Brilliance by Marcus Sakey

the shockwave had tossed them both like rag dolls, and neither looked inclined to forget it. Quinn turned to him. “Nick, shit, I was there all day yesterday, and the team in the van spent the night. We’ve got twenty hours of footage from a stack of cameras. Nobody planted the bomb.”
    Cooper coughed. His partner reddened. “I mean, no one planted it while we were there. They must have put it there in advance.”
    “And you didn’t check.” Luisa’s voice had a dangerous edge to it. “I got an idea, Bobby. How about next time
I
secure the scene, and
you
sit on the park bench in a skirt?”
    “Weezy, I’m sorry, but—”
    “Don’t you dare, you piece of—”
    “Enough,” Cooper said. He rubbed at his eyes and listened to the sounds surrounding them, the clacking of keys, the quiet voices of analysts and operators speaking into microphones. Even in the face of this, and of the looming attack, there were still thousands of tier-one abnorms to track, dozens of active targets. “Enough. Two days we lost here. Two days and nothing to show for it.” He straightened, looking from one to the other. “You all need to get it through your heads. John Smith is not just a twist with a grudge. He may be a sociopath, but he’s a chess master, the strategic equivalent of Einstein. I’ll bet he had that bomb in place weeks ago. You hear me?
Weeks ago
. Probably before Alex Vasquez even left Boston.”
    Luisa and Valerie looked at one another. He could read the fear in Valerie’s eyes and the protectiveness that elicited in Luisa’s. Quinn opened his mouth as if he was waiting for the words to come on their own. Finally he said, “You’re right. I’m sorry. I should have checked everything inside a hundred yards of the meet.”
    “Yeah, you should have. You screwed up, Bobby.”
    Quinn lowered his head.
    “And I should have told you to check. So we both screwed up.” Cooper took a deep breath, blew it out hard. “Okay. Let’s start with who triggered the bomb. Val, you’re our analysis expert.”
    “I haven’t had time to review—”
    “Gimme your gut.”
    “Well, if it was me, I’d do it remotely. All you need is a detonator and a clear view.”
    “How would you trigger it?”
    “A cell phone, probably,” she continued. “Cheap, dependable, won’t arouse suspicion if you’re caught with it. Just dial the—” She broke off, her eyes going wide. “Bobby, move.”
    “Huh?”
    “
Move
.” She pushed the man out of his chair, then took it herself. Her fingers flew over the keyboard. The big screen flickered, and the frozen video of the explosion vanished, replaced by columns of numbers.
    Cooper said, “If you can access the local cell towers and isolate calls made within a few seconds of the explosion—”
    “I’m on it, boss.”
    A voice from behind said, “We need to talk.”
    Dickinson. Damn, but he walks softly for a big man.
Cooper turned, met the agent’s eyes. Saw the anger crackling there. Not rage, nothing so out of control. More like anger was the fuel his engine burned.
    To his team Cooper said, “Keep on it. This won’t take long.” He started away, jerking his head for Dickinson to follow without waiting to see if the man would. Alpha dog posturing, stupid but necessary. He led the way to a dead space beside the stairs, put on a smile because he just couldn’t resist, and said, “What’s on your mind?”
    “What’s on my
mind
? How about what’s on your collar?” Dickinson gestured. “That wouldn’t be a little Bryan Vasquez, would it?”
    Cooper glanced down. “No. That blood belonged to a woman I pulled away from the fire.”
    “Are you actually proud of yourself?”
    “That’s not the word I’d choose, no. You got a point?”
    “I found Bryan Vasquez. I brought him in. We had one lead,
one
, and I brought him in. And you just let him get blown up.”
    “Yeah, none of us really liked him. We took a vote, decided what the hell—”
    “Is this a joke to