Joe Steele (31 page)

When Joe Steele didn't like something, he did something about it. Here, he summoned Charlie to his study and said, “I am going to stop selling Japan oil and scrap metal. All they do with it is use it against China. Before you know it, they'll use it against us, too. And I am going to freeze Japanese assets in the United States. They need to understand that I will not put up with them going down the road they're on.”

“Yes, sir.” Charlie hesitated, then asked, “Isn't that only about a step away from declaring war?”

“Farther than that.” Joe Steele puffed on his pipe. He didn't say how much farther it was. He did say, “When I announce the news, I want to sugarcoat it as much as I can. I don't want Tojo any angrier than I can help, and I don't want Americans getting all hot and bothered about it, either. So give me a draft that leans in that direction. I'll want it by this time tomorrow.”

Instead of shrieking in despair, Charlie nodded. “I'll have it for you.” Being in the newspaper racket for as long as he was had got him used to impossible-seeming deadlines. And Joe Steele commonly used them as tests for his people. He remembered when you passed them. And he remembered when you didn't. You might get by with booting the ball once. If you did it twice, you wouldn't stay at the White House.

Again, Charlie wouldn't be the only one working on how to put Joe Steele's idea across. He knew that. But neither Vince Scriabin nor Lazar Kagan knew much about sugarcoating anything. Mikoian might—Charlie admitted that much to himself. Just the same, he expected the President to use big pieces of what he wrote.

And Joe Steele did. Even when he tried to speak softly, you saw the big stick he was holding. He took after Theodore Roosevelt that way. In some other respects, perhaps a little less.

The speech, and the howls Japan let out right after it, were front-page news for four days. Papers didn't print much that risked the Jeebies' displeasure these days. They couldn't ignore a speech from Joe Steele, though, or the foreign response to it.

On the fifth day, everybody from Washington state to Florida forgot all about it. That was the day Hitler invaded Russia. Joe Steele summoned his top military men to see what they thought of the new, titanic war. George Marshall was a three-star general now, not a colonel sitting on a military tribunal. Although that wasn't exactly a previous acquaintance, Charlie buttonholed the stone-faced soldier. “What do you think Trotsky's chances are?” he asked.

“I'll tell you the same thing I told the President,” Marshall answered. Of course, he would have been insane to tell Charlie anything different. If Joe Steele found out he had, he wouldn't keep those stars on his shoulders long. He went on, “If the Russians last six weeks, I'll be surprised.”

“Okay,” Charlie said—he'd heard much the same thing from map readers (and tea-leaf readers) of less exalted rank.

Marshall shook his head. “It isn't okay. If Hitler holds everything from the Atlantic to the Urals, he's a deadly danger to the whole world. The way the President put it was, ‘I want to see lots of dead Germans floating down the river, each one on a raft of three dead Russians.'”

“Heh,” Charlie said. That sounded like Joe Steele, all right. His sense of humor, such as it was, was grim. Then again, he wasn't kidding here, or he was kidding on the square. And he hated Trotsky just as much as he hated Hitler.

Six weeks later, the Reds were still fighting. They'd given up a lot of ground and lost a ton of men, but they didn't show their bellies the way the French had. They kept slugging. Charlie presumed Marshall was surprised. He knew
he
was.

A little more than a month after the Nazis jumped on the Reds, Winston Churchill came to North America to confer with Joe Steele. He flew from England to Newfoundland, then cruised down to Portland, Maine, in a Royal Navy destroyer.

Vince Scriabin expressed sour satisfaction about that. “Churchill wanted Joe Steele to come to Newfoundland or Canada,” he told Charlie. “We told him no. He's the one who's hat in hand. If he needs something from us, he can damn well do the traveling and the begging.”

“Doesn't make any difference to me one way or the other,” Charlie answered. Diplomacy reminded him too much of what went on on elementaryschool playgrounds. The smaller kids had to do what the bigger kids said. Every so often, fights started. The trouble was, there were no teachers to break them up and paddle the punk who'd started things.

“Have you ever been to Portland before?” Scriabin asked.

“I've been to the one in Oregon. I don't think I've been to the one in Maine,” Charlie said.

“Well, pack a suitcase. The boss wants you along,” Scriabin said. “Throw in a sweater or two. We'll be out on the ocean some of the time, and it's not warm even in the middle of summer.”

As he was packing, Esther said, “Can I send you a wire while you're there?”

“I don't think you'd better,” Charlie replied. “This is supposed to be hush-hush, you know? How come? What may not keep till I get back?”

“Well, I'm more than a week late now,” she said. “I'm not sure yet, but I've kinda got the feeling, if you know what I mean.”

“All right!” He squeezed her till she squeaked. He knew he hadn't sounded thrilled about the idea of a second kid when she put it to him. He tried his best not to make the same mistake twice.

“I do think it's good that they're bringing you along,” Esther said.

“Yeah, me, too.” Charlie nodded. “Means—I hope it means—they've decided they trust me after all.”

He'd always had the fear Joe Steele had asked him to work at the White House not least to keep an eye on him. Mike had provoked the administration enough to get tossed into that damned labor encampment. No wonder they'd figure Charlie was liable to be another dangerous character. And, of course, nine years ago now Charlie had walked past Vince Scriabin when the Hammer was telling whoever was on the other end of the line to take care of something tonight, because tomorrow would be too late.

Even now, he didn't
know
that Scriabin had been arranging Governor Roosevelt's untimely demise. He'd never once mentioned it to the Hammer in all the years since. Keeping his mouth shut about it felt like paying lifeinsurance premiums. Scriabin
might
laugh—not that he was the laughing kind—and tell him he was full of baloney. But he also might not. If Franklin D. Roosevelt could have a tragic accident, Charlie Sullivan sure as hell could, too.

He kept his mouth shut on the train trip up to Portland. He had no tragic accidents on the way or after he got there. The President and his entourage traveled in far higher style than an AP stringer on the way to cover a trial or a grain-elevator explosion.

They rode a U.S. Navy destroyer out to meet the Royal Navy warship. The two vessels made an interesting contrast. The British ship was painted a slightly darker gray than its American counterpart. But it was a
war
ship in ways the U.S. Navy destroyer wasn't. Everything not essential had been stripped away from it. The Royal Navy sailors and officers wore uniforms that had seen hard use. Their expressions said
they'd
seen hard use, too.
They eyed the noncombatant American sailors and officials with faint—or sometimes not so faint—contempt.

Pink and round-faced, Churchill looked like a pugnacious, cigar-smoking baby. He and his advisors met Joe Steele and his followers in the officers' mess.

“You've come a long way,” Joe Steele said after a silent steward served drinks—Royal Navy ships weren't dry. “What can I do for you?”

“This side of fighting, you're already doing all you can do for me,” the Prime Minister answered. In person, his voice seemed even more resonant than it did on the radio. “Now I want you to do—I need you to do—the same thing for Trotsky and Russia.”

Joe Steele scowled. “I knew you were going to say that. If I wanted to do it, I would have done it already.”

“Whether or not you want to do it, you need to do it,” Churchill said. “Trotsky may rant about world revolution, but that's all it is—ranting. Red Russia is a nation other nations can deal with.”

“Pfah!” Joe Steele said. The United States had no embassy in Moscow, nor did the Reds have one in Washington. Kerensky had got out of Paris just before the Nazis marched in. He was in New York these days. The USA still didn't recognize him, either. As far as American diplomacy was concerned, a sixth of the globe's land area was only a blank space on the map.

“Oh, but you must,” Churchill said, as if the President had spelled all that out for him instead of making a disgusted noise. “Russia, as I told you, we can deal with. Not well, perhaps, nor smoothly, but we can. Hitler's Germany, on the other hand, is not a state at all. It is a cancer on the world's body politic. Unless it is cut out, it will spread without limit. That is what cancers do. You need not love Trotsky to see that Hitler is the more dangerous of the two.”

“Pfah!” Joe Steele said again. This time, he added real words: “He's turned that whole country into a prison camp.”

Churchill looked at him. “And you have not, in yours?”

For a bad moment, Charlie thought Joe Steele would walk out of the officers' mess, off the Royal Navy destroyer, and away from anything
resembling friendship with England. No one in the United States talked to Joe Steele that way. No one talked about him that way, not any more, not where the Jeebies might get wind of it.

The President looked stonily back at the Prime Minister. That look said nothing here would be forgotten—or forgiven. But Joe Steele's reply sounded mild enough: “The ones who go into my encampments deserve it. That's the difference between me and Trotsky.”

“Well, you may be right.” By the way Churchill said it, he didn't believe it, not even slightly. But he went on, “And I assure you I am right about aid to Trotsky and Russia. Hitler may win that fight anyhow. But anything you can do to keep him from winning it, you should do. No, you must.”

“You are not well positioned to tell me what I must do,” Joe Steele said.

“Because your country is bigger and richer than mine, do you mean?” Churchill contrived to make that seem of no account. “If you want to stay that way, you could do worse than to listen to me. America's knowledge of the international arena is sadly limited by your good fortune in having broad oceans—and the Royal Navy—to shield your shores. Britain, now, has been in the arena, of the arena, for centuries. My country and I have more experience than you and yours. What I tell you now springs from the depth of that experience.”

He spoke to Joe Steele as a man speaks to a boy. No one in the United States did that, either. The President's glower said he didn't fancy it. But he didn't tell the Prime Minister where to head in. He said, “Have supper with me aboard my ship. We can talk more about it then.”

“As long as I may take over certain liquid refreshments,” Winston Churchill said. “I know of your Navy's abstemious habits, you see.”

“You can do that, yes.” Now Joe Steele seemed amused. “You can even try some apricot brandy from California, if you care to.”

Churchill smiled. “I look forward to it. As commander-in-chief, you not only make the rules, you may break them as you please.” And maybe he was still talking about bringing apricot brandy aboard a U.S. Navy ship, and maybe he wasn't.

Back aboard the American destroyer, Joe Steele commandeered the
officers' mess for himself and his followers. “He still feels England is the greatest country in the world,” the President growled. “Maybe not here, but here.” He tapped first his forehead, then the center of his chest.

“Arrogant bastard,” Vince Scriabin said.

“He is, yes. You don't go far in politics without that,” Joe Steele said. “Arrogant or not, is he right? Is Nazi Germany dangerous enough for the United States to help keep Russia in the game?”

“Trotsky made his bed. Then he pulled Hitler into it with him,” Stas Mikoian said. “He deserves whatever happens to him.”

“I agree.” Scriabin nodded.

Lazar Kagan kept quiet. Trotsky and a swarm of the Reds who ran Russia under him were Jews. Joe Steele would know that, considering how the Nazis persecuted them, anything Kagan said wouldn't be objective.

Speak now or forever hold your peace,
Charlie thought. But it wasn't peace. It was a war even bigger than the one they'd hopefully called the War to End War. Taking a deep breath, he said, “I think we ought to give Russia a hand. If Germany takes Russia out, she'll flatten England after that. And if she does, the ocean isn't wide enough to keep her away from us.”

Joe Steele puffed his pipe. Scriabin sent Charlie the kind of look the President had given the Prime Minister. Scriabin was good at not forgetting, too.

That evening, Churchill remarked on how neat and tidy and clean and new everything aboard the American destroyer was. It was one more way of saying
We're fighting and you aren't
. He praised the roast beef in the same style, which didn't keep him from eating three helpings of it. Whiskey and the President's brandy improved the meal.

Smoke from pipe, cigar, and cigarettes filled the mess. Joe Steele said nothing about Russia. He did his best to make his demeanor a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Churchill also was a man who didn't show all he was thinking, but his advisors began to fidget. So did Charlie. He hoped no one noticed.

At last, Churchill took the bull by the horns and asked, “Have you made up your mind about Trotsky?”

“I made up my mind about Trotsky more than twenty years ago, and
nothing you've said has done one damn thing to make me change it,” Joe Steele answered. He waited till Churchill began to slump in his seat before continuing, “But I'll send him toys to shoot Germans with. You talked me into that, you and one of my men.” He nodded toward Charlie.

That nod won Charlie Winston Churchill's grave regard. “Jolly good,” the Prime Minister said. “You have men of sense in your service.”

“Well, I hope so,” Joe Steele said. Charlie knew what that meant. If helping the Russians went well, the President would take the credit for it. He'd deserve credit, too; he was the man responsible for the choice. But if it went badly, the blame would fall on Charlie's head.

If, for instance, Hitler declared war on the USA because of this, Charlie figured he would find out more than he ever wanted to know about cutting down trees or digging ditches or turning big ones into little ones. Or maybe they'd strap him to a bomb and drop him on Germany. He hoped to go out with a bang one of these years, but not like that.

*   *   *

J
oe Steele didn't say anything about his change of policy toward Russia. He just quietly started shipping Trotsky planes and guns and trucks and telephone cable and high-octane fuel and anything else the Red Czar's little heart desired. The Russians still had no embassy in Washington. They had one in Ottawa, though, and huddled with the Americans there.

Joe Steele's try for secrecy didn't last long. Trotsky didn't mind not mentioning the goodies he would get. As long as he got them, keeping quiet about them was a small price to pay. But Winston Churchill trumpeted the news like a town crier. He
wanted
the rest of the world to know the United States disliked the Nazis even more than the Reds. He wanted the rest of the world to know he'd helped start the aid, too.

Hitler, predictably, screamed bloody murder. He screeched that the USA wasn't neutral, never had been neutral, and never would be neutral. He shrieked that Jews and subhumans were running the United States. He promised to do unto Jewish capitalism in America as he was doing unto Jewish Bolshevism in Russia.

He didn't declare war, though, to Charlie's relief. German U-boats did fire torpedoes at American freighters in the Atlantic and sank a few, but
they'd been doing that for a while now. War? Only unofficially. It stayed unofficial even when an American destroyer sank a Nazi sub, and when another U-boat blew the stern off an American light cruiser and killed two dozen sailors.

Charlie wondered whether the U.S. help for Russia would prove too little, too late. German armies laid siege to Leningrad in the north and Sevastopol in the south. They captured Kiev. And they captured Smolensk, which Charlie had never heard of till it showed up in the war news but which was apparently the main strongpoint protecting Moscow itself.

Summer passed into fall. Esther had morning sickness with the new baby, the same way she had carrying Sarah. Sarah started learning the alphabet. She had wooden blocks for all the letters and numbers, and played with them all the time.

Fall in Russia meant rain. Outside the big cities, Russian roads were only dirt tracks. When the rain fell, they turned to mud. German tanks and motorcycles and foot soldiers bogged down. Neat, orderly Germans were used to neat, orderly paved roads. They didn't do so well without them.

If there were fall rains in the Far East, they didn't bother Japan. The Japs went on pounding China. They finished occupying French Indochina. That made Winston Churchill fuss, because it brought their bombers within range of the British colonies farther south and west.

Joe Steele called Japan almost as many names as Hitler was calling the USA. The Japs paid hardly more attention than America did. As winter neared, General Tojo finally sent Foreign Minister Kurusu to Washington to see if the two countries could work something out.