Two figures stepped out. The first paused to look around, a careful, professional gaze, but she read the intentions and the directions and shifted right around it.
John Smith. Her onetime leader, her onetime friend. Behind him was a kid she didn’t recognize, thin and tall given his age. They were both filthy, clothes smudged brown, cobwebs in their hair. The boy had the clenched-leg gait of someone who really needed to pee.
Shannon stepped from the shadows of the loading dock, shouldered the shotgun, and said in a loud, clear voice, “Don’t move.”
The kid jumped, and she could see that at least some of his bladder problem had been resolved.
John, on the other hand, only stared. They were separated by fifteen feet, and she could see he was deciding whether to run.
“Don’t.” She stared down the barrel. Her finger had pressure on the trigger.
“Shannon. Of course.”
“Put your hands on your head, take two steps forward, and drop to your knees.”
“Okay.” John laced his fingers behind his head. In a conversational tone, he said, “Run, Hawk.”
“Don’t move!”
“Run.”
The kid hesitated for a second, and then spun on his heel.
She couldn’t miss at this distance. But did she want to take the shot? It would mean murdering a fleeing teenager.
More than that. It means shifting your aim from John. How many people have died because they took their eyes off him for a fraction of a second?
The boy started back into the hut. She let him go. Without releasing pressure on the trigger, she circled to put John between her and the doorway in case the kid came back with a weapon. “Another of your holy warriors?”
“Hawk? He’s a friend.”
“You don’t have friends.”
“That’s not true.” His voice was mild. “What about you?”
“Last time we spoke, another of your teenage suicide bombers was about to blow me up. Along with a trainful of civilians.”
“It wasn’t personal, you know that.” He smiled wryly. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance we could talk about this?”
“Sure there is,” she said. “As soon as you take two steps forward and hit your knees.”
Cooper hauled the wheel sideways without letting up on the gas, and the truck slewed and rocked. Almost there.
The moment it had been confirmed that Smith wasn’t in the warehouse, Cooper had sprinted outside. As he’d ordered, a Warden was waiting in an SUV, the engine running. The commando hadn’t seemed too happy to be kicked out of the vehicle, but one look at Cooper’s face and he’d done as he was told.
There wasn’t really any need to go this fast, but Shannon was out here alone, and that scared him, scared him more than he had expected. She was one of the most capable people he’d ever met, but so was John Smith, and Cooper’s imagination was conjuring all kinds of unwanted ugliness.
Be okay, Shannon. If it comes down to you or him, please choose right.
He spun around the last corner, hoping for the best and fearing—well, everything.
Then he saw her, his Girl Who Walked Through Walls. Silhouetted against a burning sky with a shotgun braced on her shoulder and John Smith kneeling at her feet. His heart howled with joy. He screeched to a stop, snatched the assault rifle off the passenger seat, and climbed out to lock in a second line of fire.
The man Cooper had chased for most of a decade squinted up at him. “Hello, Nick.”
“John. Game over.”
“Looks like. Well played.” Smith was trying for cool, but Cooper could see the tremble in his hands. “Mind if I smoke?”
“Why not? Gently.”
The terrorist reached into his pocket very slowly. Cooper watched, ready to fire at the first hint of danger, but all Smith withdrew was a crumpled pack. He took one, lit it, inhaled deep. “How did you know?”
“I’ve been chasing you half my adult life, man. I’ve got you patterned. It’s all options and fail-safes with you. As soon as I saw that fifty yards away there was a maintenance passage that didn’t connect to the warehouse, I knew.”
“That’s funny. I purposefully didn’t buy a warehouse above the passage for that reason, and it’s what tipped you off. So now what?”
“Finish your cigarette.”
“Hmm.” Smith smiled. “It’s like that, huh?”
“After all the blood you’ve spilled? Yeah.”
“Only way to build a new world. Gotta burn the old one down. History is written in fire.” He took a long drag at his cigarette, then looked at Shannon. “You’re okay with this?”
“You once told me,” Shannon said, “to decide who I really care about. I have.”
A ghost of a smile flitted across Smith’s lips. “Good for you.” He turned to Cooper. “You’re a lucky man.”
“I know.” The moment had a surreal heft to it. So much of life slipped by like a breeze: sweet, brief, gone. This would linger, the impressions sharper than the details. Pale light from a white sky. Attenuated shadows. The smell of gun oil. The smear of dirt on Smith’s cheek. The cigarette in the hinge of his fingers, the crackle of tobacco as he took a final drag, then grimaced and flicked it away.
“Want another?”
“No. Thanks.” Smith inhaled a short, fast breath and rolled his shoulders. “You should know. Killing me isn’t the same as beating me.”
Cooper said, “It’s a step in the right direction.”
Then he pressed the trigger and blew three holes through John Smith’s heart.
The report echoed out across the plain to the distant mountains beyond. A bird startled from a nearby roof with a screech. A few blocks down, a trucker flung himself to the ground.
John Smith blinked. His head drooped as he looked at the wound. For a moment, his muscles held him in place, wobbling.
He fell over.
“Target located,” Cooper said, triggering his earpiece. “Come get him. Bring a body bag.”
Then he lowered the weapon and stared across the corpse at one of the women he loved. She stared back.
Neither spoke.
Not with words, anyway.
CHAPTER 27
Cooper didn’t know what to feel.
Killing Smith had been the best option. Sure, he could have captured him, tried to interrogate him, but the man had been the game player. They wouldn’t have been able to believe a word he said, couldn’t have trusted any cage to hold him. Ending him was the safe, sane tactical decision.
It wasn’t that he had regrets. There was no cop-who-came-to-understand-the-criminal RKO Pictures vibe, no sense that they could have been friends under other circumstances, no reluctant respect for John Smith. The man had had options, same as anybody, and the choices he’d made had left the world a darker place.
But still, there was a strange void in Cooper. He wasn’t overjoyed, didn’t feel victorious. And maybe it was just that. After years of fighting Smith, some part of him had expected more out of the moment. Like after he pulled the trigger the music should have swelled and the credits rolled.
In the absence of emotional or philosophical clarity, though, there was always the job. The same job as always, he’d joked with Quinn more than once: saving the world.
He imagined Bobby responding, saying, Yeah? How’s that going?
Same as always, Bobby.
“Huh?” Shannon looked over at him; evidently, he’d spoken aloud.
“Nothing.” Cooper realized he’d been staring blankly out the windshield. He turned the key and the SUV started with a rumble. A quick three-point turn, and the scene was behind them, a team of Wardens zipping John Smith’s corpse into a body bag.