The Ten Thousand (26 page)

So why hide it? It’s time you came out, just like you did with me, with hat in hand and told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

Though her predecessor had warned her that Lewis could be a dangerous political adversary, not to mention brash and downright disrespectful on occasion, Wilson appreciated that Lewis had much going for him. Everyone in Washington agreed that he was one of the few people in Washington she could trust in a pinch. The former President himself, despite his warnings to Wilson, had used Lewis during a particularly sensitive crisis with Mexico. Through this and other such coups, Lewis had earned a reputation for being one of the most politically astute and respected authorities on international affairs in Washington. There had even been serious discussion about asking Lewis to serve as Wilson’s Secretary of State instead of Soares.

Suspecting that Chancellor Ruff wasn’t in a mood to listen to either her or Soares, a man many Europeans had difficulty dealing with, Wilson decided that she would take the former President’s advice.

Of course, she also remembered his warning: “Lewis has a tendency to come on like a down-home good old boy, so don’t be offended by his manner.” Taking Lewis’s comments in stride, Wilson was about to respond, when her comments were pre-empted by another interruption at the study door. This time it was the appearance of Agent Bradshaw.

Barreling in, Bradshaw looked at Jan, now seated across from Wilson, then at Wilson, before he began to apologize for letting Jan in. Wilson, however, was tired of being interrupted, first by Jan, now by Bradshaw. Already uneasy about coming to Lewis like this and the manner in which he was treating her, Wilson, in a momentary flaring of her temper, cut Bradshaw short. “Look, Bradley, or Banden, or whoever you are, get out of here and close the door.”

Totally frustrated and in pain, Bradshaw closed the door, catching a glimpse of Jan just as she canted her head, smiled, and waved ‘bye to him.

Pausing a moment to pick up her train of thought, Wilson continued where she had left off. “In principle, I agree with you, Ed. But…” Wilson hesitated as she glanced at Jan. “Even you understand that there are things, military matters and ongoing delicate diplomatic discussions, that we cannot go public with.”

Lewis rolled his eyes as he settled back into his chair. “Oh, please, Abby. You don’t need to remind me of that. Even Jan here, one of the foremost correspondents in the world, understands the necessity of keeping secrets, _real _ secrets, a secret. But don’t, if you hope to salvage any shred of credibility and trust, hide everything, big mistakes and small, behind the cloak of operations security. The American people are a lot more sophisticated than your advisors give them credit for. Yes, the operation, aptly named Desperate Fumble, succeeded in disarming the Ukrainian nuclear arsenal, as you intended. No one is arguing that point. But it was not the most successful military operation in American military history as Rothenberg keeps telling the media. We succeeded, not in the manner in which we had hoped, and at a much higher cost than expected, but we succeeded. That, Madam President, is what your Secretary of Defense _should _ have said.”

“All right, you have made your point. That was, I agree, poorly handled. Expressing regrets concerning that matter, however, does nothing to solve our, excuse me, my current problem. I was hoping, Ed, to use you in much the same way that my predecessor used you to resolve the Mexican problem.”

Anxious to say something but knowing that she was there only by the grace of luck, her own tenacity, and Ed Lewis’s blessing, Jan held back. There would be ample opportunities, she knew, to develop this incredible stroke of luck into a useful story later. For now, Jan was more than content to stand on the sidelines and watch history in the raw unfold before her very eyes.

Lewis was looking down, contemplating Wilson’s offer, when he heard his wife outside the study bark, “Young man, make yourself useful and open the door like a good boy.”

Everyone in the study looked up as Bradshaw, a sheepish, downcast look on his face, opened the door and allowed Amanda in carrying a tray with a coffeepot, cups, saucers, and such. Hesitating, Amanda looked about in vain for someplace to set the tray. Jan, seeing her predicament, jumped up.

“Here, Amanda, let me make myself useful. I’ll hold this while you serve.” Though Lewis could see that Wilson was not exactly pleased at being interrupted like this, she said nothing as Amanda, followed by Jan with the tray, served her, then Ed, and finally poured Jan a cup and emptied a sack of artificial sweetener in it. Finished, Amanda took the tray from Jan, who retrieved her cup while she thanked Amanda, who excused herself and went back to the kitchen.

Watching Ed while she sipped her coffee, Jan knew that he would accept the President’s challenge.

While Ed might wear the livery and speak the language of a Washington politician, he was, Jan knew, a warrior at heart. Like her own husband, Scotty, Lewis had a streak of dedication to God and country that ran through and through. And like Scotty, Lewis could no more ignore a call to duty than she could stop the new day from dawning. The only reason Lewis was taking so long to respond to Wilson’s offer was because the wheels in his mind, figuring out what he would ask for and what he would insist on, were already turning. Either that, Jan thought, or he was screwing with the President, making her stew a little longer in her own mess before granting her request that he help salvage her political future.

Setting his cup down on the saucer, Lewis silently wished that Amanda had used the regular everyday coffee mugs, the ones with all the chips and stains, rather than the good china. It would have, he thought, made for a more humbling experience for the President. Looking over to Wilson out of the corner of his eye, Lewis asked what exactly she had in mind.

“To tell you the truth, I was hoping to discuss that with you. Like I told you in the beginning, the entire National Security Council, to a man, is thrashing about the streets of Washington like a herd of beached whales. I need someone with a clear head and experience in matters like this to get us back on track and headed in the right direction. Besides …” Wilson paused and looked down at her lap for a moment before looking into Lewis’s eyes with what he took to be a sincere, heartfelt plea. “I need someone whom I can trust, someone that the American people and the media can trust, and someone unconnected with the Ukrainian fiasco.”

Lewis was about to add, “And someone who is politically expendable,” but didn’t. Instead, Lewis nodded. His response was short, positive, and sincere. “Madam President, I will do everything I can for this nation.” Shrugging his shoulders, he added, “At a time like this, how can anyone do otherwise?”

Then, before Wilson had an opportunity to thank him, Lewis turned to Jan. With a jaunty ring to his voice, he asked, “Jan, you think you can be ready for an all-expenses-paid trip to Berlin in, oh, say six hours?”

Jan smiled. “Ed, I’m surprised you would even ask such a foolish question. Name the time and place, and I’ll be there, with rings on my fingers and bells on my toes.”

Lewis, his face now serious, added a cautionary note as Jan stood up to leave. “I have a feeling, Jan, we, the nation, aren’t going to get off as easily as we did in Mexico. The Germans, I suspect, have a long agenda of their own that they have been sitting on for quite some time. Despite what some people think, we and our German friends have little in common, and the detonation in the Ukraine and the nukes we brought into their country aren’t going to do anything to endear us to them.” Standing, he looked down and shook his head. “No, the Germans wouldn’t pull something like this on the spur of the moment unless they were sure they could get away with it. There’s more to this than meets the eye.” Looking up at Jan, then over to Wilson, Lewis sighed. “We aren’t going to walk away from this one without paying a price, a heavy, heavy price. I just hope we can afford it.”

Neither the pale sun struggling to rise in the cold southeastern sky nor the tasteless breakfast being served from the back of a mud-covered truck that morning brought relief to or dispelled the gloom of the near frozen soldiers of Number 4 Company, 26th Panzer Battalion. Sitting on the turret of his Leopard II tank with his feet dangling over the side, their commander watched his men huddle together to share both their body warmth and rumors as they waited to file by the mess truck and be served. Unable to do anything to improve the lot of his soldiers or explain the reasoning behind their sudden deployment to the border, Captain Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz was content to simply sit where he was and wonder, just like his sullen, unhappy soldiers did, what was to become of them. As he did so, he couldn’t help but wonder if his ancestor and namesake, Frederick the Great’s youngest and most successful cavalry general, had ever experienced the same uneasiness and self-doubt that he did that morning. Probably not, he thought ruefully.

Such comparisons were easy to make. Everyone, as far back as he could remember, used the famous Prussian general or the captain’s great-grandfather, Generalmajor Walter von Seydlitz-Kurzbach, as standards against which to measure young Seydlitz. As he grew, that tendency continued, exacerbated by the fact that Captain Seydlitz was the spitting image of the hero of Rossbach. Inheriting the same tall and lean physique, right down to the light, almost sleepy eyes, Captain Seydlitz could easily have put on the straw-yellow uniform of the Rochow Cuirassiers that von Seydlitz had worn in 1758 and been mistaken for the great cavalryman.

But the similarity was only skin deep, or so young Seydlitz thought. He lacked the decisive nature that had allowed his ancestors to make their mark on German military history. His great-grandfather, commander of the 51st Corps at the Battle of Stalingrad, hadn’t hesitated to stand up to Hitler, despite the possible consequences, when he knew he was right. No, young Seydlitz thought as he pulled the hood of his parka up to shield himself from the frigid wind that cut through him, the name Seydlitz and a smattering of genes handed down from generation to generation did little to prepare him for this.

Not that there was much that his company could do at that moment, other than eat breakfast. The decisions that would determine whether he would lead his thirteen Leopard tanks back to their kaserne in Wieden or into battle here, along the Czech-German border, with their former ally would be made by politicians in Berlin and Washington. The fact that he, unlike his ancestors, had no control over his own destiny was just as difficult to accept as his orders to prevent all American military traffic from crossing out of or into Germany had been. In agonizing over this last matter, Seydlitz knew he was not alone. He couldn’t think of a single German who would say the Americans had been right in using Germany as a base for their adventure into the Ukraine. Nor could he imagine any of his countrymen coming to the defense of the Americans’ decision, which most took as an insult, to bring nuclear weapons into their country without the knowledge or permission of the German government. It was, in the words of Seydlitz’s brigade commander, as if the Americans were deliberately trying to provoke them.

Still, the deployment of the entire brigade to the border three days ago, coupled with the announcement from the Chancellor’s office in Berlin that the reserve battalions of Seydlitz’s brigade, as well as other brigades, were liable for immediate recall, seemed unnecessarily provocative on Germany’s part. Diplomatic, not military, action was what his government should have been using to resolve the issue. Yet nothing, at least nothing that he knew of or had heard on the radio, even suggested that Chancellor Ruff or the Americans were interested in pursuing active talks. Instead, as the brigade watched and waited for the Americans to test the resolve of the German government, a test every officer and soldier in the brigade knew would come, Berlin continued to issue new pronouncements, new directives, and new deployment orders that could only serve to increase rather than decrease the tension.

So, as for many of his fellow officers, the news that a parachute brigade had seized the American air base where the nuclear weapons in question had been only brought dread and foreboding. For the Army better than anyone else knew that the Americans could not ignore the German challenge. Unless cool heads and common sense were allowed to prevail, it would, Seydlitz knew, have to come to a fight.

With his mind cluttered by such weighty concerns, Seydlitz did not notice the driver of his tank as he carefully climbed on board, taking great pains not to spill the contents of his commander’s breakfast.

Only after he offered the steaming plate of food did Seydlitz acknowledge him. Forcing a smile across a face still clouded by deep worries and personal doubts, Seydlitz thanked his crewman and took the plate.

Looking down at the plate, Seydlitz made a face, then asked his driver what, exactly, he’d been handed.

The loader smiled. “Well, Herr Captain, when I was training at Minister, my cadre sergeant told us never bother asking where we were going, since we had no choice in the matter anyway, never ask what we were going to do when we got there, because chances are the officers taking us there probably didn’t know either, and never, never, never ask an army cook what he is serving, because even they didn’t know what it used to be.”

Seydlitz looked at his loader and laughed. The German Army didn’t need to spend millions and millions of marks on training its officer corps, Seydlitz thought, in military theory and tactics. His loader, with just a few weeks of training, understood things far better than he did. All that was necessary, it seemed, was for officers to act more like their crewmen; shut up, go where you were told, don’t worry about what’s going to happen, and eat what you are given. For a lowly panzer captain such as himself to worry about anything else was, Seydlitz realized, a waste of time.

After two days of nonstop lectures and one-way speeches, Ed Lewis was ready to give up. Actually, he thought, as he listened to Chancellor Ruff, there was nothing really to give up, since that phrase implied that there had been a two-way struggle. If anything, there had been no room, as far as the Germans were concerned, for any kind of open dialogue. From the beginning of his round of official and unofficial meetings, Ed Lewis had been stonewalled by a solid party line that none of the German players were deviating from. From Thomas Fellner, Minister of the Interior, and to the left of the political spectrum, to Rudolf Lammers, the Minister of Defense and a staunch conservative, the only difference in their presentations had been the intensity of the speaker’s emotions.