"Good morning, General. Saul Goldman," said the voice on the other end of the line.
Potter came alert at once. "What can I do for you, Mr. Goldman?" he asked. The little Jew held an innocuous-sounding title: Director of Communications. But he was a force to be reckoned with in the Featherston administration. He shaped the news that went out over the wireless, in newspapers, and in cinema newsreels. His wireless station here in Richmond had helped Jake Featherston rise, and Featherston, who never forgot an enemy, also never forgot a friend.
The only problem being, he hasn't got many friends. Considering what a charming fellow he is, it's no surprise, either, Potter thought. He didn't count himself among that small group. Five years earlier, he'd come to Richmond with a pistol in his pocket, intending to rid the CSA of Jake Featherston once for all. Instead, he'd ended up shooting a black frankfurter seller who had the same idea but who sprayed bullets around so wildly, he endangered everybody near him-including Potter.
Memory blew away like a dandelion puff on the breeze as Goldman answered, "I would like to know how I can give your outfit the attention it deserves. I want the people to understand we're doing everything we can to find out what the Yankees are up to and to stop it."
"You want to give us the attention we deserve, eh?" Potter said. "Well, I can tell you how to do that in one word."
"Tell me, then, General," Goldman said.
"Don't."
"But-" Saul Goldman wasn't a man who usually spluttered, but he did now. "We need to show the people-"
"Don't," Potter repeated, this time cutting him off. "D-O-N-apostrophe-T, don't. Anything you tell us, you tell the damnyankees, too. Now you may want Joe Dogberry from Plains, Georgia, to be sure we're a bunch of clever fellows. That's fine, when it's peacetime. When it's war, though, I want the United States to be sure we're a pack of goddamn idiots."
"This is not the proper attitude," Goldman said stiffly.
"Maybe not from the propaganda point of view. From the military point of view, it sure as hell is." Potter didn't like defying the director of communications. But, Intelligence to his bones, he liked the idea of giving away secrets even less.
Unlike the swaggering braggarts who made up such a large part of the Freedom Party, Saul Goldman was always soft-spoken and courteous. When he said, "I guess I'll have to take it up with the President, then," a less alert man might not have recognized that as a threat.
"You do what you think you have to do, Mr. Goldman," Potter said. "If President Featherston gives me an order…" He decided not to say exactly what he'd do then. Better to keep his choices open.
"You'll hear from me-or from him. Good-bye." Saul Goldman hung up.
Potter went back to work. Since the war started, his biggest worry was how to hear from his agents in the United States. Postal service between the two countries had shut down. So had the telegraph lines. Where there's a will, there's a lawyer, Potter thought cynically. He'd managed so far. North America was a big place. Slipping over the border one way or another wasn't that hard, especially west of the Mississippi. Advertisements on wireless stations and in local newspapers along the border that sounded innocent weren't always. If they were phrased one way, they could mean this. If they were phrased another, they could mean that.
Some of his people had wireless transmitters, too. That was risky in any number of ways, but sometimes the rewards outweighed the risks. Potter knew he was going to be busy as a one-armed man with poison ivy all through the war. The front? He'd be lucky if he saw the sun once a week.
The telephone rang again. He picked it up. "Clarence Potter."
"Hello, Potter, you stubborn son of a bitch." That harsh rasp was infinitely familiar all the way across the Confederate States, from Norfolk to Guaymas.
"Hello, Mr. President. Saul Goldman talked to you, did he?"
"He sure as hell did," Jake Featherston answered. "I want you to cooperate with him just as far as you can. Have you got that?"
"Yes, sir. I do. Who decides how far I can cooperate?"
"You do and he does, together."
"In that case, sir, you'd better take me out of this job, give me a rifle, and send me to Ohio or Indiana," Potter said. "I wouldn't mind going. I was thinking about that a little while ago. By the nature of things, Saul and I aren't going to see eye to eye about this."
"What do you mean?" As always when somebody bucked him, suspicion clotted Featherston's voice.
"Goldman's a publicist. He's got a story he wants to tell, and he wants to shout it from the housetops," Potter replied. "Me, I'm a spy. That's why you put the uniform back on me."
"That's not why, and we both know it," Jake said. "I put the uniform back on you because shooting you five years ago would've raised a stink."
"I believe it," Clarence Potter said cheerfully. "If you give me a rifle, though, you've got a pretty good chance the damnyankees'll do it for you."
"Don't tempt me." The President of the Confederate States laughed. It was not a pleasant sort of laugh. "God damn you, why won't you ever be reasonable?"
"Mr. President, I am being reasonable-from my own point of view, anyway," Potter said. "I told you: I'm a spy. The best thing that can happen to me is that the bastards on the other side don't even remember I'm here. And Saul wants to shine a searchlight on me. No, thanks."
"Then you jew him down to shining a flashlight on you," Featherston said. "Whatever you don't want to show, you don't show, that's all."
"I don't want to show anything." Potter did his best to keep his temper. It wasn't easy, not when everyone around him seemed willfully blind. "Don't you understand, sir? For every one thing I show, the damnyankees are going to be sure I'm hiding half a dozen more. And the bastards will be right, too."
"But even if you don't show anything, the Yankees will know you're hiding something," Jake Featherston returned. "You reckon they don't know we've got spies? They're bastards, but they aren't stupid bastards-you know what I'm saying? They might not have your telephone number, but they know where you work. Now you tell me, Potter-is that the truth or ain't it?"
"Well… maybe," Potter said reluctantly.
"All right, then. In that case, quit your bellyaching," Jake said. "Let Saul take his photos and write his story. If you want to say this is your supersecret brand-new spy headquarters in Williamsburg or something, you can go ahead and do that. I don't mind one goddamn bit. Maybe it'll make the USA drop some bombs on that ratty old place. Nobody'd mind if they blew it to hell and gone, and they wouldn't hurt anything we want to hold on to. How does that sound?"
Potter thought it over. He didn't like Jake Featherston, and knew he never would. He'd had to develop considerable respect for Featherston's driving will, but he'd never thought the President was what anybody would call smart. Smart or not, though, no denying Jake could be shrewd.
"All right, sir. New supersecret spy headquarters in Williamsburg it is," he said. "But Goldman will have to be careful taking pictures with windows in them. Now that some of the people I boss actually work above the ground here, people who take a good look at what's in the windows will be able to see it's Richmond."
"You talk to Saul about that kind of crap," Featherston said. "He'll take care of it. You know your business. You'd best believe he knows his." He hung up.
So did Potter, slowly and thoughtfully. Featherston had just got him to do what he was told. If I'd pushed it, I could have gone to the front, the intelligence officer realized ruefully. But you didn't push things against Jake Featherston, not when he was pushing on you. Potter knew himself to be no weakling. Featherston had imposed his will even so.