Second Chance

Chapter Seventeen: The Would-Be Powers

The White House

Washington DC, USA

25^th July 1940

Ambassador Jackson King was confident that there had been other free black men in the White House of 1940; he’d even read about some of them in Grade School. Frederick Douglass, Washington’s freedmen, even perhaps the President who was supposed to have ‘passed’ as white. The America of 1940 had abolished slavery, but it was still twenty years before they would be forced to confront their own social issues; black men were still not considered equals. It would be impossible for any lesser man to face the concentrated disdain from some members of Roosevelt’s Cabinet; some of them had hated him at first sight.

He sighed internally. Beside him, Colonel George Palter seemed to be receiving some of the same treatment, even though he was white. His obvious deference to King wasn’t being well-received; the computer files now displaying on the laptop had been provided from RAF Feltwell’s internet cache and files borrowed from the British. The ten-page summery of the future lay beside Roosevelt’s wheelchair, very well thumbed.

At the rear of the room, Lord Lothian, the British Ambassador from the Contemporary 1940, was talking in hushed tones with Captain Sir Lethbridge-Stewart. Apparently, they were related on some level; the Contemporary seemed to be having trouble grasping the concept. HMS Edinburgh, which had escorted the Queen Elizabeth, had astounded the Americans when it had arrived. Ambassador Quinn, a personal friend of Hanover – the 2015 ambassador to the United States having been left in 2015 – had given Lord Lothian a briefing and the ambassador had never been the same since.

The attention of the room focused on the projector from the Edinburgh. Communications with Britain were tricky without satellite relays, but by bouncing a signal off the atmosphere the British could contact HMS Edinburgh, which had forwarded the message on to Ambassador Quinn’s computer system.

“So, I am to die in 1945,” Roosevelt said. His wheelchair squeaked alarmingly. “And it seems I am to go through two more Vice Presidents.”

Vice President Garner snorted. He already knew that his term as Vice President would end if Roosevelt won or lost; Henry Wallace would be Vice President if Roosevelt’s quest for a third term were successful.

“You would do better to move directly to Truman,” Palter said calmly. “It has long been suspected that Wallace was a Soviet agent.”

“Hoover is going to go nuts when he sees all of these,” Garner said calmly. The Texan didn’t seem to be too irritated. “This list of spies includes a lot of…”

He broke off. Only a handful of the men in the room had been able to grasp that what would one day become the Manhattan Project had been penetrated from top to bottom; that all their secrets were open to general view.

“I would advise you to swoop on them before they can react,” King said, his southern accent contrasting with Garner’s. “The Press has already figured out the bare bones of what’s happening – and you have to secure the Philippines.”

William Franklin Knox, the Secretary of the Navy, coughed. Despite being firmly in favour of aid to Britain, Knox hadn’t taken the reports on Pearl Harbour very well at all. Learning that his personal friend Kimmel would become the scapegoat for the disaster had alarmed him; he’d even ranted about a ‘nigger fantasy’, which King had ignored. Not all of the Marines had been so calm; his escort detachment had been sucked into a brawl when one of the coloured Marines had been insulted to his face.

“How do we know that this is still going to happen?” He asked sharply. “If that… image there” – he waved a hand at the film of the attacks on the German and Italian Navies – “is genuine, then won’t history have been changed already?”

It was a perceptive question, King acknowledged. From the hints of racial unrest that were already appearing in Washington, he suspected that the United States had already been changed and would change further.

“Mr Knox,” Palter said, “the German strategy seems to be to force the British to fight on as many fronts as possible. By now, Japan and Soviet Russia will be aware of the… change, they will be aware of their own futures. The British do not have any communications with Australia yet, but they’re working on a relay system for radio transmitters. What they don’t have down there are modern ships; ships that could sink every ship in the Japanese Navy without breaking a sweat. To Tojo and his band of goons, it seems like a window of opportunity.”

He sensed Knox’s concern and Roosevelt’s flicker of worry. Roosevelt had once been Secretary of the Navy; he understood the old style of naval war. “The Japanese will have had an intelligence windfall fall into their laps,” he continued. “If the worst-case scenario is true, they will know everything about the Allied navies; the good, the bad, the ugly. They will also know that their only hope of victory is to force us out of the Pacific and work to develop new weapons from what they’ve learned.”

“You allowed some weapons to fall into their hands?” Knox demanded, finding a target for his rage. “Fucking careless handling.”

I didn’t know that that word was in use at the time, King thought absently.

Stung, Ambassador Quinn rose to Britain’s defence. “Mr Secretary, if you have plans to handle your entire nation being moved back in time, then you can talk. This caught us by surprise; we had no clue that this would happen.”

“There is also the matter of you owing us money,” the Secretary of the Treasury, Henry Morgenthau, said. The news of the Holocaust had shaken his Jewish soul to the roots. “Ah, Ambassadors, you do owe us a lot of money.”

“With all due respect, we have just given you priceless information,” Quinn said. “We are prepared to offer a single batch of information that you will need to develop new weapons, and we are prepared to establish a mobile phone network that will be completely secure. In exchange, we need food, fuel, coal and a supply of the new weapons. We also need you to write off the debts.” He smiled. “We already paid them once.”

“You will not tell us how to make the mobile phones?” Garner asked. “We would be dependent upon your production.”

Quinn smiled. “You will be unable to duplicate them for at least twenty years,” he said.

Roosevelt tapped the side of his wheelchair. “Young man,” he said, addressing King directly. “If you don’t mind, I would like to talk about the matter privately with you.”

“That’s fine by me,” King said, surprised at the level of respect he was being shown.

“Delores, would you mind supplying these men with coffee?” Roosevelt said. He wheeled the wheelchair into the next room; King followed him. Behind him, he heard the clink of china cups and of men relaxing; Lord Lothian seemed astounded. He understood how he felt.

“All this history is genuine?” Roosevelt asked, waving the documents over his lap. “We will go to war in 1941?”

“Yes,” King said flatly. “Mr President, I come from seventy years in the future. You cannot imagine the changes that happen between now and then.”

“Indeed?” Roosevelt asked. “Here you are, a black man who holds the respect of a white man, and of Marines to boot. The strange British ship in the Potomac. The… laptops. At the moment, I’d believe anything.”

King looked at him. “Including the information about your affair?” He asked. Roosevelt seemed unbothered. “You should never have slept with Lucy Mercer.”

“A minor mistake,” Roosevelt said. “I expect that many truths will come out over the next few years.”

King smiled in admiration. “They can cure you now,” he said. “There will be no need for you to die.”

“That’s beside the point,” Roosevelt said. “Tell me, Ambassador of 2015, should we deal with the British as they have suggested?”

“You have to do so,” King said. “You also need to make some legal changes.”

“I read your note,” Roosevelt said. “Once all the competing interests get a look at the next twenty years…”

“Chaos,” King said. “Mr President, you have to press for racial equality now, before it’s too late. You also have to force your own technology forward as fast as possible; the British information will help. You will also have the help of the other Americans who were marooned in the UK; those of them who will return to the United States.”

Roosevelt frowned. “You expect that we will fight the British?”

King took a breath. “Mr President, the British of this – of 2015 – know just how many mistakes happened because of your policies,” he said. “Already, they are moving to make the best use of their second chance. With luck, they can build a fourth British Empire; a genuinely democratic system.

“And there are other troubles to alter,” he said. “You have to push into space and establish a genuine foothold on the Moon. You have to convert to hydrogen before the deal with the Saudi devil has to be paid for. You have to regulate international commence so that it doesn’t work towards leaving the poor poorer and filled with hate for America.”

“It seems like far too much for me,” Roosevelt said. The President’s voice sounded weak. “What’s in the British information package?”

“I skimmed though it,” King said. “They’ve presented you with some details on torpedo designs, basic radio sets, automatic weapons that will treble the firepower of infantry, anti-tank weapons that will destroy any German tank, and a mass-produced tank provisionally dubbed the Firefly.”

He smiled; the Firefly was an improved T-34, designed by a British tank enthusiast who’d been delighted to be able to put his hobby to use. It was simple to build, simple to drive, simple to repair, and very tough, tougher than any other tank until 1960. He didn’t mention the source of the idea; it would only have upset people.

Roosevelt smiled. “And they want us to make them for them,” he said. “Why can’t they build them for themselves?”

King shook his head. “Their industrial plant is geared towards turning out higher quality equipment that takes longer to build,” he explained. “If you produce them, they’ll be able to produce more of the war-winning systems that you’ll need.”

“I suppose we have no choice,” Roosevelt said. “I suppose I’d better discuss the matter with my esteemed rival for the coming election, just in case.”

“One other matter,” King said. “Mr President, a lot of the people in the UK who are Americans are black, like me; they will not appreciate being treated as second-class citizens.”

“I’ll do what I can,” Roosevelt said. “It’s hard to make promises during an election campaign.”

Lord Lothian, aka Philip Kerr, 11th Marquis of Lothian, was shocked. He’d heard crazy rumours for the last couple of days, but nothing like what he’d just been told by the new ambassador. If he hadn’t seen the Edinburgh and its Lynx helicopter, he would have assumed that the entire story was some kind of crazy joke.

“So you’re telling me that this… ah, Sir Charles Hanover is Prime Minister now?” He asked finally, after reading through the history digest. “Have you lost your senses? We cannot afford to break ties with America at this moment?”

“Britain has just trashed the only two possible threats of invasion,” Quinn said calmly. “We also want to deal with the Americans as equals, rather than their subordinates. Making it clear that we will only deal with them on a premise of equality is important.”

Lord Lothian looked weak. They’d warned him that he would die soon. His beliefs as a Christian Scientist prevented him from accepting his future relative Captain Sir Lethbridge-Stewart’s offer of the services of his ship’s doctor.

“If you will just come back into the main room,” Roosevelt’s assistant said. Lord Lothian stood up and led the two newcomers back into the Oval Office. Roosevelt and the big black American were waiting for them, along with the rest of his cabinet.

“We have discussed your offer,” Roosevelt said, without preamble. Lord Lothian shuddered inside. “We have decided to accept your offer, although one hopes that the development of the technology will offset the economic damage.”

Quinn smiled. “Perhaps we could sell some of our products in America and use the funds to purchase the tanks and guns and other materials that we need,” he said.

“That would be helpful,” Morgenthau said. He looked pale. “Ambassador, if your nation can stop the horrors…”

“We can’t, not yet,” Quinn said gently.

“We will also make what preparations we can for a Japanese attack,” Roosevelt said. “Perhaps we will forestall it.” He smiled. “However, there is a condition. We want the Americans in Britain to be sent here.”

“Those that are willing to go we’ll send,” Quinn assured him. He passed Roosevelt a sheet of paper. “I took the liberty of working out the terms of the treaty.”

“Thank you,” Roosevelt said, as Lord Lothian cringed. He signed once on the paper. “I’ll have to show it to Congress and ask for them to ratify it, but even if they refuse you can sell your produce in the US.”

“Thank you,” Quinn said. “With your permission, we will erect the communications tower here and inform our government that you have agreed.”

The Kremlin

Moscow

25^th July 1940

Whenever he stepped into the private rooms of Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili – also known as Stalin – Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov wondered if he would leave again alive. In person, Stalin was shorter than his propaganda posters suggested – Molotov knew that he’d stood on a pedestal for one of the photographs – but he radiated a malevolence and determination that allowed him to dominate the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. After the Terror, after the Party and the Army and every other corner of Russia had been brutally purged, still Stalin was scared. His life had been forged into that of a man determined to reshape the world in his image; only then could he know safety.

“So, tell me, Comrade, what do you think this is?” Stalin asked, pointed at a strange plastic box sitting on the General Secretary’s desk. “Can you guess?”

His faint accent, heightened in moments of stress, never failed to chill Molotov to the bone. Making mistakes could be fatal in the Kremlin; so was failing to laugh at Stalin’s jokes, even though it was hard to tell if he was joking.

“I do not know,” he admitted finally. Stalin’s grin grew wider; he opened the box, revealing something that reassembled a typewriter keyboard. “A strange practice typewriter?”

“No, Comrade,” Stalin said. There was a grim fury poking at the edge of his smile; it didn’t seem to be directed at Molotov, but at the… whatever. “It is something called a laptop computer, built by the future British.” Stalin’s smile vanished. “According to my sources within Germany and France, the Germans have launched an attack on the future British, and are taking a beating.”

Molotov nodded as respectfully as he could. He’d heard rumours through the Foreign Ministry, suggestions of strange aircraft and missiles devastating German formations, but he hadn’t been willing to believe them. The thought of the fascists taking losses, perhaps even weakening themselves so socialism could be established in their counties, was delightful, but what would the newcomers do?

“The Germans approached us with an offer,” Stalin said. Molotov blinked, concealing his annoyance and sudden desperate fear; as Foreign Minister, he should have been the conduct for any contact. “It was the German Ambassador in person,” he continued, “and he requested that it remain a secret for now. You and Beria will be the first to know.

“He brought this device,” Stalin continued, “and explained that the war – the long war between capitalism and communism – will be lost by us, in the first history.” Molotov frowned inwardly at Stalin’s calm tone. “The Germans didn’t tell me this, but our sources within their government informed us that one of the reasons for their defeat was attacking us, in 1941. Apparently, we will win that war – and lose to the Americans.”

Molotov sat down rather hastily, accepting the glass of tea from Stalin’s orderly without comment. At least the tea suggested that he was not going to be hauled out and shot at once. It was hot and sweet, with just a hint of lemon.

“Yes, Lavrenty Pavlovich had the same reaction,” Stalin said, meaning Beria. “We have been offered a chance to change the verdict of history. The Germans have offered us entry into their Tripartite Pact, a full share in the recovered information, and even to share technology with us. In exchange, they want us to attack Iran and occupy the nation as we were considering. He also suggested taking Afghanistan to present a threat to the British in India.”

Molotov sipped his tea, considering. Stalin eyed him like a snake, waiting for him to talk. “The plan could be a fascist diversion,” he said. “They could be expecting us to place our best forces in Iran, well away from Moscow.”

“I have considered the possibility,” Stalin said. “Comrade Georgy Konstantinovich has informed us that for logistic reasons we will not be able to deploy more than a handful of divisions in the region. The defences of Moscow will remain in place; improved, even, with the future knowledge.”

He turned on the laptop, turning it to show Molotov the lighted screen. “If the fascists could build that, they would have won by now,” he said.

Molotov thought quickly. Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov, the victor of the battles in the Far East, had been involved with planning to conquer Iran while the British were otherwise occupied. He was perhaps the best general – the best one left, his mind whispered – that Stalin had. If it could be done, he would do it.

“If this new Britain is as advanced as they say, do we really want to fight them?” He asked, hoping that Stalin would not take it as defeatism. Men had been shot for less. “We might get a better bargain by dealing with them.”

“I have considered that as well,” Stalin said. “We run a risk by engaging them. However, they will not be induced to share their technology, and they will be working on deploying more of it to the rest of the world. We have an opportunity; one that won’t come again.” His voice darkened. “The Germans are developing atomic weapons,” he said.

Molotov winced. The Soviet Atomic program was far behind the fascist program, even though they had information from America. If the Germans developed an atomic bomb, the Soviet Union would be at their mercy.

“We need time,” he said.

“Indeed,” Stalin said. “We will deal with the Germans and oppose the British. If it goes wrong, we will retreat from Iran and sue for peace; they will sue when they realise that the Japanese are also moving against them.” He smiled. “Should their war go badly, we will have a chance to snap up North China.”