Empire (Empire 1)

“We’re going to look like one anyway,” said Cole. He glanced around at the other guys. “Heck, we are a conspiracy. We’re plotting to save your life and your name.”

“I hope what we’re doing,” said Reuben, “is working to find out who killed the President and prevent them from hurting America any worse than they already have.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Cole as he got into the passenger seat of Mingo’s SUV. “That too.”

“Help me pull him out of there,” said Reuben.

“No way,” said Mingo. “He’s Special Ops.”

“He’s a bad dude,” said Cat.

“He might hurt me,” said Benny.

Reuben was annoyed. “Why should two careers go down the toilet on this?”

“He’s assigned to you by the Pentagon,” said Drew. “It makes sense for him to stay with you.”

“And we need him,” said Babe, “to tell us the truth about whatever danger you might get into. Because we know you’ll never tell us to come kick ass for you.”

“It all depends on whose ass needs kicking,” said Reuben. He pointed to Cole. “Right now, it’s his, and you guys are worthless.”

“Only because he’s so strong,” said Load. “And his American accent when he speaks Farsi is so bad.”

“Let’s go, sir,” said Cole. “Let’s get you to your family.”

It was time, Reuben knew, to accept the fact that his friends might well see things more clearly than he did. He took Mingo’s keys and got into the SUV.

“I’ll never forgive you for making me drive a Ford,” said Mingo.

Reuben closed the door and drove out of the parking garage.

EIGHT

COUP

All the common people want is to be left alone. All the ordinary soldier wants is to collect his pay and not get killed. That’s why the great forces of history can be manipulated by astonishingly small groups of determined people.

For Cole, the bad thing about Reuben Malich having left for New Jersey was that it left him in charge of the office. That had been fine for the first couple of days, before Cole ever met Rube, because even though he didn’t know anything, nobody ever called to ask him anything, either. Now he still didn’t know anything, but the phone didn’t let up.

Most of the people wanted to talk to Major Malich—old friends of his calling to congratulate him on stopping one rocket, at least. Cole would take a message with a promise to give it to him as soon as he saw him.

But the press callers were just as happy to talk to Cole and pump him with questions. The trouble is, Cole couldn’t think of anything to tell them that couldn’t be spun into an attack on him and Rube. The story in The Post had been more or less balanced—though a soldier like Cole was so used to the way the media treated the military that he heard a tone of snideness in everything they wrote. Still, Leighton Fuller had kept his word. Even the headline was balanced.

The questions Cole was getting now, however, were obviously designed to get him to say things that could spin against Reuben. Questions like, “How did you happen to be where you could see the underwater operation unfolding?” and “What exactly are the signs that you saw on the surface of the water? Why did you know to look for them?” and “Didn’t you and Major Malich both qualify as sharpshooters? Why were you able to hit only one of the rocket launchers?”

To all the questions, Cole gave the same answers: “We’re still in the debriefing process. We’re not authorized to discuss this.” To which they always replied, “But Major Malich talked to The Post!”

Like little children—they demanded that Rube and Cole be “fair” to the print and television newspeople, but there was going to be no attempt at fairness to them or the military they served.

Even as he thought this, he also knew that the questions were perfectly legitimate ones. And that the only answers he had were speculative at best. Why did they happen to be at Hain’s Point when the terrorists scubaed by? Maybe they tapped into the phone conversation; maybe they’d been watching Major Malich and knew him well enough to predict he’d go there for a private meeting. Why did sharpshooters like them only hit one launcher? Maybe because they were working with unfamiliar weapons. Maybe because they didn’t say, You take the left one, I’ll take the right, so they both shot at the same one. Maybe because they were distracted by being fired on. Why did you kill all the terrorists so none were left to be questioned? Maybe because we were getting fired on and in the heat of battle it’s hard to say, Let’s just wound this one. Especially when you fear that the

y’ll try to involve civilians if you let them live.

But the real answer, to question after question, would have been, “I don’t know.” The only thing he knew was, Rube was no actor. He had been furious that the terrorists got hold of his plan, desperate to stop them, devastated when the President died. Yet that was precisely the kind of thing that the press would never take seriously. Yeah, yeah, you felt “sure” that Rube didn’t know what was going on. Let’s have some facts.

The President was killed using a plan created by Major Malich. Major Malich was on the scene precisely when the plot unfolded. But you and he happened to hit only one of the launchers, so that the other one was still able to fire.

They weren’t there. They couldn’t know. All they knew was the collection of “facts” and the video footage from the guy in the car, and none of those showed the frenzy of being under fire, of being so wired with adrenalin you had no idea of the passage of time. Didn’t they get it that it was a miracle they got even one of the launchers? Didn’t they understand that it was a miracle they were able to get there, with weapons, as quickly as they did? Not for one second had Major Malich done a single thing to delay the operation to make sure the terrorists had time. And the terrorists got that rocket off with less than a second to spare. Nobody could plan for that.