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  “Maybe he thinks he’ll still have clout in Congress.”

  “No, he often said that the only President who ever controlled Congress was Johnson, and he did it by being a world-class . . . jerk.”

  “A tush flambé,” said Margaret.

  “And he can’t control the press, either. They’re going to try to kill Reuben’s reputation and dance on the grave.”

  “He just got made President. He’s feeling grandiose.”

  “He was never grandiose. But no, he was joking. Cajoling me.”

  “And yet you’re still worried.”

  “I’m worried because Reuben is off the radar. Is he coming here? Is he going somewhere else to hide? Is he leaving the country? Is he on some kind of assignment? Is he arrested? Is he . . .”

  The front door slammed open.

  “Oh, be gentle with my ancient house!” cried Aunt Margaret.

  “Dad’s got a new car!” shouted Mark.

  “He’s here,” breathed Cecily.

  “Go help your father with his luggage,” called Margaret.

  “He doesn’t have any!”

  When Cecily got to the front door, carrying J.P., the garage door was already closing with Reuben and whatever car he was driving on the inside. So Cecily went back through the house and intercepted him at the inside garage door. They kissed and Reuben took J.P. into his arms and greeted the girls, who had already run downstairs. “Where’s Nick?” he asked.

  “Reading about strong-thewed women and bewitching men,” said Mark.

  “In the back yard,” said Cecily.

  Reuben gave everybody another hug and then went out into the back yard in search of his second son.

  They gathered in the kitchen and Reuben gave them all a blow-by-blow account of his fight with the terrorists. Lettie and Annie were fascinated, but their reaction was most at the level of “Oh, gross,” and “Did you see them after they were dead?” Mark wanted more details, but in reply Reuben reminded him that this story was not to be told outside the family. “If you tell anybody that your dad is Major Reuben Malich, any of your friends, pretty soon there’ll be reporters outside the house and we won’t have any peace.”

  Mark was disgusted. “I know that, Dad,” he said.

  Nick said nothing. He just watched his father. And listened. And took it all in. He was the one that worried Cecily. Nick built his life around imaginary heroes, even if the fantasy novels were supposed to be funny. And then look at the father he had—the real thing, the strong-thewed warrior, the hero. How could Nick ever measure up to that fantasy?

  Nick was the one who would go into the Army, she thought. He’ll think he has to in order to be a real man. Only the Army is not where he belongs. He needs to have time to himself. He needs a regular life. He needs to be surrounded by a gentle reality. Because he’s fragile. Real combat would hurt him. He would get scars that would never heal.

  Scars like the ones that gnawed at his father. You don’t kill men without taking damage to your soul. Even when you’re defending yourself and other people. Even when the bad guys are truly evil. And if you ever get to the point where it doesn’t damage you to kill, then you’ve lost your decency. Thank God Reuben had never reached that point, and never would. But Nick—could he bear it, to have those wounds on his soul?

  “So I’m on vacation for a few days,” said Reuben. “Maybe longer.”

  “Two words,” said Mark. “Atlantic City!”

  “You are way too young to scope out babes, Mark,” said Reuben.

  “I said that once, Dad. As a joke.”

  “I don’t care what you said. I know how I’ve seen you look.”

  “Yeah, well, have you seen how they dress?”

  “You’re ten. That’s way too young for you even to care.”

  And on they went. The war talk was over. But the kids lingered. Dad-time was precious. And it wasn’t often he actually told them about what he did as a soldier. They didn’t need that knowledge. It would only frighten them when he was away. This time, though, Cecily knew that he had to tell them, because they were going to hear the negative stuff, and they had to know the story the way it really happened.

  After a while, the girls dragged their father upstairs to look at whatever insane project they were working on together—Lettie always had a project, and Annie always ended up being chief assistant who never, ever got her way on anything, and they ended up yelling and crying and then going right back to the same project because Annie would rather be miserable and oppressed with Lettie than free but alone.

  Mark went with them because he was Mark and had to be with people who were doing something. J.P. went with them because Reuben was holding him. Which left Cecily alone at the kitchen table with Nick.

  “What are you thinking?” she said. “If it involves ice cream, I think the answer is there are still two fudgesicles that J.P. didn’t smear all over his body.”

  Nick ignored the offered ice cream—not a surprise. He was mostly indifferent to food. “The king is dead,” he said. “Long live the king.”

  “What?”

  “You asked what I was thinking,” said Nick. “Somebody killed the President, and all anybody can think about is, How does this benefit me?”

  “I’m not thinking that way,” said Cecily.

  “No, ‘cause you and Dad are thinking about how it’s going to hurt you. They’re saying things that make Dad look like he was maybe part of the assassination instead of the guy who tried to stop it.”

  “It’s how they sell papers.”

  “That’s what I meant,” said Nick. “See? The President is dead—how can we sell papers? The President is dead—how can I take advantage of it?”

  “And you’re nine years old, right?” asked Cecily.

  “I know you think I read too much fantasy,” said Nick, “but this is what it’s all about. Power. Somebody dies, somebody leaves, everybody comes in and tries to take over. And you just have to hope that the good guys are strong enough and smart enough and brave enough to win.”

  “Are they?”

  “In the fantasy novels,” said Nick. “But in the real world, the bad guys win all the time. Genghis Khan tore up the world. Hitler lost in the end, but he killed millions of people first. Really bad stuff happens. Evil people get away with it. You think I don’t know that?”

  Our children are way too smart for their own good, thought Cecily. “Nick, you’re absolutely right. So do you know what we do? We make an island. We make a castle. We dig a moat around it and we put up walls that are strong, made of stone.”

  “I guess you’re not talking about Aunt Margaret’s house,” said Nick.

  “You know what I’m talking about,” said Cecily. “I’m talking about family, and faith. Here in this house, we’re not trying to take advantage. Our family doesn’t try to profit from the death of the king. Our family always has enough to share, even if we don’t have enough to eat. Do you understand?”

  “Sure,” said Nick. “That’s church talk. Because Dad has a weapon and goes out and kills the bad guys. He doesn’t just hide in a castle inside a moat and help the poor and the sick.”

  “Your dad,” said Cecily, “does not go out and kill the bad guys. He goes out and does what he’s ordered to do, and the goal is to persuade the bad guys that they won’t get their way by killing people, so they’d better stop.”

  “Mom,” said Nick, “all you’re saying is that our Army persuades them to stop killing people by being better at killing people than they are.”

  She slumped back in her chair. “Hard to reconcile that with Christianity, isn’t it?”

  “No it’s not,” said Nick.” ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.’ ”

  “You listen?”

  “I read.”

  “I just turned down an offer from the President. LaMonte Nielson. I used to work for him. I must have done a good job, because he wants me to come work in the White House.”
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br />   “Are you going to?”

  “No, I’m not. And do you know why?”

  “Because of us?” said Nick.

  “Because the best thing I can do to make this world a better place is to do a really brilliant job of raising you kids. And I can’t if I’m not home to do it.”

  “If you worked in the White House,” said Nick, “you might have been one of the ones they blew up.”

  “But I wasn’t. And I won’t be.”

  “They’ve got to be mad at Dad,” said Nick.

  “Who?”

  “The boss terrorists. He shot their guys. He stopped one of their rockets. He almost stopped them from killing the President.”

  “I suppose they’re a little bit mad at him. But they didn’t expect us not to shoot back.”

  “They’re not going to come here to kill us, are they?”

  “No,” said Cecily.

  “In the movies, they always go after the hero’s family.”

  “They do that because it’s a Hollywood formula. To make the movie scarier so you’ll keep watching for the whole two hours. In the real world, these terrorists don’t care about regular people like us. They strike at big targets—like the World Trade Center and the President.”

  “And the Pentagon,” said Nick.

  “And soldiers in the field. We’ve always known that was Dad’s job. But our house? Like I said—it’s a castle.”

  Nick nodded. Then he got up and went to the fridge and opened the freezer compartment and took out a fudgesicle. “Want one?” he said.

  “I don’t like chocolate,” Cecily answered.

  “A creamsicle?” said Nick.

  “Bring me one, you monster of temptation,” she said.

  He tossed her a creamsicle and kept the fudgesicle for himself. “Do you ever wonder,” he said as he unwrapped it, “what it would feel like to smear this all over your body?”

  Cecily made the connection. “You didn’t happen to say that to J.P., did you?”

  “His fudgesicle was dripping all over his hand and he was getting all frantic about it.”

  “He was in the back yard?”

  “He turns doorknobs just fine, Mom. Didn’t you know that?”

  “So you said, ‘Wonder what it would feel like to smear this all over?’ ”

  “I told him he was already halfway covered in fudgesicle, he might as well take his clothes off and finish the job.”

  “And you didn’t think to watch him to make sure he didn’t?”

  Nick looked at her like she was crazy. “Why would I do that? It was funny watching him wipe his butt with a fudgesicle.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Cecily nastily. “You read comic fantasies.”

  “What’s the point of having a little brother if you can’t talk him into doing stupid things?”

  “Nick, please don’t do that again. J.P. is not your toy.”

  “He’s your toy. But aren’t you supposed to share?”

  “You know I’m very angry with you.”

  “Not very,” he said, reverting to their old game.

  “Very very,” she said.

  “Not very very very.”

  “Very very very very very very very veriver vy. Very,” she said.

  “You did that on purpose.”

  “I cannot say ‘very’ that many times in a row without stumbling.”

  “Come on, Mom, you speak a language that has no vowels.”

  “Croatian has vowels. We just don’t need them in every syllable.”

  Then everybody trooped down from upstairs and the private conversation was over.

  Cecily didn’t get a chance to be alone with Reuben until dusk, when they went out and sat on the glider on the patio. Cecily told him about talking to the President and declining his job offer. Reuben told her about talking to Leighton Fuller at The Post. “And Cole telephoned me,” said Reuben. “General Alton is planning a coup. Keep Nielson as a figurehead. Maybe it’ll happen. Alton’s always been a big talker. But there are people who see the world his way. Maybe he has support. Maybe people will go along with him.”

  “So what are you going to do about it?” asked Cecily.

  “Keep my head down,” said Reuben. “There are things that a major in the United States Army doesn’t have the power to do. If they really do it, though, I’m resigning my commission. I signed on to serve the United States of America, not some committee of generals who think they have the right to decide how the country should go.”

  “It won’t happen,” she said. “It can’t happen. That’s . . . it’s so Latin American. So Turkish. It doesn’t happen here.”

  “Until it does,” said Reuben. “Something else Cole said.”

  “What?”

  “He quoted something General Alton said to him. Quoted to him. What he remembers Alton saying is, ‘Soldiers want to get paid and not die. Civilians want to be left alone. We’ll pay the soldiers and we won’t ask them to die. We’ll leave the civilians alone.’ ”

  “That’s pretty cynical. Does he really think people will give up freedom that easily?”

  “Here’s the funny thing,” said Reuben. “That’s not an old saying. Where I first heard it was at Princeton. Averell Torrent said it.”

  “Oh, yes, I forgot he was your professor there.”

  “He’s a brilliant man, and a constant devil’s advocate. I thought he had it in for me, and then he . . .”

  “Recruits you.”

  “I’m not sure he got me the contacts that I’ve been working with. They never mentioned his name.”

  “But you assumed.”

  “Anyway, he said it twice in class—and it was in one of his books. You know me, that guaranteed I’d memorize it. ‘All the common people want is to be left alone. All the ordinary soldier wants is to collect his pay and not get killed. That’s why the great forces of history can be manipulated by astonishingly small groups of determined people.’ ”

  “That’s not exactly what Alton said to Cole. If Cole remembered it right.”

  “Cole’s a memorizer,” said Reuben.

  “Like you.”

  “Word for word,” said Reuben. “I think Alton has met Torrent. Or at least read his books.”

  “Of course he’s met him,” said Cecily. “Torrent is NSA.”

  “As of this morning,” said Reuben.

  “But he’s been in the NSA’s office for a couple of years.”

  “This may shock you, my dear, but the NSA staff and the top brass at the Pentagon don’t get together every night and schmooze.”

  “But you think Torrent and Alton did?”

  “I think Alton heard Torrent speak. About how America can’t become an empire during its democratic phase. About how we’ve outgrown our democratic institutions. They need to be revised, drastically, but everybody has so much invested in the old system that nobody can build the consensus to change it. A Gordian knot. Time to slice through it if America is ever going to achieve its greatness.”

  “Not manifest destiny, manifest dictatorship?”

  “I always took it as Torrent warning us about the movement of history. What lies ahead if we’re not careful. But it’s possible to hear him the wrong way—to hear what he’s saying and think, Oh, good idea, let’s do that.”

  “So you think Alton’s been planning to move America away from democratic institutions for a while now, and this is just a pretext?”

  “You don’t build a coup overnight,” said Reuben. “Here’s the thing. Cole asked him outright if his group stole my plans and gave them to the assassins. Of course he said no. But Cole believes him. He thinks Alton isn’t a good enough actor to sound so genuinely appalled at the thought.”

  “Do you know this General Alton?”

  “I know of him,” said Reuben. “I never actually served under him. Well, I guess technically I did, but never under his direct command. Layers, you know?”

  “So you just have to take Cole’s word for it?”

  “Col
e’s a smart guy,” said Reuben.

  “But you still can’t do anything about it.”

  “No,” said Reuben. “But what I’m thinking is, Torrent is smart, he’s charismatic. What if, by writing about the great forces of history, he’s accidentally changed them? Like he said, they can be manipulated by astonishingly small groups of determined people.”

  “Like Alton’s coup.”

  “Like whoever gave my plans to the terrorists. I don’t think it was Alton. But that still leaves us trying to figure out who it is.”

  “What we need is the computer guy,” said Cecily.

  “Who’s that?”

  “In every mystery novel these days, it seems like the detective has some friend who can work miracles on the computer and find information nobody else can find. We need that guy. You call him up, tell him what you need to know, and in a little while he comes back with exactly the facts you need.”

  “When you say it like that, it sounds like a wizard from one of Nick’s novels.”

  “I was thinking it sounded more like God,” she said. “You pray, you get answers.”

  “Yeah,” said Reuben. “You’re right. We need that guy.”

  “Don’t have him, though, do we?”

  “All you got is me, and all I got is you.”

  “And Cole,” said Cecily. “And DeeNee. And Load and Mingo and Babe and Arty and . . .”

  “And not one of them can grant a miracle.”

  “But I know the President, and he promised we’ll have one.”

  “That’s why I was so smart to marry you.”

  Nothing was actually any better. But Cecily felt like it was better, sitting there on the glider with Reuben. When they were apart, she was perfectly competent and confident, but . . . there was something always at risk. Things could go wrong. When Reuben was there, she simply felt safer. He wouldn’t let things get hopelessly out of hand. He’d put it all in perspective for her. The problems would all be somehow outside the walls of the castle, and inside, as long as Reuben was there, she was safe. The children were safe.

  “Retire right now,” said Cecily. “Come home and be with us always.”

  “Think Aunt Margaret will let us stay here?”

  “I can’t think why not. We’re excellent company, and thanks to J.P. she’s going to get a free carpet shampooing.”