Roosevelt got there about fifteen minutes later. He wheeled himself into Flora's inner office and closed the door behind him. "What's going on, Franklin?" she asked.
"Well, I'm afraid I have bad news, and I wanted you to hear it straight from me," the Assistant Secretary of War said. "The Confederates landed raiders in Washington State-we think by submersible-and they fired a good many mortar rounds at the uranium project."
"Gevalt!" she exclaimed. "How bad is it?"
"They did some damage, damn them. We're still trying to figure out just how much," Roosevelt replied. "Two or three mortar bombs hit one of the dormitories, too. We lost some talented people, and they won't be easy shoes to fill."
"How close are we? Can we go on without them?"
Franklin Roosevelt shrugged broad shoulders. "We have to. And we're getting very close. I don't know how much this will delay us. I'm not sure it'll delay us at all. But I'm not sure it won't, either." He spread his hands. "We just have to see."
"What about the Confederate project? Are we delaying it?"
"If we're not, it isn't from lack of effort. That town will never be the same, and neither will that university. But they're burrowing like moles, putting as much as they can underground. That's delaying them all by itself. They haven't quit, though. I don't think that bastard Featherston knows what the word means."
"They won't get another chance to do this to us. They've already had too many," Flora said.
"Charlie made a good speech there," Roosevelt agreed. "I bet Jake Featherston's mad enough to spit rivets."
"Shall we see?" Flora reached for the knob on her wireless set. Even after it warmed up, static stuttered and farted as she turned the tuner to a frequency Featherston often used. The USA and CSA kept jamming each other's stations as hard as they could. Richmond's main transmitter, though, punched through the jamming more often than not.
Sure enough, the Confederate President came on the air right away. "I don't need to tell you the truth, on account of Charlie La Follette just did it for me," Featherston snarled. "The truth is, he aims to wipe the Confederate States clean off the map. Charlie La Follette thinks he's Abe Lincoln. Turned out Lincoln couldn't wipe us out. Old Charlie'll find out the hard way he can't, either. I know the Confederate people won't let the country down. They never have. They never will. And Charlie La Follette will hear from us real soon now. You bet he will. So long."
He wasn't kidding. At least a dozen long-range rockets slammed into Philadelphia in the next few minutes. One of them missed Congressional Hall by alarmingly little. Flora felt the jolt in the soles of her feet. The rockets didn't announce themselves. They flew faster than sound, so the boom! when they went off was the first and only sign they were on the way.
After the salvo ended, Roosevelt said, "He can annoy us doing that, but he can't beat us. And we can beat him on the ground. And we are. And we will."
"But how much will be left of us by the time we do?" Flora asked.
The Assistant Secretary of War stuck out his chin. "As long as we have one man standing after he goes down, nothing else matters."
As long as the one man we have standing is my son, nothing else matters, Flora thought. But Franklin Roosevelt had a son in the Navy. Maybe he was thinking the same thing.
IV
M ajor Toricelli stuck his head into Abner Dowling's office. "Sir, you've got a call from Philadelphia."
"Do I?" Dowling viewed the prospect without delight. "What do they think I've gone and done now?" Calls from the War Department, in his copious experience, seldom brought good news.
But his adjutant said, "I don't think it's that kind of call, sir. It's General Abell. Shall I transfer it in here?"
"You'd throw a fit if I said no. So would he," Dowling said. A moment later, the telephone on his desk rang. He picked it up. "Abner Dowling here."
"John Abell, sir," said the voice on the other end of the line, and Dowling recognized the brainy General Staff officer's cool, cerebral tones. "I hope you're well?"
"Tolerable, General, tolerable," Dowling replied. "Yourself?"
"I'll last out the war," Abell said, which might have meant anything or nothing. "I have a question for you: how would you like to come back to the East and command an army in what we hope will be one of the decisive attacks of the war?"
How would you like to go to bed with a beautiful blonde who's passionately in love with you? Yes, there were dumber questions, but not many. "What's not to like?" Dowling asked.
And John Abell told him what there was not to like: "Your army-group commander would be General MacArthur."
"Oh," Dowling said. MacArthur had commanded a division in George Custer's army in the Great War while Dowling was Custer's adjutant general. When MacArthur led an army in northern Virginia this time around, Dowling had commanded a corps under him for a while. The two men didn't get along well-which was, if anything, an understatement.
"We could use you back in Virginia, sir," Abell said. "You have experience with aggressive offensive action, and you have experience fighting Freedom Party Guards. You'd do the country a service if you came back."
"And what would I do to myself?" Dowling asked. Brigadier General Abell didn't answer; he had to figure that out on his own. "Who would take over for me here if I left?" he inquired. "Still lots of work that needs doing."
"We were looking at giving Colonel DeFrancis a star and putting him in charge of Eleventh Army," Abell said. "He should handle it, and his coming from the air-operations side of things would be an advantage on such a broad front. Or do you think I'm wrong?" Is there anything about Terry DeFrancis we don't know? he meant.
"No, I'm sure he'll do a bang-up job." Dowling had to answer that quickly and firmly, so Abell would have no doubts. "He's a fine officer, and he knows the situation here, so he won't have to waste any time figuring out what's going on. He's young to make general, but wars do that."
"So they do," said Abell, who, like Dowling, had waited a long time for stars. "I'll see you here in Philadelphia, then, as fast as you can come. Orders will be cut by the time you get to the airstrip outside of Snyder. Take care." He hung up without waiting for Dowling's good-bye.
"Pack a duffel, Angelo," Dowling called to his adjutant. "We're on our way to Philly, and then to Virginia."
"Who takes over here?" Toricelli asked.
"Terry DeFrancis," Dowling replied. "My guess is, his telephone's ringing right about now."
Sure enough, DeFrancis' auto pulled up in front of Eleventh Army headquarters just as Dowling and Toricelli were ready to leave for the airstrip. "Congratulations on getting back to the real war, sir!" DeFrancis called as he jumped out.
"Congratulations to you, General," Dowling said. They shook hands.
"I've got a hot transport waiting for you at the field," DeFrancis said. "It'll take you up to Wichita. I don't know what they've got laid on for you after that, but General Abell sure sounded like he wants you in Philadelphia fast as you can get there."
Dowling and Toricelli threw duffel bags with enough personal belongings to keep them going for a little while into a command car. After one more handshake with DeFrancis, Dowling told the driver, "Step on it!"
"Yes, sir!" The corporal needed no further encouragement. He drove like a bat out of hell-perhaps like a bat a little too eager to go back there.
The two-engined transport took off with an escort of four fighters. Terry DeFrancis hadn't mentioned that. Dowling was grateful all the same. U.S. air power dominated the skies in west Texas, but the Confederates still got fighters up in the air every now and then. Even a hot transport was no match for a Hound Dog.