A Better World

CHAPTER 45

Shannon glanced out the open door at the landscape beyond, a thin swath of gray-green grass leading to a small pond. The same medium-dense forest crawling up low hills. It looked peaceful enough, but that just made her more nervous.

She’d never met Soren, but she’d heard plenty. Samantha had loved him, probably still did, but in a way that set Shannon’s teeth on edge. A relationship like a short circuit, their mutual frailties feeding each other. Samantha needed to be needed, and no one could need her as intensely as a man for whom one minute seemed like eleven.

As for John, he’d told her that Soren was the closest thing he had to a twin, but darkly mirrored; where Smith lived entirely in the future, plans within plans that stretched out years, Soren dwelled in an endless present layered just as densely. When Smith had talked about his old friend, there had been warmth in his voice, but also a healthy respect, the mix of emotions a zookeeper might have for a rare and particularly lethal snake.

And if you were said snake, where would you be?

It had probably been less than a minute since she dropped the guy who was aiming at Nick, but that was an eternity in a fight, and longer to Soren. He might have been willing to hang back initially, let the tactical team do the work. But now that they were down, he’d be moving in himself.

Let him. Better he come after you and this lovely H&K 9mm than Nick in the shape he’s in.

Enough. If he was out there, she’d deal with it. Shannon stepped outside, pivoting back and forth. No motion. Behind her, the baby continued to cry, while the woman—Amy?—tried to shush and rock her.

So much for stealth. Let’s try speed.

“Come on,” she said, jerking her head toward the nearest hill. “Let’s go.”

She was afraid Amy would hesitate, do the typical civilian thing and freeze up, but the woman had stones. Tears streaming down her face, crying baby in her arms, husband staying back to sacrifice himself, and she still did what was needed, just started moving. They went at a jog, Shannon scanning, the submachine gun ready. The air was cold and smelled like winter and algae.

Entering the tree line made her feel better, more cover, more room to do her thing. Plus, if Dr. Park was right, Soren might even ignore them. At the top of the hill she paused for a moment, looked back.

Just in time to see a slim figure enter the cabin by the back door.

Shannon snapped the weapon to her shoulder, sighted along it, but it was hopeless, and she knew it.

Amy saw the movement at the cabin. “We have to go back.”

“Come on. Keep going.”

“We could help.”

Shannon grabbed the woman’s arm and tugged her down the other side of the rise. “Move.”

Half leading, half pulling Amy, she hurried toward the road. She could see her SUV parked on the shoulder. Almost there. Come on, come on.

A voice behind her said, “Shannon.”

Natalie stood in the center of Epstein’s cave and stared.

Most of the charts had vanished, replaced by video that hung in the air, live images from around the New Canaan Holdfast.

Each one a scene of unimaginable destruction. Fire and blood and smoke.

Her daughter clung to her, and Natalie knew she should tell her to look away, but couldn’t find her voice. She just stared.

Stared, as a helicopter fell flaming from the sky, bodies leaping out of the open doors.

Stared, as the heavy turret of a tank rotated, the barrel lining up on a troop transport fifty yards away. A soundless recoil and a blast of flame, and the transport vanished in a cloud of upswept dust.

Stared as streaks of light crashed into the ground amidst fleeing soldiers, men and women in combat gear running in all directions as rockets rained down from drones hovering invisibly above. Each strike shook the ground, flung people like broken dolls, their bodies bent and torn.

There were thousands of soldiers just miles away, and by the thousands, they were dying.

“What have you done?” she said. “My God. What have you done?”

“I didn’t want to. They made me,” Erik Epstein said, his voice quivering. He wiped at his eyes with the back of his hands. “You heard. They made me.”

Shannon whirled. The man had stepped from behind a tree, his assault rifle held with easy certainty. A man she had just seen this morning, fifteen hundred miles away, guarding John Smith.

“VanMeter,” she said.

“What are you doing?”

He’s not pointing that rifle at you. Not yet.

“Same as you. John sent me after Ethan Park.” She tightened her grip on Amy’s arm. “This is his wife and kid.”

“John didn’t tell me.”

“He usually run his plans by you, make sure you approve?” Shannon shrugged. “Been a friend of his for ten years, one thing I’ve learned is that John always has surprises.”

“You bitch!” Amy tried to yank her arm away. “You said you were protecting us.”

Shannon let her go, then wound up and cracked the other woman across the face with a hard backhand. Amy gasped and staggered.

VanMeter’s eyes were bright blue and quite pretty, but not quite convinced. “Where’s the doc?”

“Soren is on him.” She gestured over her shoulder with her thumb. “In the house.”

Those pretty blue eyes flickered for just a second, and Shannon shifted. Slid sideways and dropped to one knee, knowing that VanMeter’s eyes would come back scanning sideways, the change in visual plane buying her the fraction of a second she needed, and even as he brought his gun up she could see that he knew too, and then she killed him.

Well, John, you told me I was going to have to choose.

She stood up, grabbed Amy, said, “Come on.”

The gunfire had the baby screaming again, and Amy’s nose was bleeding, but she looked at the dead body, and Shannon could see her put it together. She didn’t resist as they ran to the SUV. She beeped the locks and yanked open the driver’s side. The other woman headed around the front, and Shannon said, “No.”

“What?”

“This side.” She passed over the keys. “You have somewhere you can go?”

“My mother. She lives in Chicago.”

“There’s enough gas for that. Don’t stop for anything.” Shannon turned and sprinted back up the hill toward the house.

In the movies, the cabin would have had a gun rack with a glass front, and Cooper would have smashed it and geared up. Unfortunately, it appeared the Hendersons hadn’t read the script.

Cooper flipped open the revolver and dumped the empty brass. “You have more bullets?”

“We did. They were—”

“Stolen. Right.” He glanced sideways, saw the TV playing footage of Wyoming, made himself look away. No time to get distracted.

Ethan said, “What now?”

“I’m working on it.”

When it hit, it was so obvious he had the urge to slap his forehead. The two gunmen outside had both carried assault rifles.

He slid the revolver into his pocket and started for the door. Then froze. You have to think. You can’t count on your gift here.

Cooper dropped to an army crawl. The position took core strength, and the moment he engaged those muscles, searing pain went through his chest, and that strange skipped heartbeat feeling. He gasped, then forced himself forward, elbow, knee, elbow, knee. Shivering splinters of broken glass tore shallow cuts. When he reached the base of the window, he put his back to it, then sorted through the window shards, selecting a daggered piece six inches long. Slowly he inched it up, angling it to see out the window.

The reflection was gauzy and translucent, but it framed the pickup well enough. He panned it sideways, trying to remember exactly where the guys had fallen. Trees and darkening sky, a blur, and . . .

And Soren, walking toward the house with that same absent calm, the long combat blade in his right hand.

Cooper yanked the fragment of glass down. His heart beat like a drunken drummer, heavy and out of whack. His palms were soaked, and blood dripped from a dozen small cuts.

No way to get to the rifles, not without facing Soren.

Options.

The back way might be clear. On the other hand, there could be a team of snipers back there who had been ordered to wait for their actual target. It made sense; Soren comes in the front and flushes them into fire.

Okay, a side window. They could climb out and haul ass, race into the woods. Only, same problem.

Plus, who are you kidding, Cooper? You can’t outrun Soren, not now. Ethan might be able to, but then he’s on his own, and that’s as good as killing him.

His hands shook, and he gasped a deep breath like swallowing straight razors. There were no options. They had to make a stand, and the best place to do that was in the cabin.

But how? The last time he’d faced this guy, he’d lost spectacularly. Now things were far worse.

Think! Everything you have is on the table, and that roulette wheel is slowing, the ball about to drop.

He couldn’t handle Soren, not in a fair fight. The man’s gift just made him too powerful. A T-naught of 11.2, my God. An eye blink would last a second, a footstep five. It was a strange and terrible gift, one that—

Wait. For most abnorms, their gift is just a part of them.

But Soren’s gift is different. In a very real way, he is his gift.

His perception of the world is entirely shaped by it.

He will depend on it utterly, and trust what it tells him.

—might be used against him.

Cooper scrambled across the floor, ignoring the pain. Unbelievable the risk. It wasn’t just his life on the table, it was Ethan’s, and the hope he offered the future. And it all depended on Cooper being right.

“Doc, I need you to trust me again.” Still carrying the shard of glass he’d used as a mirror, he glanced over his shoulder. Out of sight of the window. He rose quickly, took in the room. Measured angles in his head. “You see that closet? When I say, crouch down, move to it, and get in. Whatever you do, don’t look back.”

Ethan laughed. “Are you serious?”

Cooper shared the urge to laugh, didn’t. There was an archway out of the living room into what looked like a kitchen, the back way Shannon had taken. “Do it now.”

Lionel Clay sat at the head of the table and stared around the Situation Room at a world gone mad. Men and women in uniform were yelling at each other, talking into phones, but all of them were looking at the same thing.

The wall of tri-d screens, where American troops were massacring each other.

A high-angle recon shot showed a line of vehicles burning. Those that could still move rolled into exposed positions and continued firing on one another.

A helicopter gunship hovered over a platoon of running soldiers, spitting bullets and bright tracers. Men staggered and fell as if shoved from behind.

A soldier missing an arm clawed his way across the broken ground.

The dead lay everywhere. Killed in groups and mowed down one by one.

Streaks of light hurtled down from tactical drones, each finger missile thumping into the ground with an explosion that tossed heavy trucks like toys, that tore bodies apart.

“What’s happening?”

No one responded, and he realized his voice had been a croak. Clay pounded the table with his fist, said, “What’s happening?”

General Yuval Raz, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was a forty-year veteran, a man whose uniform sagged with medals earned all over the world. He looked like he wanted to crawl under the table. “It’s a virus. A Trojan horse. They must have had it waiting in all our hardware.”

“Can’t we shut everything down?”

“Nothing is responding. The virus has subverted manual control.”

“A computer program is massacring American soldiers by the thousands, and there’s nothing we can do but watch?”

“We’re working the problem, but so far—”

“General!” The interrupting soldier wore a lieutenant’s bar and held a phone to his ear. He needed a shave, though the scruff was patchy at best. So young, Clay thought. So many of them, so young. “We have an unauthorized missile launch, a BGM-117.”

“An Avenger?” Raz looked at Clay. “That will be out of Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne.” To the lieutenant, he said, “What’s the ETA to the Holdfast?”

“Sir,” the man said, eyes wide and face pale. “It wasn’t from Warren. Air command reports the missile was launched from the USS Fortitude, a Luna-class attack submarine at latitude 38.47, longitude -74.40.”

“North 38 west 74? But that’s . . .”

“Approximately one hundred miles east of Washington, DC.” The lieutenant swallowed hard.

General Raz laid his fingers on the table. “They’ve already tried the self-destruct?”

“No response, sir.”

“Activate all missile defense batteries.” Raz spun. “Sir, we need to get you out of here immediately.”

“It’s heading for the White House?”

Raz nodded.

“Can you destroy it?”

“We’ll try. Meanwhile, sir, you have to go. Right now.”

Lionel Clay stared. At the monitors, on which his soldiers burned and bled. At the officers surrounding the table. At the American flag hanging limp in the corner.

“Sir, the Avenger is our top-of-line technology. It’s capable of more than four thousand miles per hour, five times the speed of sound. You have to go.”

This was never what you wanted. Not the office, not division in America, not the war. You let others drive you here.

You knew better, and you let it happen anyway.

And now thousands are dying, and a missile is hurtling toward the seat of American democracy.

Where will you be when it lands?

“I ordered our troops to attack. I’m staying.”

“Sir—”

“That’s an order.”

The general gave him an appraising look, then a sharp nod. “Yes, sir.”

Clay stood up. Took his suit jacket from the back of his chair and slid it on. He’d been a history professor, not a mathematician, but the calculation wasn’t complicated. If the missile could cover four thousand miles in an hour, it could do a hundred miles in a minute and a half.

Which meant they had thirty seconds left.

“Sir, antimissile batteries on the Chesapeake Bay are firing now.” The lieutenant closed his eyes and bit his lip.

The White House was completed in 1800. It’s been occupied by every president but George Washington. For 213 years it has stood as a symbol of all that America is.

Everyone in the room stared at the lieutenant, the phone held to his ear with fingers clenched bloodless. There was nothing but the sound of breathing.

And then something in the young officer gave. His shoulders slumped, and his head fell.

It was over. They all knew it even before the man said, “Negative. No contact.”

Fifteen seconds.

Clay buttoned his jacket and straightened his posture. His eyes swept the room. Funny, only now did he realize who was missing.

You little shit-heel, Leahy. At the very least, you should be standing here too.

He wanted to say something. Wanted to find words that would make it all meaningful.

But what would they be?

Five seconds. He strained to hear a screaming, then remembered the missile traveled faster than its own sound waves. We are never more clever than in the creation of ways to destroy ourselves.

“I’m sorry,” Lionel Clay said. And then, “God bless America.”

White erased the world.

Soren walked.

Past the red Porsche, his fingers trailing along the hood, the metal cool. Past the shattered pickup truck, the windshield glass crunching beneath his feet.

As usual, John had been right to be prepared. The tactical team had failed, and it was up to him to finish it. The rook, but no longer on the back row. Now stalking the board, forcing checkmate.

His nothingness had been shattered, his stores of carefully hoarded oblivion squandered. It’s time to go away. But finish this for your friend.

The presence of Nick Cooper had been a surprise. The man was resilient. But Soren had spotted the bandage on his hand, had seen him stumble and fall. All that resilience had accomplished was to delay the inevitable.

He walked toward the cabin, calm, alert, in the moment. Through the shattered bay window, he could see the living room, a television on, no sign of the people inside . . . until, low but not low enough, he saw Ethan Park hurry in a crouch to a door in the side wall. A closet, and in the leisure of his perception, Soren catalogued the items inside, the blankets and coats, fishing poles and board games. Park slid inside and shut the door behind him.

Soren paused, took thirty of his seconds to think. The doctor was intelligent, and hiding in a closet was the action of a child. Especially with Cooper inside the house. Which meant . . .

Of course. A trap. Soren was meant to see him go there. Cooper would be waiting somewhere he could cover the front door and the closet. He smiled, imagining John’s amusement at such a simple gambit.

Ignoring the front door, he moved in a jog around the side of the house. As he rounded the corner, he took in the world, the pond, the trees, the woman Shannon moving into the forest with Amy Park and the baby. Good. No need to deal with her now.

The back door was ajar, no doubt left that way when she fled. Soren moved to it, light on his feet. Though he knew what he would see, he still moved carefully, easing around the edge of the doorframe.

Nick Cooper stood at the edge of the kitchen by an arch that led to the living room. His back was to Soren, the pistol up and aimed at the front door. Soren was almost sad; the man had proven resourceful, and while he would fail here again, he had fought to the end.

Soren slipped in the door. Four steps would take him there.

He took the first, then the second. Raised the dagger, the flat black blade so light it was an extension of his arm.

The third. Cooper held the pistol in his left hand, braced against the wall, his aim unwavering on the door. All his attention on the trap he had laid. His back exposed and unarmored.

The fourth.

Soren cocked the dagger back, lined it up between Cooper’s vertebrae to the left of the spine, and lunged.

Cooper could feel the air moving in the room, could feel his blood pulsing in his veins. Could hear the tiny creaks of the cabin, smell the sweat and blood. His arm was tired, but he kept the revolver pointed at the door. Everything came down to this. He would have one shot, one, and if he failed, they were both dead. He had to be perfect. For his life, and Ethan’s, and his children, and his country. One shot.

And when, in the glass shard he’d propped against the counter he saw Soren raise the dagger and lunge, he spun. Everything coming down to one instant, his left hand whipping the heavy pistol around, praying that he’d been right, that what Todd had shown him in the restaurant was true, and as he saw Soren hurling forward, the blade out and his weight shifted, Cooper’s gift read his intention clear as neon, and he slid sideways and slammed the revolver into Soren’s neck with all his strength.

The shock on the man’s face was the second-most beautiful thing he’d seen all day.

The blow had been ferocious, crippling, and the knife fell from Soren’s hand, but Cooper didn’t pause to savor the moment, just wound up and swung again, across the man’s face this time, and then the monster was falling. He hit the floor gasping, a gargling sound coming from his throat.

“Hi,” Cooper said. Then he raised his foot and slammed it down, hearing the matchstick snap of fingers. Soren screamed, clutched at his ruined hand with his good one.

“Funny thing.” He limped around the guy to the other side. “I realized the reason I couldn’t beat you. You never attacked. You waited for me to move and then put the knife where I’d be. But once you commit to action, I can read you just fine.”

Cooper raised his foot again. “You know how I realized that? The only time I could read you was when you were about to hit my son.” He snapped the man’s left shin like kindling. “So Todd says hello.”

Soren screamed.

Outside, Cooper heard more gunfire, the same fast cluster as before. Shannon’s SMG. There was no returning fire. Good. Cooper smiled. Then he tried to lean against the wall and fell down instead.

A moment later she was in the kitchen, moving fast, the gun up. “Nick!”

“I’m okay.” He took the hand she offered and wobbled back to his feet. “You?”

“Fine.”

“Hey, Doc,” he yelled to the other room. “You can come out now. The good guys won.”

On the floor, the man who had put his son in a coma writhed and moaned, his face a bloody mess, hand destroyed, a bone sticking out of his calf. Cooper watched. After a moment, he said, “Doc?”

“Cooper.” Ethan’s voice was faint from the other room. “I think you need to see this.”

He glanced at Shannon, and she trained her weapon on Soren. Cooper limped through the arch, past the shattered pictures and the broken glass, to where Ethan stood staring at the television.

A line of tanks burned against the skyline of an apparently unscathed Tesla. Corpses lay everywhere, thousands of them carpeting the desert. The prefab buildings smoldered, black ropes rising into the sky. Helicopters buzzed through the haze, firing on the few soldiers still standing. Then the video cut to something new.

No, oh no.

Something that had once been the White House. The building had been replaced by a massive crater. The surrounding earth was bunched and rippled like carpet. A column of thick smoke obscured most of the strike itself, but the debris was everywhere. The columns of the South Portico were scattered like children’s blocks. Shattered glass glinted amidst piles of limestone and marble and bent steel. Paper blew in gusts, and small blazes flickered. Dust and dirt and flesh and blood mingled into an unholy gray. The trees on the north lawn were burning, a harvest of fire wavering like autumn leaves.

He stepped forward and found the volume.

“—a missile apparently launched from a submarine. The White House has been completely destroyed. We believe President Clay was inside at the time, along with . . . oh God.” The announcer choked. “It was a computer virus, a Trojan horse triggered by the abnorms. The military force in New Canaan has torn itself to pieces. Casualties are in the tens of thousands. We—” A pause and a choke. “America is now at war. My God, we’re at war with ourselves.”

Cooper stared. Saw everything he had fought for burning.

They were no longer on the precipice. They’d gone headfirst into the abyss.

Without thinking, he kicked the television, the screen toppling over and smashing against the wall, sparks flying. Ethan jumped, said, “Jesus Christ!”

Cooper turned, staggered back to the kitchen. Soren had rolled to one side and lay shivering. Shannon looked up with wide eyes. “Did I hear—”

“Yes.” He stared down.

Ethan joined them, saw Soren, said again, “Jesus Christ.” Then, “Where’s my family?”

“Safe,” Shannon said. “Nobody’s after them. She’s going to her mom’s.”

Slowly, Ethan nodded. “Now what?”

Now what. Now what indeed.

Cooper had known that this plan was a long shot, known he was likely to die trying. And instead he’d survived, saved Ethan Park, and it didn’t matter. The White House was destroyed, the president dead, the nation in a civil war. John Smith had won.

No.

I won’t allow it.

“Doc. Your boss, Couzen. You know him pretty well?”

“Sure. But he was kidnapped—”

“No. He faked it.”

“He faked it?”

“Yes. He’s out there somewhere, and he’s got the recipe for the last best hope we have. You’re going to help me find him.” He turned to Shannon. “This isn’t over.”

“Nick . . .”

“It’s not. It’s not over unless we give up. Unless we let Smith win.” He took a breath, tried to stop the shaking of his hands. “Everything is falling apart. But we can still fight. We just have to decide to do it. My children are still alive, and as long as that’s true, I’m never going to quit.”

She stared at him for a long moment, his fierce warrior woman, and then she nodded slowly. “What’s the plan?”

“You’re going to take this piece of shit”—he gestured at Soren—“back to Epstein.”

“What? Why?”

“Epstein said that he’s Smith’s closest friend. That he understood Smith better than anyone.” He read the confirmation in her eyes. “Good. We’re going to need that.”

“What about me?” Ethan said.

Soren groaned on the floor. Idly, Cooper wound up and kicked him in the temple. The man stopped moving.

Then he looked at the scientist. “You and me, Doc?” Cooper smiled. “We’re going to go save the world.”

END OF BOOK TWO