Then he went looking for the bully and his posse. And that time, Cooper didn’t submit.
“Something on your mind, Roger?” He met the man’s posture and gaze. The ritual was stupid and primitive, and he didn’t enjoy it, but it was a dance that needed dancing. “Something you want to say?”
“I said it.” Dickinson didn’t blink or flinch. “Want to let me work?”
He’s not a coward. An insubordinate bigot with boundless ambition, but at least not a coward. So what do you say, Coop? How far do you want to take this?
“Gentlemen.” The voice behind them was cotton padding over hardened steel. It snapped the schoolyard moment like a twig. Cooper and Dickinson turned as one.
With his conservative suit, rimless glasses, and impeccable shave, Drew Peters looked like a clerk or a pediatrician, not a man who routinely ordered the murder of American citizens. “Join me in the hall.”
The moment the heavy wooden door slammed shut, Peters turned. “What was that?” His voice quiet and firm.
Cooper said, “Agent Dickinson and I were just conferring about the best way to handle Bryan Vasquez.”
“I see.” Peters looked back and forth. “Perhaps that kind of discussion should be had in private?”
“Yes, sir,” Dickinson said. Cooper nodded.
“And how is it, Agent Dickinson, that you happen to be interviewing Vasquez at all?”
“My team discovered that the files on Bryan Vasquez had been altered. The current file lists him as a loser with no last-known address. But the original file showed he lived and worked in DC.”
“Someone hacked our system?” For the first time, Peters sounded genuinely annoyed.
“Yes, sir. Either that, or…” Dickinson shrugged.
“Or?”
“Well, it could have been done by someone inside the agency.”
Cooper laughed. “You think I was covering for Bryan Vasquez? All us twists hang out together on Friday nights?”
Dickinson shot him a glare. “I’m just pointing out that it would have been easy to alter the files from inside the department. Under the circumstances, I thought it best to detain Vasquez immediately. Since Agent Cooper wasn’t present, I began the interview myself.”
“Very proactive,” Peters said dryly. He turned to Cooper. “Take over as primary.”
Dickinson said, “But, sir—”
“Vasquez is his target, not yours.”
“Yes, but—”
The director cocked one eyebrow, and Dickinson swallowed whatever he had been about to say. After a moment, Peters said, “Grab a coffee.”
Dickinson hesitated, then said, “Yes, sir,” and started away. To Cooper’s eyes, the tension and fury radiating from every muscle made the man seem almost wreathed in flame.
Cooper said, “He’s a problem.”
“I don’t think so. He’s a good agent, almost as good as you. And he’s hungry.”
“Hunger I appreciate. It’s running a one-man witch hunt that I don’t like.”
“The man who burns a witch—does he do it because he likes seeing people on fire, or because he believes he’s fighting the devil?”
“Does it matter?”
“Enormously. Both men are doing a terrible thing. But the first is entertaining himself, while the second is protecting the world.” The director took off his glasses and polished them with a handkerchief. “You and Dickinson are a lot alike. You’re both true believers.”
“The only thing Dickinson believes is that I’m in his way. You can’t honestly think that someone inside the department altered those files.”
Peters waved the idea away as he put his glasses back on. “I don’t doubt Alex Vasquez had the skill to hack our systems.”
“And Dickinson knows that. But he’s throwing accusations anyway.”
“Of course. And I’m sure he does want your job. More than that, he probably genuinely doubts you. Remember, many people haven’t really accepted that abnorms aren’t the enemy. Oh, they’ll hold forth on it at a cocktail party, how it’s not norms versus abnorms, it’s civilization versus anarchy. But in their hearts…”
“I’m a big boy, Drew. I don’t need Roger Dickinson’s love. There are plenty of people here who don’t like me. I’m an abnorm hunting abnorms, and that makes people nervous.”
“It’s not just that. It’s also the power you have. Everyone else at Equitable Services operates within much stricter latitudes than you. Know why that is?”
“I’ve been here since the beginning. And my record is better.”
“No, son,” the director said gently. “It’s because I trust you.”
Cooper opened his mouth, closed it. After a moment, he nodded. “Thanks.”
“You’ve earned it. Now. Can you and Dickinson cooperate on the interview?”
“Sure. Of course.” He had a flash of Dickinson leaning over the table, red-faced and yelling. “Though I guess I’ll be playing good cop.”
“In that case,” Peters deadpanned, “God help Bryan Vasquez.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“What’s the attack?”
“I already told you, I don’t know.” Vasquez’s voice was at once exhausted, frightened, and eager to please. “All I know is that there’s going to be one.”
“Yeah, so you keep saying.” Dickinson tapped his fingers on the metal table. “Thing is, you’re not giving me any reason to believe you.”
They’d been at it half an hour, and Cooper had spent most of that time letting Dickinson run through the preliminaries. Interrogation was a dance, and while the early steps were important, they weren’t delicate, so he’d used the time to size up Bryan Vasquez, to note his tells and ticks, to read the energy coming off him. One of the peculiarities of his gift was that he sometimes saw people almost as colors. Not literally—he didn’t have optical manifestations—but connotatively. The combined effect of a hundred subtle muscle movements—the level of dissonance between what someone was sharing versus what they held back—took on shades in his mind the way hot soup tasted red or a forest smelled green. Natalie was the cornflower blue of a clear winter morning, honest and cool. Director Peters was the heather gray of an expensive suit.
In Cooper’s mind, Bryan Vasquez was an awkward orange, simmering with tension, angry but unfocused, withholding but not doing it well.
“Haven’t you read a history book? This is a revolution. It’s set up in discrete cells so that we can’t betray one another. I can’t tell you what the attack will be because I don’t know. He set it up that way on purpose.”
“‘He’ being John Smith,” Dickinson said.
“Yeah.”
“You spoke to him?”
“Alex did.”
Cooper said, “Personally?”
“No.” The hesitation was almost imperceptible. “Over the phone.”
You lying little shit. Your sister met with John Smith personally. No wonder she went off the roof. But what he said was, “How do you know she was telling you the truth?”
“She’s my sister.”
“Did you help her code the virus?”
Vasquez looked stunned.
“We know about it, Bryan. We know she was working on a virus to incapacitate the guidance of military aircraft.” He leaned into the table. “Were you the one who was going to execute it?”
“No.” His voice came out weak, and he started again. “No. I helped with the technical specs. Alex knows everything there is to know about computers. But airplanes,” he laughed, “I’m not sure she’d know how to buckle her seatbelt. But the virus needed to be released inside military firewalls, at root level. It would take someone with clearance way, way higher than mine.”