The Victorious opposition

"You are cheerful today, sir," Morrell said. "Who will watch the watchmen?"

"I suppose Al Smith will, or his people. He means well. I've never said he doesn't. He's doing the best he can. I only wish he weren't quite so trusting. He kept us out of war-till after the election. Me, I'd sooner have trusted a rattlesnake than Jake Featherston."

"You mean there's a difference?" Morrell asked. Dowling shook his head. His chins danced. But there was a difference, and Morrell knew it. Featherston was likely to prove more deadly than any rattler ever hatched.

An orderly poked his nose into Dowling's office. He brightened when he spotted Morrell. "Sir, I'm supposed to tell you a new shipment of barrels just came in at the Columbus train station."

Morrell bounced to his feet. The thigh where he'd been wounded in the opening days of the Great War twinged. It would remind him the rest of his life of what had happened down there in Sonora. No help for it, though, so he ignored it. The leg still worked. What else mattered? He saluted Brigadier General Dowling. "If you'll excuse me, sir…"

"Of course," Dowling said. "The sooner the barrels get off their flatcars and into units, the better off we'll be."

The orderly had a command car. It was no different from the one Morrell had used on the border between Houston and Texas. He didn't mind sitting behind a machine gun at all. If the Confederates didn't have saboteurs and assassins in Columbus, he would have been amazed.

When he got to the station, he discovered how eager the factory in Pontiac had been to ship those barrels. They were all bright metal; they hadn't even been painted. He hoped his own men would have the time to slap green and brown paint on them before the shooting started. If they did, fine. If they didn't… Well, if they didn't, the barrels were still here, and not back at the factory in Michigan. He would throw them into the fight. He would lose more of them than if they were harder to see at a distance, but they would take out a good many Confederate barrels, too.

How many barrels did the Confederates have? How many could they afford to lose? Those were both interesting questions-the most interesting questions in the world for the U.S. officer in charge of armored operations along the central Ohio. And Morrell didn't have good answers. The U.S. might have had plenty of saboteurs on the other side of the border. Spies who could count and report back? Evidently not.

Morrell looked south. I'll find out. Soon, I think.

The U.S. ambassador to the Confederate States was a bright young Californian named Jerry Voorhis. He was, of course, a Socialist like Al Smith. As far as Jake Featherston was concerned, that made him a custardhead right from the start. He didn't look or sound like a custardhead at the moment, though.

"No," he said. He didn't bother sitting down in the presidential office. He stood across the desk from Featherston, looking dapper and cool in a white linen suit despite the stifling blanket of June heat and humidity.

"No, what?" Jake rasped.

"No to all your demands," Voorhis answered. "President Smith has made his position very clear. He does not intend to change it. The United States will not return any further territory ceded to us by the CSA. You agreed to abide by plebiscites and to make no more demands. You have broken your agreement. The president does not consider you trustworthy enough for more negotiations, and he will yield no more land. That is final."

"Oh, it is, is it?" Jake said.

"Yes, it is." The U.S. ambassador stuck out his chin and gave back a stony glare.

Featherston only shrugged. "Well, he'll be sorry for that. As for you, Ambassador, I'm going to give you your walking papers. As of right now, you are what they call persona non grata here. You have twenty-four hours to get the hell out of my country, or I'll throw you out on your ear."

Voorhis started to say something, then checked himself. After a moment's pause for thought, he resumed: "I was going to tell you you couldn't do me a bigger favor than sending me back to the United States. But I'm afraid you're doing no favors to millions of young men in your country and mine who may be shooting at each other very soon."

"That's not my fault," Jake said in a flat, hard voice. "If President Smith was ready to be reasonable about what I want-"

"My ass," Jerry Voorhis said, which was not the usual diplomatic language. Maybe he thought the rules changed for expelled ambassadors. Maybe he was right. His bluntness made Jake blink. And he went on, "If the president gave you everything you say you want, you'd just say you wanted something else. That's how you are." He didn't bother hiding his bitterness.

And he was right. Featherston knew it perfectly well. Knowing it and admitting it were two different beasts. He pointed toward the door. "Get out."

"My pleasure." As Voorhis turned to go, he added, "You can start a war whenever you please. If you think you can end one whenever you please, you're making a big mistake."

Jake thought about saying something like, We'll see about that. He didn't. The damnyankee could have the last word here. Who got the last word once the balloon went up-that would be a different story.

An hour later, the telephone rang in his office. "Featherston," he snapped.

"Mr. President, the ambassador to the USA is on the line," his secretary said. "He sounds upset."

"Put him through, Lulu." Jake could guess what the ambassador was calling about.

The Confederate ambassador to the United States was a Georgian named Russell. Jake never remembered his Christian name. All he remembered was that the man was reasonably smart and a solid Freedom Party backer. When he heard Featherston's voice on the line, he blurted, "Mr. President, the damnyankees are throwing me out of the country."

"Don't you worry about it," Jake answered. "Don't you worry about it one little bit, on account of I just heaved Jerry Voorhis out of Richmond."

"Oh." Russell sounded relieved, at least for one word. But then he said, "Holy Jesus, Mr. President, is there go

"Not if we get what we want," Featherston said. "Get what's ours by rights, I ought to say." As far as he was concerned, there was no difference between the one and the other.

"All right, then, Mr. President. I'll see you back there soon," Russell said. "I sure as hell hope everything goes the way you want it to."

"It will." Jake never had any doubts. Why should I? he thought. Everything's always gone good up till now. It won't change. He spent a few more minutes calming the ambassador down, then hung up the phone on him.

No sooner had he done that than Lulu poked her head into his office and said, "General Potter is here to see you, sir."

"Is he?" Jake gri

"Good morning, Mr. President," Clarence Potter said, saluting. He carried a manila folder under his left arm. Tossing it onto Featherston's desk, he went on, "Here are some of the latest photographs we've got."

"Out-fucking-standing!" Jake said, which produced an audible sniff from Lulu in the outer office. "These are what I want to see, all right. If you have to, you'll walk me through some of them."

Some of the pictures that Potter brought him were aerial photos. Getting reco

"Doesn't look like there's a whole lot of change," Jake remarked. "Everything still seems out in the open."

"Yes, sir," Potter answered.

Something in his tone made Jake's head come up. He might have been a wolf taking a scent. "All right," he said. "What's different in the stuff they don't want us to see?"