A Better World

CHAPTER 4

Cooper wasn’t used to it. Not one little bit.

It’d been three weeks since he’d taken that unscheduled limousine ride. Twenty-one days as a special advisor to the president of the United States, all of them work days—he had a feeling that weekends would soon be a distant memory—spent in meetings and conferences, poring over reports and sitting in the Situation Room.

The Situation Room, for Christ’s sake. Twenty-one days wasn’t near long enough to get used to it. Cooper waved his pass at the guard hut on Pennsylvania, waited for the buzz of the door.

“Morning, Mr. Cooper.”

“Morning, Chet. I told you, it’s just Cooper.” He slipped off his jacket, set it atop his briefcase on the X-ray belt, then swiped his pass and typed his ID code into the machine. “How was your night?”

“Lost twenty dollars on the ’Skins to my son-in-law. Arms up, please.”

Cooper raised his arms as Chet ran a wand up and down his body, searching for traces of explosives and weaponized biologicals. The wand was newtech, developed in response to the public outcry over delays at airport security. Best Cooper could tell, it hadn’t sped anything up. “Bad enough he marries your little girl, he takes your money too?”

“Tell me.” The guard smiled, gestured to the opposite end of the X-ray machine. “You have a good day, Mr. Cooper.”

And just like that, he was through the fence and on the White House grounds. A long, curving driveway wound past the tri-d cameras at Pebble Beach, where the newsies waited day in and day out. Cooper put his jacket back on and walked, drinking in the building, the reality of it. The people’s house, the symbol of the best the nation could stand for, the epicenter of global power—his office.

Well, sort of. In actuality, his office was in the OEOB, the office building across the street. But he’d barely seen it; his working hours had been spent almost entirely in the West Wing.

A marine in dress uniform executed a precise right-face and held the door for Cooper. In the lobby, he checked his phone and saw he was on time, a few minutes shy of seven. He passed the Roosevelt Room, stepping aside for a general and two aides. The carpet was thick and soft, and everything glistened, the furniture freshly polished. He’d never put a lot of thought into pondering what the air in the White House might smell like, but even so he’d been surprised by the answer: flowers. It smelled like flowers, from the fresh arrangements brought in every day.

A right turn took him past the Cabinet Room—the Cabinet Room!—and a handful of paces later, he was stepping into the president’s outer office. Two assistants typed at keyboards projected onto antique desks, and their screens were polarized monoglass so thin that from the side, they vanished entirely. A funny juxtaposition of the old and the new.

Press Secretary Holden Archer was locked in conversation with Marla Keevers, the chief of staff looking smart and vicious in a gray suit. Both were seasoned politicians and gave little away, but to Cooper’s eyes, the subtle stiffening at his arrival spoke volumes.

Relax, guys. I’m not after your job.

Cooper put his hands in his pocket and turned his attention to a gilt-framed painting, the Statue of Liberty draped in impressionistic fog. Nice enough, he supposed, though if he’d seen it at a street fair, he wouldn’t have paid any attention.

“Mr. Cooper.”

He turned. “Mr. Secretary. Good morning.”

Though now the secretary of defense, Owen Leahy had come up through intelligence, and it showed. His posture suggested that not only would he not comment on the quality of the morning, he would neither confirm nor deny that it was in fact the a.m. There weren’t many people who gave off so little to Cooper’s eyes.

“Anything new on the Children of Darwin?” Cooper asked.

Leahy made a noncommittal face. “Have they found you an office yet?”

“Across the street.”

“Ah.” A tiny smile at that; Cooper had noticed people here put a lot of stock in the location of their office. Leahy continued, “And how are you enjoying working here? All these meetings must seem dull after the DAR.”

“Oh, it’s not that different,” Cooper said. “Less gunplay, but still plenty of fatalities.”

Leahy gave an aren’t-you-droll chuckle. Cooper could see the SecDef preparing another veiled insult, but before he could fire it, a curved door in the southwest wall opened. President Lionel Clay stuck his head out, said to his assistant, “Push everything nonessential,” then turned and walked back inside, gesturing over his shoulder for them to follow.

In the flood of morning sun, the Oval Office glowed, light bouncing off every polished surface. Keevers, Leahy, and Archer walked in comfortably, like it was any other room. Cooper squared his shoulders and tried to do the same, still hearing the same gentle roar in his ears he experienced every time.

“Owen, what’s our status on the Children of Darwin?”

“We’re getting a more complete picture, sir, but slowly.” The secretary of defense began to brief the president, but it was clear that there had been no significant progress made.

Cooper had become something of an expert on the terrorist organization since joining Clay’s administration. He’d devoured every memo on the Children, met with the DAR and the FBI and the NSA, spent hours staring at photographs of truckers burned alive. Yet for all the time he’d spent, he still didn’t know very much. The terrorist organization seemed to have sprung to life full-formed. No one knew how large it was, where it was based, how it was funded, if it had centralized leadership or was just a loose network of terror cells.

“What it comes down to, sir,” Leahy continued, “is that we’ve learned a lot in the last days—the bombs at the food depots illustrate their technical knowledge and chemical access, surveillance video shows that they used stolen police cruisers when attacking the trucks, our analysts are gaining insight through data-mining patterns—but none of it is giving us actionable answers.”

“Maybe that’s because they’re fanatics. Lunatics,” Keevers said. “They burned people alive. Why are we talking about the COD like a foreign regime instead of a cult?”

The president rubbed at his chin. “Nick? What do you think?”

Only his ex-wife Natalie and Shannon used his first name, but somehow he didn’t feel comfortable asking the president of the United States to call him Cooper. He cleared his throat, took a moment to weigh his words. “Think how furious the whole nation was at what they saw on the Monocle video. Their own president planning to kill them.”

Clay maintained a mild expression, but the three staffers exchanged glances, shuffled papers. He could feel them edging away. Let ’em. As long as you’re here, you may as well tell the truth. “Well, now consider the brilliants’ point of view. Tier-one children are forcibly taken from their parents and sent to academies. Without due process or a jury, the DAR terminates abnorms it deems a threat to society. Thanks to the Monitoring Oversight Initiative, every American gifted will be forced to get a microchip implanted in their neck—”

“We’ll see about that one,” Clay said. “I’m not a fan.”

“That’s great to hear, Mr. President. But even if you are able to get the law repealed—and you should—it won’t change the fact that gifted are treated like second-class citizens.”

“I’m not sure,” Leahy said, “that I’m seeing the tactical value to this analysis.”

“It’s this,” Cooper said. “Fanatics they may be, but they’re not lunatics, and they have cause to be pissed off. I’ve spent my life hunting terrorists. I hate everything they stand for. But let’s not pretend that they haven’t been provoked.”

“And let’s not forget,” Leahy said, “that they’ve killed thousands, burned innocent men and women alive, and are trying to starve three American cities. What do you propose, we sit around a table and chat about our differences?”

“No,” Cooper said. “We can’t negotiate with terrorists.”

“So then—”

“But we could get someone to negotiate on our behalf.”

President Clay looked thoughtful. “Who are you thinking, Nick?”

“Erik Epstein.” The world’s richest man had earned more than $300 billion using his gift to find patterns in the stock market. When the global markets were finally shuttered to protect against people like him, he’d turned his attention to a new project: building a home for brilliants. He’d leveraged his fortune to create an abnorm Israel in the heart of the Wyoming desert. “As the leader of the New Canaan Holdfast, he’s got connections to the gifted community at all levels. And he doesn’t condone terrorism, so . . .” Cooper trailed off. A look was passing between the other staffers. “What?”

“Of course, you don’t know,” Marla Keevers said. “You’re new to this world, how could you? But you see, there is no Erik Epstein.”

He stared at her, bemused. Remembering standing in a subterranean wonderland of computers beneath the New Canaan Holdfast, talking to Epstein. A strange and intelligent man with a gift of enormous power, the ability to correlate seemingly unrelated sources of data and draw patterns from them.

Of course, the same gift had made him a recluse, barely able to communicate with other people. Which was why his brother had served as the public “Erik Epstein,” the one who did talk shows and met presidents. It was a secret known to only a handful of people.

“You see,” Keevers continued, “it’s clear that the man pretending to be Epstein is not the same man responsible for bringing down the stock market.”

“Which makes diplomacy with him impossible,” the president said. “We could never be sure who we were dealing with.”

“But—” Cooper caught himself. He knew a truth these people did not, a truth that might matter. And yet, these were some of the most powerful people on the planet. If Epstein had chosen to keep them in the dark, there was a reason.

Last time you met Epstein, you promised him you’d kill John Smith. Instead, you spared Smith’s life. Do you really want to screw the world’s richest man twice? “I see.”

“For now,” Leahy said, picking up as if uninterrupted, “we’re focusing on the situation on the ground. We’re hoping to begin distributing food and critical supplies tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” The president frowned. “The supermarkets were empty two days ago. What’s the delay?”

Keevers said, “We’d actually consider that a win, sir. The National Guard doesn’t maintain food reserves. In Tulsa and Fresno, we’re negotiating with the grocery distributors, but the largest food depot in the Cleveland area was destroyed. We’re having to coordinate with others across northeast Ohio.”

“What about FEMA?”

“FEMA can’t act until Governor Timmons declares a state of emergency and formally requests help.”

“Why hasn’t he?”

“He’s a Democrat,” she said. “If he comes to a Republican president for help, it’ll make him look weak come reelection.”

“Fix that. People are hungry.”

“Yes, sir.” Marla Keevers uncrumpled her d-pad and made a note. “In the meantime, the National Guard is trying to set up food distribution centers, but they’re having trouble. There have been incidents at most of the grocery stores. Broken glass, fistfights, looting. The National Guard is trying to keep the peace, but while they’re doing crowd control and defending stores, they can’t build aid stations. And the longer the delays in delivering food, the more people are taking to the streets.”

President Clay turned his back on them and paced to the window. He stared out at the Rose Garden, the morning sun neatly bisecting him. “Any fatalities?”

“Not yet. A few people hospitalized.”

“We need everyone to calm down,” Clay said. “The panic is worse than the problem.”

“Yes, sir,” Keevers said. “We think you should address the nation.”

“This afternoon?”

Press Secretary Archer said, “We’ll get better coverage this evening.”

“Just a brief statement,” Keevers said. “Prepared remarks. You are personally overseeing all attempts—”

“Efforts,” Archer said, “not attempts. Personally overseeing all efforts during this difficult time.”

“A season of adversity when Americans must come together—”

“—to demonstrate the spirit of resolve that defines the national character, et cetera.”

“The National Guard has your highest confidence, and so do the people of Cleveland, Tulsa, and Fresno.”

“Meanwhile, no stone is being left unturned in the hunt for those who vilely attacked our nation.”

“Excuse me,” Cooper said.

The rhythm of the room was broken, everyone turning to look at him like they had forgotten he was there. He smiled affably. “You said ‘statement.’ Shouldn’t he take questions?”

“No,” Keevers and Leahy said at the same time. Archer said, “Absolutely not.”

“Three cities are in chaos,” Cooper said. “There are food shortages and looting and the fear of riots. Why wouldn’t the president answer questions?”

Keevers’s face was tight. “Mr. Cooper, I don’t think—”

“Actually,” President Clay said, “he has a point. Why not take questions?”

The other three looked at one another. After a moment, Archer said, “Because, sir, the questions will be, who are the Children of Darwin? Where are they? What do they want? How close are we to stopping them?”

“Why not come out strong?” Clay asked. “Say that the situation is under control, that the COD will soon be neutralized by actions covert, swift, and final.”

“Because intelligence suggests more attacks may be coming,” the secretary of defense said. “If you say we’ve got it handled and an hour later something blows up, it looks like we’re asleep at the switch.”

“So tell the truth,” Cooper said. “Tell people that you don’t have all the answers yet. Tell them that the full force of the US government is being brought to bear. That terrorism won’t be tolerated, and that the Children of Darwin will be caught or killed. And that meanwhile, you need your citizens to put on their big-boy pants and calm down.”

A silence fell. It had a weight and a texture. It was a silence that spoke volumes; a silence filled with at least three people wondering just how dumb he was.

So much for “the truth shall set you free.”

After a long moment, the president spoke. “All right. No questions.”

Cooper leaned back in his chair. Fought the urge to shrug.

“But Nick raises a good point,” Clay continued. “It’s important to preserve people’s confidence that the buck stops with the president, and if I make a statement and don’t answer questions, it suggests we’re hiding something. Holden, on the other hand, can defer and deflect. He’ll do the briefing.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And, Owen, I want answers about the Children of Darwin. Not next week, not tomorrow, now.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.” Lionel Clay circled behind his desk, put on his reading glasses, and began to flip through a file folder. His attention was absorbed immediately. A side effect of Cooper’s gift was that he tended to categorize people as shades of color; hotheads felt red to him, introverts landed in shades of gray. Lionel Clay was the smoke-stained gold of café walls, comforting and sophisticated.

Which is great. But I wonder if right now we don’t need a man who patterns like polished steel.

He stood up, buttoned his suit jacket, and followed the others out of the Oval Office. Marla Keevers waited until the door closed to jump him. “Big-boy pants?”

“Big-girl pants too,” he said.

Her smile was thin and cold and died far from her eyes. “You realize all you accomplished was to get him excited about something he can’t do.”

“My understanding, he can do pretty much anything he likes.”

“You’re wrong. And now instead of the president telling the nation not to worry, we’ll have the press secretary bobbing and weaving. Holden is good, but what we need is the leader of the free world telling his people that everything is okay.”

“Even if it’s not.”

“Especially then.”

“See, that’s where we disagree. I think that the president’s job is to protect the country. And telling them the truth is the best way to do that.”

“Oh, Christ.” She rolled her eyes. “I’d say that I hope you know what you’re doing, but you clearly don’t.”

“We’ll see,” Cooper said.

“Yes,” Marla Keevers replied. “We will.”