“Not on Friday,” Father Dimitri answered, laughing. “Besides, fish is good for you. Caviar especially. Health food. And it goes so well with vodka,” a large bottle of which adorned the silver tray bearing the imperial coat of arms. I helped myself to a generous glass.
I explained our problem to the good priest, and why we needed assistance from his sovereign. He knew first-hand what Bill Kraft had done for Maine and the Northern Confederation, and why we needed him to be governor. He also knew this would be the best joke ever played on the formidable Herr Oberst, and his eyes danced with laughter.
“I know His Imperial Majesty well enough that I can say he will assist in this,” Father Dimitri concluded. “Give me ten days, then check back with me to see where things stand. I would guess that Prince Michael, the rightful King of Prussia and German Kaiser, would be willing to oblige my Tsar in such a matter, but I cannot be certain.”
We left it at that, and I returned to my office and other business, principally the business of trying to control our borders. As bad off as we were in the N.C., others had it worse, which meant they wanted to move in with us. We couldn't allow that. By the early 21st century, it was evident around the world that any place that got things working was immediately overwhelmed by a flood of people fleeing places that didn't work. Unless it could dam the flood, it drowned. It was dragged down to the same level as the places where the refugees were coming from. We didn't intend to let that happen to us.
About mid-afternoon on April 23rd, I was going over reports from New York militiamen of shootings of would-be illegal immigrants when the door of my office was flung open with a crash that nearly tore it from its hinges. Filling the doorway was Herr Oberst Kraft, in full dress Prussian uniform including Pickelhaube and flushed, beet-red face. (The old saying in Berlin was that there were two kinds of Prussian officers, the wasp-waisted and the bull-necked; Bill tended toward the latter.) “Do you know the meaning of this?” he bellowed, waving some documents in my face.
I quickly guessed I did, but my gut told me to be careful. It was always hard to tell whether Bill was genuinely angry about something or just keeping up his reputation. If he really was as mad as he looked, I might be in for a hiding. Bill Kraft was no athlete, and big as he was, as a Marine I knew I could take him if it came to that. But I also knew I could never do that to him. I owed him too much. If he really was going to pound me, I'd just have to sit there and get beat up.
“Moi?” I replied. “Mais mon colonel…”
“Cut the froggy-talk, you little worm,” he yelled. “How dare you cook up some forgery in the name of the King of Prussia! You want some Froschsprache? That's lese majesté, you maggot, and the penalty for it is death! I ought to run you through with my saber just as you sit and let your pathetic soul dribble out all over your damned reports.”
“May I see the papers you're holding?” I asked, beginning to understand the cause of his wrath. He thought we were making light of his All-Highest.
“Here,” he said, stuffing them into my face. “But you can drop the charade. I'm sure you wrote them. Who did you get to forge His Majesty's signature and mail them from Germany?”
What he handed me was a letter from Prince Michael von Hohenzollern to Herr Oberst Kraft, on royal stationery, ordering him to accept the governorship of Maine if he were elected to it.
“I am certain this letter is genuine,” I told Kraft. “Furthermore, I believe I have a witness. Will you accept the word of the Russian ambassador?”
That brought Bill up short. His face began to show a different expression–less anger, and more dawning wonder. “Is it possible His Majesty really has sent me orders?” he asked. “I've served him since I was a boy, but I never thought he knew I existed. How could this be?”
“Will you come with me to Father Dimitri's?” I suggested.
“Yes, I guess,” Bill replied, cooling down but still wary. “You know, when I first received the envelope with the Black Eagle of Prussia on it, my heart almost stopped, not from fear but from hope. Then I realized it had to be some trick. If it is…” His face started to redden again.
“It isn't,” I said, skirting dangerously close to the edge of the truth. “Let Father Dimitri explain.”
It took us about fifteen minutes to walk to the Russian embassy. Bill's face was blank, his mind far away. The private world in which he had always lived was taking on a new reality, and it was both wonderful and terrible to him.
My own thoughts were penitent. In what I had conceived as a good joke, I had trespassed on the core of my friend and mentor's being. It does not do to laugh and make merry before the Ark of the Covenant.
Father Dimitri received us with the inevitably generous Russian hospitality and a good priest's sense that we were on perilous ground. Bill took a glass of tea but didn't even look at the tempting zakushki placed before us. He handed the letter from Prince Michael to Father Dimitri. “Captain Rumford tells me you know something about this,” he said in a slow, flat voice that told me he was pulling hard on his own reins. “Is it genuine?”
Father Dimitri, who also spoke German, read it carefully. “Yes, it is genuine,” he replied. “I can confirm that in writing with St. Petersburg if you want me to, but there is no question about it. These are orders for you from your King.”
“How do you know?” Kraft asked the priest. My stomach was wadded up tight as a fist around a grenade with the pin pulled. If Bill took Father Dimitri's answer the wrong way, my relationship with him might be shattered irreparably. If that happened, I knew I'd have no choice but to resign as Chief of the General Staff. I could not function without his guidance and support. I would also have lost a good friend.
“You may recall that on the day Governor Bowen was hanged, you were approached about the governorship, which you declined,” said Father Dimitri. “Your refusal concerned many of Maine's leaders deeply. They felt that you alone could restore the people's confidence in their leadership after Governor Bowen's treason.”
“Later that day, one of them came to see me and asked my assistance. He did something that you may dislike, but that you must also admit is not improper in emergencies. He asked my help in contacting your superior–your King.”
Every language has one phrase that captures the essence of its speakers' culture. For German, it is “Wer ist ihrer Vorstehener?”–Who is your superior?
“I communicated the situation here, and your central role in the creation of an independent Maine and the Northern Confederation, to my superior, His Imperial Majesty Tsar Alexander IV,” Father Dimitri continued. “He expressly directed me, when he assigned me here as his ambassador, to take such actions as I believed necessary to uphold the independence of the Northern Confederation. In my dispatch, I told him I believed it necessary for you to be Maine's next governor, if the Confederation were to endure.”
“You may remember, Herr Oberst, that our Tsar was once a soldier himself, a general in the Russian Army. He understands Auftragstaktik, that wonderful Prussian contribution to the art of war. He therefore trusts his subordinates–or replaces them. Trusting me, he laid my case before his fellow sovereign—by rights—the King of Prussia.”
“Prince Michael read my description of the situation here in Maine. He is a Christian prince. Desiring to support the effort to rebuild Christian civilization in North America, he sent you his order to accept the governorship if the people offer it to you. It was his decision, no one else's. The order is genuine, it is from him to you—he knows who you are and what you have accomplished—and it expresses his wish.”
Bill Kraft sat unmoving, unblinking, almost as if in a trance, his eyes fixed a million miles away, or more than a century back. East Prussia, Allenstein perhaps, a clear day in early fall with a hint of the steppes in the east wind, his regiment drawn up on parade, himself on horseback in front. The Kaiser, Wilhelm II, stops his horse, smiles, commends the appearance of his men. Explains his intent for the coming maneuvers, gut, alles klar. Oh, and
you'll soon be coming back to Berlin–plans division, West, in the Grossgeneralstab.
Slowly, Bill came back to us. “Father Dimitri,” he began in a soft, almost inaudible voice, “I thank you for what you have done. It goes without saying that I will accept whatever orders my King gives me. But to me, what has happened here touches on much more than any order. I must know this letter is genuine. Forgive me, but I must ask if you are prepared to swear that what you have told me is true?”
The good priest's Bible lay open on his desk, to the Psalm appointed for the day. Reverently, he took it, kissed it, closed it, and laid his right hand on it. “I swear, before God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost, before the Blessed Virgin Mary, Blessed Michael and all angels, and Nicholas, Tsar and Martyr, that what I have told you is the truth.”
“Thank you,” Bill said quietly. Then he turned to me. “May I ask what your role was in this?”
It was time to face the music. “I was the one who asked Father Dimitri for his help in reaching Prince Michael. I'm the one who went over your head.”
“Thank you also,” he said. My stomach began to relax. I'd made it over the bar.
Bill took a couple deep breaths, as if coming up for air after a long dive into some hidden depth. Gradually, he was reconnecting with the world.
“May I not tempt you with some Sevruga?” asked Father Dimitri. I knew Bill was very fond of caviar, and this was the best.
“I'm sorry, I just can't right now,” Bill replied. “I have eaten and drunk too deeply of other things this day. If you will excuse me, I need to be alone for a while.”
“Of course, we understand,” Father Dimitri replied kindly. “But before you go, I have something else for you.”
From his desk drawer he removed a small box, richly worked with gold, looking like a Faberge egg. “This came with today's dispatches. Prince Michael sent it to my Sovereign, with a request that he send it on to you. The box is a small token of esteem from Tsar Alexander.”
Slowly, Bill moved to take the box. He stared at it for a long time. Then, almost reluctantly, he opened it.
Inside was the Pour e Merite–the Blue Max.
After Bill had gone and I had recovered with more than a few glasses of vodka, I looked seriously at Father Dimitri and said, “I don't know what you've learned from this day, but I learned that I won't be playing any more jokes on Herr Oberst Kraft.”
With a gentle smile, Father Dimitri replied, “You still don’t understand the Russian sense of humor.”
Chapter Thirty
The election for governor was held on May 15, and Bill Kraft was elected with 83 percent of the vote. He had opponents. In Maine, the law made it easy for candidates to get on the ballot. We didn't want any rigged two-party system like in the old United States, because the two parties soon became one party with a common interest in keeping everyone else out. But most folks in Maine knew what Kraft had done for us, and they wanted to give him a chance to do more.
Governor Kraft was inaugurated on May 20, and since the other N.C. governors all decided to come, they got together for a meeting. There, they agreed that Kraft would remain the supreme decision-maker in military matters, just as the two previous Maine governors had been. States rights notwithstanding, everyone knew what war required.
I was called before the governors to tell them where the implementation of the peace agreement with the Muslims stood. The World Islamic Council had agreed to return the black Christians kidnapped from Boston and sold into slavery in return for the Islamic POWs we held. But so far, nothing had happened.
I'd been communicating directly with the Egyptian military authorities in Cairo, who were in charge of the exchange for the Islamic side. At first, I'd been troubled by an incessant gurgling sound on the phone; I figured it was some kind of recording or EW device. Then one of our intel guys with some experience in the Middle East explained that the Egyptian general was just smoking hashish in his water pipe as we talked. After that, I understood why not much was happening.
However, the Egyptians did tell me they had collected some 3000 of our blacks in camps outside Cairo, ready for exchange. To get things moving, I proposed we tell them that as of June 1, unless the exchange was underway, we would forbid all our Islamic prisoners to practice their religion. No prayers five times a day. No Korans. And we'd send 'em all to work on pig farms.
Most of the governors liked that idea. But Bill Kraft was uneasy. “Gentlemen, I have to tell you this whole business troubles me. It's gut instinct, and I can't put my finger on it. But I feel in my bones that when we bring these black folks back to Boston, we're bringing in trouble.”
“They won't be in Boston very long,” New York's governor responded. “Thanks to CORN, blacks are already moving out of the cities, back to the land, in substantial numbers. We're not seeing the usual crime or unrest among those who remain. The good blacks have taken their community back from the scum. It seems to me these blacks coming back are good Christian folk who'll help that process along.”
“What would be the effect if we repudiated our agreement with the black community to get their people back?” the governor of Rhode Island asked me.
“Militarily, it wouldn't be a problem,” I replied. “The blacks know we won't tolerate disorder and we have the muscle to put it down.”
“But I think CORN has shown us the way to make the Confederation's blacks into contributing members of our society. If we broke faith with them, we would undermine their new direction,” I added.
“Of course, as a soldier, my word is my bond. If the Confederation broke the deal I made—a deal that saved Boston from widespread destruction—my honor would be at stake. I would have no choice but to resign immediately.”
The governor of Massachusetts broke in. “If I may speak bluntly to Governor Kraft, does he expect us to agree to break our agreement with the blacks just because he has a gut feeling?”
“I cannot expect you to do that, and I don't,” Kraft replied. “But as those of you who have been in war or studied war know, sometimes your instincts are your best guide. Are you willing to agree to repatriate the blacks slowly, into a few limited areas, until we see how it goes?”
In the old days, politicians would have rolled anyone, military or civilian, who offered an argument like Kraft's. The game was just to win the immediate squabble so someone could look good by making someone else look bad. But the cold shower of reality we had all taken in the break-up of the U.S.A. had changed things.
“I know Governor Kraft's achievements as a soldier,” the governor of New Hampshire said. “If he says his soldier's gut instinct troubles him about this, I'm troubled too. In the world we now live in, it pays to be careful. I don't see any harm in some sort of quarantine of the people we're getting back. Being too soft is what brought our old country down. I'd rather risk being too hard.”
The word “quarantine” seemed to do the trick. We didn't know what these people might be bringing back with them. It would have been risky for the Muslims to impregnate our blacks with a genetically engineered disease because of the risk it would spread to their own people, but it wasn't impossible.
The governors recommended that the matter be handled as a national security issue, which put Kraft in charge and left me to work out the details. Before the end of the day, the General Staff had selected a couple areas in Roxbury where returnees would be held for three months, until we could be sure they were not infected. The migration to the countryside had left places enough there for them. The remaining local residents could go or stay, but if they stayed they would be stuck there for the same three months. The governors seemed comfortable with that.
In the absence of any word from Cairo, on June 1 we implemented our threat. We made sure Al Jazeera got pictures of their POWS shoveling pig manure. We also made clear it would continue until the prisoner exchange began. The next day, Cairo called, and on June 7 the first planeload of our blacks landed at Logan. It took off the same day fill
ed with Egyptian POWs returning home.
Boston received her heroes gratefully, but she also accepted the quarantine. The people of Boston had learned some lessons, including patience. They knew that when the Confederation acted, it was for the common good. In the 21st century, it was wise to be prudent.
For about six weeks, everything went smoothly. The number of black returnees grew steadily. Some local folks had deliberately stayed in the areas where they were quarantined, to help them reintegrate. It turned out that in almost every case, the experience of being sold into slavery had strengthened their Christianity, not weakened it. These people would be assets to our society.
Then, on July 23, I got a phone call from the head of the public health office in Boston. “Captain Rumford, I don't like making this call,” the fellow said. “I hope what I'm about to tell you is wrong. In the last week, we've had fourteen deaths among the blacks who returned from Islamic countries. They all showed the same symptoms. Now, we've got three local people from the quarantined areas showing those symptoms.”
“What are they?” I asked.
“First, inflamed swelling of the lymph glands, usually surrounded by a ring. Then, fever, chills, diarrhea, and internal bleeding leading quickly to death.”
History told me immediately what we were facing. Black Death.
“It's the plague, isn't it?” I asked.
“Yes, it's plague. But there's a difference. Normal bubonic plague responds to antibiotics. This one doesn't. The doctors have tried every antibiotic known, with no positive results.”
I gave orders to tighten the quarantine by evacuating all areas bordering those where the returnees had settled. No one was to be allowed in or out on pain of death. Snipers in full MOP gear were positioned to enforce that order. The prisoner exchange with the Islamics was also suspended immediately.