“What?”
His partner played with an imaginary cigarette and looked away. “I couldn’t figure out why they’d put me in charge of the faceless at the cemetery. After all, Dickinson is the one with a hard-on for you. But just before Peters ordered me there, Dickinson left his office like his ass was on fire. Wouldn’t talk to anyone, just bolted out. He must have been—”
“Going to my house. To kidnap my children.”
“Yeah.” Quinn turned to look at him. “I’m sorry, Coop. I didn’t know. I would have stopped him.”
“I know.”
“So what, they want you to turn yourself in? Dickinson will kill you.”
“If I thought it would save Natalie and the kids, I’d sacrifice myself. But they won’t. By going undercover, I’ve given them too good a hand.”
He watched Quinn work it out. “You’re thinking that from the beginning, Peters let you do this because he’d win either way. Either you found Smith and killed him, or else…”
“Or else I volunteered to be the fall guy for real. Yeah. Everything I’ve done the last six months, it looks guilty. And now that I know about this?” Cooper gestured. “No, if I go in, they’ll claim my cover story as true. Peters really will blame me for the March 12th explosion. He’ll serve up my corpse to the media. A huge win for Equitable Services. Proof that the nation is in good hands. Billions of dollars in additional funding.”
“And he can’t have your ex going on CNN, saying that it’s all a lie. Even if she’s not believed, it spoils the PR value.” Quinn nodded. “But how can he get rid of them? Kind of convenient if they just disappeared.”
“Easy. I came back to kill them. Equitable Services tried to stop me, but they were too late. A tragedy, but at least they took down the bad guy. And perhaps if they had more resources…”
“But why would you kill your own—”
“Because I’m a crazy abnorm terrorist. Who knows how those people think. They’re not even people.”
Quinn said, “Jay-sus.” He blew a long breath. “I don’t want to believe this.”
“But you do.”
“I…” Quinn hesitated. “Yeah. I do.”
“I need your help, Bobby. I need to get my children back. And then we have to make sure that this gets out. They can’t get away with it. We can’t let them.”
“Do you know what you’re saying? You’re talking about taking on the president.”
“I’m talking about two terrified children. And I’m talking about telling the truth.”
“Coop, I want to help, but…”
“I know. But remember how I said I wasn’t a DAR agent anymore? Well, are you? After seeing that? You’ve only got two choices, Bobby. You can pretend you don’t know that everything you’ve served is a lie. Or you can help me.”
It really was as simple as that, and Cooper made himself stop. All he’d wanted, back in the cemetery, was half an hour to make the man understand. Now he’d had it. There was no selling Quinn, no convincing him. No rhetorical flourish would make the difference, no appeal to emotion.
Either Bobby Quinn was a good man, or Cooper and his family were dead.
Quinn jammed the pads of his fingers into his eyes. “Shit.” The words were muffled by his hands. Then he straightened and blew a long breath. “So what do we do?”
“Well, to start,” Cooper smiled and tugged at his wrist, “do you think you could unlock me?”
His partner laughed. “Sorry.” He pulled the cuff key from his belt and tossed it over. “The truth shall set you free, right?”
“Something like that. That’s our play, too. We use the video to set a trap for Peters.”
“Sounds like you have a plan.”
“The beginnings of one.”