ReUNION: What if the Civil War had never happened? (41 page)

He looked around the table, delaying the dénouement, as was his habit, for no
obvious reason other than to heighten the drama. Then he pulled a piece of
paper out of an inner breast pocket.

He read: “
Eure Exzellenz, ich habe gerade ein ziemlich merkwürdiges Gespräch
mit dem mexikanischen Präsidenten…”

“Hold on there,” Ezra Crump interrupted. “My German is a little rusty,
Director Hawke. Think you could give that to us in plain English?”

Hawke smiled and surveyed the room. “Everyone want it in English?"

“Yes, we do,” said Oliver Wendell, who was getting annoyed.

“Alrighty then,” Hawke said. “I’ll read the translation.” He pulled another
piece of paper out of his pocket. “Your Excellency: I have just had a rather
remarkable conversation with the Mexican President that may provide us with a
way to simultaneously rid ourselves of our CSA loans and help our long-range
plan to contain the North American Union.”

He paused, waiting for the gasp, and he was not disappointed.

“
Contain
the North American Union?” Sen. Lockett sputtered. “What does
Zimmerman mean by
that
?”

“Doesn’t sound very friendly to me,” Senator Shiffer said.

“Keep reading,” said Callaway.

“Of course,” said Hawke. “Garcia has offered to pay off the Confederacy’s debt
to us in its entirety, in gold. In return, he wants us to stand by and do
nothing when Mexico invades, conquers and occupies the CSA, and to make sure
the League does not act. He has written a letter to this effect, which I am
sending in the diplomatic bag.”

Callaway studied the Congressmen. As he had expected, they were seething, even
Wendell.

Hawke continued. “This, of course, would quell the Kaiser’s fears about the
loans to President Bourque, but it would also thwart any potential alliance
between the NAU and the Confederacy, short-circuiting any possibility of NAU
growth or expansion. I recommend Garcia’s offer be accepted, but subjected to
the highest level of secrecy. Any leak would damage our reputation as
peacekeepers and seriously injure our relationship with the NAU. Still, the
upside here is too great for us to pass up.”

Hawke looked up. The Senators were staring at him, open-mouthed, not sure he
was finished. “It’s signed von Zimmerman.” He added.

“Well now,” Veronica said. She took a deep breath. “Hadn’t been expecting
that.”

“No,” Callaway agreed. “Germany has been nothing but friendly to us, even
helpful. Kaiser wrote me after the inauguration, offered to do everything in
his power, he said, to ease my way in Europe. Said he hoped we’d be true
friends.”

“Just goes to show you,” Katz said.

“It’s the dog thing again,” Wang said.

“The dog thing?” asked Senator Lockett.

“Yes, you know, if you want a friend in Washington, buy a dog.”

“Ha. Ha,” said Katz.

Sen. Lockett was following a different train of thought. “We can’t let Garcia
swallow up Mexico,” he said.

“I agree,” said Sen. Poulos. “But must we reunite with the Confederacy in order
to protect her? How about stationing our ships and other military units down
there.”

Veronica seemed doubtful. “Forever?”

“I don’t like it,” said Sen. Wendell. “I am convinced Southern society is not
compatible with ours.”

“You tell us the CSA is dirt poor,” said Sen. Crump. “That means we’d be taking
on an enormous economic burden…”

“Not necessarily,” Callaway said. “Mr. Katz here has had some informal and
confidential conversations with our largest manufacturers about opportunities
in the CSA. Once the tariff on manufactured goods disappears, I think they
might be convinced to build factories down there and pay something approaching
union wages. They think there’s a great untapped market.”

“Lots of new taxpayers.” Katz reached for a cigar, but thought better of it.

Trace Powell was shaking his head, his attractive head of hair showing no signs
of movement. “We can’t do this. It’s a moral issue.”

“That’s exactly why we have to do it,” said Sen. Shiffer. “It’s going to mean
genuine equality in the south—maybe not overnight, but there’s no other way to
get there.”

“We’ll never be able to change their minds about the Blacks,” Rep. Powell
continued. “It’s in their blood. And everybody knows you can’t legislate
morality.”

“You’re right, Senator,” Wang said. “You can’t legislate morality. But you can
legislate behavior. And eventually, social values will change. Even in the
South.”

“Next you’re going to tell us Santa Claus is real,” Sen. Linscott said.

“Mr. President,” said Ezra Crump, “why are you telling us this? Is this
supposed to pass for ‘consulting Congress?”

“Good question, Mr. President,” Sen. Powell said. “Why are we here?”

“No, Ezra,” Callaway said, taking no notice of Powell. “I’m not consulting you,
any of you. I am giving you advance notice of the Confederate request so that
when the story breaks, you won’t be caught flatfooted.”

“Well, I appreciate the courtesy, Mr. President,” said Rep. Crump. “But I’m not
going to be able to support this, this harebrained idea. Perhaps you can get it
through the House of Representatives, but the Senate is a different story.
Furthermore, I strongly doubt Bourque can convince his own people. And even if
both of those things should happen, I don’t believe our two countries will ever
be reunited.”

“Thank you for your frankness, Ezra,” Callaway said. “What about you, Oliver?”

Wendell sighed and shook his head in the negative. “Mr. President, when you
announced the Bourque meetings, you were deluged with protests and objections.
That’s just a hint of what will happen if a reunion bill comes before the
Senate. If that happens, you’ll see a firestorm. And I will be leading it.”

“What about you, Ed?” Callaway asked the Majority Leader. “Are you with me?”

“You’re giving me a damn big boulder to push up the mountain,” Ed Lockett said.
“But I don’t see that we have any choice. I am very disturbed by Mexico’s offer
to Germany, and by the idea of Mexican expansion. If we don’t do this, we’re
asking for trouble. I think it’s a matter of national security. We don’t have
any choice.”

“That’s the way I see it,” Veronica said.

“This is a crazy idea,” Tom Poulos said. “And I think it’s more likely to fail
than succeed. But I think it’s worth the attempt.”

“Me too,” said Isadore Shiffer.”

“You see,” Katz said, turning to Callaway. “Divided along party lines. Told
you.”

The President stood. “Gentlemen, thank you all for coming. You’re going to be
hearing a lot more about reunion in the next few days. If you’re against the
idea now, I hope you’ll keep an open mind. And those of you who are
already on my side—well, we’re in for a battle, but we’re going to win it.”

At that, the meeting broke up and people began to drift out of the room. Oliver
Wendell lingered. He put an arm around Callaway’s shoulder and walked him over
to a corner. “Charlie,” he said, quietly, “you didn’t really expect me to
support you did you?”

“No,” President Callaway admitted. “You reacted pretty much the way I thought
you would. But I’m not giving up hope. In fact, I think you’ll come around in
the end.”

Wendell laughed.

*

Marty Katz leaned back in his office chair, opened his desk-top humidor and
selected a cigar almost the size of a crow bar. He lit it with an ancient
silver-plated Ronson table lighter.

“You gotta do that, don’t you?” Eric Wang complained.

“Helps me think, Eric.”

“Makes it hard for me.”

“Well, as Mark Twain said, ‘If I cannot smoke in heaven, then I shall not go.”

Veronica sniffed the air with interest. “My father used to smoke cigars,” she
said. “Mother always said it was a filthy habit.”

“She was right,” Wang put in.

“He almost stopped when Mother explained the Freudian implications,” Veronica
said, smiling.

Katz was ready for this. “But Freud also said, ‘Sometimes, a cigar is just a
cigar.”

Veronica and Wang exchanged glances. “Men,’ she explained.

Katz smiled and blew one his famously perfect smoke rings in Veronica’s
direction.

“I hate to interrupt your self-indulgence, Marty,” Wang said, “but we got some
business to take care of.”

“Oh yeah,” Katz said between puffs. “Anthony Zolli.”

“It’s beginning to look like he’s not kidding,” Veronica observed.

“It’s hard to believe he’d call a strike just to protest a meeting,” Wang said.

“Nevertheless,” said Katz.

“He feels threatened,” Veronica said. “It’s a power thing.”

“I agree,” Katz said. “He’s worried about an influx of non-union workers from
the Confederacy.”

“Well, he has a point,” Veronica admitted.

“So what do we do?” Wang asked. “Is it a matter of money? Do we have to massage
his ego?”

Katz put his feet up on his desk and took a deep drag. He released the smoke in
a single, thick contrail, which eventually ran headlong into a window and
diffused. “Offer him a post on the President’s Labor Advisory Board?”

“Marty, this guy thinks he’s another Jimmy Hoffa,” Veronica said. “Somehow, I don’t
think a gold star on his report card will guarantee his good behavior.”

“Hmm,” Katz said, and he took another puff on his cigar.

“We could seize the union, issue a President proclamation,” Wang said.

Veronica considered that. “And just how would you explain that ridiculous
overreaction?”

“National security,” Wang said promptly.

Katz sighed. “You’ve been playing too many video games, Eric.”

“I haven’t played a video game in fifteen years,” Wang retorted. “Or ten, at
least.”

“We don’t seem to be solving our problem,” Veronica said.

Wang had another suggestion. “How about breaking the strike with the National
Guard.”

“Zolli would just strike somewhere else,” Katz said. “We’d end up playing
whack-a-mole.”

“If he’s worried about losing power,” Veronica “Maybe we can figure out a way
to convince him it would be the other way around.”

“You mean that he’d
gain
from reunion?” Wang said, incredulous.

“He will, you know,” Veronica said. “We all will.”

“Yeah,” Wang said, “but that’s beside the point.”

“I could call him, ask nicely,” Katz said, half kidding.

“Yeah, that’d do it,” said Wang.

“Maybe invite him here.” This was Veronica’s suggestion.

Katz took another long drag on his cigar. “I have an idea,” he said.

*

Junior was running out of time. In the next day or two, Buddy Bourque would
be addressing the nation, setting into motion a series of events that would
inexorably lead to the end of the Confederacy. What’s worse, if anything could
be, he’d be doing that from a platform provided by none other than Harlan
Hurbuckle, Sr.—Junior’s dad: the altar of the Glass Church.

It was intolerable. It was worse than intolerable, it was unthinkable—that this
loathsome traitor should destroy all that Junior knew and held dear, and that
he should be aided in this despicable act by Junior’s own turncoat father,
which, in posterity’s view, would forever tarnish
him
as well.

For reasons Junior did not try to comprehend, fate had given him the
responsibility of preventing this catastrophe. It had also given him the
opportunity to carry out the deed, since he would be sharing the platform with
his father and Bourque at the critical moment. And now sitting on his rickety
Formica dining room table were the means to do the job: eight sticks of
dynamite, a palm-sized detonator and wires to connect them.

Time was when it would have taken considerable expertise to build a bomb. But
because of the Internet, even a mechanically-challenged klutz like Harlan
Hurbuckle Jr. could do the job without straining himself overmuch. It was just
a matter of Googling up the proper diagrams. The whole process was even
available on YouTube videos.

And so Junior sat there on a aged kitchen chair whose chrome tubing was peeling
and whose vinyl upholstery was worn smooth, contemplating the task at hand and
carefully lining up the tools he thought he might need: a Buck knife, a
Philips-head screwdriver, a pliers, and a roll of black electrical tape.

Before he could actually build the bomb, he realized, he had to do some
thinking. Did he want to bring down the whole church, or only a large part of
it? Did he care whether or not he killed any of the innocent
parishioners, or would his purpose be fully served merely by eliminating Buddy
Bourque?

And when Bourque gave his speech to the Confederacy, who was likely to be up
there on the platform with him? Of course, there’d be the Great Baptist
Preacher, Harlan Hurbuckle, Sr., his father that is, standing beside his friend
the President, supporting Bourque’s treason. Hurbuckle, Sr. would have to go
too, and not just because he was backing Bourque. As far as Junior was
concerned, his father had committed any number of other sins for which
punishment was long overdue.

Maybe Kooter Barnes would also be on the platform. Well, one less windbag, that
wouldn’t be any loss. On the other hand, Delphine might be there too, and
Junior didn’t wish any harm to come to her. He’d had other kinds of
dreams about Delphine, and as far as this enterprise was concerned, she was off
limits.

So a couple of sticks of dynamite would do the job. All he had to do was tape
them to his chest that morning, get between his father and Buddy Bourque, then
squeeze the detonator. And that was a simple matter of making a fist. Three
people would die, including himself.

It wasn’t that he
wanted
to die. He didn’t. But he was willing to give
up his life on the chance that it could halt reunion. And he liked thinking of
himself as a martyr. Of course, not everyone would think of him that way. Some
would misunderstand him, call him crazy, question his motives—the NAU’s nigra
President, for example.