Empire (Empire 1)

“So we do nothing?” said Cole.

“Not at all,” said Babe. “What we got to do is, don’t give them anything to work with. And meanwhile, we spin back. Or, I guess, Rube spins back.”

“Nothing for them to work with,” said Reuben. “So you mean I shouldn’t go to Jersey? Nothing that could look like I’m hiding?”

“No, I mean you should talk to the press first,” said Babe.

“About what? All my work was classified.”

“How long do you think that’ll last, once they start leaking about how you came up with the plans?” said Babe. “How classified do you think any of this shit will stay when the investigation turns ugly and political?”

“It’s a crime to reveal classified information.”

“That became irrelevant the second your classified information was used to kill the President,” said Babe. “Besides, just the fact that you met with us here, that’s already enough for the press to infer a conspiracy.”

“Babe’s right about that,” said Load. “The fact that he ditched a tail is probably enough. Shows a guilty conscience, right, Cat?”

“You watch too much Law and Order, Load,” said Cat.

Cole laughed in disbelief. “Come on, are you saying Major Malich should hold a press conference?”

“No,” said Babe. “You got to announce those in advance and the feds can shut you down. I think that right now, while he’s still not being tailed, we get his ass over to The Washington Post.”

“Why The Post?” said Reuben. “Why do I have to go to the people who are most dying to destroy me?”

“Because their story will get picked up and used everywhere,” said Babe. “Even if they mock you for it, your statement that somebody deliberately set you up to take the fall for this will resonate with people. Then, if somebody kills you, it will backfire on them. A lot of people will believe that someone killed you to shut you up.”

“I don’t want to find out what people believe about why I was murdered,” said Reuben. “This is a really disturbing conversation.”

“If they don’t think it will help them, there’s no reason for them to kill you. Tell it all to The Post. Name all the names you can.” Babe grinned. “I’m in p.r., and I’ll tell you what I’d tell Brad Pitt and Russell Crowe—don’t wait for them to tell the story on you, you tell it on them first.”

“They’re not your clients,” said Arty.

“I didn’t say they were,” said Babe. “Rube’s nowhere near as pretty as they are. Though I will say he’s almost as manly.”

Which is why, at eleven o’clock at night, Reuben found himself in a conference room at The Washington Post, with his whole team around him, as he and Cole sat there to be photographed and questioned by the reporters and editors working on the assassination story.

“We’re not answering questions for the first while,” said Reuben. “I’m just going to tell you exactly what happened, including some classified stuff whose classification got blown all to hell. But I’m getting set up, and I at least want my story out there to compete with the lies that are going to be told about me.”

They didn’t like it that he wanted to be in control of the interview.

“Just listen to what I have to say and then decide whether it was worth getting out of bed for.”

The lead reporter on the story was Leighton Fuller. He was their top political reporter, and he also had his own weekly column in which he had already killed every idea the President had ever had. Though he never admitted they actually rose to the level of being called

ideas.

“I don’t see what this is about,” Leighton said. “You’re a hero, you tried to save the President. Who’s trying to set you up?”

“Okay, I’ll pretend I’m answering your question,” said Reuben. Then, with Cole affirming or correcting or supplementing him all the way, he told about the day’s events. Including how on his own Reuben would never have seen the signs of the submersibles.

And at the end, Reuben explained about the manuscript of his plan for assassinating the President. “If they find my fingerprints on the copy the terrorists worked from then you’ll know something important.”

“What will we know?” asked Leighton.

“I never touched the final report with my own hands. The division secretary delivered it electronically to the printing office and they printed it and bound it and she delivered it around. I wasn’t making a point of not touching it, I just wasn’t in the country when I finished it and emailed it to DeeNee. If my fingerprints are on it, then it’s a rough draft. One of the ones I hand-carried to people for comment.”

“Which people?”