Wilkie’s face showed disgusted agreement. “They released something like a hundred tons of that horrible stuff on each city, and from an altitude that gave a very thorough dispersal pattern. The whole central parts of both cities are gone as far as human life is concerned, and Bordeaux too.”
Which was where the French government had relocated after the May attack on Paris. The ghastly news had been part of what drove Congress to such fury.
“And fires are raging out of control. The French and British governments are . . . just not there anymore, along with . . . well, civilian casualties were very heavy. The British Parliament and House of Lords were in session and they’re . . . well, they’re dead, all of them and the prime minister and the cabinet and the War Office. We think the British King-Emperor, Queen-Empress, and their immediate family were all lost as well, except for Princess Mary. She was definitely in Bristol and is alive. Viscount Milner was in Birmingham, and he’s trying to cobble something together—some of the reports are calling him Lord Protector of the Empire.”
Wood spoke: “The situation at the front is absolutely chaotic, but what information we have from our surviving liaison officers is . . . bad. They used the horror gas shells to interdict parts of the trenches and then large areas behind the front, particularly the artillery positions and rail junctions. After that they smashed through the areas they’d left clear while the French and British were cut into bite-sized pieces, using fire-waltz barrages and infiltration tactics. There’s been panic and surrender among some of the British and quite a few of the French units, too, and I don’t really blame them. Truck-borne Stoßtruppen units and armored war-autos are twenty miles behind what used to be the line, on the outskirts of Paris.”
One of the aides who’d commanded armored war-autos in Mexico himself spoke: “Looks like they took a leaf out of our book there, sir.”
Roosevelt nodded, and asked the general: “The Western Front is broken?”
“As it existed before this, yes, Mr. President. What’s left of the French are in full retreat and what’s left of the British are trying for the nearest ports. If we get enough divisions across immediately through Marseilles, we may be able to stabilize a new front on the Loire, or at least delay the Germans long enough for a large-scale French evacuation to North Africa. If Marseilles is still there by then. But it looks as if the Kaiser’s High Seas Fleet is going to sortie with some sort of new devilment, and if that goes wrong . . . things will be very bad. If the attacks here had come off, we’d be totally wrecked, Mr. President, and the German Empire would have gobbled up the whole of Europe and most of Africa and western Asia while we recovered.”
Roosevelt sighed and shook his head. “And the situation in the south?”
“Much better, again because we were forewarned. We’ve got the 32nd Infantry Division in Jackson, and the 11th in Montgomery and Atlanta, and the FBS has action battalions in Charleston and Memphis, and mechanized cavalry brigades are on alert and moving in.”
Wilkie took over from Wood for a moment: “We know the 32nd and the 11th are fully reliable. The local units are locked down while we investigate; I’d suggest sending them to Europe in the first wave.”
Theodore Roosevelt grinned, showing his teeth. Those two divisions should be reliable; they were both composed of Negro regiments like the buffalo soldiers he’d fought beside in Cuba. Right now, nobody was going to object, even in the capital of Mississippi. Or if they did, the FBS would be paying them a call with an invitation to a new lifetime calling in helping build up the nation’s roads, bridges, and dams.
And damned few people anywhere were going to object to that given the news from Europe and what America had just barely escaped.
“General Wood, in the general order to the 32nd and 11th, mention that the president has the highest confidence in their soldierly qualities and their iron discipline,” he said.
It’ll make up for the Brownsville affair, he thought.
He’d been profoundly uneasy about that ever since the full facts came out, long after his impulsive action.
“And we’re looking for this Daubigny and his . . . Klan,” Wilkie said. “Membership will be prima facie evidence of treason under the Emergency Act, so formalities won’t be any problem. Good God, Robert E. Lee . . . and even Nathan Bedford Forrest . . . must be spinning in their graves!”
“Standards have declined since their day,” Roosevelt said, then looked at his watch and up at the Secret Service man near the door, an old Rough Rider who’d stayed with the protection detail because he wanted to watch over the colonel personally.
“Agent Whitlock, let the ladies know we’re ready for them.”
“Colonel.”
* * *
• • •
Oh, Mother of God, I can’t meet the president!” Ciara half wailed as the clock in the anteroom ticked away toward three p.m.
She looked at the tall white door that led into the Oval Office, with the Great Seal over the door.
“What will I say?”
Luz grinned down at her in the wheeled chair, ignoring the tug of her own bruises, and set gentle fingers on the bandage at the side of her head, half concealed under the artfully arranged strawberry-blond curls Aunt Edith’s own hands had set.
“You’re not supposed to over-excite yourself, querida, so be quiet.”
“I could walk in. The dizzy bits have gone away. I don’t need the chair.”
“You really don’t need to fall flat on your face in front of the President of the United States, either,” Luz pointed out, and Ciara subsided . . . about that, at least.
“What will I say?” she asked again.
“He’ll do most of the talking, if I know him . . . and I do.”
Then, softly but firmly: “He’s my Uncle Teddy, and he’s a gentleman . . . and a gentle man, with friends. And he admires what you did, admires it very much. Don’t worry about a thing. This is where he gets to tell us well done, good secret agents! And pats us on the head and gives us a cookie. I want my cookie!”
Ciara touched the bandage herself. “And I must look a fright!”
“Now you’re slandering Aunt Edith,” Luz said dryly. “In fact, you look wonderful. We both look wonderful.”
Edith Roosevelt and her dressmaker had indeed worked wonders in the limited time available. Luz thought that a little of Ciara’s self-consciousness was that she’d never in her life worn anything like the afternoon dress of silk and flowered chiffon before, with its long-shouldered underbody and high neck and gathered sleeves, perfect for her full figure. The two-piece skirt had a slightly raised waistline and a soft fullness at the top, the upper part lengthened by a lower part with a tuck at the joining.
She went around to the front of the chair, leaned down, and said behind a pointing finger:
“And you saved the country, Ciara Whelan, and don’t you forget it! Not to mention saving me. You deserve this!”
Ciara drew a deep breath. “Then so do you, Luz. And you saved me, too.”
“I most certainly do deserve my pat on the head and my cookie!” Luz said sincerely. “And I intend to enjoy every minute of it and wring every ounce of advantage out of it I can.”
Then she did a slow whirl. “And this . . . it’s almost worthy of me!”
Luz wore a summer frock in organdy and lace voile, a bolero top with a graceful pointed outline, and the sleeves short and pointed to match the bolero. Beneath the surplice underbody was a French lining that permitted the open-style neck, and from a slightly raised waistline the skirt hung in gathers. Its two sections joined together in a deep Spanish flounce effect.
“You look lovely,” Ciara said after a moment’s wondering silence. “And—”
The Secret Service man who opened the door to the Office was a tall lanky westerner named Whitlock, a former Rough Rider with a kink in his nose, a graying yellow must
ache, and gray-streaked dark-blond hair that curled over his collar in a style that had been common in the Dakota Territory in the 1880s and obviously hadn’t been changed since, modern tight crops for men be damned. He made a half bow, a spontaneous gesture that went with his smile and the warmth in his pale eyes.
“Executive Field Operative O’Malley,” he began.
Luz blinked; that was as high as you could get without being stuck behind a desk, a prospect she notoriously loathed.
“Well, I’ve been promoted!”
“And Operative Whelan. The president will see you now, ladies.”
Ciara swallowed, then squeaked: “Operative Whelan?” she said.
Luz gripped the handles of the chair and leaned down to whisper: “Uncle Teddy will explain. Now buck up, heroine! ¡Animo!”
She pushed the chair forward; the soft rubber wheels rutched and squealed a little on the hardwood floor. Ciara gave another small gasp as they entered the Oval Office itself. Luz had seen it when the décor was still the original style from the administration of Taft, who’d made the West Wing a permanent feature and built the office in the first place. There had been a rather ghastly dark-green wall covering that actually looked like burlap, for starters, and an even more hideous green rug from Patterson, New Jersey, or some similar olvidado por Dios place.
The current incarnation was mostly Aunt Edith’s taste—Teddy’s was incurably Victorian-masculine, tending to dark wood and bits of preserved dead animals glaring at you accusingly out of glass eyes, and he knew it and had always had sense enough to defer to her. The walls were papered in pale old gold now with moldings and ceilings of white carved plaster, and mostly bare apart from the swags of the cream-white curtains and a few portraits—Uncle Teddy always had a portrait and bust of Lincoln in his main working office. She’d had the floor covered in light marble tile, too, and the rugs were Tabriz.
Today the sofas were all against the walls, and the space before the president’s desk—the famous one made from the timbers of a British warship—was bare. He stood there, in the same morning suit he’d used to address the Joint Session that had just not-quite-unanimously declared war on the Central Powers. General Wood was beside him, in his blue dress uniform, and Director Wilkie looking formal and grave—but also giving Luz a slight smile and nod.
I’ve always gotten on fairly well with the Director, once Uncle Teddy made him take me on, Luz thought. But I’m his blue-eyed Hibernio-Cubana-American-girl now—there won’t be any more mutters about the Chamber needing to be trimmed back for a long time, now that we’ve literally saved the nation. In fact, the Chamber may end up as the boss-cat and the Bureau at our beck and call. Which is just as it should be. And it means I have a long, long list of favors due me when I ask in the future.
She didn’t resent the element of bureaucratic calculation; the Director had to think that way, to get the Chamber the resources it needed. And it was literally true. There were three other men present, an aide to the Director being determinedly invisible and two of the president’s military household. One was a Californian colonel she knew socially and professionally who still had a deep tan from leading a regiment of armored war-autos down south, known as Patton’s Rough Drivers, and a very young major named Bradley. Both of them would probably be heading for Europe and higher commands soon, but right now they were carrying small polished rosewood boxes with golden wreaths set into their surfaces intaglio-style.
Luz blinked again when the military men all came to attention and saluted, and heard a muted squeak from Ciara as the President of the United States and the Director of the Secret Service—and hence of the Black Chamber, though really it was the other way around now—bowed. She was a bit shocked to see Wood here anyway; the Chief of the General Staff would have a very full plate the day the United States had declared war on the Central Powers.
Then Theodore Roosevelt grinned, the famous fighting grin that bared all his teeth, his eyes gleaming behind the pince-nez glasses. He looked older—Luz was a little worried at how much older since the last time she saw him in person eight months ago—but dogged and strong. And glad of this one bit of gladness, before a long stretch when all the days would be grim.
“Bully, Luz! Just bully!” he said. “I’m finally wholly glad I listened to you back in ’12. I had my doubts, but they were wrong.”
Luz cleared her throat, conscious of a frog in it, a rare thing for her. “I’m glad I didn’t disappoint you when you trusted me, Mr. President,” she said.
She was suddenly horribly aware that she’d nearly said Uncle Teddy instead.
Where’s my steely self-possession? she thought. He’s just a man. A very great man and my president and the most powerful man on Earth, but I knew him when I was nine years old.
From the twinkle in his eye, he was completely aware of her near-slip. She went on:
“This . . . I just did what had to be done, Mr. President. I’m only glad that it all worked. I don’t think I’m more frightened of danger to myself than the next person, but I can tell you honestly that I was flatly terrified of failing whenever I let myself think of it. And I would have, if it weren’t for Miss Whelan . . . Operative Whelan . . . volunteering her help.”
Wood surprised her by chuckling, and Patton and Bradley nodded. “That’s the way it works, Miss O’Malley,” he said. “War wouldn’t be possible without that fear of letting the side down.”
Roosevelt switched his gaze to Ciara.
“Dee-lighted to meet you, Miss Whelan! And your nation is very grateful to you as well,” he said, his voice as always surprisingly light, with that precise patroon-patrician New York accent that had just a hint of Britain in it.
Ciara straightened in the chair as they shook hands.
“It’s I am grateful to my country,” she said. “It was when I met its enemies that I . . . well, Mr. President, I told Luz . . . Executive Field Operative O’Malley . . . that in Boston I felt Irish, but in Germany I realized it was an American I was, heart and soul. I’m . . . I’m glad I could do something for my country, for I know now my country’s been doing good for me all my life.”
“¡Brava, querida!” Luz whispered.
The words were obviously sincere but couldn’t have been better calculated to capture Theodore Roosevelt’s heart. He turned to General Wood and nodded slightly. The tall ramrod-straight New Englander spoke, his soft accent dry and precise:
“Mr. President, Miss O’Malley, Miss Whelan; I would like to say for the record that if a report had passed through my hands detailing like actions by soldiers in the uniform of the United States I would without hesitation recommend both those involved for the Congressional Medal of Honor. Courage in the heat of battle is one thing, and you have demonstrated that. But the courage necessary to stay among deadly enemies for as long as you did and then strike instantly and skillfully in cold blood . . . that is distinctly unusual.”
“Thank you, sir,” Luz whispered, and Ciara swallowed and nodded silent agreement.
The president nodded and spoke with a formal cadence:
“But the agents of the Black Chamber, as they do their deeds in secret, so receive no public honors. Instead, we have established an equivalent that is granted as secretly as it is earned. Only three have been bestowed, and all before now posthumously.”
Luz nodded somberly. She knew the details of those, and death had been far from the worst of what the recipients had endured.
“I am very glad that that is not the case with these,” the president said, showing his teeth again.
The soldiers ceremoniously presented Director Wilkie with the rosewood boxes; he opened each and held it while the president removed the Black Chamber’s highest award. The ribbons were black silk, and the medal itself was a gold circle wrought like a wreath of grasses, wheat stalks, and flowers, with a simple black feather across it in jet, modeled on a pinion of the bald eagle.
The inspiration was the Roman Empire’s highest decoration, the corona obsidionalis.
Horrified, Luz felt tears welling in her eyes as she bent her neck for the ribbon and the ritual words were spoken.
. . . beyond the call of duty . . . best traditions of the service . . . deserving well of the Republic . . .
She managed to blink them back and stand upright, her hand on Ciara’s shoulder. When it was over and the medals were resting on their chests the president smiled again and handed Ciara a folder after a handshake.
“Miss Whelan, your initial trip to Germany was . . . irregular. This is your copy of your Black Chamber service papers, dating your enrollment from January of this year as a probationary field operative. That’ll take care of any future legal complications. It’s a formality . . . if you want it to be. You’re noted as on indefinite paid medical leave for injuries sustained in the line of duty.”
“Th . . . thank you, Mr. President!” she said.
“But if you want it to be more than that,” Director Wilkie said, “that can be arranged too. We can use a young woman of your talents, Miss Whelan. The country can.”
One of the aides-de-camp went to another door at a soft knock, spoke with someone outside, then murmured in General Wood’s ear, and he nodded.
“Yes, that is urgent,” he said. “Mr. President? The second set of reports on the German horror weapon attacks on Paris and London are ready, and I’m afraid it’s not a pretty picture even compared to what we anticipated. The situation at the front is very grave too. I’m afraid it won’t wait.”
Luz could take a hint. “Thank you, Mr. President. And . . . I’m ready to serve again. You were right, when you asked for the declaration of war. That was a deed that will live in infamy.”
Black Chamber Page 41
