Harlan Stull crossed his arms over his barrel chest. "Wes would never have approved this crazy idea."
"That's why I didn't bring it up until after Wes and Clara left. When he first arrived, I sure never thought that I'd be saying this, but in a way I agree with what Wes said in that farewell meeting. I sort of miss Schweinsberg."
"Why can't it wait until after Mel Springer gets here?" Harlan asked. "You know I have to go back myself, to brief him. He's been the man on the 'Fulda desk' in Grantville ever since Stearns reached his agreement with Gustavus Adolphus. That's not the same thing as having been here, living through it, but he's been assigned to replace Wes. Wes has to plunge right into his new job in the consular service, so he won't have time to give us any advice. Besides . . ."
"Besides, you're UMWA like Mike Stearns. Wes wasn't UMWA and Mel isn't UMWA, which really means that you're in charge of making sure that the civilian administrator in Fulda doesn't get all too bureaucratic and cautious and CYA."
Harlan jumped.
Derek lounged against the window frame again, grinning. "That's no skin off my nose. If we get it started before Mel arrives, it will be too late for him to reverse gears. We couldn't do it by ourselves, but with Brahe's help, and his men . . ."
"Why can't we do it by ourselves? Why involve him?"
"We're just too damned conspicuous, Harlan. Look around. Most up-timers stand out like sore thumbs in a crowd of down-timers, even when they're wearing down-time clothes and shoes, have their hair cut by a down-timer barber, and speak German. I'm not sure what it is. Body build, to some extent. Posture. Attitude. But we're just not inconspicuous. We glow like light bulbs. It's the same for the Swedes. Think what it would be like if Brahe showed up in Naples, for a comparison, or if young Wrangel had gone into Bavaria instead of Cavriani's son. Talk about easily identifiable. The only way we could chase them down is in a regular military operation. Gustavus isn't going to give us enough manpower for that. He has different priorities. If someone is going to go sneaking after the guys who took Schweinsburg and hope to succeed, then it isn't going to be us. For just one thing, we don't have the intelligence contacts inside Ferdinand of Bavaria's people."
"Does anyone?"
"Hoheneck does, if he's telling us the truth about being willing to cooperate, which I think he is. Not out of idealism, but because he thinks having abbots of Fulda, 'of which he now are one,' so to speak, tortured to death is a really bad idea. Especially when it's guys who are supposed to be on their own side who did the torturing. It seems to have made him rethink his position rather drastically."
"So you're really suggesting that we should just hand it over to Hoheneck and Brahe?"
"Nope. It will give the Fulda Barracks Regiment—at least the ones I select out and detail to be part of the project—something constructive to do this winter, looking for where the Irishmen have gotten to by now. The others will think of the search party—I guess we can go ahead and call it a posse comitatus—as representing the rest of them. They're still a bit upset because we didn't let them squelch the elements of the Ram Rebellion that made their way into Fulda's jurisdiction, so letting them in on something sneaky that has a prospect of glory at the other end will be all to the good. And there's quite a bit of public opinion back home in Grantville, I think, that we should have done more than we have so far, on the general grounds that Schweinsberg, however improbably, was one of us, now. I'm sure my commanding officer would agree."
Harlan Stull frowned. "Does Frank Jackson know about this?"
Derek Utt shook his head. "I doubt it. Nobody's told me to bring him in on it. He's not in my chain of command, any more. Not in anyone's chain of command, other than his own guys in Magdeburg. He's a staff officer for Torstensson now."
"Who is your commanding officer, then? Who am I supposed to talk to once I get to Grantville?"
"Beyond—above—Scott Blackwell in Würzburg? Scott's my boss. Mine and Cliff Priest's boss, as far as military things are concerned. Just as Steve Salatto is the boss for civilian stuff, as far as Wes is—was—and Vince Marcantonio is concerned. Actually, I'm pretty sure that Scott answers directly to Ed Piazza now."
"Ed's the president of the SoTF. He's not in the military at all, just sort of the same relationship as the governor of any state had to its National Guard up-time." Harlan frowned.
"Lane Grooms, the MP colonel, is sort of 'acting' head of the military as far as Grantville—well, the whole Ring of Fire, West Virginia County now—is concerned, because his training cadre is there and he was the highest-ranked guy left after Frank moved to Magdeburg with his people. But I've found out, and this is crucial, Grooms's authority doesn't extend to the whole SoTF. It's just for West Virginia County defense—the Ring of Fire and the annexations since then. So if something involves domestic policy, Scott takes it to Steve Salatto and then through Steve to George Chehab. It stops with Chehab if it's purely internal SoTF, unless it's really important. Then it goes up to Ed Piazza. Chehab also takes it to Ed if it's got international implications. Scott doesn't actually run into a lot of purely military decisions. They almost all have civilian ramifications or, really, are civilian matters that need some military input."