Correctness be damned. He simply wouldn't stand for his men and women being treated with anything but the utmost courtesy. If the fucking Ritz or the Savoy wouldn't have, say, Colonel Jones as a customer, then they could damn well get by without Kolhammer's money, as well. He tipped the bellhop and walked through to breakfast.
"You eating, Agent Flint?" he asked.
"No, sir," said Flint. "Stirling's always been more of a chow hound than me. I had a Twizzler on the plane."
A waiter met them at the entrance to the dining room, a huge sumptuous space that was about half-full. Kolhammer took a table and ordered a full hot breakfast with a pot of Jamaican coffee. Flint left him alone, taking up a station where he could see all the entrances and exits. Dan Black arrived just as Kolhammer's first cup of coffee was poured. The man looked like he hadn't slept in three days.
"I haven't, sir," Black said, when the admiral asked him. "Julia believes sleep is for the weak. She'd make a good Nazi, in many ways."
Kolhammer allowed himself a chuckle at that. He had no personal relationship with Duffy, but they had locked horns professionally a couple of times back in the twenty-first. She'd proved herself more than helpful after the Transition, however, and Kolhammer had come to appreciate having an indirect line into the national press via Duffy, through Black. It was amazing, really, the alliances he'd been forced to make.
"Any closer to setting a date for the big day?" he asked.
Black shook his head. "I'm beginning to think she has a-what do you guys call it?-a fear of commitment."
Kolhammer laughed out loud for the first time in days. "We do," he said. "We do. But I don't know if a lack of commitment is one of Ms. Duffy's defining character traits, Commander. She's just very focused. I think you'll find that, when the time comes, she'll throw herself into marriage with the same enthusiasm she brings to her work, you poor bastard."
Black looked more than a little worried at that. "You two have crossed swords before, haven't you, Admiral?" he said. "She speaks of you a lot. Calls you the Hammer."
"Yes, but does she say it with respect?"
"You can't have everything, sir."
"And therein lies the sorrow of existence, Commander. At least according to the Buddhists. There's no law says you can't have breakfast, though."
Black ordered bacon and eggs when Kolhammer's order arrived.
"So, you read the files I e-mailed you?"
"Yes, sir," said Black. "Read them on the train coming down. I've already made calls to Patton's staff, and to Eisenhower. Ike's on board, but I suspect that if we delay too long here in Washington, we'll get home to find that General Patton has made off with all of our prototypes and the test crews to drive them, colored or not. I've gone ahead and released the new 'chutes to the Hundred-and-first, though. I didn't think you'd have a problem with that."
Kolhammer chased a piece of sausage around his plate and shook his head. "That's fine. But I'll bet General Lee didn't leave it at that."
"No, sir. He wanted the assault rifles and the grenade launchers, too. They've done some training with the MK-One down in Kentucky. Lee's in town right now, trying to get Marshall to agree to reequip the whole division."
"Jesus Christ," muttered Kolhammer. "They're still months from being combat effective. Okay. Leave that one to me."
"What's your reading, sir, if you don't mind me asking. I've been out of touch."
Kolhammer blew his cheeks out in exasperation. "Well, first up, I don't think there is any chance of an invasion here. I know that makes me a minority of one, but the Axis powers don't have the ability to force a landing on the continental U.S. They do have a fair shot at taking Hawaii, and they will throw everything at England."
"Will they win?"
Kolhammer sighed. "They could. The odds are against them. It's the wrong time of year. They don't have air superiority. The Royal Navy can still kick Raeder's ass in a straight-up fight. And of course, there's always Halabi to consider. But it's not going to be a stand-up fight. The Luftwaffe can put two thousand aircraft over the Channel, which will severely constrain the British Home fleet, even with the RAF and the Army Air Force ripping into Goring's men. They've been just as busy leapfrogging themselves as quickly as we have."
Black nodded. One of the files Kolhammer had sent him was Captain Halabi's report of the jet and rocket attack on the Trident. She described the German weapons as primitive and their tactics nonexistent. But those 262s looked mighty impressive to Black, who'd learned his flying just ten years earlier in a canvas biplane.
"And Hawaii? Australia?"
Kolhammer looked grim as he mulled over his answer. "The signals we're getting from MacArthur about a second assault Down Under are bullshit. The Japanese do not have the depth to pull off two strategic strikes at the same time. But they'll benefit from any doubt they sow in our minds by making a move to surge more of their forces down from New Guinea. It complicates things enormously. The chances of Prime Minister Curtin releasing any forces to help us in retaking Hawaii are slim because of it."
"You think it'll come down to having to retake the islands."
"I'm afraid so," said Kolhammer. "I've got all my intel people working the take from Hawaii, and nothing I'm seeing makes me feel good about this. The Japanese definitely have control of the Dessaix, a French ship that was part of my original force. I don't think they have the crew helping them-or not many, anyway. The attack profile was a fucking shambles and seemed to indicate both a very low level of competence by whoever is sailing her, and possibly even active sabotage by somebody on the ship."
Black poked at his breakfast disconsolately. "Well it's not all bad, then."
"No," said Kolhammer. "But there's nothing good about it, either. The enemy won't have sent the Dessaix in harm's way without stripping her of everything that wasn't immediately needed for the strike. And that's a lot of technology off a ship like that. It's even possible they've removed whole weapons systems and given them to the Germans. I had to send a burst to Halabi warning her that she could face a missile strike out of France. You see the problem. It's like a demonic butterfly effect."
"A what?" asked Black, looking completely dumbfounded.
"Never mind," said Kolhammer. "Bottom line, things are about to turn to custard everywhere all at once… There's something else, too, Dan."
Black's food had arrived, but he really hadn't touched it. He looked up from the plate at the change in Kolhammer's tone.
"I received some information the other day. Through back channels. It's about Hoover."
Black's face was blank.
"We've had a lot of trouble with the Bureau in the Zone, as you know."
The commander nodded. He seemed genuinely in the dark about whatever Kolhammer needed to discuss.
"I was given a list of names, of people the Bureau had recruited or attempted to recruit as informants, provocateurs, and so on. Your name was on the list."
Black's eyes went wide, and he swore. The blood drained from his cheeks and then rushed back in as his whole body seemed to stiffen with an electric shock. "Me? Why me?"
Kolhammer's smile was tired, but real. He had no intention of hooking Black up to a polygraph or asking him to take a shot of T5. His security section had already determined the circumstances of the approach to Black.