"I already told you, you're not going to make a liar out of me," Jake said. "Tell you what I'll do, though, since I owe you for this, and since you were damn near the only officer I knew during the war who had any sense at all." He leaned forward. "How'd you like to go back in the Army… Colonel Potter?"
In spite of Potter's calm faзade, his eyes widened. "You mean that," he said slowly.
"Damn right I do. I can get some use out of you, and so can the country. About time we had some intelligence in Intelligence, goddammit. And I can keep an eye on you that way, too. What do you say?"
"If I tell you no, I wind up dead," Potter answered. "What do you think I'm going to say?"
You can end up just as dead in a butternut uniform as you can in slacks and a jacket, Jake thought. But he wasn't sorry Potter had said yes. The other man was a prim son of a bitch, but he had brains and he had nerve. He'd proved that during the war, in the swimming stadium, and-Jake's eyes again traveled down the list of some of the things Potter had done in Charleston-in between times, too, even if he'd been on the wrong side then. He could do the CSA a lot of good if he wanted to.
"All right, Colonel," Featherston said. "We'll go from there, then." He stuck out his hand. Potter didn't hesitate more than a heartbeat before shaking it.
Watching Potter walk out the door with a flunky reminded Jake of something else, a piece of business he wondered why he'd left unfinished. He picked up the telephone and spoke into the mouthpiece. He'd taken too many orders in his time. He liked giving them a lot better.
He had to wait a while before this order was carried out. Normally, he didn't like waiting. Here, though, he composed himself in patience and went through some of the endless paperwork on his desk. If I'd known how much paperwork went with the job, I might've let Willy Knight he president of the Confederate States. But he shook his head. That might be funny, but it wasn't true. The paperwork didn't just go with the job; in large measure, the paperwork was the job.
His secretary poked her head into the office. "General Stuart is here to see you, Mr. President."
"Thanks, Lulu." Jake's smile was large and predatory. "You send him right on in."
In marched Jeb Stuart Jr., his back as stiff as an old man could make it. He was a year or two past seventy, his chin beard and hair white, his uniform hanging slightly loose on a frame that had begun to shrink. He looked at Featherston with gray-blue eyes full of hate. His salute might have come from a rickety machine. "Mr. President," he said tonelessly.
"Hello, General," Featherston said, that fierce grin still on his face. "We meet again." He waved to a chair. "Sit down."
"I prefer to stand."
"Sit down, I said," Jake snapped, and Stuart, startled, sank into the chair. Featherston nodded. "Remember the last time you paid a call on me, General? You were gloating, on account of I was down. You reckoned I was down for good. You weren't quite as smart as you reckoned, were you?"
"No, sir." Jeb Stuart Jr.'s voice remained stubbornly wooden.
"Do you recollect Clarence Potter, General Stuart?" Featherston asked. Doing his best to remain impassive, Stuart nodded. Featherston went on, "I just brought him back into the Army-rank of colonel."
"That is your privilege, Mr. President." Stuart did his best not to make things easy.
His best wasn't going to be good enough. Jake had the whip hand now. "Yeah," he said. "It is. You screwed his career over just as hard as you screwed mine. And for what? I'll tell you for what, God damn you. On account of we were right, that's what."
Jeb Stuart Jr. didn't answer. During the war, Jake had served in a battery commanded by Jeb Stuart III, his son. He'd suspected Pompey, the younger Stuart's colored servant, of being a Red. He'd said as much to Potter. Jeb Stuart III had used his family influence, and his father's, to get Pompey off the hook. The only trouble was, Pompey had been a Red. When that proved unmistakably clear, Jeb Stuart III had thrown his life away in combat rather than face the music. And Jeb Stuart Jr. had made sure neither Featherston nor Potter saw another promotion through the rest of the war.
"Did you reckon I'd forget, General Stuart?" Jake asked softly. "I never forget that kind of thing. Never, you hear me?"
"I hear you, Mr. President," Stuart said. "The high respect I hold for your office precludes my saying more."
"For my office, eh? Not for me?" Featherston waited. Again, Jeb Stuart Jr. didn't answer. Jake shrugged. He knew the older man blamed him for Jeb Stuart III's death. Too damn had, he thought. In spite of his campaign promises, he'd walked softly around the Army up till now. He hadn't been quite ready to clean house. All of a sudden, he was-and surviving an assassination attempt would do wonders for his popularity, cushion whatever anger there might have been. "I accept your resignation, General."
That struck home. Stuart glared. He'd spent fifty-five years in the Confederate Army; he'd been a boy hero in the Second Mexican War, and had never known or wanted any other life. "You don't have it, you… you damned upstart! " he burst out.
Upstart? Jake knew he was one. The difference between him and Stuart- between him and all the swarms of Juniors and IIIs and IVs and Vs in the CSA-was that he was proud of it. "No resignation?" he said. Jeb Stuart Jr. shook his head. Featherston shrugged. "All right with me. In that case, you're fired. Don't bother cleaning out your desk. Don't bother about your pension, either. You're finished, as of now."
"I demand a court-martial," Stuart said furiously. "What are the charges against me, damn you? I've been in the Army and risking my life for my country since before you were a gleam in your white-trash father's eye. And not even the president of the Confederate States of America has the power to drum me out without my day in court."
"White trash, is it?" Featherston whispered. Jeb Stuart Jr. nodded defiantly. "All right, Mr. Blueblood. All right," Jake said. "You want charges, you stinking son of a bitch? I'll give you charges, by Christ!" His voice rose and went harsh and rough as a rasp: "Yeah, I'll give you charges. Charges are aiding and abetting your inbred idiot son, Captain Jeb fucking Stuart III, in hiding that his prissy little nigger called Pompey was really a goddamn Red. I'll take you down, cocksucker, and I'll take your stinking brat down with you. There won't be a place in the CSA you can hide in by the time I'm done with you two, you'll stink so bad. And so will he."
The color drained from Jeb Stuart Jr.'s face. It wasn't just that no one had talked to him like that in all his life. But no one had ever gone for the jugular against him with such fiendish gusto. He was white as typing paper when he found his voice, choking out, "You-You wouldn't. Not even you would stoop so low."
Jake smiled savagely. "Try me. You want a court, that's what you'll get."
"G-Give me a pen, God damn you," Stuart said. Featherston did, and paper to go with it. The officer's hand shook as he wrote. He shoved the paper back across the desk. I resign from the Army of the Confederate States, effective immediately, he'd written, and a scrawled signature below the words. "Does that satisfy you?"
"Damn right it does. I've been waiting for it for twenty years," Jake answered. "Now get the hell out of here. You start feeling unhappy, just remember you're getting off easy."
Jeb Stuart Jr. stormed from the office. He slammed the door as he went. Jake laughed. He'd heard a lot of slams since becoming president. This one didn't measure up to some of the others.
After a moment, Jake called, "Lulu?"
"Yes, Mr. President?" his secretary said.
"Give Saul Goldman a buzz for me, will you?" Featherston was always polite to Lulu, if to nobody else. "Tell him I want to talk with him right away."
When he said right away to Goldman, the skinny little Jew, who got the Freedom Party's message out to the country and the world, took him literally. He got to Jake's office within five minutes. "What can I do for you, Mr. President?"