A Better World (32 page)

“My God.” Clay leaned back. “How did this happen?”

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Yuval Raz, exchanged glances with Jen Forbus, the director of the DAR. Mentally, Clay sighed. So much of politics was a matter of everyone covering their collective asses. After a moment, General Raz said, “Our information at this moment is very preliminary.”

“Understood.”

“We haven’t intercepted any evidence of a conspiracy. However, Johansen walked past a team of Epstein Industries diplomatic security. He killed the two inside the restaurant, but . . .”

“Epstein is complicit in the attack?”

“His team at least failed to prevent it.”

“That may be because of the nature of our assassin,” Forbus added. “Soren Johansen’s gift is temporal, with a T-naught of 11.2, an exceptional rate. That means that what we experience as one second, he perceives as slightly more than eleven. With that much difference, it’s possible he simply had time to do everything right.”

“How do we know that?” Clay asked.

“He was academy-raised. At Hawkesdown.”

“Hawkesdown Academy?” Clay steepled his fingers. “The same as John Smith.”

“Yes, sir, and at the same time, although Smith is two years older. However, after graduation, Soren disappeared. If he’s political, he’s been very quiet. There’s no evidence tying the two together. But my gut says that John Smith is involved.”

“Mr. President,” Leahy said, “we’d like to detain John Smith for questioning.”

Marla Keevers, quiet until now, said, “That’s a political nightmare. He’s got enormous goodwill following the Monocle revelations. He’s been on the talk shows, the speaking circuit. His book has been a
New York Times
bestseller for weeks. Arresting him will have major blowback.”

“We’re past that point,” Leahy said.

Clay studied the man. A former soldier, Leahy had spent the last three decades in the intelligence field, rising to run the CIA before being appointed secretary of defense. To say that his résumé prepared him to view the world militaristically was an understatement of massive proportions.

That doesn’t mean he’s wrong. After all, Owen was against sending Cooper in the first place.

“Detain John Smith,” he said.

Leahy nodded to General Raz, who picked up a phone and began to speak into it quietly.

“In addition, sir, we need to move forward with a military response against the New Canaan Holdfast.”

“Why? If we believe that Smith—”

“Cooper was an ambassador for the United States. His assassination has to be treated as an act of war.”

“What does Epstein say?”

Leahy looked around the table. “Sir, we haven’t been able to reach him.”

“Excuse me?”

“It could be that things are just happening too fast. But ultimately, there are two possibilities here. Either Epstein and the NCH are themselves acting as terrorists, or their government”—Leahy said the word with distaste—“is riddled with them. Either way, an American advisor was murdered on a diplomatic mission during a time of unprecedented unrest. Three cities are under martial law, without power or food. We can’t afford to consider our options.” Leahy paused. “Sir, it’s our recommendation that
you order preparations for a full-scale military invasion of the New Canaan Holdfast.”

Clay glanced at Marla. She shrugged, said, “People are scared. Calling in the cavalry demonstrates that the government of the United States is still in charge.”

“General Raz, what would an invasion look like?”

“We’d establish air superiority with F-27 Wyverns operating out of Ellsworth Air Force Base. Ground all but humanitarian flights in the region. Units from the Fourth Infantry Division, First Armored Division, and 101st Airborne would then seize Gillette, Shoshoni, and Rawlins, the entrance points for the NCH, cutting it off.”

“How many troops would be involved?”

“Approximately seventy-five thousand.”

“
Seventy-five thousand?
That’s almost equal to the entire population of the Holdfast.”

“Yes, sir. It’s important to bring overwhelming force to bear. We’re not proposing a fair fight,” the general said, “we’re demonstrating that we can annihilate them. It makes the idea of resistance ridiculous. Ultimately, that will save lives on both sides.”

A dozen faces stared at him. Men and women in uniforms heavy with medals, the commanders of every branch of the military and intelligence community. Lionel Clay took pride in having lived an honorable life. He had been a teacher and a leader. But he had never been a soldier.

And my God, did I never want to be the person making this decision.

“You’re talking about a military attack against American citizens.”

“We’re talking about preparing for one,” Secretary Leahy said. “Moving troops into position. It’s a reminder to our enemies that they are facing the combined might of the finest fighting force the world has ever seen.”

“What’s the endgame?”

“Sir?”

“If I give the order to attack. What happens after we take the NCH?”

Leahy looked around again. “That’s up to you, sir. But our recommendation is that all leaders and tier-one and tier-two abnorms be held in temporary internment camps. The NCH itself should be evacuated and destroyed.”

What had Cooper said?

You knew that someone would be standing here telling you to start a civil war. And you weren’t sure you’d be strong enough to say no.

A second civil war, only this time, not between states, but between a majority and a minority, with all of the potential horrors that entailed—up to and likely including genocide.

“Sir, you don’t have to decide to attack yet. But moving troops into position gives us the option, while also sending a message to the enemy and reassuring the public.”

A thought hit him. He could stand up and walk out of the room. Then out of the building. He could go to the corner and hail a cab to the airport and book a ticket back to Columbia. He could just quit and go home.

It was an absurd fantasy. But tempting.

Lionel Clay stared at the table. At his fingers spread on the polished wood. “Dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. And the tigers are getting hungry.”

“Winston Churchill,” Leahy said. “But we’re not dictators.”

“I wonder if history will agree.”

“Sir?”

“Order the army into Wyoming.”

CHAPTER 31

He’d hit the door to the vestibule at a sprint, adrenaline overriding the pain from his bare feet. Burst out into the parking lot under bright blue skies and saw his wife staring at him.

“Ethan?”

“Run!”

A thousand questions in her eyes, but she packed them away and started running, their daughter clutched to her chest. They raced out of the parking lot and onto the sidewalk, heading north, a direction picked at random. Cuyahoga Falls was one big strip mall, a town sponsored by chains. A drugstore up ahead, a restaurant to the left, the logos for both familiar. State Street was four lanes, traffic in both directions. No sign of police, but that would come next.

As they ran, Ethan counted cameras. They were everywhere. Cameras on traffic poles, cameras in parking lots, cameras on the corners of buildings. He’d never realized how many there were.

And all of them were pointed at his family.

Every single camera swiveled to follow them as they ran.

His skin tightened and shivered.

“Ethan,” Amy said, punctuating the words with pants, “why, are, we—”

“Trust me.”

She nodded, and they continued north. It would take at least a few minutes for the DAR to reach out to the local police. They’d have to pull rank, tell them a fugitive—
my God, we’re
fugitives—
was running up State Street. Another minute or two for a cruiser to get here.

Still. How far could they make it? And what difference did it make if the cameras tracked them?

“This way.” He turned down a side street. His breath came fast and hot, and every step pounded up his skeleton. They ran past a broad parking lot, dodged around two staring kids on skateboards. Another block and they were on a strip of small homes, bungalows and frame houses nestled close together. Lawns gone to yellow-brown and faded American flags. A dog barked and snarled on the opposite side of a fence. Ethan turned right arbitrarily, went another block, then went left, deep in a neighborhood now. Hardly safe, but at least away from the cameras.

Amy said, “I have to stop.” She was pale, clutching Violet in both arms. Their daughter was bawling, not loud howls but steady unhappiness that rang through his core. He nodded, dropped to a fast walk.

“What’s going on?”

“Amy, I know this sounds crazy. But I think the DAR is trying to arrest us because of my work.”

“You’re right. That’s crazy.”

“Is it? Remember the drone? The National Guard?”

“Yeah, but . . . come on.”

“When I was in the bank, the phone rang. It was Quinn, the agent who came to our house. He was watching me on the security camera.” He turned to look at her. “Why would he be doing that?”

They passed a series of faded brick houses, the lawns growing wider as they went farther from town. It wouldn’t be long before they were back on golf courses and forests. Cornfields. He winced at that, his feet bleeding again.

After a long pause, Amy said, “You know, for more than a year I respected your commitment to the nondisclosure agreement. I thought it was silly and excessive, but it mattered to you,
so I accepted it. But it’s time you told me what you and Abe are working on.”

He looked over at her. It had killed him not to be able to share the project with her, not to be able to tell his wife about their success. But Abe had made it clear: no one, absolutely no one could know. Anyone who broke that policy was done. Fired, stripped of patent rights, blacklisted, cooked.

Ethan had thought the old man paranoid, but he’d gone along to get along. If that was what it took to work in a private lab with limitless funding alongside the greatest genius in the field, well, cost of doing business. Now he was starting to wonder.

Was it someone telling their wife that led to the DAR finding out?

And do you give a crap anymore?

“We figured out how to turn normals into brilliants.”

She stopped like she’d run into a wall. Stared at him. “Are you kidding me?”

“No. And the DAR doesn’t want that to happen. I think they kidnapped Abe, and they’re after us.”

“So—what do we do?”

The billion-dollar question.

And then, up ahead, he saw the answer.

“Wait here.”

A digital bell binged as he walked into the place. Candy and soft drinks and the essentials, the same as before. Ethan walked to the middle aisle, picked up three packs of Huggies and both tubs of baby formula. He set them on the counter. The clerk looked at him, ran his hands through his hair. Lank strands of it fell around his neck. “You again?”

Ethan turned and went back to the aisles, loading his arms. A flashlight and a pack of D batteries. All the jerky on the rack. Band-Aids and ibuprofen. Added it to the pile.

The clerk said, “Come on, man.”

Next was a box of Snickers.

A carton of eggs and two gallons of milk.

Eight liter-bottles of spring water.

Four lighters from the display by the register.

A roll of duct tape.

“Dude, I have to put this all back.”

“No, you don’t. Bag it.”

“Fine. You want to do it like that?” The clerk reached for the phone. “I’ll call the cops.”

“Don’t worry,” Ethan said, “I’m leaving. Just one question first.”

The guy stared at him with the wary expression of someone being panhandled. “Yeah?”

Ethan reached into his waistband and pulled out the revolver. He raised it and pointed it right at the clerk. Watched the guy’s expression change just the way he’d thought it might. It felt as good as he’d imagined.

“What kind of car do you drive?”

CHAPTER 32

The air was cool and smelled faintly of ammonia.

There were sounds. There had been for some time, he realized, although he hadn’t been conscious of them. Just drifted in their currents. A hum and beep.