Orson Card - Empire

“Because on this one,” said Torrent, “he’s not going to let anybody else control it. He’s micromanaging it, and he’ll be right at the center of power. Trust me, if the place exists, and it’s his, then he’s there.”

It dawned on Cecily. “You know him, don’t you? You know him personally. You know him well.”

Torrent looked surprised. “Of course. I assumed you all knew that. He’s been to several of my seminars. He hates me, but he learns from me.”

“Why does he hate you?” said Cecily. “You’re no more a Republican than I am.”

“Your example contains your answer,” said Torrent with a smile. “You’re no Republican, yet here you are. When I started consulting for the NSA, Verus accused me of being a whore and we stopped talking. Too bad, because he got it completely backward. Whores give out sex for money. Me, I’d give my advice for free. A chance to play with history? A chance to make a difference ?”

Cecily had never seen Torrent be so candid about himself. And it fascinated her. “Good heavens, Dr. Torrent. You think you’re Hari Selden.”

“Who’s that?” asked Drew.

Load and Babe both snorted as if Drew had revealed himself to be a complete idiot. “Asimov’s Foundation trilogy,” said Load.

“Guy who thinks he can shape a thousand years of human history,” said Babe.

“Oh,” said Drew disdainfully. “Science fiction. All those futures, with lots of little green men but no black people.”

“That’s Hollywood,” said Babe. “Because they think black stars won’t open sci-fi movies. The books are—”

“Please, boys,” said Cecily. “You’re preparing for an incredibly dangerous mission and you’re arguing about movies?”

“You brought it up,” said Load.

“Hari Selden,” muttered Babe.

But after the meeting broke up, Cecily could not help but wonder how right or wrong she might be. It wasn’t a bad thing to be Hari Selden, really. A man who manipulated history in order to save the human race from many centuries of misery and chaos. Hadn’t Reuben come home from Torrent’s class full of talk about what the Pax Romana meant to the world, and how miserable the chaos was afterward? And that was what Asimov’s Foundation trilogy was about, too. The Decline and Fall, set in the future.

Now here was Torrent, getting to play in the sandbox of history. Getting to shape events.

Well, that was a good thing, wasn’t it? A good thing he wasn’t on the other side. If Aldo Verus was really the other side’s mastermind, he was making Al Qaeda look like a bunch of Keystone Kops—both for cleverness and ruthlessness. America needed somebody like Torrent to balance the equation.

But it was still guesswork. Maybe it always came down to guesswork.

Gathered in a classroom at Gettysburg College, Rube’s jeesh knew only two things: They were going to Lake Chinnereth, and they had to do it without anyone knowing they had entered the state of Washington on a military mission.

If they were caught, it would be taken as provocation. The governor had posted the National Guard at all the entrance points, with airplanes overflying the rest of the border, and boats patrolling the Columbia River.

As Drew said, “It plain hurts me to be looking at a map of part of the U.S.A. in order to figure out how we can get U.S. Army ordnance across a state boundary line undetected. This is just wrong. No matter who’s President, we should be able to tell them to get their little National Guard boys out of the way, we’re the American Army on American soil!”

The others could only agree.

But the job still had to be done, right away. “We can’t enter from Canada,” he said, “and I think we should avoid Oregon. We get spotted there, it’s almost as bad as Washington itself—their legislature is debating a resolution right now.”

“So,” said Mingo, “it’s Idaho or the Pacific Ocean.”

“Idaho,” said Arty. “I don’t know nothin’ ’bout boats.”

“You want boats, send Marines,” said Benny.

Most of them were looking at ordinary highway maps of the Idaho-Washington border. Load was flipping through a stack of U.S. Geological Survey maps. Drew had Google Maps and Google Earth up on his laptop.

“We’ve got to come in on a legitimate road,” said Cole, “because once we’re inside Washington, we need to carry our ordnance in regular trucks, not the kind of all-terrain military vehicles that could get in cross-country.”

“We could come in with ATVs and then transfer to trucks.”

“Any way to hide everything under, like, potatoes?” said Babe. “Coming in from Idaho the way we are?”

“Not bad,” said Cole. “Let’s find out how potatoes are shipped from Idaho to Washington. But look at the map. The most direct route is Highway 12. Gets us from Idaho right to Lewis County. National Forest Road 20 leads right to Lake Genesseret. Road 21 leads to the eastern lake, Chinnereth.”

“Can’t go up those roads,” said Drew. “Probably the ones they use.”

“No,” said Cole. “We go in on National Forest Road 48 and then go a mile up 4820. Only a couple of us need to be with the truck. Everybody else goes in like birdwatchers or photographers, in rental cars, on different days, park in different places. We rendezvous here and then cross over the ridge.”

“We’re climbing that?” said Drew.

“You must have the vertical exaggeration set on ‘two,’ ” said Cole. “The ridge isn’t really that high.”

“High enough,” said Drew.

“So the guys with the truck,” said Benny. “If they screw up and don’t get there, then what?”

“Then the rest of you have binoculars and cameras,” said Cole.

“Take what pictures you can, email them in, and at least we know more than we did.”

“Two trucks,” said Drew. “Twice the chance of getting in.”

“Twice the chance of getting caught,” said Mingo.

“Either we can get in or we can’t,” said Cole. “We don’t want one of the trucks to go in by the second-best route.”

“And I bet you’re with the truck,” said Arty.

“We’ve been working together for a little while now,” said Cole. “I don’t care who goes in with the truck. There’s nobody here I wouldn’t trust for the job.”

“But you want to go,” said Arty.

“Don’t you?” said Cole.

“No way,” said Arty. “Trucks are great big targets. Trucks run over mines. Trucks get blown up.”

“They haven’t mined the roads,” said Babe, disgusted.

“Not at the border,” said Arty. “But the rebels? Up those National Forest roads they’re using?”

“Start killing park rangers in jeeps,” said Cole, “and somebody’d notice them. There are no mines.”

“What ordnance are we taking, anyway?” said Cat.

“Separate discussion,” said Cole and Drew at the same time. They laughed. “We’re on border crossing right now,” said Drew.

“Idaho and Washington got a lot of border,” said Mingo.