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The air shimmered to life. Erik Epstein sat with his hands folded on the table in front of him. Beside him was another man, pudgy and pale, wearing a hooded sweatshirt. “Mr. Secretary?” Epstein sounded confused. “I’m sorry, I used my security code to access the president directly.”

“I know,” Leahy said. “She’s asked that you speak to me.”

“Mr. Secretary, I’m going to have to insist—”

“She has asked that you speak to me.”

“I see.” Epstein paused, looked at the man sitting beside him. The deferral was obvious.

“You,” Leahy said to the silent one. “I presume you’re the real Erik Epstein?”

“Yes. Hello.”

“Nice to meet you. We’ve known for some time that he”—gesturing at the well-dressed man—“wasn’t you.”

“My brother. Jakob.”

Leahy nodded. “What can I do for you, gentlemen?”

Again the two exchanged a look, then Erik said, “We surrender.”

Of course you do. The irony was bitter. This was what he had been playing toward for years. For years he and a few other clear-eyed men had done what needed doing to bring about this exact moment. Not the destruction of the gifted, but the control of them. It was what the initiative to microchip the gifted had really been about; it was why the DAR had funding greater than the NSA, why more than a thousand civilians had died in Manhattan, why Leahy had snuck into Wyoming to meet with General Miller in the first place. It was victory—and it came just slightly too late. No choice now. No choice but to stay the course. “I’m sorry?”

“We surrender. Unconditionally. The Holdfast. We will open all borders. Share all technology. Join the government.”

“It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it? You’ve already murdered seventy-five thousand soldiers. Destroyed the White House. Killed our president.”

“Self-defense. Orders were given to attack, to bomb our city—”

“I know,” Leahy said. “I gave them.”

The silence that fell was so thick he could practically see Epstein’s thoughts, could follow as he rebuilt the lattice of his history. Jakob started to speak, but his brother gave the merest hint of a sideways glance, and he shut his mouth.

“Mr. Secretary,” Erik said, “the New Sons of Liberty have cleared the Vogler Ring. They’ve split up and surrounded Tesla. Completely encircled.”

“I know.”

“Strategic analysis yields only one reason to do that.”

“Yes.”

“Not an attempt to defeat. Not a military victory. They’re trying to annihilate. To kill everyone here. Civilians.”

Leahy thought of the moment, not a week ago, when he’d sat in a wind-whipped tent opposite Sam Miller and Luke Hammond and made a bargain with them. He would hold off the US military, and they would push into New Canaan. It had never been his intention to wipe out the gifted. True, there were tens of thousands of abnorms not in New Canaan. But nowhere on earth had so many collected in one place. They had helped secure American sovereignty the world over, had pushed technology forward faster than anyone imagined possible. He hadn’t wanted to destroy them; he’d wanted to tame them.

Damn the New Sons for pushing it this far. Another ugly irony. For decades, American policy had wrought exactly this kind of result. Third parties invented and armed to fight monsters had ended up becoming monsters themselves. Pinochet in Chile. Noriega in Panama. Countless warlords in Africa and the Middle East. That’s the risk of summoning a demon; they don’t tend to follow orders.

On the other hand, better the demons consumed each other.

“There’s nothing I can do for you.”

“Mr. Secretary, please.” Erik Epstein’s face was pale and guileless. “There are thousands of children in this city.”

Leahy hit a button and severed the call. Then he rose and went back to the window.

The snow continued to fall.

CHAPTER 32

“How many of you have fired a gun before?”

The soldier had a man’s height and muscle but a boy’s face, zits like bright stars burning through a cloud-wisp of beard. His uniform was brown, marked with a rising blue sun. Natalie wondered how old he was. Someone had told her that while the average age in the Holdfast was twenty-six, the median was closer to sixteen. He beat that, but not by a lot.

“None of you?” The soldier boy’s eyes darted over the dozen civilians in front of him. They looked at one another, shrugged.

“I have,” Natalie said. “With my husband. Ex.”

“A rifle?”

“Pistols. And a shotgun.” She remembered the day, more than a decade ago, before the kids were born. Camping near the Grand Tetons, vibrant green and birdsong, Cooper showing her how to brace the gun, how to press the trigger—not pull, press—and the roar and kick of the thing, the rough joy when she’d blown a clump of hurled dirt out of the air, the soil erupting into nothing. Afterward they’d made love as the pine trees whispered, and she’d thought life perfect in every detail.