American Empire: Blood and Iron - By Harry Turtledove Page 0,169

Mexico against rebels who had Yankee backing.

We’re not really here at all, the letter read. Neither is our friend. The friend in question was the barrel. Only a couple of us ever used these critters in the war against the USA. Now we all know how to handle them. Some of us are going to try and see if we can’t get some stronger engines, too, so they’ll go better. You bet we’ll bring home what we’re learning. Freedom!

Slowly, Featherston nodded to himself. The Confederate States weren’t allowed to have barrels of their own. So the United States said, and the United States were strong enough to make their word stick. But Confederate mercenaries in Mexico, in Peru, and in Argentina were getting practice fighting in barrels and in aeroplanes and on the sea, and were figuring out improvements for the machines they used. A lot of those mercenaries belonged to the Freedom Party. Jake figured he knew as much about clandestine Confederate military affairs as the War Department did—and the War Department didn’t know how much he knew.

Lulu stopped typing. She came into his private office: a thin, gray-haired woman, competent rather than decorative. “Mr. Kimball is here to see you, Mr. Featherston.”

“Bring him right on in,” Jake said. “We’ve got some things to talk about, sure enough.” His secretary nodded, left, and returned a moment later with Kimball. Jake rose and shook his hand. “Good to see you. Glad you could get up to Richmond.”

“I hadn’t planned to,” Roger Kimball answered, “but things have a way of coming up when you don’t expect them, eh?”

Featherston nodded. After Lulu went out and started typing again, he said, “Just when you thought you had everything sunk down out of sight for good, you find out you were wrong. That fellow who went and saw Anne Colleton isn’t by any chance lying, is he?”

Kimball looked as if he wanted to say yes, but in the end he shook his head. “I sank the Yankee bastard, all right. So the war was over? Too damn bad.” He glared at Jake, defying him to make something of it.

“Good,” Jake said. Kimball stared. Featherston went on, “I fought the damnyankees up to the very last second I could. You think I care if you waited till the cease-fire went into effect before you gave ’em one last lick? In a pig’s ass, I do. What matters to me is whether it’ll make trouble for the Party and trouble for the country. If I decide it will, I’m going to have to cut you loose.”

He waited to see how Kimball would take that. The ex– submersible skipper said, “I’ll kill that son of a bitch of a Brearley if it’s the last thing I ever do. I knew he was a weak reed right from the start.”

“You will not,” Jake Featherston said. “You will not, do you hear me?” He waited to see how Kimball would take the flat order.

Kimball took it just the way he’d expected him to: he blew his stack. “The hell I won’t,” he snarled, going brick red. “I told that bastard I’d murder him if he ever started running his big mouth. He damn well has, and I damn well will.”

“Then I damn well will cut you loose right this minute,” Featherston said. “Forget what I told you down in Charleston. I don’t want a man who can’t do what he’s told in the Freedom Party. I don’t want somebody who’s liable to blow up behind my back in the Party. If you want to kill Brearley after I told you not to, you can kindly wait till you don’t have any connection to me. Do whatever you please on your own hook. Don’t embarrass the Party.”

He waited again. What would Kimball do? He’d been an officer. Would he get shirty about taking orders from an ex-sergeant? A lot of fellows who’d worn fancy uniforms couldn’t stomach anything like that. Or would he remember that, in the Freedom Party, he was still a mid-ranking officer and Jake was commander-in-chief?

Kimball started to blow his stack once more. Featherston could see it begin…and, a moment later, could see Kimball ease off again. Jake eyed the former Navy man with respect he hoped he concealed. Not everybody could go into a rage and then clamp down on it. The people who could were apt to be very useful indeed.

Slowly, Roger Kimball said, “All right, Sarge, suppose I let the son of a bitch

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