Empire Read online

  “And here’s the lake levels,” said Cat. “One shaft is already open, pouring water back in from Genesseret.”

  “Can you close it?” asked Cole.

  It was Verus who answered. “You can’t close the upper gate until the Genesseret water level falls to normal.”

  “How many shafts?” asked Cole.

  “Six.”

  “So it’s refilling at one-sixth of the maximum rate,” said Cole. “Still too fast. Close it.”

  “But he said—” And then Cat realized that he had been taking the enemy’s word for how the thing worked. Why wouldn’t he? It was an American telling him. “Bastard’s probably got a secret set of controls all primed to flood everything and somewhere there’s an LED display counting down the seconds.”

  “You watch too many movies,” said Cole.

  “You’re Bartholomew Coleman,” said Verus.

  “Sorry I didn’t let your guys kill me in D.C.”

  “Too bad you were brainwashed by the right-wing extremists,” said Verus. “I could have used someone as resourceful as you.”

  “What about me?” said Cat. “I’m resourceful, too.”

  “This time we get to put John Wilkes Booth on trial,” said Cole.

  “I didn’t have anything to do with killing that pathetic joke of a President,” said Verus.

  “You just happened to be all set to invade New York two days later,” said Cole.

  “We were going to move on July Fourth,” said Verus. “General Alton’s coup was going to be our provocation.”

  “So Alton was yours,” said Cole.

  “Then he decides to improvise and recruit you,” said Verus. “Idiot.”

  “You want it done right, you got to do it yourself,” said Cat.

  “So am I under arrest, or are you going to murder me?” asked Verus.

  “You’re under arrest,” said Cole.

  “Either way I win,” said Verus. “Excuse me while I take a leak.” He turned and pushed his way into the restroom, slamming the door behind him before Cole could grab him.

  Cole knew immediately that the restroom was not just a toilet. Before he could finish saying “Son of a bitch,” he was at the door, opening it.

  Just an unoccupied restroom with a closed toilet stall. Cole immediately dropped and slithered under the stall door. Inside there was a low doorway leading to a sloping ladder going upward. He could hear Verus climbing rapidly. Cole unlocked the stall door as Cat came in. “I think I got the flow stopped,” said Cat.

  “He went up here,” said Cole, ducking into the ladder-way. “I can see him.”

  “Just shoot him,” said Cat.

  “We want him alive,” said Cole softly. “And he knows it.”

  They raced up the ladder after him. It was easy to overtake him. Verus was physically fit, but he was also in his sixties.

  There was no reason to stop him, though, and risk having him fall and injure himself on the ladder. Cole just reached up and tugged on his pant leg a couple of times, to let him know he was right behind him.

  Near the top, Verus slapped his hand against a button on the wall and a trap door opened automatically. If he had visions of closing it before Cole could get out, he was disappointed—Cole was out almost before he was, and grabbed him by the arm as he tried to run away. Verus fell to the ground, pulling free of Cole’s grip. At once, Cole pointed his rifle at Verus.

  Cat came out of the trap door behind him. Only then did it close.

  “Shit, we walked right by this and didn’t see it,” said Cat.

  They were only a dozen yards from the cleared area around the observation tower.

  There was a helicopter approaching from the northwest. Not the direction any task force would come from—but just the right direction for a chopper planning to take Verus to Seattle.

  “No wonder the clearing around this tower’s so big,” said Cole.

  Cat got his Minimi into position and fired a burst toward the chopper. It didn’t burst into flames, but the pilot got the message all the same. The chopper swerved away.

  Verus got to his feet, watching the chopper fly away.

  When he turned around, he was holding a pistol, which he pointed right at Cole.

  “Go ahead,” said Cole. “Let’s have the video of Aldo Verus shooting a United States soldier in the performance of his duties. Let’s have that at your treason trial.”

  Verus lifted the gun toward his own head.

  Cole shot him in the hand. It was a big heavy bullet and his hand exploded in blood. Verus screamed and fell to the ground, holding his hand and writhing.

  “I’m a sharpshooter with the U.S. Special Forces,” said Cole. “You’re not getting away with shit.”

  “More choppers,” said Cat. “Good guys this time.”

  “Your transceiver still working?”

  Cat switched it on. “Seems to be. Even wet. Cool.”

  “Tell whoever’s doing liaison with the attack force that most of the people they want are in trucks out on Highway 12. And we have Verus.”

  Cat made the call.

  “Lie down on your belly and put your hands behind your back,” said Cole.

  He frisked Verus, then started field-dressing his hand. The bones were pretty messed up inside. That hand would never work right again. Cole knew it was petty, but it made him feel a grim satisfaction. That’s for Rube. That’s for a bunch of cops and a doorman in New York. I hope it hurts you every day of your life.

  Meanwhile, he got the bleeding stopped and the wound bound before one of the Blackhawks landed in the clearing to take Verus into custody.

  TWENTY-TWO

  LINKS

  History is never proved, only supposed. No matter how much evidence you collect, you’re always guessing about cause-and-effect, and assuming things about dead people’s motives. Since even living people don’t understand their own motives, we’re hardly likely to do any better with the dead.

  Keep testing your guesses against the evidence. Keep trying out new guesses to see if they fit better. Keep looking for new evidence, even if it disproves your old hypotheses. With each step you get just a little closer to that elusive thing called “the truth.” With each step you see how much farther away the truth is than you ever imagined it to be.

  In only a few minutes, Cole told the colonel in charge of the task force everything pertinent that he knew, and Colonel Meyers assured him in return that they had already intercepted the convoys heading both directions up and down Highway 12.

  “Good job capturing the command center intact,” he said. “And Verus alive. News teams already have him on film.”

  “Broadcasting?” asked Cole.

  “No way to keep it secret when we went across the border. Lots of uproar on the news about it. So Torrent preauthorized us to allow the embedded news teams to broadcast live any evidence that we had taken the right place. I decided Verus’s face qualified. Along with those rows of mechs still inside. And the convoys.”

  “I look forward to watching the coverage,” said Cole.

  “You’ve got no time for that,” said Colonel Meyers. “Torrent wants you to go straight back to New Jersey.”

  “Jersey?”

  “He wants you with the cops who go back in to accept the surrender of the city.”

  “They’ve surrendered,” said Cole.

  “Not yet,” said Meyers. “Which is why you’ve got time to get there.”

  “But I have a prisoner,” said Cole.

  “No, sir, I’m sorry. I have a prisoner. You have other orders.” Meyers put a hand on his shoulder. “But you trust these other guys of yours, right? They can stay right with Verus all the way to Montana. We’ll treat his wound and get him back to Andrews and they’re with him, all right?”

  Cat grinned at him. “I want to hear him say ‘owie owie’ when they treat his hand.”

  “They don’t need me in New York,” said Cole.

  “True,” said Meyer. “I think Torrent
wants you there for the cameras. Last American soldier out of the city, first one to go back. It’s all for the cameras, guys. We want to get the message out—this is one country, with one Constitution. Your face is part of that. Like it or not.”

  Cole was escorted to the chopper that was taking him back out of the battle zone. In the air, he found out that Averell Torrent had been confirmed by both houses of Congress as the new Vice President of the United States, and took the oath of office in the Senate chamber. But it was still Torrent’s operation, and during his few minutes on the ground in Montana before boarding an eastbound military transport, he was given a cellphone whose number Torrent had.

  Four and a half hours later, he was standing at the entrance to the Holland Tunnel. Captain Charlie O’Brien was there to greet him. So were the cops that Cole and Rube had led out of the city a month ago.

  By now, Torrent had briefed Cole by telephone. “The city council has assured President Nielson that all their previous actions and statements were made under duress. They would welcome liberation by United States forces. They ask us to be careful to avoid bloodshed.”

  “I’d like to arrest their asses,” said one of the cops. “Nobody minded them killing us.”

  “I believe,” said Cole, “that one of the sacrifices you’re being asked to make is to pretend that you weren’t stabbed in the back. Just remember that the cameras will show you coming back into the city as the lawful police force—what’s left of it. It’s your show. I know you’ll do it with class.”

  That was Cole’s own decision—that the cops would lead the way. Torrent had tried to persuade him that he and Charlie O’Brien should be the point men, but Cole refused. “This isn’t the U.S. Army or the New Jersey National Guard entering New York, it’s New York’s own. New York’s finest.”

  Torrent conceded the point.

  So they got into Humvees and headed on through the tunnel until they were thirty yards from the entrance. An advance team had already ascertained that there was no ambush waiting for them.

  O’Brien and Cole followed the uniformed policemen up to the tunnel mouth, where the news cameras from inside the city were waiting for them.

  Cole couldn’t hear what was being said—but he knew the message well enough. Because the police force had been nearly destroyed during the invasion by the traitors, they had deputized members of the New Jersey National Guard and U.S. Army as auxiliaries to the New York City police. They were there to help arrest those traitors who laid down their weapons and surrendered, and to kill any who resisted.

  The moment was carried live on all the networks and news channels. It was not known how many of the Progressive Restoration would refuse to surrender. In the end, only one mech operator fired at them and was immediately killed. A few of the rebel soldiers were apprehended trying to escape. No doubt some did escape.

  Everyone else surrendered.

  The Second American Civil War was over. By far the largest group of casualties were New York City policemen and firemen. The second largest group consisted of rebel soldiers killed by Cole and his comrades in Washington, D.C., and, later, at Lake Chinnereth.

  The only U.S. military personnel killed or injured in the war were Major Reuben Malich and one of the military police who protected Cole’s escape in the Pentagon on the sixteenth of June, and then the men who died in their vehicles on MacArthur Boulevard.

  Every one of them, on both sides, an American.

  After Cole and O’Brien were photographed with the policemen they had helped to save, they were piled into a car and taken back through the Holland Tunnel.

  “You ever get your car back?” asked Cole.

  “Oh, yes,” said O’Brien. “You owe me a tank of gas.”

  “I owe you more than that,” said Cole.

  “Hey, how many guys actually got to blow up one of those mechs during this little war?”

  “Damn few,” said Cole, “and thank God for that.”

  The car dropped O’Brien off in his unit’s staging area, where the same car was parked. Then Cole was driven on to Gettysburg, where the rest of Rube’s jeesh had already been brought. Again, partly for the cameras. But also to be debriefed by Torrent.

  During the debriefing, President Nielson came in to Torrent’s office, waving his hand downward for them to stay seated and continue. He listened as Torrent asked his questions. Soon after Nielson, several others came in. Including Cecily Malich.

  It was Mingo who interrupted Torrent in the midst of thanking them and bringing the debriefing to a close. “Excuse me, sir, but there’s a member of our jeesh who didn’t live to make this fight. His wife just came in.”

  Torrent turned around, noticing Cecily for the first time.

  All the members of the jeesh stood up and saluted her.

  She rose slowly to her feet, crying a little, and saluted them back.

  There weren’t any cameras in the room. So the picture the world saw was the eight of them, still dressed for combat, lined up behind President Nielson and Vice President Torrent at the press conference.

  When it was thrown open for questions, Cole tried to get Babe, who was, after all, a public relations professional, to serve as spokesman. But Babe refused. “I didn’t go inside, man,” he said.

  So Cole and Cat stood at the podium, with the President and Vice President looking on. The questions were what you’d expect. Sure, they were heroes. But the press was still the press.

  “How many Americans did you kill on this mission?”

  “As many as necessary to protect myself and my men, and to accomplish our mission,” said Cole. “And not one more.”

  “Why did you obey an order to enter a state that had closed its borders to military operations?”

  “With all due respect, sir,” said Cat, “all our operations took place inside the United States of America, under orders from the President of the United States. We did not cross any international boundaries.”

  “Weren’t you afraid that your attack would lead to more bloodshed within the United States?”

  Cole took that one, forcing himself to stay completely calm. “I was in New York City when this rebellion began. I saw the dead bodies of policemen and firemen and one uniformed doorman on the streets of that city, before I fired a single shot in this war. I believe our actions today put an end to the bloodshed that the rebels started.”

  “Do you feel you have avenged the deaths of the President and Vice President on Friday the Thirteenth?”

  “We’re not in the vengeance business,” said Cat. “We’re in the business of defeating those who wage war against America.”

  Cole added, “We know these people were behind the attack on New York, because that secret factory in Washington State was where the weapons they used were manufactured. But whether they had anything to do with the prior assassinations remains to be seen.” Cole could see the President’s staff visibly relax. They didn’t want anything that could be used by Verus’s lawyers to claim he had already been tried in the media.

  “Some reports say that you shot Aldo Verus after he was arrested.”

  Cole smiled at the reporter. “After I told Mr. Verus that he was under arrest, he attempted to flee. We overtook him. He then drew a weapon. I did not shoot when he pointed it at me. I shot Mr. Verus in the hand only when he pointed the pistol at his own head. I wanted him alive for his treason trial. Since I was fifteen feet away, a bullet to the hand was the only way I could prevent him from taking irrevocable action.”

  Cat added, “We didn’t believe we had time to negotiate the surrender of his handgun.”

  A lot of people laughed. A lot of them were reporters.

  After the press conference, Cecily came up to Cole. “I can’t get over the questions they asked you. Like you were criminals.”

  “It was a game,” said Cole. “Didn’t you notice? The guy who asked me about shooting Verus after he was arrested—he was from Fox. He was setting me up for the answer I gave. Bet you that’ll be
the sound bite that runs everywhere tonight on the evening news.”

  “And not a headline saying, ‘Soldier accuses Verus of assassinations.’ Okay, I see.” She took his hand in both of hers. “Cole, have you called your mother yet?”

  “No, ma’am,” said Cole.

  “So she’s going to learn about all this by watching the news?”

  “Probably not,” said Cole. “She doesn’t watch the news.”

  “So you can still call her.”

  He nodded.

  “You can use my phone.” She led him out of the room.

  Her office—which she shared with four other staffers—was empty. She led him to the desk and he sat down to make the call.

  “Before you dial,” she said. “And before I leave you alone to talk to her, I just want to ask you. Will you come see me—soon? There’s something I want to talk to you about.”

  “What is it?” She looked worried. What could be wrong now? They had the rebel arsenal. They had New York City back.

  “When you come visit me,” she said. “Call your mom.” Then she left.

  But when he called for an appointment the next day, she wasn’t in. And the day after, she called him and said, “Look, I was probably wrong. It was just stupid. Come see me and the kids anyway—at home. And I mean really home—the President is moving into the White House now, and I’m taking my kids back home to Virginia.”

  Cole could imagine how it might be for her to enter the house she had shared with Rube. “Would you like company when you go back home for the first time?”

  “I’ve already been back,” she said. “I’m okay. But thanks for offering.”

  He figured that was that. They’d worked well together, even liked each other, but whatever confidence she was going to share, she had changed her mind. And that was fine. Her privilege.

  Verus had asked to see Torrent, and Torrent accepted. They did not notify the press. Verus was being held under guard at Andrews Air Force Base; Torrent arrived in a limo and was hustled directly to Verus’s room.