He ran, trying to move between the bodies that mobbed the street. Cooper hated crowds, felt assaulted by them. All those intentions crossing and crisscrossing, it was like trying to listen to a thousand conversations at once. But where his mind would turn the noise of a thousand conversations into gray noise he could ignore, he couldn’t tune out body language and physical cues. They came at him all at once and from every direction. All he could do was try to focus, to put his attention on the woman right in front of him and the angle of her shoulder that meant she was about to shift her bag. To the man about to speak to his friend. To the little girl who looked a lot like Kate—no, push that away, no time now to think about Kate—reaching up for her mother’s hand.
When he couldn’t find a hole, he made one, barreling through with one elbow up like the prow of a ship. Yells rose behind him, and curses. Someone shoved at his shoulder.
“Cooper.” Quinn’s voice in his ear. “Peters is trying to reach the officer in charge on the scene, but it’s madness right now.”
“No kidding.” He surged past a cluster of schoolgirls. “What about my bomb squad?”
“Scrambling now. ETA fifteen minutes.”
Fifteen minutes. Damn, damn, damn. There was a bank on the corner, and he raced through the revolving door. The lobby was sweet relief. Velvet ropes, bland colors, stale air, a manageable number of people. He sprinted across. A manager rose from his desk. The security guard yelled something. Cooper ignored it all, focused on making it to the opposite door.
And then he was on the corner of Wall and Broad, where history was about to be made, and the whole world was noise and howling chaos.
People were packed shoulder to shoulder. He winced at the tangled skein of vectors in front of him, at the collective motion of the crowd, the herd, something he could never read or understand, his talents all aimed at the individual, the person, the pattern.
Focus. There’s no time.
To the south was the magnificent fa?ade that had once belonged to the NYSE, with its six massive columns supporting an intricate sculpture above. Beneath was a stage and podium, dignitaries milling nearby, security orbiting them like planets around a star.
He started pushing south, gently where he could, roughly where he couldn’t. Somehow he had to get to the Broad Street entrance. In a door off the lobby he would find a janitor’s hallway and a freight elevator that would take him to the basement, where he could access the wiring tunnels where Dusty Evans had placed his bombs.
Sure, Coop. Just get through the crowd, past the security, through the lobby, down to the basement, into the tunnels, and then all you have to do is figure out how to disarm five separate bombs placed at strategic structural locations.
1:59.
Body odor and thrown elbows, hairspray and curses. He pushed forward one agonizing step at a time. Everyone seemed to be yelling, even when their mouths were closed. A wave of frustration washed over him, and he fought the urge to pull his gun, fire into the air. This was pointless. It would take too long to get to the front, and even if he made it, security would be too tight. He needed a better plan. Cooper pushed over to a newspaper dispenser—quick flash of Bryan Vasquez disintegrating—and climbed up on top of it.
The Broad Street entrance was too tight. But maybe back on Wall Street? There must be side entrances. They’d be guarded too, but security would be lighter, and if his rank didn’t get him in fast enough, then he’d find another way. He scanned the crowd, planning his move, eyes falling across businesspeople in business suits, parents with cameras and weary expressions, locals here for the free theater, a homeless man shaking a Dunkin’ Donuts cup, a group of protesters holding signs, a very, very pretty girl heading west—
Holy shit.
He leaped off the dispenser, tumbling into a burly dude holding a giant soda. Man and drink flew in opposite directions. Cooper kept the inertia going, went through the hole the falling man had made, heading away from the ceremony. “Bobby, I’ve got our bomber in sight, the woman in the photograph. She’s on Wall Street heading west.”
“Roger. I’ll alert the police—”
“Negative. Say again, negative. If she spots someone coming after her, she’ll blow the bombs.”
“Cooper—”
“Negative.” He pushed forward, forcing himself not to sprint. It was just like John Smith to have her on scene, gauging the exact moment to trigger the bomb. Timing it for maximum damage.