"Yes, sir?"
"What he wanted me to tell you is that he is prepared to make the decision himself. But, for a variety of reasons, would much prefer it if he did not have to. The diplomatic repercussions, you understand."
Simpson nodded. "Yes, I understand. And the questions were?"
"The first question. Are you familiar with the history of your country? Especially its military history."
Simpson nodded again. "Fairly well, to the first. Very well, to the second."
"Good. The emperor told me that you needed to be able to answer 'yes' to that question, or the next one would be meaningless."
By now, John was intrigued. It was quite unlike Gustav Adolf to play games like this. The fact that he was doing so made it clear just how severe the "diplomatic repercussions" might be. He was not a man to shilly-shally and dance around a subject.
"And that question?"
Torstensson turned his head to look John. "The question makes no sense at all to me. But it's quite simple. The emperor wanted me to ask you if you were willing to take Florida for him?"
After a couple of seconds, Simpson began laughing softly. He even slipped into informality. "I have to tell you, Lennart, that's got to be the first time anyone ever compared me to that no-good class-baiting rabble-rousing bank-busting son of a bitch. But, yes. You can tell Gustav Adolf that I will be his Andy Jackson. I'll give him Florida on a plate, and if he needs to he can wash his hands of the whole thing and swear up and down he had no idea I was going to do it. Of course, just like Monroe did, he'll keep Florida. A fait accompli is what it is."
"Oh, splendid. No, no, please!" Torstensson held up both hands, and then brought them together as if in prayer. "Do not explain the specifics."
"I wasn't about to. You might very well be called upon to do some public hand-washing yourself."
"So I might. It's shocking, really, the sort of outrages that headstrong subordinate officers can commit when they take it upon themselves to act on their own initiative instead of remaining within the limits of sober official policy."
He lowered his hands and then gave Simpson a quick, stiff nod. Not quite a bow, but close.
"Should I not have the chance again, John, let me say that it has been a great pleasure to work with you."
Simpson rose and returned the nod. "Thank you, sir. One favor, though."
"Yes?"
"Whatever happens, please don't tell my wife about this conversation. My opinion of Andy Jackson is pallid compared to Mary's. On this subject, her blood runs as blue as the Danube is supposed to and doesn't."
"Ah. This Andy Jackson fellow was not favored by proper folk, I take it?"
"To put it mildly."
Quizzically, Torstensson cocked his head. "Yet… your own opinion of him is not so severe. Why is that?"
Simpson smiled. "The son of a bitch got us Florida, didn't he?"
Chapter 29
Thorsten hadn't hesitated in front of the door to the settlement house since the first time he'd visited, back in January. In the two months since then, he'd come to see Caroline Platzer every time he'd been able to get leave from the army's training camp outside the city. Six times, now, all told. Half of which he'd been able to spend a full day in her company; none of them, less than three hours. His friends in the volley gun batteries had taken to ribbing him mercilessly about it, with Eric Krenz leading the charge. Complete with every conceivable variation of a joke on the subject of brainless moths being drawn helplessly, with no willpower of their own, into the scorching flames of a lamp or a fire.
All that, Thorsten had ignored with no difficulty. To hell with them. He hadn't let the opinions of others deter him from pursuing a goal since, at the age of seven, he'd let one of his more timid cousins persuade him not to swipe an apple from the orchard of a neighboring village that everyone knew produced the best apples in the area.
Twenty years later, almost, and Thorsten could still taste what that apple probably would have tasted like. The very next day, he'd made a solemn vow to himself, in the way small boys will, that whatever else happened in his life he would not find himself on his deathbed passing into the afterworld with a cart-load's worth of regrets. He'd added a great many curlicues to that vow since, with the increase of wisdom that the years brought and a better recognition of what was realistically possible and what wasn't-but he'd never relinquished the heart of it.
Nowadays, of course, he could pass up a stolen apple without a second thought. But that was just a piddly fruit. Figuratively speaking, Caroline Platzer was the biggest and juiciest apple he'd ever seen in his life. Bigger and juicier than he'd ever imagined in his life.
Still, he hesitated. Not because the step he was about to take was irrevocable, but from a much deeper worry. Irrevocable steps came quite easily to Thorsten Engler. He was not in any way a man prone to indecision-nor was he a man who'd second-guess himself once he did make a decision.
The problem was far simpler, and perhaps intractable. Would the blasted Americaness understand what he was doing?
He'd wracked his brains for a month over the problem. He'd gone so far as to ask the advice and opinions of Eric and the rest of his soldier friends-and gotten nothing in return except more stupid jokes. He'd even gotten up the nerve to ask Gunther Achterhof, who, when the mood took him, could be the most savagely caustic humorist in the world.
Alas, while Gunther had been sympathetic, he'd been no help either.
"Sorry, Thorsten, I've got no idea. I'm afraid"-here the vulpine grin-"my relations with the Americans, although close in many respects, have never extended into this little area. What the up-timers would call a 'minefield,' by the way. They also talk about 'walking on eggshells.' What the first means-"
"I know what a minefield is," Thorsten growled. "We're starting to train on laying them as well as digging them out. The up-timers didn't even invent them, although-damn complicated people; too gnarly-brained to understand, half the time-I'll grant you they developed some fiendish elaborations. And why would any sane person be walking on eggshells to begin with? Stupid. Waste of good eggs, trampling them into the dirt-not to mention the pain of cleaning your shoes afterward. Crack them and put them in a pan. Only Americans would even think of such a silly expression."
"Oh, my. Disgruntled, aren't we?"
"I don't know what to do," Thurston said, between gritted teeth. "I'm certain she likes me. As a man, too, not just… you know. A friend. I'm certain of that, by now. But-but-"
"Yes, I understand. Where do you go from here? I take it you've gotten no indication from the lady herself?"
"Who knows?" Thorsten threw up his hands with exasperation. Fortunately, he remembered to relinquish the tightly gripped full mug of beer before he did so, or he'd have flung the contents onto the men at the next table. That would have produced a fight as well as waste of good beer. The fight, Thorsten wouldn't have minded at all, the mood he was in. But he was saving up all the money he possibly could from his sergeant's salary, and he could ill afford to throw away the beer.
"Who knows," he repeated, hissing a statement rather than a question. He took a draught from the beer. "Gunther, for all I know she might have been giving me signals every five minutes of every hour I've spent with her-and that's a lot of hours by now. But if she has, they're Americaness signals-and from three and a half centuries in the future, to make it still worse. Who can tell what she wants me to do? Or not do."
"Why don't you just ask her?"
Thorsten glared at him. Not because the proposal was insane-he'd considered it himself, at least a hundred times-but because…