Ah! Well, Nevertheless

I Believe The Next Agenda Item Was ROUNDUP

3100 Massachussetts Ave. NW, British Ambassador’s Residence, Embassy of the United Kingdom

Washington, District of Columbia

General George C. Marshall, USA (GENFOR)

Chief of Staff, United States Army

1041 Local Time, 19 JUN 1942

General Marshall nervously rapped his knuckles with the cap of his pen as he waited for a response. The hairs on his arms were standing up like tent poles. Every breath took effort. He had never felt so self-conscious—physically and emotionally. He had become a madman raving nonsense. Lord, preserve me. He looked up and met eyes with General Alan Brooke, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff. The Englishman’s entire face was frozen. His jaw was slightly distended and ajar. General Marshall could see the cogs in his opposite’s brain turn through his eyes. He dare not look at the Prime Minister.

“Ah, well—nevertheless,” Brooke responded dryly, flicking his wrist dismissively in the general direction of the American general while returning a blank, unamused stare. Marshall waited for him—or any of his colleagues—to finish that sentence, but the Englishmen—all four of them—refused to say anything.

The chosen American spokesman took a deep breath. “Gentlemen, I understand that this matter seems rather… erm… Ludicrous? But the President and I firmly believe that it merits disclosure, and discussion, as it does impose significant implications on our strategy for the coming year.”

“Th-the time-travelers?” Field Marshal John Dill, the British Military Representative to the Combined Chiefs of Staff, inquired in a struggling voice through raw confusion like a man wading through a chest-deep pool of crude oil.

“Yes,” Marshall replied to Dill without pausing even for a moment. He expelled the words from his mouth as if they were not his own. “Precisely, that is the matter. We are obligated to discuss it.”

General Brooke gave his reply, “I believe the next agenda item was ROUNDUP.” Dill and Brooke exchanged looks. None of the other British officers said anything. Vice Admiral Mountbatten had a truly horrifying grin slashed across his face as his eyes glittered with certainly awful thoughts. Marshall listened to the conference room’s clock tick. He exhaled deeply, rolling into a sigh that shook his whole body.

“Are you quite alright, General?” Field Marshal Dill.

No. The General thought himself. He exhaled. “Of course. This has come as a shock to us all. The President has authorized me to discuss the entirety of this matter; there are no secrets here. I believe that this matter ought to be addressed with all frankness and all due seriousness.”

“Ah, yes—all due seriousness.” The Prime Minister nodded along. “I believe we’ve done that.” He pointed a polite—but impatient smile at Marshall like a loaded gun. The general took a deep breath and shared a glance with Hap Arnold to his left and then with Ernest King to his right before looking down at his hands. They were both mortified. The three of them were burdened with the knowledge that no more than a score of men in Washington were privy. They had kept the circle tight to permit the United States and the United Kingdom to form a united approach. “Now…” The Prime Minster’s voice drew out from his lips, elongating that lone syllable into a soliloquy. “If ROUNDUP does not interest you, Your President—in his last dispatch—had mentioned that there had been something of a revelation among your number about GYMNAST?”

“Sir,” Admiral King started with all the seriousness of an undertaker, “This is not a prank or laughing matter. We are faced with an event that is beyond belief and every understanding, but we can in no way ignore it.” He stood up straight in his chair as if to make himself appear even more serious.

Churchill looked the venomous Admiral up and down thrice before he opened his mouth as if to speak before saying nothing. Instead, his jowls and mouth settled into a congenial smirk while his blue eyes flickered alight with a bittering harshness. He took in another ten seconds of torturous silence before he said a single word that cut worse than a thousand blades. “GYMNAST.”

There would be no united front.

---

En Route to Baltimore Army Airfield

Prince George’s County, Maryland

Major General Hastings “Pug” Ismay

Chief Staff Officer to the Minister of Defence

1059 Local Time, 19 JUN 1942

“Pug….” The Prime Minister announced to his military adjutant,“…that was, well… oh-odd. It was odd.”

“Quite odd, Prime Minister,” the stocky aide replied without missing a beat. The interior of the white Packard was silent as both men looked out the windows. Ismay could see the emotion start to brew and the boil behind the PM’s grimace.

“I ha-have never in my life seen such self-serious men babble such utter! Such utter!” he was whipping himself into a fury, something altogether common of an occurrence. “Tripe! Utter tripe! The look in their eyes as they bade such nonsense at us—and that expectation that we might—no must!—take it seriously!” The general was surprised that the PM was this outraged—but then again, Ismay himself wasn’t sure what to make of this confession. The Prime Minister unfurled the button string around the portfolio they had provided him. With distressingly deft sausage fingers, the Prime Minister fished out a photograph. He snarled and unleashed a wave of guttural syllables—each one like a crack of a whip or the rumble of an engine, but all blended together—that could not have been meant for anyone’s comprehension but his own. “Madness. Utter madness.” The PM continued, fuming to himself. The general was merely scenery at this point. With the photograph fixed between his thumb and his index finger, its contents hidden from Ismay, the roiling anger erupted once more as he waved it around like a loaded pistol. “This! It’s a fakeee.” His eyes were burning like coals; he could melt iron with the raw contempt blasting out of them like beams of light, but his voice cracked. Ismay knew better; he knew when a man was trying to convince himself. “It must be!” There it was. “It’s rubbish—rubbish.” His voice faded and rattled in his throat. “I have never been so insulted in my life, and all my life I have been insulted. Mocked. Belittled. Gibed. Scorned more times than I can count. But this?" His voice trailed off, and he curled over like wilting flower, and for once Winston Churchill was not a symbol but a man—wounded by those he thought he could trust. The Prime Minister caught himself and straightened himself out. “This profanity I will not take this idly. I will wring what for from the President, so help me God! So help me God, Pug!”

He twirled the photo between his fingers as his temper faded. Round and round it went. Ismay had seen its contents only briefly during the meeting. It showed about a dozen strange ships photographed from the air at anchor in neat rows in a tropical harbor somewhere in Hawaii, allegedly. None of the designs were familiar. None of them seemed to make sense—the Prime Minister seemed offended that the Yank had deigned to pass those off as a “fleet from the future.” What would they come up with next? Rayguns? Rocketships? Robots? He kept the paper card twirling. “They’re lying, right?” Ismay did not say anything because he did not have an answer. “They have to be lying, Pug.” He spoke so quietly, like a church mouse asking for porridge. He folded over on himself again, curling his back like some great ape, rubbing the picture with his thumb. “They’re lying, Pug. Or they’re mistaken. They’re confused.”

“They must have quite active imaginations in their Pacific Fleet, Prime Minister,” the adjutant surmised. “To win such a smashing victory against the Jap and then this… I’d say that Nimitz must’ve a gas leak in his office somewhere.” He tried to put on a smile. “I think we must do our best to put this all behind us, sir. We have a war to fight.”

The Prime Minister scoffed, “Quite.” He smiled. “I am still going to give Roosevelt a working over.”

Ismay unfurled a grin like a waving battle flag, “Of course, sir. It’s only right.”

“God help us if he’s gone mad, too,” the PM replied with a familiar, relaxed acerbity. Ismay could see Churchill begin to relax. Which was good; he was half-worried that the PM would have a heart attack.

Ismay let out a deep sigh, and as he looked out the window, he let out an observation that was perhaps too candid. “I always thought that General Marshall was too much of a square for something like this.”

The Prime Minister’s visage curdled into an unpleasant, steely, grim resolve. It was a face that Pug was familiar with. “Indeed,” he spoke before turning outwards to gaze upon Maryland. “Odd.” He said nothing more for the ride.

---

Washington Union Station

Washington, District of Columbia

General George C. Marshall, USA (GENFOR)

Chief of Staff, United States Army

0912 Local Time, 21 JUN 1942

The President was helped into his wheelchair by Mr. Hopkins and Major General Watson as the Secret Service kept a tight perimeter. His arrival was kept quiet, not for the sake of security but because no one was quite certain how bad things would be on the President and Prime Minister’s return from Hyde Park. Reports of an icy or a testy mood would do no one any good.

The President cleared his voice as the gaggle of aides followed the great chieftains of the Atlantic Alliance to the exit, “Winston, I believe you might like to freshen up. I also need to discuss some issues with my advisors, and then we can lunch at mine perchance? I hear the stewards have something special for my return.” That great and terrible smile grew across his face with practiced, absolute sincerity. “My treat.” He laughed, and so did the Prime Minister.

That’s a good sign.

“Sounds wonderful, Mister President.” The PM replied. “How about around one?”

That’s a better sign.

“Perfect. See you then.” The President turned his head slowly toward Marshall with a smile that did not fade; it was stuck on his face like glue even as his eyes shifted in his head and turned wicked. “General Marshall, take a drive with me.”

Well, now that’s bad.

The General helped the President into one of the 1942 H-Series Armored Limousines. The ride to the White House was not a long one, but it immediately felt interminable.

“What in the fuck and all that is Holy did you say to them, George?” The words cracked from the President’s lips like lightning doused with vinegar.

Marshall was shocked, caught off guard, but not so much as to let it show. “The truth, Mister President,” he fired back with his typical coolness. He stiffed his back out.

“Some gospel, George. Some Gospel.” The president fished out his cigarette case and produced one for himself. “Cigarette?” Marshall politely turned down the President. “I have become a damned toreador,” Roosevelt growled as he struck his lighter and put the flame to his cigarette. “We are lucky to not be gored right now, George. I have never seen Winston so mad. He was seeing red! And you know how much that man despises a communist!”

Marshall gulped without thinking. “That bad?”

“That bad,” the President replied bitterly before unleashing a dense plume of smoke and breath. “That woman…” The President chuckled just as bitterly, “GYMNAST was quite the ace in the hole. He bit on that like a piranha to bloody rare meat.”

“Mister President—Secretary Stimson, Admiral King, and I still are united in our belief that GYMANST is not an advisable course of action?”

“George,” the President’s voice was solemn as if he spoke in a language of ash and cinder as they approached the White House, “I agree to this in August, and so do you. After that fiasco in Dieppe.”

“In a different time, sir,” the General reminded the President.

Roosevelt smirked, “Not so different, George.”

Marshall shot the President a quizzical look. “Do you trust her judgment?”

The President scoffed, “No.” He turned the question around on Marshall, “Well, do you trust her information?”

A friend in need is a friend indeed. The words of Marshall’s stepson had written to him more than a decade ago in a private letter rang out through his head and his heart. He did not have the stomach to answer the President because they knew that they could not deny.

The limousine came to a stop outside the White House. The President turned to Marshall again. They met eyes; Roosevelt’s face was totally relaxed and relieved of all pretense. The man of many masks was showing his true face. “BOLERO, GYMNAST, and WATCHTOWER shall be our priorities. We will take full advantage of what we can squeeze from those Strange Pineapples in Hawaii—however—if anyone breathes so much as a word about a Certain Force. I want them gibbeted.”

“Understood.” If anything, this was preferable to the General. “And Congress?”

The President shrugged as a Marine sentry opened the car door. “Preferably once our guests are home and we have more time to develop a more appropriate approach so as to avoid... well, doing this again.” That terrible grin, the one that swallowed worlds, appeared, “We shall burn that bridge when we get to it.” The President removed the cigarette from his mouth and let out a perfect ring of smoke into the air before then letting out a chuckle, “I only carry so many matches, dear General.”

---

2009 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Roosevelt Longworth Townhouse

Washington, District of Columbia

Alice Roosevelt Longworth

Former First Daughter of the United States

2232 Local Time, 25 JUN 1942

“I am going to kill Trudy Beekman if it is the last thing I do,” Alice Roosevelt growled to herself like a wildcat. Her words were directed at no one in particular, and they were swallowed up by a swirling mass of pristine black-and-white uniforms carrying silvered platters of every sort. The first daughter of Theodore Roosevelt was perched on a countertop in the kitchen like some kind of bird of prey observing a valley full of game. She downed her drink with a practiced violence, and the refreshed flute of champagne disappeared in one go and in the blink of an eye. “I at least have the decency not to let that Brit son of a bitch outdrink me in my own damned home.”

“We can’t have that, ma’am,” the head caterer, a handsome man about three decades her junior, replied as he refilled her glass of Pol Roger. He was wearing a wonderful smile. She was used to this game—but not in the mood tonight.

“Just leave the bottle, Jim,” she groaned as she massaged her ankle. “The audacity to say that I permit plus twos at my parties. She doesn’t live here! This is not her house!” A wrathful hrmph left her lips before she let one last broadside out, “No wonder her husband cheated with the governess.” She turned to the caterer, “Cut her off, and if she asks for anything, give her a flute of gasoline or piss—I don’t care which.”

Her usual maître d' stormed through the double doors into the kitchen like a raging bull, his face cherry red and his moustache bone white. “The Prime Minister’s party has just arrived.”

“How many?”

“Seven autos, twenty-three persons.”

“Christ.” Alice did the math in her head, “Jimmy, we’re going to need booze.”

“But we just went out an—” The caterer started to object.

“More booze,” she could be like her father if and when she wanted. Her voice carried like a pronouncement from Zeus. She was just missing the thunderbolt, and a damn shame, too, because she’d like to smite some dithering fool. “I better greet our esteemed guests before some spud-drunk Fenian wastrel Trudy Beekman picked off the street and into her bed spoils my party by having the first fight start so early.” Clad in the armor of her trade, she charged into the breach. Pale blue chiffon might not stop bullets, but what she was facing tonight was worse than lead—far more biting and far more toxic. With a painted smile and cool demeanor, she tore into the party like a whirling dervish, every weapon at her disposal availed and put to best use. She parried blows and interlopers alike, cutting through the swirling mass of men and women decked in cuirasses of Egyptian cotton, Vicuna wools, and Mulberry silks. She knew the faces and the names. She knew everyone, even the ones who hadn’t been invited—especially them.

There were too many people, too much noise. She had wanted a quiet affair—sedate and reserved—where she could ply her trade and crack the Englishmen open like walnuts for their money’s worth. There had been some mutterings, a murmur here and a whisper there, that something had gone wrong in Hawaii. A communications embargo had been raised just days after the pronouncement of the stunning victory against the Japanese off that atoll, Midway. It was unnerving, and one whisper had spread like a morning chill—that there had been no victory, that there had only been yet another calamity. Those fine gentlemen in that august boys’ social club, otherwise known as the United States Congress, were starting to ask questions about exactly what was going on.

“Winston, dear!” Alice proclaimed with outstretched arms.

“Mrs. Roosevelt, it has been too long.” She offered her hand, and he kissed it. It was another step to a familiar dance.

“Enchanté—as usual. And please, I told you to call me Alice.”

He chuckled politely. “In Wonderland, are we?”

“Well, you were always mad as a hatter, Prime Minister.”

This time he scoffed, and there was a glimmer on his face like someone had just stepped on his foot. “Some day more than others.” That was a curious response, she wanted more but did not want to make it too obvious.

“Drinking some mercury?” She kept up the game of bitting sarcasm.

“Ha!” That was a true laugh, she could tell. “I would prefer arsenic!”

That presented yet another opening. “You should ask Clem to serve you some.”

“The other Clem perhaps, but not mine.” They continued with the introductions, all military men—Some familiar, some not—a veritable arsenal of pips and crowns. She had done this song and this dance a hundred times before, but something was not quite right.

Alice would remain the consummate host until they revealed what was the catch, “Speaking of poison, Prime Minister—would you like to pick yours?”

“Whisky soda—”

She interrupted him, “Johnnie Walker Red Label.” She snapped her a finger, and a waiter, who had been waiting for this very signal, appeared with a silver platter with several flutes of Pol Roger and a single whisky soda.

“Am I that predictable?” The Prime Minister murmured.

Alice smiled, wicked and self-satisfied. “No, I am just that good.”

“You are certainly something, my dear.” The Prime Minister rejoined. “Now, you have other guests to attend.” He stopped himself before he said something, “Oh—do you know if Secretary Stimson has already arrived?” His delivery was wrong. That was not just a question that would happen to come to mind. Alice’s smile grew three sizes.

Bingo.

“Yes, I believe he arrived earlier.” She answers, full of attentive grace. Etiquette would be her stiletto tonight. “I think I saw him on the third floor with a flight of silvered full-birds.”

“Ah, wonderful. I believe I am obligated to say hello… and where might we ha—”

Alice answered before he finished speaking. “The study on the third floor will suffice.”

The Prime Minister gave his thanks and slunk off into the crowd, shaking hands and trading greetings while making his way deeper and deeper into the spider’s parlour they called the Second Washington Monument. Alice knew better than to shadow him too closely. This was her house, and she did have other duties to attend to. So she danced. She danced between the suits and skirts. Trading smiles and biting remarks with polite laughter and oh so much gossip.

There was a group of delightfully dour G-Men from the Bureau—very senior ones—including J. Edgar’s favored boy, Tolson. They should have been celebrating the arrest of the German saboteurs on Long Island, but they seemed to be in a decidedly more morose mood. They looked down at their drinks like they’d all lost the shirts off their backs to a cardshark.

The one sentence from one of the other G-Men, one senior in the Special Intelligence Service if Alice’s memory had not failed her, caught her attention. It was an off-hand comment, muttered under breath as Roosevelt breezed by like a ghost on the midnight breeze. “Who knew that pineapples could be Red.” They had her interest, but now they had her attention.

“Now, why is everyone chatting up pineapples?” Alice leaned and found a place among the G-Men. They were immediately unsettled finding the hostess pressed up so close, and she intended to keep them that way. She snatched the cigarette from one of them and took a drag, “You don’t mind, do you, dear?”

The agent froze. “Why, of course not, ma’am.”

“I’m not your mother, handsome,” she replied wolfishly. Ten painful seconds passed as she examined their faces intently and one by one. They said nothing. “Gentleman, I believe I asked a question.”

Tolson was unfazed, he was used to her tactics. He was a clever one. “Mrs. Roosevelt Longsworth, eavesdropping is quite rude. Particularly about matters pertaining to national security.”

“Oh,” she covered her mouth girlishly but let her eyes turn cruel and bitter. “Since when has the color of a pineapple pertained to national security?”

Tolson’s entire head twitched, and she saw his ears burn strawberry red. “Madam, I do not think that is an appropriate question.”

“What?” She laughed playfully. “Have we discovered Trosktky alive and well in Themiscyra with the Amazons?” They didn’t share her laugh. They said nothing. She looked around at them. They gave her nothing but stony faces. For the first time in a long time, she was the one who felt uncomfortable. She forced her composure back on like an ill-fitting sweater. “Well, this was illuminating. I must thank your Director for developing such voracious and vibrant imaginations.” She left before they could make any retort. Not that they did.

Alice moved upstairs, slinking between circles of dilettantes and courtiers—all she was missing was a few eunuchs and seneschals. Much of the talk was the same as it ever was. She did hear something interesting on the second floor.

A senior secretary from the British Embassy was chatting with a typist from Wild Bill Donavon’s outfit, “I’ve never seen so many angry words! I don’t know what they said, but I can say quite confidently that the Prime Minister was extraordinarily cross when he left for New York!” Alice hadn’t heard of any marital spats between Winston and Cousin Franklin spilling out into public like that—least of for someone to feel comfortable speaking about it in public.

On the third floor, the walls were lined with colonels of every sort from no less than five different nations. She said hello and traded a bit of small talk. She saw three burly Americans barring the way to the study—sentinels with sour faces. Well, now I have to find out what they’re saying. She continued down the hallway and turned down another empty hall—which contained another set of double doors to the study, the door to a bedroom, and a servant stair. Luck was with her as there was a waiter arranging some hors d'oeuvres on a guéridon trolley while carrying a platter with three glasses of whiskey in one hand.

The young man noticed her glaring at him and jumped out of his skin, “Madam Roosevelt. Can I help you?”

“Yes, my dear. Could you please go down to the cellar and fetch me a bottle of 1899 Chateau La Tour Blanche.” She did not own any such vintage. She didn’t particularly care if there weren’t any bottles of it in the country.

“Oh yes, of course, right away,” he started to head away with the platter still in hand, which gave Alice an idea.

“Leave the platter,” she ordered.

“Of course, ma’am,” the young thing left the platter on the trolley and gave Alice a confused, bashful parting nod.

Alice sauntered to the trolley. She picked up the first drink, rolled it around in the glass, and gave it a sniff. Old Fashioned. She downed it in a gulp. She then looked at the second glass a repeated the process before flipping it around, got down on her knees with the cart concealing her from the hall, and pressed the crystal against the door.

“I don’t care what it is, Henry! It’s madness, all madness! We cannot lose this war on account of some-some Pineapple Disease ravaging the imaginations of your Pacific Fleet! So I beg you, please, do not raise this issue again.” The voice was faint and unclear, but Alice could surmise it was Winston.

Another voice replied one that Alice would know anywhere. “On that, Prime Minster, you, I, and the President are in complete agreement.” She had never heard Secretary of War Henry Stimson sound so tired. “I pray we will hear no more of distractions from that damned Molokai. I have had enough of a shock for a lifetime, Winston.”

“What do you mean, goodsir?”

Stimson laughed. It was deep and hearty, “It would do no good for me to tell. It's all nonsense anyway.” He repeated himself with a bitterness that even Alice could hear, “All nonsense.”

“Well…” the Prime Minister started. “…at least it’s all behind us.”

---

Map Room, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, The White House

Washington, District of Columbia

General George C. Marshall, USA (GENFOR)

Chief of Staff, United States Army

1412 Local Time, 29 JUN 1942

“How long ago were you alerted?” The President drummed his fingers on the tiny desk in his precious Map Room.

General Marshall and the rest of the inner war cabinet were assembled. The General was feeling rather self-conscious, “Rou-Roughly forty-five minutes after receipt.” He was keeping his cool, but things were getting out of hand.

The President took a deep breath and then exhaled. He removed his reading glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose as he leaned back in his seat. This was the last thing he wanted—the last thing anyone wanted. “Well, do we know if anyone has read the thing?”

Admiral Leahy started to speak, but before any words left his lips, someone knocked on the door of the Map Room. That itself was a bad sign. The Marine Guard outside opened the door, revealing Grace Tully, the President’s Personal Secretary. “Mister President, Gentlemen, there’s a call for General Marshall—his secretaries are saying that there are eleven Senators in his waiting room, and they do not seem pleased.”

Mr. Hopkins burst out with an inopportune laugh, “Well, Mister President, I believe that answers that.”

The President buried his head in his hands, “It does.” He rolled backward and splayed over the back of his chair like a bored schoolboy. He took a few breaths. “Gentlemen now is the time for more damage control.” He exhaled heavily and straightened out in his seat. “Christ. If I have to hear another word about Hawaii in my life after this, it will be too soon.”