A Better World (The Brilliance Trilogy Book 2)

by Marcus Sakey

  “Soren? He’s here? How do you know?”

  “I know because I pulled every favor I’m owed to implement a nationwide random camera scan. Nobody kills my partner and walks away, I don’t care if World War III is about to start. With everything as it is right now, I could only get public safety cameras, you know, government institutions, airports—”

  “Airports?”

  Quinn read his tone. “Where exactly—you said you were in Akron. Are you at Fulton International?”

  “Couldn’t get into Cleveland with the city shut down, so I came here.”

  There was a long pause. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but so did Soren.”

  Cooper felt a tightening in his chest, a weird and sudden pressure. His heart seemed to stick, a beat and then nothing, like a burp that wouldn’t come. An animal panic flooded him, fingers tingling, and then his heart jumped again, the beats coming, fast now. His vision went a little wobbly, and he leaned against the back of the pilot’s seat.

  “Coop? You okay?”

  It wasn’t fear, although that was there as well. It was something mechanical, like his heart had lost its rhythm. I guess a patched tire isn’t as strong as an undamaged one. He took a breath, concentrated on smoothing out the beats. “I’m fine. Listen, if he’s here, it’s for Ethan.”

  “No kidding. That’s why I’ve got no choice but to send the cops.”

  Cooper considered it. Why not let the police help? Surely he didn’t have to save the world single-handedly. Especially now.

  Then he remembered the scene in the restaurant. The ease with which Soren had murdered Epstein’s highly trained guards. Add to it a scared father with a gun, a man who had no idea about the forces swirling around him. Stir in a handful of suburban cops thrilled to have a little excitement. It would be a disaster.

  “Don’t send the cops, Bobby. There’s another option.”

  The car was a Porsche 911, one of the new models that on a government salary he’d never even allowed himself to look at. A rear-mounted, turbocharged engine capable of zero to sixty miles per hour in 2.9 seconds, set in a candy-apple red body that screamed sex.

  Looks like Epstein took you seriously about needing it to be fast.

  Bobby had taken convincing, but in the end, he’d agreed to give Cooper the address of the cabin where Ethan and his family were hiding, as well as a thirty-minute head start on the police. But Soren had a head start too.

  Cooper got in the car, fired it up, and was about to blast off when he realized that with his hand in the shape it was, he couldn’t use the stick shift. He pushed in the clutch, pinned the wheel with his right wrist, and then leaned across to shift with his left hand. A wave of exhaustion and frustration washed over him.

  What are you doing?

  Sitting in the hallway of Epstein’s clinic, he’d heard the truth behind Natalie’s words, good and bad. The truth was that as much as he loved his children, as much as he felt he should be sleeping in the chair next to Todd’s hospital bed, he was too much of the soldier to believe that made sense. It was romantic to believe that he would go ten rounds with the Grim Reaper for Todd’s life, but the truth was that sitting there would have been useless. The world was about to be at war, bombs were about rain on New Canaan, and he had a chance to stop it. So, yeah, better to go.

  But the plan had been to find Ethan Park. To use his mind and his gift to track down a scientist and convince him to share what he knew. Not to go into combat. Not to face John Smith’s best friend and best killer.

  With every beat of his heart, pain coursed through Cooper, a throb that started in his chest, echoed in his hand, and grated through his head. His vision was a little jumpy—not blurry, but lagging half a frame behind. As he skipped second gear and jump-shifted into third, he remembered the fight in the restaurant. The terrible economy of Soren’s movements, the way he danced around every blow like it hadn’t even been thrown.

  For the first time in a long time, Cooper felt real fear. Not nerves or tension or concern. Not panic at an unexpected moment or terror for the safety of those he loved.

  The idea of facing Soren again scared him.

  And yet, what choice did he have? If Soren got to Ethan first, any hope of the war being averted was doomed. The military would attack New Canaan. The fragile dream would be destroyed, along with tens of thousands of its young dreamers. And after that, America would be over. At least the America he loved.

  Not to mention the fact that Natalie and your children are dead-center of the crosshairs.

  Once again, it came down to everything. Just as it had in DC months ago, when Peters had kidnapped his family. Once again, Cooper’s whole life lay on the table as fate’s roulette wheel clattered and spun. Only this time, he could barely—

  Enough.

  Win here, or lose everything.

  Let’s see what you’ve got, soldier.

  CHAPTER 39

  As far back as she could remember, Holly Roge had wanted to fly.

  Dad had been part of it, a navy man, a pilot who parked jets on moving aircraft carriers. When other little girls had been lulled to sleep with tales of princesses and unicorns, Dad had lain beside her in the dark and told her what it was like to scream in low and steep, dark water below, a tiny target ahead. How precise the angle had to be to catch the landing cable, how if you screwed up you could slide right off, bounce out into the ocean.

  “Was it scary?” she’d asked, always.

  And always he’d say, “Sure. But in the good way.”

  And after he had kissed her forehead and told her to have beautiful dreams, she’d lie awake staring at her ceiling, wondering what that meant, scary in the good way.

  Now, suited up and sitting in the ready room at Ellsworth Air Force Base just east of the Wyoming border, she wondered what Dad would think of all of this. He’d died while she was still at the academy, an aneurysm that took him in his easy chair, fast as a missile with hard lock. He’d never seen her earn her wings, never known that she made top of her class. Never known that she’d been the first woman selected to fly an F-27 Wyvern, that gorgeous piece of $185 million equipment, her second true love. Sixty-seven feet and sixty-five thousand pounds of high-performance glory, capable of soaring eighteen miles high, of after-burner blasting at Mach 2.9, twenty-two hundred magnificent miles an hour. A machine so sophisticated that the computer in the helmet read her brain’s alpha waves, allowing her to control the gauges and secondary systems just by thinking in coded patterns.

  A fighter jet that she had been flying over American soil, buzzing low over a city of her own countrymen, carrying a full load of ordnance.

  That was the part she didn’t dig, and she didn’t think Dad would have either. She was a warrior, had flown peacekeeping missions all over the world, been selected to fly in the honor guard for Air Force One on President Walker’s trip to India. Her job was to protect America, not threaten it. And no matter what you thought about the abnorms, last she’d heard, Wyoming was still part of the fifty.

  The fact that today’s briefing was being given not by Major Barnes, as usual, but by the big dog himself, Lieutenant Colonel Riggs, didn’t make her feel any better about the situation.

  “—continued state of high alert. Now, you all know that the Holdfast has antiaircraft batteries.” Riggs paused, a slight smile on his lips as twenty pilots chuckled. “And though it’s true that they would be particularly dangerous to MiG-19s”—more laughter—“that doesn’t mean I want any of you getting careless. Everything by the numbers, people. I want all of my pilots back without a scratch. You’ll be carrying . . .”

  Holly knew the load, the same she’d flown the last sorties with. Military life, though, never double-check when you could quadruple-check.

  It had to be posturing, she figured. A message to the Children of Darwin and all the other terrorists out there. Sure, you may be able to take out a few trucks, but can you do this? There hadn’t been a declared war since the Second World
War, which meant that most of the time, military assets were more about communication than they were about offense. A way for the politicians to talk to one another, play their games of high-stakes poker.

  Thing was, who were they talking to here? The Holdfast was a bunch of kids living in the desert, pretending it was a new world instead of a bunch of rocks. Fine with her, so why the full load? Each Wyvern carried enough ordnance to wipe out half of Tesla. Flying a full wing of them over the scrub town was like bringing an A-bomb to a backyard brawl.

  “Any questions?”

  Holly looked around. Wanted to raise her hand and ask, Sir, respectfully, what the hell are we doing here? She wouldn’t, of course, but maybe someone would. The nineteen other pilots in this room were among the best in the world, and that came with a hot-shot sense of entitlement.

  If it had been Major Barnes giving the briefing, maybe one of them would have. But the vice chief of the air wing was another matter. They all sat ramrod straight and steely-eyed, ready to snap salutes and mount up.

  It was only ten minutes later, as the cockpit windscreen closed and her HUD glowed to life, that it occurred to Captain Holly Roge to wonder if that was exactly why it had been Riggs giving the briefing.

  CHAPTER 40

  Soren drifted.

  He couldn’t try for nothingness, not in a moving Escalade with the radio news in the background, announcers practically selling war bonds; not with three strangers checking their weapons and talking in rough voices. Nothingness would have to wait. For now, he simply leaned back in the seat and let his eyes go soft. Let the world wash over him, past him, a leaf on a river swept away in the current.

  He understood John’s decision to send Bryan VanMeter along. The situation was fluid, and if Ethan Park had moved, they would need to hunt him. Better to have a team that could talk to people, could persuade and bribe and convince, things Soren could not do. Still, he felt the presence of the three soldiers, the testosterone charge and rough competence grating at him, making the moments longer.

  You need to go back into exile. All this noise. You’re losing your nothingness.

  Soon. John would have his war. The grand cause and glorious battle meant nothing to Soren, but he hoped that his friend was happy for it.

  For himself, he hoped only that Samantha would come with him. There hadn’t been time to say good-bye, the kind of irony that had never amused him. The flight here had been on a military jet, as fast an option as existed, but with his time sense, he had perceived it as more than thirty hours long. A day and a half on a plane, and yet no time to see his love.

  You are a leaf, and the current will carry you away.

  VanMeter briefed his team, and Soren tried to ignore it.

  “Cuyahoga Valley National Park . . .”

  “No neighbors in sight, but . . .”

  “Tactical advance, two front, one rear . . .”

  Out the window, faded pines scraped at a gray sky. The wind stirred dead leaves. The knife was so light that he had to concentrate to feel it, a good meditative exercise. Be the muscles of your chest, be the skin against your shirt. He wondered how Nick Cooper had survived. Remembered the look in the man’s eyes as Soren’s elbow met his son’s temple, the raw agony in it, as damaging a blow as piercing his heart had been. Idly, he wondered what it would be like to have a child, to have created life. If that would be the thing that brought meaning to the endlessness, or if it would only make things worse.

  “Okay,” the one called Donovan said, “but why all the trouble? He’s an egghead. Let’s just roll up, do the thing, get out.”

  “You’re a hump, you know that?” VanMeter grimaced. “We flew here on a military jet. That pilot was a sleeper, an asset, and John burned him to get us here. Hell, can you even imagine the amount of influence he’s had to use to find this guy, with the DAR looking for him?” The soldier shook his head. “I don’t know how he did it, and I don’t know why John wants the guy dead. All I know is that he needs this done, so we’re going to do it right, we’re going to do it clean, and we’re going to do it completely. You get me?”

  “Completely? You mean—”

  “Orders are to eliminate everybody there. Wife and baby too.”

  “Baby?” Donovan sucked air through his teeth. “Shit.”

  “Makes you feel better, they’re normals, all three.” VanMeter turned to Soren. “Sir?”

  He raised an eyebrow.

  “We’re less than a minute out. Anything you want to add?”

  The trees had grown denser, the driveways between them fewer and farther between. He could see the one where Dr. Ethan Park and his family waited.

  Soren said, “You’re weak.”

  Soon, this tiresome walk through the world would end, and he could return to his nothing.

  “I’ll kill the child.”

  CHAPTER 41

  “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine . . .”

  Late afternoon, and already the sky was starting to fade, cold clouds going fat and dim. They had a fire burning and news on the TV, an actual old-school television, not a tri-d. Ethan was splitting his attention between the horror show in Wyoming and the sight of his wife crooning lullabies to their daughter. It was a jarring juxtaposition, footage of soldiers and tanks and jets, of missiles being fueled and politicians thumping the podium, set against the two loves of his life, his daughter safe and warm and drifting off on a tide of song.

  “You make me happy, ev-er-y day.”

  They did a lot of singing to Violet. Sang the “Naked Baby” song as they got her into her bath (to the tune of “Alouette”: “Naked baby, naked naked baby, naked baby, naked baby time”). Sang free-form about toys and breakfast and pooping. And early on, Amy had declared that they would have their own version of “You Are My Sunshine,” one that addressed certain thematic difficulties.

  Now the news was showing footage of Cleveland. If it hadn’t been identified, he wouldn’t have recognized it. Fire had swept through most of downtown, and what was left was all gray people in gray clothes digging through rubble, ragged families on street corners, and squads of riot police locking shields.

  “You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you.”

  Ethan’s eyes wandered from screen to family, family to screen, but a part of him, the part he would have pointed to as his real self if anyone had asked, wasn’t really taking either in. It was thinking about what Amy had said earlier.

  The fact that she was right was so obvious it didn’t bear thinking about. He and Abe had rushed foolishly into places angels feared to tread, and while they had found answers there, they had also made enemies. Funny that the idea had never occurred to him before. Even when the DAR had shown up at his house about their research, he’d asked Bobby Quinn to leave like the agent was a census-taker. In hindsight, it was all so clear: the DAR must have been watching them, watching from before Abe disappeared. And they would never stop looking for him, never. Not with what he knew.

  “No one can take my sunshine away.”

  And what if the DAR wasn’t the only group who wanted the serum? Another thing he’d never thought of until Amy laid him out. The value of their discovery was literally incalculable. Controlling it would be like holding a patent on the wheel. No wonder Abe had been so rigid about his nondisclosures, his loose-lips-sink-ships policy. The problem was that Abe hadn’t gone nearly far enough. They should have been operating in perfect secrecy on some remote Pacific island.

  If the DAR knew about their work, maybe the Children of Darwin would too. Plus their mysterious backer, whose deep pockets had financed the lab in the first place. Ethan had always suspected that might be Erik Epstein—who else would benefit so highly?—which meant he and Abe had been working for a rogue state currently surrounded by American troops.

  All those forces arrayed against him, and here he was huddling in a cabin, waiting for the sky to fall and crush him. Not to mention his wife and daughter. Because of what Ethan had done.

&nbs
p; No, that was imprecise. It wasn’t because of what he’d done. It was because of what he knew. The difference was important. The former was about punishment for a sin already committed. Nothing to be done about that.

  But if people were after him for what he knew . . . well. That made things clearer.

  Ethan focused on his wife and daughter. Amy was gazing down at Violet, a faint smile on her lips. A knit blanket draped her shoulders, and the fire wrapped them both in soft flickering light. His daughter’s tiny hand clenched his wife’s index finger. What wouldn’t he do to protect them?

  “No one can take my sunshine away.”

  He’d have to act soon. Every moment he stayed with them, he put them at risk.

  If he was going to leave them, maybe forever, he’d have to act soon. Now.

  Ethan was trying to make himself stand up and walk away from everything he loved when he heard a sound that didn’t belong. It wasn’t menacing in its own right, not something he would have noticed under other circumstances. But now it meant the world. Meant, in fact, that the world was ending.

  It was the sound of a car door closing.

  They were here.

  CHAPTER 42

  “I’m not convinced.”

  Secretary of Defense Owen Leahy stared across the coffee table at the president of the United States and thought, This can’t be happening again.

  “I understand,” Clay continued, “that a military response may be necessary. But I’m not convinced I need to take that step now. Epstein and I are still in discussion.”

  “Sir, the situation in Cleveland—”

  “I know what’s happening in Cleveland. People are hungry and scared and angry, and they want a quick fix, want to know that payback has been doled out.”

  “It’s more than that—”

  “Luckily, we live in a republic, which means that they elect us for the exact reason that in a time of crisis, it probably shouldn’t be the victims calling the shots.” Clay stroked his chin. “Attacking the New Canaan Holdfast won’t get blankets or food into Cleveland.”