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XIII

On the shelf. Abner Dowling hated it. Oh, they hadn't thrown him out of the Army altogether, as he'd feared they might. But he was back in the War Department in Philadelphia, doing what should have been about a lieutenant colonel's job. That was what he got for letting Ohio fall.

He'd been George Armstrong Custer's adjutant for what seemed like forever (of course, any time with Custer seemed like forever). He'd been a reasonably successful military governor in Utah and Kentucky. These days, Utah was in revolt and Kentucky belonged to the CSA, but none of that was his fault.

Then they'd finally given him a combat command-but not enough barrels or airplanes to go with it. He hadn't done a bang-up job with what he had. Looking back, he could see he'd made mistakes. But he was damned if he could see how anyone but an all-knowing superman could have avoided some of those mistakes. They'd seemed like good ideas at the time. Hindsight said they hadn't been, but who got hindsight ahead of time?

Dowling swore under his breath and tried to unsnarl a logistics problem. Right this minute, the war effort was nothing but logistics problems. That was the Confederacy's fault. Getting from east to west-or, more urgently at the moment, from west to east-was fouled up beyond all recognition. Everybody thought he deserved to go first, and nobody figured he ought to wait in line.

"I ought to give 'em a swat and make 'em go stand in the corner," Dowling muttered. If Army officers were going to act like a bunch of six-year-olds, they deserved to be treated the same way. Too bad his authority didn't reach so far.

Someone knocked on the frame to the open door of his office. A measure of how he'd fallen was that he didn't have a young lieutenant out there running interference for him. "General Dowling? May I have a few minutes of your time?"

"General MacArthur!" Dowling jumped to his feet and saluted. "Yes, sir, of course. Come right in. Have a seat."

"I thank you very much," Major General Daniel MacArthur said grandly. But then, Daniel MacArthur was made for the grand gesture. He was tall and lean and craggy. He wore a severely, almost monastically, plain uniform, and smoked cigarettes from a long, fancy holder. He was in his mid-fifties now. During the Great War, he'd been a boy wonder, the youngest man to command a division. He'd commanded it in Custer's First Army, too, which had made for some interesting times. Custer had never wanted anybody but himself to get publicity, while MacArthur was also an avid self-promoter.

"What can I do for you, sir?" Dowling asked.

"You may have heard I'm to head up the attack into Virginia." MacArthur thrust out his long, granitic chin. Like Custer, he was always ready-always eager-to strike a pose.

"No, sir, I hadn't heard," Dowling admitted. He wasn't hooked into the grapevine here. Quite simply, not many people wanted to talk to an officer down on his luck. He put the best face on it he could: "I imagine security is pretty tight."

"I suppose so." But Daniel MacArthur couldn't help looking and sounding disappointed. He was a man who lived to be observed. If people weren't watching him, if he wasn't at the center of the stage, he began to wonder if he existed.

"What can I do for you?" Dowling asked again.

MacArthur brightened, no doubt thinking of all the attention he would get once he became the hero of the hour. "You have more recent experience in fighting the Confederates than anyone else," he said.

"I guess I do-much of it painful," Dowling said.

"I hope to avoid that." By his tone, MacArthur was confident he would. Custer had had that arrogance, too. A good commander needed some of it. Too much, though, and you started thinking you were always right. Your soldiers commonly paid for that-in blood. MacArthur went on, "In any case, I was wondering if you would be kind enough to tell me some of the things I might do well to look out for."

Abner Dowling blinked. That was actually a reasonable request. He wondered if something was wrong with MacArthur. After some thought, he answered, "Well, sir, one thing they do very well is coordinate their infantry, armor, artillery, and aircraft, especially the damned barrels. They'd studied Colonel Morrell's tactics from the last war and improved them for the extra speed barrels have these days."

"Ah, yes. Colonel Morrell." MacArthur looked as if Dowling had broken wind in public. He didn't much like Morrell. The barrel officer had gained breakthroughs last time around where he hadn't. Morrell was not a publicity hound, which only made him more suspicious to MacArthur.

"Sir, he's still the best barrel commander we've got, far and away," Dowling said. "If you can get him for whatever you're going to do in Virginia, you should."

"Colonel Morrell is occupied with affairs farther west. I am perfectly satisfied with the officers I have serving under me."

"Is it true that the Confederates have recalled General Patton to Virginia?" Dowling asked.

"I have heard that that may be so." Daniel MacArthur shrugged. "I'm not afraid of him."

Dowling believed him. MacArthur had never lacked for courage. Neither had Custer, for that matter. He was as brave a man as Dowling had ever seen. When it came to common sense, on the other hand… When it came to common sense, both MacArthur and Custer had been standing in line for an extra helping of courage.

"Flank attack!" Dowling said. "The Confederates kept nipping at our flanks with their armor. You'll have to guard against that on defense and use it when you have the initiative."

"I intend to have the initiative at all times," MacArthur declared. The cigarette holder he clenched between his teeth jumped to accent the words.

"Um, sir…" Dowling cast about for a diplomatic way to say what damn well needed saying. "Sir, no matter what you intend, you've got to remember the Confederates have intentions, too. I hope you'll mostly be able to go by yours. Sometimes, though, they'll have the ball."

"And when they do, I'll stuff it down their throat," MacArthur said. "They cannot hope to stand against the blow I will strike them."

He sounded very sure of himself. So had Custer, just before the start of one of his big offensives. More often than not, the ocean of blood he spent outweighed the gains he made. Dowling feared the same thing would happen with Daniel MacArthur.

But what can I do? Dowling wondered helplessly. Nobody would pay attention to a fat failed fighting man who'd been put out to pasture. Lord knew MacArthur wouldn't. Everything already seemed perfect in his mind. To him, everything was perfect. What the real world did to his plans would come as a complete and rude shock, as it always had to Custer.

"If you already have all the answers, sir, why did you bother to ask me questions?" Dowling inquired.

Some officers would have got angry at that. Invincibly armored in self-approval, MacArthur didn't. "Just checking on things," he replied, and got to his feet. Dowling also rose. It didn't help much, for MacArthur towered over him. Smiling a confident and superior smile, MacArthur said, "Expect to read my dispatches from Richmond, General."

"I look forward to it," Dowling said tonelessly. Major General MacArthur's smile never wavered. He believed Dowling, or at least took him literally. With a wave, he left Dowling's office and, a procession of one, hurried down the corridor.

With a sigh, Abner Dowling sat back down and returned to the work MacArthur had interrupted. It wasn't a grand assault on Richmond-assuming the grand assault got that far-but it wasn't meaningless, either. He could tell himself it wasn't, anyhow.

He jumped when the telephone on his desk rang. He wondered if it was a wrong number; not many people had wanted to talk to him lately. He picked it up. "Dowling here."

"Yes, sir. This is John Abell. How are you today?"

"Oh, I'm fair, Colonel, I guess. And yourself?" Dowling couldn't imagine what the General Staff officer might want.

"I'll do, sir," Abell answered with what sounded like frosty amusement-the only kind with which he seemed familiar. "Did you just have a visit from the Great Stone Face?"

"The Great-?" Dowling snorted. He couldn't help himself. "Yes, Colonel, as a matter of fact I did."

"And?" Colonel Abell prompted.

"He's… very sure of himself," Dowling said carefully. "I hope he had reason to be. I haven't seen his plans, so I can't tell you about that. You'd know more about it than I would, I'm sure."

"Plans go only so far," John Abell said. "During the last war, we saw any number of splendid-sounding plans blown to hell and gone. Meaning no offense to you, our plans in the West at the start of this war didn't work as well as we wish they would have."

"It does help if the plans take into account all the enemy can throw at us," Dowling replied, acid in his voice.

"Yes, it does," Abell said, which startled him. "I told you I meant no offense."

"People tell me all kinds of things," Dowling said. "Some of them are true. Some of them help make flowers grow. I'm sure no one ever tells you anything but the truth, eh, Colonel?"

Unlike Daniel MacArthur, Colonel Abell had a working sarcasm detector. "You mean there are other things besides truth, sir?" he said in well-simulated amazement.

"Heh," Dowling said, which was about as much as he'd laughed at anything the past couple of months. Then he asked, "Is the General Staff concerned about Major General MacArthur's likely performance?"

Perhaps fifteen seconds of silence followed. Then Colonel Abell said, "I have no idea what you're talking about, General."

He said no more. Dowling realized that was all the answer he'd get. He also realized it was more responsive than it seemed at first. He said, "If you're that thrilled with him, why isn't somebody else in command there?"

After another thoughtful silence, Abell answered, "Military factors aren't the only ones that go into a war, sir. General MacArthur came… highly recommended by the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War."

"Did he?" Dowling kept his tone as neutral as he could make it.

"As a matter of fact, he did. His service in Houston before the plebiscite particularly drew the committee's notice, I believe." Abell sounded scrupulously dispassionate, too. "It was decided that, by giving a little here, we might gain advantages elsewhere."

It was decided. Dowling liked that. No one had actually had to decide anything, it said. The decision just sort of fell out of the sky. No one would be to blame for it, not the General Staff and certainly not the Joint Committee. If MacArthur got the command, the committee would leave the War Department alone about some other things. Dowling didn't know what those would be, but he could guess. You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. "I hope it turns out all right," he said.

"Yes. So do I," Colonel Abell answered, and hung up.

The knock on Seneca Driver's door came in the middle of the night, long after evening curfew in the colored district in Covington. Cincinnatus' father and mother went on snoring. Neither of them heard very well these days, and a knock wouldn't have meant much to her anyhow. Nothing much meant anything to her any more.

But a knock like that meant something to Cincinnatus. It meant trouble. It didn't sound like the big, booming open-right-now-or-we'll-kick-it-in knock the police would have used. That didn't mean it wasn't trouble, though. Oh, no. Trouble came in all shapes and sizes and flavors. Cincinnatus knew that only too well.

When the knocking didn't stop, he got out of bed, found his cane, and went to the door. He had to step carefully. Darkness was absolute. Police enforced the blackout in this part of town by shooting into lighted windows. If they saw people, they shot to kill. They were very persuasive.

Of course, Luther Bliss didn't run the Kentucky State Police any more. He might come sneaking around to shut Cincinnatus up. That occurred to Cincinnatus just as he put his hand on the knob. He shrugged. He couldn't move fast enough to run away, so what difference did it make?

He opened the door. That wasn't Luther Bliss out there. It was another Negro. Cincinnatus could see that much-that much and no more. "What you want?" he asked softly. "You crazy, comin' round here this time o' night?"

"Lucullus got to see you right away," the stranger answered.

"During curfew? He nuts? You nuts? You reckon I'm nuts?"

"He reckon you come," the other man said calmly. "You want I should go back there, tell him he wrong?"

Cincinnatus considered. That was exactly what he wanted. Saying so, though, could have all sorts of unpleasant consequences. He muttered something vile under his breath before replying, "You wait there. Let me get out of my nightshirt."

"I ain't goin'nowhere," the other man said.

I wish I could tell you the same. Cincinnatus put on shoes and dungarees and the shirt he'd worn the day before. When he went to the door, he asked, "What do we do if the police see us?"

"Run," his escort said. Since Cincinnatus couldn't, that did him no good whatever.

They picked their way along the colored quarter's crumbling sidewalks. Cincinnatus used his cane to feel ahead of him like a blind man. In the blackout, he almost was a blind man. Starlight might have been beautiful, but it was no damn good for getting around.

His nose proved a better guide. Even in the darkness of the wee small hours, he had no trouble telling when he was getting close to Lucullus Wood's barbecue place. The man with him laughed softly. "Damn, but that there barbecue smell good," he said. "Make me hungry jus' to git a whiff." Cincinnatus couldn't argue, not when his own stomach was growling like an angry hound.

The other man opened the door. Cincinnatus pushed through the blackout curtains behind it. He blinked at the explosion of light inside. He wasn't much surprised to find the place busy regardless of the hour. Several white policemen in gray uniforms were drinking coffee and devouring enormous sandwiches. Cincinnatus would have bet they hadn't paid for them. When did cops ever pay for anything?

All the customers were out after curfew. The policemen didn't get excited about it. They didn't jump up and arrest Cincinnatus and his companion, either. They just went on feeding their faces. The sandwiches and coffee and whatever else Lucullus gave them looked like a good insurance policy.

The other black man took Cincinnatus to a cramped booth closer to the police than he wanted to be. The other man ordered pork ribs and a cup of coffee. Cincinnatus chose a barbecued beef sandwich. He passed on the coffee: he still nourished a hope of getting back to sleep that night. He knew the odds were against him, but he'd always been an optimist.

To his amazement, Lucullus Wood lumbered out and took a place in the booth. It had been cramped before; now it seemed full to overflowing. "What you want that won't keep till mornin'?" Cincinnatus asked, doing his best to keep his voice down.

Lucullus didn't bother. "What you know about trucks?" he asked in turn.

"Trucks?" Whatever Cincinnatus had expected, that wasn't it. "Well, I only drove 'em for thirty years, so I don't reckon I know much."

"Funny man." Lucullus scowled at him. "I ain't jokin', funny man."

"All right, you ain't jokin'." Cincinnatus paused, for the food arrived just then. After a big bite from his sandwich-as good as always-he went on, "Tell me what you want to know, and I'll give you the answer if I got it."

"Here it is," Lucullus said heavily. "You got a Pegasus truck-you know the kind I mean?"

"I've seen 'em," Cincinnatus answered. The Pegasus was the CSA's heavy hauler. You could fill the back with supplies or with a squad of soldiers-more than a squad, if you didn't mind cramming them in like sardines. A Pegasus would never win a beauty contest, but the big growling machines got the job done.

"Good enough," Lucullus said, and then, loudly, to a waitress, "You fetch me a cup of coffee, Lucinda sweetie?" Lucinda laughed and waved and went to get it. Lucullus turned back to Cincinnatus. "You know how it's got the canvas top you can put up to keep rain off the sojers or whatever other shit you got in there?"

"I reckon I do," Cincinnatus answered. "White truck had the same kind o' thing in the last war. What about it?"

"Here's what," Lucullus said. "How come you'd take a bunch o' them trucks and take off that whole canvas arrangement and close up the back compartment in a big old iron box?"

"Who's doin' that?" Cincinnatus asked.

Now Lucullus did drop his rumbling bass voice. "Confederate gummint, that's who," he said solemnly. Lucinda set the coffee in front of him. He swatted her on the behind. She just laughed again and sashayed off.

"Confederate government?" Cincinnatus echoed. Lucullus nodded. Cincinnatus did a little thinking. "This here ironwork armor plate?"

"Don't reckon so," Lucullus answered. "Ain't heard nothin' 'bout no armor. That'd be special, right?-it ain't no ordinary iron."

"Armor's special, all right. It's extra thick an' extra hard," Cincinnatus said. Lucullus started to cough. After a moment, Cincinnatus realized he was trying not to laugh. After another moment, he realized why. "I didn't mean it like that, goddammit!"

"I know you didn't. Only makes it funnier," Lucullus said. "Figure this here is regular ironwork, anyways."

"Well, my own truck back in Iowa's got an iron cargo box. Keeps the water out better'n canvas when it rains. Keeps thieves out a hell of a lot better, too."

"These here is Army trucks-or trucks the gummint took from the Army," Lucullus said. "Reckon they gonna be where there's sojers around. Ain't got to worry 'bout thievin' a whole hell of a lot."

This time, Cincinnatus laughed. "Only shows what you know. You ain't never seen the kind o' thievin' that goes on around Army trucks. I know what I'm talkin' about there-you'd best believe I do. You start loadin' stuff in Army trucks, and some of it's gonna walk with Jesus. I don't care how many soldiers you got. I don't care how many guns you got, neither. Folks steal."

Maybe his conviction carried authority. Lucullus pursed his lips in what was almost a parody of deep thought. "Mebbe," he said at last. "But it don't quite feel right, you know what I mean? Like I told you, these here ain't exactly no Army trucks no more. They was took from the Army. I reckon they be doin' somethin' else from here on out."

"Like what?" Cincinnatus asked.

"Don't rightly know." Lucullus Wood didn't sound happy about admitting it. "I was hopin' you could give me a clue."

"Gotta be somethin' the government figures is important." Cincinnatus was talking more to himself than to Lucullus. "Gotta be somethin' the government figures is real important, on account of what's more important than the Army in the middle of a war?"

He couldn't think of anything. Lucullus did, and right away: "The Freedom Party. Freedom Party is the goddamn gummint, near enough." He was right. As soon as he said it, Cincinnatus nodded, acknowledging as much. Lucullus went on, "But what the hell the Freedom Party want with a bunch o' gussied-up trucks?"

"Beats me." Cincinnatus finished his sandwich. "That was mighty good. I wish you didn't haul me outa bed in the middle o' the night to eat it."

"Didn't get you over here for that." Lucullus' face could have illustrated discontented in the dictionary. "I was hopin' you had some answers for me."

"Sorry." Cincinnatus spread his hands, pale palms up. "I got to tell you, it don't make no sense to me."

"I got to tell you, it don't make no sense to me, neither," Lucullus said, "but I reckon it makes sense to somebody, or them Party peckerheads over in Virginia wouldn't be doin' it. They got somethin' on their evil little minds. I don't know what it is. I can't cipher it out. When I can't cipher out what the ofays is gonna do next, I commence to worryin', an' that is a fac'."

"Sorry I'm not more help for you," Cincinnatus said again. "I know trucks-you're right about that. But you know a hell of a lot more about the Freedom Party than I do. I ain't sorry about that, not even a little bit. I wish to God I didn't know nothin' about 'em."

"Don't we all!" Lucullus said. "All right, git on home, then." He turned to the man who'd brought Cincinnatus to the barbecue place and sat silently while he and Lucullus talked. "Git him back there, Tiberius."

"I take care of it," the other man promised. "Don't want no trouble." He caught Cincinnatus' eye. "You ready?"

Slowly, painfully, Cincinnatus rose. "Ready as I ever be." That wasn't saying a hell of a lot. He knew it, whether Tiberius did or not.

They went out into the eerie, blackout-deepened darkness. Everything was quiet as the tomb: no bombers overhead tonight. A police car rattled down a street just after Cincinnatus and Tiberius turned off it, but the cops didn't know they were around. Lights were for emergencies only. Tiberius laughed softly. "Curfew ain't so hard to beat, you see?" he said.

"Yeah," Cincinnatus answered. Tiberius stayed with him till he went up the walk to his folks' house, then disappeared into the night.

Cincinnatus' father was up waiting for him. "You did come home. Praise the Lord!" Seneca Driver said.

"Wasn't the police at the door, Pa," Cincinnatus answered. "Sorry you woke up while I was tendin' to it."

"Don't worry about that none," his father said. "Got us plenty o' more important things to worry about." Cincinnatus wished he could have told him he was wrong. And he could have, too-but only if he were willing to lie.

Tom Colleton felt proud of himself. He'd managed to wangle four days of leave. That wasn't long enough to go home to South Carolina, but it did let him get away from the front and down to Columbus. Not worrying about getting shelled or gassed for a little while seemed a good start on the road to the earthly paradise.

It also proved too good to be true. As he got on the train that would take him from Sandusky to Columbus, a military policeman said, "Oh, good, sir-you've got your sidearm."

"What about it?" Tom's hand fell to the pistol on his hip.

"Only that it's a good idea, sir," the MP answered, his white-painted helmet and white gloves making him stand out from the ordinary run of noncoms. "The damnyankees down there aren't real happy about the way things have gone."

"Unhappy enough so that a Confederate officer needs to pack a pistol?" Tom asked. The MP gave back a somber nod. Tom only shrugged. "Well, if U.S. soldiers couldn't kill me, I'm not going to lose too much sleep over U.S. civilians." That got a grin from the military policeman.

The train was an hour and a half late getting into Columbus. It had to wait on a siding while workmen repaired damage-sabotage-to the railway. Tom Colleton fumed. "Don't get yourself in an uproar, sir," advised a captain who'd evidently made the trip several times. "Could be a hell of a lot worse. Leastways we haven't had any fighters shooting us up this time around."

"Gurk," Tom said. No, he hadn't come far enough to escape the war-not even close.

And he was reminded of it when he got into Columbus. The city had been at the center of a Yankee pocket. The U.S. soldiers who'd held it had fought hard to keep the Confederates from taking it. They'd quit only when they ran too low on fuel and ammunition to go on fighting. That meant Columbus looked as if rats the size of automobiles had been taking big bites out of most of the buildings.

The porter who fetched suitcases from the baggage car for those who had them was a white man. He spoke with some kind of Eastern European accent. Tom stared at him. He'd rarely seen a white man doing nigger work, and in the CSA few jobs more perfectly defined nigger work than a porter's.

This fellow stared right back at him. That wasn't curiosity in his eyes. It was raw hatred. Measuring me for a coffin, Tom thought. He'd wondered if the MP had exaggerated. Now he saw the man hadn't. The weight of the.45 on his hip was suddenly very comforting.

Union Station was a few blocks north of the state Capitol, whose dome had taken a hit from a bomb. Fort Mahan, which had been the chief U.S. military depot in Ohio, was now where visiting Confederates stayed. It lay a few blocks east of the station, on Buckingham Street. Sentries checked Tom's papers with scrupulous care before admitting him. "You think I'm a Yankee spy?" he asked, amused.

"Sir, we've had us some trouble with that," one of the sentries answered, which brought him up short.

"Have you?" he said. All three sentries nodded. Two of them had examined his bona fides while the third covered them and Tom with his automatic rifle. Tom asked, "You have a lot of problems with people shooting at you, stuff like that?"

"Some," answered the corporal who'd spoken before. "We gave an order for the damnyankees to turn in their guns when we took this here place, same as we always do." He made a sour face. "Reckon you can guess how much good that done us."

"I expect I can," Tom said. If the United States had occupied Dallas and tried to enforce the same order, it wouldn't have done them any good, either. People in both the USA and the CSA had too many guns and too many hiding places-and the Yankees hated the Confederates just as much as the Confederates hated the Yankees, so nobody on either side wanted to do what anyone on the other side said.

The sentry added, "It's not shooting so much. We've hanged some of the bastards who tried that, and we've got hostages to try and make sure more of 'em don't. But there's sabotage all the time: slashed tires, busted windows, sugar in the gas tank, shit like that. We shot a baker for mixing ground glass in with the bread he gave us. They even say whores with the clap don't get it treated so as they can give it to more of us."

"Do they?" Tom murmured. He hadn't been with a woman since the war started. But Bertha was a long way away. What she didn't know wouldn't hurt her. He'd thought he might… Then again, if what this fellow said was true, he might not, too.

"I don't know that that's so, sir," the corporal said. "But they do say it." He gave Tom his papers again. "Pass on, and have yourself a good old time."

Don't eat the bread, Tom thought. Don't lay the women. Sounds like a hell of a way to have a good old time to me. At least he didn't say the bartenders were pissing in the whiskey.

He found the Bachelor Officers' Quarters without any trouble. Fort Mahan bristled with signs, some left over from when the USA ran the place, others put up by the Confederates. He got a room of his own, one of about the same quality as he would have had in the CSA. Two stars on each collar tab helped. Had he been a lieutenant or a captain, he probably would have ended up with a roommate or two.

Since the sentry hadn't warned that they were pissing in the booze, he headed for the officers' club once he'd dumped his valise in the room. He got another jolt when he walked in: the barkeep was as white as the railroad porter. Tom walked up to him and ordered a highball. The man in the boiled shirt and black bow tie didn't bat an eye. He made the drink and set it on the bar. "Here you go, sir," he said quietly. His accent declared him a Yankee.

Tom sipped the highball. It was fine. Even so… "How long have you been tending bar?" he asked.

"About… fifteen years, sir," the fellow said after a moment's pause for thought. "Why, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Just wondering. What do you think of the work?"

"It's all right. Money's not bad. I never did care for getting cooped up in a factory. I like talking with people and I listen pretty well, so it suits me."

"Doesn't it, oh, get you down, having to do what other folks tell you all the time? Serving them, you might say?"

He and the bartender both spoke English, but they didn't speak the same language. The man shrugged. "It's a job, that's all. Tell me about a job where you don't have to do what other people tell you. I'll be on that one like a shot."

Tom decided to get more direct: "Down in the Confederate States, we'd call a job like this nigger work."

"Oh." The barkeep suddenly found himself on familiar ground. "Now I see what you're driving at. Some other people have asked me about that. All I got to tell you, pal, is that you're not in the Confederate States any more."

"I noticed that." Shaking his head, Tom found an empty table and sat down. The man behind the bar plainly didn't feel degraded by his work. A white Confederate would have. You're not in the CSA any more is right, Tom thought. That was true.

A couple of other officers came in and ordered drinks. One of them nodded to Tom. "Haven't seen you before," he remarked. "Just get in?"

"That's right," Tom answered. "Nice, friendly little town, isn't it? I always did enjoy a place where I could relax and not have to look over my shoulder all the time."

The officer who'd spoken to him-a major-and his friend-a lieutenant-colonel like Tom-both laughed. After they'd got their whiskeys, the major said, "Mind if we join you?"

"Not a bit. I'd be glad of the company," Tom said, and gave his name. He got theirs in return. The major, a skinny redhead, was Ted Griffith; the other light colonel, who was chunky and dark and balding, was Mel Lempriere. He had a pronounced New Orleans accent, half lazy and half tough. Griffith sounded as if he came from Alabama or Mississippi.

They started talking shop. Aside from women, the great common denominator, it was what they shared. Ted Griffith was in barrels, Lempriere in artillery. "We caught the damnyankees flatfooted," Lempriere said. "It would've been a lot tougher if we hadn't." Actually, he said woulda, as if he came from Brooklyn instead of the Crescent City.

"Reckon that's a fact," Griffith agreed. "Their barrels are as good as ours, and they use 'em pretty well. But they didn't have enough, and so we got the whip hand and ripped into 'em."

"Patton helped, too, I expect," Tom said. He got to the bottom of his highball and waved for a refill. The bartender nodded. He brought over a fresh one a minute later.

"Patton drives like a son of a bitch," Lempriere said. "Sometimes our guys had a devil of a time keeping up with the barrels." He and Major Griffith both finished their drinks at the same time. They also waved to the barkeep. He got to work on new ones for them, too.

Once Griffith had taken a pull at his second drink, he said, "Patton's a world-beater in the field. No arguments about that. If the Yankees hadn't had their number-one fellow here, too, we'd've licked 'em worse'n we did. Yeah, he's a damn good barrel commander."

He didn't sound as delighted as he might have. "But…?" Tom asked. A but had to be hiding in there somewhere. He wondered if Griffith would let it out.

The major made his refill disappear and called for another. Dutch courage? Tom thought. "Patton's a world-beater in the field," Griffith repeated. "He does have his little ways, though."

Mel Lempriere chuckled. "Name me a general officer worth his rank badges who doesn't."

"Well, yeah," Griffith said. "But there's ways, and then there's ways, if you know what I mean. Patton fines any barrel man he catches out of uniform, right down to the tie on the shirt underneath the coveralls. He fines you if your coveralls are dirty, too. How are you supposed to run a barrel without getting grease and shit on your uniform? I tell you for a fact, my friends, it can't be done."

"Why's he bother?" Tom asked.

"Well, he likes everything just so," Griffith answered, which sounded like an understatement. "And he likes to say that a clean soldier, a neat soldier, is a soldier with his pecker up. I suppose he's got himself a point." Again, he didn't say but. Again, he might as well have.

Lieutenant-Colonel Lempriere laughed again. "You know any soldier in the field longer'n a week who hasn't got his pecker up?"

That brought them around to women. Tom had figured they'd get there sooner or later. He asked about the local officers' brothels, and whether the girls really did steer clear of cures for the clap. Lempriere denied it. He turned out to be a mine of information. As Tom had, he'd been in the last war. Ted Griffith was too young. He listened to the two lieutenant-colonels swap stories of sporting houses gone by. After a while, he said, "Sounds like bullshit to me, gentlemen."

"Likely some of it is," Tom said. "But it's fun bullshit, you know?" They all laughed some more. They ended up yarning and drinking deep into the night.

When the USS Remembrance sortied from Honolulu, Sam Carsten had no trouble holding in his enthusiasm. The airplane carrier wasn't going any place where the weather suited him: up to Alaska, say. She could have been. The Tsars still owned Alaska, and Russia and the United States were formally at war. But they hadn't done much in the way of fighting, and weren't likely to. The long border between the U.S.-occupied Yukon and northern British Columbia on the one hand and Alaska on the other was anything but the ideal place to wage war.

The western end of the chain of Sandwich Islands, now…

Midway, a thousand miles north and west of Honolulu, had a U.S. base on it. The low-lying island wasn't anything much. Aside from great swarms of goony birds, it boasted nothing even remotely interesting. But it was where it was. Japan had seized Guam along with the Philippines in the Hispano-Japanese War right after the turn of the century, and turned the island into her easternmost base. If she took Midway from the USA, that could let her walk down the little islands in the chain toward the ones that really mattered.

Japan didn't have anyone to fight but the USA. The United States, by contrast, had a major land war against the Confederate States on their hands. They were trying to hold down a restive Canada. And the British, French, and Confederates made the Atlantic an unpleasant place-to say nothing of the Confederate submersibles that sneaked out of Guaymas to prowl the West Coast.

Sam wished he hadn't thought about all that. It made him realize how alone out here in the Pacific the Remembrance was. If something went wrong, the USA would have to send a carrier around the Horn-which wouldn't be so easy now that the British and Confederates had retaken Bermuda and the Bahamas. The only other thing the United States could do was start building carriers in Seattle or San Francisco or San Pedro or San Diego. That wouldn't be easy or quick, either, not with the country cut in two.

Most of the crew enjoyed the weather. It was mild and balmy. The sun shone out of a blue sky down on an even bluer sea. Carsten could have done without the sunshine, but he had special problems. Zinc oxide helped cut the burn a little. Unfortunately, a little was exactly how much the ointment helped.

He glanced up to the carrier's island every so often. The antenna on the Y-range gear spun round and round, searching for Japanese airplanes. Midway also had a Y-range station. Between the two of them, they should have made a surprise attack impossible. But Captain Stein was a suspenders-and-belt man. He kept a combat air patrol overhead all through the day, too. Sam approved. You didn't want to get caught with your pants down, not here.

Fighters weren't the only things flying above the Remembrance and the cruisers and destroyers that accompanied her. As she got farther out into the chain of Sandwich Islands, albatrosses and their smaller seagoing cousins grew more and more common. Watching them always fascinated Sam. They soared along with effortless ease, hardly ever flapping. The smaller birds sometimes dove into the ocean after fish. Not the albatrosses. They swooped low to snatch their suppers from the surface of the sea, then climbed up into the sky again.

They were as graceful in the air as they were ungainly on the ground. Considering that every landing was a crash and every takeoff a desperate sprint into the wind, that said a great deal.

The other impressive thing about them was their wingspan, which seemed not that much smaller than an airplane's. Sam had grown up watching hawks and turkey buzzards soar over the upper Midwest. He was used to big birds on the wing. The goony birds dwarfed anything he'd seen then, though.

"I hear the deck officer waved one of them off the other day," he said in the officers' wardroom. "Fool bird wasn't coming in straight enough to suit him."

"He didn't want it to catch fire when it smashed into the deck," Hiram Pottinger said. "You know goonies can't land clean."

"Well, sure," Sam said. "But it shit on his hat when it swung around for another pass."

He got his laugh. Commander Cressy said, "Plenty of our flyboys have wanted to do the same thing, I'll bet. If that albatross ever comes back, they'll pin a medal on it."

Sam got up and poured himself a fresh cup of coffee. He was junior officer there, so he held up the pot, silently asking the other men if they wanted any. Pottinger pointed to his cup. Sam filled it up. The head of damage control added cream and sugar. Before long, the cream would go bad and it would be condensed milk out of a can instead. Everybody enjoyed the real stuff as long as it stayed fresh.

Pottinger asked Commander Cressy, "You think the Japs are out there, sir?"

"Oh, I know they're out there. We all know that," the exec answered. "Whether they're within operational range of Midway-and of us-well, that's what we're here to find out. I'm as sure that they want to boot us off the Sandwich Islands as I am of my own name."

"Makes sense," Sam said. "If they kick us back to the West Coast, they don't need to worry about us again for a long time."

Dan Cressy nodded. "That's about right. They'd have themselves a perfect Pacific empire-the Philippines and what were the Dutch East Indies for resources, and the Sandwich Islands for a forward base. Nobody could bother them after that."

"The British-" Lieutenant Commander Pottinger began.

Sam shook his head at the same time as Commander Cressy did. Cressy noticed; Sam wondered if the exec would make him do the explaining. To his relief, Cressy didn't. Telling a superior why he was wrong was always awkward. Cressy outranked Pottinger, so he could do it without hemming and hawing. And he did: "If the British give Japan a hard time, they'll get bounced out of Malaya before you can say Jack Robinson. They're too busy closer to home to defend it properly. The Japs might take away Hong Kong or invade Australia, too. I don't think they want to do that. We're still on their plate, and they've got designs on China. But they could switch gears. Anybody with a General Staff worth its uniforms has more strategic plans than he knows what to do with. All he has to do is grab one and dust it off."

Pottinger was Navy to his toes. He took the correction without blinking. "I wonder how the limeys like playing second fiddle out in the Far East," he remarked.

"It's Churchill's worry, not mine," Cressy said. "But they're being good little allies to the Japs out here. They don't want to give Japan any excuses to start nibbling on their colonies. They make a mint from Hong Kong, and it wouldn't last twenty minutes if Japan decided she didn't want them running it any more."

"Makes sense," Hiram Pottinger said. "I hadn't thought it through."

"Only one thing." Sam spoke hesitantly. Commander Cressy waved for him to go on. If the exec hadn't, he wouldn't have. As it was, he said, "The Japs may not need any excuse if they decide they want Hong Kong or Malaya. They're liable just to reach out and grab with both hands."

He waited to see if he'd made Cressy angry. Before the exec could say anything, general quarters sounded. Cressy jumped to his feet. "We'll have to finish hashing this out another time, gentlemen," he said.

Neither Sam Carsten nor Hiram Pottinger answered him. They were both on their way out of the wardroom, on their way down to their battle stations below the Remembrance's waterline. Panting, Sam asked, "Is this the real thing, or just another drill?"

"We'll find out," Pottinger answered. "Mind your head."

"Aye aye, sir," Sam said. A tall man had to do that, or he could knock himself cold hurrying from one compartment to another. He could also trip over his own feet; the hatchway doors had raised sills.

Some of the sailors in the damage-control party beat them to their station. They'd been nearby, not in the wardroom in officers' country. "Is this the McCoy?" Szczerbiakowicz asked. "Or is it just another goddamn drill?"

He shouldn't have talked about drill that way. It went against regulations. Sam didn't say anything to him about it, though. Neither did Lieutenant Commander Pottinger. All he did say was, "We'll both find out at the same time, Eyechart."

"I don't hear a bunch of airplanes taking off over our heads," Sam said hopefully. "Doesn't feel like we're taking evasive action, either. So I hope it's only a drill."

The klaxons cut off. The all-clear didn't sound right away, though. That left things up in the air for about fifteen minutes. Then the all-clear did blare out. Commander Cressy came on the intercom: "Well, that was a little more interesting than we really wanted. We had to persuade a flight patrolling out from Midway that we weren't Japs, and we had to do it without breaking wireless silence. Not easy, but we managed."

"That could have been fun," Sam said.

Some of the other opinions expressed there in the corridor under the bare lightbulbs in their wire cages were a good deal more sulfurous than that. "What's the matter with the damn flyboys?" somebody said. "We don't look like a Jap ship."

That was true, and then again it wasn't. The Remembrance had a tall island, while most Japanese carriers sported small ones or none at all. But the Japs had also converted battleship and battle-cruiser hulls into carriers. Her lines might have touched off alarm bells in the fliers' heads.

"Nice to know what was going on," a junior petty officer said. "The exec may be an iron-assed son of a bitch, but at least he fills you in."

All the sailors nodded. Sam and Hiram Pottinger exchanged amused glances. They didn't contradict the petty officer. Commander Cressy was supposed to look like an iron-assed son of a bitch to everybody who didn't know him. A big part of his job was saying no for the skipper. The skipper was the good guy. When, as occasionally happened, the answer to something was yes, he usually said it himself. That was how things worked on every ship in the Navy. The Remembrance was no exception. Some executive officers reveled in saying no. Cressy wasn't like that. He was tough, but he was fair.

Chattering, the sailors went back to their regular duties. Sam went up onto the flight deck, braving the sun for a chance to look around. Nothing special was going on. He liked that better than rushing up to jury-rig repairs after a bomb hit while enemy fighters shot up his ship. All he saw were vast sky and vaster sea, the Remembrance's supporting flotilla off in the near and middle distance. A couple of fighters buzzed overhead, one close enough to let him see the USA's eagle's head in front of crossed swords.

And a pair of albatrosses glided along behind the Remembrance. They really did look almost big enough to land. He wondered what they thought of the great ship. Or were they too birdbrained to think at all?

But this was their home. Men came here only to fight. That being so, who really were the birdbrains here?

Flora Blackford's countrymen had often frustrated her. They elected too many Democrats when she was convinced sending more Socialists to Powel House and to Congress and to statehouses around the United States would have served the country better. But she'd never imagined they could ignore large-scale murder, especially large-scale murder by the enemy in time of war.

Whether she'd imagined it or not, it was turning out to be true. She'd done just what she told Al Smith she would do: she'd trumpeted the Confederacy's massacres of Negroes as loudly and as widely as she could. She'd shown the photographs Caesar had risked his life to bring into the USA.

And she'd accomplished… not bloody much. She'd got a little ink in the papers, a little more in the weekly newsmagazines. And the public? The public had yawned. The most common response had been, Who cares what the Confederates are doing at home? We've got enough problems on account of what they're doing to us right here.

She shook her head. No, actually that wasn't the most common response. She would have known how to counter it. And even a response like that would have meant people in the USA were talking about and thinking about what was going on in the CSA. Against silence, against indifference, what could she do?

Confederate wireless hadn't called her a liar. The Freedom Party's mouthpieces hadn't bothered. Instead, they'd started yelling and screaming and jumping up and down about what they called the USA's "massacre of innocents" in Utah. They didn't bother mentioning that the Mormons had risen in rebellion.

Flora's mouth twisted as she sat in her office. She supposed the Confederates might claim Negroes had risen in rebellion against Richmond. As far as she was concerned, that served Richmond right. The Confederate States oppressed and repressed their blacks. The United States had given the Mormons full equality-and they'd risen anyhow.

Besides, the Mormons who died died in combat. The Confederates seemed to have set up special camps to dispose of their Negroes. Gather them in one place, get rid of them, and then bring in a fresh batch and do it again. It all struck her as being as efficient as a factory. If Henry Ford had decided to produce murders instead of motorcars, that was how he would have gone about it.

Bertha knocked on the office door, which took her out of her unhappy reverie. "Yes?" she said, a little relieved-or maybe more than a little-to return to the here and now.

Her secretary looked in. "The Assistant Secretary of War is here, Congresswoman."

"Oh, yes. Of course." Flora shook her head again. It was eleven o' clock. She'd had this appointment for days. This whole business with those photos really was making her forget everything else. "Please tell him to come in."

"All right." Bertha turned away. "Go on in, Mr. Roosevelt, sir." She held the door open so he could.

"Thank you very much," Franklin Roosevelt said as he propelled his wheelchair past her and into Flora's office. He was only distantly related to Theodore Roosevelt, and a solid Socialist rather than a Democrat like his more famous cousin. He did seem to have some of his namesake's capacity for getting people to pay attention to him when he said things.

"Good to see you, Mr. Roosevelt." Flora stood up, came around the desk, and held out her hand.

When Franklin Roosevelt took it, his engulfed hers. He had big hands, wide shoulders, and a barrel chest that went well with the impetuous, jut-jawed patrician good looks of his face. But his legs were shriveled and useless in his trousers. More than twenty years earlier, he'd come down with poliomyelitis. He hadn't let it stop him, but it had slowed him down. Some people said he might have been President if not for that mishap.

"Can I have Bertha bring you some coffee?" Flora asked.

"That would be very pleasant, thanks," Roosevelt replied in a resonant baritone.

"I'd like a cup, too, Bertha, if you don't mind," Flora said. She and Roosevelt made small talk over the steaming cups for a little while. Then she decided she might as well get to the point, and asked, "What can I do for you today?"

"Well, I thought I would come by to thank you for your excellent work on publicizing the outrages the Confederate States are committing against their Negroes," Roosevelt answered.

"You did?" Flora could hardly believe her ears. "To tell you the truth, I'd begun to wonder if anyone noticed."

"Well, I did," Roosevelt said. "And you can rest assured that the Negroes who are fighting for justice in the CSA have noticed, too. The War Department has made a point of being careful to let them know the government of the United States sympathizes with them in their ordeal."

"I… see," Flora said slowly. "I didn't say what I said for propaganda purposes."

"I know that." Roosevelt beamed at her from behind small, metal-framed spectacles. "It only makes things better. It shows we understand what they're suffering and want to do something about it."

"Does it?" Flora had held in her bitterness since discovering she couldn't even raise a tempest in a teapot. Now it came flooding out: "Is that what it shows, Mr. Roosevelt? Forgive me, but I have my doubts. Doesn't it really show that a few of us may be upset, but most of us couldn't care less? What the Confederate States are doing is a judgment on them. And how little it matters here is a judgment on us."

Franklin Roosevelt pursed his lips. "You may be right. That may be what it really shows," he said at last. "But what the Negroes in the CSA think it shows also counts. If they think the United States are on their side, they'll struggle harder against the CSA and the Freedom Party. That could be important to the war. When you play these games, what people believe is often as important as what's really so. I'm sure you've seen the same thing in your brand of politics."

Flora studied him. That was either the most brilliant analysis she'd ever heard-or the most breathtakingly cynical one. For the life of her, she couldn't decide which. Maybe it was both at once. Was that better or worse? She couldn't make up her mind there, either.

Roosevelt smiled. When he did, she wanted to believe him. When Jake Featherston talked, people wanted to believe him. Roosevelt had some of the same gift. How much had poliomyelitis taken away from the country?

Or, considering to whom she'd just compared him, how much had it spared the country? Either way, no one would ever know.

"You see?" he said.

With his eyes twinkling at her, she wanted to see things his way. "Maybe," she said, though she hadn't expected to admit even that much. "It hardly seems fair, though, to use them for our purposes when they're so downtrodden. They'll grab at anything they see floating by." She realized she'd just mixed a metaphor. Too late to worry about it now.

"This is a war," Roosevelt said. "You use the weapons that come to hand. The Confederates have used the Mormons. The British and the Japanese have both worked hard to rouse the Canadians against us. Should we waste a chance to make the Confederates have to fight to keep order in their own country? Isn't that a choice that would live in infamy?" He thrust out his chin.

He had a point, or part of one. Flora said, "In that case, we shouldn't let the Negroes in the CSA live on hope and promises. If they're going to fight Confederate soldiers and Freedom Party goons, they ought to have the guns to make it a real fight. Otherwise, we just set them up to be massacred."

"We are sending them guns, as we can," Roosevelt replied. "They do live in another country, you know. Smuggling in weapons isn't always easy. We did some in the Great War. We can do more now, because we can drop more from bombers. It's less than I would like, but it's better than nothing. If we give them the tools, they can finish the job."

Finish the job? It was a fine phrase, but Flora didn't believe it. Blacks in the Confederate States would always be outnumbered and outgunned. They could rebel. They could cause endless trouble to the whites in the CSA. They couldn't hope to beat them.

Could they hope to live alongside them? That would take changes from both whites and blacks. Flora wished she thought such changes were likely. When she asked Franklin Roosevelt whether he did, he shook his head. "I wish I could tell you yes," he said. "But if people are going to change, there has to be a willingness on both sides to do it. I don't see that there. What Negroes want is very far removed from what whites will give."

Flora sighed. "I'm afraid it seems that way to me, too. I was hoping you might tell me something different."

"I'd be happy to, if you want me to lie," Roosevelt said. "I thought you would rather have a straight answer."

"And I would," Flora said. "I tell you frankly, I would also like to have the executive branch say some of the things I'm saying. If it did, the Negroes in the Confederate States might have some real reason to hope."

"I have two things to say about that," Roosevelt replied. "The first is that if you want to persuade the executive branch to say anything in particular, you need to persuade the President, not the Assistant Secretary of War."

"President Smith has a view of this matter somewhat different from mine," Flora said unhappily.

Roosevelt shrugged those broad shoulders. "That's between you and him, then, not between you and me. The other thing I would tell you, though, is that you should watch what the administration does, not just what it says. I am sure the President has his reasons for not wanting to make the sort of statement you wish he would. You may not agree with them, but he has them. No matter what he says, we are doing what we can to arm Negroes in the Confederate States. If they can fight back, they're less likely to be slaughtered, don't you think?"

Carefully, Flora said, "I wish we were doing it for reasons of justice and not just for political and military considerations."

When Teddy Roosevelt's cousin shook his head, he showed a lot of his more famous namesake's bulldog determination. "There, meaning no offense, I have to say I disagree with you. Whenever someone talks about doing something for reasons of justice, you should put your hand in your pocket, because you're about to get it picked. That's not always true-your own career proves as much-but it's the way to bet."

"Thank you for making the exception," Flora murmured, wondering if he really meant it.

"Any time," he said cheerfully. He was too smart to make any protestations that he had. She wouldn't have believed those. Instead, he went on, "Political and military reasons are the ones you should rely on, if you care to know what I think. They have self-interest behind them, and that makes them likely to last. Principles are pretty, but they go stale a lot faster."

Again, Flora wondered whether that was wisdom or some of the most appalling cynicism she'd ever heard. Again, she had a devil of a time coming up with an answer.

The more Clarence Potter learned about the intelligence assets the Confederates had in place in the USA, the more he respected his predecessors. Some of the people who contrived to send word south of the border had been quietly working in the U.S. War Department and Navy Department and Department of State since before the Great War broke out. Most of the time, they were what they pretended to be all the time: clerks and bookkeepers who did their jobs and didn't worry about anything else. They did their jobs, all right, but every now and then they did worry about something else.

Seeing what they did also made Potter worry about something else. He dared not assume U.S. spymasters were any less clever than those on his own side. That made him wonder who in the C.S. War Department had ways to get word of this, that, or the other thing to the damnyankees. Who was in the C.S. State Department but not fully of it?

Trying to find out wasn't his province. He had plenty to keep his own plate full-not least those reports that came out of Philadelphia and Washington. They helped confirm what he'd suspected for some time: that the United States were getting ready to try an offensive of their own, and that Virginia, the obvious target, was the one they had in mind.

But he did do what anyone who'd spent a while in government service would have done: he wrote a memorandum. He sent it to his opposite number in Counterintelligence, and sent a copy to Nathan Bedford Forrest III as chief of the Confederate General Staff. He thought about sending a copy to Jake Featherston, too, but decided against it-that would be going over too many people's heads.

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."

"Good. I believe you-you sound like a schoolteacher talking about the bawdyhouse next door to her apartment building." The chief of the General Staff chuckled. Potter was less amused, but let it pass. Chuckling still, Forrest went on, "I should have remembered you run spies. You think about these things more than an ordinary officer is liable to."

"Well, I should hope so!" Clarence Potter exclaimed. "Ordinary officers…" He shook his head. "I read a memoir once, by one of Robert E. Lee's couriers. In the Pennsylvania campaign, he almost lost a set of Lee's special orders-the damned fool had wrapped them around three cigars. If McClellan had found out how badly Lee had divided the Army of Northern Virginia, who knows how much mischief he could have done? An enlisted man saw the orders fall and gave them back. If he hadn't, that courier's name would be mud all over the CSA."

"You do have to pay attention to little things," Forrest agreed. He tapped the report with his fingernail. "Go ahead with what you've got in mind. I'll be interested to see what you turn up."

"Yes, sir." Potter's smile was all sharp teeth. "What-and who."