Empire

hate-filled rhetoric that has dominated our elections for the past—what, fifteen, twenty years? I’m sick of it. I don’t want to be part of it.”

“I hear that, Mr. Vice President. But you still haven’t answered my question. Am I being spun, sir?”

“I’m being as clear as I know how,” said Torrent. “The only way I’d run for President is if I were nominated by both parties.”

O’Reilly laughed. “So the only way you’ll run is if you run against yourself?”

“I know I wouldn’t smear my opponent and he wouldn’t smear me,” said Torrent.

“So are you asking the Democrats to nominate you, too?” asked O’Reilly.

“I’m asking people to leave me out of all the hatred and bitterness, all the lies and all the spin. I accepted the office I hold now in order to end the impasse in Congress and help return this country to some kind of normality. I expect to step down when my successor is sworn in in January. After that, I’ll see if some university will take me onto the faculty.”

O’Reilly smiled and said, “The gauntlet is down, Democrats. It happened before, back in 1952, when nobody was sure whether Eisenhower was a Democrat or a Republican. Both parties wanted to nominate him. He picked one of them. But Vice President Torrent refuses to choose between them. The Democrats have the first convention. Will they stay with their current front-runner, who just happens to have the highest negatives of any candidate who ran this year? Divisiveness? Or healing? But I give you the last word, Mr. Vice President.”

Torrent smiled gravely. “I miss the classroom. I look forward to teaching again.”

“In other words, you think there’s no chance you’ll be nominated.”

Torrent only laughed and shook his head, as if the idea was ridiculous.

But he didn’t say no.

And despite the front-runner’s most desperate efforts, she couldn’t block Averell Torrent’s name from being presented at the Democratic convention. Too many delegates were announcing that they would switch to him on the first ballot, regardless of what they had pledged back in the primaries.

As one of the delegates said on camera, “A lot has happened since the primaries. If we didn’t have a responsibility to think for ourselves, there’d be no reason to have living delegates come to a convention, they could just tally the primary votes and make the announcement.”

Leading Republicans fell all over themselves to announce that if the Democrats nominated Torrent, they’d nominate him, too.

It’s really going to happen, thought Cecily.

And… I have to talk to somebody or I’ll go crazy.

So she went to look for Cole’s number, and realized: She didn’t know it. She had only the numbers of cellphones that he had long since discarded. And of course his office number at the Pentagon, where his assignment had evaporated when Reuben was killed.

Finally she called Sandy in the White House.

“If you want your job back,” said Sandy, “the answer is hell yes what took you so long.”

“I don’t,” said Cecily, “but it’s nice to know I’ve been missed.”

“I don’t miss you, I just have jobs for you to do,” said Sandy. “So what do you want? Because I’m so busy I don’t have time to scratch my butt.”

“Bartholomew Coleman’s phone number.”

“You call me to get a phone number?”

“Captain Coleman,” said Cecily. “The soldier who was with Reuben when… ”

“I know who he is, I see him every day,” said Sandy. “Home phone? Cell? Office?”

“You see him every day?”

“He’s assigned to the Vice President as his top aide on military affairs. He’s at all the briefings.”

“I didn’t know.” Cecily was dismayed. Had Cole climbed into bed with Torrent? Then she couldn’t talk to him.

“So don’t you want the numbers now?”

“Sure, of course,” she said. “I just didn’t know—yes, all the numbers.”

She could write them down. She just wouldn’t use them.

And she didn’t.

But that night, he showed up at her door at nine o’clock.

“Cole—Captain Coleman. I didn’t know—I didn’t expect—”

“Sandy said you called,” said Cole. “And then when you found out I worked with Torrent, you suddenly didn’t want to talk to ne.”

Sandy was way too observant.

“But I’ve kind of been waiting for you to call,” said Cole. “When you sort of backed off from talking to me a few weeks ago, I figured you wanted to wait. Or something. But… you know I really liked your kids. I don’t want to lose contact with you. I only knew Rube—Major Malich—for a few days, but…” He took a deep breath. Look, I was hoping there’d be cookies.”

She laughed and ushered him into the kitchen. Mark and Nick were still up and they remembered Cole and practically tackled him and dragged him to the floor. Well, Mark did. Nick just watched him, but Cecily saw how his eyes glowed. Cole had made an impression on her sons.

They didn’t talk about Reuben. They didn’t talk about world afairs. Instead Cole asked the boys about things they were doing. They ate ice cream. Cole demonstrated how cupcakes don’t actually have to be bitten into, you can jam a whole one in your mouth at once. Then he made a show of choking before he swallowed it all. “The bad thing,” he said, “is when you cough icing out of your nose.”

At ten o’clock Cecily sent the boys to bed.

“I’ll go now,” said Cole. “It’s late for you, too.”

“No,” she said. “Stay. I do want to talk to you.”

He answered softly, so the boys wouldn’t hear. “It’s about Torent, right? I’m not married to him. I’m assigned to him.”

“His request?”

“He’s vetting the White House staff and the Pentagon. Working with the FBI to isolate the ones who should be under suspicion so the rest can breathe easy again.”

“That sounds like an awfully controversial job for somebody who claims to be against divisiveness,” said Cecily.

“That’s just the point. He’s the one that everybody will accept as being impartial and not politically motivated. He doesn’t have a history with anyone.”

“Actually,” said Cecily, “he does.”

They went down into the basement. Into the office. There she laid out the translations of Reuben’s class notes. “First things first,” she said. She handed him a paper with one paragraph circled.

“Augustus Caesar,” he said. “So?”

She handed him another.

“Augustus again.”

And another.

“He’s a history professor,” said Cole. “Augustus is history.”

“Three different classes, Cole,” said Cecily. “Only one of them even vaguely dealt with Rome.”

“You’re building a case, I see,” said Cole. “So… build it.”

“Read what Reuben said right after that paragraph.”

Cole read it aloud. “’Roman Empire an obsession? Especially Augustus and Trajan’—you didn’t show me any Trajan notes.”

“Keep reading.”

“’Heroes of his. Guy watches two sides fight it out in civil wars. Then steps in, puts a stop to it, Rome hails him as hero who brings peace and unity. Shows great respect to Senate, republican form of government. Modesty. But rules with iron hand. Torrent suffers from empire envy? Always says American empire can’t fall because we’re still in republic phase, not an empire yet. Wishing he could play Augustus and start one?’ ”

Cole set down the paper and leaned back in the chair. “So you think Torrent—what, set up a civil war just so he could come in and be the great conciliator?”