“Before he was a martyr,” said Babe, “he was already a hero many times over. I think when kids have lost their dad, they need to know who he was and why it’s important that he did the things that made it so he can’t come home anymore.” He smiled a little. “I know. My dad died in the Gulf War.”
Eventually they all came. And came back. Along with other friends of Reuben’s from the military. And she began to get visits from military wives that she’d known on various assignments.
But Cole didn’t come.
At first she wondered why—was a little hurt, even.
Then she realized that Cole might have fought with these guys, but he didn’t really feel like part of the group. He had been added in.
And then she remembered telling him she wanted to talk to him, and then changing her mind. Maybe he interpreted that as my having changed my mind about wanting to see him.
Or maybe he’s busy.
I’ll call him.
But she knew that he was different from the other guys. Because he had been with Reuben those last three days. When the President died. In New York. And in the Pentagon, when DeeNee shot Reuben down. If he came over, she would tell him. Even though she couldn’t prove anything. She’d tell him because she had to tell somebody.
But not yet.
She watched the news assiduously, as she always had.
All the movements to recognize the Progressive Restoration died with the arrest of Aldo Verus. Vermont’s legislature didn’t bother rescinding their resolution because, as their attorney general assured everybody, it had no binding legal force anyway.
America watched with Cecily and her children as the Progressive Restoration forces in New York surrendered peacefully after two days of dithering—and after the city council voted unanimously to declare them to be traitors and request them to leave their territory.
And more and more evidence came out, exposing Aldo Verus’s network of influence and financial control. Many organizations dissolved themselves; others repudiated the financing they had received from Verus and pretended they hadn’t known where it came from and that it certainly shouldn’t be taken as any link between them and Verus’s abortive revolt.
Verus himself waited in a special prison as his hand underwent repeated reconstructive surgeries and he was kept on continuous suicide watch.
The children lost interest. The war was over.
But Cecily kept watching, with special interest in Averell Torrent.
She wasn’t all that unusual. Torrent was enormously popular. Almost movie-star popular. And he was handling it all so brilliantly. There had been talk right from the start about giving the Republican presidential nomination to Torrent, though there were also grumblings about how nobody even knew where he stood on abortion, on marriage, on taxes, on immigration, on anything except defense.
But whenever reporters asked him if he was seeking the Republican nomination, he’d answer, “I’m not a member of any party. I’m not seeking any nomination.” And then he’d walk away.
Then, in an interview on Fox News, O’Reilly said, “All right, Mr. Vice President, I’m going to ask you point-blank. Remember, this is the no-spin zone.”
“I never forget that, Mr. O’Reilly.”
“If the Republicans nominate you, will you accept the nomination and run for President?”
“No spin,” said Torrent.
“And no evasions, please.”
“Here’s the thing. I believe in democracy. Hard-fought elections. But right now—this country’s been on the brink of war. No, we were over the brink. Shooting had begun. And what was it about? The same divisive, vicious, 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?”
“I’ve read a lot about Augustus and Trajan, since getting these notes translated,” said Cecily. “They were great emperors. Not cruel. They really did seem to want to maintain stability within the empire. Bring Rome to its true destiny. Improve life for everybody.”
“So they were decent guys.”
“But they were dictators, Cole. They played up to the people. To the army. To the Senate. They kept themselves popular. They also had their opponents murdered. They stayed in office till they died. And once you’ve got an emperor, even a good one, you can’t be sure the next one will be an Augustus or a Marcus Aurelius, or a Trajan or a Hadrian.”
“Could be Nero,” said Cole. “Caligula.”
“Then I keep thinking—am I being Brutus? He and his friends were worried about Julius Caesar becoming dictator, and so they conspired to murder him to save the republic. But his death just launched the civil wars that brought Octavian to power, that renamed him Augustus and put an end to democracy.”
“Such as it was, in Rome.”
“It was a lot, for those days,” said Cecily. “And it’s a lot for us, too. They’re going to nominate him, Cole. You know they are. Both parties. He’s going to run unopposed.”
“The two-party system isn’t going to die in one election.”
“If we have another.”
“Come on.”
“Oh, he’ll allow another election, and another, and another. Augustus kept all the forms of the republic. He just made sure that nobody was nominated that he didn’t approve of. He kept control of the army.”
“Torrent doesn’t have that, I can assure you.”
“I know. I’m just worried about nothing. Except.”
“Except what?”
“What if Torrent’s benign image is just that? Just an image?”
“You said he had a history. What?”
“He’s been teaching a long time. And he’s a noted teacher. His books are very popular. So all of this might be coincidence.”
“All of what?”
Cecily handed him a list of names.
The first name on the list was Aldo Verus. He had attended two seminars of Torrent’s, years ago—seminars called “History for Future-minded CEOs.” Cole hadn’t heard of most of the rest of the people, but Cecily provided a description of their activities along with their link to Torrent. They were all prominent in the Progressive organizations that were tied to Verus.
“He had a lot of students,” said Cole.
“I know. I said so, didn’t I? But the thing is, he did have these students.” She handed him another sheet. It contained only two names.
Reuben Malich and Steven Phillips. “I’ve talked to Phillips.”
“He’s not in jail?” asked Cole.
“Nobody can prove that he knew any more than Reuben did what was being shipped and to whom and from whom. I’m not inclined to press it with him, because then people might press it with Reuben, and I know he didn’t know.”
“Me, too,” said Cole.
“Phillips says that Torrent asked him if he’d be interested in being approached for some extra assignments. Just like Reuben.”
“But Torrent didn’t actually give him any assignments.”
“He just asked if he’d be interested. He said the people would use his name. But when the approach came, they didn’t mention Torrent. Same with Reuben. So Phillips—and Reuben—were never sure if these people had been sent by Torrent or not.”
“But they took the assignments.”
“Because they thought the assignment was from the President. And because… because it was secret and exciting and… these are men, Cole. And in the back of their mind, they thought it probably was from Torrent, and they knew he was such a brilliant guy, everything must be on the square.”
“As if brilliant equals good.”
“Exactly,” said Cecily. “But we still don’t know if he had anything to do with it. And we don’t know who the people who approached Reuben and Phillips even were. Phillips doesn’t know, anyway, and Reuben never said and never wrote down anything.”
“So Torrent may or may not be involved with Verus.”
“No, that’s not the point,” said Cecily. “I’m almost sure he’s not part of Verus’s operation. Verus was in control of everything about his operation. People reported to him, and he reported to God. Or history. Whatever he believed in. Not to Torrent. And can you imagine Torrent reporting to him?”
“Maybe. It’s possible.”
“I don’t think so,” said Cecily. “You met Verus.”
“I didn’t see him at his best.”
&n
bsp; “But can you imagine that if Torrent worked for him, Verus would sit still for Torrent being nominated by both parties? Essentially handed the presidency?”
“Of course he would,” said Cole. “If it means he wins after all.”
“Okay, maybe,” said Cecily. “But I don’t think so. Because of this.”
She handed another sheet of paper to Cole. It had only one name on it. DeeNee Breen. Took a class with Torrent as an undergrad at Princeton. Got an A.
Cole felt sick. “But it was just a class.”
“From Torrent. At Princeton. Coincidence. Lots of students took classes from him. Not all of them murdered a major in the U.S. Army, but I know I’m reasoning backward. It’s no proof of anything. It’s just… I had to tell somebody. I had to show somebody or I’d go crazy, watching Torrent do this—this rocket ride to supreme power.”
“Who would keep a secret like this?” said Cole. “This conspiracy would be too—”
“Cole,” said Cecily, “who would believe Verus could bring off his conspiracy? Anyway, I don’t know if it was a conspiracy. It might have been more like some kind of evil Johnny Appleseed. Torrent might just have gone around planting seeds. Who knows what he said to Verus that maybe provoked him. Like, ‘You talk about how committed you are, Mr. Verus, but you don’t do anything. You took the name of a Roman Emperor, but you act like a lobbyist.’ That’s the way he talked. Challenging. Goading. He goaded Reuben. Called him ‘soldier boy’ all the time. It made Reuben all the more eager to prove himself to Torrent.”
Cole remembered that day when Torrent led them through the reasoning process that pointed to Chinnereth and Genesseret. “You’re saying that he already knew where Verus’s operations were?”
“No, no, that’s the beauty of it. He goads Verus. Makes him read history books that will point him to certain courses of action. But he isn’t actually in on it. I think he really did figure out where Verus was exactly the way he showed us. Maybe he had some scrap of inside information—after all, he was NSA, he had access to intelligence reports that he wouldn’t necessarily share with us. But he wasn’t in on it, any more than he was directly in on what Reuben and Phillips were doing.”
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