The director was at the southeast edge of the building, in a clear space just barely broad enough for a helicopter to land.
A flash of an image, San Antonio, the rooftop with Alex Vasquez. Chasing her to the edge of the building, her body a silhouette against the night sky.
Peters heard him when he was about ten feet away, whirled. He said, “No,” and reached around his back. Cooper caught his arm, twisted it forward, then spun to bring the force of his other forearm down against the director’s elbow, which snapped with a sick pop. Drew Peters screamed, and the gun dropped from his limp fingers.
Cooper held him up with one hand, then used the other to dig in the man’s pockets. The stamp drive was in the front right. He took it, then gripped the man by his lapels and marched him backward. Three steps took them to the edge of the building. The skyline burned behind, a wash of lights on marble and monuments. The White House was lit from below, regal and imposing. He wondered if President Walker was there right now, if he was sitting in the Oval Office, or putting on a bathrobe and crawling into bed.
The chopper grew closer. A spotlight speared down from it, swinging back and forth, playing across the buildings. Hunting.
Peters’s face was sheened with shock-sweat, his eyes wide. But his voice was strangely level as he said, “You want to kill me? Go ahead.”
“Okay.” He marched Peters a half step back.
“Wait!” The heel of the man’s dress shoe slipped and scuffled at the edge. “This is bigger than me and you. If you do this, the world will burn.”
“Still hoping I’m a true believer, huh?”
“I know you are.”
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I still do believe. But not in you, and not in your dirty little game.”
“It’s not a game. It’s the future. You’re going to have to choose sides.”
“Yeah,” Cooper said. “I’ve heard that.” He yanked his old mentor close, then shoved outward with all his strength.
As Drew Peters flew off the edge of the roof, he crossed the beam of the helicopter searchlight. A flailing rag doll a hundred feet above the concrete. And for a fraction of a second, the dazzling beam seemed to hold him up.
But only for a fraction of a second.
CHAPTER FORTY
It took him an hour and a half to get clean.
If done directly, the walk from the office building at 900 7th Street NW to the bench overlooking the Lincoln Memorial would only take about twenty minutes. Thirty if you strolled, enjoyed the route, which was one of the most famous in the world. Past the East Wing of the White House, the lights burning inside the windows at all hours. The Washington Monument, a spear in the heart of the night, the airplane warning light blinking slowly. The rippling reflections of the pond in Constitution Garden. The shiny black scar of the Vietnam Memorial bisecting the hillside. And finally the epic neoclassical bulk of the Lincoln Memorial itself. The broad marble steps leading up to the fluted columns, the colonnade glowing from spotlights within, somber old Honest Abe staring out in contemplation, as if weighing the country he had led.
But Cooper hadn’t gone directly. His first priority had been getting out of the building. The stairwell had given him access to the street. From there, he’d headed north and then east, hearing the telltale sounds of converging force. Quinn hadn’t been kidding about a small army; Peters must have summoned all nearby law enforcement. This being Washington DC, the most heavily policed city in the nation, that meant not only DAR teams, but also metropolitan police, Capitol police, transit police, park police, Secret Service uniformed division, and God knew how many others.