Prologue
October, 1633
Grantville, Thuringia
Ed Piazza didn’t look up from the day’s security reports since he already knew, from the casual cadence of the footsteps, who was approaching his office. “Hiya, Mike. Have a seat.”
Mike Stearns stopped in front of Ed’s desk. “Shouldn’t we be meeting in your new office, Mr. President?”
Ed heard the grin in Stearns’ voice. “I suppose we should. There’s more room than in this one. We can move there, if you like.”
“I’m okay either way. Question is: why haven’t you moved in there, yet? It’s been two weeks since you became President. You need the space. And the imposing desk.”
Ed sighed, leaned back, looked up to see the crooked grin that was one of Mike Stearns’ habitual expressions. Particularly when he was trying to lay on the homespun charm. Which hardly made any sense, since Mike’s educational credentials made him anything but a yokel. But somehow, he got away with the “just folks” demeanor when he needed to. “What’s up, Mike? You’re being excessively congenial for having just traveled down from Magdeburg.”
Mike’s grin widened. “It’s that obvious?”
“It surely is. Did you pick up Nasi on the way?”
Mike nodded. “Yeah. He was up to his elbows in reports.” The grin returned. “Like you.”
“Which means you can see for yourself why I haven’t moved into your old office. I haven’t had the time.” Ed glanced balefully at the stack of folders in his “in” box. “You were a great President, Mike, but not a very tidy one. Lotta loose ends.”
Mike glanced at the ceiling innocently. “Now see, that was just me deciding to leave you plenty of room for creative evolution of my policies.”
Ed stood. “Nah. You just move too fast for bureaucrats to keep up.” Which, all things being equal, wasn’t an entirely bad trait. “Let’s go to your—my—office.”
Stearns smiled. “Good. The chairs are nicer.”
“Just remember: the chair behind the desk is mine now. You flop down on the other side.”
“Fine by me. I sit at the pleasure of the President of the State of Thuringia.”
Piazza managed not to roll his eyes as he led the way out of the office.
* * *
Francisco Nasi was already there. The Jewish commercial-magnate-turned-intelligencer was still handling covert matters for Mike even though he was technically retained by Ed and the State of Thuringia. And given Mike’s new role as the Prime Minister of the United States of Europe, Nasi now had what were effectively two full-time jobs. Or would, as soon as Ed began availing himself of the young spymaster’s capabilities. Which looked pretty imminent.
Ed sat down in the big chair behind the even bigger desk and thought, I’ve got to move in here. If for no other reason that this chair will not irritate my hemorrhoids into open rebellion. Literally. “So, what’s hit the fan?”
Nasi frowned. “I beg your pardon?”
Mike’s lopsided grin came back. “I’ll translate later.” Nasi was still learning the slang that American English had bequeathed to the hybrid dialect Amideutsch. He was particularly out of step with the more profane additions.
Mike had turned toward Ed. “We’ve finally got news about Dutch survivors from the Battle of Dunkirk.”
Ed nodded, sighed in relief. The fleet under Tromp had been betrayed by its strange allies, the English and French, who had attacked from their position at the rear of the fleet as it sailed into action against the Spanish. Caught between that known rock and the traitorous hard place behind them, only a few ships were reported as having escaped. Ed, like others, feared that the final report would reveal that the tally of surviving Dutch hulls would be effectively zero. “What’s the source of the information? Is it reliable?”
“Two sources,” Francisco Nasi corrected mildly. “Dutch fishing boats operating out of the Frisians who were coming back from the waters off the Channel Islands, and two small Irish ships carrying ‘assorted cargoes.’”
Ed smiled at the latter. “So, smugglers. But how, or more pertinently why, are we getting information from the Irish?”
Mike shrugged. “Anything to stick their thumb in England’s eye. Also, it seems that old Mike McCarthy has been trying to initiate some sort of correspondence with members of the exiled Irish nobility.”
Piazza leaned back. “You mean Mike McCarthy Senior? Damn, I didn’t even know that he knew how to write.” Which was a lie, of course, but the old Fenian radical had never struck Ed as the type who would devote himself to “opening a correspondence” with anyone. “So some of the Dutch ships did make it out?”
“Yep. Pretty big ones, too. Thirty-two guns or more.”
“And just how did they manage to give their far more numerous enemies the slip?”
“By crowding sail and heading due west,” Nasi answered. “And running dark all night long.”
Piazza frowned. “I’ll assume for a second that the Dutch reputation for sailing by sextant and compass alone is mostly accurate, rather than exaggeration. Even so, how did they keep their ships together while running dark in the Channel?”
Nasi nodded. “In addition to having many of the world’s best living captains and navigators, it seems that the Dutch vessels kept only their stern light on, but covered. Except for a single, simultaneous fifteen-second reveal every ten minutes.”
“That’s a neat trick. Timed it with hourglasses, I assume.”
“Or pendulum clocks. Their design was the first technology the Dutch carried away from the high school library.” Nasi waved a hand in its direction. “It was reported that Admiral Tromp bought one earlier this year for his fifty-four-gun Amelia. If his flagship survived, and she remained in the lead, the timing of the light reveals could have been maintained with admirable precision.”
Mike leaned back with a satisfied smile. “Unless someone was looking in exactly the right place at exactly the right time, the Dutch would’ve been safe by the middle of the first night. Best guess puts them off Dungeness Point during the night after the battle.”
“Who spotted them there? English?”
Nasi shook his head. “No. It is an estimate.”
“Based on what?”
“Back-calculated from where the first of the Frisian fishermen spotted them just before sunset the following day: drawing abreast of the Isle of Wight, albeit well offshore. To get there by that time, Tromp’s ships would have had to pass Dungeness Point the preceding midnight, given the winds.”
“How many ships were spotted?”
Mike frowned. “The fishermen weren’t sure, but not enough. Less than ten. Perhaps as few as half a dozen. Which matches the after-action estimates we’ve intercepted from Spanish couriers.”
“Any sign that the League of Ostend fleet is still looking for them?”
Mike’s grim laugh was closer to a grunt. “Firstly, no: too many weeks have passed. Secondly: ‘League of Ostend,’ my butt. League of thieves, more like. The smoke hadn’t settled when the English beat for home and the French ‘withdrew to their own waters.’ Only the Spanish might still be on the lookout for Dutch stragglers. But if they are, they aren’t devoting a lot of ships to the effort.
“Besides, since most of the grandees at the Escorial are still convinced that radio transmissions are whispers from the Devil, news of the battle is following well behind Tromp’s fleeing ships, not spreading out in front of them.”
Ed looked from Mike to Nasi and back to Mike. “Okay, so what am I missing? You two wouldn’t be here if all you had to report was good news.”
Mike sent a sideways, and broadly histrionic, smile at Nasi. “I told you Ed was bright.”
“With respect, Michael, I already knew that. Quite well.” He kept his eyes on Piazza. “The complication is that, if, as we suspect, Admiral Tromp or a successor is withdrawing to a port in the New World, it would be profoundly advantageous if the Spanish were slow to become watchful for his possible appearance.”
Piazza nodded. “You want the Spanish to conclude that any surviving Dutch hulls scattered and then foundered.” Nasi nodded. “And how do we do that? Or, probably more pertinently, why do you need me to do that?”
Mike leaned forward. “Because, Ed, it would be doubly risky for me to try to mount the necessary disinformation campaign using the assets and imprimatur of the United States of Europe. Firstly, the USE is a pretty ragged patchwork quilt, right now. It’s amazing it holds together at all. It will be easier with every passing month, but”—Mike tilt-waggled his palm-down hand—“the infrastructure is still, to put it mildly, in disarray. Everybody with any authority is used to being a chief, not an Indian. And what isn’t compromised by dueling egos is undermined by the lack of clear delineation between the newly minted USE administrative units and the old national ones alongside which they have to exist for the foreseeable future.”
Ed stared at his folded hands. “So essentially, you’re telling me that right now, a USE-initiated intelligence operation would turn into a Keystone Cops scenario.”
Nasi may have tilted his head. “If I understand your expression, that is one concern, yes, Mr. President. But we must also be mindful that where there are disgruntled officials, there are also opportunities for enemy subornation.”
Ed nodded. “So you’re worried that a secret operation would be anything but. And that Philip would probably get wind of it and deduce that if we were trying to get him to believe that none of the Dutch ships survived, it surely meant that some of them had. And might reemerge as a significant force in being, somewhere down the line.”
“Correct.”
Mike had leaned well back in his chair, watching almost sleepily. Ed suppressed a smile. Getting me used to working with Nasi directly, eh, Mike? And that look on your face tells me that you know that I know that’s you’re intent. And it’s not a half bad plan, either. Gustav may not yet be familiar with the term “plausible deniability,” but he’ll become intimately acquainted with it soon enough. And he’ll probably keep glancing toward Grantville—meaning me—to handle that kind of operation for a while, yet. “So, Mr. Nasi, I presume you have a plan for duping the Spanish into believing that the Dutch ships were all lost at sea?”
“I do. We will ensure that they intercept one of our couriers who will be carrying a modified version of the report we received from the Dutch and Irish boats.”
“Modified how?”
“That our sources reported only three surviving ships, not six, and that all were listing or low in the water when they began to flee. Furthermore, they will be reported as individual sightings, not together as a flotilla. A following report will be invented for each, indicating that, late the next day, our sources encountered wreckage consistent with such ships. The Irish will report the foundering of either one or two ships off the far Channel Islands, near Les Casquets, West of St. Anne. The Frisians will report passing considerable debris fifteen miles south of the Isle of Wight.”
Ed shrugged. “Plausible, but how do we make sure the Spanish believe it? Particularly when I’m not about to let you compromise one of our couriers.”
“Of course not. That is why the information will be entrusted to an inherently unreliable courier.”
Ed felt his left eyebrow rise rapidly. “And who would that be? From what I hear, our people have been pretty successful screening out individuals who would be security risks.”
“Quite true. But Mr. President, bear this in mind: the same skills which allow a counterintelligence chief to screen out potential risks also gives them the ability to detect couriers that would be intrinsically untrustworthy.”
Ed smiled. “Let me guess: you’re planning on having Gretchen Richter run this.”
“Of course. She has shown admirable native ability in being able to distinguish reliable persons from those who are not, or who are in fact attempting to infiltrate either the Committees of Correspondence or our legation in Amsterdam. Secondly, she has the right…sensibilities for this particular task.”
“You mean recruiting someone who she knows is either an enemy agent or some unreliable loudmouth.”
“The latter, yes. The former is not operationally sound.”
Ed Piazza crossed his arms. “Really? I would think that if we let one of their own get access to one of our diplomatic pouches, they’d have complete confidence in the information.”
Nasi took a moment collecting his thoughts—or probably, Ed revised, the wording whereby he would gently and tactfully educate his dunderheaded superior in the actual best practice of espionage. “President Piazza, you are correct that the Spanish would have complete confidence in their own operative. But that is not the same as having complete confidence in the veracity of the information he brings them.”
Now Ed saw it. “Sure. Because getting their hands on the intel so easily would seem just a little too convenient.”
Nasi nodded, allowed one hand to drift in the direction of distant Amsterdam. “This is particularly true in the case of Gretchen Richter, Mr. President. Her record at rebuffing or eliminating security risks is essentially unblemished. For her to suddenly ‘miss’ detecting one of their confidential agents would cause them to wonder if that outcome is, in fact, too good to be true. They will wonder if their agent’s success at gaining her apparent trust was because that was Richter’s actual intent. And so, the Spanish spymasters would likely deduce that whatever intelligence they had intercepted was not merely inaccurate, but carefully crafted to ensure that they came to completely incorrect conclusions.”
Ed shrugged. “Okay, so Gretchen is going to have to recruit a pigeon.”
This time it was Nasi who frowned in uncertainty. “A what?”
“Pigeon. American slang—dated American slang—for a person who is recruited to be an unsuspecting part of a confidence racket.”
Nasi nodded quickly. “Yes. A pigeon.”
“I’m guessing he’ll be the kind of courier that likes to impress the ladies with big talk, or has a big taste for liquor?”
Nasi nodded again. “Preferably both.”
Piazza frowned. “Except that’s not our modus operandi either, Francisco. Gretchen hasn’t yet recruited any couriers with those failings. Besides, with access to the radio, we use damn few live couriers, anyway.”
Nasi nodded approvingly. “An excellent point, Mr. President. I agree; both her, and our own, modi operandi must remain unaltered if we are determined not to alert the Spanish to our disinformation operation.
“Accordingly, Ms. Richter shall initially retain this unreliable courier for nonsecure messages. He will be a mere convenience for maintaining mundane coordination with her various subordinates in and around Amsterdam. But, with the onset of late fall, the weather will soon enough provide us with a perfectly plausible cover story.”
Ed Piazza smiled, shook his head in appreciation. “Sure, because we’re moving into that time of the year when the storm fronts start coming in waves, sometimes back to back. And at some point, when that weather has degraded our radio reception to nothing, we occasionally have to resort to live couriers, entrusting them with some lower level confidential reports. And that’s precisely when Gretchen gives the doctored data to Mr. Unreliable, and pays him handsomely up front. That way, he has enough pocket money to indulge the vices that will compromise him and his ‘secure’ pouch.”
Nasi’s smile matched Ed’s own—and maybe had hints of relief that the President of Thuringia was actually going to be easy to work with and was a quick study. “Fortunately, when the weather is at its worst and ruining radio reception, it will also be making the roads nearly impassable. If the pouch’s delivery is defined as nonurgent, the courier will not need much—if any—encouragement to wait for the weather to improve slightly. During which time his vices will have ample opportunity to undermine whatever weak conscientiousness he brings to his employment.”
Mike’s smile was more expansive than the two of theirs put together—probably because he had just successfully midwifed the birth of a beautiful professional relationship between his two friends. “And I can tell you without a doubt that Gretchen knows just the right inn at which to put up Mr. Unreliable to wait out the weather: the kind of place where the clientele will be sure to see and work a mark like him and turn him over to the Spanish. And of course, she’ll put a tail on him to make sure it goes down just that way.” Mike’s smile faded a bit. “What’s wrong, Ed?”
“It’s a good plan…but it could take a while for all those elements to come together. For instance, how soon can Gretchen actually find and hire Mr. Unreliable?”
“Seriously, Ed? The typical problem is making sure you don’t hire one of them. And I don’t foresee a sudden drought of unscrupulous would-be intelligencers in Amsterdam.
“Besides, we’ve got plenty of time. Whatever Dutch get to the New World are sure to lay low. Meanwhile, the mere fact that Spain will now be pretty relaxed about getting the word to the New World will send a message of its own to the viceroys there: that it’s presumed that the Dutch were wiped out to a man. Which is to say, they’ve got no reason for worry.
“And when the Dutch hopefully teach them otherwise in Brazil or the Caribbean? Well, unless Philip has lifted the ban on the devil-magic of radios, it’s going to be even more months before word bounces back across the Atlantic and shows Madrid that they fell for our misinformation.”
Ed shrugged. “Fine. So what do you need from me?”
Mike stretched expansively, smiled at the ceiling. Nasi leaned forward, a leather portfolio secured with three buckles in his hand. “If we could start by sending these messages and documents…”
November, 1633
Recife, Brazil
The silhouette of the forested coast was dark against the night sky. Darker than any place Admiral Maarten Harpertszoon Tromp had ever seen. Darker than any port, city, or wilderness he’d known in Europe, Africa, or even here in the New World.
But as he stood upon the prow of his still-wounded flagship Amelia, watching faint specks of light emerge, flicker, and mark the length of the port town of Recife, he couldn’t help but feel profoundly lucky. And, incongruously, sorrowful.
Two months ago, he had almost been killed upon the cold, fall waters near Dunkirk. Now he was here, alive and breathing hot, exotic air while contemplating how the fortunes of war had changed. Not a stranger to the vicissitudes of fate—what sailor was?—today he found himself reflecting upon whether his fortunes had actually changed for the better. Tromp remembered the faces of those who’d gone down with his fleet and shook his head as the imagined ghost of Dame Fate rose up behind them; there’s no way to call this “good fortune.”
The tap-tap-tap of Cornelis Jol’s wooden leg shook him from his reverie. “She’s a marvelous port,” Jol said, breathing deep and coming to an abrupt stop alongside the admiral, “a jewel in the Dutch crown here in this Garden of Eden. She’ll get your fleet up and running in no time.”
Tromp nodded. “I pray that is so. But I did not come all the way from Europe just for a refit, Jol. I have a greater purpose.”
Jol sighed. Just as when the old privateer had met them earlier today, Tromp could smell rum on his breath. This time, he longed for a draught himself. He’d rather it were gin, of course, but there was none left after the perilous crossing. Still, if a lack of gin was the greatest accommodation Maarten Tromp had to make to life in the New World, then he did indeed lead a charmed existence.
Jol leaned on the railing and tapped out a rhythm with his leg. “So you’ve a greater purpose, eh? What do you propose?”
Tromp turned back toward Jol. “The world has changed, my friend. The arrival of the Americans through their Ring of Fire; the French and British in an alliance; Europe in turmoil: it is too soon to know how it will all play out. But one thing is certain: we Dutch must change our strategy here if we hope to keep the West India Company from meeting the same fate as my fleet. Our settlements are spread too widely, and our available forces are overextended trying to protect them all. We must consolidate.”
“It may be a mistake,” Jol murmured, “ceding too much territory to the Portuguese just to reduce our vulnerabilities.”
“It would be a worse mistake to depend upon luck, Jol.”
“As if you should speak ill of luck! If your good luck hadn’t kept the Spanish from intercepting your fleet, we’d be having this conversation at the bottom of the sea.”
Tromp pushed down his earlier ruminations upon luck, forced himself to chuckle. “You have the consummate wit of an admiral. Perhaps I should make you one.”
“Only if you’re a fool.”
“I’ve been called worse.” Tromp turned, made his voice loud and authoritative as he gave the orders that set in motion the delicate one-sided dance of docking at night. Although it was long habit, he was conscious and careful not to allow the slightest hint of impatience or threat to slip into his tone. An effective leader always behaved as if he presumed that his orders would be obeyed, quickly and attentively.
And he could not afford any failures now. During the crossing, his flotilla had picked up four more stragglers, and all ten hulls were damaged, most of them heavily. He did not want further disruption or injury to his men and ships by sloppy handling in the dark, even though Jol had sent his ship back to Recife to surreptitiously prepare the port to receive Tromp’s ships. Even so, docking at night could be a risky business, and in this case, it was not strictly necessary. But it was worth it if it bought Tromp a few extra days before the Portuguese became aware of his presence.
Jol’s hands turned restlessly on the fo’c’sle’s forward rail. “So, you’re thinking of consolidating our holdings. What, specifically, do you have in mind?”
Tromp shook his head. “I can’t say right now. I have an idea, but I must think on it some more. I don’t want to make a rash decision, because it will necessarily be a bold one.”
He watched Amelia’s deckhands—the middle watch larger than usual in order to dock her at night—and suppressed a relieved sigh. Those men—and boys, in some cases—were preparing the mooring lines and fenders with the graceful speed of seasoned sailors, so familiar with their tasks that performing them was now second nature.
If only he had advisors whose knowledge of the New World was as ingrained, as natural. Not the Company men who’d carved out a place on the wild coast of the Pernambuco. They knew the region from having subdued it; they had not grown up in it. And that was exactly what Tromp needed if he was going to make the right choices, take the wisest steps to maintain a Dutch presence in the New World despite the terrible reduction of the fleet upon which it depended.
“I need someone I can trust,” Tromp said suddenly, almost harshly.
Jol started, then laid his hand almost cautiously on Tromp’s shoulder. “You can trust me, Maarten.”
Tromp smiled, tried to show he hadn’t meant his abrupt proclamation as a denigration of his old friend. “That is a comfort indeed, and I thank you. But I need someone who knows these lands from having grown up in them, my friend, someone who understands the people of this country, and who can help keep the Portugese, particularly Matias de Albuquerque and his brutes, guessing while we plan. I need someone who, from birth, has lived and breathed Brazil.”
Jol nodded, patted his shoulder, and lurched to the rail just beside the centerline, from where he stared out over the bowsprit. Tromp could hear Jol breathe deeply, as if trying to pull all the nighttime mists of the Pernambuco into his barrel-shaped chest.
“Well,” Jol said eventually, “if it’s personal reliability and knowledge of Brazil you need, you are once again in luck.” In answer to Tromp’s quick glance, he nodded and exhaled. “I know just the man.”