No kidding.
“I should mention the tangible benefits, too. Academy graduates have made enormous breakthroughs in chemistry, mathematics, engineering, medicine—all of it government controlled. That recording device I mentioned? The nano-technology is the work of a former pupil. All the latest military equipment is designed by abnorms. The computer systems that connect us. Even the new stock market, which is, ironically, immune to abnorm manipulation.
“All these things come from academy graduates. And thanks to our work, all are managed and controlled by the US government. Surely you can agree that as a nation—as a people—we can’t afford another Erik Epstein?”
Which people, doc? Cooper could feel a scream boiling inside of him, a rage that he very much wanted to give in to. Everything here was worse than he had imagined.
No. Be honest. You never let yourself imagine it. Not really.
Still, now that he knew, what could he do about it? Kill the director, then the staff? Tear down the walls and blow up the dormitories? Lead the children like Moses out of Egypt?
It was either that or get the hell out of here. He stood.
Norridge looked surprised. “Are you satisfied, then?”
“Not even close.” But if he stayed another minute he was going to explode, so he stalked out of the office, down the polished halls, past the narrow windows with their rocky evergreen vistas. Thinking, This cannot be the way.
And, John Smith was raised in an academy. Not this one, but they’ll all be the same, and there will be a Norridge heading all of them. An administrator who holds all the power, a skilled manipulator who understands and hates his pupils.
John Smith was raised in an academy.
John Smith was at war from his earliest days.
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Ground one?”
“We’re go.”
“Ground two?”
“Go.”
“Three?”
“Freezing my tits off, but go.” Luisa, bringing her usual flair.
“Crow’s nest?”
“Two positions, overlapping sight lines. Go.”
“God?”
“The view from on high is divine, my son.” Behind the voice came the buzz of rotors. At the elevation the airship was flying, it was nothing but a darker gray spot against a bright gray sky. “God is good.”
Cooper smiled and pressed the transmit button. “Peace be with you.”
“And also with you. But woe betide the sorry shitbird who tries to run, lest we hurl a thunderbolt.”
“Amen.” He clicked off and gazed down through the double-thick glass at the meet site.
Today looked pretty much like yesterday, which was one of those things you could say about a lot of DC days between November and March. The sunlight was weak tea, and gusts of winds tugged at the coats of powerbrokers, the scarves of businesswomen.
Ground two was the FedEx truck. It was parked on G Street, on the northwest corner. The back door was up, and an undercover agent was loading boxes on a dolly, checking each one against a manifest. Behind a makeshift shelf, four more agents were jammed together out of sight. It was a tight, uncomfortable space, but even so, they had it better than ground one; the utility van had been parked on 12th all night.
Cooper had done recon in those things before. They were dark and uncomfortable, boiling in the summer and frigid in the winter. Movement had to be restricted to the absolute minimum, and the air always reeked of urine from the quart jars they used. One time a junior agent had broken a jar, and after six scorching hours, the team had been ready to forget the target and beat the hell out of him.
11:30. The meet was set for noon. Good planning on the bad guys’ part: lunchtime, and the corner below would be even busier as everyone in the surrounding buildings scurried from their cubicles.