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“Everything we’ve done the last years, all the stuff he claimed was for equality. It was just John pushing the world far enough into darkness that defenses are down.” Shannon paused. “Even so. Even if he releases it in a city, in a couple of cities. Even if millions die. That won’t spread it far enough, fast enough.”

That was it. Suddenly, the whole pattern came clear to Cooper. Like a curtain had been yanked away.

The perfect, crystalline clarity he must have had.

The detail involved. Years of working toward the most complex series of dominos in history.

The horrifying, relentless discipline.

“It’s not going to be released in just any city,” he said slowly.

Shannon stared at him. He let her ponder, wanted her to check his math. Finally, she said, “You’re thinking it’s going to be released here. Against the New Sons. Because they’re all normals, all vulnerable. But he couldn’t count on them winning.”

“It doesn’t matter who wins. If the militia burns Tesla to the ground, their war is over. They’ll scatter back to every corner of the country, as will refugees from Tesla, plenty of them normal. And if the militia loses—”

“The same thing happens,” she says. “Thousands of survivors will run back home. My God. John provoked the attack—the war—for this. To infect the whole country.”

“The whole world,” Cooper said. “Maybe not as completely, but still, if this is as contagious as Ethan thinks, how many people are going to die? Hundreds of millions? Billions?”

“We have to call the president.”

“And tell her what?” Cooper shrugged. “I mean, imagine we somehow convince her, and she sends in the marines. That’s just more normals, more vectors. It plays into Smith’s hands. The only way to stop this is to keep the virus from being released.”

“How? We don’t have any idea where it is. And the militia could attack any minute.”

“I don’t know,” he said, and took her hand. “But we have to figure it out. Fast.”

“This isn’t what I do, Nick.”

“It is now. It’s all on us. Like it or not.”

She pulled away, wound up, and kicked a blackened desk. The legs gave way, the whole thing collapsing in a cloud of ash. “Okay.” She gritted her teeth. “If he’s infecting the New Sons, the canisters have to be here, in Tesla.”

“Plus, Smith is dead. We’ve got that going for us.”

“Right,” she said. “Right. So it would have to be something that would work without his involvement. Something he could trust.”

“Not something,” he said. “He wouldn’t have planned all of this and then left it to a timer. It’s going to be a person. Someone he could rely on completely, even in death. His last contingency.”

“Someone who would do it. Who wouldn’t be troubled by the catastrophe they were about to cause, the deaths of millions or billions.”

“You know these people better than I do,” Cooper said. “Who would that describe?”

“Jesus, I don’t know. Soren, but he’s . . .”

For a moment they stared at each other.

Then Cooper was running full tilt for the stairwell, Shannon right behind, her steps lighter but just as quick. He took flights in jumps, the floor numbers falling away, his hand trailing the railing as the impacts rang up his ankles and knees, his head spinning and heart racing and soul praying, thinking, Please, please, just one piece of good luck, that’s not too much to ask, is it?

They hit the second basement, yanked open the door.

A body sprawled at their feet.

Another down the hall.

In the prison control room, Rickard, the programmer who’d played the virtual torturer, sat in a chair. A pool of crimson surrounded him, the overhead light reflecting off his blood like the moon in a pond. His throat had been ripped open, his tongue yanked through the wound.

Soren’s cell was open.

CHAPTER 35

Luke Hammond tapped the flare pistol and checked the time on his borrowed watch.

5:57 p.m.

The watch was mechanical, unaffected by the EMP. An hour ago he had synced it with a dozen others. A dozen men with a dozen flare guns, all watching the seconds tick away.

It had been a long couple of days, but he wasn’t tired. Or rather, his exhaustion felt like it belonged to someone else. Partly his experience, he supposed—he’d been a boy when he became a warrior, and it was war that had forged him into a man, war and fatherhood—but also a purity of purpose. Looking around at the others, he could see it in them too. See it as they ate canned soup cold, as they checked and rechecked their weapons, as they huddled in small groups and joked edgily.

They were ready. They may have started as thousands of rough men, wounded people who had lost things that could never be replaced. But in the past week, they had become, if not quite an army, at least a team. United in loss and pain and purpose.