He’d paused, looking up. “Believe it or not, John, we’re not all pieces on your chessboard. Just arrange the plane.”
Just under three hours later he’d reached the airstrip Smith had told him about, a private field in the heart of the Holdfast, big enough to handle not only the gliders but an honest-to-God jet.
His was painted like a FedEx transport plane, flying commercial numbers. Clever; it was the aerial equivalent of a taxicab, a vehicle that could hide in plain sight. The pilot was waiting for him. “Hello, sir. I’ve got a change of clothes on board for you, and food if you’re hungry.”
“Thanks.” He’d climbed the stairs. “Get airborne and get me to DC as fast as you can.”
Fifteen minutes later he was back in civilian clothes—the sizes were perfect, of course—and the jet was racing down the runway. The pilot said it would take about four hours, longer if they had to circle when they arrived.
Which gave him four hours to figure out where Drew Peters would have hidden insurance against his sins.
Adding to the fun, DC was a risky place for Cooper. There were more cameras and more agents there than in any city in the country. If he were in Roger Dickinson’s place, if he were hunting a rogue agent whose children lived in DC, he’d make sure the city was on constant alert.
Normally even if a camera picked him up, by the time that image was found and processed, he’d have moved on. But things had changed when he talked to Peters last night. If Cooper had actually killed John Smith, he would have called the department to arrange his safe return home. And he’d considered doing that, lying to Peters, saying that Smith was dead. But what if the DAR knew otherwise? What if they intercepted a call, or saw a photo? More important, lying to Peters was equivalent to throwing his hand in with John Smith, and Cooper wasn’t ready to do that. Not until he saw the evidence. Better just to go quiet for now. The problem was that if Peters discovered him, he would assume that Cooper had been turned.
Have you? Been turned?
No. He didn’t work for Smith, and while he understood the soldier-on-the-losing-side rationale, a terrorist was still a terrorist.
But you’re definitely not a DAR agent anymore.
Which was all Peters would need to know. If the director suspected that Cooper was no longer his man, the gloves would come off. His picture would be flashed on every screen in America. John Smith had managed to hide from that, but Cooper didn’t imagine that he could. No, his best chance lay in moving fast. Get to DC, get to the video, and make his moves from there.
Four hours to figure out where a digital file that could be stored on a drive about the size of a stamp was hidden in an area of roughly 7,850 square miles.
He’d come to that number by figuring that if Peters ever needed it, he’d need it fast. No more than an hour or two from his home or office. Figure a fifty-mile radius. Pi times radius squared equaled 7,850.
Calling it a needle in a haystack was an insult to haystacks.
So think. You’ve got…three and a half hours left. And if you’re going to be playing against the entire DAR in their own backyard, it wouldn’t hurt if you could grab an hour’s sleep, too.
Obviously, the odds were better than the pure math suggested. He wasn’t going to be randomly searching the terrain. He would be patterning Drew Peters, the same way he had once patterned targets for the man.
So. What did he know?
If Smith was right—if he was telling the truth—the video was some sort of insurance policy. Something that could protect Peters if the facts about the Monocle ever came out. That narrowed the search immensely.
It wouldn’t be at DAR headquarters. Too exposed. Plus, if Peters were burned, the agency might be closed to him.