A Better World (The Brilliance Trilogy Book 2)

by Marcus Sakey

  Quinn turning from the woman, the trust in the move; they were teammates.

  The water fountain compressor kicking on.

  Shannon shifted.

  Slid into the path of the delivery guy, paused, opened her purse like she was looking for something, cut across the hall past the assistant with the coffee, slipped the toe of her boot forward just enough to catch the heel of the woman’s shoe, the assistant stumbling, not falling but making a panic clench, keeping her grip on the d-pad instead of the coffee, now into the break room, opening a cabinet so her back was to the hall, the coffee cup arcing, hitting the side of the FedEx trolley just as Quinn and the woman reached it.

  “Oh God, I’m so sorry,” the assistant said, as Shannon stared into the cabinet and counted seconds. On three she closed the door and left the break room, not looking at the assistant and the FedEx guy assuring each other they were okay, not looking at Bobby Quinn and his friend, already past, both of them glancing back but at the wrong thing.

  Always at the wrong thing.

  Three minutes and five floors later, she was in a basement hallway lit by fluorescents. The air was chilly and quiet. In the left lens of her glasses, a dot began to blink on the map. It grew larger until she stood outside a metal-framed door. A camera was mounted to the ceiling above, and there was a swipe pad on the wall beside a big red button.

  In the right lens of her glasses, a message appeared. LOGS SHOW NO ENTRANCES SINCE LAST EXIT. SHOULD BE CLEAR.

  Should be? That’s comforting.

  There was a long pause as the machine scanned her ID. This was the real test. There were probably fewer than a dozen people with the credentials to open this door.

  With a click, the lock disengaged.

  The room beyond was freezing, maybe forty degrees, and packed with neatly organized metal racks, each holding row upon row of wafer servers, computers a centimeter thick, each pumping and processing terabytes of data. Bundles of wires ran behind them in clusters as wide around as her arm. The hum of unseen fans filled the air.

  The beating heart of the DAR. The facts and files of every covert operation, every secret facility, every profile on every target. She was in here somewhere; the details of her life, her childhood, her schooling, the things she had done and the people she had known. Shannon followed the map down the rows, the hair on her arms rising in the electrified air. Five aisles down and four over, she stood in front of a rack just like all the rest.

  Shannon reached up to her necklace and twisted the central icicle. It unlocked, revealing a stamp drive insert. She ran her fingers down the I/O panel, found a connection, and slotted the drive. Nothing seemed to happen, but she knew the program was unspooling itself, sliding down the pathways of data, searching for the files they needed. A progress bar appeared in her right lens, slowly ticking up, 1%, 2%, 3%.

  Nothing to do but wait.

  It was always the strangest moment of a job. The nature of her skills meant that she often had to get into position and then wait. It was tense, and yet there was also something delicious about it, like that first drag of really good dope, like bouncing a glider between updrafts in the desert, like the clenching before orgasm. Her head served up a memory of a Washington, DC, intersection, the first time she’d seen Nick, she realized, almost a year ago. The DAR had managed to flip a defense contractor named Bryan Vasquez, and Nick had sent him back out to meet his contact, hoping to scoop them both up.

  John had predicted the move, of course, and had a contingency plan in the form of a newspaper dispenser packed with explosives. Shannon was the one who’d triggered it, shifting past Nick’s whole security team to stand next to Equitable Services’ biggest badass as she blew the bomb and his operation in one.

  Of course, at the time, she hadn’t imagined she’d end up dating him.

  Dating? Is that what we’re doing?

  The progress bar clicked agonizingly slowly. 63%.

  It was reckless, getting involved with him. He’d left the DAR, but now he worked for the president, which was at best a lateral move when it came to the likelihood of a happy ending for the two of them. And she wasn’t some teenage girl lost in a steamy fantasy. Two months ago, when Cooper had come after John Smith, Shannon had pointed a loaded shotgun at him, and while she hadn’t liked the idea, she could have pulled the trigger.

  Of course, there was also a moment when the two of you sat in a basement bar in the New Canaan Holdfast, your thighs touching as he quoted Hemingway. There was also a moment when he trusted you with the lives of his children.

  96% complete, but the bar seemed frozen, just a tiny fraction of an inch to go. She sighed, tapped her toes, and fought the urge to curse. No matter how far technology went, some things never changed.

  Come on, come on.

  97%. 98%. 99%. 100%.

  The display vanished. Shannon unplugged the stamp drive, reconnected it to her necklace. If everything had gone as planned, the program would have downloaded every detail they needed, a mass of information on privately funded labs, underground think tanks, and black facilities doing cutting-edge research. The kind of place that didn’t have stockholders and didn’t pay an excessive amount of attention to government regulation. The kind of place where almost anything could be developed.

  Even a magic potion that could change the world.

  She turned and walked back to the entrance, her boots making a clonking sound on the hollow floor. Three-inch heels plus one-inch risers, ridiculous footwear, especially on a mission, but they served a purpose. At the door, she took a breath, blew it out, brushed her blond hair back, and stepped outside. She turned right and started back the way she’d come.

  “Hey! You!”

  The voice came from behind. Shannon thought about running, turned instead, pasting a Me? look on her face.

  The guy was tall and pale, wearing jeans, a T-shirt with a logo, and a ragged cardigan. He had his ID in his hand, already stretched toward the door. A technician or a programmer. She began to audition lies, all of them thin to the point of transparency.

  As it turned out, she didn’t even get a chance to speak. As one of the dozen people who belonged in this room, he knew she didn’t. His eyes widened, and then he slapped the big red panic button.

  Nothing seemed to happen, but she knew alarms would be sounding all over the building, in every guard station. The whole of the DAR’s security forces would be mobilized, hundreds of heavily armed soldiers.

  There were no klaxons, no flashing lights, and somehow that only made it scarier.

  Shannon turned and ran.

  The hallway seemed longer and narrower, and the cameras more numerous. Her mouth tasted like copper, and her heart slammed in her chest. She rounded a corner, sprinted for the stairwell. The distance between her and safety was measured not in distance but in impossibilities. She was in the heart of a militarized complex, actively hunted by enemies. Not only that, but she was racing down an empty hall, an easy target.

  Okay. Start there.

  She slowed long enough to reach over and yank the fire alarm.

  Now came the sirens, a loud repeating whoop and bleat of danger. Doors began to open behind her. She hustled into the stairwell, ran up the steps. Paused, then stepped out. The hall was filled with people. She could have kissed each and every one of them. Without people, she was exposed. But in a milling, confused crowd?

  Shannon shifted.

  Slid behind and between, paused and spun and dodged. Smiled and stopped to bend down as though her boot needed zipping. Stepped into open offices on the blind side of the people stepping out of them. You move like water flows, kiddo. Her dad’s voice, years ago, talking about her on the soccer field. Water always finds a way.

  Find a way.

  Falling in behind a pair of burly executive types, she used a coded sequence of blinks to control the display of her glasses. The map zoomed out, then changed to a 3-D view, the hallways now laid out like one eye was playing a video game. She wished she could com
municate with the handler on the other end of the lenses, could ask him—her?—to stream what she needed. But the link went only one way; an outbound signal from inside the DAR would have tripped all manner of alarms.

  As if reading her thoughts, the fire alarm suddenly shut off. No surprise; security would have seen it for the distraction it was. It didn’t matter. The hall was crowded now, people milling about, starting conversations. It had bought her the time she needed. She followed the glasses, shifting through and around and behind the crowd. The cameras would catch her, nothing she could do about that, but with this many cameras and this many people, so long as she wasn’t drawing attention to herself, it would be a matter of luck for someone to be looking at just the right monitor.

  There. A women’s bathroom, right where the map said it would be. She pushed open the door and stepped inside. One mirror, two sinks, five stalls, and a faint odor of shit. She went into the middle stall and locked the door behind her.

  Shannon sat on the toilet, then pulled off the boots and set them in front of her. The dress followed. From her purse she took a pair of light jeans and wriggled them up over her hips. The blouse was silk and wrinkled from being packed so tight, but it was okay. The best part were silver flats, which felt wonderful after the ridiculous boots. Shannon reached up to her hair, undid the plastic clips, and pulled the wig off. The blond hair and dress and glasses all got tucked into the boots; she’d drop them in the trash on the way out.

  Now for the fun part. She unhooked one of the smaller icicles from her necklace. The tip of a hypodermic needle glinted in the overhead lights. Using a compact mirror from her purse, she moved it carefully up to her eyebrow. Needles were not her thing, but she ground her teeth and went to work. There was a tearing as the point penetrated. She squeezed gently, then pulled it out, moved it over, and repeated the process. Each injection pushed a few CCs of saline into her forehead. With bone on the other side, the liquid had nowhere to stretch the skin but outward. A larger amount would have looked comical, but the tiny injections just changed the lines of her forehead.

  When she was done with her right eyebrow, she moved to her cheekbone. It hurt.

  She was just finishing up the left side with the second icicle hypo when she heard the door to the bathroom open.

  Be an analyst needing to pee, Shannon thought. Be two assistants gossiping.

  “Ma’am?” The voice was female, brusque. “I’m going to need you to come out here.”

  Crap.

  The good news was that it was just one guard, which meant they didn’t know she was in here. This would be a routine check, security forces sweeping and clearing the building.

  The bad news was that the guard would be armed and ready. Shannon could handle herself, but going toe-to-toe with a DAR commando wasn’t a favorable-odds proposition.

  Find a way, kiddo. Move like water flows.

  “Excuse me?” Shannon said. “I’m using the bathroom.” As quietly as she could, she spun on the toilet seat, the porcelain cold through her jeans.

  “I understand, ma’am, but I need you to come out right now.”

  “Are you kidding me?” She planted a foot alongside the toilet, then another. “I’m in the middle of something.”

  The guard moved to the other side of the door. Shannon could see the tips of her combat boots, and then the door banged, hard.

  “Now, ma’am.”

  “All right, all right. Jesus. Can I wipe?” She squatted beside the toilet, trying not to think about how often the floor got mopped, then rattled the toilet paper dispenser.

  “Ma’am, if you don’t step out in five seconds, I’m kicking the door open.” She spoke from only feet away, and Shannon could picture her, standing at the ready, her weapon in hand but not raised. From that angle, the guard wouldn’t be able to see anything.

  “Five.”

  Shannon lay flat on the ground, perpendicular to the stall. Flexing one leg up, she hit the toilet handle with her toe.

  “Four.”

  The flush was immediate, the leonine rush of water in a public bathroom. She took advantage of the sound to slide under the wall to the neighboring stall, her hands and face brushing along the tile.

  “Three.”

  Well that was fairly disgusting. She rose silently.

  “Two.”

  Shannon opened the stall door and stepped out.

  The woman was built, strong muscles layered in bulky body armor. She wore a ponytail and a pissed-off expression, a fully automatic submachine gun slung on a strap around her shoulder, her right hand on the grip, her left reaching for the door. She looked extremely competent, and Shannon knew she’d been right, no way she could have handled this woman face-to-face.

  But from alongside and by surprise was another matter.

  Without hesitation, Shannon lunged forward and slammed the icicle hypodermic into the side of the woman’s neck.

  The needle was only half an inch long, and it caught in the muscle, but the intent wasn’t to kill, just to shock and distract her, which it did, the guard yelping as she spun, her left hand going to her neck instead of to her gun, giving Shannon the opening she needed to throw a roundhouse kick into the commando’s nose.

  The guard collapsed. Shannon went with her, wrapped the gun strap against her neck. The woman tried to throw punches, but Shannon stayed close and kept the pressure on, twisting the strap tighter and tighter.

  When it was done, she dragged the woman back into the neighboring stall and leaned her against the toilet. Searched for a pulse, found it strong. She’d have one hell of a headache when she woke up, but wake up she would.

  Shannon closed and locked the stall door, slid under yet again, and then took a moment to look in the mirror. The guards would be looking for a five-eight blonde with a different outfit and a different face. It wasn’t a perfect disguise, but it would do.

  She washed her hands and stepped back into the hallway.

  The odds of her getting out were no longer looking impossible. But it would still be a risk—security would be checking everyone thoroughly.

  A bank of clocks on the wall showed the time in London, Chicago, Los Angeles, Singapore, and, of course, here in Washington, DC, where it was 16:45.

  Shannon smiled. The DAR might be the biggest intelligence agency in America, but it was still a government office. Which meant that for most of the thousands of people who worked here, it was fifteen minutes till quitting time. Fifteen minutes until they flooded the exits.

  She headed for the commissary. May as well have a cup of coffee while she waited.

  CHAPTER 13

  “Well diddle me sideways. Aren’t you famous? BFFs with the president?” Bobby Quinn stood framed in the door of his apartment, a slow grin spreading across his face.

  “That’s right. Show some respect.” Cooper puffed out his chest. “Genuflecting is preferred, but from my old partner, a deep bow will be sufficient.”

  “How about I turn around when I bow, so you can kiss my—”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Cooper grabbed his friend around the shoulders, pulled him into a bear hug. “It’s good to see you. Let’s grab a beer.”

  “Man, I’d love to, but I just this minute walked in from the airport, back from Cleveland. I’m whacked.”

  “Did I mention I was buying?”

  “On the other hand, alcohol is part of a balanced diet.”

  The sign outside declared the bar was called Jack Chittle’s; the interior was sunken booths and Christmas lights burning year round. Cooper’s knowledge of beer ended with knowing he liked it, so he let Quinn order for them, a pitcher of dark stuff called milk stout. It was rich and delicious, with hints of chocolate and coffee, and it tasted even better after they added a couple of shots of Irish whiskey.

  “So you’re in from Cleveland, huh?” Cooper set down his shot glass. “The Children of Darwin?”

  “Believe it or not, no. I’ve been working a subject there, a scientist. Guy decided to bolt, so I
had to pay his protégé a visit, rattle his cage.”

  “He know anything?”

  “Too early to say.”

  They caught up, Cooper letting the talk stay small for a while, not wanting to rush things. Bobby Quinn filled him in on the situation at the agency.

  “It’s a grade-A, top-shelf mess. Everybody playing duck and cover, tripping over each other to distance themselves. ‘What? We track and kill bad people? Oh my. How rude.’ ” Quinn laughed. “And at the same time, we still have all these potential targets out there, so the same upper management yahoos that are wringing their hands on CNN are coming around and talking out of the side of their mouths, telling us to keep going, that things will get sorted soon.”

  “Will they?”

  “Equitable Services is over. But yeah, sure. Give it a year to blow over, and we’ll start back up under a new name. Everyone knows the work still has to be done. Meanwhile, the best and brightest agents in the DAR are in limbo. You know what else they’ve got me doing? I’m heading an internal fact-finding task force to support a congressional investigation. You want a good time some Saturday night, try writing a report on taking down a known terrorist without using the word kill.”

  “Terminate?”

  “Neutralize. Makes it sound like maybe we pointed out the error of their ways and offered them vocational training.” Quinn shook his head. “How about you? You’re the only guy I know who can murder his boss and end up working for the president. Talk about failing upward.”

  “Wasn’t my plan.”

  “You had a plan?”

  Cooper laughed, gestured for another round of shots.

  “Seriously though, Coop. You’re a soldier, not a suit. What are you doing working for Clay?”

  “Same as always. Trying to stop a war.”

  “How’s it going?”

  “Same as always.”

  Quinn took a pack of cigarettes from his coat, pulled one out, and spun it between two fingers. The bartender came over to pour their shots, said, “You can’t smoke in here.”

  “Really? Is this a new public ordinance or just a personal policy?”