by Marcus Sakey
“That’s not quite true. I did convince President Clay to let you secede. Of course, that was before you murdered him.” It probably wasn’t a good idea to be so flip, given that he was talking to two of the most powerful men in the world. But Cooper just couldn’t make himself care. Part of it was that flippancy let him tamp down his seething fury; no matter what he’d said to Quinn, no matter that he understood their actions philosophically, they had still murdered soldiers, and that he could never forgive.
The other part might have to do with last night. There were reasons he and Natalie had divorced, good ones, but they had nothing to do with the bedroom. A fact that had been demonstrated rather thoroughly last night, leaving Cooper with a loose-limbed jauntiness.
They hadn’t discussed it this morning. The kids were up, and neither of them wanted to confuse Kate and Todd. But while last night had been rooted in the past, he knew now that Natalie was interested in the future. And she wasn’t the only one. It wasn’t just the sex, or even Natalie herself. They were good together. Easy. There had been a moment, as he took a break from cooking pancakes to hand her a mug of coffee, that felt as comfortable as slipping on an old pair of jeans and a favorite T-shirt. It felt like home.
“You’re different,” a small voice said. Cooper squinted, then saw the girl huddled in a chair, her knees tucked up in front of her, a screen of purple bangs hiding her downturned face. Millicent, Erik Epstein’s near-constant companion and one of the most powerful readers Cooper had ever met. She sensed the inner fears and secret darknesses of everyone around her, had intuited Daddy’s weaknesses and Mommy’s cruelties before she could speak. A ten-year-old girl whose insight shaped billion-dollar deals and resulted in murders. As always, Cooper felt a flush of pity for her; too much, too much.
“Hi, Millie. How are you?”
“You’re different. Did something happen?” She lifted her head, stared at him with ancient eyes set in a little girl’s face.
Natalie astride you, her thighs clamped around your hips, her head thrown back . . .
“Oh,” she said. “Sex. But I thought you and Shannon were doing it.”
For the first time in a decade, Cooper found himself blushing. To cover it, he turned to the Epsteins. “You’ve taken care of Ethan Park?”
“Yes,” Jakob said. “We’ve given him a facility that exceeds anything he’s known, along with a staff, all brilliant. With his knowledge of Dr. Couzen’s process, rediscovering the gene therapy to create gifts is just a matter of time.”
“Which you don’t have.”
“Uncertain,” Erik said. “The data is unclear. Disparate factors, personality matrices under exceeding stress, unexplored variables. Predictions are below threshold of utility.”
“Yeah?” Cooper pointed at a video feed hanging between graphs, a high-angle perspective on the rocky ground outside New Canaan’s southern border. The camp was a hive of activity, twenty thousand people preparing for war. “They seem pretty certain.”
“Unimportant.”
“An army is about to breach your border, and you say it’s unimportant?”
“No. The term army, no. Militia. Statistically far less effective.”
“Yeah,” Cooper said. “But this is the part you’ve never gotten, Erik. Data only goes so far. Not all emotions can be quantified. You murdered thousands of people, did it on national tri-d. You want a prediction?” He put his hands in his pockets. “I predict they’re coming for you.”
“You sound almost happy about it,” Jakob said.
You’re goddamn right, you slick shit. That was my country you attacked, my soldiers you killed, my president you murdered—
He took a moment and a breath. “I’m just tired of everybody making things worse.”
“Cooper,” Erik said, his voice hesitant. “I . . . I didn’t want to do it. They made me.” The billionaire looked around the room as if seeking support, someone to tell him it was okay. “It wasn’t easy. Isn’t. I’m—I hear them, the explosions, and I see them dying. I didn’t want to hurt them, but they wanted to hurt us. Were going to. I had to. They made me.”
The dark circles under his eyes, the extreme twitchiness, the shoulders slumped farther than usual. He’s suffering. The realization brought no compassion. “I understand why you did what you did.” Cooper kept his voice level and cold. “But the people you killed were not monsters. They were public servants. Leaders. Soldiers. If you’re looking for sympathy, I’m the wrong guy.”
Epstein’s mouth fell open like he’d been slapped. He stared for a moment, then turned away, pawing at his eyes with the back of his hand. Behind him the data whirled and spun, sharp holograms floating in nothing. Jakob looked at him disdainfully, then went to his brother, put a hand on his shoulder.
His back still to Cooper, Erik said, “The militia is not a factor. No sophisticated weaponry, no air support. Not a factor.”
“You’re underestimating emotion again. Especially hatred.”
“And you,” Jakob snapped, “are underestimating us. Again. The Holdfast is a long way from defenseless.”
“Even so—”
“Others tried to hurt us. They died. If these people try, they will too.” Erik turned to face him. “They will burn in the desert.”
Burn in the desert? That phrasing can’t be accidental. Cooper said, “It’s true, then. The rumor about your little defensive perimeter. The Great Wall of Tesla.”
“If by ‘little defensive perimeter,’” Jakob replied, “you mean a redundant network of ten thousand microwave emplacements generating targeted radiation that can reduce flesh to ash and bones to powder, then, yeah. It’s true.”
“I don’t want that,” Erik said. “I like people.”
Cooper wanted to hurt him again. Wanted to lash out and make the man feel what he had done, make him suffer for it. He checked himself. Despite Erik’s actions, the sincerity in his voice was hard to question. He’s never made an aggressive move, only defensive. Brutal ones, certainly, but they were to protect his people.
Besides. Like it or not, you’re going to need his help.
“John Smith,” Millie said. She was staring at him again, her eyes aglow with reflected data.
Cooper sighed. “Yeah. As bad as things are right now, he’s about to make them worse.” He told them about tracking Abe Couzen, about the fight on the street and the chase through the train station, the way Abe’s gifts had manifested, and he walked them through his kidnapping. “Now, it’s possible that Smith just wants to keep the serum from us.”
“No,” Erik said. “That would be the maneuver of a journeyman. Smith is a grandmaster. Every move functioning to highest efficiency on multiple levels.”
“I agree.”
“Which is why I asked you to kill him three months ago.”
My God. Three months. Is that all it’s been? Cooper flashed back to that conversation, when he’d first met the real Erik Epstein. The man telling him stories of ancient history, the early terrorists in first-century Judea who killed Romans and collaborators. How that had provoked a reaction that punished not just the killers but all the Jews. Comparing them to John Smith. Saying that if he were allowed to live, the US military would attack the NCH within three years.
Only, because you spared Smith—hell, you exonerated him—it happened in three months, instead.
You did what you thought was right, what your father taught you. And the world is suffering for it.
In a very real way, this is your fault.
“Yes,” Millie said.
He fought the urge to glare, to snap at them, to say that he’d done the best he could. Forced it down, and his temper with it, until he could speak in steady, level tones.
“We’ve been over my mistakes. And yours. For now, we have to put that aside and focus on ending this. Because John Smith certainly is.”
For a moment, the brothers just stared at each other. Finally, Erik turned to him. “What do you propose?”
“Fir
st we’ve got to find Smith. I don’t suppose you know where he is?”
“No.”
“You did before.”
“That was before.”
Right. Well, so much for the easy way.
“Then I need to talk to someone who does.” Cooper took a deep breath, let it out slowly. “I need to sit down with the man who killed me.”
“I just wanted to see if it would work.”
—ERNIE ITO, 11, ON WHY HE RELEASED A HOMEGROWN STRAIN OF BOTULISM IN HIS MIDDLE SCHOOL CAFETERIA, RESULTING IN THE HOSPITALIZATION OF MORE THAN FOUR HUNDRED CHILDREN AND THREE DEATHS TO DATE. ITO, A TIER-TWO BRILLIANT, DEVELOPED THE BACTERIAL STRAIN AS A SCIENCE FAIR PROJECT.
CHAPTER 11
As the chain drew taut, Luke Hammond felt something bloom in his chest. A raw feeling he’d known a few times before.
At nineteen, huddled in the bush in Laos, watching a village burn, black smoke blotting out a sweating sky.
On a ruined rooftop in Beirut as an ancient mosque collapsed in a cloud of dust.
Staring at the computer monitor tracking operators terminating a training camp in El Salvador.
It wasn’t a feeling he’d sought out. Not one he was proud of, per se. Not something he’d tried to pass to his sons, but though they’d never discussed it, he’d suspected each had known it as well.
A furious, terrible joy in destruction. The triumphant howl of victory—no, not quite—of . . . power. Power that you possessed and your enemy did not.
He downshifted the truck, looked to his left and right, to the dozens of others, pickups and jeeps and semis, all tethered by cold steel chains to the fence behind which hid the people who had murdered his children.
Then he hit the horn, held it for a long blast. A second time.
On the third, he floored the gas, heard the roar from all the other engines as their drivers did the same.
A strained scream filled the air as steel stretched to the breaking point, and he let up, put the truck in reverse, bounced back ten feet, then threw it forward again, the others doing the same, and the collective force rippled back through the chains to the fence, the metal bending, earth popping, razor wire twining and singing, and the post ripped right out of the ground, along with nineteen of its brothers. In his rearview mirror, he saw a hundred-yard span of the New Canaan Holdfast’s border ripple and collapse.
Then, from the crowd, the cheer.
“This. Ends. Now!”
Thousands of voices yelling as one.
“This. Ends! Now!”
Pounding through his chest, pumping through his veins, howling through his lungs.
“This! Ends! Now!”
The past days had been a blur of activity. There seemed always to be fifty things that needed doing, a hundred urgent tasks. They’d established a command hierarchy, not a formal rank structure so much as a loose delegation of effort. Miller was at the top and Luke his number two, but beneath them were ten other former soldiers who formed the primary team. After that, leaders were chosen by the groups they represented. Miller had been adamant about that, insisting the leadership be shallow and wide. They were analysts and ad men, the presidents of motorcycle clubs and backwater militia commanders, neighborhood watch organizers alongside scoutmasters. Those who had come as a group tended to stay with it; others paired off like pickup teams for a basketball game, resulting in ragtag squads ranging from ten to two hundred.
Thus far, the system worked. For all the differences, everyone was united by anger and pain and loss. There had been squabbles, but fewer than Luke would have guessed.
“As long as we keep moving,” Miller had said, “we’ll hold together.”
“At least until the dying starts. This isn’t an army.”
The general had smiled grimly. “The dying is what will turn us into one.”
Time would tell, Luke supposed, but over the years he’d known Miller, he’d learned not to bet against him. Besides, there had been so much to do.
What had started as an impromptu gathering had grown to a massive endeavor. People divided according to rough experience, accountants managing logistics, history professors teaching tactics, line cooks feeding thousands. But it was the private support that really made the difference.
“Check it out, boss—we’ve got corporate sponsorship,” Ronnie Delgado had joked when the trucks from Finest Supplies started arriving. Eighteen-wheelers packed with canned goods, bottled water, blankets, rifles, ammunition, all of it donated by Ryan Fine, the CEO the news kept referring to as an “eccentric billionaire.”
“That’s the great thing about being a billionaire,” Delgado said. “Poor people they just call crazy.”
Delgado was a ranch hand and former national guardsman, a twenty-eight-year-old kid who’d turned out to be a godsend. He worked tirelessly and maintained a steady stream of quips that lightened the mood, but more than anything it was his way with horses.
When General Miller had first announced that he’d convinced Ryan Fine to empty his stables for them—Delgado: “What is it about corporate dudes that as soon as they get rich they want to put on cowboy boots?”—Luke had been less than excited. A thousand horses following in their wake seemed a noisy, smelly irritation. While Luke had never been of the new breed of soldier, those more like hackers than warriors, this took low tech to the extreme.
“Horses don’t break down,” Miller had said. “Computer viruses don’t hurt them, and they don’t need gasoline.”
“And when we run out of food for them?”
“Then we’ve got fresh meat.”
Now, after a blur of constant effort and rapid decision-making, of bleary-eyed labor and bad coffee, it was time. The hundred-yard hole they’d ripped in the New Canaan fence was the first strike.
The trucks led the way. Each had a driver and another man riding shotgun; the rest of the space was packed with supplies, every spare inch filled. It was an inversion of traditional tactics, sending the supply train ahead of the army, but they didn’t expect the vehicles to get far.
Behind them, the rest of the New Sons of Liberty streamed in on foot. They slung packs and rifles, moved in loose groups. Twenty thousand people filing over the torn and broken fence, boots grinding it into the dirt. The day was just below freezing, but the sky was clear, and the men—women too, though not many—moved with a nervous energy, talking and shouting and singing as if they were heading into a football stadium, not marching off to war.
“Here we go,” Delgado said. “The charge of the world’s largest lynch mob.”
“Hey,” Luke said sharply. “Police that.”
“I’m just kidding, boss—”
“Not even as a joke. We may not be the Continental army, but we’re not the KKK, either. This isn’t about hatred.”
Delgado said, “My brother was the first to go to college. Princeton, full scholarship. He beat out five hundred candidates to get a job as a White House intern. Mostly he fetched coffee and answered phones, and that’s probably what he was doing when Erik Epstein blew him up. So don’t—”
“My sons,” Luke said, fighting to keep the quaver from his voice, “burned alive. One was a fighter pilot, the other a tank gunner. We’ve all lost somebody, Ronnie.” He took a breath. “Check the horses, will you?” He paused. “Hey. I’m sorry about your brother.”
Delgado nodded. “You too. Your boys.”
Luke moved through the crowd, shaking hands, answering questions. Everyone knew who he was, and more than one of them said, “This ends now.” He returned it, the meaning of the words already lost to him, transformed into mere sounds.
It took him an hour to catch up to Miller. The general was near the front of the ragged column, on foot. He smiled when he saw Luke. “‘And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by, from this day to the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remembered.’”
“‘We few, we happy few, we band of brothers,’” Luke replied. “‘For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my
brother.’ Henry the Fifth. You think the bleeding is gonna start this afternoon?”
Miller shrugged. “Soon enough.”
“We could have spared a jeep, you know. You didn’t need to walk.”
“MacArthur didn’t need to wade ashore in the Philippines, either. Army engineers had put out pontoons for him. But old Douglas knew what he was doing.” The general checked his watch, glanced at the horizon. There was nothing to see but dusty scrub leading to distant mountains beneath grim skies. Very grim; when the destruction started, it would come from above.
That will be the moment, Luke thought. We’ll either win in that moment, or we’ll break, and the New Sons of Liberty won’t be even a footnote in the histories. “Ask you something? Secretary Leahy. You trust him?”
“Not particularly,” Miller said. “Owen’s a politician. But he’ll do what he said, and hold off the military. It serves his ends. He figures if we drive deep enough into the Holdfast, Epstein will come to the government with his hat in hand. Trade his people’s freedom for their lives.”
“That was my read too. But if he’s just using us—”
“Why go along? First, it serves our ends. But more than that, by the time he realizes we’ve got other plans, it will be too late.”
Luke glanced over sharply. “You don’t mean to stop?”
“You were in Viet Nam. What did you learn about partial measures?”
“They don’t work.”
Miller nodded. “We go all the way. Burn the NCH to the ground.”
“But . . . the Vogler Ring. If even half of the rumors are true . . .”
“They’re true. I called an old friend in the DAR, got the agency report. Ten thousand microwave emplacements with overlapping fields of fire. It’ll feel like heat at first, then a bad sunburn, then your eyeballs pop and your blood boils.”
“The government let him build that?” Luke shook his head. “Politicians.”
“Indeed. No doubt Epstein made a lot of generous donations. Mostly, though, I suspect he got away with it because it’s purely defensive, and useless against American military forces.”
