Her eyes were large to begin with, and the mascara made them huge. He stared at them, trying to read her thoughts, and more than that, her next move, whether she was going to pull the trigger just because that was the plan. He could feel the seconds ticking away, and the motion in his periphery drawing closer, and then he could no longer take it, and he turned and looked at the steps.
Just as he had expected. Zane, thank you for being the traitorous opportunistic piece of weasel shit I thought you were.
He turned back to the Girl Who Walks Through Walls. She was on the train side of the platform. The roof would cover her from one direction, but not both. “Listen to me,” he said. “Take exactly two steps forward and face east. Do it now, or they’ll kill you.”
“Who?”
“Do it now.” She would listen or she wouldn’t. Either way, he had to focus. He turned.
Pouring out of both entrances to the east were men and women with neat hair and good shoes and the chest bulk of people wearing body armor. They carried shotguns and SMGs and pistols, carried them properly, aimed down and left, safeties off but fingers outside trigger guards. Three at the far stair and five at the near. Agents from Equitable Services. His former colleagues. There would be dozens more nearby, scores, covering every block. And for a little salt in the wound, both Roger Dickinson and Bobby Quinn were among them.
Ah well.
They were yelling, telling him not to move, standard law enforcement technique, disorient and overwhelm. Their guns coming up. The handful of civilians on the platform had turned to stone. Slowly, palms out to show he meant no threat, he raised his hands. Showed that he was complying. They fanned out in a precise tactical arc, giving every agent a clean shot. The barrels of eight guns were locked on his chest. No one pointing at his head, no hotshots. If he so much as twitched his finger, they would blow his chest across the platform. He could see it in the white tension of a forefinger curled on a trigger; in the unblinking fish stare framed by submachine gun sights; in the locked shoulder muscles and flared nostrils. Roger Dickinson’s lips were twisted into a snarl that looked almost like a smile. They wanted to shoot. They hated him, and they feared him.
All but Quinn. Quinn wasn’t sure. Cooper locked eyes with his friend and partner. Let the sounds wash over him, their yells and howls and the rumble of an incoming train, all of it static, like the burbling of a river, out of sync with the motion of their lips.
And then he used his toe to trigger the remote he’d jammed into the front of his shoe, and the flashbangs in the plastic shopping bag turned the world into a blazing roar.
Even facing east, with his back to them, the glare left spots in his eyes, and now static really was all he could hear. All of the agents in their textbook-perfect arc had been staring directly into eight million candelas worth of white-hot flare. They reeled back, hands going to eyes, weapons flailing.
Ten seconds.
Cooper turned, saw the girl standing beside him, facing east. She started forward, but he lashed out, caught her wrist. “No!” He was shouting, but could barely hear his own voice. “Snipers!” He let go of her, turned to the west, and began to run.
Eight seconds.
The platform ran another thirty yards. Benches and trash cans were strung along the length. He leaned into the run, hoping she could keep up. The beginnings of a potential next step were assembling in his head, and she was at the heart of it. No time. He reached the end of the portion with a roof.
Here went nothing.
Five seconds.
Something angry and hot burned past his arm, and sparks popped off a trash can ahead. He did a quick zag to the left. A patch of concrete burst. He faked right and then went left again. The hipster he passed collapsed, hands clutching at his leg, which seemed to have exploded from the inside. Cooper never heard the shots, hadn’t expected to. The flashbang was part of it, but also the snipers—there would be at least three—would be on upper floors hundreds of yards away.
Two seconds.
He hit the end of the platform at a dead run, planted his right foot without slowing, leaped upward, got his left foot onto the railing, and flung himself into space, arms whirling, wind on his face, heart in his mouth.
Below him the street. Unforgiving concrete and the buzz of cars. Empty air. He just had time to wonder if he would make it, and then he hit the fire escape of the building opposite. It wasn’t a graceful landing; he pretty much collided with the railing, ribs banging into it. He gasped, then hauled himself up and over. Turned to see if—
—she landed like a cat, flexing her knees down to a squat crouch, her hands catching and pushing her up.
Goddamn.
Cooper pushed aside his appreciation. They were out of time. A flashbang worked by throwing enough photons that it activated all light-sensitive cells in the eye, temporarily blinding anybody nearby and facing it. But ten seconds was as much as he could hope before the team would be able to see enough to start moving. Maybe even to risk a shot. He lunged for the corner railing, ripped off the strip of duct tape, and yanked the crowbar free, then whirled and smashed the window with one blow. Hauled it back across the bottom to clear the worst of the shards.
He turned to gesture to the girl, and found her no longer there. Right. He leaped through the window as gunfire cracked behind. He hit something, her, and the two of them tangled and fell. He landed on top of her, not a suave action hero move but a clumsy, wind-losing collapse. He caught a whiff of female sweat and some spicy sort of perfume, and then they were both squirming to their feet.
A thin man with thinner hair sat on the opposite side of the desk. His mouth was wide open. He stared at them like, well, like they had just exploded through his window. Cooper snorted a laugh—something about a fight, he always found synchronicities and amusements when he couldn’t afford them—and went for the office door. She followed. An office like any other, cubicles and filing cabinets and fluorescent lights. He walked steadily, nodding at people he passed, just another office drone. The stairwell was by the elevator. He hurried in and up. His ears rang and his ribs hurt. He went up one flight and then paused on the landing and checked the time.
“Why are you stopping?”
“Waiting for them to get here. All of the units in the area will be rerouted to this building.”
“What? This is a trap?”
“No. They’ll surround it, secure the exits. Then tactical response teams will move in. That’s when we move out.”
“Screw you. I’m not waiting.”
He shrugged. “Okay.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You’ve had this all planned.”
“I figured Zane would sell me out.”
“Then why show up?”
“Because there was a chance that he wouldn’t. Besides, I’ve run a million of these. I know the playbook.”
“Right,” she said, her voice cold. “You’ve run a million of these on other gifted.”
“Yes. And right now there are about a hundred agents converging on this building. You think you can slip past them all, be my guest. Otherwise, do what I say, and we get out of here.”
“Why would you help me?”
He paused, mind racing. He’d figured Zane would betray him; had been depending on it, in fact. The DAR was no doubt paying a hefty bounty. Not only that, but while the agency didn’t care about common criminals, it had pull with agencies that did. Selling Cooper out might buy Zane insurance later. It was simple math to assume he would call the DAR, and that the department would come in full force. Come loudly and publicly. Which had been the purpose of the whole exercise. It was a test balloon. A message. It would show John Smith that Nick Cooper was, beyond a doubt, no longer on the DAR’s payroll. And just maybe it would be the first step toward the terrorist.