“Why not?”
“Look at it, man. Mess like that, how you gonna tell the good guys from the bad guys?”
The video had flashed back to the explosion. They’d probably run that loop for three straight months. But as the eyes of everyone in the crowd watched the building blow up, again, Cooper turned and stared at the men behind him. They looked like guys who bet on sports. As he stared at them, first one and then the other turned their attention to look at him. “What?” The bigger one. “Help you with something, buddy?”
How you gonna tell the good guys from the bad guys?
“Thank you.”
“Huh?”
But by then Cooper was already gone, sprinting at full speed.
“It’s easy. Everybody else on the field, they look where the opposing line is. I look where they’re going to be. Then I just head somewhere else.”
—Barry Adams, running back for the Chicago Bears, on how he was able to rush 2,437 yards in a single season, shattering the previous record (2,105, by Eric Dickerson in 1984)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Located west of DC’s Naval Observatory, Massachusetts Avenue Heights was a charming neighborhood of redbrick row houses whose proximity and small yards belied the affluence within. While not quite equaling the mansions and political swing of Sheridan-Kalorama, it was a wealthy neighborhood, the kind of place people said was great to raise kids, and home to numerous politicians, doctors, and lawyers.
The house on 39th Street NW was quaint and carefully maintained, with a pretty porch, manicured hedges, and an American flag. What wasn’t quite as evident were the security cameras mounted not only on the house but along the walk-way and in the tree, the steel-reinforced doorframe, and the discreet gray sedan that passed the house at random intervals twice an hour.
Cooper had been here many times. He’d sat on the picture-perfect back patio and sipped beer while the kids played. He’d helped design the security, and for several months, even served as a driver. During a mousetrap operation in which they’d leaked supposed weaknesses to terrorist elements, he’d run a team out of the place, sleeping in the spare room and hoping that John Smith might take the bait. He wasn’t a stranger to the house on 39th Street.
Still, showing up unannounced after dark, wearing torn clothes and smelling of sweat and diesel, well, it wasn’t something he’d normally do.
He rang the doorbell. Opened and closed his hands as he waited for what seemed a long time, conscious of the security measures trained on him.
When he opened the door, Drew Peters looked at Cooper for a long moment. His accountant’s eyes took in every detail and gave nothing back. Cooper didn’t say anything, just let his very presence speak for him.
Finally the director of Equitable Services glanced at his watch. “You’d better come in.”
Cooper had interrupted dinner, so Peters brought him through the kitchen to say hello. The space was bright and homey, with hardwood countertops and glass-fronted cabinets. It had always struck Cooper as out of character with the cool gray he associated with Director Peters.
Of course, at home, he wasn’t the director; he was Dad, and Cooper was sometimes Uncle Nick. The girls usually squealed when he came in. Maggie harbored a tweenage crush, while Charlotte often begged helicopter rides.
Tonight, though, Charlotte pushed broccoli listlessly around her plate, and Maggie stared at her hands. Finally, Alana, the eldest, rose. “Hi, Cooper. Are you okay?” She’d been eleven when her mother died, and since then she’d become the de facto lady of the house, watching over the others and taking care of meals. Cooper had often felt sorry for Alana—nineteen years old and forced to act forty. He wondered who she would have turned out to be if Elizabeth had lived. Imagined she wondered that, too.