He broke off. Only a handful of the men in the room had been able to grasp that what would one day become the Manhattan Project had been penetrated from top to bottom; that all their secrets were open to general view.
“I would advise you to swoop on them before they can react,” King said, his southern accent contrasting with Garner’s. “The Press has already figured out the bare bones of what’s happening – and you have to secure the Philippines.”
William Franklin Knox, the Secretary of the Navy, coughed. Despite being firmly in favour of aid to Britain, Knox hadn’t taken the reports on Pearl Harbour very well at all. Learning that his personal friend Kimmel would become the scapegoat for the disaster had alarmed him; he’d even ranted about a ‘nigger fantasy’, which King had ignored. Not all of the Marines had been so calm; his escort detachment had been sucked into a brawl when one of the coloured Marines had been insulted to his face.
“How do we know that this is still going to happen?” He asked sharply. “If that… image there” – he waved a hand at the film of the attacks on the German and Italian Navies – “is genuine, then won’t history have been changed already?”
It was a perceptive question, King acknowledged. From the hints of racial unrest that were already appearing in Washington, he suspected that the United States had already been changed and would change further.
“Mr Knox,” Palter said, “the German strategy seems to be to force the British to fight on as many fronts as possible. By now, Japan and Soviet Russia will be aware of the… change, they will be aware of their own futures. The British do not have any communications with Australia yet, but they’re working on a relay system for radio transmitters. What they don’t have down there are modern ships; ships that could sink every ship in the Japanese Navy without breaking a sweat. To Tojo and his band of goons, it seems like a window of opportunity.”
He sensed Knox’s concern and Roosevelt’s flicker of worry. Roosevelt had once been Secretary of the Navy; he understood the old style of naval war. “The Japanese will have had an intelligence windfall fall into their laps,” he continued. “If the worst-case scenario is true, they will know everything about the Allied navies; the good, the bad, the ugly. They will also know that their only hope of victory is to force us out of the Pacific and work to develop new weapons from what they’ve learned.”
“You allowed some weapons to fall into their hands?” Knox demanded, finding a target for his rage. “Fucking careless handling.”
I didn’t know that that word was in use at the time, King thought absently.
Stung, Ambassador Quinn rose to Britain’s defence. “Mr Secretary, if you have plans to handle your entire nation being moved back in time, then you can talk. This caught us by surprise; we had no clue that this would happen.”
“There is also the matter of you owing us money,” the Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, said. The news of the Holocaust had shaken his Jewish soul to the roots. “Ah, Ambassadors, you do owe us a lot of money.”
“With all due respect, we have just given you priceless information,” Quinn said. “We are prepared to offer a single batch of information that you will need to develop new weapons, and we are prepared to establish a mobile phone network that will be completely secure. In exchange, we need food, fuel, coal and a supply of the new weapons. We also need you to write off the debts.” He smiled. “We already paid them once.”
“You will not tell us how to make the mobile phones?” Garner asked. “We would be dependent upon your production.”
Quinn smiled. “You will be unable to duplicate them for at least twenty years,” he said.
Roosevelt tapped the side of his wheelchair. “Young man,” he said, addressing King directly. “If you don’t mind, I would like to talk about the matter privately with you.”
“That’s fine by me,” King said, surprised at the level of respect he was being shown.
“Delores, would you mind supplying these men with coffee?” Roosevelt said. He wheeled the wheelchair into the next room; King followed him. Behind him, he heard the clink of china cups and of men relaxing; Lord Lothian seemed astounded. He understood how he felt.
“All this history is genuine?” Roosevelt asked, waving the documents over his lap. “We will go to war in 1941?”
“Yes,” King said flatly. “Mr President, I come from seventy years in the future. You cannot imagine the changes that happen between now and then.”
“Indeed?” Roosevelt asked. “Here you are, a black man who holds the respect of a white man, and of Marines to boot. The strange British ship in the Potomac. The… laptops. At the moment, I’d believe anything.”
King looked at him. “Including the information about your affair?” He asked. Roosevelt seemed unbothered. “You should never have slept with Lucy Mercer.”
“A minor mistake,” Roosevelt said. “I expect that many truths will come out over the next few years.”
King smiled in admiration. “They can cure you now,” he said. “There will be no need for you to die.”
“That’s beside the point,” Roosevelt said. “Tell me, Ambassador of 2015, should we deal with the British as they have suggested?”
“You have to do so,” King said. “You also need to make some legal changes.”
“I read your note,” Roosevelt said. “Once all the competing interests get a look at the next twenty years…”
“Chaos,” King said. “Mr President, you have to press for racial equality now, before it’s too late. You also have to force your own technology forward as fast as possible; the British information will help. You will also have the help of the other Americans who were marooned in the UK; those of them who will return to the United States.”
Roosevelt frowned. “You expect that we will fight the British?”
King took a breath. “Mr President, the British of this – of 2015 – know just how many mistakes happened because of your policies,” he said. “Already, they are moving to make the best use of their second chance. With luck, they can build a fourth British Empire; a genuinely democratic system.
“And there are other troubles to alter,” he said. “You have to push into space and establish a genuine foothold on the Moon. You have to convert to hydrogen before the deal with the Saudi devil has to be paid for. You have to regulate international commence so that it doesn’t work towards leaving the poor poorer and filled with hate for America.”
“It seems like far too much for me,” Roosevelt said. The President’s voice sounded weak. “What’s in the British information package?”
“I skimmed though it,” King said. “They’ve presented you with some details on torpedo designs, basic radio sets, automatic weapons that will treble the firepower of infantry, anti-tank weapons that will destroy any German tank, and a mass-produced tank provisionally dubbed the Firefly.”
He smiled; the Firefly was an improved T-34, designed by a British tank enthusiast who’d been delighted to be able to put his hobby to use. It was simple to build, simple to drive, simple to repair, and very tough, tougher than any other tank until 1960. He didn’t mention the source of the idea; it would only have upset people.
Roosevelt smiled. “And they want us to make them for them,” he said. “Why can’t they build them for themselves?”
King shook his head. “Their industrial plant is geared towards turning out higher quality equipment that takes longer to build,” he explained. “If you produce them, they’ll be able to produce more of the war-winning systems that you’ll need.”