It belonged to a woman named Helen Epeus. He didn’t recognize the name, but there was something there, some connection he couldn’t quite grab. Let it marinate.
The documents suggested Epeus was a lover. The unnamed target had visited before, often arriving at night and leaving in the morning. It stated that a small security team would be there as well, but dryly noted that “their motion within the house seems restricted.”
Translation: Smith doesn’t want his security team watching him get down.
He took out the sidearm. Thumbed the magazine release. A full load, hollow-points. Body armor would stop them, but if they hit flesh, they’d shred on impact, tiny razors spinning inside fragile tissue. Two spare magazines, though why he would need that many rounds he couldn’t imagine.
Cooper had been army, never trusted a weapon he hadn’t disassembled himself, so he took a few moments to break it down. Everything was clean and cared for. He put it back together with practiced ease, then locked the safety, and put it back in the case.
When he was done, the sun had dropped, and the clock read two. He started the truck, revved the engine a couple of times for fun, and rolled out.
It was doable.
The drive had taken a bit under the recommended three hours, Cooper not opening the truck up, but certainly making the most of the smooth, straight roads. The scenery changed as he moved west, growing greener; not lush, but the air was sweet. The sky seemed bigger than it had a right to, and bright, with dramatic clouds forming high above the mountains to the west. He raced from cloud shadow to cloud shadow, watching the world turn colors as he went and trying not to think too much. He had that mission energy, that sense he always used to get when weeks of patterning a target were starting to click together, as though destiny was a bright neon line he could follow down the pavement.
John Smith. The man who had watched as seventy-three people were executed in the Monocle. Who had orchestrated a wave of attacks across the country. Who had planted the bombs at the Exchange in New York that had killed 1,163 in a blast wave that had shaken Cooper free of his real life and cast him adrift on this strange new path.
Even after everything Cooper had read about him, after every speech he’d watched, every friend he’d met, after talking to the shithead administrator of that academy in West Virginia, the real John Smith was a mystery. There were the facts: his gift for strategy, his success as a political organizer, his ability to inspire people. There were the myths, which varied depending on which side you were on. There were the rumors and the whispers. There was Shannon, saying he was a nice guy and believing it.
But the man himself? He was a play of shadows, a dream of a monster or a hero.
And tonight, at long last, Cooper would get to meet him. A guy who apparently had friends and lovers, who visited a woman named Helen Epeus in a lovely house atop a mountain ridge.
He got his first glimpse at it from the highway, though he didn’t stop, just slid to the right-hand lane and stole glances. The town of Leibniz was ten minutes away, and most of the places out here had the look of cabins, people who wanted more separation than even New Canaan offered. It made sense; not everyone had moved to Wyoming because they believed in the cause. Plenty of residents fell in that thin space between libertarians and anarchists, liked the idea of a place where they could be left alone. Where the world wouldn’t meddle. He had a feeling that if he took the Bronco down any of the dusty two-tracks he’d find himself passing NO TRESPASSING and SOLICITORS WARMLY GREETED WITH GUNFIRE signs, eventually ending up at lonely compounds where anything from isolationism to anti-Semitism could be pursued in relative peace.
The cabins this close to town didn’t radiate that vibe, though. They were more luxurious. Private homes for nature lovers.
An hour’s recon told him that the information in Epstein’s briefcase was good. He could see why the man had been nervous, eager to gain his complicity. This was as exposed as a reclusive terrorist was ever likely to be. The forest would provide plenty of cover for a cautious approach; the security detail, while no doubt consummate professionals, shouldn’t have any reason to expect an attack and would be easy enough for Cooper to get past. And while Smith was a strategic genius, and probably a decent fighter, head-to-head he’d be no match.
It was doable. He could get in, and he could kill John Smith.
Getting out was a trickier. If he could manage not to raise an alarm, he should be able to reach Smith easily enough. But the man would doubtless be wearing a biometric alarm. The moment his heart went crazier than sex could account for, and certainly the moment it stopped, the bodyguards would come in heavy. There would be no sneaking out. It would be run-and-gun.
Figure it out as it comes. That’s when you’re at your best anyway.
Besides, doable was more than he’d ever had before. He’d go in tonight, finish his mission, and after that, well, things would take care of themselves.
Yeah? And if you succeed, do you think his organization is just going to announce that John Smith has been murdered? If you don’t make it out, no one at the DAR will know what you’ve accomplished.
That made the next move obvious.
He needed a landline. The DAR monitored all mobile calls within the NCH, the Echelon II software churning relentlessly through a billion bits of data. And he’d be willing to bet that Smith had some routine surveillance of his own; the only way he could have continued to avoid capture was to have a steady stream of good intel. Using a cell phone was too big a risk.
Anywhere else, that would have meant a payphone. They were still around, if you knew where to look: convenience stores, malls, gas stations. Anachronisms, holdovers that no one had bothered to rip out. But this was New Canaan. In this nostalgia-free new world, not only weren’t there payphones outside the gas stations, there were hardly any gas stations.
Cooper ran through and dismissed half a dozen plans: booking a hotel room, offering a homeowner cash to use their phone, breaking into an apartment. All risked drawing attention.
He was cruising Leibniz, just driving for the sake of it, taking the place in. It followed what he was starting to see as a pattern in NCH towns. Wind turbines to the west, massive water condensers on the east. Streets smooth and laid out in a perfect grid. An airfield for gliders, pay lots to charge electric cars. Well-designed pedestrian areas and public squares filled with bright young people moving with purpose. Mixed zoning, commercial and residential side by side; it would be an easy place to live, all the advantages of a city without the congestion and pollution. Come to New Canaan and help build a better world. Lots of ambition and energy, sunshine and sex.
He stopped at a hamburger stand on the outskirts of town, got a burger and a Coke, the latter more expensive. Ate sitting at a picnic bench gilded by the lowering sun. Across the street was a car dealership, small by American standards, the lot packed mirror to mirror with the tiny electric cars he saw everywhere here. His Bronco was unusual, but it didn’t draw stares; the countryside was still pretty rough, and there were limits to what a…