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!”