Hidden Empire (Empire 2)

I will not take questions at this time. Thank you very much.

Cecily had thought that Reuben's death would destroy her. She had been so close to him, so dependent on him, but to her surprise, she had not been destroyed at all. Grief-stricken, yes. She missed him every day, not just the times she needed him, but also the times she knew he would have loved. She couldn't tell him things, she couldn't show him things. Yet she could go on. His death wasn't debilitating. She finally realized it was because their marriage had been an enterprise; they were entrepreneurs in this little business called a family, and by continuing to provide for and raise the children they had made together, she was keeping the marriage going. She was still doing her part, and in her heart, she could say to him, See what we've done? See how our work is turning out?

She had thought she understood grief and loss.

Then she came back onto the campus of the University of Calabar, returned to the headquarters building, saw the hazmat-suited Marines clearing away the bodies of the dead university students and the dead enemy soldiers and thought, the enemy got this far before the Marines came. But they were stopped at the door. Look at all these bodies, stopped at the door.

But she knew, already, even then, before anyone spoke to her, before the face-masked Marine captain matched her to a photograph and said, "Mrs. Malich?"—she knew that something terrible had happened. The worst had happened. She knew it but held it at bay, because there were so many things it might be. After all, she had been very close to Reuben's jeesh. If one of them had died—or more than one—or all of them—they would treat her like this, wouldn't they? Gently take her arm and lead her into the building. Take her into Cole's office, where Cole most definitely was not, his bed made, no sign of the mess in which he had left his quarters when he got up to go out and face the enemy. They must be preparing to tell me that General Coleman was killed.

She even asked: How is General Coleman?

Grave condition, his body badly bruised from repeated bullet strikes on his Kevlar, but his most serious condition is the fever and dysentery from the nictovirus, we have him at the university hospital now with an IV from the fleet and two doctors working with him, he'll probably recover, he's not bleeding at the eyes and nose, we think he'll live. Mrs. Malich, please sit down.

She knew now.

"Mark is dead," she whispered.

Contradict me. Tell me, No, no, of course not, I'm sorry if we gave you that impression, no, Mark is fine, he's upstairs, let's call him down to you right away.

"Yes, Mrs. Malich," said the Marine captain. "If it is any consolation to you, he died as a hero." He told her a brief account of what Mark had done—calling the enemy soldiers to his room with a single shot, then killing the first man through the door, then dying instantly from two bullets from the second intruder's automatic weapon, one of which passed directly through his heart.

"The Nigerian boy Chinma then shot the man who killed your son."

Cecily nodded. She had heard.

"Is there anything I can do for you?"

Are you God? Can you bring him back? Then what can you possibly imagine I would want you to do for me?

Instead of saying any such thing, she shook her head. And then she thought of something she might need. "Where is he?" she said. She was surprised at the calmness of her own voice. But then, she had known Mark was dead for some time. Ever since she arrived at the entrance of the building, she had known it since then. This was not a shock. She could handle this for a moment, for this moment she could stay calm, and then for this next moment, and again, to her surprise, for the moment after.

"We can't take you to his body, ma'am. Many witnesses report that he exhibited symptoms of the nictovirus before he died. We cannot allow you to risk infection. His body has been sequestered with the other victims."

"We are all infected," said Cecily. "Sooner or later. And I will see my son, and I will see him now. Will you help me or not?"

So he helped her. He had Mark's body brought into what had once been a small conference room for the university. He left her there and closed the door.

She had handled it for long enough. The door closed just as her control burst.

She cried out his name. She kissed his face. She tore open his shirt and touched the bullet wounds, the one that killed him and the other one through his abdomen about four inches down. She stroked his chest, felt the ribs under the skin, ran her fingers through his hair, all the time calling his name, apologizing to him for letting him come, for not being a better mother, for not forbidding him to put his life at risk.

Then, after a while, she sat beside his cold body, holding his hand and talking to him. Telling him how proud she was of him, of the way he had lived, the way he had risked his life to help others, and how, at the end, he had been as good a soldier as his father could have hoped he'd be.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there with you, at the end. But I'm glad you didn't need me to be there in order to know what the right thing was and to do it. You never needed anyone to tell you that."

And then, stroking his face again, touching every part of his face, the way she had played with him and teased him as an infant, this is your eye, this is your ear, what is this? yes, it's your mouth, and this is your nose. You were such a sweet baby, but you couldn't sleep, it was so hard with you because you wouldn't sleep and I was exhausted all the time and I

thought, being a mother is so much harder than I thought, but I didn't regret it, because you also were such a smiler, you always had a big toothless grin for me when I changed you or fed you. You'd stop nursing, break away, just to smile at me, and then start sucking again, you were such a happy baby, you just didn't sleep for very long at a time, and it was so hard to get you to fall asleep in the first place. I carried you inside me, the first time my body went through all the baby changes, all the surprises and mysteries, the woes and pains of it, were all for you, that first time, I was no more experienced at this birthing thing than you were, but we made it through. I thought it would lead to your growing tall as your father, taking a wife, giving me grandbabies, making it all happen again, the cycle repeating. But instead it was all for this, for this place, to save the lives of these people. That was your choice. I let you have your choice. Even though it terrified me, and now all my worst fears have come true, but it was your choice, it was your life, and even though you didn't use it the way I wanted you to, you used it well.

She wept until there were no more tears to weep, until she sat beside the table where they had laid his body, her head lying on her arms, her hand still holding his hand. She was exhausted and, perhaps, asleep, though she was not aware of waking up. Only that someone's hand was on her shoulder.

It was the masked Marine captain. "Ma'am," he said. "May we take his body now? We would like to take your son back to the ship to prepare him for transfer back to the United States."

"Yes," she said.

She kissed her son's cold hand for the last time, knowing that once they sealed it into the coffin it would not be opened for any reason.

"Back to you, Reuben," she murmured. It was what she had said when he got up and brought the baby to her for nursing in the middle of the night, because she got so little rest. Reuben would be asleep again, because he had that ability to fall asleep in an instant, when he decided to. So she'd wake him when the baby was through nursing and say, Back to you, Reuben, and he'd get up and take the baby.