Empire (21 page)

Mark laughed at that. Reuben almost said something sharp to him, but he saw that Nick had already clapped a hand over Mark's mouth and Mark was letting him, which meant Mark agreed that Nick was right that he should shut up, and anyway, it was Reuben who had insisted the boys should be able to listen.

“More to the point,” said Cessy, “we have Sandy Woodruff.”

“Whose role is completely undefined,” said Reuben. “Which means that the existing White House staff is going to circle the wagons to freeze her out.”

“Or suck up to her outrageously because she has the President's ear and can help them stay,” said Cessy.

“Oh. That's right. Different rules from the Pentagon.”

“And then the other question—who had opportunity to get your plans,” said Cessy.

“It all depends on finding out which version was planted—which DeeNee is working on—and then she'll know who had their hands on it and can start finding out where it got before it vanished,” said Reuben.

Cessy smiled at him very, very sweetly. “Unless it was DeeNee who handed it over to them.”

“Not a chance.”

“Not to them directly,” said Cessy. “But to the person who gave it to the person who gave it to the person.”

“You don't know DeeNee,” said Reuben.

“Like you don't know LaMonte?” asked Cessy, still smiling.

“Exactly like that,” said Reuben. He was not smiling. “We have to
trust somebody or we might as well get out of the country and try to hide somewhere.”

Then he remembered the boys sitting there listening. “I was making a point by exaggeration,” he said to them. “We're not leaving the country.”

“If we do,” said Mark, “I want to go to Disney World.”

“
I
want to go to Xanth,” said Nick.

“Xanth is imaginary,” said Cessy. “And Disney World is
in
the United States.”

“I didn't know that either,” Cole said to Mark.

“Shut up, boys,” said Reuben. “I mean that in the nicest possible way.” He turned back to the table. Cole had his hand over his mouth. What a time for him to be sucking up to the boys. But then, maybe that was precisely what was needed. Some reassuring humor. An adult ally. Maybe Cole was helping.

“May I interject a comment from the cook and landlady?” asked Aunt Margaret as she set out dishes of raspberry ice cream. There were two extras. She snapped her fingers at the boys and they took seats at the table.

“You may,” said Cessy, “since everybody else's mouth is going to be full.”

“Mine already is,” mumbled Cole, barely intelligible with his spoon held between his teeth.

Mark started to hold his spoon between
his
teeth. Nick pulled it out and put it into Mark's ice cream. Again Mark peacefully accepted an action that would normally have caused a fight.

“My observation is,” said Aunt Margaret, “that you can't figure out a single thing from this point on until you hear from Sandy and DeeNee, whoever they are, and
they
can't find anything out until the start of the business day tomorrow. Reuben has had only a short nap since the night before the assassination, and Cole has just given a speech to twenty million people.”

“In O'Reilly's dreams,” said Cessy.

“Go to bed,” said Aunt Margaret. “Go to sleep. I'll tuck you in. Things will be
just
as bleak and hopeless in the morning. Isn't this
good ice cream? My secret is lots of hydrogenated fat. I buy it in large lots from doctors who do liposuction.”

“Delicious,” said Nick.

“Gross!” said Mark.

Five in the morning, still dark, Reuben woke up and couldn't get back to sleep. Quietly, so he wouldn't waken Cessy, he got up and looked for whatever Cessy had thrown into a suitcase for him to wear. There wasn't a lot of choice. Fatigues or civvies. It was Sunday. He should wear a suit and go to Mass with Cessy and the kids. But that would entail a lot more noise. He could change clothes later. For now, he put on fatigues.

Downstairs in the kitchen, he found that Cole had made the same choice. “I see you decided you wanted to be in uniform today.”

“A choice I made years ago,” said Cole. “You caught me. I was prowling for leftover ice cream.”

“There's never leftover ice cream in Aunt Margaret's house,” said Reuben. “Can't sleep?”

“I woke up thinking I heard something. I had visions of a team of ninjas surrounding the house and climbing up the walls onto the roof like in
Crouching Tiger
.”

“Were there any?”

“I did a circuit of the house. No alarm system—I checked
before
I opened the door.”

“Any ninja footprints on the walls?”

“Nothing. But there was a newspaper wrapped in plastic sitting in your driveway. And there I was in my jockeys, holding the paper, wondering if the door had locked automatically behind me.”

“Had it?”

“Yes, but it was incredibly easy to pick,” said Cole.

“I shudder to ask, but with
what
?”

“It was still partly open,” said Cole. “I was joking.”

“Not much to do in West Windsor, New Jersey, at 0515 on a Sunday.”

“You know what I want?” said Cole.

“For Christmas?”

“For this moment. I want to get in a car and drive to the city and look at Ground Zero. It's Sunday, it's five in the morning, there won't be traffic. We can be there and back before church, right?”

“Easily,” said Reuben. “But I don't think you'll see what you want to see. It's not a rubble heap or even an excavation anymore. They're building something appalling on the site, aren't they?”

“I don't know how far they've gotten,” said Cole. “But even if it's a Starbucks now, I want to tread that ground. Or at least look at it. Imagine the towers. Remember them. The media has forbidden us to remember the falling towers—they don't allow us to see the footage. It's like their slogan is, Forget the Alamo. I'm tired of being obedient to their decision to keep us blind.”

“Let me get the keys to Mingo's SUV.”

“Not my trophy car?” asked Cole. “Oh, wait—Mingo's has been mod-oh-fied.”

“Mingo's isn't registered to you or me,” said Reuben. “For all we know, there's an APB out on our vehicles.”

“It has
nothing
to do with his arsenal?”

“If we hadn't had to scrounge up weapons at Hain's Point,” said Reuben, “the President would still be alive. So maybe yeah, maybe I want to have the weapons with me. But if somebody does try to arrest us, I'm not fighting. I didn't train as a soldier so I could kill Americans.”

The Holland Tunnel took them into the city not far north of where the World Trade Center used to be. The traffic was heavier than Cole had expected, and the city was already full of life.

“How does anybody
sleep
here?” asked Cole.

“Air-conditioning,” said Rube. “It lets them close their windows and it makes white noise to help them not to hear the street. Plus, you get used to it.”

“So you've lived in the big city?” asked Cole.

“Not this big city, but I've spent a lot of time here, and a lot of other big cities, too.”

“In your real life, or on that secret assignment from the White House?”

“Which I now doubt had anything to do with the White House,” said Rube. “I think they've been playing me all along. I don't know why I set off their use-this-guy alarms, but I think they marked me years ago.”

“And probably had a GPS on your car already, eh? So they didn't have to tail you to find out if you went to Hain's Point?”

“I'm more paranoid than that,” said Rube. “You think I didn't scan my car regularly? I was doing weird stuff. Weapons systems. Parts delivery. Working out financial transactions in remote locations.”

“Laundering money?”

“I didn't think of it that way, but probably, yes.”

“But you're not going to tell me anything specific.”

“There's still a chance I was working for the good guys, and this stuff is so classified it can't be classified.”

“They trusted you.”

“To be a world-class fool,” said Rube. “But it's nice to be trusted.”

There was actually on-street parking here and there. Rube took a spot and parallel-parked forward. “NASCAR trained,” said Cole.

“NASCAR drivers always double park. For quick getaways.” He locked the car using the remote. But Cole noticed that Rube still checked the locks visually. “I figured maybe there are closer parking places, but maybe not, and we're extremely physically fit so walking won't hurt us.”

“We do have government-issue shoes,” said Cole. “So we're using up taxpayer money.”

“They pay for your shoes?” asked Rube.

“At Defense Department rates. So the left shoe is two hundred bucks, and the right shoe, which has to be separately requisitioned, is five hundred.”

Cole appreciated the fact that Rube chuckled. Cole knew it wasn't really a good time to be making stupid jokes, but they also couldn't brood about the assassination and the worries ahead of
them—they had to keep their minds clear. Concentration was important, but so was distance. Maybe if they could laugh a little, they'd see more clearly.

And maybe Cole was so nervous himself that he couldn't keep from cracking wise even when it was completely inappropriate.
Especially
then.

They didn't make it to Ground Zero. They were still walking on Barclay Street when they heard an explosion. Then a siren. Then small-arms fire. Single shots. Then automatic weapons fire. Not a set of sounds you'd expect from ordinary criminal activity. The cops didn't carry automatic weapons. And this sounded big. Cole knew that this was something too big for a couple of off-duty off-assignment Special Ops veterans to take on when the only weapons on them were pens and keys.

“I want to go back to Mingo's car now,” said Rube.

They started back up the street. Broke into a jog at the same moment.

And then heard a loudspeaker behind them.

“We are not your enemies. We are fellow Americans here to protect your city from the unconstitutional government in Washington. Stay off the streets and you will not be hurt.”

They turned around to see what kind of vehicle was playing the recorded announcement. To see just what kind of evasive action they needed to take.

It was not a vehicle. Or maybe it was—there
could
be a human inside it. But it looked like a robot, about fourteen feet high, like a ball on two legs. It gave no sign of noticing them. Until they started to move. Then it zeroed in on them, started striding purposefully toward them, though it was still a hundred yards away.

Cole stopped. So did Rube. “Motion detectors?” asked Rube.

“Or a guy inside who just spotted us on his screen.”

“Or both.”

The loudspeaker sounded again. “Go inside. The streets are not safe.”

“So the message can change,” said Rube.

“I don't want to go inside,” said Cole. “I want to get a really big gun and see what it takes to destroy that wonderful machine that's here to protect me from the unconstitutional government in Washington.”

“I think that thing looks awkward and slow. Let's see if we can outrun it.”

No further discussion was needed. They turned and ran.

“Stop and you will not be hurt. Stop and you will not be hurt.”

They did not stop.

“Stop now or you will be fired on.”

Cole glanced back over his shoulder. The machine had just kicked up into a higher gear.

“It's faster than we are,” said Cole.

“It's faster than we
were
” said Rube, and he nearly doubled his speed.

So the major hadn't gotten out of shape during his desk-jockey days. Cole had a hard time catching up to him.

Gunfire began. The warning repeated.

“Blanks so far,” said Cole.

“Those weren't blanks,” said Rube. “It was a recording of gunshots.”

“You know what that thing reminds me of?” said Cole.

“
The Empire Strikes Back,
” said Rube.

“I was thinking
War of the Worlds
.”

“Yeah, but those were computer-graphics bullshit. Why do they think two legs will make a thing like that work better than tracks?”

“If we're still talking,” said Cole, “we're not really running fast enough.”

They sped up again as the live bullets began striking around them. The corner of Greenwich Street was on their left, a couple of steps away.

“Not a recording now,” said Cole.

“So do we try for Murray Street or settle for Park Place?”

“You pick
now
to play Air Monopoly?”

The thing turned the corner behind them sooner than they had expected. It fired immediately.

“The warning message apparently ran out,” said Rube.

They dived between parked cars, then kept low as they moved along the sidewalk.

A car just behind them blew up. The blast knocked them off their feet.

Cole was up at once. Rube was maybe a little bit slower. It might have had to do with him being blown into a fireplug. “You okay?” Cole asked.

“That is the ugliest girl I ever kissed,” said Rube. He was okay enough to keep running.

They made the corner of Park Place just as the tank-on-legs lined up with the sidewalk so it could shoot them without having to go through cars to do it. The bullets tore up the concrete of the sidewalk and Cole felt little bits of concrete spatter the back of his head. It would be hell getting them out by himself. He hated to pay the deductible to have an emergency room do it. It's times like this, he thought, when it would be really nice to have a wife.
Cecily
will pull all the concrete bits out of
Rube's
head.