Hidden Empire (Empire 2)

"Not always at home."

"Because at home it wasn't a battlefield, and you were the five-star there. He was outranked and outclassed."

"Never," said Cecily.

"A joke," said Cole. "B

ut that's how these guys talk about you. That's why they want you on their side. You'll see. When we're all back in the States, they'll come to you."

"What side are we talking about?"

"Call it 'Torrent skeptics,' maybe. Here's the way they lay it out. We get the Noodles and Bones and the first time we deploy it, there's the handheld EMP waiting for us. What was that developed to counter, if not the Noodles and Bones?"

"It hits all electronics, doesn't it?"

"Noodles and Bones are like those jets that can't fly without computers constantly controlling the trim of the aircraft. Without the software, they're nothing. There's no manual override except to take off the Bones entirely. No, they're right, the handheld EMP is too weak to use against anything heavily armored or far away. It's a close-combat defensive weapon, and the only thing it hurts is a weapons system that did not exist, at least in this form, until now."

Cecily thought about that. "Are you saying that you think Torrent tipped somebody off? Because the exoskeleton concept has been around for a while."

"And so has the EMP device. It could all be coincidence. That's Torrent's cover—remember, this is the guys talking, not me. Here's another. Those six trucks from Sudan had to have been equipped and trained especially for this mission. They came into Calabar knowing exactly where they were going. Right down to which building to head for."

"So they were competent."

"So they were tipped off—the guys say. Because the training for that mission had to have begun before anybody outside the highest circles of the military knew that the nictovirus had penetrated our base."

"Which, as I recall, was the guys' clever idea."

"Torrent is in the loop. He finds out that some of us are sick, and he gets my estimate that the whole base will be sick, and at the same time. He has your schedule of the progress of the disease. He knows that there is going to be a window of about a week when we will be useless as a military force. He also knows that there are these Christian do-gooders all over the place."

"There were rumors flying all over Nigeria about how the American soldiers had the monkey sickness," said Cecily.

"Right, and Sudan has always had close, close relations with snitches in Nigeria."

"They certainly had friends in the Hausa government."

"There's always an alternate path," said Cole. "I say this to them, and they nod, and then they go right on believing that it's Torrent. He sets things up, he knocks them down. This attack on our base—what vital interest of Sudan's did it serve?"

"When has Sudan's government ever done anything that served any interest? They're motivated by hate and the lust for power."

"And faith!" said Cole.

"Faith as a mask for thuggery and evil," said Cecily.

"Agreed," said Cole. "But what if they were given the handheld EMP specifically so they would carry out that mission?"

"You think President Torrent has some loose cannon selling EMPs to rogue nations?"

"The guys think that wasn't it amazing the Sudanese had exactly the right information to carry out this mission so fast the Marines didn't get here in time, and happened to have been given the only weapon that could prevent us from using our Noodles and Bones as effectively as we otherwise could have?"

"Nothing in that points to Torrent."

"Except that because of this event, Torrent got the political clout, internationally, to begin redrawing the map of Africa. First in Nigeria, where the new lines are actually pretty clear because this place has been civilized for a long, long time. Then in Sudan. And now working west and south through all of black Africa, getting rid of the old colonial lines and replacing them with … new ones."

"New colonial lines?"

"Not the old kind of colony," said Cole. "But these new nations, they're going to be limping along at first. Huge cities whose only industry is spending government money suddenly aren't the center of government. Everything's going to be discombobulated for many years. And there's Averell Torrent, extending a hand, making them dependent on the United States, their good friend, their big brother in the West."

"He's being a good president!" said Cecily. "What should he do, snub them? It's a chance to bring peace and order to a place that has desperately needed it … "