Down to the Sea

NINE

Exhausted, Richard Cromwell sat before the president of the Republic. He struggled to keep his hands from shaking as he gratefully took a cup of tea, the third one Andrew had offered him since the interview started.

“Can you tell us anything else about the plane you flew?”

“I’m sorry, sir. I tried to stretch it to land. I should have set it down on the beach along the Minoan Shoals rather than try and make the last ninety miles to Constantine.” Andrew extended his hand in a calming gesture. “You might have been stuck out there for days before someone spotted you. I don’t blame you for trying the final stretch. I’d have done the same thing.”

“Still, I lost the plane damn near in sight of land.”

“Just lucky one of our frigates spotted you going in. But is there anything else you can tell us about their weapons?”

“Ship designs, I can give you only general information. I worked on some of it on the train ride up here and can compile more information in a day or so. Perhaps if some of the design engineers from the technical college asked me questions I might be able to remember.”

Andrew nodded approvingly and looked over at Pat O’Donald, the only other person he would trust to be at this meeting and whom Richard had requested attend as well.

“Is there anything else you can remember, lad?” Pat asked. “Did you hear of a date when they plan to start, details about machines? Can you tell us anything else about this Hazin, or those beastly men?”

“The Shiv?” He wearily shook his head. The interview had been going on for nearly three hours without stop, and it was obvious to Andrew that Cromwell was past the point of exhaustion. He had been fished out of the ocean less than two days ago, taken straight to Bullfinch, then put on an express train straight back to Suzdal.

“Frightful, sir. They don’t seem quite human. I’m not sure if it’s because they have been bred for so long that they are different from us, or if it is their cult or the drugs that Hazin gives to them.”

Pat, who had shown remarkable restraint throughout the meeting, could finally contain himself no longer. “Cromwell, a personal question.”

Andrew could see Richard stiffen. “Yes, sir. About your son. That’s why I asked that you attend when I met with the president.”

“You knew him?”

“Of course, sir. We trained together at the academy flight school and were berthed together on the Gettysburg.”

Pat showed a hint of embarrassment. The fact that he did not know such common details about his son’s life was troubling.

“Did he say anything? I mean, did you talk at all about things before the Gettysburg was lost?”

Richard hesitated, looking not at Pat but at Andrew. “Go on, son,” Andrew said softly.

Richard shifted, coming almost to attention as he turned back to face Pat. “Your son is alive, sir.”

“My God!” Pat cried. He bolted up from his seat and began to pace furiously. “I knew it. I just knew the lad was still alive!

“How? Did he escape, too?”

Richard shook his head.

Pat seemed torn with emotions. He was relieved of the horrible anxiety that had controlled his life since Andrew had told him that the Gettysburg was destroyed and a lone survivor had escaped. Now, to suddenly discover that his boy was still alive, but a prisoner, was all but overwhelming. Pat looked at Andrew, desperation in his eyes.

“Could we arrange an exchange? Remember, the Tugars did it with Hawthorne. We did it with the Merki and Bantag. Damn it, Andrew, I’ll go myself.”

Andrew extended a calming hand, his gaze still locked on Richard. “I think Mr. Cromwell here has more to say.” Richard nodded his thanks and took a deep breath. “Out with it, boy. Come on,” Pat snapped anxiously.,“Sir, I offered your son the chance to escape with me. He refused.”

“What?” Pat roared. He advanced menacingly on Richard, but Richard didn’t flinch.

“Are you calling my son a traitor?”

“No, sir, I didn’t say that. On the night I escaped, I asked Lieutenant O’Donald to come with me. He refused.”

“The weight,” Pat interjected, grasping for answers. “He must have realized how desperate your plan was. A hundred and fifty pounds more and you might not have made it.”

“That’s not what decided the issue, sir,” Richard replied, and Andrew realized that Cromwell had brushed over a point. Taking Sean would have meant dumping nearly thirty gallons of precious fuel, but he’d been willing to do that anyhow.

“Out with it then, damn it!” Pat shouted.

“Sir, I hate to be the bearer of this news. Your son, something happened to him.”

“They tortured him, didn’t they, the filthy bastards.”

“Pat, would you please let Mr. Cromwell explain,” Andrew said quietly but his voice was hard, the tone expecting compliance.

Richard looked over at Andrew with the slightest flicker in his eyes. It was obvious that he hated what had to be done, but would go through with it regardless.

Pat sat down, pulled out his handkerchief, and wiped the sweat from his brow. “Go on then, Cromwell.”

“Yes, we were tortured.”

“That’s rather evident,” Andrew interjected, for the wounds on Richard’s face were still evident, lips still puffed up.

Richard started to say more, but fell silent.

“They broke him, didn’t they?” Pat asked.

“It wasn’t just the torture, it was something they put in our water. It was a drug. I have heard about how morphine affects men who were wounded.”

Andrew looked at Cromwell unflinchingly. His own addiction to morphine after being wounded at Capua was one secret of his life that only those closest to him knew. It was frightful as well that after twenty years he still thought of it at times and had to fight the craving. Emil had told him that it would be like that for the rest of his life.

“Was it morphine?” Pat asked.

“I don’t know. It made you feel like you were floating, the pain was gone, but you could still see and think clearly. It also made what Hazin said terribly persuasive. It was a horrible thing to fight against.”

“Yet you resisted.”

Pat looked over at Andrew, ready to make an angry comment, but a gesture stilled him.

“Yes, sir. At least I think I did,” Cromwell replied.

“And my son?” Pat asked.

“Hazin seemed to single him out for special attention,” Richard replied.

Andrew could sense that Cromwell was skirting the truth, but knew it was best, at least with Pat in the room, to not press for any further details.

“What do you mean, ‘attention’?” Pat asked warily.

“After the torture we were separated, and I didn’t see Lieutenant O’Donald again until just before I left. I assume Hazin talked to him as he did to me.”

That information set in motion a disturbing thought. Perhaps, Andrew wondered, Cromwell was unwittingly a pawn in some sort of power game. Perhaps everything he had learned about their plans was false.

“My son, damn it,” Pat interrupted. “Get on with telling me.”

Richard exhaled noisily and quickly finished his cup of tea and set it down.

“I’m sorry, sir. There was another factor, a woman. Sean became involved with her and didn’t want to leave her.”

Pat’s temper edged back slightly.

“This woman, was she a slave of Hazin’s?” Andrew asked.

“Yes, sir. She was a member of the cult.”

“She was assigned to seduce Sean-” Andrew offered.

“That’s what I assumed,” Richard interjected hurriedly.

“So you are telling me that now my son is in the ranks of this Hazin.”

Richard hesitated again.

“Go on.”

“Sir, he accepted rank,” Richard replied softly, as if the words were too distasteful to be spoken aloud. “He said that the only hope for the Republic was to have someone from our side in their ranks, so that when we were defeated he’d be in a position to help what was left. He said that Hazin was the future.”

Andrew sat back, forcing himself to compose his features, to not show shock or anger.

“And this news comes from the son of a traitor,” Pat cried, coming back to his feet.

“Pat!”

“It’s a damnable lie.”

“Pat, there’s no purpose to him telling us this if it was a lie.”

“It’s to cover his own tracks, to cover leaving Sean behind.”

“If he’d done that, it would have been best to say nothing at all.”

Throughout the exchange Richard remained impassive, even though Pat was within striking distance, hand half raised.

“Mr. Cromwell,” Andrew asked, his voice hard, “why did you not communicate to Admiral Bullfinch, or to anyone else, that there was another survivor? Why did you wait till now?”

Richard lowered his head slightly. “Sir, I felt I should first tell this to Senator O’Donald. That it was better to hear it straight from me first rather than read it in Gates’s paper.”

Richard looked back up at Pat.

“I’m sorry, sir. I thought about saying nothing at all, but in the end I figured it was best to let you know that at least your son is alive. I’d like to think that in his own way he is following an honorable path, that he hopes in the end to help somehow.

“And, sir, no one other than the three of us knows of this. I swear that to you, and frankly, I would prefer if it stayed here and was never spoken of again.”

Pat looked stricken, features so pale that Andrew thought for a moment that his friend was about to collapse. Pat sat down heavily.

“I’m sorry, sir.”

Pat held his hand up, motioning for him to say no more.

“Mr. Cromwell, I think you need a good rest.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir, I am rather tired. It was impossible to sleep on the train.”

“You’re staying here in the White House tonight. My wife is just down the hallway. Tell her that I want you to have a decent meal and a good night’s sleep. She’ll see that the staff takes good care of you.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“You are to share with no one what we’ve discussed here. I’ll ask as well that after you have your dinner, you remain in your room. I don’t want other folks, particularly some congressmen visiting tonight, to see you. Someone might recognize you and questions will start to fly.”

“Sir, believe me, I plan to be asleep within the hour.” Andrew offered the slightest of smiles. If not for Pat’s presence, he would come around the desk to shake Cromwell’s hand.

“Go get some rest, Lieutenant.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Cromwell stood up, put on his cap, and formally saluted. He started to turn but then stopped, looking at Pat.

“Sir, about Sean. He was a good officer. I think in his own way he still is.”

Pat lowered his head, saying nothing.

As the door closed behind Cromwell, Andrew looked over at Pat.

“Merciful God, Andrew. Do you believe him?”

“ ‘For I alone have lived to tell thee all,’ ” Andrew whispered.

“What?”

“Moby Dick.”

“What the hell is that? It sounds awful.”

“Never mind.”

Andrew walked over and opened the window facing the main plaza of the city. A gust of hot air swept in, dry, not comforting at all. The Great Square of Suzdal lay below, teeming with activity, merchants from across all the states of the Republic hawking their goods from open-air booths. In the far comer, under the sign of the Cannon Tavern, brokers from the stock market were gathered in their traditional summer location, waving their arms in some unintelligible manner, each movement a signal as to whether they were buying or selling shares and at what price. A procession of Rus monks was making its way into the great cathedral for the mid-aftemoon service, followed as always by a cluster of old women wearing black shawls. More than one of them were widows from the Great War, still mourning twenty years later.

All this activity seemed so ordinary, so peaceful, that he wondered if anyone would actually remember this particular day. For that was the nature of peace, he realized, to become commonplace, quiet, unassuming in its passage of days that slipped gently into years and lifetimes.

“I don’t believe him,” Pat announced sharply.

“I have to.”

“Damn it, Andrew, my son, did you hear what he said about my boy?”

Andrew looked back at his oldest friend, feeling the anguish churning within Pat. “Yes, I heard what he said about Sean. I don’t want to believe it, Pat. Perhaps he is wrong. Regardless of that, though, I have to believe everything else he said. To do otherwise is pure folly.”

Pat drew closer, putting his hand on Andrew’s shoulder, and Andrew was surprised to see tears in his comrade’s eyes.

“I made a mess of things, I did, Andrew. I should have married the girl, helped to raise the boy. But the army, Andrew…” and he fell silent.

Andrew offered no response, the excuse so obvious.

“No. Damn my soul, I didn’t want to be tied up. For that matter, I wasn’t even sure at times if the boy was mine.”

Andrew started to voice an angry response, but remained silent.

“The boy’s my blood, it was as plain as day.” He turned away, covering his face.

Andrew left him alone for the moment. So much about his friend he loved without reservation-his unflinching courage, his bravado, his ability to counter the melancholy that would often creep up in his own soul, ready to seize control. After the defeat by the Merki, and especially after he was wounded at Capua, it was Pat who had applied the steady hand and stirred the fires once again.

Because of that he felt, if not acceptance, at least a tolerance for Pat’s mistakes. After the war, with no focus, no next battle calling, he had made a mess of his life, turning to drink as more than one veteran had, and to women. But Livia had been special, and now he would be forever haunted for his mistake in not realizing that, and not taking his son into his heart from the beginning.

Pat noisily blew his nose, wiping his tears away with a dirty handkerchief, and looked back at Andrew. “You must consider who that young man is, Andrew.” He nodded to the door that had closed on Richard.

“What’s that?”

“The son of Tobias Cromwell.”

“So?” he said, a touch of warning in his voice. He had endlessly preached across the years the ideal that in a Republic the sins or the greatness of a father did not affect how the son should be treated. As in the Constitution of the first Republic he had lived in, Andrew had written in an article forbidding the denial of rights to a citizen regardless of what crimes his father had committed. The acceptance of Richard Cromwell into the academy had been a test of that resolve.

Pat was silent, and Andrew could see clearly that more than one would raise the question, especially when word spread of the accusation against Sean O’Donald. The son of a traitor coming back with a fanciful tale of an invasion, capped with an accusation against the son of a senator, was more than many would accept.

“Pat, we have to focus on our duty first.”

Pat nodded, looking absently out the window. The cathedral bell tolled, announcing the start of mid-afternoon services. The mingling of half a dozen languages drifted up from the plaza. Andrew sat back down behind his desk.

Turning in his swivel chair, he looked at the display case behind him, which contained a presentation sword from the men of the 35th Maine, given after Gettysburg, his Medal of Honor and the commissioning papers signed personally by Lincoln.

In the wavy glass of the display case, he could dimly see his reflection, It was hard to believe that that image was actually himself. The graying beard, the furrows across the brow, the receding hair, the thin narrow face, he almost looked like Lincoln.

He absently rubbed his empty sleeve. For a moment the “ghost arm” was alive, itching uncomfortably.

Back home, Lincoln was most likely long gone now. I’d give most anything to be back there, if only for a moment, to know what happened, to know how the war there ended, to know if the nation had healed, to find out about old friends, who undoubtedly number me amongst the dead.

I thought I could serve out this second term in peace, retire once and for all in another five years, finally to teach, to write, to enjoy the summer cottage on the shore of the Inland Sea, not far from where Ogunquit had washed up close on to thirty years ago.

“Pat?”

His friend looked back, features pale, as if an infinite sadness had at last crept into a soul that had without care enjoyed life prior to this moment.

“Pat, we have to figure out what in hell we are going to do.”

“Based on the word of one boy?”

“He’s not a boy, Pat. He’s five years older than most of the cadets who graduated. He grew up in the lower depths of hell and survived. I think he is turning into a leader we can count on. I trust him.”

“Well, I for one don’t.”

“Damn you, Pat!” He slammed the table with his fist. “This is no time to think of yourself! This is no time to think about what the hell you should have done for your son when you had the chance.” He hesitated for the briefest of moments and then pressed on. “Consider him dead,” and his voice was cold, remorseless.

Pat opened his mouth, but was unable to speak.

“I’m sorry, Pat. We have to focus on the issue, not on what we cannot change.”

“I thought you, of all people, would understand, Andrew.”

“When I can, I will.”

Pat looked at him sadly. “Andrew Lawrence Keane, I’ve counted you a friend since the day we shared our first drink. What has happened to us?”

“Pat, nothing, other than we are older, and when I walk out of this room I have to be president. That must come first. Your being a senator has to come first. Later we can mourn for all that we’ve lost.”

“Fine then, Andrew. I see.” He sat down woodenly in the chair across from Andrew.

Andrew lowered his gaze. Now that he had Pat’s attention, what next? Since the end of the war the problems had been political, holding the Republic together, suppressing the Chin separatist movement, passing the language-unifi-cation laws, but this was different. And Pat was right, any plans they made would be based on the word of one lone officer who many would find suspect.

“Where’s Vincent?” Pat asked, finally stirring.

“Still out on the frontier. This report from Cromwell explains the tension out there. The Bantag are in touch with the Kazan, and something is afoot. If war comes with the Kazan, it will explode with the Bantag as well.”

Pat nodded. “You should get Hawthorne out of there. With a lone regiment he’ll be overwhelmed.”

“I’ll send a recall message immediately.”

Andrew didn’t mention that he wanted his own son out of there as well. If a war was about to ignite, he didn’t want Abraham to be two hundred miles inside Bantag territory. “And the fleet?”

“Based on what happened to the Gettysburg, it doesn’t sound good. Their smallest class of fighting ships are obviously a match for our armored cruisers. Against their ships of the line it will be suicide.”

“Withdraw them up the Mississippi?”

Andrew turned and looked at the map above the display case. The river was a deep-channel all the way up to the Inland Sea; back home, more like the Hudson than the Mississippi. Would they pursue? Undoubtedly. From Cromwell’s report, one of their main ships of the line could lay off the mouth of the Neiper and shell Suzdal to pieces.

No, there’d have to be a blockade set up. The narrows below Cartha would be the best place, but it would take time, weeks, more like months to build the proper fortifications, lay in the guns, and build up a garrison that could resist a ground-based attack.

“For the moment I’ll let Bullfinch think about the response. That’s what we’re supposed to be paying him for anyhow. Hell, I was a line officer. Things with ships I could never quite understand.”

“Fort Hancock,” Pat muttered.

Andrew looked back, wondering if there was a mild rebuke there. In that debacle the Bantag had successfully launched a surprise amphibious attack and cut off Pat’s army on the Shenandoah River.

No, he was just remembering.

“What about the Bantag?” Pat asked.

Andrew sighed, still gazing at the map.

“They’ll join. If the Kazan land on the coast south of them, and they come with what Cromwell says they have, the Bantag will join. Hell, if the roles were reversed, wouldn’t you?”

“Punitive strike now, Andrew.”

“What?”

“We could mobilize a hundred thousand men within a week and move them to the frontier. We have over two hundred aerosteamers and five hundred land ironclads. Throw that force at them now, drive a wedge between them and the sea.”

“Oh, damn,” Andrew sighed, and he slowly shook his head.

“Why not?”

“What did you just tell me ten minutes ago about how people will react to what Cromwell said? Pat, I can’t preemptively start a war with the Bantag based upon a sole report.”

“And Hawthorne’s report, what about that?”

“The same there, It’s merely a surmise, a reading of intent. We have no proof other than a single revolver. I can’t go to war over that.”

“Then provoke them.”

He thought about that. It could be done, but wouldn’t Jurak figure out as well what Andrew was trying to do? He was no fool, and he had a million square miles to fall back into. A band of a few thousand Bantag, fighting in their own territory, could run rings around the fresh recruits the army now had.

Too many variables were beginning to close in, and now, after the first rush of excitement over what Cromwell had reported, a cooler voice was whispering to him.

I’m overreacting, he thought. Perhaps the boy is wrong after all. There could even be a plot within a plot, that he was deliberately let go to provoke us into a first move.

The first move, that was the problem here. If we are wrong, the Separatists’ Movement will have a golden opportunity; they could even bring on another constitutional crisis. The Chin would use any pretext to attack the Bantag and, if let loose, it would be a debacle. The Greeks might very well ally with the Chin in order to leave the Republic, and then everything fractures.

Yet to wait, to do nothing, was repugnant to his nature. He had a window here, a month perhaps, six weeks at most before the onslaught hit, according to what Cromwell had said. And yet all that was based upon a lone report.

“Damn,” he sighed, clenching his fist, looking back at Pat.

“We’re stuck. I can’t order an unprovoked attack on the Bantag without clear evidence that they actually are allying with the Kazan.

“As for the Kazan, we know nothing. Absolutely nothing. We have one report from a pilot to whom I’d give anything if he had changed his name, and on that, our fate might rest in the weeks to come.”

Andrew stood up, returning to the window. The stock market was still at it. A scribe was furiously running back and forth on the catwalk above the Cannon Tavern, writing the latest prices on the huge chalkboard that ran the entire length of the building. A jade merchant with a particularly annoying whine, who had leased a crucial corner directly in front of the White House, was chanting about the beauty of his stones. Off in the distance, beyond the smoke billowing from the steel mill stacks, he caught a glimpse of an aerosteamer lazily circling, then turning, cutting figure eights in the sky, a student learning his art.

“Pat, nothing is to be said as of yet. Nothing.”

“How long do you plan to keep the lid on?”

“No one knows that Cromwell has reported here other than the admiral and the crew of the ship that brought him in, and Bullfinch wisely had them quarantined. We have a couple of days before the rumors begin to circulate. I want you to line up senators you can rely on, Gracchus, Petronius, Valincovich, and Hamilcar.”

“Alexandrovich,” Pat added, “he’s an old vet, we can count on him.”

“To keep his mouth shut?”

Pat hesitated. “I’ll threaten to break his arms if he breathes a word.”.

“All right then. The speaker and the vice president are not to know. They’d spill it out in a heartbeat.”

“They’ll be furious when they find out.”

“Let them. I’ll have Vincent call a mobilization drill. It was slated for next month anyhow. We can use the excuse that it was getting too routine.”

“The stock market boys, the factory owners, will scream. Their schedules are planned around losing their men four weeks from now.”

“Let them scream. I’ll make some statement about it being a realistic drill this time. We shift the maneuver area to our grounds on the Chin territory.”

Pat started to shake his head. “Gods, Andrew. The Chin will read into that. Hell, one of them breaks wind, and they spend days reading into it. They’ll think our holding maneuvers on their territory is a veiled threat.”

“Let them think what they want.”

“I want a meeting with Webster, Varinnia Ferguson, and a few people she trusts first thing in the morning. We’re going over everything Cromwell told us-in fact, I want him here, too. We have precious little time, but we have to start thinking about counters to everything he says they have.”

Pat smiled.

“What is it?”

“A bit like the old days again.”

“I’d prefer something different.”

Pat solemnly nodded. “Yes, Andrew, I agree.”

Andrew returned to his desk and looked at the calendar page set to one side. “Damn. There’s a dinner tonight with some Chin congressmen. I can’t cancel that. Then a play.”

“Better go. Besides, I heard it’s a good one. The Yankee and the Boyar’s Daughter.”

“Oh, God, not another one.”

Pat smiled. “Complete with tableau of the historic victory at the First Battle of Suzdal. Performed in English, no less, with Dimitri Vasiliovich as the Yankee.”

“It sounds like you actually enjoyed it.”

“Oh, I did. Rare fine good acting it was.”

Andrew groaned. He was bored to death with the utter silliness of patriotic plays, which had become the rage of late, all but taking Shakespeare off of Players Row. But if he did not attend, the more astute might read something into it, put it together with the change in the summer mobilization rehearsal. No, he would have to attend and listen to Dimitri’s hysterical overacting.

“All right, then. Tomorrow I’ll clear my schedule. You get word to Webster and Ferguson, make it first thing in the morning. I think our focus at the start should be the navy, what we can do there within the next couple of weeks. Let’s plan to meet at the shipyard.”

His tone indicated that the conversation was at an end, and that bothered him. This was Pat, after all, not someone who had to be eased out of the office so that the next appointment could be kept.

“Andrew?”

He nodded, already knowing what was to be asked. “Let’s just keep the word about your boy between us for right now. Cromwell kept it till he could meet with you. I trust he’ll continue to keep it. Perhaps he was wrong after all.”

Pat smiled. “I don’t believe it for a minute, Andrew. Do you?”

“No,” Andrew lied, “of course not.”