Final impact

“You’re not going to be able to trick the American people into doing what you want. You certainly won’t be able to force them, no matter how hard Ms. O’Brien and her friends may try.”

For the first time in the evening, he smiled. A dry, desiccated wasteland of a smile.

“You’re going to have to do things the old way, Admiral Kolhammer. When you disagree, you are going to have to convince them that you are right, and they are wrong. And while setting out to destroy men like J. Edgar Hoover might seem to clear a path to that goal, I can assure you that it is a road to perdition. I would caution you against walking any farther down it.”

Kolhammer’s eyes narrowed imperceptibly. Roosevelt had not come out and accused him of running the Quiet Room. He had certainly danced around the issue, but he’d done nothing directly. He wondered where this was heading. Was Roosevelt trying to sound him out about some sort of political future? Or was he simply warning him against misadventure?

The president produced another letter, this one sealed in an envelope.

“Since you’ll be staying on, you have new orders, Admiral. You’ll be going back to sea when the Clinton is ready. If that’s all right with you, of course,” he added, loading the phrase with a heavy dose of patrician sarcasm.

“Thank you, Mr. President,” Kolhammer said, not entirely sure whether he’d just been tested, disciplined, or comprehensively outmaneuvered.

D-DAY + 9. 12 MAY 1944. 1915 HOURS.

SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE ZONE.

The food in Wakuda’s was some of the best in the Zone, which meant it was some of the best in the country, and certainly on the West Coast. Maria O’Brien had tried out the new restaurant at the Ambassador with Slim Jim and Ronald Reagan, and it was probably as good as Pacific cuisine got outside the Zone, but it still wasn’t a patch on Mr. Wakuda’s place, an eighty-seater run by a former petty officer from the Siranui and a couple of local partners, some gay guys who’d been among the first wave of ’temp refugees beating down Kolhammer’s doors when he set up shop out here. Styled after an Asian longhouse, Wakuda’s was open on three sides, with covered decks spilling down into a manicured garden through which a lily pond wound a sinuous course. She could spy the blue glass atrium of the newly opened Burroughs Corporation building through the foliage, just around the corner from her own firm’s landmark site.

O’Brien popped a small piece of freshly baked bread liberally slathered with truffle butter into her mouth. The truffle shavings and a dusting of Parmigiano-Reggiano gave the butter a thick, obscenely rich dark taste, vaguely reminding her of an old mustard without the heat.

“You’re not having the beef, dear?” her companion asked. “It’s quite wonderful, you know. And you need your strength. You can’t possibly get by on green beans and radishes, with all the work you do.”

O’Brien smiled and shook her head, reaching for a small white disk of rice topped with a confit of wild mushroom, resting over grated apple and olive.

“I still don’t eat meat, Eleanor. I’d like to, but I just can’t.”

The first lady nodded sadly. “I suppose I understand, dear. You must have seen some awful things.”

O’Brien shrugged. “It’s no biggie. Are you enjoying the ocean trout? It’s his signature dish, you know.”

Eleanor Roosevelt forked a small mouthful away with obvious pleasure. The dining room buzzed with conversation, but most of the noise was coming from a cocktail bar, separated from them by a huge wooden slab carved from Oregon pine and covered in plates of complimentary bar snacks. The foldaway glass doors were all opened to let in a pleasantly balmy evening.

“I wish we had food like this back at the White House. It’s all so very stodgy and old there. Not like out here. You young people are doing a marvelous job, I must say. I always feel so vibrant when I visit the San Fernando. There is so much energy here. And you can feel it over the range in Los Angeles, too.”

O’Brien took a sip of her wine, a nicely chilled chardonnay, and nodded. “That’s partly what I wanted to talk to you about, Eleanor.”

“Oh, how so, dear?”