Empire

Verus’s ordnance around the country. It had nothing to do with the plans that were leaked to the terrorists.

DeeNee, though. Wasn’t she the link proving that they were all working together?

“Got to you, didn’t I?” said the rebel.

Cole ignored him. DeeNee was dead. She assassinated Rube and then she died. So nobody could ever ask her who she worked for. The guys who chased him were after Rube’s PDA. But was it possible that they weren’t in league with DeeNee? That they had simply staked out the Pentagon parking lot, waiting for Rube to show up?

Cole remembered back to that Monday morning, June sixteenth. There was shooting inside the building, but nobody shot at him out in the parking lot. The security forces inside the Pentagon had killed three bad guys inside. Was it possible that that was all of the guys who were with DeeNee? That the guys who followed him out in the parking lot were a different team, and that’s why they didn’t shoot as soon as they saw him? It took the guys outside a while to realize that Cole, not Rube, had the PDA now. That’s why they didn’t shoot him down, or even follow him immediately.

Absurd. Too complicated. They simply lied to their soldiers. They couldn’t very well announce, “We’re going to kill that evil right-wing madman in the White House and then take over America.” You get a whole different kind of recruit when you announce that as your purpose.

“What were you blowing up out there?” asked the rebel.

“You know, for a guy who was afraid to die, you sure do test our patience.”

“If you were going to kill me, I’d be dead,” said the rebel.

“That’s right,” said Cole. “We chose not to kill you. We put up with your shit. And yet you still believe we’re murderers and torturers.”

“You broke my arms.”

“So you couldn’t shoot us in the back, idiot. Use your brain. Or have you turned that over to Aldo Verus, too?”

“I think for myself.”

That was twice that Cole had mentioned Aldo Verus’s name, and neither time had the rebel denied knowing anything about him. But he had denied having anything to do with the assassination. So Verus was his boss of this army and the soldiers knew it.

“Guys like you are so angry that they can lie to you about guys like me and you believe it,” said Cole. “You can’t even conceive of the idea that maybe a guy becomes a soldier because he loves his country and is willing to die to keep it safe. No, you have to believe that guys like me are murderers looking for an excuse to kill. And yet you put on a uniform and you took up arms.”

“I’m nothing like you,” said the rebel.

“Right,” said Cole. “Because I trained to do my job right. And because I recognize that even my enemies are still human beings. Assholes, but human ones.”

Cat came back into the cabin. “Nothing else on this island. Nobody even bothered to shoot at me. I think they think we can’t get through their door.”

“Maybe we can’t,” said Cole.

“You can’t,” said the rebel.

Cole pushed on the crowbar. The wood splintered a little, but it also moved. The trap door had slid about a half inch.

Which meant it would probably slide farther. Far enough for the door to open.

“The question,” said Cole, “is this. Do we open it enough to toss a grenade down and kill anybody waiting for us? Or do we hope they trusted their mechanism here so much that they aren’t even bothering to defend it?”

“We throw a grenade and they aren’t there,” said Cat, “the grenade tells them we made it through and they come running.”

“On the other hand, we open this and they are there, they just toss a grenade up here and we’re dead.”

Cat pointed his thumb at the rebel. “One consolation is, he’s dead, too.”

“Collateral damage,” said Cole. To the rebel he said, “But your team doesn’t believe armies should ever cause collateral damage, don’t you?”

The rebel just glared at him.

“Safety first,” said Cole. “I’ll shove, you toss.”

Cat got out a grenade.

“Of course, I’ll be right here where the blast will still hit me,” said Cole.

“Well, don’t be there,” said Cat.

“I can’t open the trap door if I’m standing on it,” said Cole.

“You could try,” said Cat.

Cole went over to one of the dead rebels and dragged his body over to the set of slight gaps marking the end of the trap door. Cole shoved the crowbar under the body and lodged the angled end of the crowbar into the gap. Then he stepped over the body and started pushing on the other end of the crowbar. “Is it moving?” he asked.

“Are you pushing?” asked Cat.

Cole pushed hard enough that his feet slid on the floor.

So he tipped over a table and ran it up against the far wall. By bracing his feet against the end of the table, he kept himself from sliding. And now the trap door started to move.

“Anytime you feel like it,” said Cole.

He pushed farther. The trap door began to move smoothly.

A burst of machine-gun fire from inside the trap door shuddered the dead body in front of him and shoved it back into Cole’s face.

Cat flipped a grenade down the gap.

It exploded. There was no more firing.

Now the two of them opened the door the rest of the way. It went rather easily.

Steep stairs led down into a small concrete room with an elevator door on one side and the top of a spiral staircase on the other. There were pieces of body armor scattered on the floor, some still containing fragments of flesh and bone. The pieces didn’t come out even, so some of them must have blown off the edge and down the spiral stairway.

They went back up into the cabin and put on their packs. Cat quickly finished his coffee. “Shouldn’t drink this,” he said. “I’ll just have to pee later.”

“You didn’t put on your catheter?” said Cole with mock surprise.

“Can’t find any that fit me,” said Cat.

Cole turned to the miserable-looking rebel. “We probably won’t come out this way, so… I’ll see you at your treason trial.”

No smart remarks. The guy just looked away.

Down on the elevator landing, Cat pushed the button for the elevator.

“Oh, come on,” said Cole.

“Ain’t gonna ride it, man,” said Cat. “Just want to see if it comes when I call.”

They waited, weapons trained on the door. It opened. The elevator was empty.

“We could put that guy inside and send it down,” said Cat. “Then it’s friendly fire that’ll kill him.”

“Being an ignorant jerk who believed a lot of lies shouldn’t get you the death penalty,” said Cole.

“Not even sometimes?” Cat was holding the elevator door open.

Cole leaned close to him and whispered. “Push the button for the bottom floor and let’s go down the stairs.”

Cat pushed the button and scrambled back out of the elevator before the doors closed.

Then, as quietly as they could, they started down the stairs.

Command and control