He ran, trying to move between the bodies that mobbed the street. Cooper hated crowds, felt assaulted by them. All those intentions crossing and crisscrossing, it was like trying to listen to a thousand conversations at once. But where his mind would turn the noise of a thousand conversations into gray noise he could ignore, he couldn’t tune out body language and physical cues. They came at him all at once and from every direction. All he could do was try to focus, to put his attention on the woman right in front of him and the angle of her shoulder that meant she was about to shift her bag. To the man about to speak to his friend. To the little girl who looked a lot like Kate—no, push that away, no time now to think about Kate—reaching up for her mother’s hand.
When he couldn’t find a hole, he made one, barreling through with one elbow up like the prow of a ship. Yells rose behind him, and curses. Someone shoved at his shoulder.
“Cooper.” Quinn’s voice in his ear. “Peters is trying to reach the officer in charge on the scene, but it’s madness right now.”
“No kidding.” He surged past a cluster of schoolgirls. “What about my bomb squad?”
“Scrambling now. ETA fifteen minutes.”
Fifteen minutes. Damn, damn, damn. There was a bank on the corner, and he raced through the revolving door. The lobby was sweet relief. Velvet ropes, bland colors, stale air, a manageable number of people. He sprinted across. A manager rose from his desk. The security guard yelled something. Cooper ignored it all, focused on making it to the opposite door.
And then he was on the corner of Wall and Broad, where history was about to be made, and the whole world was noise and howling chaos.
People were packed shoulder to shoulder. He winced at the tangled skein of vectors in front of him, at the collective motion of the crowd, the herd, something he could never read or understand, his talents all aimed at the individual, the person, the pattern.
Focus. There’s no time.
To the south was the magnificent façade that had once belonged to the NYSE, with its six massive columns supporting an intricate sculpture above. Beneath was a stage and podium, dignitaries milling nearby, security orbiting them like planets around a star.
He started pushing south, gently where he could, roughly where he couldn’t. Somehow he had to get to the Broad Street entrance. In a door off the lobby he would find a janitor’s hallway and a freight elevator that would take him to the basement, where he could access the wiring tunnels where Dusty Evans had placed his bombs.
Sure, Coop. Just get through the crowd, past the security, through the lobby, down to the basement, into the tunnels, and then all you have to do is figure out how to disarm five separate bombs placed at strategic structural locations.
1:59.
Body odor and thrown elbows, hairspray and curses. He pushed forward one agonizing step at a time. Everyone seemed to be yelling, even when their mouths were closed. A wave of frustration washed over him, and he fought the urge to pull his gun, fire into the air. This was pointless. It would take too long to get to the front, and even if he made it, security would be too tight. He needed a better plan. Cooper pushed over to a newspaper dispenser—quick flash of Bryan Vasquez disintegrating—and climbed up on top of it.
The Broad Street entrance was too tight. But maybe back on Wall Street? There must be side entrances. They’d be guarded too, but security would be lighter, and if his rank didn’t get him in fast enough, then he’d find another way. He scanned the crowd, planning his move, eyes falling across businesspeople in business suits, parents with cameras and weary expressions, locals here for the free theater, a homeless man shaking a Dunkin’ Donuts cup, a group of protesters holding signs, a very, very pretty girl heading west—
Holy shit.
He leaped off the dispenser, tumbling into a burly dude holding a giant soda. Man and drink flew in opposite directions. Cooper kept the inertia going, went through the hole the falling man had made, heading away from the ceremony. “Bobby, I’ve got our bomber in sight, the woman in the photograph. She’s on Wall Street heading west.”
“Roger. I’ll alert the police—”
“Negative. Say again, negative. If she spots someone coming after her, she’ll blow the bombs.”
“Cooper—”
“Negative.” He pushed forward, forcing himself not to sprint. It was just like John Smith to have her on scene, gauging the exact moment to trigger the bomb. Timing it for maximum damage.
But that planning was going to work against Smith this time. Bombs Cooper knew nothing about, but a bomber he could handle.
He shoved through the crowd, throwing elbows and stomping on feet. He found her, lost her, found her again. The farther he went from the podium, the more things opened up, until he was able to read individual body language again. He went as fast as he dared, and yet though she was walking at a calm pace, she seemed to be getting farther ahead of him with every step. Somehow people seemed to be always moving out of her way. Two singing drunks in soccer jerseys swayed into a crowd of people, clearing a hole just in front of her. A father hoisted his son onto his shoulders, and she slid behind them. Two cops pushed through the crowd, opening a lane she followed for half the length of a building. It was like watching Barry Adams strut across a football field untouched by an entire defensive line. As if she was looking at things not as they were, but as they would be when she reached them.
She’s an abnorm.
No surprise, really; most of Smith’s top operatives would be. But it explained how she’d beaten them so handily in DC. If she had a gift for patterning anything like Barry Adams’s, then the whole world would be moving vectors to her. Walking through the security perimeter would simple. She’d probably even pegged Cooper as the leader. Blowing the bomb while standing ten feet from him was her way of giving the bird.
That made his belly burn, and he quickened his pace. He was twenty yards behind her and moving fast. She hadn’t looked back, not once. Concentrating on the terrain in front of her. Which suggested that she was near her goal. He looked ahead and saw it. A side entrance to the Exchange.
Two cops stood nearby, their postures relaxed. She walked past them, overshot the entrance by a few steps, and then paused to look at her watch. One of the cops hitched up his belt and said something that made the other laugh, and she pivoted lightly and slid around behind them. Cooper couldn’t believe it. If she’d raised one slender arm she could have tapped the cops on the shoulder, and yet they were completely unaware of her. It was the strangest thing, a virtuoso display of ability that practically rendered her invisible, and it would have been gorgeous to watch—except that she pushed open the door of the Exchange and slipped inside.
“Shit. She made it into the building. I’m going after her.”
“Do you want—”
“Hold on.” Cooper walked toward the police. The girl had somehow been able to slip right through their blind spot, but he didn’t know how to do that. Sorry, fellas. “Excuse me, Officer, do you know where the stage is?”
“Round the corner, buddy.” The cop pointed. “Follow the—”
Cooper bobbed down and hammered a left hook into the man’s exposed kidney, placing it in the fabric portion of the bulletproof vest. The cop gasped and staggered. As he did, Cooper grabbed the front of his shirt and shoved him at his partner as hard as he could. The two collided and went down in a tangle. Cooper followed them, driving his knee into the solar plexus of the second cop, then scrambled to his feet and through the door.