Empire (Empire 1)

Well, that was hardly a surprise. They wouldn’t have pursued Cole so relentlessly for the PDA without also looking for any other place where Reuben might have kept his data. But she had to commend the thieves for their tidiness. If they had gone through the rest of the papers or searched through the whole house, they had put everything back neatly enough that she couldn’t tell.

And maybe it was the Secret Service that took the computer. Maybe they had it and would give it back to her so she could update her financials.

She opened the file cabinet that contained Reuben’s papers. Not many in recent years—everything was so secret there was no chance he’d keep things at home. But his student work was all here. The papers he had written for classes. His dissertation, of course. And all his notes from all his classes, written in Farsi and neatly filed.

His notes had always looked both beautiful and forbidding. Because Farsi used the Arabic alphabet, it was written from right to left, with words that looked virtually the same—it was a script-only language, so each letter flowed into the next one, and many important distinctions consisted entirely of the dots and marks surrounding the letters. To someone who didn’t know the alphabet, it looked more like art than language. But now Cecily had learned the Arabic alphabet and knew many words of Farsi on sight.

Enough, in fact, that she could identify which class each folder of notes was from. They were headed by subject and teacher name. The teachers’ names were often written in roman letters, but sometimes not. She quickly realized that those written in Farsi were the names that were also words that could be translated. No doubt Reuben got a kick out of thinking of professors by the Farsi translations of their names.

“Torrent” was a word. Which of these was Torrent’s class? She had no way of knowing—the word “torrent” wouldn’t have come up much in Reuben’s records on his PDA. She didn’t actually speak Farsi. What she had mastered was more like a graduate student’s version of a foreign language—exactly what was needed to read a particular set of documents and not a speck more.

But she wanted to know what Reuben had written about Torrent’s class. And when the boys got back from Chinnereth and Genesseret, they could help her by translating it.

If they got back.

She couldn’t think that way. They were soldiers like Reuben had been. They were careful, highly trained, and very hard to beat. They could only be killed by treachery, the way Reuben had been.

“Treachery.” A strange word, she thought. What is a treacher? How do you treach? Of course the real words were “traitor” and “betray,” but what an odd word, that looked like it ought to function like “teacher.” Those who teach are committing teachery, she thought. While those who commit treachery are treachers. Do they go to college to get their treaching certificate? Do they belong to the treaching profession? She chuckled at her own humor, then realized that with Reuben gone there was no one to tell it to. He would have laughed and probably would have reversed the joke, dropping the r in treason words to refer to teaching. “Our kids have got some mighty fine taitors in school this year. They’ll be carrying out their teason in our children’s classrooms. They plan to betay our kids.”

It would have become a family joke word. “What did they betay you in school today?” “None of my teachers would be convicted of teason, Dad. Lack of evidence.” And on and on for years.

But not now.

Her eyes again filled with tears, she pulled out all the folders that didn’t have the professors’ names written in roman letters and took them with her out to the car. She’d find out what Reuben learned from Torrent. And, knowing Reuben, he would have written his opinions of his professor as well.

Only as she drove back out toward the Leesburg bridge did the connection of treachery with Torrent emerge to the level of consciousness.

At first she dismissed it. And then she didn’t.

Wasn’t it because of Torrent that Reuben was first recruited to work on his clandestine projects with Phillips? Torrent was already well connected in Washington, even then. She remembered Reuben talking to her about how the guys recruiting him were probably the ones Torrent had hinted about. But she distinctly remembered the “probably” in what Reuben said. Nobody had actually identified themselves as coming from him. Reuben talked about that because Torrent had told him that they would mention his name. He even said that he meant to check with Torrent to see if these guys were the ones he had been talking about.

Did he? Or did he decide not to bother the Great Man? Or did he try, but Torrent didn’t bother to answer?

Even if Reuben’s contact with Phillips originated with Torrent, that didn’t mean that Torrent had anything to do with their activities. Somebody might have said, we’re looking for a good man who can be trusted to do this and this and this, and Torrent simply recommended Reuben.

Treachery, though. Treachery was on her mind. DeeNee was on her mind. Working with Reuben for years, knowing his secrets, helping him keep his clandestine work secret. How far did this conspiracy reach?

The information on the PDA had been part of the data that Torrent used when he deduced where Aldo Verus’s secret garrison had to be. But what if it wasn’t mere deduction. What if Torrent was part of it all along?

How could he be? He had been sending the jeesh out on missions that involved taking out guys on hovercycles and taking down mechs and trying to find EMP weapons. Working against the rebels.

Or was that part of Torrent’s game plan? Make it plain that he’s definitely on the side of the Constitution, so that he can get exactly where he is—Vice-President-to-be, with a strong possibility of being nominated for President?

No, no. That’s too twisted and deep a game. Torrent showed them the reasoning that led him to those lakes in Washington.

Showed it to them. Demonstrated it. Made the trail clear. He knew where it was all along, but couldn’t tell them until they had gathered enough information that he could show them a rational path leading to the conclusion.

No proof. Probably not true. Probably.

But if it was true, then what mission were Cole and Load and Benny and Mingo and all the rest on, what were they really doing? Was it a wild goose chase? If Torrent was honest and he really had deduced the location the way he showed them, then in all likelihood it was simply wrong and they’d find no

thing there.

If it was real, though, and Aldo Verus—or somebody—had an arsenal and a garrison underground in those mountains, then was he sending the jeesh into a trap? Had he used them for his purposes and now no longer needed them? Was he planning to have them killed and the incident made public to discredit President Nielson and swing more of the country toward the Progressive Restoration?

No, it couldn’t be that. Because Torrent had just thrown in his lot with President Nielson. Not that he’d become a Republican, necessarily—he was still noncommittal about that—but he had declared for the Constitution and against the rebels. Plus, if the mission to Chinnereth led to a public relations disaster, it would be a disaster for Torrent, too. His fingerprints were all over the mission.

Her mind leapt to another connection. Was it possible that both Torrent and General Alton were agents provocateurs, secretly part of the rebel conspiracy, with a mission to destroy the constitutional government by embarrassing it and providing justification for the Progressive Restoration?