world." The director took off his gla.s.ses and polished them with a handkerchief. "You and d.i.c.kinson are a lot alike. You"re both true believers."

"The only thing d.i.c.kinson believes is that I"m in his way. You can"t honestly think that someone inside the department altered those files."

Peters waved the idea away as he put his gla.s.ses back on. "I don"t doubt Alex Vasquez had the skill to hack our systems."

"And d.i.c.kinson knows that. But he"s throwing accusations anyway."

"Of course. And I"m sure he does want your job. More than that, he probably genuinely doubts you. Remember, many people haven"t really accepted that abnorms aren"t the enemy. Oh, they"ll hold forth on it at a c.o.c.ktail party, how it"s not norms versus abnorms, it"s civilization versus anarchy. But in their hearts..."

"I"m a big boy, Drew. I don"t need Roger d.i.c.kinson"s love. There are plenty of people here who don"t like me. I"m an abnorm hunting abnorms, and that makes people nervous."

"It"s not just that. It"s also the power you have. Everyone else at Equitable Services operates within much stricter lat.i.tudes than you. Know why that is?"

"I"ve been here since the beginning. And my record is better."

"No, son," the director said gently. "It"s because I trust you."

Cooper opened his mouth, closed it. After a moment, he nodded. "Thanks."

"You"ve earned it. Now. Can you and d.i.c.kinson cooperate on the interview?"

"Sure. Of course." He had a flash of d.i.c.kinson leaning over the table, red-faced and yelling. "Though I guess I"ll be playing good cop."

"In that case," Peters deadpanned, "G.o.d help Bryan Vasquez."

CHAPTER FOUR.

"What"s the attack?"

"I already told you, I don"t know." Vasquez"s voice was at once exhausted, frightened, and eager to please. "All I know is that there"s going to be one."

"Yeah, so you keep saying." d.i.c.kinson tapped his fingers on the metal table. "Thing is, you"re not giving me any reason to believe you."

They"d been at it half an hour, and Cooper had spent most of that time letting d.i.c.kinson run through the preliminaries. Interrogation was a dance, and while the early steps were important, they weren"t delicate, so he"d used the time to size up Bryan Vasquez, to note his tells and ticks, to read the energy coming off him. One of the peculiarities of his gift was that he sometimes saw people almost as colors. Not literally-he didn"t have optical manifestations-but connotatively. The combined effect of a hundred subtle muscle movements-the level of dissonance between what someone was sharing versus what they held back-took on shades in his mind the way hot soup tasted red or a forest smelled green. Natalie was the cornflower blue of a clear winter morning, honest and cool. Director Peters was the heather gray of an expensive suit.

In Cooper"s mind, Bryan Vasquez was an awkward orange, simmering with tension, angry but unfocused, withholding but not doing it well.

"Haven"t you read a history book? This is a revolution. It"s set up in discrete cells so that we can"t betray one another. I can"t tell you what the attack will be because I don"t know. He set it up that way on purpose."

""He" being John Smith," d.i.c.kinson said.

"Yeah."

"You spoke to him?"

"Alex did."

Cooper said, "Personally?"

"No." The hesitation was almost imperceptible. "Over the phone."

You lying little s.h.i.t. Your sister met with John Smith personally. No wonder she went off the roof. But what he said was, "How do you know she was telling you the truth?"

"She"s my sister."