Empire (28 page)

“Now we know how the Israelis feel,” said Cole.

“Except we'd have to build about a hundred fences to separate the red from the blue,” said Reuben.

“Not to mention,” Cole added, “sorting out which soldiers are actually
from
the cities in rebellion.”

“Now you understand,” said Nielson.

“So why did you bring us here?” asked Cecily. “Surely not for more advice.”

“What I need,” said Nielson. “What the country needs. Is proof. Proof of this conspiracy. And I think you have it. Major Malich, I think you were set up. But I hear you can identify who leaked your assassination plans if you have the copy the FBI found in the terrorists' apartment.”

“I think I can, yes sir,” said Reuben.

President Nielson lifted a file folder from his desk. “This is a copy of the one we found. The original had your fingerprints all over it.”

“Anyone else's?”

“Your secretary's. But no others. Which is one of the reasons the FBI is suspicious of it. Did the terrorists wear gloves when they handled the paper?”

“It should have the prints of the leaker, too, and everyone who handled it before him,” said Reuben.

“From this we conclude that it went to the leaker first,” said Nielson. “And the leaker didn't want to risk smearing or covering your prints. So
he
wore gloves as he copied it, and then bagged the original so no new fingerprints would get on it.”

“I wish I could tell you just by looking at it,” said Reuben. “But it's DeeNee who knows which version is which and where they went first.”

“I urge you to call her.”

“The last time I did, she was closely supervised by people who thought it was urgent that I be arrested.”

“Arrested? Who gave that order? I specifically told them
not
to arrest you.”

They all knew what that meant.

“It's a strange time to be President,” said Nielson. “Nobody knows who's on which team. It will sort itself out eventually, but right now I need proof of who it was in the Pentagon who conspired to kill the President and lay the groundwork for this Progressive Restoration nonsense.”

Cecily laughed harshly. “This gets worse and worse. Because if you do start laying off people just on suspicion of being Progressive sympathizers, your opponents in Congress
and
the press will screech that you're imposing an ideological test on government employees.”

“It's why we need proof. Even if you have to go to the Pentagon to get it, Major Malich.”

“Can I choose and arm a team of my own choosing?” asked Reuben. “I'll also need a letter of authorization from you. Giving me supreme authority over all personnel whose obedience I require in pursuing my assignment. Because I have to be able to tell any general who stands in my way to get lost.”

“I'll also detail two Secret Service agents to accompany you,” said Nielson. “The Secret Service has always prided themselves on protecting even people they despise.”

“Do you have any idea yet who it was inside the White House?”

“One of the household staff,” said Nielson. “She hasn't shown up for work. We believe she's in hiding. But fellow staff members say she was bitter about her son's injury in Iraq three years ago. He lost a hand. She blamed the President. I suspect if we do find her, she'll be dead before we arrive. Maybe she didn't know she was triggering an assassination. But maybe she did. The people who can hurt us are the ones that we trust.”

“Why did you need
me
?” asked Cecily.

“You mean apart from the fact that I need somebody who can speak the language of the Left and help me translate my statements into neutral rhetoric?”

“I already turned you down for that job.”

“I was hoping you could do some clerical work for me,” said Nielson. “Immediately after his arrest, Steven Phillips, an aid to the NSA, provided us with his few scraps of notes about illegal arms trading that was being run out of the White House. Since some of this work was done by your husband, I thought you might have a vested interest in finding who was sending what to whom. Especially since Phillips was happy to tell us that he knew nothing much at all, it was completely Reuben Malich's operation.”

“So,
was
Phillips part of the conspiracy?” asked Cole.

“No, he's just a bureaucratic weasel,” said Reuben.

“Actually, the jury's still out on that question,” said Nielson. “Not about whether he's a weasel—his weaselhood is self-demonstrating.”

They all laughed. Only partly because he was President.

“There are better people than me to conduct this investigation,” said Cecily. “I have children to take care of.”

“I'm not asking you for a career decision, Cecily,” said Nielson. “Or a lifestyle choice. The people I can trust who are also capable don't really make up that big a list.” He leaned across the desk. “For your country, Cecily Grmek.”

“Malich,” she corrected him.

“I'm asking the idealist who used to think she could turn me into a liberal if she found just the right piece of data to pass along to me.”

“The kids aren't that far away,” said Reuben. “After things settle down a little, maybe we can bring them here.”

“Besides,” said President Nielson, “Major Malich will be reporting directly to me. On this and all his future assignments. If you're here, you'll see a lot more of him.”

Cecily nodded, but Cole could see she was still torn. We all make sacrifices in wartime, he said to himself silently. But he wasn't married; he wasn't a father. It was easier for him. His mother would miss him if he was gone. His father was already dead. His siblings—they got along fine. It wouldn't disrupt their lives if he died. But for Cecily and Rube, it wasn't like that. With both of them gone, their
children would be parentless for a while. Temporary orphans. Never easy on kids.

Like it wasn't easy on Cole when his father died. And they had plenty of warning on that. Cancer. Months of chemo. And then the news that it hadn't done the job, it was just a matter of time. They were able to say good-bye. Able to see how the disease wasted his body and tore him apart inside until he was ready to go, and death came as a relief. That was hard enough on Cole, knowing his father loved him, hearing him say, several times, I'm proud of you, Barty, keep making me proud.

Dad couldn't help going. Reuben is under orders. But Cecily feels like she has a choice. So . . . if she abandons her children for a while, does that make her
worse
or nobler?

Glad I have my life, thought Cole, as he did so often. Rather my life than anyone else's that I know of.

“As for you, Captain Coleman,” said the President.

“Oh, I'm going with Reuben,” said Cole, without thinking who he was talking to.

“You are?” asked Nielson.

“I'm in his team,” said Cole. “I'm his number two. Whether he likes it or not. I was
assigned
.”

“I was thinking of reassigning you. We need a military spokesman with your—”

“Mr. President, you wouldn't take a fighting machine like me and waste me in front of cameras, would you? You need to watch
First Blood
again and think of me as being about as articulate as Stallone.”

“Rambo couldn't have said the sentence you just said,” Cecily said.

“You said Major Malich could choose his own squad,” said Cole. He looked to Reuben for support, half expecting him to say, Obey your commander-in-chief.

“He's right, Mr. President. I need him more than you do.”

“Then he's yours. This meeting is adjourned.”

As they came out of the President's office, there were several
people waiting to get in. Sitting on a wooden bench, not looking eager to enter, was a slender man of perhaps thirty-five, who looked like he played tennis a little, and swam a little, but mostly read books through those rimless glasses and wrote brilliant essays with those slender, graceful fingers. The poster child for what every professor wanted to grow up to be, and what every politician wished he could put on his posters. Cole had never seen him before, but couldn't take his eyes off him.

The tennis-playing professor rose to his feet and held out his hand to Rube. “Soldier Boy,” said the professor.

“Professor Torrent,” said Rube. “I go by Major Malich now.”

So this was Averell Torrent, the young hotshot of the NSA's office who had just been nominated to be NSA as his boss bumped up. The Torrent whose essays on history had been all the rage a couple of years ago. Since he was a Princeton professor then, Cole had assumed it was History For Liberals, meaning that it would be elaborate explanations of why whatever the Republican administration was doing was wrong, complete with references to global warming and the need for negotiations under all circumstances. Therefore he hadn't read it. But Reuben knew him, and even if he was a little prickly about the “soldier boy” greeting, Rube was showing him deeper respect than he had shown to President Nielson.

“So the President has brought you aboard,” said Torrent.

“Both of us,” said Rube, including Cecily. Then he indicated Cole as well. “All three of us.”

Torrent looked at Cole somewhat quizzically. “Very powerful sermon on Fox last night,” he said.

“Thanks,” said Cole. But he thought: It sounded to you like a sermon?

“We have some interesting new armaments that are being rushed out of prototype to meet these mechs,” said Torrent. “I know you're a dirt-and-languages kind of soldier, but you have to love some of the new weaponry, Major Malich.”

“You got something that will trip a two-legged tank?” asked Rube.

“We've got a foam that dries in two seconds and then won't let go. Basically, you glue them to the ground like gum.” Torrent grinned. “Some of these geniuses in weapons development must be thrilled to have a chance to use some of this far-out stuff.”

“As long as some of them didn't moonlight by coming up with the Progressives' weapons in the first place,” said Rube.

“And magnets,” said Torrent. “You lay them like mines, and anything big and metallic that passes within twenty feet is pulled toward it and can't get free. And grenades that are all Shockwave, no flame. Hit one of those mechs with it, and everything comes loose inside. Lovely things.”

“I'm glad our troops will have
something
, said Rube. “Have they figured out what shot down those F-16s?”

“A hyperpowerful EMP.”

“That would suck up so much power the city'd black out,” said Rube.

“They think it might be laserized, so you get a lot more clout for the kilowatt. Whatever it is, it wipes out the electronics that keep those planes aloft.”

“So we're going to do what, go back to propeller planes?” asked Rube.

Torrent paused for a moment. “You know, that's not a bad idea. The jets hang back for air cover, and the little biplanes come on in, machine guns blazing. Like shooting down King Kong.”

“Looks like you're having fun, Professor,” said Rube.

“War triggers human inventiveness at its most brilliant, because if you don't win your wars, your civilization disappears.”

“It's bad form to quote yourself,” said Rube, smiling.

“I said that before?”

“Don't worry,” said Rube. “Quoting Averell Torrent makes everybody look smarter.”

Torrent clapped him on the shoulder and they moved down the corridor as Torrent disappeared inside the President's office.

“So you know Torrent,” said Cole.

“Had three seminars from him in grad school.”

“Is he too dashing to be smart and too smart to be so dashing?” asked Cecily.

“He's got more ego than a movie star,” said Rube, “but unlike most of my former professors, he has the brains to back it up. He never served in the military but he has his own version of history that works better than most others, and he has an eye for strategy. President Nielson isn't wrong to seek his advice.”

“But he irritates you,” said Cole.

“He
works
at irritating me,” said Rube. “I don't know what I did to get under his skin, but he rode me all the way through three seminars and gave me hell during my orals.”

“How did he irritate you just now?” asked Cole. “Besides calling you ‘soldier boy.' ”

“He's got a severe case of Winston-Churchill-itis. Churchill was the genius of global politics, so Torrent has to be, too. Churchill went ape over every wacko bit of military tech that came up, so Torrent has to pretend he's a tech guy.”

“He isn't?”

“No more than Churchill was. I don't know why I think he's faking his enthusiasm. Maybe because a former advisor to the NSA wouldn't usually know that much about cutting-edge weaponry.” Rube stopped and took Cecily by the shoulders. “Cessy,” he said, “the stuff on my PDA will make your job easier. As soon as I get back, I'll give it to you.”

“Give it to me now so I can get started,” said Cecily.

“Everything's in Farsi,” said Rube.

“The names and addresses?” asked Cecily.

“They don't mean anything without an explanation. I'll be back by noon tomorrow. I'll just pop in to the Pentagon, pull DeeNee and my files out, and then we're home.”

“Then take a minute and copy it to another computer,” Cecily insisted.

Rube hesitated. “Cessy,” he said softly. “I don't know how the stuff on here will make me look. The minute I let a copy be made, it's out of my hands. Somebody can steal it. Somebody can leak it.”

“Then leave the PDA with me,” said Cessy. “I'll take better care of it than you can. There'll be no chance of it falling out of your pocket or getting bumped when another army of mechs walks into Arlington.”