The agent had a gun in each hand, his own in the right, Cooper’s in the left, and he raised them both and fired in the general direction of the light switches. But Cooper was no longer there.
And the twin muzzle flashes would only make things worse for him. Rob him of what limited night vision he’d have.
Cooper moved steadily, not running, not risking tripping or making a sound. Just watching Dickinson as he spun and flailed in the dark. By the time he reached the conference table, the other agent had realized his mistake. Dickinson jumped down, landing hard.
Cooper stepped forward and twisted the guns from the man’s hands.
Then he put them both against Roger Dickinson’s chest and pulled the triggers until the slides locked back.
What was left of the agent fell limp and wet. Cooper dropped the guns on top of him.
He walked to the table. To the monitor.
His family was dead.
Now he just had to face it. To look at the monitor and see the end of the world.
Cooper forced himself to face it.
The screen showed a conference room, the Capitol dome glowing in the distance.
It showed one of the shooters on the ground, splayed flat.
It showed the other pulling himself to his feet, woozy, his fingers scrabbling at the table for help.
What it did not show was the bodies of his family.
God bless you, Shannon. My girl who walks through walls.
“Coop?” Quinn’s voice in his ear. “I just picked up Shannon in the number three elevator. She’s got your family with her. She’s bleeding pretty bad from the right side of her head—must have taken a hit that disabled the transmitter. But she’s giving a thumbs-up to the camera, and everyone else looks fine.”
For a moment he let himself feel it. A feeling as if he could flex and blow the roof open, a feeling like his heart might burst.
Quinn said, “Bad news is, I’m getting a lot of traffic on law enforcement frequencies. A small army is headed our way. Time to go.”
“Where’s Peters?”
“He’s not with you?”
“No. And he’s got the drive.”
“What? How?”
“No time to explain. Has he shown up on your screens?”
“No. He didn’t go through the elevator lobby.”
The smart thing to do was get out, escape with Quinn and Shannon and his family. Hide somewhere and think of their next move. Let Peters walk away with the only evidence.
Cooper turned and ran for the exit. Through the lobby, out the door, the chime ringing behind him. “Quinn, are there cameras in the stairwells?”
“Negative.”
Turned left on a hunch, kept going, found the stairwell at the end. He pushed open the door, stepped into a brightly lit concrete space. “Do they exit to the outside?”
“Yeah, of course, that’s code in case of fire,” Quinn said, and then, “Oh shit.”
Cooper started down, jumping a flight at a time, his hand trailing down the metal railing. Peters would have made it to the street by now. Vanished into— He couldn’t be sure that Dickinson would take me. If he were, he’d have stayed to help.
Since he didn’t, he suspected I might win.
And he knows that if I did, I’d come after him.
He won’t do what you expect.
—the night. Cooper caught himself on a handrail, turned the other way, sprinted upward. His calves burning and lungs screaming. Past the tenth, the eleventh, the twelfth.
Quinn said, “Shit. Cooper, I’ve got a helicopter inbound, ETA forty-five seconds.”
Sneaky, Drew. Very sneaky. Cooper said, “Good.”
“Huh?”
“Get out of here. Get Shannon out, get my family out. I’ll meet you at the rendezvous.”
“Cooper—”
“Now. That’s an order.”
The flight above the twelfth ended in a door. Cooper hit it at a run, the thing flying open to expose the roof. Gravel and the bulk of industrial air conditioners, the sudden cool of the evening air and the buzz of the city all around, and faint but growing louder, the whap of helicopter rotors.