“Yes, Mr President,” Eisenhower said. “I’ll get on with it at once.”
Ambassador King smiled to himself as he entered the Oval Office, nodding politely to Captain Robinson as he entered. The black marine had been appointed the new head of the Presidential Protective Service, a task that allowed him to protect Truman from all threats, and kept him out of the public eye. Dozens of investigative reporters hadn’t figured out who was behind Black Power, and the longer it stayed that way, the better.
My memoirs are going to be bestsellers one day, King thought to himself, as he shook hands with President Truman. The President looked tired – which alarmed him because Roosevelt had often been tired before his heart attack in the midst of the coup – but he smiled back at King.
“Good morning to you,” Truman said, letting go of his hand. “How are you?”
“It’s not a good morning,” King said wryly, waving a hand at the rain-streaked window. “Still, I suppose it could be worse.”
“Hailstones on a farm,” Truman said, waving King to a seat. “Tell me, what exactly caused this odd weather?”
King hesitated. “It’s called, we think, the Butterfly effect,” he said. “A great deal of a very different system was dumped into the air, and then two nuclear blasts probably didn’t help matters. Finally, its started to have an effect. The Ministry of Space is delighted; they’re selling time on the space station to researchers interested in studying the effects.”
“Yes, the British space program,” Truman said. “Tell me, what are the British doing up in space?”
King snorted. How should he know? “They’re building a space station,” he said. “In fact, given how much they’re hoisting into orbit, they’re building an entire space city.”
Truman frowned. “Why?” He asked. “Why expand so much effort in building such a base?”
“For the future,” King said, who’d given the matter some thought. “Hanover is… well, one of those who wants Britain to have a new empire. With the war on – and the need to avoid ruining our economy – he can build a serious presence in space before anyone starts wondering about better places to spend the cash.”
“One of our own people went up a day ago,” Truman said. “We got an email from him saying that his presence was resented.”
King shrugged. “It’s not a luxury liner,” he said. “Him going up meant that someone trained to help the British didn’t go up. Anyway, how is our own space program coming along?”
“We’re still working on it,” Truman said. “We also have to get nuclear weapons ready for use as well, but the earliest we can have one moving is late 1942, perhaps even the year after that. The British aren’t keen on helping us with that and that’s starting to annoy some congressmen.”
“It’s a long story,” King said. “A lot of people in Britain have moral qualms about using nuclear weapons, whatever the reason. They would have fought tooth and nail to prevent them being used even if Britain was about to fall to Nazi invasion. They’re… just not rational on the subject.”
He sighed. “Anyway, one of their backbenchers started a bill prohibiting the sharing of nuclear technology – except for desalination and hydrogen-cracking plants – and it passed. The net result was that they were unable to share any more than they had already.”
“And… sorry,” Truman said. “In the long run… we have to defeat Germany and Russia first.”
“And take care of the internal enemy,” King said. “Has there been any sign of him?”
Truman shook his head. The FBI had been guttered by the involvement of a handful of agents in the coup plot, and was nearly moribund. The new OSS – Office of Strategic Services – wasn’t geared up to provide internal security… and the state police didn’t have anything like their resources. Nine months after the attempted coup, J Edgar Hoover, former director of the FBI, remained at large.
“Nothing at all, which is worrying,” Truman said. “You know how much money is on his head; he might well have been lynched and stuffed in a bog. It’s only because people like him don’t die so easily that I’m still worried about it, and because of the missing files.”
King scowled. Hoover’s famous blackmail files had vanished along with him. That alone was distressing; they’d been supposed to contain dirt on thousands of prominent people… and not all of them might have fled to South Africa.
“He might still be somewhere out there, causing trouble,” King said. “Damn it, where the hell has he gone?”
“I’ve no idea,” Truman said. “Onto different matters, you will be pleased to hear that the 5th American Armoured Division, which I understand you’ve taken some interest in, will be fully equipped with tanks next week – the new improved Franks tank.”
“The American-designed tank,” King said wryly. General Palter had sworn blind that it wasn’t that different to a Firefly. “Still… how are they getting along?”
“Apparently, they’re pretty good,” Truman said. He picked a map of the Middle East off the table and waved it under King’s nose. “Now… we have to decide if its worth deploying some to Iran.”
“The British will be planning to force the Soviets out too this year,” King said. “The question is; do we want post-war influence there?”
“Yes,” Truman said. “The oil companies got hold of the information about oil deposits there. Even if the United States does go onto Hydrogen, or that mix and match car, oil will still be important, and the British will certainly try to add Iran to their… Republic of Arabia.”
“Trust me, it’s better than the alternative,” King said. “Frankly, I think we don’t have much chance of securing influence, no matter what we do there. We’d be better off investing in the Republic of Arabia, which needs American investment.”
Truman scowled. “They’re far more advanced than us,” he said. “They’re moving into our economy. They’re taking over a large portion of the most important region in the Middle East. Tell me… can the future British be trusted?”
King nodded. “Hanover is a long-term thinker,” he said. “A genuine statesman, in his way. He knows that the only hope for long-term success is peace and democracy. He’s moving to do it now, because, quite frankly, democracies are crap at it in peacetime.”
He chuckled. “Not, of course, that we have to accept permanent subordination.”
Chapter Five: Wheels Within Wheels
Bracken Headquarters
Washington DC, USA
25th March 1942
The new headquarters of the ever-expanding Bracken Consortium were based in Washington, in one of the factory locations on the outskirts of town. Cora Burnside, Assistant Director, had pressed for somewhere closer to the centre of town, but her boss and lover, Jim Oliver, had refused.
“We don’t want to be too close to the centre of power,” he’d said, and decided the matter.
Still, Cora had to admit that the complex wasn’t too bad, being designed as a mainly administrative location. The thousands of people who controlled the company, using the new computers that were far more advanced than anything they’d dreamed of, had a reasonably pleasant place to work, with proper offices and small workrooms. That had suited Oliver right down to the ground; he believed that cubicles were demeaning.
She greeted him with a smile as he came into her office, dismissing his secretary with a wave of his hand. She’d half-hoped to get a white secretary, but none she’d found had been willing to work for a black woman, so Dahlia was as black as she was. Part of her felt annoyed that he’d dismissed her secretary; part of her laughed at herself for feeling that way. After all, she’d been lower than dirt five years ago.