Instead of having the President descend on him like a ton of bricks, then, he had the head of the General Staff pay him the same kind of call. Potter jumped to his feet and saluted when Forrest barged into his office unannounced. Nathan Bedford Forrest III was not a man to cross, any more than his great-grandfather was said to have been.
"At ease," Forrest said, and then, "By God, General, once I started looking at your note, I started doubting whether anybody here would ever be at ease again."
"One of the things we've found out over and over again, sir, is that anything we can do to the Yankees, they can damn well do to us," Potter said. "We didn't believe it in the Great War, and look at the price we paid for that." Part of the price the Confederate States had paid was Jake Featherston. Potter still thought so, but not even he was bold enough to say so out loud.
"I don't think I much care for the sound of that," Forrest observed. "Do you think they could pull off an armored attack like the one that took us up to Lake Erie?"
"Give that Colonel Morrell of theirs enough barrels, for instance, and I expect he could," Potter answered. "One of the things that goes some little way towards easing my mind about what's building up to the north of us here is that Morrell's nowhere near it."
Forrest chewed on the inside of his lower lip as he thought that over. At last, he nodded. "A point. But that's not what I came here to talk to you about. Do you truly believe we've got us some damnyankee gophers digging out what we're up to here in the War Department?"
"Gophers." Potter tasted the word. He nodded, too-he liked it. He could all but see spies gnawing underground, chomping away at the tender roots of Confederate plans. "Unfortunately, sir, I do. Why wouldn't the United States want to do something like that? No reason I can see. And they'll have people who can sound as if they belong here, same as we have people who can put on their accent."
"You're one of those," Forrest said. "Every now and then, I get calls about you from nervous lieutenants. They think you're a spy."
"And so I am-but not for the United States." Potter allowed himself a dry chuckle. "Besides, I only sound like a Yankee to somebody who's never really heard one. I do sound a little like one, but only a little. Comes of going to college up there. That turned out to be educational in all kinds of ways."
"I'll bet it did," Forrest said.
"Sir, you have no idea how much in earnest those people were," Potter said. "This was before the Great War, you understand. We'd licked them twice, humiliated them twice. They were bound and determined to get their own back. That holiday of theirs, Remembrance Day… They wanted the last war more than we did, and they got it."
"Well, now that shoe is on the other foot," Forrest said. He was right. The Confederates had been whipped up into a frenzy of vengeance, while U.S. citizens hadn't cared to think about a new fight. The chief of the General Staff brought things back to what he wanted to know: "If we've got gophers, how do we find 'em? How do we go about getting 'em out of their holes?"
"I can tell you the ideal solution," Potter said. Forrest raised an eyebrow. His eyes and eyebrows were much like his famous ancestor's, more so than the lower part of his face. Clarence Potter went on, "The ideal solution would be for our gophers in Washington and Philadelphia to dig up a list of U.S. gophers here. That could solve our problem."
"Could, hell!" Forrest said. "That would do it."
"Well, sir, not necessarily," Potter said. "If the Yankees knew we were looking for that kind of list, they could arrange for us to find it-and to shoot ourselves in the foot with it."
Nathan Bedford Forrest III raised both eyebrows this time. "You have a damn twisty mind, General."
"Thank you, sir," Potter answered. "Considering the business I'm in, I take that for a compliment."
"Good. That's how I meant it." Forrest pulled a pack of Raleighs out of his pocket. He stuck one in his mouth and held out the pack. Potter took one, too. Forrest had a cigarette lighter that could have done duty for a flamethrower. He almost singed Potter's nose giving him a light. After they'd both smoked for a little while, the head of the General Staff said, "Something I want you to do for me."
"Of course, sir." Potter gave the only kind of answer you were supposed to give to a superior officer.
"If you get word that that Morrell is moving from Ohio to the East, I want you to let me know the instant you do. The instant, you hear me? I don't care if I'm on the crapper with my pants down around my ankles. You barge in there yelling,, 'Holy Jesus, General, the damnyankees have transferred Morrell!' "
Potter laughed. Nathan Bedford Forrest III wagged a finger at him. He wasn't kidding. "If I have to do that, I'll do it," Potter promised.
"You'd better." Forrest got to his feet. "And if you have any good ideas about how to make a gopher trap, I wouldn't mind hearing those."
"That's really more Counterintelligence's cup of tea, sir. I just wanted to alert you to the possibility," Potter said. "I don't want to step on General Cummins' toes any more than I have already."
"Oh, I'll put him on it, too. Don't you worry about that," Forrest said. "You've already done some thinking about this, though. Kindly do some more." Trailing smoke, he hurried out the door.
"Gopher traps," Potter muttered. He did some more muttering, too, while he finished the cigarette and stubbed it out. It wasn't as if he weren't already riding herd on 127 other things, all of which were in his bailiwick. And it wasn't as if General Cummins weren't a perfectly competent officer. Potter wanted to put the whole business on the back burner.
He wanted to, but he found he couldn't. He kept worrying at it in odd moments. It might have been a bit of gristle stuck between his teeth. It kept drawing his attention no matter how much he wished it wouldn't.
"Gopher traps." He kept saying it, too. If only Forrest hadn't come up with such a good phrase. It commanded attention whether Potter felt like giving it or not.
For the next few days, as he watched the growing U.S. storm in the north, he tried hard not to think about catching any possible spies in the War Department. He was, in fact, clacking away at a report summarizing news from spies in Kansas and Nebraska when he suddenly stopped and stared out the window, his eyes far away behind his spectacles.
His gaze returned to the report. It was as dull as it deserved to be. Not a hell of a lot was going on in Kansas and Nebraska. Not a hell of a lot had ever gone on in that part of the USA. In spite of that, he started to smile. In fact, he started to laugh, and the report had not a single funny word in it.
He walked over to Lieutenant General Forrest's office. The chief of the General Staff wasn't in the men's room. That being so, Potter had no trouble getting in to see him. The power of these wreathed stars, he thought. He'd never expected to become a general officer. He'd ten times never expected to become a general officer with Jake Featherston as President of the CSA. But here he was.
Nathan Bedford Forrest III looked up from whatever paperwork jungle he'd been hacking his way through. "Morrell?" he asked. "If he's up there, the other shoe'll drop on us any day now."
"No, sir. Haven't heard a thing about him." Potter shook his head. "I may have found a gopher trap, though."
"Well, that's interesting, too." Forrest waved him to a chair. "Why don't you sit down and tell me all about it?"
"Let me show you this first." Potter set the report on Kansas and Nebraska on Forrest's desk. "Glance over it, sir, if you'd be so kind." After Forrest did, he nodded. Potter explained. He finished, "You see how I could do that, don't you, sir?"
"I believe I do." Forrest looked the report over one more time. "It would mean a good deal of extra typing for you-because if you take this on, you're not going to trust it to a secretary."
"Oh, good heavens, no, sir. Of course not." Potter was shocked. "The thought never once crossed my mind."