Bryan Vasquez crossed his arms. “You think I’m an idiot? I won’t tell you for nothing. I don’t even know for sure that you have Alex.”
Dickinson leaned in, his face hard. “Do you have any idea the world of shit you’re in? I wasn’t kidding about vanishing you.” He turned to Cooper. “Was I?”
“No,” Cooper said, watching for the reaction. Saw it, the bob of the Adam’s apple, a bead of sweat on the cheekbone. But Bryan held himself together, said, “I’m not the only one in trouble. You are, too.”
“How do you figure?” Dickinson with that wolfish grin again, the dangerous one.
“Because whatever the attack is, it’s coming soon, and it’s big. Big enough that what we were doing was only a corollary to it. Do you understand?” Bryan leaned in. “Alex and I were crippling the ability of the military to respond to the real attack. So you tell me, who’s in a world of shit?”
Cooper thought back to his conversation on the plane with Bobby Quinn, how Quinn had said there was a lot of chatter, that everyone was keyed up. Equitable Services routinely monitored phone and digital communications on a national basis. If an attack of significant scale was planned, it would be preceded by all kinds of coded communication. Cooper saw Alex Vasquez again, just before she jumped off the building. The turn of her head, the golden glint of her pendant. The way she tucked her hands in her pockets.
“I don’t get it,” Dickinson said. “You’re normal. Why help her?”
Bryan looked as if he’d bitten something foul. “That’s like asking why a white man would march with Martin Luther King. I’m helping because it’s the right thing to do. Gifteds are people. They’re our children, our brothers and sisters, our neighbors. You want to label them and track them and exploit them. And those you can’t control, you kill. That’s why.”
Cooper kept his face bland, but his mind was racing. He was getting a read on Vasquez. Helping his sister was only part of the agenda. He also thought he was David, taking on Goliath. The undiscovered hero with the potential for immortality. It was precisely the kind of personality a revolutionary leader would exploit. Could he really be just one level of contact away from John Smith?
The idea was staggering.
Seventy-three people dead at the Monocle alone. Hundreds at his orders since then, and God knows how many to come. The most dangerous terrorist in the country, and this man might lead you to him.
Dickinson let the silence linger just long enough for Vasquez’s righteousness to cool. “That’s nice. It’s kind of moving, even.” His tone was metered. “Thing is, you aren’t marching beside Dr. King, asshole. You’re making planes fall out of the sky.”
Vasquez looked away. Finally he murmured, “She’s my sister.”
The fluorescent lights hummed. Cooper weighed a play in his mind, turning it over. Decided to try for it. “Bryan, here’s the thing. Thus far, you aren’t really guilty of much. But your sister is in serious trouble. She’ll go to prison for the rest of her life for that virus. That’s if she’s lucky.”
“What?” Vasquez straightened. “No. She didn’t execute it. Legally, you can’t charge her just for planning—”
“It’s a terrorist attack against the military,” Cooper said, “by an abnorm. Trust me when I say that we can, and we will.”
Bryan Vasquez opened his mouth, closed it. “What would I have to do?”
“Lead us to the meeting.”
“That’s all?”
Cooper nodded. “Assuming your contact shows, of course. If he doesn’t, or if you warn him, deal’s off.”
“And in return—”
“I’ll personally guarantee that we won’t charge your sister.”
Dickinson’s head jerked sideways to stare at Cooper.
“That’s not good enough,” Vasquez said. “I want it in writing.”
“Fine.”