“I goddamn well ought to throw you in a penal battalion,” Jake growled, but even he could hear his heart wasn’t fully in it.
“Do whatever you need to do, Mr. President. I’ll go.” Patton was nearly as stubborn as Jake was himself.
“I’ll get more mileage out of you if I keep you in command.” Featherston didn’t like that conclusion, but he’d had to deal with a lot of things he didn’t like lately. “Can you hold Chattanooga?”
“I can try,” Patton answered. “If they mass enough force to outweigh us six to one or something like that, though, I don’t know how I’ll manage it. I’m a better than decent general, sir, but I don’t work miracles.”
“Will you fight house by house and block by block, make those damnyankee sons of bitches pay the way we paid in Pittsburgh?”
“Yes, sir.” Patton didn’t hesitate. In that, too, he was like the President of the CSA.
“All right, then. Go do it,” Featherston said. It wasn’t all right, or anywhere close to all right, but Jake came from the school that didn’t believe in showing where it hurt. Anything that gave anyone a grip on you was to be avoided.
Patton rose and saluted again. “You won’t be sorry, sir. Or if you are, I’ll be too dead to know about it.” Without waiting for a reply, he did a smart about-turn and marched out of the office: a procession of one.
“I’m already sorry,” Jake muttered. He was sorry he had to use an attacking general to defend. He was sorry he had to defend so deep inside the Confederacy. He’d planned to fight this war almost entirely on U.S. soil. Well, what was life but the difference between what you planned and what you got?
He walked to the door and asked Lulu, “Who’s next?”
“General Potter, Mr. President.” She sniffed. She didn’t like Clarence Potter-mostly because Jake Featherston didn’t like him.
Jake hid a smile. That was about as funny as anything he had going on these days. But like Potter or not, the President knew he was useful. “Send him in.”
“Yes, sir.” Lulu sighed.
Although Jake felt like sighing, too, he didn’t, not around Potter. He didn’t trust the Intelligence officer enough to show that he didn’t enjoy his company. All he said after the usual formalities was, “Being in the line isn’t as easy as it looks, is it?”
“No, sir. It’s like juggling knives when someone’s shooting at your feet,” Potter answered. “Maybe experience helps. I hope to God it does, anyway. I’ve got a little now-the hard way. They were grabbing for anybody they could find with wreaths on his collar, and they tapped me. I gave it my best shot. What else could I do?”
“Go out there and kick those Yankees’ asses?” Featherston suggested, not at all sardonically.
“Sir, I would have loved to,” Potter said. “But we hardly even got to the front, let alone fought there. U.S. air power chewed us to pieces coming through the gaps-slowed us down, gave us casualties, tore the crap out of our trucks and armor. We wouldn’t have been in good shape even if we had done more fighting. We need more airplanes and more pilots.”
“We need more of everything, goddammit,” Jake said.
“Yes, sir. We do.” With four words, Potter skewered every Freedom Party policy-every policy of Jake Featherston’s-at least as far back as the President’s first inauguration. And Featherston couldn’t do one damn thing about it, because all the cross-grained Intelligence officer had done was agree with him.
In lieu of snarling at him for agreeing, Jake asked, “Were you able to keep putting Professor FitzBelmont’s feet to the fire while you were in the field?”
“By messenger, yes, sir,” Potter answered. “It meant letting one more man in on the secret, but Chuck doesn’t blab. And I figured that was better than doing it by telephone or wire or letter. With a messenger in the know, I could really speak my mind.”
“Fair enough,” Jake said. “FitzBelmont’s got to know how bad we need that bomb, and how important it is for us to get it before the United States do.” If the Confederate States got uranium bombs ahead of the USA and kept on getting more of them, shortages of everything else-even airplanes, even manpower-would stop mattering. If the CSA had uranium bombs and the USA didn’t, the Confederacy would damn well win.
“If he doesn’t know, it’s not because he hasn’t been told,” Potter said. “I believe he’s doing everything he knows how to do. I believe he’s the best man we’ve got for the slot, too. Whatever else he is, he’s bright.”
“What about the men the damnyankees have?” Featherston asked. “Have you worked out some kind of way to hit ’em up in Washington again?”
“If we can land a mortar team by submersible, it might be able to get close enough to shell their operation,” Potter said. “I’m not sure how far out their ground perimeter extends. I don’t think we can hit them from the air again. They’re alert for that now. A lot of things you can do once, chances are you can’t do ’em twice. The ground operation would be a suicide run, too, chances are.”
“Yeah, chances are,” Jake agreed. “Either you get dedicated people who don’t care or you don’t tell ’em beforehand how dangerous the mission is. Both ways work.”
“If I can, I’ll use people who know what they’re doing and are willing to do it anyhow,” Potter said. “I don’t like sending people off to die when they don’t know that’s in the cards.”
“If you can, fine. But if you can’t, do it the other way. Don’t get thin-skinned on me, Potter,” Jake said. “This country is in trouble. If blasting the crap out of the U.S. uranium factory helps get us out of trouble, we do it. Period. We do it. You got that?”
“Oh, yes, Mr. President. I’ve got it. You’re always very plain about what you want.” Clarence Potter spoke respectfully. He spoke obediently. How, then, did he make Jake feel as if he’d just got slapped in the face? He had all kinds of unpleasant talents.
Jake held up a hand. “One other thing I need to find out. Any sign the Yankees know where our uranium works is at?”
“Sir, the first sign of that you’d get would be every U.S. bomber ever built coming straight at Washington University with the heaviest load of bombs it could carry,” Potter answered.
He was bound to be right. And he was serious, too; when he talked about the Confederate uranium-bomb project, the subtle mockery disappeared from his voice. He was a Confederate patriot. Jake Featherston used that button to keep him loyal to the Freedom Party-and loyal to the President of the CSA, too. If Potter ever separated Jake Featherston’s cause from the Confederacy’s…If that ever happens, I’ve got to get rid of him, because then he turns as dangerous as a rattler in my bed, Jake thought. I’d better keep a closer eye on him.
None of his thoughts showed on his face. All he said was, “You’re doing a good job of keeping the secret, then. Thanks. That’s one more thing the country needs.”
“Yes, sir.” Again, Potter sounded brisk and assured. But he couldn’t resist one more gibe: “We’d be further along now if FitzBelmont got funding sooner.”
“Oh, give me a break!” Jake exclaimed-that rubbed him the wrong way. “He came to me with this blue-sky story an idiot dog wouldn’t believe. So maybe it’ll turn out to be true. I hear a dozen blue-sky stories every day, and damn near all of ’em are nothing but shit. Would you have believed this one way back then?”
Potter pursed his lips. “Well, no,” he admitted-he was almost compulsively honest. “But somebody made the United States believe it. I wonder how that happened.”
“The United States follow the Germans wherever they go-maybe that’s got something to do with it,” Jake said. “I wonder how far along England and France are. Got any ideas?”
“No, Mr. President. They aren’t talking to me.”
“To me, neither,” Jake snarled. “They reckon I’m a poor relation. Well, when we get this here bomb, I’ll show ’em who’s a poor relation to who, by God. See if I don’t. The whole damn world’ll see if I don’t.”