Empire (19 page)

“But it wasn't your mission,” said O'Reilly.

“My mission is to defend the United States of America and its Constitution, sir,” said Cole. “It was being attacked, and there was nobody else close enough to make a difference. Rube and I—Major Malich and I, we both keep thinking, what if we'd chosen a different target. Driven a little faster. Run harder. Shot sooner. One second, and maybe we could have stopped it.”

“In my book you
are
a hero, Captain Coleman,” said O'Reilly. “Heroes don't always succeed. They're the ones that try.” Then he took a commercial break with the promise that there'd be more with Captain Cole after the ads.

“So far so good,” said Cecily.

“He didn't go to Fox News to talk about the Tidal Basin,” said Reuben.

When the show came back on, it wasn't just Cole on the screen. There was also an inset showing General Alton. “Joining us from our Washington studio is General Chapel Alton. Thanks for joining us, General.”

“It's an honor to be on the program with Captain Coleman, sir,” said Alton.

“Oh, right, like he doesn't know what Cole's going to talk about,” said Reuben.

“It's television,” said Cessy. “War by other means.”

When O'Reilly turned to him, Cole briefly told about his lunch meeting with General Alton. Reuben liked the way he told it without anger, though a little bit of outrage did creep into his voice.

But then it was Alton's turn, and this guy was a pro. He showed no anger, either. In fact, he immediately apologized. “Captain Coleman
is a great soldier. I took him to lunch because I wanted to get to know him better. I knew his service record, which is excellent. I'd seen the video that everybody else has seen.”

“Did you say the things Captain Coleman tells us you said,” O'Reilly asked him.

“I warned him about what the media was going to do to him. We've already seen some of it on several news programs. Things that certain members of Congress are saying. Why were these two soldiers there in the first place, armed, in a city park? And of course Major Malich had already broken protocol and told
The Post
about his having designed a similar contingency plan, so that was hitting the fan, too. I warned him about the turmoil he was going to face.”

“Nothing about a coup? Stopping the media from casting aspersions on Captain Coleman and Major Malich?”

“In my effort to express sympathy with his predicament, sir, I'm sure I must have said things that Captain Coleman misconstrued. I'm sorry if I led him to a false impression about just how much support he was going to get. We believe in civilian leadership of the military in this country, period. I took it for granted that he would know that our support for him would stop at that line.”

O'Reilly turned to Cole. “Well, Captain Coleman? What do you say to that?”

“Don't get mad,” whispered Cessy.

“First,” said Cole, “I have to correct one thing—Major Malich and I were not armed. After we realized what was happening, we
obtained
arms from the ranger station in the park.”

“Don't digress, don't digress,” murmured Reuben.

“No, it's okay,” said Cessy. “He's establishing credibility.”

“I'm glad to hear that General Alton now disavows any of the plans he described to me at lunch today. I urged him to do so at the time. But I can assure you, Mr. O'Reilly, that there was no mistake. General Alton was quite specific. He regarded the assassination of the President and Vice President and Secretary of Defense
as a pretext for a left-wing assault on the Constitution. His plans were all designed to forestall that, he said. But they were quite specific.”

While Cole was talking, Alton made the mistake of doing some eye-rolling. “Bad form, General,” said Cessy. “Makes people dislike you. Makes people think you're lying.”

There was a little more back and forth, with Alton showing a little anger—not much, just enough to weaken him.

“This is a guy who does congressional hearings,” said Cessy. “I'm surprised he's letting it get under his skin.”

“It's because he's lying,” said Reuben.

“Oh, come on. Like they don't lie to Congress.”

“They
spin
to Congress.”

“Well, he's spinning this, too, isn't he? ‘I'm sure it's just a misunderstanding. ‘That's fartspeak for ‘I said it, you jerk, but you weren't supposed to tell.' ”

“ ‘Fartspeak'?”

“That's what we called it on the hill,” said Cessy.

But now Cole was speaking again. O'Reilly had just given his famous “I'll give you the last word” line, even though he usually said something after them so it wasn't last after all.

“I'm talking to all the soldiers who watch your show, Mr. O'Reilly. Remember, you're citizens first. Citizens of a country where the military doesn't decide things, the elected people do. If we break that rule they'll never trust us again. The country might be screwed up, but if you get an order to point your weapon at Americans who are just doing their job, don't obey that order. Point your weapon at the guy who gave it.”

For a moment, O'Reilly was speechless. Maybe even breathless. “I pray to God nobody ever needs that advice in this country, Captain Coleman.”

“Me too,” said Cole.

And then they were off to more ads.

“Think Cole's gonna get his own TV show now?” said Reuben. “Like Ollie North?”

“He was great. Gave me chills.”

“Yeah, but I got chills for another reason.” Reuben pressed the rewind button on the DVR. “Watch Alton while Cole is making that last speech.”

He waited for Cessy to see it, but she didn't. So he showed it again. “Look. He's enjoying it. See?”

“No, that's a supercilious smile. He's mocking it.”

“Right, at the start. But now—see how it changed?”

“He was just tired of holding the expression.”

“He's happy about something,” said Reuben. “He just lost this interview. Cole owned it. Not that everybody believes Cole, but they believe him enough and dislike Alton enough that they're going to want to know about it—and Alton's happy.”

“Because he thinks he won.”

“You're probably right,” said Reuben. “But like you said, he testifies in front of Congress and shows nothing. But here he rolls his eyes, he smirks. And then, when it's over, and he damaged himself, he's
satisfied
.”

“What would that mean?”

“I don't know,” said Reuben. “But I think we've been played.”

“For suckers?”

“Like a violin.”

“Why would somebody
possibly
want you to announce that they're planning a coup against the United States government?”

“It makes no sense,” said Reuben. “But still. It's like when you're face to face with a guy who might or might not have a gun under his robes or a bomb strapped to his body and you look him in the eye. You got to be able to read him. Alton reads wrong. That's all.”

Cessy thought about it in silence for a while. Reuben had long since learned that if he filled such silences with talk, she would leave the room in order to be able to think, and then he wouldn't be there to hear whatever it was she thought of as soon as she thought of it.

“It's like what LaMonte said about how he could make this thing go away. It just didn't sound like him. There's something wrong.”

“Maybe,” said Reuben, “just maybe. It's not a coup. It's a grab.”

“I'm sorry, your high-level military jargon just defeated me.”

“A coup is where they arrest the President and replace him. But a grab is where the President is actually in charge of the coup, and he uses the Army to arrest everybody he thinks is a threat.”

“No,” said Cessy. “No, no, and no.”

“Not possible?”

“Not LaMonte Nielson. Truly, Reuben. I know the man.”

“Knew him. Back then.”

“Core character. He's a very deft and ruthless politician, but he stays inside the lines. He loves the Constitution. He would never.”

“Unless he thinks he's Abraham Lincoln and the country needs to have some of the lines crossed a little.”

“He's President for barely a day and he's planning a military dictatorship?”

A new thought occurred to Reuben. “I hate to say what I'm thinking.”

“I know what you're thinking and you may consider that this time I
screamed
‘no no no.' He had nothing to do with the assassination.”

“Well
somebody
had something to do with it.”

“Not him.”

“Somebody really wanted LaMonte Nielson to be President.”

“Or maybe somebody really wanted the President and Vice President dead and they didn't care who was next in line.”

“LaMonte only became Speaker about three months ago, right?”

“There's been a lot of turnover at that job.”

“How long do you think this assassination was planned?” said Reuben. “They had to drill those guys. They did not stop to think about anything. They had practiced hauling up the watertight cases and opening them and assembling everything. They knew down to the footstep where to place those launchers, exactly what angle to point them at. They did it like machines. How many months do you think they've been practicing that?”

“I don't know,” said Cessy. “How long ago did you finish your plan?”

Reuben thought and couldn't remember. He opened his PDA and she scoffed. “Oh, come on, you can't be that paranoid.”

“President's dead using my plan,” said Reuben. “It's not paranoia.”

“All right, I'll look up the exact date when the previous Speaker stepped down.”

Reuben followed her to the computer. “March fourth is when I started showing around a draft that had the Tidal Basin plan in it.”

“March tenth,” said Cessy. “That's when the job came open. March thirteenth LaMonte got the nod.”

“So he wasn't put in as Speaker of the House until they had the plan they'd use to make him President.”

“No,” said Cessy. “No.”

“How do you
know?
”

She looked at him with defiance. “The same way I
know
that you had nothing to do with the assassination plot, even though you wrote the plan they used, even though you're always gone on mysterious trips and late-night meetings and you can never even hint what you're doing. Do you want me to trust that instinct or not, Reuben?”

It took him aback. It hadn't occurred to him that it might actually be hard for her to be certain of him.
He
knew he had nothing to do with the assassination—not deliberately, anyway—but when he thought of how all his activities must look to her, it said something that she believed him. Why
should
she believe him?

Would I believe me, if I didn't know what I know?

He put his hand on her cheek. “Trust it,” he said. “And I'll trust your instinct about LaMonte Nielson, President from Idaho.” He forced something like a laugh. “It's really kind of like
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
. Farm boy makes good.”

“No,” said Cessy. “LaMonte is the consummate insider. He's no Jimmy Stewart. But he doesn't cheat. And he doesn't kill. And he liked the President. Liked him before he was elected. LaMonte is solid.”

“And yet it was
you
, not me, that made the connection between Alton's attitude and what Nielson said to you on the phone.”

“You haven't yet thanked me for turning down the coolest job I will ever have offered to me.”

“I thought you already had the coolest job.”

She pursed her lips.

“You mean doing meals and dishes and errands isn't
cool?
”

“It's the most important job in the world. That's why I turned down the
coolest
job in order to keep doing this one.”

Reuben's cellphone rang. One of the new ones. “Cole,” he said to Cessy. And then into the phone he said it again. “Cole.”

“Please tell me I didn't completely screw up,” said Cole.

“No, you did great,” said Reuben. “Kept your cool. Just enough fervency to show you care. Guys out there who might be wavering about joining this coup, I think you might have persuaded some of them not to do it. Maybe a lot of them.”

“Or maybe I started some mutinies. Maybe people will die.”

“People do what they do,” said Reuben. “What you did was remind them of honor.”

“Yeah,” breathed Cole. “I didn't know for sure they were going to have General Alton on until right before.”

“Well, if you'd bothered to call me first, I could have told you, of course they'd offer him a chance to answer you. Talking heads are bad television, nose to nose is good television.”

“Sure, but I didn't think he'd do it. If you could have seen him yesterday! It's like he's a different guy. What a liar.”

“Yeah,” said Reuben. “But which one was the lie?”

Silence for a long time.

“You think I was being set up?”

“Why should I be the only one?”

“Now that I think about it,” said Cole. “He was so over the top. It's like he studied the right-wing fanatic playbook. He even said ‘faggots.' ”

“And dykes?”

“No. I guess he drew the line somewhere. He played me? You really think so? But why?”

“I don't know. I don't know if he played you, and if he did I don't
know why. But one thing's for sure. The assassination of the President was a terrible thing, but it is not causing so much confusion that there's any excuse for the military to seize power. If there
is
a coup, it's just a naked grab for power. In fact, if there's a coup, then we can almost count on it that whoever carries it out, that's who gave my plans to the terrorists. That's who tipped them off about the President's location.”