Empire Page 4

  “I only call DeeNee when he has his cellphone off.”

  “Doesn’t she have his cellphone number?”

  “Of course she does. And he checks in with her frequently.”

  “But she said—she claims not to know anything about what your husband does.”

  Mrs. Malich laughed. “She’s hazing you, Captain Coleman.”

  “Please just call me Cole. Or Captain Cole, if you have to.”

  “DeeNee is a superb secretary. My husband trusts her implicitly. In part because she not only never tells anybody anything, she manages to not tell them in such a way as to make them think she doesn’t know.”

  “She’s very good at that.”

  “But you, I take it, are not pretending when you say that my husband has not been in to the office in three days.”

  He nodded.

  “That worries me.”

  “Oh, I’m sure it’s because he’s busy on something—”

  “Captain Cole, I know he’s busy on something. I know from the way he tells me almost nothing. Normally he gives me enough information that I won’t worry. Like when he worked on counterterrorism in the District for a few months. He didn’t tell me anything at all about it, specifically, but he did let me know that he was supposed to imagine ways that terrorists might go after key targets in DC, and I gathered that he was not just looking at high-profile psychological targets like monuments and such, but also at infrastructure targets and political targets.”

  Cole felt a surge of relief. So his new boss did do something that mattered.

  “But you don’t know which ones.”

  “I have a brain. I assumed he looked at bridges and other choke points for transportation. And opportunities to attempt assassinations. That sort of thing.”

  “I thought the Secret Service worked on protecting the President and Vice President.”

  “And there are plenty of people working on protecting Congress and the Supreme Court and other key personnel. You have to understand, I’m only guessing here, but I know my husband and I know what he’s good at. I’m sure his assignment wasn’t to protect the President, it was to figure out how to kill him despite the protections that are in place. Just as his assignment was probably to figure out ways a terrorist might bring Washington to its knees without having a nuke or poison gas.”

  “And he completed that assignment.”

  “From his sudden air of relief and cheerfulness back in February, yes, I believe he did.”

  “And now?”

  “And now he doesn’t even go to the office, but doesn’t tell me that he hasn’t gone to the office, but he’s still coming home every night at the regular time, and he has a haunted air about him, so whatever he’s doing, he hates it.”

  Cole finally realized what was happening here. “You didn’t invite me to the house just to chat.”

  “No, Captain Cole,” she said. “I’m worried about my husband.”

  “But I can’t help you. I’ve never even met him.”

  “But you will,” she said. “And when you do, you’ll form your own conclusions about what he’s involved with.”

  “I can’t tell you anything that’s classified.”

  “You can tell me whether I should worry, and how much.”

  “About his safety? Here in Washington?”

  “No,” she said. “I deal with my fears for his safety in my own way. That’s not what worries me right now.”

  “It’s that haunted look?”

  “My husband is a patriot. And a born officer. He is not troubled by the things he does to defend his country. He has killed people, even though he’s a gentle man by nature, and yet he does not wake up screaming in the night from combat flashbacks, and he doesn’t lash out at the children, and he shows no sign of traumatic stress disorder. I know what he looks like when he’s worried about his own safety, or when he’s intense about fulfilling an assignment, or when he’s annoyed at the stupidity of superior officers. I know what those things do to him, how it shows up in his behavior at home.”

  “And this is new.”

  “Captain Cole, what I want to know is why my husband feels guilty.”

  Cole didn’t know what to say, except the obvious. “Why do husbands ever feel guilty?”

  “That’s why I haven’t confided these worries of mine to anyone. Because people will assume that I’m assuming he’s having an affair. But I know for a fact that this is impossible. He feels guilty. He’s torn up inside about something. But it’s something to do with work, not with me, not his family, not his religion. Something about his present assignment is making him very unhappy.”

  “Maybe he’s not doing as well at it as he thinks he should.”

  She waved that thought away. “Reuben would talk about that with me. We share self-doubts with each other, even if he can’t go into the specifics. No, Captain Cole, he is being asked, as part of his work, to do something he fears may be wrong.”

  “What do you think it might be?”

  “I refuse to speculate. I just know that my husband has no qualms about bearing arms for his country and using them. So whatever he’s being asked to do that he hates, or at least has serious doubts about, it isn’t because violence is involved. It’s because he isn’t in full agreement with the assignment. For the first time in his military career, his duty and his conscience are in serious conflict.”

  “And if I find out, Mrs. Malich, I probably can’t tell you what it is.”

  “My husband is a good man,” she said. “It’s important to him to be a good man. He has to not only be good, he has to believe that he’s good. In the eyes of God, in my eyes, in his parents’ eyes, in his own eyes. Good. What I want you to do for me is tell me if he’s not going to be able to get through this project, whatever it is, believing that he’s a good man.”

  “I’d have to know him very well to be able to assess that, ma’am.”

  “He asked for you to be assigned to him for a reason,” said Mrs. Malich. “A young Special Ops hotshot—that describes you, yes?”

  “Probably,” said Captain Cole, shaking his head.

  “He wouldn’t take you out of the front line, where you’re needed, if he didn’t think you’d be needed more working for him.”

  That was logical, if Malich was indeed the man his wife thought he was. It gave Cole the reassurance he needed.

  “Ma’am,” he said, “I’ll keep your assignment in mind. Along with whatever assignments he gives me. And what I can tell you, consistent with my oath and my orders, I certainly will tell you.”

  “Meanwhile,” she said, “let me assure you that you do not have to keep secret from him any part of our meeting today. I certainly intend to tell him I met you and exactly what we talked about.”

  “Please don’t tell him about the cookies I hid in my pockets,” said Cole. “I know you saw me take them.”

  “I made them for you. Where you choose to transport them is entirely your affair.”

  All the way back toward the Beltway on Route 7, Cole tried to make sense of Mrs. Malich’s behavior. Was she really going to tell Major Malich about the assignment she had just given Cole? In that case, would Malich regard Cole as compromised somehow? Or would Malich simply give up and tell his wife what she wanted to know?

  Or was there some game going on between them that was far more complicated than Cole could suppose? Cole had never been married or even had a girlfriend long enough to really think that he knew her. Were all women like this, and Mrs. Malich was unusual only in being so candid about her conniving?

  Whatever it was, Cole already didn’t like it. It was outrageous to be given an assignment by your commander’s wife, though heaven knows it happened often enough when it consisted of moving furniture or running errands. Cole could see no way things could turn out that would not be detrimental to his career.

  Had she been drinking? Was that it?

  No, there had been no sign of that.

  His cellphone went of
f.

  “Captain Coleman?”

  “Speaking.”

  “This is Major Malich. What does it mean when I get to the office and find you gone off somewhere?”

  “Sorry, sir. I should be back within thirty minutes, sir.”

  “How many hours do you think you get for lunch?”

  Cole took a deep breath. “I was visiting your wife, sir.”

  “Oh, were you.”

  “She makes excellent cookies, sir.”

  “Her baking is none of your business, Captain Coleman.”

  “It is when she offers me cookies, sir. Begging your pardon, sir.”

  “So what did she want with you?”

  “I called her, sir. Since I couldn’t learn anything about you or my assignment there at the Pentagon, I hoped to discover something about what you expected of me by talking to your wife.”

  “I don’t like you intruding into my personal life, Captain.”

  “Neither do I, sir. I don’t see that you left me a choice, sir.”

  “So what did you learn?”

  “That your wife is so worried about you, sir, that she enlisted me to try to find out what your clandestine operations are.” How far should he go with a new superior officer, and on a cellphone, no less? He plunged ahead. “She believes you’re morally troubled about those operations, sir.”

  “Morally troubled?”

  “I think the word she used was ‘guilty,’ sir.”

  “And you think this is any of your business?”

  “I’m convinced that it’s none of my business.”

  “But you’re still going to do it.”

  “Sir, I’ll just be happy to find out what we actually do in an office so secret that the secretary treats your subordinate like a spy.”

  “Well, Captain Coleman, she treats you like a spy because the last two clowns we had in your position were spies.”

  “For your wife, sir? Or for some foreign power.”

  “Neither. They were spying for people in the Pentagon who are also trying to figure out what I’m doing when I’m not in the office.”

  “Doesn’t the Army already know what you’re doing?”

  There was a moment of hesitation. “The Army owns my balls and keeps them in a box somewhere between Fort Bragg and Pakistan.”

  Sometimes a non-answer was a perfectly usable answer. “It’s a mighty big box, then, sir. This Army’s got a lot of balls.”

  This time the pause was even longer.

  “Are you laughing at me, sir?” asked Cole.

  “I like you, Coleman,” said Malich.

  “I like your wife, sir. And she likes you.”

  “Good enough for me. Coleman, don’t park. Don’t even come to the Pentagon. Meet me at Hain’s Point in half an hour. Do you know where that is?”

  “It’s a big long park, sir.”

  “At the statue. The giant. Half an hour.”

  Malich clicked off before Cole could say good-bye.

  What was the phone call about? A test to see if Cole would tell him what his wife said? Or was Malich really angry at him for leaving? Why the meeting in the park as if they were trying to avoid bugs? And if secrecy was so important, why did they talk over unscrambled cellphones?

  If I ever get married, thought Cole, would I have the guts to choose a woman as tough as Mrs. Malich?

  And even if I did, am I the sort of man that a woman like that would choose to marry?

  Then, as always, Cole shut down the part of his mind that thought about women and marriage and love and children and family. Not till I can be sure I’m not going back into combat again. No kid is going to be an orphan because I’m his dad and I ducked too slow.

  FOUR

  TIDAL BASIN

  In war planning, you must anticipate the actions of the enemy. Be careful lest your preventive measures teach the enemy which of his possible actions you most fear.

  Reuben saw Captain Coleman approaching, but showed him no sign of recognition. Coleman was supposed to be sharp—let him figure out which of the people near the tip of the island was his superior officer.

  Instead, Reuben looked out over the water of the Washington Channel to Fort McNair, headquarters of the U.S. Army Military District of Washington. He knew that the soldiers working there took their job seriously. In the post-9/11 era that meant vigilance, trying to prevent attacks on the two most symbolically important cities in America—Washington and New York. He knew how they monitored the skies, the waterways. He knew about the listening devices, the camera scans, the aerial surveillance.

  He also knew what wasn’t being done. Weeks after he had completed his report, and still nothing had been done.

  Bureaucracy, he thought.

  But that was the easy answer. Chalk it up to bureaucratic maneuvering and red tape, and then nobody had to be called to account.

  Reuben was tired of having responsibility without authority. Where was the leader who could get things done?

  Truth to tell, this President had changed things. Without ever getting a bit of credit for it, he had transformed the military from the cripple it had been when he took office into the robust force with new doctrines that had the enemies of the United States on the run.

  On the run? No, backed into a corner. It was time for them to act if they were to continue to have any credibility. Reuben Malich knew what they needed to do. He even knew how they would probably do it. He had given warning, and so far, it seemed, no one was listening.

  “Major Malich, sir.”

  Reuben turned to face the young man in uniform. Young? Twenty-eight wasn’t young for a combat officer. But he was nine years younger than Reuben, and in those nine years Reuben had learned a few things. Combat could leave a man with scars; but running errands for players in the mind-numbing game of government aged him far more. At thirty-seven Reuben felt like he was fifty, an age that had long symbolized, to him, the end of his useful life. The age when he should get out of the war business.

  Today. I should get out right now.

  “Captain Coleman,” he said. “Don’t even think of saluting me.”

  “You aren’t in uniform, sir,” said Coleman. “And I’m not an idiot.”

  “Oh?”

  “You had me meet you here instead of the office we both share because you think people are watching you. I don’t know whether those people are inside or outside the Pentagon or the government, but we’re here because you have things you want to tell me that you don’t want any listening devices to overhear.”

  Good boy, thought Reuben. “Then you’ll understand why I want you to face me directly and duck your head slightly downward.”

  As Coleman complied, Reuben unfolded a city tourist map and brought one side of it up between their faces and any observer elsewhere in the park.

  “I guess this means I don’t get a chance to look at the statue,” said Coleman.

  “It’s big enough you can see it on Google Earth,” said Reuben. “Cessy and DeeNee both tell me you’re not an idiot, and now you’ve told me yourself. So I’m taking the chance of telling you what I’m actually doing. I will tell you once, and then we go about our business as if we were doing what I’m officially supposed to be doing, except you’ll help me do the other thing and help me cover up my real assignment.”

  “All perfectly clear, sir.”

  Oh good. A sense of humor. “Officially I’m working on counter-terrorism in Washington DC, with the particular assignment of trying to think like a terrorist. I suppose that I’m considered appropriate for this because I lived in a Muslim village in a country in which we don’t officially have any soldiers. Never mind that the terrorists I’m supposed to be outthinking were all educated in American or European universities.”

  “So your assignment gives you a valid cover for traveling all over the Washington area,” said Coleman.

  Since that was what Reuben had been about to explain, he had to pause and skip ahead. “My real assignment is to carry messa
ges to and conduct negotiations with various persons of the anti-American but officially non-terrorist persuasion.”

  “Are they non-terrorist?”

  “They claim to be helping us counter the terrorists. Some of them might be. Some might not. I believe I’m probably being used to spread disinformation and sow confusion about American plans and motives.”

  “Which is why these people haven’t been arrested.”

  “Oh, when the time comes, I doubt they’ll be arrested.”

  Coleman nodded. “You bring them messages. Who gives them to you and tells you where to go?”

  “I’m not at liberty to tell you that.”

  “So I guess I won’t be picking up your mail.”

  “I can tell you this much. My assignments emanate from the White House.”

  Coleman whistled softly. “So he negotiates with terrorists after all.”

  “Don’t suppose for a second that the President has any idea what I do,” said Reuben. “Or that I exist. But I have verified for myself that my chief contact has complete access to the President and from that I conclude that I am an instrument of his national policy.”

  “And yet you hide from lip-readers with telephoto lenses.”

  Reuben refolded the map. “Let us look at Fort McNair.”

  Together they walked to the railing near the water and looked across the channel at the fort. “There it is, Captain Coleman. The home of the National Defense University and half the Old Guard. You know, the guys who dress up in Colonial Army uniforms to wow tourists and foreign dignitaries.”

  “Also where the Joint Force Headquarters of the National Capital Region is.”

  “Three weeks ago, I turned in—as part of my official duties—a report on likely targets in the Washington area and how I, if I were a terrorist, would attempt to attack them.”

  “I’m betting Fort McNair was not one of those targets.”

  “Al Qaeda doesn’t give a rat’s ass about real estate. They did that in zip-one, but all the terrorists who attacked commuter transportation in Europe and plotted to hit buildings and subways in the States are really just wannabes. Al Qaeda trains them and encourages them, but these are not Al Qaeda’s own operations.”