Chapter 104: Alarm Bell
"Supporters and opponents are both inevitable. That is only natural. Don't worry, I won't write such a small incident into the diplomatic communiqué."
Jörg took over calmly, his eyes resting on Roy's departing back.
Carl motioned for his men to bring over two wooden chairs. Then he sat down halfway, cigarette between his fingers, and looked at the young man beside him with an expression that carried both apology and seriousness.
"It's not that simple, Mr. Roman. They are not merely ordinary opponents."
He flicked the ash from his cigarette onto the ground and lowered his voice.
"You may know a great deal of news. You understand finance, economics, and diplomacy better than most men I've met. But I can assure you of one thing. When it comes to this tangled mess called America, you still don't understand it as well as I do."
As the son of a stable hand who had clawed his way up to become Mayor of New York, Carl had seen more rot than most men ever would in a lifetime. He had watched parties rise and fall, factions devour one another, and every kind of filth crawl through the cracks of politics.
Ahead of them, the sun broke through the clouds and cast a shimmering sheet of light over the sea. Fishing boats drifted lazily in the distance, a peaceful sight that stood in sharp contrast to the tension now hanging in the air.
Jörg sat down beside him.
"The old president?" he asked, narrowing his eyes slightly.
In America, there was only one man people referred to that way in such a tone.
Theodore Roosevelt.
One of the most formidable presidents in American history, a fierce believer in sea power, a man who had strengthened the Navy and planted his confidants deep inside it while he still held office.
Carl nodded.
"It has something to do with the Roosevelt family, but more than that, it has to do with the hawks."
He drew deeply on his cigarette before continuing.
"You know President Theodore, so you must also know what happened to his son on the European battlefield. Ever since then, some of his followers have never let that grudge go. Theodore himself is dead, and his influence has declined year by year, but the men who inherited his ideas are still around. And some of them have grown more radical with time."
He turned his head and looked directly at Jörg.
"This is especially true inside the military. They have gradually formed a pro war faction of their own."
After a pause, Carl continued in a heavier tone.
"You may only know that Dawes brought economic stability to Germany, but what you probably don't know is that when Germany was still in crisis, there were many voices inside America, especially inside the military, demanding that Washington simply let Germany collapse. They wanted Germany completely broken, so broken that it would never again possess any meaningful national defense capability."
He let out a faint, bitter laugh.
"Some of them went even further. Years ago, they were already proposing that Germany be split into three pieces outright, then jointly garrisoned by Britain, America, and France. Roy is one of that camp."
Jörg said nothing. He simply listened.
Roy's earlier provocation had already told him enough. That man had not come merely to vent his temper. He had come to send a message.
Carl saw that Jörg understood, and went on.
"This time, you are lobbying for the agreement, gathering allies, and clearing obstacles. But they are also moving in the dark. Of course, for men like Roy, it probably isn't that calculated. Most likely, he simply hates Germans and thinks that humiliating you is a patriotic duty."
He gave a cold snort.
"Like schoolboys who think making trouble proves they are powerful."
He originally wanted to say more, to offer a few practical suggestions, but after a moment's thought he held back. Jörg's identity was too sensitive. There were some things that could not be said too clearly, no matter how friendly the other party seemed.
Still, Jörg understood the warning well enough.
"Thank you, Mr. Carl," he said at last. "Thank you for telling me all this."
This time, there was nothing perfunctory in his tone.
It was not because Carl had helped him solve some immediate problem. In truth, a figure like Roy did not even qualify as a real obstacle in Jörg's eyes. With the President, the Vice President, and the American financial groups all pushing from behind, the hawkish opposition did not have the strength to stop the agreement head on.
What Carl had truly given him was something else.
An alarm bell.
A reminder that his understanding of international politics was still not complete enough.
The world recorded in books was too clean, too orderly, too simplified. Reality was made of factions within factions, hidden agendas, private hatreds, institutional inertia, and men who could steer entire states out of nothing more than obsession. Before, Jörg had relied heavily on foresight to secure an advantage in international affairs. But if circumstances shifted in unexpected ways, if unseen influences suddenly changed direction, that advantage could narrow far more quickly than he liked.
To adapt to such changes, he needed better intelligence.
Much better intelligence.
He needed to understand America more thoroughly than the American government understood itself.
Know your enemy better than he knows himself.
That was the only way to remain in control.
Carl finished his cigarette, crushed it under his shoe, and then asked in a much lighter tone, "Mr. Roman, would you like to come to my home for lunch? My wife has been looking forward to meeting you."
Jörg shook his head with polite regret.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Mayor. I still have other matters to attend to."
Then he paused, glanced at Carl's worn suit, and spoke as if idly.
"I am very satisfied with the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Still, your suit is rather old. Personally, I would recommend buying a better one."
He smiled faintly.
"And if you happen to be short of money, the stock market might prove useful. After all, didn't you say it yourself? Shipbuilding shares are already at the bottom, and most of the shareholders of the Brooklyn Navy Yard have already fled."
He looked toward the docks again.
"That is the situation now. In a few days, it may be very different."
Carl immediately understood.
No politician ever rejected money, especially not American dollars. Men in his position earned quickly and spent even faster.
He gave Jörg a deep look and said nothing more.
A few minutes later, after they returned to the car, Jörg declined Carl's offer to ride together. He still needed to leave for Washington after the inspection and had no time to linger over a family luncheon.
As soon as the door closed and the car pulled away, Senna's face darkened.
"Sir, should we report this?" she asked coldly. "Americans really are a pack of uncivilized beasts. If this were not their territory, I would have put a bullet through that cyclops's head myself."
She still had not let go of Roy's earlier insult.
To Jörg, Roy was insignificant, a disposable piece shoved forward to test the waters. Not worth anger, not worth attention.
But Senna was different.
Raised in military culture since childhood, steeped in the aristocratic discipline of Germany, she could tolerate internal disputes within the German Army and even despise the German Navy in private, but she would never accept a foreign naval officer humiliating Germany in front of her face.
A German might curse Germany.
An outsider had no such right.
"Reporting it would only turn it into a minor diplomatic accident," Jörg said calmly. "If you want to deal with a person, you solve the underlying matter first."
Then he shifted his attention elsewhere.
"How is Lia's inspection at the school going? Call her. It's time for us to head to Washington. We should not keep the President waiting."
"Yes, sir," Senna answered, still displeased, but she immediately followed the order.
Jörg turned his gaze toward the passing cityscape outside the window.
He was not the only one preparing to go to Washington.
At that very moment, inside a naval base office, Krag Dale was staring at the invitation letter from Washington lying on his desk, and anger was rising in him with every breath.
The war had ended.
The victory bought with thousands of American lives had been thrown away like smoke in the wind.
And what had Germany, the nation that started the war, received in return?
It had not collapsed.
It had not been carved apart.
It had not been comprehensively purged, tried, and humiliated.
Now, America, his own America, was about to invest in the very enemy it had once fought across the ocean.
If it had merely been an economic matter, perhaps he could still have swallowed it.
But now came this shipbuilding agreement.
Move civilian ship construction to Germany?
Was this not simply a transparent trick to evade the treaty?
Who knew what the Germans would build once the machinery, workers, and know how were all back in their hands?
And the politicians, those useless men in suits, were actually cheering for it.
Lobbying for it.
Praising it.
Krag Dale did not need to think hard to understand why.
They had smelled profit.
Profit had blinded them.
A herd of well dressed swine.
He clenched the invitation letter so hard that the paper crumpled in his hand.
If this happened once, what next?
The next time, would they hand over weapons research in the name of peace as well?
The time after that, would they simply auction off America itself, one clever legal clause at a time?
Peace?
He did not want that kind of peace.
Not at all.
.....
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