Chapter 105: Two Handed Preparation
With that thought in mind, Krag Dale took a brooding sip of brandy, his finger slowly tracing the edge of the invitation on the desk.
Across from him, his adjutant stood in a navy striped shirt, posture straight, though his eyes kept flicking toward the table as if waiting for something. After a moment, he asked quietly, "Sir, are you going to the banquet?"
"Yes."
Krag's answer came without hesitation.
"Prepare the car for me. And Owen... how are the people I told you to contact?"
The truth was, Krag had no desire at all to set foot in the White House. He knew perfectly well what awaited him there. The President was using the banquet as a pretext to summon him, pressure him, and force a concession out of the Navy. If he refused to yield and continued opposing the passage of the shipbuilding bill, then his tenure as Chief of Naval Operations would likely come to a very abrupt end.
But not attending was impossible.
To refuse the invitation would be to expose weakness, hand the initiative to the other side, and give them an excuse to remove him without even bothering to disguise their intentions.
So Krag had made his own arrangements.
He had quietly contacted several trustworthy officers from both the Army and the Navy, along with a group of newspaper reporters. The moment he was forced out of office, articles exposing the government's intention to revive Germany's naval capacity would appear in the press. At the same time, officers at multiple levels of the armed forces would seize the opportunity to submit joint resignations and bring pressure down on the White House from every direction.
And that was only one of his preparations.
If he could not solve the problem, then he could solve the man.
That young German diplomat would certainly appear at the banquet. If he died, it would become an international incident of the first order. Relations between America and Germany would deteriorate beyond repair, and the bill that men in Washington were presently so eager to push through would instantly become a farce.
Of course, Krag was not foolish enough to handle such a matter personally.
He had already made contact with several veterans discharged after being maimed in the war. Every one of them had bled on European battlefields. Every one of them hated Germany down to the marrow. There were no more suitable men for such work.
And to ensure secrecy, he had advanced the matter himself, step by careful step.
Even if suspicion eventually led back to him, it would not matter much. If a foreign diplomat died on American soil, especially with military involvement, the President would do everything in his power to suppress the truth. Krag knew the instincts of politicians very well. They would never admit that such a murder had been orchestrated within the armed forces. That stain would be too great, not just for one administration, but for the reputation of every past president who had claimed America stood for order and civilization.
But if it became an accident...
Then everything would be much easier to contain.
Politicians were all the same.
As Krag sat in thought, Owen finally spoke.
"I contacted them, sir. Mr. Reed and Mr. Rocaster both said they would stand with you."
"Good."
Krag nodded, then pulled two envelopes from the corner of the desk, one thin, one thick, and handed them over.
"Give this letter to the reporter. Send the other one to the Washington Veterans' Club. Then bring me my suit from the cleaner. The one that was ironed yesterday."
"Yes, sir."
Owen took the envelopes with both hands and turned to leave.
Krag never noticed anything unusual in the man's face.
He trusted his adjutant.
After all, he had personally placed the anonymous bank drafts into the thicker envelope only moments earlier. In his mind, those funds were no more than donations for retired soldiers, men who had paid in flesh and blood for the republic and been forgotten the moment peace returned.
He had always believed such things mattered.
Owen bent slightly as he stepped out, then headed straight for the base mailroom.
There, he handed over the thinner envelope to be posted immediately.
The thicker one, however, never entered the system.
Because he had seen with his own eyes what Krag had slipped inside.
Owen knew the Commander was, by most standards, a good superior. Strict, disciplined, meticulous, almost rigid in his conduct. A man who donated part of his own salary every week to veterans' associations and never flaunted his position.
But not everyone could afford to be noble.
Not everyone could live as cleanly as Krag Dale.
Owen needed this job. More than that, he needed everything attached to it. The pay. The connections. The access. The invisible privileges that came with standing next to power.
He needed all of it to secure a better future for his family.
Instead of turning toward the dry cleaner, he took a deliberate detour into the city.
He entered a restaurant, cold and dimly lit, then made his way to a shadowed corner where a bald man in a black overcoat sat beneath the window, a newspaper spread in front of him.
The man looked up the moment Owen approached.
"Any new developments?"
Owen glanced around, then placed the wax sealed envelope on the table.
"This is what Crag wanted sent to the reporter," he said. "Where's mine?"
The bald man took out a small knife, slit open the wax seal, and read the contents line by line without hurry. Only after he had finished did he look up with satisfaction.
Then he reached into the lining of his overcoat, produced a leather wallet, and tossed it across the table.
"Everything's inside. The photographs, the deposit records, the whole set."
He paused, then opened the briefcase resting by his chair.
Bundles of crisp American dollars lay stacked within. On top of them, one paper stood out with almost theatrical clarity.
A letter of recommendation from Harvard University.
"To show our appreciation for your cooperation, Mr. Owen, the Morgan family has prepared a small gift. We heard your son is almost of age for university. We hope this proves useful."
The breath caught in Owen's throat.
He stared at the money, then at the letter.
The bald man shut the briefcase, rose smoothly to his feet, and slipped the opened envelope into his coat.
"I'll be going now, Mr. Owen."
Then he disappeared into the street, leaving Owen alone in the restaurant with the smell of cheap soup in the air and the dark green gleam of dollars before his eyes.
A few days later, in a veterans' club in downtown Washington, three men sat crowded into what could barely be called a club at all.
It was really just a narrow room in an apartment building.
The wallpaper had peeled at the corners. The table was scratched and uneven. Beer bottles crowded every flat surface.
Yet for the men inside, it was enough.
One of them, broad shouldered and heavily bearded, leaned back in his chair and spoke with the rough energy of a man who had lived too long with ghosts.
"The plague was worse than the shellfire," he muttered. "At least in the trenches with the French you could see what was killing you. That damned sickness just took men in batches. They lay there and waited to die without understanding why."
He took another swallow of beer, then bent and dragged a large wooden crate out from under the bed.
Inside were revolvers, boxes of ammunition, and several Thompson submachine guns that had clearly not come through legal channels.
Across from him, a tall, gaunt young man with a missing little finger picked up a revolver and spun the cylinder. The dry mechanical whirl seemed to soothe him.
"Germany is a disease," he said flatly. "If they hadn't started that war, two brothers who enlisted with me would still be alive."
He stared at the chamber as it spun.
"One of them took a bullet through the stomach. There was blood everywhere. His guts spilled into his hands while he screamed. The other one bled out beside him before the medics could even crawl that far."
His jaw tightened.
"Every night I hear them again."
Another veteran, long haired and sharp eyed, racked the bolt on a Thompson and aimed it lazily toward the far wall.
"Peace," he sneered. "They stopped the offensive just when we were finally going to reach the German homeland. All those men died and for what? I'd already decided what I'd do once we marched into their cities."
He lowered the gun and smiled thinly.
"Now the chance is back."
He glanced at the others.
"Killing a pest like that diplomat... just thinking about it feels good."
Then he drained the rest of his beer and set the bottle down.
"It's nearly time. We'll need a while to reach Third Avenue."
He reached into his coat and produced three bundles of cash.
"The check from Mr. Krag came to thirty thousand. I withdrew it all. Ten thousand each."
He looked at the money, then at the others.
"But I doubt we'll live long enough to enjoy it after tonight."
His tone remained calm as if he were discussing the weather.
"So I sent it all to the orphanage."
He slid the money back across the table.
"Any objections?"
The room fell silent.
Then, one after another, the other two men loaded their weapons.
That was answer enough.
.....
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