“For now.” Cooper realized how hard he was squeezing the phone and forced his fingers to relax.
“Good. First of all, by ‘you guys,’ are you referring to agents of the Department of Analysis and Response? Because you might want to remember that you are one.”
“I’m—”
“Second, that was your fault.”
“What?”
“You were spotted. What were you thinking? To pull that stunt on the El and then, that very same night, just walk down the street?”
“What are you talking about?” Replaying the night back in his head, the cool air, the Chinatown neon. He’d been wired, alert to any hint of recognition, had caught none. “No one saw me.”
“No. But Roger Dickinson ordered the entire Echelon II network tasked to randomly scanning the video feed from security feeds across the city. More than ten thousand of them. An ATM camera caught you and Ms. Azzi walking side by side through Chinatown. Once he had that, Dickinson pulled footage from every camera for half a mile. Putting it all together took a while, which is the only reason you weren’t caught.”
Cooper opened his mouth, closed it.
“Your rules, Nick. Your fault.” Peters didn’t raise his voice, and somehow that made the words hit all the harder. “You laid out the parameters in the first place, remember? You told me that the only way your plan would work was if we went all the way.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“It doesn’t matter if you meant it. All the way is all the way.”
Part of him wanted to scream, to bang the phone on the desk, to stand up and grip the chair and hurl it through the plate glass window into the Wyoming sun. But afterward nothing would have changed. Temper tantrums weren’t going to make the difference.
“Roger Dickinson, huh?” Cooper switched the phone again, wiped sweat from one palm.
“He’s certainly risen to the challenge.” Peters gave a brief, clipped laugh. “You may have been right about him wanting your job.”
“I should have anticipated the cameras,” Cooper said. “Damn. Damn, damn, damn.”
“You’re playing against thousands of people. I’d say you’re doing very well.”
“What happened to Lee Chen and his family? Never mind. I know the answer. Can you help them?”
“Help them?”
“They don’t know anything. Truly. He’s just a school friend of Shannon’s.”
“They harbored two of the most wanted terrorists in America. They got caught. They’ll face the penalty. They have to.”
“Drew, listen to me. The girl, Alice. She’s eight years old.”
There was a long pause. Finally Peters sighed. “All right. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you.”
“Now. What’s your status?”
“I’m.” He took a breath, straightened his back. The anger that had seized him, it was easy to understand. Over the last few days, he’d seen the lie in a lot of the truths he’d held self-evident. But none of that mattered, not right now. “I’m calling because I’ve got my opportunity. I’m going after the target.” A minor risk; even if Smith had a world-class intelligence network, it couldn’t extend to the desk phone of a car dealership. “He dies tonight.”
“So you’ve really done it,” Peters said.
“I’m about to.”
“You have your exit strategy worked out?”
“I’ll jump off that bridge when I come to it. That’s why I’m calling. Just in case. I wanted you to know that I’m living up to our deal.” Cooper paused. “And I wanted to hear that you are, too.”
“Of course, son.” Peters’s voice rarely betrayed emotion, but Cooper could hear the hurt in it. “No matter what happens, I’ll do that. You’re a hero.”
“Kate—”