that he figures come from Oxenstierna, even if nothing's said openly.'
'But…That would be-'
'Treason? What does Oxenstierna care if he loses one USE province but gets the rest of it? None of which he had before anyway, the way he sees it.'
Engler leaned back in his chair and brought his cup to his mouth. He didn't drink from it, though, and after a few seconds he set it back down again. He was a little shaken. Thorsten was not a cynical man by nature. Still something of a country rube, was the way he'd once put it to his betrothed, Caroline Platzer. The idea that Sweden's own chancellor would connive with an open enemy like the duke of Bavaria against his own nation…
Except he wouldn't see it that way. Jesse was right. Oxenstierna would always look at the world from a Swedish vantage point-and that of Sweden's aristocracy, to boot. From his perspective, the USE was an ignoble bastard. Not even that, a domestic animal run amok. Was it 'treason' for a farmer to use hounds to bring down unruly livestock?
'You didn't get around to answering my question, Jesse,' said Jeff.
Jesse smiled thinly. 'Noticed that, did you? Well, a good part of the reason I'm flying to Prague is to talk to Mike about it. I want to know what he thinks.'
'He'll tell you the same thing Simpson did,' said Jeff.
The air force colonel's eyes widened. 'You think so? I was kind of figuring…' He sat up very straight, suddenly. 'Don't tell me that you…'
'Different situation, Jesse. The air force and the navy are seen by most people as up-timer services. The army isn't. Whatever Mike winds up doing won't automatically have repercussions on Americans. That's not true for you and Simpson.'
Wood frowned. 'That logic seems kind of twisted to me. What the hell, Mike himself is an American.'
Thorsten extended his hand, waggling it back and forth. 'Yes and no. American by origin, certainly. But what do they call him now? 'Prince of Germany,' no? With everything that's happened, he's transcended his origin in the eyes of most people in the Germanies. Certainly most commoners. They almost forget about it-where they are reminded any time they see an airplane or an ironclad. No, I think Colonel Higgins has the right of it here.'
Jesse went back to looking out the window. After a few seconds, he said: 'And what about you, Jeff? Leaving aside whatever Mike decides to do.'
Higgins shrugged. 'I don't expect I'll have to worry about Mike Stearns.' He drained the last of his own cup. 'My wife's in Dresden, Jesse. The time comes I think she's against the ropes, fuck everything else. I figure my men will come with me, too.'
Thorsten didn't have any doubt about that. Jesse glanced at him and must have read his posture correctly. 'You're only one regiment,' he pointed out.
Jeff still seemed quite unperturbed. 'An oversized regiment that goes by the name of the Hangman. But, yes, you're right. We're only one regiment.'
He grinned, suddenly. 'Look at it this way, Jesse-by the time Baner manages to get Gretchen against the ropes, what kind of shape do you think he's going to be in?' Prague, capital of Bohemia 'Stay out of it, Jesse. Openly, at least. What Jeff said to you was right on the money.'
Mike Stearns leaned over the railing of the great bridge that spanned the Vltava in the center of the city, and idly watched a barge passing below. 'What the army does is one thing. The air force and navy, something else. To put it a bit crudely, the army's German and the other two services are American.'
'Hell, Mike, the navy's personnel is already almost all German. Once you get past John Chandler Simpson, anyway, and a few others like Eddie Cantrell. So's the air force, except for the pilots. And even there…' He paused for an instant, to do a quick calculation. 'Give it six months and the majority of my pilots will be down-timers too.'
'Doesn't matter. It's the technology involved that makes all the difference. Especially with the air force. The navy's new generation of warships are sailing ships, where it's the down-timers who really have most of the know-how. So I expect it won't be long before people think of the navy the way they do the army. But whenever they see one of your planes in the sky, you might as well be skywriting: 'look! American gadget!' '
The air force officer thought about it for a while. Eventually, albeit reluctantly, he nodded his head. 'Okay. I guess. But you said 'openly.' That implies something.'
Mike grinned at him. 'You can keep me informed of all important troop movements in or around Saxony, can't you? That doesn't involve doing anything more than flying reconnaissance, which you do anyway. Got to keep an eye on the Polish border and the Austrians'-he gestured with his chin to the south-'just down there a ways.'
'Sure. What else?'
'Well, it occurs to me that you overfly the fortress at Konigstein every time you come down this way.'
Jessed smiled thinly. 'Well, not quite. But it'd be easy enough to vary the route. If the powers-that-be whine about it, I'll make noises about tailwinds and tetchy weather and such forcing me a tad off course. I take it you want regular reports about the state of the garrison there?'
Mike shook his head. 'Actually, no. I want you to keep Colonel Higgins up to date. It'll be his Hangman Regiment that has to deal with Konigstein.'
'It's easy enough for me justify landing here, Mike, or at Ceske Budejovice when you get the airfield down there finished. But-'
'That'll be in four days, my engineers tell me. Most of my division's already there.'
'But landing in Tetschen's something else. Once or twice, sure. But I don't see how I can legitimately explain regular landings. And they're bound to find out.'
'Higgins has a radio. It won't reach here or Dresden reliably, but it'll reach a plane flying right overhead, won't it?'
Jesse pursed his lips. 'Yeah, it will. Have to make sure nobody's listening in, but…that's easy enough.'
He glanced up at the imposing sight of Prague Castle, atop the Hradcany. The huge palace and the great hill it sat upon dominated the whole city. 'What about Wallenstein?'
'What about him?' Mike followed Jesse's gaze, then pointed toward a palace at the foot of the hill. 'He lives in his own palace down here, by the way, not up in the Hradcany. I don't think he's been up there in months, since his health…'
He let that sentence die a natural death. 'Wallenstein's not very concerned about the inner workings of the USE, Jesse. Just as long as we back him against the Austrians and don't get in his way if he nibbles at Ruthenia.'
'If you take the Third Division out of Bohemia, he might squawk.'
'If I have to take the Third Division out of Bohemia, squawks coming from Prague will be the least of my concerns.'
Jesse chuckled. 'Well, that's true.'
Mike shrugged. 'He's not really that worried about the Austrians anyway, I don't think. They've been awfully quiet these past few months, and they certainly won't launch any attack on Bohemia in the middle of winter.' Vienna, capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire Janos Drugeth finished reading the report. For the third time, actually. It hadn't taken but a few minutes, because the report was only two pages long.
'This wasn't sent by Schmid,' he said, waggling the sheets. 'It's much too sketchy. It's got very little detail and no analysis at all.'
The Austrian emperor frowned down on the papers in Drugeth's hand. 'You think the report is a fake? A Turkish scheme of some kind?'
'No. What would be the point? I think it was sent by one of Schmid's underlings. Which would lead me to believe that he's gone into hiding. Or he's dead or in a Turkish prison somewhere.'
He rose from his chair in Ferdinand's private audience chamber and began pacing about. He didn't even think of asking permission to do so. Janos and his monarch had been close friends since boyhood.
The emperor just watched him, for a minute or so. Then he said: 'Come on, speak up! It won't irritate me any less if you wait another hour. Or another day.'
Drugeth smiled. 'So hard to keep anything from you. But I do hope you aren't being encouraged to do something rash, Ferdinand.' He was one of the handful of men who could address Austria's ruler in that manner.
