Empire

off the floor plan.”

“So if you were in charge of this place, where would you put the command center?”

“Up high,” said Cat. “They got three levels higher than this one. Not a lot of routes leading there.”

“I bet Command and Control is four levels up,” said Cole, “since the floorplan only shows three.”

“Bet you’re right,” said Cat.

“So which way up you want to use?”

Both he and Cat had memorized the map while studying it—part of their training, to be able to memorize maps so they didn’t have to carry them around.

“Not the ones that lead toward the front door,” said Cat. “Let’s avoid the crowds.”

They ran into only three people on the stairs they took—all civilians, from their clothing, and two of them women. One of the women cried and shrank away, but the other armed herself with her shoe, brandishing it at them as they passed her and moved on up the stairs. “You can holster that shoe now,” said Cole as he passed her. She didn’t seem to think it was funny.

The stairs ended at the top level on the map. But this level was smaller than the others. There were plenty of offices on this level, mostly in the form of cubicles. Every computer’s cpu had been blown up by a small enough explosive that it was contained entirely inside the case—but smoke was coming out of many of them and most were splayed out or otherwise deformed. Not much data was going to come out of those computers now, but you never knew what a hard drive was going to live through. Might still be something retrievable. Unless they were heat bombs, and then all the plastic inside would be melted. That’s what I’d use, thought Cole. So that’s probably what Verus used.

His infra vibrated. Somebody calling him. “Cole here.”

It was Benny. “As soon as we gave the word, they took off from Montana,” he said. “By now they’re probably only fifteen minutes away.”

If the Progressive Restoration had observers with the forces in Idaho, which was likely enough, then that would explain why they started evacuating this place when only a couple of soldiers had penetrated it. Cole thanked Benny and signed off.

“You see any controls for that big front door?” said Cat. “Or for flooding that tunnel we were in?”

“We didn’t see controls for opening the trap door in the cabin, either,” said Cole.

“And there’s got to be a control for sending water from one lake into the other.”

“What do you want to bet,” said Cole, “that wherever those controls are, Verus is sitting there waiting to raise the water level of Chinnereth just as our attack force is moving through the big front door.”

“That would be mean,” said Cat.

“And then he’d use the secret back door that isn’t on any of the maps. The one that’s camouflaged and opens up on the slope of the mountain somewhere on the Genesseret side.”

“That would be smart,” said Cat.

“Well, only semi-smart,” said Cole. “Smart would be to give himself up peacefully and denounce us for violating Washington’s neutrality.”

“Nobody’s gonna buy that now,” said Cat.

“Come on,” said Cole. “People buy any lie they want bad enough to believe. We’re the U.S. Army. When we screw up, everybody thinks it’s on purpose and some of us should go to jail. Even when we win, they think we screwed up. What Army were you in, anyway?”

“My bad,” said Cat.

“One level up from here,” said Cole. “Gotta be a stairway somewhere.”

“Maybe not,” said Cat. “Maybe just a closet door.”

“Leading into Narnia?”

“Leading to a stairway.”

There weren’t all that many doors, but all of them were locked. In the movies, people always shot doors open. But shooting a deadbolt lock didn’t withdraw the deadbolt from the socket. And these were heavy doors, with lots of metal. Bullets could ricochet. Shrapnel could fly. You could kill yourself shooting at doors like these. Not to mention they didn’t want to scare Verus into jumping down his rabbit hole—if he had one.

“Desks,” said Cole. He headed back for one of the rooms full of cubicles and opened drawer after drawer, lifting up papers and feeling around inside.

Sure enough, he found a key that looked like it might do the job. Somebody forgot he had a spare in his desk. Happened all the time.

It wasn’t a master key, but it did open two of the first three doors they tried. Naturally, Cole assumed that the one it didn’t open was the one they wanted, but the third door opened to reveal a normal flight of stairs going upward.

And up and up. It wasn’t just one story up, it was way up. Maybe not all that far from the observation tower on top of the mountain between the lakes.

They ran up at a measured pace—didn’t want to be caught out of breath at the top, just in case somebody had a weapon waiting for them.

There it was. Command and Control. A single room full of screens and computers and control panels and gauges. These computers hadn’t been blown up, because these didn’t contain incriminating data, they just controlled the local machinery.

Cole moved into the room. Now he could see another door, labeled “Restroom.” Standing near it were two men. One of them was Verus, in slacks and an open-collared short-sleeved white shirt. The other man was wearing a business suit and holding an AK-47.

“Just go back down the stairs,” said the man with the gun. “Nobody has to get hurt.”

Cole shot him in the head. He dropped like a rock.

“Calm down now,” said Verus.

Cat moved into the room behind Cole and began scanning the controls. “Here’s the control for the doors,” said Cat. “Still open. There are still trucks going out. And the tunnel—flooded. Hey, thanks for that, Aldo. We’re still not dry.”

“You had no right to come here,” said Verus.

No point in arguing with him about who had a right to attack New York City and kill the cops, or chase Cole through DC and Maryland to get Reuben’s PDA.

“And here’s the lake levels,” said Cat. “One shaft is already open, pouring water back in from Genesseret.”

“Can you close it?” asked Cole.

It was Verus who answered. “You can’t close the upper gate until the Genesseret water level falls to normal.”

“How many shafts?” asked Cole.

“Six.”

“So it’s refilling at one-sixth of the maximum rate,” said Cole. “Still too fast. Close it.”

“But he said—” And then Cat realized that he had been taking the enemy’s word for how the thing worked. Why wouldn’t he? It was an American telling him. “Bastard’s probably got a secret set of controls all primed to flood everything and somewhere there’s an LED display counting down the seconds.”

“You watch too many movies,” said Cole.

“You’re Bartholomew Coleman,” said Verus.

“Sorry I didn’t let your guys kill me in D.C.”

“Too bad you were brainwashed by the right-wing extremists,” said Verus. “I could have used someone as resourceful as you.”

“What about me?” said Cat. “I’m resourceful, too.”

“This time we get to put John Wilkes Booth on trial,” said Cole.

“I didn’t have anything to do with killing that pathetic joke of a President,” said Verus.

“You just happened to be all set to invade New York two days later,” said Cole.

“We were going to move on July Fourth,” said Verus. “General Alton’s coup was going to be our provocation.”