The Saxon Uprising(49)

Jesse shook his head. “I won’t be here that long. I need to get to Prague before nightfall, while the weather holds up.”

“…burning everything north of the river, so far as I could see,” Jesse concluded. He drained his tea cup and set it down on the side table next to his chair. Then, gave Higgins a look that somehow managed to combine respect and derision.

“Don’t know as I’d want to be sleeping in the same bed with your wife, Jeff. You’re so much crispy bacon if she ever gets really pissed at you.”

Jeff grinned. “Just call her Gasoline Gretchen—except she wouldn’t waste the gasoline. She knows how to use an ax. Give her husband forty whacks and then turn the bed into kindling.”

He seemed quite unperturbed by the peril.

Jesse studied him for a moment, and then looked toward the corner where the radio was perched on a bench. “Will it reach Dresden or Prague?”

“Only sometimes, and unpredictably. We’re nestled in the mountains here.” Thorsten glanced at Jeff. When he saw that his commanding officer’s posture didn’t seem to indicate any reservation about the air force colonel, he added: “But we have other ways to stay in regular touch with the people in the city.”

“Midnight derring-do, eh? Ninjas slipping through the walls in the dead of night.” Wood flicked his fingers, as if brushing something away. “None of my business.”

Thorsten had no idea what a “ninja” was. A superb spy of some kind, he presumed.

In point of fact, although they did maintain a small cadre of military couriers who could make the journey overland to Dresden very quickly, their normal method of staying in touch with Gretchen and her people was simply to use a courier from one of the private postal services. Such men were excellent riders and quite discreet.

They couldn’t be bribed or tortured successfully either, since the messages were apparently innocuous. In fact, by and large they were innocuous, just the communications of a husband and his wife. If and when they needed to say something else, Jeff had sent her a one-time pad. The cipher had been designed by David Bartley. It turned out the youthful financier had been fascinated with cryptography since boyhood.

“What do you plan to do, Jesse?” Jeff asked abruptly. “If—oh, let’s cut the bullshit—when the civil war breaks out.”

The air force commander’s eyes moved to the window. Not looking at anything in particular, just keeping an eye on the weather.

“To be honest, I’m not sure. Admiral Simpson thinks we should both stay neutral. Mind you, that would include refusing to obey any orders—even ones from the prime minister—that would get us involved. So I guess we could still be accused of mutiny.”

“Neither Wettin nor Oxenstierna is that stupid,” said Jeff. “They’re acting as if they were right now, but they’re not. They know perfectly well the most they can hope for from the USE navy and air force—not to mention the USE army—is to stay neutral. They’ll be using nothing but Swedish mercenary troops and whatever they can get from the provincial armies.”

“Have to be careful about that last, too,” said Thorsten. “Or the SoTF will throw its army into the fight, and it’s probably stronger than any of the provincial forces except possibly Hesse-Kassel’s.”

“No, it won’t,” said Jesse. “I’ve talked to Ed Piazza about it, not more than a week ago. He’s expecting the Bavarians to attack the Oberpfalz if—when—the civil war starts. It’s got no protection left except Engels’ regiment, since Oxenstierna ordered Banér to march his troops into Saxony. If they do, he doesn’t see where he has any choice but to commit the SoTF army against them.”

Thorsten grimaced. “I hadn’t thought of that possibility. It seems a bit risky for Maximilian, though.”

“Not if he’s been given assurances that the Swedes won’t intervene,” Jesse said, his tone harsh. “Assurances that he figures come from Oxenstierna, even if nothing’s said openly.”

“But…That would be—”

“Treason? What does Oxenstierna care if he loses one USE province but gets the rest of it? None of which he had before anyway, the way he sees it.”

Engler leaned back in his chair and brought his cup to his mouth. He didn’t drink from it, though, and after a few seconds he set it back down again. He was a little shaken. Thorsten was not a cynical man by nature. Still something of a country rube, was the way he’d once put it to his betrothed, Caroline Platzer. The idea that Sweden’s own chancellor would connive with an open enemy like the duke of Bavaria against his own nation…