"Since leaving your employ, do you know where the engineers and scientists who worked on your EMP device went?" asked Cecily.
"What makes you think they've left my employ?"
"You're in here," said Cole.
"But they weren't my valet or my barber, thrown out of work because I'm 'inside,' as they say. They worked for one of my corporations—a dummy corporation then, but we undummied it when the need for concealment vanished."
"When was that?" asked Cecily.
"When I was arrested."
"Actually, secrecy was the hallmark of your trial, Mr. Verus," said Cecily. "You told nothing about your operations."
"Well, nobody likes a tattletale."
"So they still work for you?"
"I said they might," said Verus. "Who's asking?"
"Not President Torrent," said Cecily.
"Ah," said Verus. He closed his eyes for a few moments. Then, eyes still closed, he started talking. "You come to me for information. Yet you could ask Averell for all the information about all my interrogations. Why don't you ask him? Because you don't want him to know you're prying into my past actions. And why wouldn't you want him to know?"
"Of course he knows," said Cecily.
"So you told him you were coming to see me?"
"No," said Cecily.
"Exactly," said Verus. "If you had told him what you were doing, you could have gotten in to see me much more easily than the process you used. So you are here to ask me questions without your boss knowing you're talking to me."
"We assume he knows," said Cole. "He has a way of knowing everything."
"But you weren't going to make it easy for him, no. So you're not here as his representatives. In fact, you're probably representing another side. Another set of interests."
"Our own," said Cecily.
"Yes, yes, of course, everybody's always representing their own interests, ultimately. But you don't have any personal business with me. Unless you're looking for funding to start a cookie business, Mrs. Malich?"
That seemed to unnerve Cecily; she glanced quickly at Cole.
"Aha!" said Verus. "So you have cookies between you! An affair, not of the heart or of the bedroom, but of the palate!"
Cole raised his hand just a little, to signal to Cecily not to let him get under her skin.
"Yes, Mrs. Malich, don't get your dander up," said Verus. "Cole has serious business to conduct here." Then, in a fake deep babytalk voice, like Shirley Temple trying to imitate a grown man,Verus said, "What's your business, Mr. Coleman? Do you want to set up a company manufacturing nonmilitary Bones and Noodles to provide mobility for cripples?"
Cole shook his head. "I assume you're probably already doing it."
"Exactly," said Verus. "We had a prototype exoskeleton better than the Army's before we began our attempt to restore majority government. We proved our weapons-design capability, and now that branch of my operations—despite the unfortunate arrest and imprisonment of a significant portion of my staff—has more customers than it can handle. And one of the things we're working on is a civilian-friendly version of the exoskeleton to provide arthritics the ability to open a screw-off cap."
"Mr. Verus," said Cecily, using her stop-goofing-off-now-kids voice.
"We can end the interview right now," said Verus, "or we can conduct it in whatever way amuses me. Because it does amuse me, to see the two of you going off the reservation."
"We're not—" Cecily began, but Cole talked over her.
"Mr. Verus, our mission is personal in a way, but it has to do with Africa. Almost as soon as our exoskeletons were deployed, we were enticed into a trap at the American embassy in Bangui. We assume this was intended as the first real-world test of the effectiveness of the handheld EMP against our Bones."
"How did it do?"
"If you made them, you already know," said Cole. "Even if you didn't, you probably already know."
"Well, I do know a lot of things," said Verus. "I even know your fellow soldiers—the ones that were with you when you—what do we call it?—busted me."
That silenced Cole. But Cecily didn't realize the implications Cole saw. "Mr. Verus, we want to know how the Sudanese got word that our soldiers in Calabar were debilitated with sickness."
"Oh, come on, all of Africa knew by then, I even knew. I remember thinking, Oh my, those soldiers must be sitting ducks. I'm surprised their commander didn't bring in another force to protect them. What an oversight. Not very clever, for a modern major general." Verus leaned closer to Cecily. "If I were you, I'd have to wonder if Coleman somehow set up his own base to be targeted. You notice he wasn't in the building when the intruders got in, or any useful member of his 'jeesh.' And he did make sure that outside help was at least fifteen minutes away. They had the layout of the whole place and knew exactly where everything was. I think the fingers point at Coleman."
Cole rose from the table. "We're done here," he said.
"Struck a nerve, did I?"
"Come on, Cecily, we don't have a moment to spare."
"Oh, Colonel Coleman, have I hurt your feelings that badly? Don't you know a joke when you hear one? Though there are people in the Pentagon dining out on that particular rumor."
Cecily looked flummoxed, even a little angry, but she followed Cole out of the room. "What is this," she asked Cole as they went back through security. "He makes an absurd accusation against you, and you take offense?"
"What?" asked Cole. "No, no, it's what he said right before."
"I don't remember what he said right before."
"About the jeesh."
"It's not a secret that they call themselves that," said Cecily.
"He was toying with us, and he brought them up himself. 'I even know your fellow soldiers.' Now why would he say that?"
"Because he's a jerk and wanted to get under your skin. Or impress us both with the depth of his researchers' work."
"Cat and mouse," said Cole. "He thinks we're just mice, and he and Torrent are cats. So when he says he knows the jeesh, I believe him. What's the first thing they would have done, looking into Torrent's possible involvement on both sides in the civil war, years ago? Of course they put in a request to interview Verus. What if they made friends with him?"
"Oh, come on," said Cecily. "Those guys are not so dumb as all that."
"You saw how he was playing us, Cecily," said Cole. "On the spot, he spun out a scenario that makes me part of a conspiracy against my own men."
"And you said it didn't bother you."
"It didn't," said Cole. "It informed me. It tipped his hand."
"How? I don't see it?"
"It's how interrogation works, Cecily. You aren't looking for answers to your actual questions. You're looking to understand how his mind works. And Verus's mind works exactly like the conspiracy charges that our friends have laid against the President."
By now they were heading for the car. "Do you really think—they're getting this stuff from Aldo Verus?"
"Think about it, Cecily," said Cole. "They seem so absolutely certain, yet all they tell us is the same kind of ambiguous nonsense that Verus just used to attack me. It's pure crap—except for one thing. What if they heard it from Verus? Verus actually ran his side of the civil war. So he has enormous credibility if he starts implying that Torrent was in on things with him from the start, that everything that happened, happened by Torrent's design or with his consent or active help. He offers no proof, but they believe him because he is the proof. He would know!"
"Who would believe anything that man said?" asked Cecily.
"He didn't talk to them with that supercilious manner, Cecily. He talked to them in a way they would believe. 'I can't tell you anything, boys, or I'm afraid I'd be found to have succumbed to food poisoning or died of a preexisting heart condition in my cell. Certain people have a very long reach. But think it through for yourselves, boys? Who benefited most from everything that happened?' And thus he points the finger at Torrent, over and ove
r, and they begin to think about it and brood about it. Heaven knows it worked exactly that way with me. The more they hinted about Torrent, the more I began to wonder if they were right. It just gets to you."
"But aren't you leaping to conclusions, from one simple thing Verus said?"
"He said he knows our friends. There's no reason for him to say that, except to taunt us."
"How does that taunt us?"
"Because of what he knows our friends are about to do right now. Or, if I'm really unlucky, are already doing. Pardon me while I make a call."
Cole pushed a speed-dial number and Sergeant Wills came on the line almost at once. "Everybody's accounted for," said Wills. "Mingo, Babe, Load, and Drew are with training groups, and Arty and Benny are leading a group of visiting congressmen through the facility."
"Are they really?" asked Cole. "Check again, right now, and call me back if any of them aren't where they're supposed to be." He flipped his phone closed.
"You're having Sergeant Wills watch them?"
"I'm having him monitor their activities when they're at the training facility," said Cole. "It's part of his duty anyway to know where they are. And they know he knows me, that he's a protege of mine, not that I have the ability to protezh anybody these days. So I was expecting them to—"
The phone chirped. It was Wills. "The congressmen are being led around by somebody else. Benny got a call and made his excuses and he and Arty left."
"And the others?"
"You said to call if anybody was off the reservation."
"Check the others, but I'm assuming we have a situation.Thanks, Jeep." He hung up again.
"Jeep?" asked Cecily.
"Jeeps used to be made by a company called 'Willy's.' Wills, Willy's Jeep, Jeep."
"This nickname thing. Is 'sergeant' too hard to say?" said Cecily. "So what do you think is happening? The moment we happen to go see Verus, they choose that day to try to test the White House defenses?"
"What is the President doing right now?" asked Cole.
"This is too much of a coincidence," said Cecily. "And I don't know what the President is doing, he doesn't check with me."
"But you can find out better than I can."
"You have a cellphone of your own in his pocket."
"Only when I'm on assignment. Yours he carries all the time."
"And what am I supposed to say to him?"
Wills called again, and now it was certain: All six of them were gone, off the base. "Get me some eyes in the sky keyed to my code only, and make sure they're cut off from any visuals or chatter," said Cole.
"Got it," said Wills.
Cole broke the connection and resumed with Cecily where he had left off.
"I think you could suggest to Torrent that he stop whatever public thing he's doing in the Rose Garden or the White House lawn and get into the most secure place in the White House, while alerting his staff."
"He won't do it, not just on my say-so."
"Tell him it's my say-so—and if he has one of those handheld EMP devices in the White House, he's going to need it. Preferably six of them."
"I can't—this is a terrible accusation to make against our friends, Cole! I can't accuse them like this!"
"I was watching them. They certainly knew I was watching them. Therefore they were also watching me."
"That's ridiculous. If they were, wouldn't you know it, just as they knew you were watching them?"
"I did know it," said Cole.
"Who? Who was watching you?"
"You were, Cecily," said Cole.
"I was not!"
"You didn't know you were, but think about it. Didn't you tell at least one of them that you and I were going to talk to Aldo Verus today?"
"I might have, but why wouldn't I?" asked Cecily.
"There you are."
"You didn't tell me not to!"
"And if I did, what would you have thought?"
"That you were crazy to suspect them."
"And what would you have done?"
Cecily thought for a long minute. "I probably would have talked about the situation with Drew. To see if he could get you and the boys to be friends again."
"And the result would have been the same," said Cole. "They would have known where I was going to be at a certain time today. Inside a highly secure facility, talking to Aldo Verus for hours and hours."
"So this is really Aldo Verus's conspiracy? Not theirs at all?"
"No," said Cole. "No, Aldo Verus has learned from Torrent, or Torrent has learned from him, or heck, maybe all rich and powerful and smart guys know how to work this way. There's no conspiracy, no plan, not with Torrent or with Verus, because plans can be discovered and conspiracies crack. They just set things in motion. Plant seeds. And then watch very closely to see when the time is ripe for them to turn the resulting turmoil to their own advantage. Torrent really means it when he says that he would have prevented certain deaths if he could have. Not because he ever ordered their deaths, but because he set in motion the events—all the events—that led there, without knowing for sure that that was where they'd lead."
"This is all too complicated to believe," said Cecily.
"No, it's not. Conspiracy theories, they're too complicated. This is really quite simple. Torrent is able to respond quickly to the terrible things happening because in many cases he already knows that they might happen, because he set them in motion himself, years ago. He knew Aldo Verus was a loose cannon because he set him loose. He knew that somebody might use Reuben to make up their plan to kill the previous President, because he had mentioned Reuben to them as a guy to watch. He knows all the players, he knows their motives, he knows their capabilities, he doesn't have to know their plans, he simply recognizes what they're doing. The way I just recognized what Verus was doing."
"Then if he's so smart, why did he tip his hand?"
"Because he's a hand-tipper!" said Cole. "And Torrent is not. Torrent never tips his hand, but Verus has so much fun being Mr. Bigshot that he can't help tipping his hand, and that's why I might just get there in time to save the President's life. But only if you buy me time, because the jeesh will be working fast. They know I might catch on, so they're not wasting a second. So will you please call the President and get him to not be wherever it is they expect him to be?"
She must finally have believed him, at least enough to make the call, because she dragged up her purse and pulled out a disposable cellphone she didn't usually use and entered the whole number manually. "Ever since Aunt Margaret got through to the President using my phone, I buy disposable phones and throw them away after each call," she said.
"Expensive," said Cole.
"Secure," said Cecily. And then the President answered. "Cole has reason to believe that a six-man team of assassins with the ability to leap the White House fence and blast through any and all your defenses is on its way. He suggests that wherever you are in the White House, you should be somewhere else, and you should alert your security forces."
Cole reached over and took the phone. "Do not leave the White House, sir, whatever you do. If you're in a vehicle they can take it apart or blow it up. Only by hiding somewhere in the building are you safe. And call in serious military help, sir. The Secret Service is well equipped but they haven't trained to meet these guys."
Torrent was skeptical, of course. "Cole, these men are your friends."
"Sir, they gave me reason to suspect them months ago, and today all six of them are missing from where they said they would be. They have been listening to Aldo Verus's conspiracy theories about you, sir. They blame you for everything in the world, including the death of Reuben Malich and Reuben's son Mark. Now get somewhere deep in the White House where they won't expect you to be, and do it now, sir. I'll be there as soon as I can. You might tell the Secret Service to let me through, however."
"Will you also be jumping the fence? Because it'll be hard to tell you apart from them, Cole."
"I'll come in through
a defended position, and I'll show ID."
"I'm going to look very stupid if this turns out not to be real."
"It's conceivable, sir, that this is a hoax designed to turn me into the boy who cried wolf. If that happens, well, then I fell for it. But I couldn't not give warning, sir, or that would make me part of what they're doing, wouldn't it? Please go now, sir."
"I'm already going—do you think I was just standing there in the Rose Garden? The Secret Service is already rushing the Chinese ambassador out of the building, along with all the tour groups that happened to be here at the moment. And I'm heading—is this line bugged?"
"I doubt it sir, but I can't be certain—they all have access to Cecily's phone, if they want it."
"Then I will not tell you where I'm going to go. How will you find me?"
"I don't have to find you, sir. I have to find them. And they'll be making noise, if they're there at all. This will not be a stealth attack. It'll be brute force."
Cecily reached for the phone and Cole handed it to her. "Sir," she said, "is there any chance your security forces have any of those handheld EMP devices that were captured in Calabar?"
The answer must have been negative. "No reason, sir," she said. "It would have been convenient if they were there, that's all. But of course you had no reason to suspect you'd need them. See you in a few minutes. We're crossing the Key Bridge right now." She pressed the end button.
"I wish you hadn't said that," said Cole.
"Why?"
"Because if they're listening—and if they're tied in with Verus, someone almost certainly is—they know how much time they have. Because traffic's a bitch on M Street this time of day and my car doesn't have a siren."
"We could take K Street, the Whitehurst Freeway."
"It's so complicated to get on it from here, it wouldn't save us any time."
Traffic was backed up waiting for the Thirty-third Street light to change, and Cole pushed the trunk button and got out of the car.
"Get into the driver's seat, Cecily, and get to the White House as soon as you can. But please wait until I close the trunk."