The Company of the Dead

by David Kowalski

  Morgan fell silent.

  Hardas returned to the table. “It’s done,” he said.

  Kennedy turned to Lightholler and said, “Captain, who killed my men?”

  “A tunnel sentry,” Lightholler replied, more cooperative now. “He took out all three of them. He put me in a cab and sent me here.”

  Kennedy tried to process the information. “A Japanese sentry?”

  “He was wearing a filter mask but he sounded Caucasian. He called me Captain,” Lightholler replied. “He knew who I was.”

  “It’s the Germans,” Hardas said. “Has to be. You may not have been working for them as we first suspected, Captain, but that doesn’t mean they don’t need you.”

  “Need me for what? I don’t understand.”

  “It seems as if everyone wants a piece of you, Captain Lightholler,” Kennedy said. “And you’re the only one who doesn’t know why.” He softened his tone, lowered his voice. “I can help you. I’m going to start by filling you in on some of what’s happening here.”

  It’s not going to be easy, though, Kennedy mused silently. The only means of convincing Lightholler lay buried under a rock in Nevada. Lying to him now might poison any chance of cooperation when it was needed. Telling the truth would render him an unwilling companion. Kennedy had to take that chance.

  He added, “When I’m finished, you won’t believe a word of it, but I assure you, that will change.”

  “What the hell do you want from me?”

  “There’s a war coming, and it will defy anyone’s previous understanding of the word, Captain. A war with no victors. Maybe even no survivors,” Kennedy said. “All I want is for you to help us prevent that from ever happening.”

  XIX

  Kennedy rose from his seat and gestured towards a door at the rear of the café, an unspoken invitation to the point of no return. The others scraped back their chairs and stood to join him.

  Leave or stay? Lightholler’s alternatives were a twirling rondo in his mind.

  Three men were dead in the Queens Midtown Tunnel. The tally would rise—of that he was certain. As far as he could tell, there were no options. He rose to follow them.

  They reached the door and Kennedy unlocked it. It opened onto the street. Lightholler followed him outside, Morgan close behind, Hardas bringing up the rear.

  The rain had cleared. They wound through the streets of Greenwich Village to enter a small, unassuming building on Downing Street. The “other place” turned out to be a shabby echo of the Lone Star. Kennedy nodded to the bartender and hustled Lightholler into a darkened alcove near the back of the bar. The others followed him in and Kennedy closed the door.

  A sink rested against the opposite wall. A round table stood in the room’s centre, bearing a stack of crystal glasses, a bottle of rye, a pitcher of iced water and a star-shaped ashtray already littered with half a dozen stale cigarette and cigar butts. Four uncomfortable-looking folding metal chairs were arrayed around the table.

  Kennedy said, “Make sure he’s clean.”

  Hardas produced the same device he’d used back at the Waldorf. He scanned Lightholler and said, “All clear, Major.”

  Lightholler sat down. He bunched his jacket on his lap and stared at the water rings that marked the table. He patted his pockets, then rummaged through his jacket with more purpose.

  Hardas reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew a pack of Texas Tea. He gave it a shake and slipped one of the cigarettes into his mouth before offering one to Lightholler, who accepted it. He lit it.

  The others dropped into their chairs.

  “It’s time I got some answers,” Lightholler said. “If my life is in danger, and my own country has kicked me loose, I think I have the right to know why.”

  “Let me tell you what you won’t be reading in the papers,” Kennedy began. “Japanese forces have engaged Russian units all along the Siberian border.”

  “There’s a ceasefire in place.”

  “It’s not holding,” Kennedy replied. “The German–Confed war games finished last month, but the German 5th Fleet is still squatting in the North Atlantic. There are eighteen divisions of German infantry stationed in Arkansas, maybe more. At least one of them are Brandenburgs.”

  “Brandenburg divisions have been banned from operating outside of German territories since the Vietnam pact.”

  “Yet they’re here,” Kennedy said. “I saw them.”

  “They’re here, alright,” Hardas muttered.

  “What about the peace talks?” Lightholler asked.

  “That media circus they held aboard your ship was a sham, Captain,” Hardas said. “Nothing more than a publicity stunt.”

  “They’ve been rescheduled to continue in Germany,” Lightholler said, with more assurance. “The Japanese Imperial airship is moored over Berlin, and the Emperor’s son himself is part of the delegation. Surely Ryuichi wouldn’t send one of his own sons as ambassador into hostile territory if he didn’t intend to pursue peace.”

  “Smoke and mirrors, Captain,” Morgan said glumly.

  “Still, what you’re implying makes no sense,” Lightholler said, “Japan can’t afford a prolonged war with Russia.”

  “What if they expect it to be brief?” Morgan countered. “They don’t want peace with the Russians—they just want to keep Germany out of the picture long enough to secure their own conquests. They know that sooner or later the Germans are going to have to come to Russia’s aid, and they want to put that off as long as they can.”

  “Look,” Lightholler said doggedly, “this happens every few years. A skirmish takes place in some godforsaken hole, the Japanese and Germans rattle their sabres at each other across the oceans, and that’s that. The Tsar has problems enough as it is. He has to back down. The Germans are unlikely to come to their aid, treaty or no treaty. Hell, they just dismantled the Paris Wall last year. They aren’t looking for trouble. Emperor Ryuichi knows that, and that’s why he sent his son to Berlin.”

  “No matter what you believe, what’s happening in Russia right now is no simple skirmish,” Kennedy said. “And there’s more at stake here than deciding who owns a couple of ports in the East China Sea, or helping the Tsar save face. What if the next border war occurs in this godforsaken hole?”

  Lightholler shook his head in disbelief. “The last thing the Americans want is another war on their own soil.”

  “It’s not about what the Union and the Confederacy want,” Kennedy said. “You know that as well as I do. For the last eighty years, it’s been about what the empires want.”

  Lightholler stubbed out his cigarette and stared at the table. “For the last two thousand years, it’s always been about what empires want. Okay, say you’re right. If the next border war happens here, I intend to be as far away as possible.”

  “We figure on being able to accommodate you,” Hardas said.

  Lightholler didn’t bother to look up. “What in God’s name does this have to do with the Titanic?”

  “Everything, it seems,” Morgan muttered into his coffee. “That’s why you’re here.”

  Kennedy placed a satchel on the table’s surface. The jug tottered, ice clinking, crushed lemon releasing a golden sunrise swirl. Ice on summer seas.

  “What do you know about the CBI, Captain?”

  “You’re a domestic intelligence bureau, formed soon after the First Ranger War and loosely based on the German Abwehr. You have ties with German, British and Canadian intelligence services.”

  “Near enough,” Kennedy said. “As you’ve said, the CBI is restricted to working within the borders of the Confederacy. Three years ago the Bureau was approached by representatives of the Abwehr. A clandestine meeting was held, a meeting that I, as director of anti-terrorist activities, was asked to attend. It was to be an exchange of ideas and methods. Information. This meeting started off as a routine discussion about establishing more formal associations with German intelligence. It ended as an outline for a project allocated the
code name of Camelot.”

  “Camelot?” Lightholler sounded the word.

  “Round table, one land, one king,” Morgan intoned.

  “Camelot,” Kennedy repeated. “A three-year plan, with the ultimate goal of reuniting the Confederate and Union states.”

  “Of course,” Lightholler said. “Right after you pull the sword out of the stone, I suppose.”

  Kennedy pressed on. “A reunion brought about under the auspices and umbrella of German authority. I was assigned to organise the military wing of the project.”

  Lightholler couldn’t believe his ears. They actually seemed to be serious about it. Another Kennedy, trying to reunite the states?

  He thought about it for a moment and when he spoke he did so slowly and carefully. “Astor tried to do that.” He said the name without relish. “So did Vidal. Look where it got them.”

  And John and Robert, your uncles. The names he didn’t mention, couldn’t bring himself to say to this man. This Kennedy, scion of an infamous family that had tried to pull this trick off once before and had failed miserably.

  Instead, he said, “You were running the military wing of an attempt at a peaceful reunion? You’re sounding more like a soldier than a spy.”

  “An ultimately peaceful process, Captain. An iron fist can be maintained within a velvet glove.”

  “No. I don’t buy it.” Lightholler shook his head emphatically. “Even if the Americans wanted such a thing—which is pretty bloody unlikely—the Eastern Shogunate would never give up control over the North, and certainly not to a German-backed United States of America.”

  Yet saying those words, United States, he was stirred by them.

  “Nothing’s impossible, Captain. It’s all a matter of resources, and a question of perspective,” Morgan said. “In December of 1860 the First Secession took place. Eleven states broke from the Union. The bloody war that followed lasted four years and left the South devastated. Ruined. That War of Northern Aggression supposedly settled the question of the permanence of the Union, and yet seventy years later Texas broke away in a clearly unconstitutional act and no war ensued. Why was that, Captain?”

  He continued without waiting for a reply. “There’s no simple answer, but in a nutshell, no nation willingly embarks upon a war unless it’s somehow convinced that it may win. The belief may be short-lived and naive, it may be based on misinformation or arrogance, but it’s shared by all participants, and is a constant in military history.

  “Prior to the War of Northern Aggression, the First Confederacy expected military support from Europe, certainly from Britain and France. Both countries relied heavily on Southern exports of cotton for their textiles industry. Did you know that seventy-five per cent of all British cotton came from the South? Yet that military support never came, and the rest is history. Bottom line is that both the Union and the Confederacy went to war because both sides thought that they would win. They didn’t go to war in ’32 for the same reason.”

  “And you believe,” Lightholler said, “that the North and the South can be reunited through peaceful means because neither the Japanese nor the Germans would go to war over such a matter?”

  “I never said that,” Morgan replied. “The War of Northern Aggression, the Mexican invasion of 1920 and the Great Depression left the South virtually bankrupt. Texas backed out of the Union when it couldn’t—and wouldn’t—meet its share of the national debt. No one believed it would last, but when the Kaiser offered finance, munitions and armed support, in exchange for oil there was nothing the North could do about it. It was only a matter of time before the rest of the South followed suit. After all, America had narrowly driven off the Mexicans, while the Germans were the newly declared masters of Europe.”

  “Not all the rest,” Hardas murmured.

  Lightholler knew where that came from. That Virginia and the Carolinas never joined the Second Confederacy remained a sore point among many people both North and South. While the governments of those states had argued back and forth about using terms like Confederacy, and disputing the purity of Texan motives for secession, the population of Virginia and the Carolinas had made a point of dividing itself. A series of migrations went north and south, until the new Mason-Dixon Line was established at the Georgian border and a new capital was raised in Houston.

  “Still, it was a war the Union could not hope to win, Captain.” Morgan narrowed his eyes. “You claim the Americans would never want to be reunited. Yet Union and Confederate soldiers marched together only a few years after tearing at each others throats. People remember what they choose to and even old wounds heal eventually. Had it not been for what happened next, the Secession would not have lasted.” A strange look entered his eyes. “Wasn’t even supposed to have happened, goddamn it.”

  “All in good time, Darren,” Kennedy said softly.

  Morgan drew in a deep breath. “The only reason it did last was that the North couldn’t afford to aid the South during the First Ranger War. Had they intervened, the Mexicans would have been swiftly defeated and the two nations reunited.”

  “Now you’re just speculating,” Lightholler interrupted.

  “Perhaps, but if the North had supported the South, if they’d displayed some unity, the Japanese might have been more hesitant in attacking Pearl Harbor in ’46.”

  “Of course,” Lightholler said, enjoying the man’s discomfort. “They might have attacked in ’47 instead.”

  “If Astor had sent help to the South,” Morgan said, with some exasperation, “then Patton might have felt obliged to aid the North after the Japanese attacked. Instead of the Confederacy battling the Mexicans while the Union was fighting the Japanese, it might have been a United States of America—”

  “Fighting a two-front war,” Lightholler interrupted again. “Against two powerful enemies.”

  “A winnable two-front war,” Morgan replied. “The Germans managed it, for God’s sake.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “Gentlemen,” Kennedy said, “we’re getting off track here. To answer your question, Captain, no, we don’t actually believe that the North and the South can be reunited by any means. Not any longer. As a matter of fact, recent developments suggest that this solution is going to be anything but peaceful. What our historian is trying to say, though, is that, for a time, both the Confederate and German governments thought it was a possibility. There was also some serious support from elements in the current Union administration. My task force was created to make that possibility a reality.”

  “What happened?”

  “The project was up and running within three months of the meeting. You can imagine its initial appeal. A United States of America, with a centralised government based in Houston and complete German support, as opposed to Japanese control. The japs would be left with Alaska and the Occupied Territories on the West Coast, possibly New York; the rest would fall under German influence. The Germans saw it as a way to destabilise the Japanese bases on the occupied West Coast, believing that a unified America would not tolerate such a Japanese military presence for long.”

  “The Japanese have occupied the West Coast since 1948,” Lightholler said. “They’re not likely to pull out now. Emperor Ryuichi is no fool.”

  “No, and neither is his brother, though something might be said about his loyalty. You see, last year Japanese agents in Richmond got wind of Camelot.”

  “So you were shut down?”

  Kennedy smiled. “You know how it goes. Anything’s fair game, but once you get caught, there’s the slap on the wrist, an informal apology, and we all pretend that nothing ever happened. Right? The agents reported their findings to Hideyoshi, the Eastern Shogun.”

  “And he shut you down.” Lightholler recalled his own meeting with the man just over a week ago.

  “Last November, his men met with us in West Virginia. They knew all about Camelot—the names of our agents, our sponsors in the Union. Everything.”

  “And?”<
br />
  “He made us a proposal. Gave us three options. Certain targets had been selected in the Union: pipelines, power stations, heavy industry—Japanese targets. The project involves their timed destruction, demanding an increased Japanese commitment to holding power in the North. A commitment they would find untenable in the long run. So ... three options: firstly, that we shut it down, just like you said.”

  “Go on.”

  “Secondly, that we proceed, but on a different schedule. Cause less damage. Slow things down a little.” Kennedy watched Lightholler closely, as if to gauge his response.

  “Why the hell would he let you destroy Japanese targets?”

  Hardas lit another cigarette. He rested an elbow on the table and blew a thin stream of smoke towards the ceiling. Lightholler glanced at him. He tossed over a cigarette and slid his lighter across the table.

  Lightholler lit up, and when Kennedy didn’t reply immediately he followed his own thoughts. “That would give the Japanese more time to mobilise their troops in the Union.”

  “Exactly.” Hardas held his eyes.

  “Leaving them with a firmer grip on the Union.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s crazy.” Lightholler’s head was spinning. “Crazy that he’d even think you’d go through with that.”

  No one replied.

  The only sound was Hardas tapping away the ash.

  Lightholler let his cigarette burn slow to his fingertips; he followed the glow’s spread along the rolled paper. “What was the third option?” he asked finally.

  Kennedy spoke softly. “We change the targets.”

  “Union targets?”

  Kennedy shook his head.

  “Confederate targets? He actually expected you to say yes to destroying your own? What on earth did he offer you?”

  “In exchange for uniting the states under Japanese hegemony—his hegemony...” Kennedy gave a miserable laugh that rang hollow in the small room, “he offered me the presidency.”

  It was beyond comprehension, all of it. What had Admiral Lloyd gotten him into?

  “Listen,” Kennedy said, “by virtue of being born nine minutes before him, Hideyoshi’s twin brother gets to rule the entire Japanese Empire, while he’s left governing the East. A United States, under his control, would become an excellent bargaining chip. It would give him the opportunity to extend Japanese influence as far south as the Panama Canal. If he controls the Canal, he controls the movement of all trade between the Atlantic and Pacific. Think of the support that might gain him in the Home Islands, if he ever chose to make an attempt on his brother’s crown.”