What you’ve seen has changed you. Fine. But that doesn’t matter. You’re not doing this for the DAR.
You’re doing it for them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Back in action.
In his life, Cooper had killed thirteen—no, counting Gary on the freeway, fourteen—people. That made him neither uncomfortable nor proud. It was just a fact. He wasn’t a violent guy, didn’t get off on hurting people. He was a soldier. When he acted, it was for a reason, and it was to save lives.
And yet he had to admit it felt good to be back in action.
The last six months had seen plenty of excitement. Some of it he’d enjoyed, testing himself, building a reputation that would allow him a chance to get closer to John Smith. But at the same time, it had felt like a holding pattern, something he was doing while his real life was waiting. His real life as a father, and his real life as a government agent, as a man fighting for a better future.
As of tonight, the holding pattern was over. He’d have this one chance at Smith. Succeed or fail, this phase would be behind him. No more pretending, no more running.
Well, that’s not quite true. If you fail, there will likely be some running involved. He smiled and killed the engine.
The ridgeline the cabin sat on backed up to the Shoshone National Forest. After studying the maps and satellite imagery Epstein had provided, Cooper had settled on a narrow fire lane two miles from the house as a place to leave the truck. Earlier he’d stopped at a hunting goods store in Leibniz and bought supplies, and now he stripped down to his skivvies and put them on. A thermal base layer, camouflage pants and jacket, a pair of Vasque hiking boots, and light gloves. He’d splurged on good binoculars, Steiner Predators, which had set him back two grand. Worth every penny; the newtech lenses would not only let him see in the dark, the chipset analyzed the image and highlighted motion. The guy behind the counter had said, “You looking to do a little nighttime hunting?”
“Something like that.” Cooper had smiled.
“These are the ticket, then. Need ammo?”
“I’m good.”
He checked the Beretta now, then looked at the spare magazines, decided against them. If he needed to reload, he’d already lost. Besides, they could make noise if they knocked into something. Cooper locked the truck, tucked the keys under the bumper, and started walking.
The air was crisp and cool, sweet in the way that air was supposed to taste but rarely did. He savored it and the clean movement of his muscles, the warmth in his legs as he climbed. He moved steadily but without hurry, and by the time he’d hiked up the back of the ridgeline, the sky had faded from indigo to purple and finally a velvety black. The moon cast sleek, wet-looking shadows.
The ridgeline was rocky, the trees old and bent with wind. The towers of vertical stone looked even more like fingers, the hand of a giant pushing up from below. Cooper squatted and glassed the area. It took him a few minutes to pick the right tree: an enormous Ponderosa pine about two hundred yards from the cabin.
Ten minutes later, he was perched on a broad limb twenty feet above the ground. His gloves were sticky with sap, and the rich, sharp smell of pine rang in his nostrils. Through the bunched needles, he had a perfect view of Helen Epeus’s home. It was an attractive place with a boxy Pacific Northwest flavor to the architecture. Lots of glass and stylish cedar siding gapped in clean rows. The windows glowed a homey yellow. A cozy, serene spot…except for the man walking the perimeter with a submachine gun.
The gun was cross-slung, the grip in easy reach of the man’s right hand, and judging by the way he moved, he’d reached for that grip before. The guard had a quiet ease and a ready alertness that Cooper recognized. A man who knew how to handle himself.
No surprise. But is he expecting anything?
A split-rail fence about fifty yards from the cabin marked the boundaries of the property. The guard followed the fence, moving slowly, checking shadows and keeping an eye on the road below. Cooper lay still on the branch, glad of the base layer—the night was getting chilly—and watched. The Predators traced a thin red outline around the man, reacting to his steady motion. It took the guard about eight minutes to walk a circuit, and while he varied his route, he rarely strayed far from the fence. A professional, but not showing any sign of anxiousness.
Good enough. Cooper turned his attention to the house itself.
The Predators went white as they adjusted to the change from darkness to light, and then he could see right in: Shaker furniture, shelves lined with books and pictures, a cottage kitchen with a half-full coffee pot. The second guard reminded Cooper of a drill sergeant: silver crew cut, lean muscles, ramrod posture. Sarge poured himself a cup of coffee, then turned to talk to someone Cooper couldn’t see. That would be guard number three; while John Smith might be chummy with his security detail, tonight was about romance. Smith would be upstairs.
Okay. Three guards. A fourth was technically possible, but it would have been sloppy to have three inside and only one out, and Smith would never tolerate sloppy tactics.
The rest of the house looked as expected. The ground-level doors and frames were steel, and the locks heavy. A camera gazed down on the back entrance. In all, it was solid security, the kind of setup that would make a civilian feel safe. But a long way from unbeatable.
So the question is, how are you going to beat it?
A broad balcony hung off the second floor. A sliding glass door led to a bedroom, probably the master. The lights were off, the queen bed smooth. Unoccupied. He didn’t doubt he could get up to the balcony. Only, what then? The door was likely locked, and the glass bulletproof.
It was too bad Shannon wasn’t with him; he had no doubt she could stroll right past. He, on the other hand, might have to go in heavy. Sneak up on the exterior guard. With a little luck, he could take him down silently. With a lot of luck, the guard would have a key.
What if he doesn’t? Or the doors run off a keypad? Or the security team all wear biometric sensors, so they know if a man goes down?
Risky. He was confident he could do the security team, especially if he took them by surprise. But while that was happening, what was to say Smith wasn’t sprinting out the opposite door?
Still, what choice was there—
The light in the master bedroom snapped on, framing a silhouette. The sound of the glass door sliding on the track seemed loud in the Wyoming night. The figure was backlit. Another guard? Cooper refocused the binoculars.
And nearly dropped them. The figure wasn’t security. It wasn’t a stranger.
It had been seven years since the photograph that decorated Drew Peters’s wall had been taken, a young activist addressing a crowd.
Five years since the massacre at the Monocle, that horrifying video he’d watched countless times, the calm butchery of seventy-three civilians.
Two years since the last confirmed photo, a blurry image taken at a distance as he climbed into the backseat of a Land Rover.
Now, through the wavering lenses of his new binoculars, Cooper watched John Smith step onto the balcony.
He wore jeans and a black sweater. His feet were bare. As Smith reached into a pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, it struck Cooper how much older he looked. Like the pictures of presidents before and after their first term, Smith seemed to have aged two decades in a handful of years. His dark hair had salted, and his shoulders had a heaviness to them. But his eyes were sharp as broken glass when he snapped a silver lighter and lit his cigarette. The night vision optics amplified the flame to a halo of fire that seemed to engulf him.