Empire (Empire 1)

Cole turned the key. Started up again. The air-conditioning kicked in. But he turned it off, rolled down the windows.

There was only one car ahead of him. The two guardsmen were looking in the windows. They waved the car on.

Cole pulled up to the portable stop sign. “I really got to do this to get to Washington now?”

“How it is,” said the guardsman. “Air-conditioning broken?”

“Trying to save on gas,” said Cole. “Moving is expensive enough.”

“From where to where?”

“Heading for Pasco.”

“Address there?”

Cole rattled it off. He was tempted to add chatty comments but decided against it. This guy looked serious. Young, but definitely Barney Fife-ish. Full of his authority, like a rookie cop. Didn’t have to go the northern route to get that, after all.

“And where you from?”

“Genesee.” He gave the address, but the guy wasn’t listening.

“Open up the back, please.”

Well, that was routine, he’d seen that from the top of the hill. He got out and headed for the back. Meanwhile, another car pulled up behind him.

The guardsman waved the other car around. “You take this one, Jeff.”

So now it was just Cole and the man in charge. No use wishing it were the other way around. They couldn’t have fit what they needed to carry inside a car trunk. Or even eight car trunks.

“Saw you up on the hill,” said the guardsman.

Shit, thought Cole. “Yep,” he said.

“Deciding whether or not you wanted to come through here?” asked the guardsman.

“I shut my eyes for a few minutes. Then I took a walk to stretch my legs.” Cole let himself sound just a little bit defensive, because he figured a regular citizen probably would. But he didn’t like the way this was going.

“Already tired of driving, just from Genesee?”

“I got up tired this morning,” said Cole. “I loaded the truck yesterday and I’m still sore.”

“Don’t look like the kind of guy gets sore just from loading a truck,” said the guardsman. “In fact, you look like you’re in top physical condition.”

“I used to work out,” said Cole with a smile. But his heart was sinking. The one thing they hadn’t taken into account was that even in civilian clothes, Cole looked military. And in shorts and a T-shirt, his utter lack of body fat was way too easy to see.

The guardsman leaned against the open back of the truck. “What am I going to find when you and I unload this truck?”

“Crappy furniture,” said Cole. “Crappy stuff in nice new boxes. The story of my life.”

The guardsman just kept looking at him.

“Why are you doing this to me, man?” said Cole. “I served my time in Iraq. Do I have to have uniforms hassling me now?”

“Am I hassling you?” asked the guardsman.

Cole sat up on the tail of the truck. “Do what you’ve got to do.”

Another car pulled past them. So Jeff would be busy again for a minute.