“So here’s the deal. We meet somewhere we both feel safe. You bring my family; I bring this. We all walk out. You get to go on running your evil empire. And my children get to grow up.”
“I’m not sure you’re in a position to negotiate. For now, your children are perfectly safe, as is your ex-wife. But Dickinson is a true believer. If I give the order, he won’t hesitate to visit a host of violations on them.”
Fire licked his belly and his knuckles went white, but Cooper kept his voice under control. “You’d suffer quite a few in prison, Drew, while your daughters grew up alone. And this posturing is pointless. We both know that you’ll do anything to get the video back. And I’ll do anything to know my family is safe. So let’s cut the bullshit.”
“All right. How about we meet at the Washington Monument? A public place.”
Cooper laughed. “Yeah. And I’ll never hear the shot from the airship. I don’t think so. No, let’s meet at the L’Enfant Plaza Metro station.”
“Where you can have a news crew at the ready to film everything. I’m afraid not.”
“Okay. We don’t trust one another. So we set it up so that neither of us has time to prepare a surprise. You name a major street downtown. I’ll pick an address. We’ll meet in twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes? No.”
“I’m not going to give you time to get set up, Drew.”
“I understand that. But I’m busy cleaning up your mess right now. There was a firefight in a cemetery in broad daylight. It will take time to make sure there’s no connection to the agency.”
“No connection to you, you mean.”
“Those are the same thing. Let’s meet in two hours.”
“Fine. But we don’t pick a location until the last minute. I’ll call you. Have a street in mind, and don’t mess with me. And if anyone in my family has so much as a bruise, deal’s off and I burn you down.”
“If you call this off, your family will suffer more than bruises.”
“So we both better behave. I’ll call in two hours. Agreed?”
“Agreed.”
“One last thing.”
“What’s that?”
Cooper said, “How the fuck do you sleep at night, Drew?”
“With a prescription. Grow up. This is the way the world works.” The director hung up the phone.
“Two hours.” Quinn shook his head. “Just like you predicted.”
“Peters is the head of Equitable Services and thinks like it. That makes him easy to anticipate. He wants enough time that he can use his resources, see if he can track me down without the hassle of meeting. There’s always the chance that I screwed up, that someone caught my face on a camera, or that I was calling from a known phone number. A long shot, but worth checking, especially for a man with his own security force. But at the same time, he can’t risk giving me enough time that I start to second-guess myself, decide to go to the media with the video. One hour isn’t enough time, three is too long.”
“What’s to keep him from showing up at the meet with an army?”
“He knows I would spot them. He can’t risk spooking me. And since he won’t know the location in advance, he can’t get snipers set up or teams in place.”
“Still. He’s got to know he’s walking into a trap,” Shannon said.
Cooper shook his head. “That’s what we’ve got going for us. He thinks I’m working alone. He knows my capabilities, what advantages my gift offers. He can plan for that. Counter it.”
“So because he thinks you’re alone, he’ll bring a small force, just enough not to scare you. And because you’re not alone, you think we can take them.”
“That’s the idea.”
“Gee,” Quinn said. “It’s a good thing you’ve got two other assholes wrapped up in this.”