“Lubbock,” Koenig said. “Amarillo.”
“Big fucking deal.” Jake was massively unimpressed. “The United States are welcome to both of ’em. They want to set up their phony state of Houston again, they’re welcome to do that, too. Far as I can see, they got more grief from it last time around than anything else.”
“You’ve got a good way of looking at things,” Koenig said.
“Well, I hope so. Right now, what we’ve got to do is take care of the shit that won’t wait.” Featherston aimed a forefinger at the map one more time. “After we’ve dealt with that, then we go on with the rest of it.” He made everything sound simple and obvious and easy. He’d always had that knack.
Usually, making things sound easy was good enough. In a fight for your life, though…Ferd Koenig could see that, too. “We need to hit the Yankees hard,” he said.
“Bet your sweet ass, Ferd.” Jake was thinking of Henderson V. FitzBelmont, about whom, he devoutly hoped, the Attorney General knew nothing or next to it. “We will, too. You better believe it.”
“I’ve believed you for twenty-five years now,” Koenig said. “I’m not about to quit.”
“Good.” Jake meant it from the bottom of his heart. “You’ve believed in me longer than anybody these days.” That was true. Of people he still knew, Clarence Potter had met him before Ferd did. But Potter hadn’t always followed him. He wasn’t sure if Potter ever really followed him. Potter was loyal to the country, not to the Freedom Party or to Jake Featherston himself.
“We’ve come a long way, you and me,” Ferd said. “We’ve brought the country a long way, too. We’re not nigger-free, but we’re getting there.”
“Damn straight,” Jake said. “We’ll get where we’re going, by God. Even if the damnyankees come up Shockoe Hill and we have to fire at ’em over open sights, we won’t ever quit. And as long as we don’t quit, they can’t lick us.”
“I sure hope not,” Koenig said.
“Don’t you worry about a thing. You don’t see any U.S. soldiers in Richmond, do you?” Featherston waited till his old warhorse shook his head, then went on, “And you won’t, either. Not ever. We’re going to win this son of a bitch. Not just get a draw so we can start over twenty years from now. We’re going to win.”
“Sounds good to me,” the Attorney General said.
It also sounded good to Jake Featherston. He hated relying on a goddamn professor, but knew too well he was.
Irving Morrell dismounted from his command barrel a few miles north of Delphi, Tennessee. His force wasn’t within artillery range of Chattanooga, not yet, but U.S. guns weren’t far from being able to reach the linchpin of the first part of the campaign. The United States had come farther and faster than he’d dreamt they could when the summer’s fighting started. To his mind, that said only one thing: the Confederates had thrown everything they could into their opening offensives, and it hadn’t been enough. They didn’t have enough left to fight a long war.
Which didn’t mean he wasn’t worried about what they did have. The bright young captain whose command car rolled to a stop near Morrell’s barrel wore a uniform with no arm-of-service colors or badges. If a cryptographer got captured, he didn’t want the enemy knowing what he was.
He also didn’t want to spread around what he knew. Morrell’s barrel carried every kind of wireless set under the sun; that was what made it what it was. But if the United States were deciphering C.S. codes, you had to assume the Confederates were doing the same thing to U.S. messages. What the enemy didn’t overhear, he couldn’t very well use against you.
“Hello, Captain Shaynbloom,” Morrell said. “What have you got for me today?”
Sol Shaynbloom was thin and pale, with a bent blade of a nose and thick glasses. He looked too much like someone who would go into cryptography to seem quite real, but he was. He handed Morrell a manila folder. “Latest decrypts, sir,” he said, “and some aerial photos to back them up.”
“Let’s see what we’ve got.” Morrell studied the decoded messages and the pictures. “Well, well,” he said at last. “They are getting frisky over there, aren’t they?”
“Yes, sir,” Captain Shaynbloom said. “More of a buildup on our flank than in front of us, as a matter of fact.”
Morrell had a map case on his hip. He pulled out a map and unfolded it. “So-here and here and here, eh?” He pointed. “That’s probably what I’d do in their shoes, too. They’ll try to cut us off and roll us back to the Ohio.”
“Can they?” the codebreaker asked.
“I hope not,” Morrell said mildly. But that wasn’t what the other man wanted to hear. Smiling a little, Morrell went on, “I think we’re ready for them. If we are, your section will have an awful lot to do with it.”
Shaynbloom smiled. “That’s what we’re here for, sir.” Then his smile disappeared. “If we do smash them as they try to break through, I hope they don’t realize how well we’re able to read their codes.”
“No, that wouldn’t be good,” Morrell agreed. “But sometimes the cards aren’t worth anything unless you put them on the table. This feels like one of those times to me.”
“All right, sir. I guess you’re right,” Captain Shaynbloom said.
I’d better be, Morrell thought. Being right in spots like this is what they pay me for. He wasn’t in it for the money, but the extra salary he earned with stars on his shoulder straps acknowledged the extra responsibility he held. And if he was wrong a couple of times, they wouldn’t take the rank or the pay away from him. They would just put him in charge of the beach in Kansas or the mountains in Nebraska and try to forget they’d ever had anything to do with him.
Another command car pulled up alongside the first. “What’s this?” Morrell said. “I thought they only gave one to a customer.” He made it sound like a joke, but his hand dropped to the butt of the.45 on his belt even so. The Confederates had already tried to assassinate him once. They might well be up for another go at him.
But he recognized the officer who got out. First Lieutenant Malcolm Williamson bore almost a family resemblance to Sol Shaynbloom. Both were skinny and pale and fair, and both looked more like graduate students than soldiers. Williamson also wore an unadorned uniform. Saluting both Shaynbloom and Morrell, he handed the latter an envelope. “We just got this, sir.”
“Let’s have a look.” As Morrell opened the envelope, he asked, “Do you know what’s in it? Can I talk about it in front of you?”
“Yes, sir, and in front of the captain,” Williamson answered. “It’s not that kind of thing-you’ll see in a second.”
“Fair enough.” Nodding, Morrell unfolded the paper in the envelope and read the message someone-maybe Williamson-had scrawled on it. “Well, well,” he said. “So General Patton will be in charge of the Confederate thrust. I’m honored…I suppose.”
“I wondered if he would be,” Shaynbloom said. “He’s sort of fallen off the map the past few weeks.”
“He’s back on it now,” Morrell said. “It’s a compliment to me, I guess, but I could do without it.” He’d heard from someone or other that Patton developed his slashing style by studying his own campaigns during the Great War. Maybe that was true, maybe it wasn’t. If it was, it made for another compliment Morrell didn’t really want. Patton was too good at what he did.
“We’ll lick him, sir.” As a lieutenant, Williamson wasn’t prone to the doubts that could cloud a general’s mind. “Who gives a damn how tough he is? We’ve got the horses to ride roughshod over him.” He didn’t even mix his metaphors, a common failing for everyone from the President on down.
“Do we know their precise start time?” Morrell asked. “If we do, we can disrupt them with spoiling bombardments ahead of time. The more we can do to throw their plan and their timing out of whack, the better off we’ll be.”
Williamson and Shaynbloom looked at each other. They even wore the same U.S.-issue steel-framed spectacles, though Shaynbloom’s lenses were noticeably stronger. As one man, they shook their heads. “Haven’t got it yet, sir,” they chorused, Shaynbloom adding, “But it can’t be long.”