Anxious to say something but knowing that she was there only by the grace of luck, her own tenacity, and Ed Lewis's blessing, Jan held back. There would be ample opportunities, she knew, to develop this incredible stroke of luck into a useful story later. For now, Jan was more than content to stand on the sidelines and watch history in the raw unfold before her very eyes.
Lewis was looking down, contemplating Wilson's offer, when he heard his wife outside the study bark, "Young man, make yourself useful and open the door like a good boy."
Everyone in the study looked up as Bradshaw, a sheepish, downcast look on his face, opened the door and allowed Amanda in carrying a tray with a coffeepot, cups, saucers, and such. Hesitating, Amanda looked about in vain for someplace to set the tray. Jan, seeing her predicament, jumped up. "Here, Amanda, let me make myself useful. I'll hold this while you serve." Though Lewis could see that Wilson was not exactly pleased at being interrupted like this, she said nothing as Amanda, followed by Jan with the tray, served her, then Ed, and finally poured Jan a cup and emptied a sack of artificial sweetener in it. Finished, Amanda took the tray from Jan, who retrieved her cup while she thanked Amanda, who excused herself and went back to the kitchen.
Watching Ed while she sipped her coffee, Jan knew that he would accept the President's challenge. While Ed might wear the livery and speak the language of a Washington politician, he was, Jan knew, a warrior at heart. Like her own husband, Scotty, Lewis had a streak of dedication to God and country that ran through and through. And like Scotty, Lewis could no more ignore a call to duty than she could stop the new day from dawning. The only reason Lewis was taking so long to respond to Wilson's offer was because the wheels in his mind, figuring out what he would ask for and what he would insist on, were already turning. Either that, Jan thought, or he was screwing with the President, making her stew a little longer in her own mess before granting her request that he help salvage her political future.
Setting his cup down on the saucer, Lewis silently wished that Amanda had used the regular everyday coffee mugs, the ones with all the chips and stains, rather than the good china. It would have, he thought, made for a more humbling experience for the President. Looking over to Wilson out of the corner of his eye, Lewis asked what exactly she had in mind.
"To tell you the truth, I was hoping to discuss that with you. Like I told you in the beginning, the entire National Security Council, to a man, is thrashing about the streets of Washington like a herd of beached whales. I need someone with a clear head and experience in matters like this to get us back on track and headed in the right direction. Besides…" Wilson paused and looked down at her lap for a moment before looking into Lewis's eyes with what he took to be a sincere, heartfelt plea. "I need someone whom I can trust, someone that the American people and the media can trust, and someone unconnected with the Ukrainian fiasco."
Lewis was about to add, "And someone who is politically expendable," but didn't. Instead, Lewis nodded. His response was short, positive, and sincere. "Madam President, I will do everything I can for this nation." Shrugging his shoulders, he added, "At a time like this, how can anyone do otherwise?" Then, before Wilson had an opportunity to thank him, Lewis turned to Jan. With a jaunty ring to his voice, he asked, "Jan, you think you can be ready for an all-expenses-paid trip to Berlin in, oh, say six hours?"
Jan smiled. "Ed, I'm surprised you would even ask such a foolish question. Name the time and place, and I'll be there, with rings on my fingers and bells on my toes."
Lewis, his face now serious, added a cautionary note as Jan stood up to leave. "I have a feeling, Jan, we, the nation, aren't going to get off as easily as we did in Mexico. The Germans, I suspect, have a long agenda of their own that they have been sitting on for quite some time. Despite what some people think, we and our German friends have little in common, and the detonation in the Ukraine and the nukes we brought into their country aren't going to do anything to endear us to them." Standing, he looked down and shook his head. "No, the Germans wouldn't pull something like this on the spur of the moment unless they were sure they could get away with it. There's more to this than meets the eye." Looking up at Jan, then over to Wilson, Lewis sighed. "We aren't going to walk away from this one without paying a price, a heavy, heavy price. I just hope we can afford it."
CHAPTER 8
Neither the pale sun struggling to rise in the cold southeastern sky nor the tasteless breakfast being served from the back of a mud-covered truck that morning brought relief to or dispelled the gloom of the near frozen soldiers of Number 4 Company, 26th Panzer Battalion. Sitting on the turret of his Leopard II tank with his feet dangling over the side, their commander watched his men huddle together to share both their body warmth and rumors as they waited to file by the mess truck and be served. Unable to do anything to improve the lot of his soldiers or explain the reasoning behind their sudden deployment to the border, Captain Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz was content to simply sit where he was and wonder, just like his sullen, unhappy soldiers did, what was to become of them. As he did so, he couldn't help but wonder if his ancestor and namesake, Frederick the Great's youngest and most successful cavalry general, had ever experienced the same uneasiness and self-doubt that he did that morning. Probably not, he thought ruefully.
Such comparisons were easy to make. Everyone, as far back as he could remember, used the famous Prussian general or the captain's great-grandfather, Generalmajor Walter von Seydlitz-Kurzbach, as standards against which to measure young Seydlitz. As he grew, that tendency continued, exacerbated by the fact that Captain Seydlitz was the spitting image of the hero of Rossbach. Inheriting the same tall and lean physique, right down to the light, almost sleepy eyes, Captain Seydlitz could easily have put on the straw-yellow uniform of the Rochow Cuirassiers that von Seydlitz had worn in 1758 and been mistaken for the great cavalryman.
But the similarity was only skin deep, or so young Seydlitz thought. He lacked the decisive nature that had allowed his ancestors to make their mark on German military history. His great-grandfather, commander of the 51st Corps at the Battle of Stalingrad, hadn't hesitated to stand up to Hitler, despite the possible consequences, when he knew he was right. No, young Seydlitz thought as he pulled the hood of his parka up to shield himself from the frigid wind that cut through him, the name Seydlitz and a smattering of genes handed down from generation to generation did little to prepare him for this.
Not that there was much that his company could do at that moment, other than eat breakfast. The decisions that would determine whether he would lead his thirteen Leopard tanks back to their kaserne in Wieden or into battle here, along the Czech-German border, with their former ally would be made by politicians in Berlin and Washington. The fact that he, unlike his ancestors, had no control over his own destiny was just as difficult to accept as his orders to prevent all American military traffic from crossing out of or into Germany had been. In agonizing over this last matter, Seydlitz knew he was not alone. He couldn't think of a single German who would say the Americans had been right in using Germany as a base for their adventure into the Ukraine. Nor could he imagine any of his countrymen coming to the defense of the Americans' decision, which most took as an insult, to bring nuclear weapons into their country without the knowledge or permission of the German government. It was, in the words of Seydlitz's brigade commander, as if the Americans were deliberately trying to provoke them.