Lord Halifax opened his fancy attachй case: buttery leather polished till it gleamed, with clasps that looked like real gold. He pulled out a document held together with a fat paper clip. "Here you are, Mr. President. I honestly didn't believe they would turn these loose, but they did. You must have made an even more favorable impression on the Prime Minister than I thought. He does admire a…purposeful man, no doubt of that."
Jake Featherston hardly heard him. He was flipping through the papers. He didn't understand more than one word in ten, and he didn't understand any of the math. But he knew the word uranium when he saw it. And he knew about element 94, even if the limeys were calling it churchillium and not jovium.
"Did your scientists name it after Winston because it's supposed to make a big boom when it goes off?" he asked with a sly grin.
"Officially, it's a compliment to his office. We call 93 mosleyium after the Minister of War," Halifax replied. "Unofficially…well, I shouldn't wonder if you're right."
"I'll get this to our people who can use it just as quick as I can," Jake said. "And I want you to thank Winston for me from the bottom of my heart. What he did here, it means a lot to the country and it means a lot to me personally."
"He found your point about the need to continue the struggle against the United States by any means necessary alarmingly persuasive," Lord Halifax said. "If you fail, Britain is most dismally surrounded by the Yankees and the Huns."
"How close are you to getting one of these bombs?" Jake asked.
The British ambassador shrugged narrow shoulders. "Haven't the foggiest, I'm afraid. Were I not ambassador to a country also taking part in this research, I doubt I should know there is any such thing as uranium."
"Mm-makes sense," Featherston allowed. That was the only reason the Confederate envoys in London and Paris knew about uranium and what you might be able to do with it. But they hadn't been able to pry anything out of England or France. He damn well had.
"Will you be able to hold Richmond, sir?" Halifax asked.
"Hope so," Jake said. "But even if we don't, we'll keep fighting. As long as we've got a puncher's chance, we'll hang on. And with this"-he tapped the document with a nicotine-stained forefinger-"we do."
"Very good," the British ambassador said. But he meant it the way limeys did, so it might have been all right. He didn't mean it was very good, just that he'd heard. "I shall convey your determination to London. Bombing is picking up there, I'm afraid, though it's not so bad as here."
"Damn squareheads have airfields closer to you now," Jake said. Lord Halifax looked like a man who'd just sat on a tack but was too polite to mention it. Featherston knew why. He hadn't been…diplomatic. Well, too bad, he thought. He'd told the truth, hadn't he? He'd told the truth all the time while he rose-it looked that way to him, anyhow. He didn't see any point to stopping now.
And he was telling the truth again. The Kaiser's forces had bundled the British out of northwestern Germany, out of Holland, and back into Belgium. They were threatening Ypres-universally pronounced Wipers by English-speakers-again, as they had in the Great War. When it fell then, it was a sign that the Entente couldn't hold on against the Central Powers. If it fell this time around, it would be another verse of the same song.
"We are doing everything in our power to deny them the use of those air bases," Halifax said.
"Sure, sure." Jake nodded and smiled. He probably should have kept his mouth shut even if he did tell the truth. Didn't he owe Halifax that much? The ambassador-and his government, of course-had come through for the Confederacy in a big way. "Between us, your Lordship, sir, we'll lick the bad guys yet."
"Between us, yes. And the French and the Russians will have something to say about it as well." Lord Halifax grimaced again. "I worry about the Russians. Failure the last time around cost them the Ukraine and Finland and Poland and the Baltic states and a Red insurrection at least as unpleasant as yours." He was being diplomatic; the Tsar's fight against the Reds had been bigger and bloodier than anything the CSA went through. After a pause to light a Habana, he continued, "They're wavering again, I fear. When they couldn't beat the Germans, or even the Austrians…If they go out, heaven only knows what sort of upheaval will follow."
"Hell with that," Featherston said. "If they go out now, you and France get the shaft. The Kaiser can pull everything away from the east and shoot it all at you."
"Quite." British reserve had its uses. Lord Halifax got as much mileage from one soft-spoken word as Jake would have from five minutes of cussing. He rose and held out an elegantly manicured hand. "Always a pleasure, Mr. President. I do hope the document proves valuable to you."
"I'm sure it will be." I'll know just how valuable by this time tomorrow, Jake thought as he shook it. Aloud, he went on, "England's always been the best friend the Confederacy has. We know that, and we never forget it."
One more time, the truth. English recognition in 1862, English forcing of the U.S. blockade, had ensured the Confederacy's independence. English help during the Second Mexican War made sure the CSA got to keep Chihuahua and Sonora, even if an invasion of the USA from Canada came to grief in Montana.
Well, the Confederate States of America paid their debts to the UK in 1914. This time, no debt was involved: both countries wanted revenge against the enemies who'd beaten them. And remembering alliances past didn't mean you had to do anything but remember. Jake understood that perfectly well. Did Lord Halifax? No doubt; he was twisty as a snake.
As soon as the British ambassador bowed his way out, Featherston summoned a courier. The bright young lieutenant saluted. "Freedom!"
"Freedom!" Jake echoed. He handed the man the British document. "Get these pages photographed. As soon as you've done that, haul ass to Washington University in Lexington and deliver them to Professor FitzBelmont."
"Yes, sir." The courier hesitated. "If it's such a tearing hurry, sir, why wait for the photography?"
"Because this has to get through," Jake answered. "Even if something happens to you"-even if the damnyankees roast you like a barbecued porker-"FitzBelmont has to get it. So we make a copy before we send you off."
"All right, sir. I understand."
"Good. Tell the fellow in the photo lab to call me as soon as he does what he needs to do." With this document, Jake intended to take no chances whatever.
"Yes, sir," the lieutenant said again. He saluted and hurried away. He didn't even need to leave the armored underground compartment to find a photographic technician. Anything that had to do with running a country, you could do here.
Now he would have some idea of what was going on in Lexington. So would the man who photographed the pages. That worried Jake less than it would have a few months before. If one of them reported to the damnyankees…well, so what? The United States already knew the Confederate States were working on a uranium bomb. The United States knew where, too. Otherwise, they wouldn't have started pounding the crap out of Lexington. If they knew the limeys were helping out, how did that change things? Didn't it just give them a brand-new worry? It looked that way to Jake Featherston.
The courier hadn't been gone more than a couple of minutes before the telephone on his desk jangled again. He eyed it the way a man in the woods might eye a rattler with a buzzing tail. Unlike a man in the woods, he couldn't walk away from it no matter how much he wished he could.
He picked it up. "Featherston here…What the hell do you mean, they're over the North Anna?" He'd expected bad news-that was the kind that got to the President in a hurry. He hadn't expected news this bad, though. "How the devil did they do that? Which dumb-shit general had his thumb up his ass to let 'em?…Jesus Christ, they can't have that much armor-can they?" He sounded worried even to himself. That was no good. You needed to sound calm, even-no, especially-when you weren't.