Harry Turtledove - Return engagement

Potter's face never showed a whole lot. Even so, the slight twitch of an eyebrow gave Jake some idea of what was going through his devious mind. If it wasn't something like, Takes one to know one, the President of the CSA would have been mightily surprised.

"I can't prove he had anything to do with the mines in the Licking," Potter said. "I can't prove it-but that's the way to bet."

"You'd better believe it," Jake said. "I want that son of a bitch taken out. He can cause us more trouble than a regiment of regular Yankee soldiers."

"We're working on it," Potter said. "Trouble is, he's a professional, too. I'd guess he's been in place there a good long while, getting set up and so on, but I first got word of him just a few days ago. He's not going to be there by himself. He'll have friends lending a hand."

"Niggers lending a hand," Featherston said savagely. "You see why we're on our way to taking care of them."

"Oh, yes, Mr. President. I've never had any trouble with that," Potter said.

Jake eyed him. He hadn't quite come out and said he did have trouble with other things the Freedom Party had done, but he might as well have. "How the hell did I get me a goddamn stiff-necked Whig running my spies?" Jake asked Potter-or possibly God.

God, as usual, kept quiet. Potter, as usual, didn't. Giving Jake a crooked smile, he answered, "Well, sir, looks to me like it's because you aren't a wasteful man."

Among his other annoying traits was being right most of the time. He'd sure put a hole right in the middle of this bull's-eye. Featherston remained sure Potter had come up to Richmond in 1936 to put a hole right in the middle of his bull's-eye. He'd accidentally become a hero instead, and made the most of things since.

The really crazy part was that, if he'd just stayed down in Charleston as an ordinary loud-mouthed Whig, he would have got arrested and gone into a camp for politicals, the way so many others had. Or maybe, since he was tougher than most, he would have been shot while resisting arrest. He would have been out of the picture, though, for sure.

But here he was-not only alive but useful. He'd done better for himself as a would-be assassin than he ever could have as an ordinary loud-mouthed Whig.

"That was part of what you wanted to tell me," Featherston said. "What else have you got?"

Clarence Potter smiled again. This time, a leopard wouldn't have been ashamed to show its teeth like that. "We've found one of the spies in the War Department, anyhow-sniffed him out with another round of multiversion reports."

"There you go!" Jake slammed a fist down on the desk. Papers and even the gooseneck lamp jumped. "Who was it?"

"A mousy little file clerk in Operations and Training named Samuel Beauchamp Smith," Potter answered. "He's been shuffling and filing papers since 1912, God help us, and he's probably been passing things along all that time, too."

"Peel him," Featherston said. "Peel him like an onion, and make him hurt every time you strip off a new layer. He's been hurting us all that time-he should hurt for a long time himself. Just be sure you keep him alive so he can go on answering questions, that's all."

"It's being taken care of, sir." Clarence Potter didn't bat an eye. He didn't lose any sleep over playing a dirty game. He understood you sometimes had to get answers any way you could. If that was hard on the bastard who didn't want to give them… well, too bad for him.

"All right," Featherston said. "And a good job on that sniper who shot Morrell."

"Not good enough." Potter said. "He's on the shelf, but I wanted him dead."

Potter was a perfectionist. Unless things went exactly the way he wanted them to, he wasn't happy. That was not the least of the things that made him so useful to the CSA in spite of his godawful politics. Featherston said, "By your report, the Yankees scooped him up and got him out of harm's way pretty damn quick."

"First shot should have finished him off." Yes, Potter was discontented. "One of our snipers would have. But this was so far in back of their lines, I had to rely on local talent-and the local talent wasn't talented enough."

"You'll have other chances at other officers," Featherston said. "If we can knock the brains out of the U.S. Army, it'll be that much easier to lick."

"Yes, sir. But the Yankees have figured out that that was an assassination try," Potter said. "I'd suggest you beef up security for our own best men."

"I've already done it," Featherston said. "And, to tell you the truth, there's a few generals I wouldn't mind seeing 'em knock off. I won't name names, but I reckon you can figure some of 'em out for yourself."

"Could be." Potter's voice and chuckle were dry. But he quickly grew serious again. "The other thing is, you ought to beef up your security, too. The war effort goes down the drain if we lose you."

"Don't you worry about my security. That's not your department, and it's tight as an old maid's…" Featherston didn't finish, but he came close enough to make Potter chuckle again. And the truth was, he didn't worry all that much about his security, at least not in the way Potter meant. If it was good enough to keep blacks and disgruntled Freedom Party men from knocking him off, it was bound to be good enough to hold the damnyankees at bay, too.

And if it wasn't… If it wasn't, Don Partridge became President of the CSA. Jake didn't think Partridge could run things, even if he did have the title. Who would? Ferd Koenig, from behind the scenes? Nathan Bedford Forrest III, from even further behind them?

Featherston only shrugged. If he wasn't there to see the unlucky day, what difference did it make to him? "Anything else?" he asked.

"Only the thought that, since the damnyankees didn't quit after we got up to Lake Erie, we might do better finding a peace both sides can live with than butting heads for God knows how long," Potter answered. "That kind of fight favors them, not us."

"I want your opinion on how to run my business, you can bet I'll ask for it," Featherston growled. "Till I do, you can damn well keep your mouth shut about it. So long, General Potter."

"So long, Mr. President." Potter wasn't the least bit put out as he left the office. He'd probably said what he'd said for no better reason than to rattle Jake's cage.

I don't care why he said it. He can goddamn well shut up about it, Featherston thought. Defiantly, he looked north. He'd taken Confederate arms where they'd never gone before, where none of his predecessors had ever dreamt they could go. He still intended to lick the United States, to lick them so they stayed licked. It might take longer than he'd thought when he set out, but that didn't mean he couldn't do it.

"I can, and I will," he said, as if someone had denied it. All he had to do to make something real was to want it, to keep going after it, and not to quit no matter what. Sooner or later, it would fall into his hands. I'm sitting here in the Gray House, aren't I?

He nodded. Even if the Whigs didn't like it, he was here. He belonged here. And he intended to take the Confederate States with him where he wanted to go. By the time they were someone else's worry, they would look the way he'd wanted them to all along. No one else would be able to change them back to the way they were now.

As for the United States… Featherston's swivel chair squeaked as he swung it around toward the north, too. All right, they hadn't given up the way he'd thought they would. That didn't mean they couldn't be beaten down. He intended to do just that. By the time he got finished, the Confederate States would be the number-one power on this continent.

They'd stay number one, too. He intended to fix things so even a dunderhead like Partridge couldn't mess them up. And everyone would always remember the name of the man who'd put them on top. His name. Him. Jake Featherston.