“I am speaking of industrial goods, whose passage Canada has guaranteed— machine tools and electronics. Not supplies for the troops in the east. Our aim in this campaign is to restore American productivity.”
Someone near Peters said, “And American credit.” There was a ripple of laughter.
“Precisely.” Lewis’s flat voice came loudly, cutting through the amusement. “Credit, as you know, is a matter of confidence, of trust. Ours is still a country of great natural resources, with a wonderful supply of skilled labor and unmatched management know-how. I don’t have to tell any of you gentlemen that U.S. is one of the world’s leading manufacturers, or that we are trying to obtain, currently, financing overseas, but—”
The man standing next to Peters said, “You are having difficulties. What is it you call management if you have such difficulties?”
Peters turned, expecting to see Solomos, but it was a man he had not met, a short, fat man of fifty or so. Peters said, “We mean business management. Maximizing the return on invested capital.”
“Management,” the fat man said firmly, “is management.”
Peters turned back to listen to Lewis.
“End,” the fat man continued, “you do not any longer have these resources you speak of, not so much more as other peoples.”
Peters said, “There is a great deal left.”
“Not so much for each person as Western Europe. Different, yes, but not so much.”
Lewis had a map of Detroit on the screen now, stabbed by arrows from the south and west.
On the other side of Peters someone asked, “Do you have a master plan for retaking the country?” And the tall man with the mustache said, “They surely must, but I doubt if this young man knows it, or could confide in us if he did.”
Peters recalled a conversation he had had with Lewis earlier in which he had asked much the same question. Lewis had said, “Top management knows what it’s doing,” and Peters had felt better until he remembered that Lewis was top management. One of Tredgold’s girls brushed against Peters, her back arched, her hands and a tray of hors d’oeuvres above her head; he was acutely conscious of the momentary warmth and pressure of her hips; General Virdon was talking on the wall-sized screen, a gray-haired, square-faced man whose hard jaw was betrayed by nervous eyes. Peters had seen the face before, the face of a frightened middle-management man whose career had topped out in his forties, driving his subordinates from habit and his fear of his many-faced, ever-shifting superiors. Donovan edged up to Peters and said, “He looks like old Charlie Taylor, doesn’t he? Runs the Duluth plant.”
Peters nodded. “I was just thinking the same thing.”
“I was out there two years ago,” Donovan continued. “You know, go around, see what the boys back home were doing. . . .”
Mentally Peters tuned him out. Someone new, a major, was on the screen. He said, “I regret that Colonel Hopkins was unable to return as scheduled to address this group. He left our headquarters here at fourteen hundred hours and was due back quite some time ago. I don’t know just what he had intended to tell you, but I’ll answer your questions as well as I can.” The major wore paratrooper wings; they went well with his impassive, almost Indian, face.
Someone asked, “If your colonel does not return, will you direct the attack?”
“If you mean Force Wolverine,” the major said, “I’ll lead it. General Virdon will direct it.”
From another part of the room: “Isn’t it true that you have put clerks and cooks into the fighting ranks?”
“Not as much as I’d like to.” Unexpectedly the major smiled, the boyish smile of a man who has gotten his way when he did not expect it. “They’re usually the most able-bodied soldiers we’ve got, especially the clerks. Now that the government’s out and the companies have taken over, all the goofballs with political connections can’t write their damn letters anymore.”
“Don’t you find it difficult to get recruits when you cannot pay?”
“Hell, that would be impossible,” the major said. “But we can pay something— the companies have bankrolled us to some extent, and they buy up some of the stuff we liberate.”
Lowell Lewis said, “May I add a bit of explanation of my own there, Major? Thank you. Gentlemen, this is, of course, one of the most important reasons for the loans we are trying to secure here—we feel an obligation to deal fairly with the men who are directing these vital operations in our own country. They are going to win, they will win, and we are in a position to secure those loans with the solidest possible collateral—victory.”
“A question for you, Mr. Lewis. This officer takes order from General Veerdon—”
“Virdon,” the major said.
“Thank you. General Veerdon. But from whom does General Veerdon take order?”
There was a long pause. At last Lewis said, “At present General Virdon can’t be said to be getting orders from anyone. America feels that as one of its finest commanders he is competent, during this emergency, to exercise his own judgment.”
“But he consults with you?”
Lewis nodded. “About finances and supplies, and to a certain extent concerning priorities among objectives.” Peters saw Clio Morris hand Lewis a note.
“And General Marteen, at Boston, with who—”
“Excuse me,” Lewis said, “but word had just been flashed to us that the troops are jumping off for the attack, and I don’t think any of you will want to miss that.”
Down an eight-lane highway dotted with the carcasses of burned-out auto-mobiles (casualties of the June fighting that had lost the city) men in green and brown and blue were advancing ahead of three light tanks. Some of the men wore helmets; others did not, and Peters noticed one group in the flat-brimmed campaign hats of state
