Dowling walked from the barricades up to the entrance. He wheezed climbing the stairs. His heart pounded. He was carrying a lot of weight around, and he'd just reminded himself how young he wasn't. I made it through the war, though. That's all that-well, most of what-really counts.
Despite the stars on his shoulder straps, he got frisked before he could go inside. The soldiers who patted him down didn't take anything for granted. When Dowling asked about that, one of them said, "Sir, the way things are, we'll be doing this forever. Too many assholes running around loose-uh, pardon my French."
"I've met the word," Dowling remarked. The enlisted men grinned.
A corporal in a uniform with creases sharp enough to shave with took Dowling down into the bowels of the earth to John Abell's office. These days, the more deeply you were buried, the bigger the wheel you were. And Abell was a bigger wheel-he now sported two stars on his shoulder straps.
"Congratulations, Major General," Dowling said, and stuck out his hand.
"Thanks." The General Staff officer's grip was stronger than his slender build and pallid face would have made you think. He'd been fair almost to the point of ghostliness even before he started impersonating a mole. But he had to be really good at what he did to rise as high as he had without a field command. Well, that was nothing Dowling hadn't already known.
"What's the latest?" Dowling asked.
"We finally have a handle on the rising in Saskatoon," Abell answered. "They surrendered on a promise that we'd treat them as POWs-and that we wouldn't superbomb the place."
"Good God!" Dowling said. "Were we thinking of it?"
"No-but the Canucks don't need to know that," the younger man replied.
"Well, well. A use for superbombs I hadn't thought of," Dowling said. "Just knowing we've got 'em on inventory is worth something."
"Indeed," Abell said. "Speaking of which, how is Professor FitzBelmont?"
Before answering, Dowling asked, "Am I allowed to talk about that with you?"
Abell's smile was cold, but his smiles usually were. "Oh, yes. That's one of the reasons you were ordered back here."
"He's a more than capable physicist, and he had some good engineers working under him," Dowling said. "That's the opinion of people who ought to know. What with as much of this town as he blew up, I'd say they're right."
"What do we do with him?" Abell asked.
"He's kind of like a bomb himself, isn't he? All that stuff he knows…Damn good thing Featherston didn't want to listen to him at first. Damn good thing. If the Japs or the Russians kidnapped him, I'd flabble," Dowling said. "And he'd sing. He'd sing like a nightingale. He'd probably think it was…interesting."
"Our German allies don't want the Russians getting a superbomb," Abell said. "Nobody wants the Japanese getting one."
"Except them," Dowling said.
"Yes. Except them." John Abell jotted something in a notebook. Even upside down, his script looked clear and precise. "Probably about time for him to have an unfortunate accident, don't you think? Then we won't have to worry about what he's up to and where he might go-or, as you say, might be taken."
What had he just written down? Kill Henderson FitzBelmont, the way someone else might have written eggs, salami, Ѕ pound butter? Dowling didn't know, but that was what he would have bet. And Abell wanted his opinion of the idea, too. What was he supposed to say? What came out of his mouth was, "Well, I think we've learned about as much from him as we're going to."
Abell nodded. "That was my next question."
"If we're going to do this, it really does have to look like an accident," Dowling said. "We give the diehards a martyr if we screw up."
"Don't worry about it. The people we use are reliable," Abell said. "Very sad, but if the professor tried to cross the street in front of a command car…"
"I see." Dowling wondered if he saw anything but the tip of the iceberg. "How many Confederates have already had, uh, unfortunate accidents?"
"I can't talk about that with you," the General Staff officer answered. "Some people we can't convict for crimes against humanity still don't deserve to live, though. Or will you tell me I'm wrong?"
Dowling thought about that. He thought about everything that had happened in the CSA since Jake Featherston took over. Slowly, he shook his head. "Nope. I won't say boo."
"Good. I didn't expect you would." Abell gave another of his chilly smiles. "Tell me, General, have you given any thought to your retirement?"
The question might have been a knife in Abner Dowling's guts. So this is the other reason they called me to Philadelphia, he thought dully. He didn't know why he was surprised. Not many men his age were still serving. But he thought he'd done as well as a man could reasonably do. Of course, when you got old enough, that didn't mean anything any more. They'd kick you out regardless. If it had happened to George Custer-and it had-it could happen to anybody.
With that in mind, Dowling answered, "Custer got over sixty years in the Army. I've had more than forty myself. That doesn't match him, but it's not a bad run. I'm not ready to go, but I will if the War Department thinks it's time."
"I'm afraid the War Department does," Abell said. "This implies no disrespect: only the desire to move younger men forward. Your career has been distinguished in all respects, and no one would say otherwise."
"If I'd held Ohio…" But Dowling shook his head. Even that probably wouldn't have mattered much. The only way you could keep from getting old was by dying before you made it. The past three years, far too many people had done that.
"It's not personal or political," Abell said. "I understand that you feel General Custer's retirement was both."
"Oh, it was," Dowling said. "I was there when the Socialists stuck it to him. There was blood on the floor by the time N. Matoon Thomas got done."
"I shouldn't wonder. Custer was a, ah, vivid figure." Abell wasn't lying. And the sun was warm, and the ocean was moist. The General Staff officer went on, "I repeat, though, none of those factors applies in your case."
"Bully," Dowling said-slang even more antiquated than he was. "I get put out to pasture any which way."
"If you'd been asked to retire during the war, it might have shown dissatisfaction with your performance. We needed your experience then. Now we have the chance to train younger men," Abell said.
He was putting the best face he could on it. He wasn't a hundred percent convincing, but he didn't miss by much. Even so…"How long before they put you out to pasture?" Dowling asked brutally.
"I may have a few more years. Or they may ask me to step down tomorrow," Abell answered with every appearance of sangfroid. "I hope I'll know when it's time to say good-bye. I don't know that I will, but I hope so."
"Time to say good-bye," Dowling echoed. "When I started, no one was sure what the machine gun was worth. Now FitzBelmont talks about blowing up Rhode Island with one bomb."
"Best thing that could happen to it," Abell observed.
"Heh," Dowling said. "Maybe it is time for me to go."
"Believe me, the Army appreciates everything you did," Abell said. "Your success in west Texas changed the whole moral character of the war."
Dowling knew what that meant. Not even U.S. citizens who didn't like Negroes could stomach killing them in carload lots. That was why Jefferson Pinkard would swing. Dowling's Eleventh Army had shown that the massacres weren't just propaganda. The Confederates really were doing those things-and a lot of them were proud of it.
"Well…thank you," Dowling said. It wasn't exactly what he'd hoped to be remembered for when he graduated from West Point, but it was better than not being remembered at all. As Custer's longtime adjutant, he'd been only a footnote. The one time he'd been important was when he lied to the War Department about what Custer and Morrell planned to do with barrels. That, he hoped, wouldn't go down in history. In this war, he'd carved out a niche for himself. It wasn't a Custer-sized niche. If anybody had that one this time around, it was Irving Morrell. But a niche it was.