Brilliance

by Marcus Sakey

  “I told you—”

  “Yeah, I know. The building was supposed to be empty. But did John Smith plan the attack? Did he arrange the explosives? Did he have them planted?”

  She was silent.

  “There’s nobody here who’s clean,” he said. The angle was coming to him, the right way to play her. “Not you, and not the DAR. And I’m tired of it. All I want is out of the game.”

  He dropped to the bed, lay back with his hands crossed behind his head. The ceiling was stucco, and the low light of afternoon turned every bump into a sundial. Not another word. It’s a lousy salesman who talks too much.

  Shannon put her feet up on the bed, legs crossed at the ankle. Leaned back in the chair to pull one drape aside. Her face glowed sunset colors. Still staring out the window, she asked, “What was Zane supposed to do for you, anyway?”

  “Get me a new identity.”

  “What, fake papers?”

  He snorted. “I’ve got a dozen driver’s licenses. To Zane I was T. S. Eliot, and to the front desk here I was Allen Ginsberg, and I could walk out of here Chuck Bukowski. But this is the DAR we’re talking about. If I want a new life, it’ll have to be as a new person. New papers, but also a new history hacked into a hundred places, a new face, the whole thing.”

  “Why not just go to Wyoming?”

  “Right.”

  “I mean it,” she said. “It may not be sovereign yet, but the DAR doesn’t plan raids in New Canaan.”

  “It would be a death sentence. If Zane had come through, maybe, but he didn’t.” Let her sell you. Let her think it’s her idea.

  “New Canaan is different than the normals’ world. Everyone comes there with a past. Everyone has baggage. You can get a fresh start.”

  “Yeah. Until the brother of someone I killed sets my house on fire. No, if I have to spend my whole life watching my back, I’ll do it somewhere prettier than Wyoming.” He glanced at the clock, then closed his eyes. “I’m gonna crash for a few.”

  A long minute passed, and then another, as he stared at the back of his eyelids. Come on. Come on.

  “There might be a way,” she said.

  Gotcha. He opened his eyes. “Yeah? What, take a jackknife to my nose, call it plastic surgery?”

  “Hear me out. You could be safe in New Canaan, even as yourself.” She raised her hands to forestall his objections. “Not as you are now. But if the right person vouched for you, that could change everything.”

  “I am not a terrorist.” He said the words flat and hard. It couldn’t look like he was eager. Even the tiniest hint of his true intent and this would all crumble. “I will not work for John Smith.”

  “I wasn’t thinking of him.”

  “Who were you—”

  “Erik Epstein.”

  Cooper stiffened. “The billionaire? The King of New Canaan?”

  “Only straights call him that.”

  “Why would he speak for me?”

  “I don’t know. You’d have to convince him. But he’s a better chance than a scumbag like Bobby Z. And if you really want a fresh start, well.” She shrugged. “He might understand that.”

  “I just knock on his door?”

  “No. You’d need help.”

  He sat up, spun his legs to the floor. The radiator kicked on, clicking and banging.

  “What would you get out of it?”

  “Until I square things with my people, which I need to do face-to-face, I can’t use any of my old resources. Not my credit, my IDs, my contacts. And meanwhile, your old friends are going to be chasing me as hard as they’re chasing you.”

  Cooper pretended to think it over. “So I get you into Wyoming, and you get me to Erik Epstein.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And how do I know you won’t bail the moment we’re in New Canaan?”

  She shrugged. “How do I know you won’t sell me out to the DAR to get them off your back?”

  “You’re saying we trust each other.”

  “God, no,” she deadpanned. “I’m saying we make it worth each other’s while.”

  Cooper chuckled. “All right. Deal.” He held out his hand, and after a flicker of hesitation, she shook it.

  “Deal,” Shannon said. “So. First thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We need to get some drugs.”

  CHAPTER 20

  “Neurodicin,” he’d said, when she explained what she was looking for. “It’s a semisynthetic opiate derivative.”

  “I’ve never heard of it.”

  “On the street they call it Shadow or Nada. It’s academy-developed newtech, supposed to replace fentanyl. Instead of numbing you, it messes with your memory, so that you forget the pain as it’s happening.”

  “How’s it do that?”

  “How should I know? Ask the twist who designed it. Anyway, if you want something special for the discerning junkie, Shadow’s the trick.”

  “Where do we get it?”

  Which was how they’d found themselves walking north when five o’clock hit and the streets filled with commuters. Before leaving the hotel he’d changed his shirt, and at a tourist shop he bought a Cubs hat and a pair of oversize movie-star sunglasses for her. As disguises went, they were pretty rudimentary, but their real camouflage was the crowd. They stuck to Michigan Avenue: lanes of cabs and buses on one side, towering skyscrapers on the other, and between, a rush of people.

  “This woman, she’s a friend of yours?”

  Shannon nodded. “And she and John have been friends a long time. Since they were in the academy.”

  So strange to hear him referred to that way. Not John Smith, the terrorist leader; John, the friend from a long time ago. “If she’s a friend, why do you need this stuff?”

  “You don’t show up at somebody’s house without a bottle of wine. It’s not polite.”

  “This is some wine.”

  “Well, it’s some favor I’m asking. It’s not like I can phone John.”

  “How does that work?”

  She glanced over sharply. “You digging for operational details, Agent Cooper?”

  “No, I just…” He shrugged. “I don’t understand how he leads people if they can’t find him.”

  “This isn’t like the army. There’s no chain of command, no rear echelon. No orders.”

  “What, he just asks nicely?”

  “Yes. He’s a very nice guy. Anyway, Samantha won’t know where he is, but she’ll be able to get word to him.”

  “I hope you’re right. This is a big risk,” Cooper said. Thinking, Lady, I will help you steal all the drugs you like if it gets me closer to your boss.

  If anything, the crowd grew denser as they started down the Magnificent Mile. Tourists joined the mix, and shoppers loaded with packages. Crowds were always frustrating to Cooper, but it was worse with Shannon. The concept of a straight line was utterly foreign to her. She slipped and slid and quicksilvered along, finding holes where there weren’t any, sometimes stopping dead for no reason he could see. It was unmistakably graceful—Shannon moved the way water flowed—but not easy to walk beside.

  He was glad when they reached the gray-and-glass bulk of Northwestern Memorial Hospital. The front entrance was about as inviting as a hospital could be, which was to say not very. The cafeteria was on the second floor. It had fake plants and fake-wood trim and smelled like soup and disinfectant. Cooper bought himself coffee, and they took a table in a corner near the door.

  “Did you see the cameras on the way in?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Cameras are a problem. I can’t shift if I can’t see the people looking for me.”

  “You can’t what?”

  “Shift.” For a moment she looked girlishly self-conscious. “It’s what I call it. What I do.”

  “Shift. I like that.” The coffee was better than he expected, dark and strong. “The cameras shouldn’t be a problem. They’ll record us, but I doubt anyone is monitoring the live feed. This
isn’t a black-ops facility; mostly the security is to foil junkies and keep hospital staff out of the candy jar.”

  Shannon leaned back, began to run her hands through her hair, letting it fan out between her fingers. “There are two doctors at the corner table.”

  He glanced at their reflection in a framed poster. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “White coats and expensive pens. They’re administrators. Maybe they have the access to open the dispensary, maybe not.”

  Cooper took in the room. About fifty people, with more coming in. There were a few scattered patients. A handful of nurses laughed at one table, but they presented the same problem as the administrators. And residents were out.

  “There,” he said.

  Still toying with her hair, she followed his gaze to a middle-aged man in pale-blue scrubs crumpling his napkin and tossing it atop the remnants of a cheeseburger. “How do you know?”

  “The hair on his arms thins out at the forearms, and the skin is pinker. That means he washes his hands all the time, washes them hard. Plus, his nails are cut to nothing. Taken together, that tells me he’s in surgery a lot. A surgeon will have the access we need. And look at the circles under his eyes. Exhaustion. Probably working a twenty-four-hour shift. Makes him an easier target.”

  “You got all that from a quick glance across the room?”

  “Yeah, I know, weird way to look at the world.”

  “No,” she said. “No, it was hot.”

  “Right.” He felt oddly self-conscious and gave an aborted laugh.

  Shannon leaned back, her expression quizzical. “You need to spend more time with your own kind, Cooper. The straights have you thinking twisted.” Before he could reply, she rose and started walking in one smooth motion. It wasn’t that she was fast so much as that she was calculated, as if for every motion she applied the exact force needed. It was like watching a cat jump to a table, instinctively determining the precise force and angle needed to land without an inch or calorie wasted.

  The surgeon had risen and was walking his tray over to a garbage bin. Shannon circled the table of nurses, slipped between two sad-faced women, cut back across the floor, and then stepped out of nowhere and into the man’s path. They collided. He almost lost the tray, the plate and cup slipping to the edge, then managed to get it under control as he apologized, stepping back and blushing. Shannon shook her head, assured him it was her fault, laughed, patted him on the bicep, and came back carrying the man’s ID badge.

  Cooper smiled into his coffee cup.

  They finalized their plan in the elevator. As he understood hospitals, small stores of the most commonly needed medications were kept on every floor. But Shadow wasn’t standard stuff. It would be kept in a single location, well secured and carefully monitored.

  After they split up, Cooper paused at the corner and counted ten Mississippis. Then he put on a confused expression and started forward.

  The dispensary was part storeroom, part pharmacy. A counter opened to a window behind which a man and a woman counted pills. Cooper went to the counter. “Excuse me, can you guys help?” Saying you guys to be sure he had the attention of both of them, and leaning on the counter, drawing their eyes away from the back. “I am so freaking lost. This place is huge! It’s like a maze. I don’t know how you find anything here.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  “I mean, my God. I’m trying to visit my niece. I started out just the way they said. Turned right, went straight, turned left. I found the elevators okay, but that was the last time I knew where I was. I feel like I’ve been wandering for weeks. Pretty soon I’m going to have to eat my shoe for provisions.”

  “Well, tell me where you’re trying to go and I’ll help you.”

  Over the pharmacist’s shoulder, Cooper saw Shannon cross between a row of shelves. She winked at him. He smiled before he could catch himself, then went with it, said, “Sure, sure. That’s just what the last guy said. I think he must have had a bet with someone. See how long he could keep a guy wandering. You’re probably in on it.”

  The tolerant expression was starting to slip. “Sir, I can’t help you if you won’t tell me where—”

  “I told you, I’m trying to visit my niece.”

  “Yes, but where is she?”

  Cooper did a double take. “If I knew that, I wouldn’t have to ask, would I? You don’t listen too good.”

  “No, what department? ICU, pediatrics…”

  “Right.” He slapped his forehead. “Sorry, sometimes I get to talking, and goddamn if by the time I reach the end of a sentence I haven’t forgotten the beginning. It’s like the trail of tears. Only, you know, without the dead Indians.”

  The pharmacist stared at him. It wouldn’t have taken Cooper’s gift to read his thoughts: This guy is a moron.

  Not far behind it, though, was Maybe I should call security. It was a hospital, after all. There were legitimately crazy people here.

  “She had her tonsils out.”

  “Okay. Recovery.” The man gave him directions, speaking slowly and carefully. Cooper nodded, thanked him, and then went back the way he’d come. He barely kept himself from laughing but let the smile spread.

  Until he turned the corner and saw a security guard hurrying toward him, along with the surgeon from the cafeteria. Shit. They’d hoped the doctor might not need his badge so quickly, and that even if he did, he’d waste time retracing his steps. Instead, it appeared he had gone straight to security—

  The fact that they’re here means they checked the computer system. They know his badge was just used to access the dispensary.

  They won’t waste time talking to the pharmacist. They’ll go for the door.

  Which is the only exit. She’ll be trapped.

  —which left Cooper with no choice. He’d do the security guard first, a quick combination, solar plexus–kidney-kidney, then the doctor. Sprint back to the dispensary, hop the counter, take out the pharmacists if they got in the way. Get the Neurodicin, get Shannon, get out.

  Someone tapped his shoulder, and he whirled.

  The Girl Who Walks Through Walls stood behind him. “Hi.”

  “You. But.” He turned, saw the guard and doctor hurrying past. Neither glanced at them, focused on their goal. “Oh. Huh.”

  “What?”

  “It’s just, I thought you were still in there. I was going to…I was about to—”

  “Rescue me?”

  “Uhh…”

  “I’m not a cat up a tree. I can handle myself.” Shannon held up an orange plastic bottle, shook it so the pills rattled. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 21

  She wasn’t what he expected.

  Shannon had said that her friend Samantha went way back with John Smith. Cooper had imagined another woman like her, strong, ideologically dedicated, and very dangerous. A soldier.

  What he hadn’t expected was this tiny, delicate thing with pale-blond hair. She had a woman’s face and curves, but couldn’t have been more than four foot ten, maybe ninety pounds. It had a strangely erotic effect; she was so small, you couldn’t help but imagine what she looked like naked.

  “Hey, Sam.” Shannon stepped forward, leaning down to hug the woman. “This is Cooper.”

  “Hi,” he said, holding out a hand. As she shook it, he got a whiff of perfume, sweet but clean. Maybe it was that, or the softness of her hand, but he felt himself getting turned on.

  “Come in.” She stepped aside.

  The room looked like a catalog from an upscale furniture store. Twin white sofas sat atop a thick shag rug. A coffee table holding coffee-table books. The only hint of personality was a bookcase packed to bursting. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, only night and the looming, invisible bulk of Lake Michigan.

  Shannon said, “Brought you a present.” She held out the pill bottle.

  “Wow. How did you get your hands on Nada?” Samantha pronounced it like a lover’s name. “That’s so sweet of you.
”

  Given the upscale apartment and Samantha’s style and carriage, Cooper had almost forgotten that she was an addict. But watching her as she held the pill bottle, he could see the raw, curling need inside her, the hunger. She started to open the bottle, stopped herself, tapped the label. “Sweet of you both.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said, for want of something to say.

  Samantha’s eyes were soft brown flecked with gold, and as she looked at him, the addiction was pushed down, replaced by something he couldn’t quite identify. She shifted her pose, one foot slightly forward, her hips cocked and back straight. The move was subtle, but it made her look stronger, gave her a ferocity. “I’m surprised a cop would be okay with this.”

  “I’m not a cop.”

  “Not anymore, maybe. But you were. Right?” She smiled. “I can always tell. It’s the confidence, the way you hold yourself. Like you could handcuff me if you wanted to.” There was a small gap between her front teeth, and Cooper remembered reading somewhere that was linked to highly sexual tendencies, and that thought led to a visual of what she would look like riding him, how huge his hands would be on her hips, the way her back might arch so that hair would swing down behind to brush his thighs…

  Jesus, man. Lock it down.

  “You okay, Cooper?” Shannon wore an amused smile. “You look a little nervous.”

  He read Shannon’s mocking tone, paired it with the movements Samantha had made, the way she had presented herself to him. She was beautiful, no question, but he’d met a lot of beautiful women in his life. There was something more, something in the way she held herself, the frank flirtation—you could handcuff me if you wanted—coupled with a bit of distance.

  Huh.

  “That’s a powerful gift you have,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Making men sweaty.”

  It threw her, and in that instant he saw through the pose to the calculations. It was like flipping on the lights in a strip club, the illusion of sensuality revealed as misdirection and razzle-dazzle. He watched as she cycled half a dozen responses, each barely signaled, hinted at rather than adopted. Widening eyes to test a vulnerability angle. Stiffened back and shoulders to go the other way, be fierce and angry. The tiniest hint of a slouch to throw out sassy, feisty, ready to play. Each subtle as a poker tell. It was like she was trying a ring of keys, looking for the one that would unlock the secret of who he wanted her to be.