Everything was falling apart.
Cooper crept into the well-decorated cube, took one of the photos off the desk. The glass was bright and reflected a ghostly image of himself. He eased it up above the edge of the fabric wall. It was a long way from a mirror, but it gave a hint of what was going on, the overheads glowing in it, and motion, Dickinson somehow ten feet tall. The table. The agent had climbed on top of it for a better view. Cooper pulled the picture down before the man spotted it.
“Come on, Cooper,” Dickinson said. “Come out and I’ll make it quick. Just like your children.”
Bile surged in his throat. He whispered, “Shannon? You okay?”
No response.
Quinn said, “Coop, I don’t know what’s going on. I’ve got no feed, and she’s not answering.”
“I recognized your terrorist girlfriend,” Dickinson said, “but I’m afraid she didn’t make it.”
It was a bluff. A way to taunt him into the open. It had to be.
“And that little stunt cost your family’s lives. Sorry about that, but we did warn you.”
He closed his eyes, leaned back against the cubicle wall.
“Ahh, don’t sweat it, Cooper. Kids are replaceable. What’s one or two gone?”
Nothing from Quinn. Nothing from Shannon. He’d caught only the tiniest flash of her on the monitor, a move to disable one of the guards, but there had been two in the room. Skilled killers on high alert.
His gift ran ahead of him again, collated the data, jumped to its conclusion.
Your family is dead.
Cooper had been at a scene once where a car had collided with an agent and pinned him against a metal barrier, shattering everything from the ribs down, severing both legs at midthigh. Massive physical damage, unsurvivable. What had haunted him most, though, was that the man was calm. He didn’t scream, didn’t seem to feel any pain.
Some wounds were too enormous to feel.
A strange dark purity flowed through him. It was almost sweet. If his family was gone, there wasn’t much point in going on. Not many reasons to live. Just one.
You’re going to die, Roger. And so is Peters.
He ducked low, left the cubicle, and scurried down the aisle. Kept his shoulder against the near wall, visualizing the angle Dickinson could see. Climbing on top of the conference table would give him the high ground, generally a tactical advantage. But it came with limitations, too.
A gunshot, and then another. Nothing exploded near him, though. Dickinson was blind-firing, trying to draw him out.
I’m coming out, Roger. Don’t you worry.
He moved along the aisle back toward the entrance. On the wall between two mounted skateboards he saw what he’d been looking for. But it was a long exposed sprint to reach it. No way to get there without being seen.
He dropped to a runner’s crouch, ready to sprint. Then, with a looping toss, he threw the picture frame as far behind as he could.
Dickinson reacted immediately, twin gun blasts. Cooper didn’t pause, just launched himself into a sprint for the far wall, covering a dozen yards in seconds. He heard glass shatter behind him, the picture frame hitting something. Dickinson would have processed it for the distraction it was. He’d have his gun up and be tracking, looking for motion.
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered now except killing. Killing, and the fact that Cooper had made it to the bank of light switches he’d spotted on the lobby wall. He smacked them all in one swiping blow. The fluorescents died.
Darkness fell, pure as fury.
Cooper turned and stood up. No need to hide now. When the lights had been on, Cooper had been prey, and Dickinson had been a predator.
With the lights out, Cooper was a shadow in the dark. And Dickinson was a silhouette standing on a conference table, bathed in the glow of the monitor Peters had brought. He may as well have been in a spotlight.