Final Impact (20 page)

Nobody said anything in reply. Kolhammer closed his eyes.

Here goes,
he thought.

“They’re still there,” he said. “And still in contact.”

He thought the president might have him shot right then and there, so he hurried on with an explanation.

“Major Ivanov and Lieutenant Zamyatin stayed in the USSR, as they were entitled to, since their period of attachment to the Multinational Force had expired. They are operating as free agents now, doing what they can to liberate their country from tyranny.

“It is their right,” he insisted as Admiral King snorted volubly on screen. “Major Ivanov was a Special Forces officer back in our world. He was an expert in both combating and fomenting insurgencies. That’s exactly what he’s been doing, all over the Soviet Union, for eighteen months. Supporting insurgent forces.”

Kolhammer let that sink in. The only natural light in his ready room came from two portholes, through which he could see a few wisps of clouds in an otherwise blue sky. A couple of prop-driven planes flew past, a good two or three thousand meters away, while he paused in his delivery. Then he continued.

“There was always going to be a reaction against the central government, when Stalin no longer had the Nazis to unite everyone he’d been tormenting before the war,” he explained. “Ivanov has simply been helping that process along. Frankly, I thought it was futile, but it’s not my country. At any rate, President Roosevelt ordered me to cease all contact and control, and I did so. However, Major Ivanov has continued to file regular reports. They have been logged by Fleetnet and archived, but no correspondence was entered into.

“We couldn’t very well stop him sending the information, after all.”

Roosevelt muttered, “I still don’t understand why you didn’t get on with Hoover, Admiral. You’re cut from the same cloth.”

Kolhammer tactfully ignored the aside.

“Anyway, Ivanov has been in contact again recently. Fleetnet logged a data burst from him just a few hours ago. He is in the Kamchatka region, and is investigating what the Russians call a
sharashka.
It’s effectively a prison, but a gilded one. Not a million miles removed from the Manhattan Project—in principle, if not execution.
Sharashki
are tightly closed R-and-D facilities, some of them as big as cities. Life for the scientists and techies who are effectively imprisoned there is very cushy by Soviet standards. They get comfortable quarters, good food, some minor luxuries. But if they miss a deadline or screw something up, there’s a fair chance the NKVD will kill them and send their families to a real gulag.”

The president looked more than a little uncomfortable with Kolhammer’s uncompromising account of life under Uncle Joe. The other military men, used to dealing in extremes, seemed much less discomfited.

“Major Ivanov has provided us with the locations of three
sharashki
other than the Kamchatka site, and extensive notes on what he was able to find out about each. He hasn’t sent much on Kamchatka yet, but I expect that will change soon. The other sites he has logged are a missile range at Novolazarevskaya, a large jet program at Baikonur, and another aviation program near Baikonur that seems to be mainly concerned with helicopter production.”

Kolhammer paused to take a breath. He had no idea how anyone would react to his next statement.

“I would strongly suggest that all of these facilities should be targeted for immediate deep-strike missions, if open conflict with the Soviets ensues. The missile base at Novolazarevskaya in particular. If it transpires that they’ve had two years’ access to the
Vanguard,
they will have a very advanced missile program by now. It’s quite possible that Stalin will be able to call on ICBM assets—rockets that could reach well into the continental United States. And if he has made any progress on his atomic program…well, you don’t need me to tell you what a nightmare that would be.”

It was evident, even in the little pop-up window, that a few of his colleagues were as furious as they had been in the days after the Transition, when they learned that Kolhammer’s ships had destroyed the Pacific Fleet “by accident.” He could see that King’s face had turned a dangerous shade of red. Marshall was shaking his head, his lips pressed thinly together.

“Major Ivanov has taken some preliminary soil, air, and water samples from around the Kamchatka site, and they have tested positive for low-level radioactive contamination.”

He heard Spruance swear softly beside him.

“In addition, Ivanov has sent back some basic imagery of the
Sharashka,
and there are a number of signs that it may be part of the atomic program.”

He tapped a string of commands into his keyboard. On the screens at the other end of the link, he and Spruance disappeared. They were replaced by still shots of massive concrete cooling towers. Allowing them a few moments to examine the image, Kolhammer then returned to the video feed from the ready room.

“Major Ivanov intends to secure high-value personnel from within the facility, to question them and confirm its nature.”

“How?” Henry Stimson asked.

“He’s gonna grab them up and interrogate them as quickly as possible.”

“Torture them, you mean,” King said.

“No, Admiral. Ivanov has access to a small supply of T-Five. It’s a drug we use in hostile debriefing of enemy combatants. It’s a lot more effective than kicking them in the kidneys.”

“Admiral Kolhammer, what happens if Ivanov gets caught?” Roosevelt asked.

“He won’t allow that to happen, sir.”

“Oh really.”

“No. He won’t. I’m afraid that given the nature of his mission, there is very little chance that Ivanov and his companions will escape with their lives. He judges it a sacrifice worth making. And I can assure you, he won’t leave traces behind for the Soviets to throw back in your face.”

“Admiral, you seem almost eager for this conflict with the Russians,” Roosevelt said.

“I have no enthusiasm for it at all, Mr. President. It will be an unholy bloodletting. But in my opinion, it
is
inevitable. The Soviets will not accept their future—the future they found in our records. We’ll fight it out in the next few weeks or the next few years, but we will have to fight them. And it’s almost certain that Stalin will want that fight to take place now, when he’s at his strongest, and before we reach the stage of mutually assured destruction with atomic weapons.”

Kolhammer waited for someone—Admiral King, he guessed—to flay him again for having royally fucked up their world. He’d built up a thick mass of scar tissue over the past two years of getting flogged on that same point. To his surprise nobody did anything of the sort.

The president, looking unsteady, turned to Lord Halifax. “Mr. Ambassador, what is the position of His Majesty’s government concerning the Soviet declaration?”

Kolhammer narrowed his eyes without realizing it. His research on Lord Halifax gave him no confidence in the man. He was a remote, upper-class grandee who was in Washington because Churchill couldn’t stand to have him spooking about London. He’d been an appeaser in the 1930s who’d argued that Hitler’s territorial ambitions should be accommodated, since they “constituted no serious threat” and even marked the return of the Germany to normality after the trials of the Great War and Versailles. If he’d been born a century later, thought Kolhammer, he’d have been one of those idiots who slapped their foreheads and moaned, “What did we do wrong?” every time some jihadi nutjob blew up a primary school or crashed a supertanker into a port.

With a long face and a melancholy, almost melodramatic delivery, however, Halifax said, “His Majesty’s government has been aware of Major Ivanov’s activities, and has been studying his reports for some time now.”

That didn’t surprise Kolhammer. He knew a Russian-speaking SAS officer had accompanied Ivanov into the Soviet Union.

“It’s the opinion of the prime minister and cabinet that war with the Soviet Union is inevitable, and that all preparations must be made to successfully prosecute the conflict as quickly as possible.”

“I see,” Roosevelt said. He was apparently as taken aback as Kolhammer. “General Marshall, gentlemen, I don’t want to fight another war, and I will do all I can to avoid it, but as it will fall to you to prevail in any conflict with Stalin, I must now direct you to begin planning for that eventuality.”

Spruance poured himself a second cup of coffee from the pot on the warming stand in Kolhammer’s ready room. The task force had moved only a few nautical miles since they’d sat down to take part in the teleconference, but the world had turned itself inside out, again. Maybe one day they’d get used to the feeling, Kolhammer mused.

He finished the dregs of his espresso and stared out a porthole. He could tell from the lazy, heaving motion of the ship and the number of whitecaps out on the deep blue that they were sailing into a weather front. A southerly, if he guessed right.

“Young Kennedy is already a hundred miles out ahead of us,” Spruance said. “I intend to chopper a SEAL team out to him, and then send him to drop them on Saipan.”

Kolhammer folded his arms and leaned back on the edge of his desk. “Seems a reasonable idea,” he agreed. “There’s nothing like eyeballing the ground for real. And our drone cover isn’t what it used to be.”

“No, but we have a larger issue now, don’t we?” Spruance said. “If it turns out that Tojo is withdrawing some of his forces from the Marianas to shore up defense of the Home Islands, we have to decide whether or not we’ll let him.”

“Uh-huh,” Kolhammer responded. “My two cents’ worth. If the Japanese want to get home, we should let them. It’ll mean less resistance for us, and it’s going to get bloody taking those islands. More importantly, it’ll hold up the Sovs, and believe me, you don’t want them getting hold of Japan. I can’t think of anything worse.

“You think the Japanese are bad news now, you got no idea. As Commies, they’d be worse than the North Koreans.”

Spruance paced the room with hands clasped behind his back. He adjusted his balance to the movement of the ship without apparent thought.

They’d been given no specific orders about how to respond to a Japanese withdrawal from the Marianas. Until they knew better what was happening out there, they’d been ordered to continue as planned. Spruance stopped at a porthole and gazed out over the task force awhile. The invasion fleet that hit Calais had been an awesome sight, even when viewed on screen. But it hadn’t been a proper oceangoing armada like this one. This had fewer ships, overall, but to Kolhammer it looked much more powerful.

Spruance turned away from the view. “When we find out exactly what’s going on, we will be referring back to Washington,” he said, in a tone that made it clear he would brook no argument.

“Of course,” Kolhammer agreed. “This is your task force, Admiral, not mine. I’m just here to run my part of it.”

“As long as we understand each other then, Admiral. I’m not going to interfere with your tactical decisions. You’re playing with technologies and doctrine I’ve never trained for. But I am not going to make political decisions—and neither are you. If choices of that nature are to be made, they’ll be made by the right people, not us.”

Kolhammer agreed with as much good grace as he could muster. He liked Spruance, even though he knew the other man found him and his people vexing—to say the least. As long as the Auxiliaries did what was asked of them, though, Spruance had never interfered with their command chain or conducted himself with anything but the most proper of courtesies. Lonesome Jones had only kind thoughts and soft words for him, and that said a lot.

Kolhammer checked his watch. It would be another five minutes before the Eighty-second’s commander arrived. “Any word on when the Sovs will arrive in Washington?”

“No,” Spruance answered. “Three or four days at a guess. But you can bet that when they do get there, they’ll have an army of liaison officers wanting to swarm all over King and ‘coordinate’ with our efforts out here.”

“Anything to keep us out of the Home Islands,” Kolhammer said.

Spruance grunted. He was lost in his thoughts, but the commander of the
Clinton
’s battle group had a good idea of what he was thinking about.

When will we get the bomb?

16

D-DAY + 31. 3 JUNE 1944. 0711 HOURS.
LOS ANGELES.

There had been well over three hundred people at cocktails last night, and dawn found a few of them still lying around on the artificial beach on top of Slim Jim’s building. The original owner, a haberdasher who’d gone out of business by refusing to run up any twenty-first designs, had shipped in a couple of tons of sand from Europe and poured it onto the roof around the swimming pool. Slim Jim couldn’t understand the guy at all. If he was willing to buy in truckloads of fancy store-bought European sand when there was plenty of free stuff up the road at Santa Monica, why not crib a few pairs of pants from some unborn Euro-queer like Armani? Most of Slim Jim’s suits were Armani rip-offs. In fact, if he remembered right, he even owned a chunk of some fashion house back in New York that specialized in recreating clothes from uptime magazines. Or maybe not. It was hard keeping track of everything he owned nowadays. And anyway he had legions of accountants and lawyers to do that for him, freeing him up for the important business of rooftop beach parties with Hollywood starlets and a select circle of beer buddies.

At that very moment one of his best suds-buds, old Artie Snider, was facedown in the crotch of some B-list starlet from Sammy Goldwyn’s stable. He wasn’t doing nothing, of course. That’d be a bit fucking déclassé, as Ms. O’Brien woulda put it. Artie had just passed out sometime before sunup and, unable to shift his considerable bulk, the blonde had fallen asleep beneath him. Slim Jim smirked at the twists of fate that spun out of the Transition. He was willing to bet a million bucks that when Snider had his leg shot out from under him by the Japs down in Australia, the big dumb bastard had no idea he’d land flat on his face in some bimbo’s twat at a penthouse party in LA.

Slim Jim wrapped a soft, white cotton bathrobe around himself and tried to haul his ass skyward out of the lounger in which he’d crashed. The morning sun had climbed over the highest floors of the unfinished skyscraper across the street, burning through his eyelids to wake him up a few minutes ago. It was now hot enough to give him a bad sunburn if he didn’t watch out. He was working on his tan, but it was taking awhile. He had the kind of sallow, moley skin that didn’t brown easily. Prison pallor, they called it. Once upon a time anyway. He found people generally fell over themselves to be nice to him these days. Except for those Rockefeller pricks, of course.

Fuck I need a beer.

His head swam unpleasantly as he gained his feet and looked around, taking inventory. Looked like about a dozen girls had stayed over. And maybe half that many fellas. Apart from Artie, he could see a couple of sailors crashed on blow-up mattresses, which bumped against the floating bar like giant bath toys. He didn’t really know them, but he always made sure to invite some guys from the forces to his parties. At first Ms. O’Brien had insisted on it as a sort of public relations exercise, but Slim Jim found he got on a lot easier with them than the business types he was forced to mix with anyway. That’s how he’d met Snider, at some Kennedy gig or something for crippled war heroes back in New York last year. Old Artie was the very picture of respectability when he was out on government business, but Slim Jim had found him to be a hellcat of a drinker and a skirt chaser, gimpy leg and all, when the pressmen weren’t looking. He was a good guy to have around. Sort of reminded him of the old days.

“A pot of coffee, Mr. Davidson?”

“Huh? Oh yeah. Thanks, Albert.”

He tried to blink away some of the crust from his eyes, but his butler steadfastly refused to come into focus. Albert was another good guy to have around, but in a completely different way from Artie. Albert, an honest-to-goddamn English butler, was an absolute fucking marvel at turning up exactly when he was needed. Like now, with a pot of strong black coffee and a toasted cheese sandwich.

“Breakfast of champions, big Al. Thanks, buddy.”

The tall, gray-haired servant bowed his head slightly. “Of course, sir. Your bath is drawn and your clothes have been set out for the day. A printed schedule is on your desk in your private quarters. Shall I see to the other guests?”

Slim Jim couldn’t help sniggering. The “gentleman’s gentleman” managed to flick just enough of a spin on the word
guests
to imply they were anything but.

“Get old Artie into bed, if you can, Al. And his girlfriend. You can bundle the rest downstairs to the café for breakfast and them pour ’em into cabs. Put it all on my tab.”

“Very good, sir. And Mr. Kennedy’s man would like a word with you, too, when you have a moment.”

“He still here?” asked Slim Jim. “I didn’t take him for such a live wire.”

“He has been away and returned, sir. He is waiting for you downstairs in the main conference room.”

Slim Jim shook his head. It seemed his whole fucking life was like this now, a never-ending series of meetings with no chance of escape. He rubbed the blurriness from his vision and took a long draw on the mug of coffee that Albert had poured for him. It’d taken a hell of a lot of work convincing the old geezer to let him drink out of a mug instead of some bone china cup-and-saucer arrangement. He’d hoped that maybe he could get in a few hairs of the dog this morning before heading upstate for a surfing lesson. He was really getting into surfing. But he could see that the giant machine known as Slim Jim Enterprises was going to gobble up his entire day all over again.

“Okay, Albert. Did you get…uh, what’s his name, this Kennedy guy?”

“Mr. Doyle, sir.”

“Did you get him some coffee and a roll or something? Can’t leave him scratching his ass, I suppose.”

“Chef has sent up a tray of fresh pastries and a pot of coffee, sir. Mr. Doyle understands you have been
indisposed.
He is happy to wait.”

Slim Jim brayed out a short, sharp laugh. “I’ll bet. Okay. Gimme ten, fifteen minutes and I’ll be down.”

“Very good, sir.”

“And don’t worry about Snider, I’ll see to him myself.”

“Yes, sir.”

As his butler disappeared inside, looking like some windup figure on a cuckoo clock, Slim Jim drained his coffee and ambled over to the prone form of Artie Snider. He was in uniform, sort of. His pants were down around his ankles, and his shirt had ridden up to expose a growing paunch. A couple of the bimbos were stirring on the far side of the pool. One of them waved lazily and he waved back, smiling as best he could with his hangover. It never hurt to be friendly, even with the little guys.
Especially
with the little guys, in fact. Ms. O’Brien had taught him that, too. The little guys were fighting this war, she always said. They were gonna win it, too. And the world would be theirs. And his, if he kept ’em on his side.

Music suddenly came on, blaring from hidden speakers. Loud enough to wake the hard-core hangers-on. No doubt on Albert’s order. Some dumbass uptime song called “Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go.” The butler’s idea of a joke.

“Hey, Artie,” said Slim Jim, toeing his friend on the side of the head, getting a nice feel of the unconscious blonde’s thigh while he was at it. “Get up, man. I gotta go, and those war bond assholes are gonna be looking for you soon.”

Snider grunted and nuzzled deeper into the starlet’s crotch. He didn’t look like he was going anywhere quickly. Slim Jim shrugged, walked over to the pool, scooped up a mug of cold water, and returned to pour it all over them. The effect was instantaneous. Snider came awake with a roar, and his companion with a squeal.

“What the fuck?” he cried out, shaking his head like a wet dog.

“Gotta get a move on, buddy. Time’s a-wasting. You can crash here if you want, but you got that gig up in Frisco later this morning. You’re gonna catch hell if you blow ’em off again.”

“Yeah, right,” the big man grunted. “Frisco…right.”

He had some trouble getting to his feet. His knee reconstruction, which wouldn’t have even been possible without twenty-first technology and know-how, still wasn’t perfect. Slim Jim gave him a helping hand. The reek of sour alcohol on his breath was something to behold.

“You too, darlin’,” he said, gently digging his foot into the girl’s behind as she rolled over. It was an outstanding behind, after all, and just sitting there, begging to be interfered with. Her bikini top, one of the new teensy-weensy ones, fell off as she got up and she giggled unself-consciously, giving Slim Jim an eyeful and an unspoken invitation.

Dames,
he thought.
They never fucking change, no matter what part of town they’re from.

Artie was too far under the weather to notice, and probably wouldn’t have cared anyway. They’d shared plenty of women before.

“We ain’t gonna surf today, Jimbo?” he asked. “I thought we was gonna have a lesson up the coast? The water’s good for me leg, you know.”

“We were,” shrugged Slim Jim. “But I got this Kennedy asshole downstairs wants a piece of me first. And you got your gig in Frisco. I’ll have my guys fly you there and back. You shoulda been there already. We can party tonight.”

“Me, too?” asked the girl.
What was her fucking name?

“Sure, darlin’,” said Slim Jim. “Bring some friends. We’ll rip it up.”

The music had woken everyone by now. Slim Jim could have sworn it was getting louder. It was surely getting more uncomfortable on the “beach” as the sun climbed higher. One of the sailors rolled off his inflatable mattress with a splash and a holler. That awful fucking pop song finished and a new track came on. Crunching guitars and gravel-voiced singer. He recognized it immediately as the Foo Fighters’ last single, “Innocence,” one of his faves. His flexipad was programmed to wake him with it every morning.

“What is that
noise
?” asked the bimbo.

“That is the unborn genius of Dave Grohl, sweetheart,” he informed her. “Have some fucking respect.”

“So you figured out which one you’re putting into the White House yet?” he joked. “Or is old Joe planning to give all of his boys a turn?”

The Kennedy clan fixer, Mike Doyle, didn’t bother to hide his aversion. He didn’t like dealing with Slim Jim, and they both knew it. Mrs. Davidson’s little boy had spent a good deal of his former life getting the shit kicked out of him one way or another by the likes of Doyle. The guy screamed
ex-cop,
and even though he was now taking his coin from an old bootlegger, it must have galled him something awful to have to deal with somebody like Slim Jim as an equal—or even, let’s face it, as a superior. Because in the end, Doyle was just a spear-carrier.

He rolled his shoulders around inside an off-the-rack suit. It was an older contemporary cut, unlike Slim Jim’s stylish uptime number, and it pulled tight in all the wrong places as he leaned forward.

“Mr. Kennedy understood that he had a deal with you for your support in this matter, whenever he asked for it. You said you’d back his choice for the primaries with money and votes. What, are you backing out or something? You got your own plans, is that it?”

Slim Jim enjoyed the sensation of being able to say nothing for so long, it became uncomfortable. He enjoyed the view out of his picture windows, the expensive fit-out of the conference room, the acres of polished oak table in front of him.

“Nah,” he said at last. “I don’t have my own plans. I gave Joe my word, and that’s as good as ink on paper. Better, in fact. I got a lawyer who’s an absolute fucking wonder at blowing holes in bits of paper. You tell him, when one of the boys is ready to run, I’ll do whatever I can to help…”

He left the sentence hanging long enough for Doyle to understand more was coming. “But?” said the fixer.

“But,” added Slim Jim, “I’m still waiting to hear from him about a little favor that I asked for back in Hyannisport.”

“Uh-huh,” said Doyle, warily. “And that’d be?”

“The Zone legislation,” said Slim Jim. “The sunset clause. Your boss promised me he would help kill it in the House. You make sure he understands that I’m serious. I want that clause nixed. We got a good thing going out here and we don’t need the apple cart tipped over by a bunch of know-nothing pinheads trying to wind the clock back. It’d be very bad for business.”

Doyle sized him up as though he were still a small-time grifter trying to pass a rubber check.

“That it?” he asked.

“That’s it,” said Slim Jim.

“Okay then, I’ll tell him. Can I get you later today, if he’s got an answer?”

Slim Jim shook his head. “Nope,” he said. “I’m going for a surf with a buddy. You can call Maria O’Brien and tell her.”