"It's being taken care of, sir." Clarence Potter didn't bat an eye. He didn't lose any sleep over playing a dirty game. He understood you sometimes had to get answers any way you could. If that was hard on the bastard who didn't want to give them… well, too bad for him.
"All right," Featherston said. "And a good job on that sniper who shot Morrell."
"Not good enough." Potter said. "He's on the shelf, but I wanted him dead."
Potter was a perfectionist. Unless things went exactly the way he wanted them to, he wasn't happy. That was not the least of the things that made him so useful to the CSA in spite of his godawful politics. Featherston said, "By your report, the Yankees scooped him up and got him out of harm's way pretty damn quick."
"First shot should have finished him off." Yes, Potter was discontented. "One of our snipers would have. But this was so far in back of their lines, I had to rely on local talent-and the local talent wasn't talented enough."
"You'll have other chances at other officers," Featherston said. "If we can knock the brains out of the U.S. Army, it'll be that much easier to lick."
"Yes, sir. But the Yankees have figured out that that was an assassination try," Potter said. "I'd suggest you beef up security for our own best men."
"I've already done it," Featherston said. "And, to tell you the truth, there's a few generals I wouldn't mind seeing 'em knock off. I won't name names, but I reckon you can figure some of 'em out for yourself."
"Could be." Potter's voice and chuckle were dry. But he quickly grew serious again. "The other thing is, you ought to beef up your security, too. The war effort goes down the drain if we lose you."
"Don't you worry about my security. That's not your department, and it's tight as an old maid's…" Featherston didn't finish, but he came close enough to make Potter chuckle again. And the truth was, he didn't worry all that much about his security, at least not in the way Potter meant. If it was good enough to keep blacks and disgruntled Freedom Party men from knocking him off, it was bound to be good enough to hold the damnyankees at bay, too.
And if it wasn't… If it wasn't, Don Partridge became President of the CSA. Jake didn't think Partridge could run things, even if he did have the title. Who would? Ferd Koenig, from behind the scenes? Nathan Bedford Forrest III, from even further behind them?
Featherston only shrugged. If he wasn't there to see the unlucky day, what difference did it make to him? "Anything else?" he asked.
"Only the thought that, since the damnyankees didn't quit after we got up to Lake Erie, we might do better finding a peace both sides can live with than butting heads for God knows how long," Potter answered. "That kind of fight favors them, not us."
"I want your opinion on how to run my business, you can bet I'll ask for it," Featherston growled. "Till I do, you can damn well keep your mouth shut about it. So long, General Potter."
"So long, Mr. President." Potter wasn't the least bit put out as he left the office. He'd probably said what he'd said for no better reason than to rattle Jake's cage.
I don't care why he said it. He can goddamn well shut up about it, Featherston thought. Defiantly, he looked north. He'd taken Confederate arms where they'd never gone before, where none of his predecessors had ever dreamt they could go. He still intended to lick the United States, to lick them so they stayed licked. It might take longer than he'd thought when he set out, but that didn't mean he couldn't do it.
"I can, and I will," he said, as if someone had denied it. All he had to do to make something real was to want it, to keep going after it, and not to quit no matter what. Sooner or later, it would fall into his hands. I'm sitting here in the Gray House, aren't I?
He nodded. Even if the Whigs didn't like it, he was here. He belonged here. And he intended to take the Confederate States with him where he wanted to go. By the time they were someone else's worry, they would look the way he'd wanted them to all along. No one else would be able to change them back to the way they were now.
As for the United States… Featherston's swivel chair squeaked as he swung it around toward the north, too. All right, they hadn't given up the way he'd thought they would. That didn't mean they couldn't be beaten down. He intended to do just that. By the time he got finished, the Confederate States would be the number-one power on this continent.
They'd stay number one, too. He intended to fix things so even a dunderhead like Partridge couldn't mess them up. And everyone would always remember the name of the man who'd put them on top. His name. Him. Jake Featherston.
XX
The Sandwich Islands. Home of perfect weather, sugar cane, pineapple, and women of several races wearing no more than the perfect weather required. Home of the ukulele, the instrument the Devil had invented when he was trying for the guitar. Home of romance. That was what the tourist brochures said, anyhow.
George Enos, Jr., didn't have the chance to pay attention to the tourist brochures. He didn't have time to pay attention to the pineapple or the sugar cane or even the women and what they were or weren't wearing. He'd been away from Connie for quite a while. His interest might have been more than theoretical. He didn't get the chance to find out.
As soon as the Townsend pulled into Pearl Harbor, she refueled and steamed northwest toward Midway. Even though the island was lost to the Japanese, the USA seemed determined to defend Oahu as far forward as possible. That would have been farther forward still if the Remembrance hadn't lain at the bottom of the Pacific. As things were, the Americans didn't poke much beyond the distance air cover from the main islands could reach.
Out beyond that distance lay… the Japs. They had carriers in the neighborhood, and they'd proved airplanes could do more to ships than other ships could. The Townsend did have Y-ranging gear, which struck George as something not far from black magic. Black magic or not, though, how much would it help? Airplanes were so much faster than ships-you couldn't run away even if you saw the other guy long before he saw you.
Hydrophone gear listened for Japanese submersibles. Old-timers-the Townsend had a handful-said the gear was greatly improved over what the Navy had used in the last war. It could hear a sub while the destroyer's engines were going. If they hadn't been able to do that in the Great War, George wondered how any surface ships had survived. His mouth tightened. Too many hadn't, including the one with his father aboard.
When he wasn't chipping paint or swabbing the deck or doing one of the nine million other jobs the Navy had to keep all hands from knowing any idle moments, he stuck close to the 40mm mount. If anything came within range of the destroyer, he wanted the best chance to blast it he could get. When the klaxons sounded general quarters, he ran like a man possessed. So did his crewmates. In these waters, it was too likely no drill.
"We're trying to find their subs, and they're trying to find us," Fremont Blaine Dalby said one morning. The gun chief peered out over the blue, blue water, as if expecting to see periscopes lined up like city workers waiting for the trolley. He might not have been so far wrong, either. He went on, "Whoever plays the game better gets to play it again. Whoever screws up…" A shrug. "It's a hell of a long way down in this part of the Pacific."
"Happy day," George said.
"Ain't it?" That was Fritz Gustafson. The loader seldom had a whole lot to say, but he never left any doubt where he stood. He jerked a thumb at Dalby. "Just our luck to have a damn Jonah bossing this gun."
"A Jonah?" Dalby swelled up like a puffer fish. "What do you mean, a Jonah?"
"What I said," Gustafson answered. "Named for Republicans. Phooey! Bunch of goddamn losers."
"Could be worse," George said helpfully. "His mama could have called him Lincoln."
Dalby gave him a more venomous look than the one he'd sent Gustafson. He and the loader had been together for a long time. They'd probably been needling each other just as long, too. George was still a new kid on the block. He was showing some nerve by joining in.