Empire

“You know what I meant. There really are good guys and bad guys. But before they have a chance to show you what they do with power, it can be hard to tell them apart.”

“Cole,” said Reuben. “Where are you staying tonight?”

“I haven’t even thought about it.”

“Unless you’re independently wealthy, you can’t afford to stay in Manhattan on a captain’s pay.”

“Hell, I can’t even afford to park my car.”

“So come on out to West Windsor. I’m handing the phone to Cessy to give you directions from the city—she’s been coming here all her life, she knows the route better.”

Cessy took the phone. “He’s just lazy,” she told Cole.

As she gave him the directions, Reuben walked back into the living room. He had paused the program on Alton’s face.

“What’s your game, General Alton?” he said. “Are you that dumb? Or are we?”

Ground Zero

The great breakthrough in human evolution, the one that made civilization possible, was the discovery that two alpha males could form intense bonds of ur-brotherhood instead of the normal pattern of fighting till one is dead or driven away. It is the story of Gilgamesh and Enkidu—a man will plunge into hell for his friend. Thus the male DNA is tricked into sacrificing itself to the benefit of unrelated DNA; story triumphs over instinct; the monogamous civitas triumphs over the patriarchal tribe. Instead of one alpha male reproducing his superior genes over and over again, a far higher proportion of males reproduce, even though some die in war. All because human males learned how to trick themselves into loving each other to the point of suicidal madness.

When Cole got to Aunt Margaret’s house, with Cessy guiding him in on his cellphone like an instrument landing in the fog, it was after nine o’clock and all the news channels were full of stories of rumors of a coup, or stories of rumors that the rumors of a coup were a smokescreen to justify a right-wing—or, depending on the station, left-wing—takeover.

“I think,” said Aunt Margaret to Cole, “that you managed to upstage the funerals of the President and Vice President. And the Secretary of Defense might as well not have bothered dying, for all the attention they’re paying to him.”

Cole was eating leftover pasta salad—Aunt Margaret specialized in main-dish salads in which she substituted fresh mozzarella cheese for whatever meat the salad called for. Cole was eating it like he had just discovered food. Still, he took a moment to swallow and then answer. “I’m sure if he’d had it to do over, he’d have skipped that White House meeting.”

Mark and Nick were still up, sitting at the entrance of the hall, where they probably hoped not to be noticed by the adults in the kitchen, because if they were noticed they would doubtless be sent to bed. But Mark couldn’t help laughing, as much because of the way Cole said it right after swallowing and with a forkful of salad still in midair.

Cessy turned on them. “Bed,” she said.

“I didn’t laugh,” said Nick.

“I’m not sending you to bed for laughing,” said Cessy.

“She’s sending you to bed because you’re young,” said Cole. “Being young is an eighteen-year prison sentence for a crime your parents committed. But you do get time off for good behavior.”

Nick did laugh at that—Mark just looked at him like he was weird. But they obeyed and left the room.

“Thanks for subverting our parental discipline,” said Reuben to Cole.

“They’re just going to listen from the door of their room,” said Cole.

“They’re obedient children,” said Cessy.

“Big and terrible things are happening in the world,” said Cole. “If you were a kid, would you really be so obedient you wouldn’t sneak a way to listen to what the grownups are trying to protect you from knowing about?”

“No,” said Cessy. “But I’m not a kid, I’m a mother, and I don’t want them to know.”

“You don’t think it’ll scare them worse not to know what’s going on?” asked Cole.

“People without children always know how to raise them better than their parents do,” said Aunt Margaret. “I speak from experience. I never had kids of my own.”

“None of my business,” said Cole. “Really good salad.”

Reuben looked at Cessy. “We trust Mark not to tell his friends I’m here, and that’s the only secret that has bad consequences if they tell it.”

“I don’t want them to be frightened,” said Cessy.

“I don’t want them to be frightened either,” said Reuben. “So let’s let them come back in.”

“You’re not the one who wakes up with their nightmares.”

“Is that a no?”

“That’s a vote. You have the other vote.”

“Is that permission?” asked Reuben.

“Grudging permission, full of possible I-told-you-sos.”

“Good enough for me.” Then, without raising his voice even a bit, he said, “All right, boys, you can come back.”

The scampering of feet began instantly.

Cole grinned, with flecks of basil on his teeth and lips. Cessy handed him a napkin.

“See,” said Cole, “when I go home, my parents still send me out of the room when they discuss things.”

“You’re the baby of the family?”

“Yep,” said Cole. “They still call me Barty.” And before Reuben could call him by that name, Cole raised a hand. “They’re the only people alive who call me that.”

With the boys back in the hallway and Aunt Margaret stirring fresh raspberries into the soft homemade ice cream she had in the freezer, they got down to business.

It seemed perfectly natural for Cessy to take charge, because she was the one who had more experience inside the Washington bureaucracy. Not that Reuben and Cole hadn’t dealt with bureaucracy for years in the military, but that was on the Pentagon side, where people actually did what they were told, more or less.

Cessy laid it out on paper. A chart showing:

The terrorists, the unknown person who gave Reuben’s plans to them, the unknown White House staffer who told them when the President would be in that room, the unknown person or persons who suppressed cellphones and cut landlines at Hain’s Point and who fired at Reuben and Cole from the trees.

General Alton and his coup conspiracy—represented by a dotted line, because it might exist and it might not, and if it did exist it might be connected with the assassination and it might not.

President Nielson, who might or might not be connected in some way to Alton and his perhaps nonexistent conspiracy.

And, of course, Reuben, Cole, and Reuben’s jeesh.

“Who benefits?” asked Cessy.

“Define ‘benefit,’ ” said Reuben. “I mean, usually you think money or power or sex or vengeance. Plenty of people hated the President. The media aren’t covering it, but the Internet is full of blogs and pictures talking about people openly celebrating the assassination—like fireworks and signs and riding around honking horns.”

“Yes, but those idiots didn’t have access,” said Cessy.

“But there might be people who feel the way they feel who did have access.”

“Working in a Republican White House?” asked Cessy.