Empire

actually having to spell it out. In Europe, the media always told people what to think, and they thought it. In America, the press asked leading questions and framed things to point to what they wanted people to think—but they never actually said it outright.

That was Congress’s job. And sure enough, the House Minority Leader was on camera saying, “Just because the dead bodies at the Tidal Pool were all Muslims from Arab nations doesn’t mean that this was exclusively a foreign plot. In a White House populated with right-wing extremists, maybe somebody didn’t think the late President was extreme enough.”

And there was already a ghoulish online cartoon making the forwarded-email circuit. A drawing of the blown-out West Wing windows, with two cops looking up at it. One of them says, “At least we know it wasn’t the Vice President.” “Oh yeah?” comes the answer. “Maybe they got each other.”

The thing that Cole couldn’t let go of was the fact that maybe they were right. Not about him and Rube being complicit, but quite possibly about who the insiders were. There were no left-wingers in the White House to finger the President’s location. And given the makeup of the military, the odds were in favor of it being a conservative of some kind or another who passed along Reuben’s plans.

Meanwhile, Cole couldn’t call anybody and actually talk about what was on his mind, since he could only assume that his phone was being monitored. And whom did he have to call? The only people he could trust, Reuben’s friends, were not Cole’s friends, not yet anyway.

He did call his mom, who was so proud of him for doing his best to stop the assassination, he was a real hero, he should get the Medal of Honor. He didn’t have the heart to break it to her that he’d probably be hauled in front of a couple of congressional committees and have people accuse him of being part of the assassination plot. She’d find it out in due time.

So he let her talk about how brave and smart he was and how proud she was, and tried to answer in something like a natural way, knowing that the tape of the conversation might well end up being played over and over on the news at some future date. “Listen to how he talked with his mother, saying nothing about the suspicions already in the media. If he could lie to her this way, then how can we believe anything he says?”

And then there was a man standing in front of his desk. A two-star general.

Cole leapt to his feet and saluted, saying to his mother, “Got to call you back, Mom, I’ve got a general in the office.”

“General Alton,” said his visitor. “I don’t think we’ve ever met, Captain Cole.”

“Major Malich is out, sir,” said Cole.

“I know,” said Alton. “But I came to see you.”

Generals don’t come to your office to escort you to a court-martial—MPs do that. So what did he want? To hear the story in his own words?

“Interesting article in The Post. Your picture was in it, but not a single quote from you. All Malich’s show?”

“It was Malich who wrote up the plans that the terrorists used, sir,” said Cole. “I only got here a few days ago.”

“And yet your ass is going to go through the wringer just like his,” said Alton. The general looked Cole up and down like he was sizing up the prototype of a new weapon. “Do you eat, Captain Cole?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Lunch?” asked Alton.

“I was thinking about it,” said Cole.

“Anybody expecting you?”

“No, sir.”

“Any urgent appointments this afternoon?”

“Unless they need more debriefing time, sir.”

“Come with me, Coleman.”

A half hour later they were in a Thai restaurant in Old Town Alexandria across the street from the Torpedo Factory. The whole way, Alton had kept up a low-key interrogation. Where were you raised? Any family? Was your father military? Good service record—what was your best assignment so far? It was what passed for Smalltalk between a general who outranked almost everybody but God and a lowly captain who still had no clue what his assignment at the moment even was.

Only after they ordered did Alton start in on talk that didn’t sound so small anymore.

“So how do you see this whole thing going down, Coleman?”

“Down, sir?” asked Cole. He wasn’t playing dumb, he just wasn’t sure what the general was asking.

“The public crucifixion of Major Malich, Captain Coleman, and the U.S. military.”

“Oh, that,” said Cole. “Well, I’d say it’s right on schedule, sir. We’re at the innuendo stage right now. I give it till tomorrow before the first calls for a congressional investigating committee surface.”

“They’re already calling for that,” said Alton.

“I mean, a committee to investigate Major Malich and me, sir. In particular.”

“And investigate the entire Army,” said Alton. “You and Malich being there yesterday, that’s going to cause the whole Army a shit-load of trouble.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If you two hadn’t had to be heroes, if you’d just driven away, your faces wouldn’t be all over the news and you wouldn’t be under suspicion for anything.”

“That didn’t seem like an option at the time, sir,” said Cole.

“Damn straight,” said Alton. “Not an option. You don’t stand by and do nothing while your country is being assaulted and innocent people are getting killed. Well, more or less innocent people.”

Cole didn’t know where he was going with this.

“I didn’t like our President much, to tell you the truth, Coleman. Didn’t trust him. Thought he was a clown. A puppet of the SecDef, God rest his soul. A SecDef who thought he could transform military culture. The two of them, thinking you could wage war like they did it in Vietnam, one hand tied behind our backs. Boots on the ground, kicking down doors, that’s what would have cleaned things up in record time! You can’t subdue an enemy that doesn’t believe you beat them! Not this namby-pamby stuff about going in and making nice-nice with the locals.”

Cole didn’t know how to answer. It was obvious Alton was one of the old school, one of the guys who had no use for the new doctrines. But Cole’s whole military career was built on the new doctrines—small forces that get to know not just the terrain but the people, so that locals start helping you. And Cole believed in it—the idea that you toss out the enemy regime, but do it without alienating the people. Get them to see you as their liberators and protectors, not their conquerors and occupiers. But Alton liked it the old way. And Cole couldn’t see a thing to be gained by arguing with him.

“It’s useful to know the local language,” said Cole.

“The only thing you need to know how to say,” said Alton, “is ‘Put up your hands or I’ll blow your ass to hell.’ ”

Cole tried a little levity. “I can say that in four Middle Eastern languages, sir.”

Alton shook his head. “New model Army. Pure bullshit. But I went along! Civilian control of the military! The Constitution! I believe in it, God help me but I do. The SecDef wants to cripple our Army and the President says to go along, then my job is to implement the emasculation. The gelding.”

“We did some things,” said Cole softly, “that took some balls to do.”

“I’m not talking about you! Or Malich! You did what you were trained and ordered to do and you did it brilliantly. You’re the real thing. AlvinYork, Audie Murphy.The guys who get it done. The five percent who actually do the killing and the winning.”

Cole couldn’t say what he was thinking: What is this about? Why did you take me to lunch? So you could have an audience for some meaningless tirade about our dead President?

“I’m in the Pentagon now, sir,” said Cole. “I don’t carry a weapon right now.”

“That’s the problem right there,” said Alton. “It’s not the boys in the field, not the ones who are eating sand and sleeping with camels and firing their weapons and getting blown up by roadside bombs. It’s us in the Pentagon, us right here who got clipped and don’t even know it. Shooting blanks, that’s what we’re doing. We signed on to defend the Constitution, and now they’re knocking it down and blaming us for it.