Read Empire for Free Online Page A

help you. I’ve never even met him.”
    â€œBut you will,” she said. “And when you do, you’ll form your own conclusions about what he’s involved with.”
    â€œI can’t tell you anything that’s classified.”
    â€œYou can tell me whether I should worry, and how much.”
    â€œAbout his safety? Here in Washington?”
    â€œNo,” she said. “I deal with my fears for his safety in my own way. That’s not what worries me right now.”
    â€œIt’s that haunted look?”
    â€œMy husband is a patriot. And a born officer. He is not troubled by the things he does to defend his country. He has killed people, even though he’s a gentle man by nature, and yet he does not wake up screaming in the night from combat flashbacks, and he doesn’t lash out at the children, and he shows no sign of traumatic stressdisorder. I know what he looks like when he’s worried about his own safety, or when he’s intense about fulfilling an assignment, or when he’s annoyed at the stupidity of superior officers. I know what those things do to him, how it shows up in his behavior at home.”
    â€œAnd this is new.”
    â€œCaptain Cole, what I want to know is why my husband feels guilty.”
    Cole didn’t know what to say, except the obvious. “Why do husbands
ever
feel guilty?”
    â€œThat’s why I haven’t confided these worries of mine to anyone. Because people will assume that I’m assuming he’s having an affair. But I know for a fact that this is impossible. He feels guilty. He’s torn up inside about something. But it’s something to do with work, not with me, not his family, not his religion. Something about his present assignment is making him very unhappy.”
    â€œMaybe he’s not doing as well at it as he thinks he should.”
    She waved that thought away. “Reuben would talk about that with me. We share self-doubts with each other, even if he can’t go into the specifics. No, Captain Cole, he is being asked, as part of his work, to do something he fears may be wrong.”
    â€œWhat do you think it might be?”
    â€œI refuse to speculate. I just know that my husband has no qualms about bearing arms for his country and using them. So whatever he’s being asked to do that he hates, or at least has serious doubts about, it
isn’t
because violence is involved. It’s because he isn’t in full agreement with the assignment. For the first time in his military career, his duty and his conscience are in serious conflict.”
    â€œAnd
if
I find out, Mrs. Malich, I probably can’t tell you what it is.”
    â€œMy husband is a good man,” she said. “It’s important to him to be a good man. He has to not only
be
good, he has to
believe
that he’s good. In the eyes of God, in my eyes, in his parents’ eyes, in his own eyes.
Good
. What I want you to do for me is tell me if he’s not going to be able to get through this project, whatever it is, believing that he’s a good man.”
    â€œI’d have to know him very well to be able to assess that, ma’am.”
    â€œHe asked for you to be assigned to him for a reason,” said Mrs. Malich. “A young Special Ops hotshot—that describes you, yes?”
    â€œProbably,” said Captain Cole, shaking his head.
    â€œHe wouldn’t take you out of the front line, where you’re needed, if he didn’t think you’d be needed
more
working for him.”
    That was logical, if Malich was indeed the man his wife thought he was. It gave Cole the reassurance he needed.
    â€œMa’am,” he said, “I’ll keep your assignment in mind. Along with whatever assignments he gives me. And what I
can
tell you, consistent with my oath and my orders, I certainly
will
tell you.”
    â€œMeanwhile,” she said, “let me assure you that you do
not
have