“You’ve met my children.”
“Of course. Todd must be…eight now?”
“Nine. But it’s Kate that I need to talk to you about. Her mother got a call this morning from someone in Analysis. Apparently there was some sort of incident at school. They want to schedule a TDSA.”
Peters winced. “Ah, Nick. I’m sorry. I’m sure it’s nothing, just a precaution.”
“That’s the problem.” Cooper took a deep breath, blew it out. “It’s not nothing.”
“She’s gifted?”
“Yes.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
The director sighed. He took off his rimless glasses, pinched at his nose. “That’s hard.”
“I’m asking you for a favor.”
Peters replaced his glasses. Looked sideways, at the photos, the Wall of Shame, where John Smith leaned into a microphone. “It’s strange, isn’t it? There was a time, not so long ago, when every parent hoped their child would be born gifted. And now…”
“Sir, I know what I’m asking, and I’m sorry to do it. But she’s only four years old.”
“Nick.” A hint of reproach in the tone.
Cooper met his gaze, didn’t waver. “I need this, sir.”
“You know I can’t.”
“You know how much I do here. How many times I’ve killed for you.”
The director’s eyes hardened. “For me?”
“For Equitable Services. For,” he said, spreading his hands, “God and country. And in all that time, I’ve never asked for a thing, not one personal favor.”
“I know that. You believe in what we do here. That’s what makes you so good at your job.”
“My children are what make me good at my job,” Cooper said. “Everything I’ve ever done here, it’s to make the world better for them. Because I believe that what this agency does is the only way to get there. And now that agency wants to take my daughter.”
“First,” Peters said, “that’s an overstatement. Don’t lose your head. This test is given to every child in America—”
“At age eight. She’s four.”
“—and 98.91% of the time, it comes up negative.”
“I’m telling you, she’s gifted.”
“And only 4.91% are ranked as tier one.” Peters took a deep breath, then leaned into the desk. Sympathy radiated from every muscle in his body. “There are times I hate this job, you know. You’re not the first agent to have a child be scheduled for an early TDSA. I have to do this about once a year. But you’ve heard of Caesar’s wife? Well, we’re Caesar’s palace guard. Being beyond reproach isn’t just a noble idea. It’s mandatory. We cannot put ourselves above the law. If we do, we become the Gestapo.”
Cooper understood the principle, understood the need for it. Yesterday, if he’d been in the director’s shoes and Quinn had come to him for the same favor, he would have made the same argument. But this time it’s my child. “But—”
“I’m sorry, Nick. I truly am. I wish there was something I could do. It’s not that I don’t want to help you. It’s that I can’t. I literally can’t.”
Cooper said, “Were your children tested?”
Peters’s eyes narrowed. For a moment, raw emotion slipped past the cool gray wall of the man, and Cooper was surprised by the intensity of it, the anger. Then the director said, “You know I lost my wife.”