"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?"