Empire (35 page)

“Want to buy good backpacks in Washington?” said Drew. “Easier than trying to carry them through airports.”

“Can we keep it after?” said Benny.

“If you pay for it yourself,” said Mingo.

“Of course we're going to pay for it ourselves,” said Benny. “You think they're going to take a DOD purchase order?”

Cole shook his head. “They'll fill our ATM accounts with plenty of money. This is the United States government. Possibly the only entity with more money than Aldo Verus.”

So it came down to Cole in a U-Haul. Everything they needed for a week in the woods—including rations, uniforms, backpacks, weapons, and ammunition. Covering it: a bunch of used furniture and boxes filled with old kitchen stuff. A Goodwill somewhere had been stripped of everything, it looked like.

If somebody just looked into the back of the truck, fine. If they pulled out a few boxes and looked inside them, fine. If they unloaded the first three layers, fine. But if the search got serious, Cole was toast.

He tried to picture the truck on the lonely back roads and he didn't like the picture. Oh, he had his cover stories—if he took the northern route, then he was moving from Genesee to Pasco, but he needed to pick up stuff from his mother-in-law's house in Colton on the way. If he went into Washington through Clarkston, then it was still Genesee and Pasco, only he could skip the mother-in-law. He even had the mother-in-law's name—a woman they knew would not be home, but who had a daughter the right age to be married to Cole. Just in case they got a guardsman who happened to be a local boy.

Still, once he got across the border near Uniontown, why in the world would he take that circuitous route on Schlee and Steptoe and Wawawai River Road? Obvious answer: He wanted to avoid crossing the border again. Maybe they'd buy it. But it was a lot of miles out of the way. If
I
were a patrolman and I heard that story, I'd unload the whole damn truck.

It had been a solitary drive. A few cellphone calls, but not too many, just verifying that Drew was in Washington and that there were more guards but they didn't seem particularly alert or hostile. Business as usual. Only . . . everybody in the airport watched the news. Baseball season, the Mariners were even in contention, sort of, but even in the bars, more people were watching CNN than ESPN or whatever game happened to be on.

“They care, man,” said Drew. “I just don't know from looking which ones want the revolution to succeed, and which ones want it to fail.”

“Probably most of them just want it all to go away.”

“Don't see many people inspired by President Nielson, tell the truth.”

“They inspired by the New York City Council?”

“The mayor's acting like he thinks he's the new President of the U.S.A.,” said Drew. “People kind of laughed.”

“Well that's a good sign,” said Cole. “But we've talked long enough. Cellphones. Somebody might be listening.”

“In D.C. I worried,” said Drew. “Didn't know who was doing what, and everybody had all the tech. But out here? What, they're listening to
all
the cellphone calls?”

“Talk to you when I get in place,” said Cole.

Well, now here he was on Down River Road in Lewiston. He'd picked a wide spot to pull off and pretend he needed to take a quick nap. Then he walked like he just needed to stretch his legs. Got to a place where he could see the crossing. Not bad. Two National Guard guys stopping everybody, but they were mostly just looking inside cars and passing people through.

Of course, that might just be people they knew. But this was the road that became Wawawai River Road at the border. There were a couple of trucks, too. And those got looked at more carefully. Backs got opened up. Anyplace big enough to hold—well, to hold the kind of stuff that Cole was carrying

Still, nobody was unpacking anything.

He should go north. That's what Drew and Load both told him. But last thing before he left, Mingo just said, “Barney Fife,” and grinned.

I'm not the U.S. Army invading Iran. I'm not a terrorist with a truck full of explosives to blow up a building or a city. I'm an American citizen crossing through a weird new security checkpoint where there didn't used to be one. What have I got to be afraid of?

It was too far to see the faces of the guards. If he showed binoculars, that would make him look suspicious. The crossing on Highway 12, right in town, that was a bad one. Lots of guys with guns, lots of traffic, six cars at a time, no way could he cross there. And from here, not too late to turn around, go north; if somebody noticed
him, he could say he just pulled off to reset, decide whether to stop by his mother-in-law's house or not.

He sighed. Stretched. Sauntered back to the truck.

Hot hot day. That was the good thing about going in civvies. He could wear shorts and a T-shirt, sandals.

He got in the truck. It had done okay, crossing over the Rockies, driving more than twenty-five hundred miles. Good truck. Only three hundred miles to go.

He called Drew. This close to the border, they might be eavesdropping. So the call was circumspect. “Mom there?” asked Cole.

“Napping,” said Drew.

“Well tell her I'm on the way.”

Cole turned the key. Started up again. The air-conditioning kicked in. But he turned it off, rolled down the windows.

There was only one car ahead of him. The two guardsmen were looking in the windows. They waved the car on.

Cole pulled up to the portable stop sign. “I really got to do this to get to Washington now?”

“How it is,” said the guardsman. “Air-conditioning broken?”

“Trying to save on gas,” said Cole. “Moving is expensive enough.”

“From where to where?”

“Heading for Pasco.”

“Address there?”

Cole rattled it off. He was tempted to add chatty comments but decided against it. This guy looked serious. Young, but definitely Barney Fife-ish. Full of his authority, like a rookie cop. Didn't have to go the northern route to get that, after all.

“And where you from?”

“Genesee.” He gave the address, but the guy wasn't listening.

“Open up the back, please.”

Well, that was routine, he'd seen that from the top of the hill. He got out and headed for the back. Meanwhile, another car pulled up behind him.

The guardsman waved the other car around. “You take this one, Jeff.”

So now it was just Cole and the man in charge. No use wishing it were the other way around. They couldn't have fit what they needed to carry inside a car trunk. Or even eight car trunks.

“Saw you up on the hill,” said the guardsman.

Shit, thought Cole. “Yep,” he said.

“Deciding whether or not you wanted to come through here?” asked the guardsman.

“I shut my eyes for a few minutes. Then I took a walk to stretch my legs.” Cole let himself sound just a little bit defensive, because he figured a regular citizen probably would. But he didn't like the way this was going.

“Already tired of driving, just from Genesee?”

“I got up tired this morning,” said Cole. “I loaded the truck yesterday and I'm still sore.”

“Don't look like the kind of guy gets sore just from loading a truck,” said the guardsman. “In fact, you look like you're in top physical condition.”

“I used to work out,” said Cole with a smile. But his heart was sinking. The one thing they hadn't taken into account was that even in civilian clothes, Cole looked military. And in shorts and a T-shirt, his utter lack of body fat was way too easy to see.

The guardsman leaned against the open back of the truck. “What am I going to find when you and I unload this truck?”

“Crappy furniture,” said Cole. “Crappy stuff in nice new boxes. The story of my life.”

The guardsman just kept looking at him.

“Why are you doing this to me, man?” said Cole. “I served my time in Iraq. Do I have to have uniforms hassling me now?”

“Am I hassling you?” asked the guardsman.

Cole sat up on the tail of the truck. “Do what you've got to do.”

Another car pulled past them. So Jeff would be busy again for a minute.

The guardsman pulled out the ramp at the back of the truck and walked up, started untying the ropes that were holding the load in place.

And Cole remembered Charlie O'Brien, the guardsman at the
mouth of the Holland Tunnel. That had been so much easier, soldier to soldier. They each had respect for what the other one was doing.

“You know,” said Cole, “it's not like Washington is at war with the rest of the United States.”

“I know,” said the guardsman. A rope end dropped down across Cole's shoulders. “Sorry.”

“It was the President and Vice President and Secretary of Defense of the whole United States that got murdered on Friday the Thirteenth. No matter what your politics were.”

“I know that, too,” said the guardsman.

“So . . . what if the guys who set the whole thing up—the assassinations—fed the information to the terrorists and then invaded New York. What if the U.S. Army had hard information that those guys were inside the state of Washington? What do you think they'd do?”

The guardsman stopped what he was doing. “I think they'd go in and get them.”

“But the state of Washington says they aren't letting any military in. Which means, if the bad guys are already
in
the state, the only people being kept out are the good guys. Assuming that you think the assassins are the bad guys.”

“And the U.S. Army doesn't want to launch a big invasion,” said the guardsman. “They just want something quiet. Something . . . Special Ops.”

“Like that,” said Cole.

The guardsman stood there awhile. “It'd make a difference, though, if those guys were gonna start shooting at guys like me.”

“They'd be crazy to do that, wouldn't they? I mean, you're part of the U.S. Army, aren't you? What is this, a civil war?”

“I hope to God not,” said the guardsman. “We'd get creamed.”

“Nobody's going to be shooting at the Washington National Guard, I'd bet my life on that.”

“Yeah, but can I bet
my
life on it?”

The question hung there.

“Man, think about it,” said Cole. “If Special Ops sent a guy in, and he wanted you dead, you think you wouldn't be dead already?”

The guardsman's hand strayed to his sidearm. But then his hand went on. To reach for the rope end. Cole got it and handed it to him.

The guardsman started retying the knot.

“Thanks,” said Cole.

“All that bullshit you told me, it was pretty good,” said the guardsman. “But I saw you reconnoitering up there. I knew what I was looking at.”

“And you made sure you were alone when you inspected my truck.”

“Had to know how things were,” said the guardsman. “But there was a guy on the news a month ago. He said, If somebody tells you to point your gun at a guy just doing his job, then
you
point it at the guy gave the order.”

Cole felt himself blushing. Damn. Had the guy
recognized
him? A month later? With a stubbly beard and darker hair and in civilian clothes? Or did it just happen that Cole's words on O'Reilly made an impression that stuck with the guy, and he didn't recognize him now at all?

“Glad you watched that program,” said Cole.

The knot was tied.

“Long way to go?” said the guardsman. “I'm betting it isn't downtown Pasco.”

“A little farther than that,” said Cole.

They pushed the ramp back up under the truck together. Then the guardsman held out his hand. “Appreciate your cooperation, sir.”

“Thanks,” said Cole. “Pleasure to know you.”

Cole walked back to the cab as the guardsman went back to Jeff, who had just waved on a third car. “So you're not unloading it?” asked Jeff.

“I could see clear to the front,” said the guardsman. “No reason to ruin this guy's day.”

Cole started the engine and closed the door. He gave a little wave to the guardsman.

The guardsman returned a little hint of a salute and said, “Godspeed.”

The problem with elections is that anybody who wants an office badly enough to run for it probably shouldn't have it. And anybody who does not want an office badly enough to run for it probably shouldn't have it, either. Government office should be received like a child's Christmas present, with surprise and delight. Instead it is usually received like a diploma, an anticlimax that never seems worth the struggle to earn it.

It was a surprise press conference—only an hour's notice—and nobody in the President's staff knew what it was even about. He hadn't even told Sandy—or if he did, her slightly irritated shrug when Cecily shot her a questioning glace was a very convincing cover-up.

As President Nielson approached the lectern, Cecily remembered ruefully that one thing LaMonte had always been good at was keeping a secret. He subscribed to the old adage that once you tell somebody—anybody—it's not a secret anymore. She tried to guess what was going on by seeing who shared the stage with him in the auditorium, but since it consisted of all the cabinet members who were in Gettysburg at the time, plus the House and Senate majority and minority leaders, it was clearly a big deal.
They
, at least, must know what was going on.

Oh. There was Donald Porter. They must have reached an agreement on letting him be confirmed.

“Thank you for coming on short notice,” said President Nielson. “Yesterday my good friend Donald Porter came to me and we had a good long conversation. At the end of the hour, it seemed clear that I could not dissuade him from his decision to withdraw his name from nomination to be the Vice President of the United States.”