Empire

“Which suggests,” said Reuben, “that wars are also lost because one side didn’t believe until it was too late.”

“There we have it,” said Torrent, looking around triumphantly at the rest of the class. “Right here in this class, I have persuaded a highly trained soldier who hates the idea of civil war to think about the possibility.”

The others laughed and looked at Reuben Malich with some mixture of mockery and sympathy. He had fallen into Torrent’s trap.

Only Reuben knew better. Torrent was a serious historian. So was Reuben. Torrent was right. A civil war could be fought anywhere, if somebody had the will, the wit, and the power to pull the right strings, push the right buttons, light the right fires.

The class ran ten minutes over—which was common with Torrent, because nobody wanted him to stop talking. And after class, many lingered to talk to him about the papers they were writing. Everyone was terrified of his acid pen, firing volleys of savage criticism across their pages. They wanted to get it right on the first draft.

Reuben didn’t care about grades, mostly because he earned A’s in everything. So when class ended, he always left at once. Today, though, Torrent waved him over before he could leave. By staying, Reuben was blowing off Contemporary African Conflicts. But when a man like Torrent calls, you come because it matters what Torrent thinks about everything. Even you.

Finally they were alone in the room.

“Major Reuben Malich,” Torrent said. “It’s not so much that I like the way you think, it’s that I like the fact that you think at all.”

“We all think, sir.”

“No, my good soldier, we do not all think. Thinking is rare and growing rarer, especially in the universities. Students succeed here to the degree they can convince idiots that they think just like them.”

“The professors aren’t all idiots.”

“Grad school is like junior high:You learn to get along.That’s half of who ends up in grad school in the first place—the suck-ups and get-alongs. You’re only here because you were ordered to come. You’d rather be in the Middle East. Leading troops in combat. Yes?”

Reuben didn’t answer.

“Very careful of you,” said Torrent. “I have just one question for you. If I told you that the civil war I’m talking about were being planned right now, just how far would you go?”

“I’d do nothing to help either side, and anything to prevent it from happening.”

“But those are the two sides, before the fighting starts—the hotheads on one side, the rational people on the other, trying to rein them in.”

“Soldiers don’t have the power to prevent wars, sir, except by being so invincible that no enemy would dare to engage.”

“Are you willing to trust your life—the lives of your family—on that belief—that civil war is impossible?”

“Exactly, sir. I already trust my family’s life to that belief. It’s like an asteroid colliding with Earth. It certainly will happen, someday. But right now, there’s no urgency about figuring out how to avoid it.”

“And when an asteroid does come toward Earth, how will you know? See it yourself?”

“No, sir, I’ll trust astronomers to let us know. And I know where you’re going—you believe you’re the astronomer who’s warning us about a social and political collision.”

“More like a weatherman, tracking the storm and watching it grow to hurricane strength.”

“Standing in front of the camera in the rain, strapped to a light-pole?”

Torrent grinned. “You understand me perfectly.”

“What are you proposing, sir?” said Reuben. “You were proposing something, right?”

“There are those who are trying to prevent the civil war. People who are in a position to share key information, to keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of those who would use them to provoke this war that nobody wants.”

“Working on a doctorate at Princeton isn’t exactly a key position.”

“But you graduate after this semester, n’est-ce pas?”

“And go back into the Army, sir. I already have my assignment, protecting American interests abroad.”

“Yes, I know,” said Torrent. “Special Ops. Nice work in that country-we-cannot-name.”

Reuben had run into this before—people pretending to have inside information in order to try to get the information from him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir. I’m not in Special Ops.”

“I think you were dead right to open fire when you did, and you should have gotten the Oscar for the way you wept over that dead old man.”

So maybe he did know something. That didn’t mean Reuben could trust him. “I’m not much of a weeper, sir.”

“You’d be the first person ever to win an Oscar for a performance that actually saved lives.”

“I believe you’re trying to compromise me, sir, and I won’t do it.”

“Dammit,” said Torrent, “I’m trying to find out if you’d be interred in a covert assignment to help hold this country together and prevent its collapse into pure chaos.” And its passage into empire.”

“If there were some way you could help in an effort to prevent civil war, to preserve the republic, such as it is, how far would you be willing to go?”

“I’m a major in the United States Army, sir. I will never do anything contrary to my oath.”

“Yes,” said Torrent. “Yes, that’s what I’m counting on. You’re a superb student, you know that. The best I’ve had in years. And I know people, within and outside the government, who are involved in quiet efforts to prevent civil war. You have my solemn oath that anyone who contacts you in my name will never ask you to do anything that would violate yours.”

“I’ll listen. That’s all I promise.”

“Then listen to this. The first test is whether or not you tell your wife.”

“I tell Cessy everything that isn’t classified. If you don’t like that, count me out.”

“What if the knowledge might get her killed?”

“Then I’d be sure to tell her. Because if somebody thinks I might have told her, they’ll kill her whether I really did or not. So she might as well understand the risk.”

“Glad to hear it,” said Torrent.

“You are?”

“That was the test. If you’d betray your wife and do something like this behind her back, you’d betray anybody.” With a grin, Torrent picked up his now-stuffed briefcase and left the room.

Reuben headed for his next class, hopelessly late, with his mind racing. He just recruited me. I don’t even know what the conspiracy is, and he recruited me just by appealing to my intelligence, my loyalties, my desire to be in on the action.

The trouble was, this did appeal to him in all those ways and more besides.

He’s got me pegged, Reuben realized. The only question remaining was: Is Torrent a good guy? If I join whatever clandestine work he’s got going, will I be on the right side?

New boy

Heroic love is to do what is best for the loved one, disregarding desire, trust, and cost. Unfortunately, it is impossible to know what is best for anyone.