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Verus got to his feet, watching the chopper fly away.
When he turned around, he was holding a pistol, which he pointed right at Cole.
“Go ahead,” said Cole. “Let’s have the video of Aldo Verus shooting a United States soldier in the performance of his duties. Let’s have that at your treason trial.”
Verus lifted the gun toward his own head.
Cole shot him in the hand. It was a big heavy bullet and his hand exploded in blood. Verus screamed and fell to the ground, holding his hand and writhing.
“I’m a sharpshooter with the U.S. Special Forces,” said Cole. “You’re not getting away with shit.”
“More choppers,” said Cat. “Good guys this time.”
“Your transceiver still working?”
Cat switched it on. “Seems to be. Even wet. Cool.”
“Tell whoever’s doing liaison with the attack force that most of the people they want are in trucks out on Highway 12. And we have Verus.”
Cat made the call.
“Lie down on your belly and put your hands behind your back,” said Cole.
He frisked Verus, then started field-dressing his hand. The bones were pretty messed up inside. That hand would never work right again. Cole knew it was petty, but it made him feel a grim satisfaction. That’s for Rube. That’s for a bunch of cops and a doorman in New York. I hope it hurts you every day of your life.
Meanwhile, he got the bleeding stopped and the wound bound before one of the Blackhawks landed in the clearing to take Verus into custody.
TWENTY-TWO
LINKS
History is never proved, only supposed. No matter how much evidence you collect, you’re always guessing about cause-and-effect, and assuming things about dead people’s motives. Since even living people don’t understand their own motives, we’re hardly likely to do any better with the dead.
Keep testing your guesses against the evidence. Keep trying out new guesses to see if they fit better. Keep looking for new evidence, even if it disproves your old hypotheses. With each step you get just a little closer to that elusive thing called “the truth.” With each step you see how much farther away the truth is than you ever imagined it to be.
In only a few minutes, Cole told the colonel in charge of the task force everything pertinent that he knew, and Colonel Meyers assured him in return that they had already intercepted the convoys heading both directions up and down Highway 12.
“Good job capturing the command center intact,” he said. “And Verus alive. News teams already have him on film.”
“Broadcasting?” asked Cole.
“No way to keep it secret when we went across the border. Lots of uproar on the news about it. So Torrent preauthorized us to allow the embedded news teams to broadcast live any evidence that we had taken the right place. I decided Verus’s face qualified. Along with those rows of mechs still inside. And the convoys.”
“I look forward to watching the coverage,” said Cole.
“You’ve got no time for that,” said Colonel Meyers. “Torrent wants you to go straight back to New Jersey.”
“Jersey?”
“He wants you with the cops who go back in to accept the surrender of the city.”
“They’ve surrendered,” said Cole.
“Not yet,” said Meyers. “Which is why you’ve got time to get there.”
“But I have a prisoner,” said Cole.
“No, sir, I’m sorry. I have a prisoner. You have other orders.” Meyers put a hand on his shoulder. “But you trust these other guys of yours, right? They can stay right with Verus all the way to Montana. We’ll treat his wound and get him back to Andrews and they’re with him, all right?”
