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A Wide Latitude

Eric Flint


Hamburg, United States of Europe
September 3, 1637


Gordon Chehab had no idea what to expect from the mysterious meeting he was being escorted to by one of Estuban Miro’s agents. But it was safe to say that nowhere near the top of any list he might have drawn up would meet Rebecca Abrabanel have appeared.

In part, his disorientation was due to the sharp and sudden change in lighting and atmosphere. He and the agent had come from a bright August day outside on the streets of Hamburg to the dim gloom of the cellar in the city’s Rathaus. The cellar was the location of the Rathaus tavern, so had it been evening a number of lamps would have been lit and the place would have been . . . not bright, certainly, but at least boisterous.

Here, now, there were just three people sitting at a table in the dimmest of the cellar corners. Gordon recognized two of them, Rebecca and Estuban Miro, who served Prime Minister Ed Piazza in the same capacity that Francisco Nasi had served Mike Stearns, when he’d been the head of the USE’s government. Spymaster, for lack of a better term.

The third man, he didn’t know. He was young, a bit on the tall side—for a down-timer, anyway, which Gordon was sure he was—and had the vague air of a geek about him. From subtleties in his posture, Gordon thought he was another of Miro’s people.

“Please, Gordon, have a seat,” said Rebecca, gesturing to the chair across from her. She was flanked by Miro to her right and the young stranger to her left. The man who’d escorted Gordon here pulled up a chair from an adjoining table and sat a little ways back and to Miro’s left. “I am afraid I cannot offer you any refreshments, since, as you can see”—she waved her hand about—“the cellar is empty.”

“By design, I take it?” he asked.

She smiled, in the serene manner she had. He remembered, even though he hadn’t seen her in . . . How long had it been?

More than a year and a half. Maybe two years. He and his brother Pete had set sail from Hamburg in April of the previous year. But he hadn’t seen Rebecca for a number of months prior to that.

“Not entirely,” she replied. “It is still early in the morning. The cellar would not normally be open at this time.”

That was both true and not true. Certainly, the cellar wouldn’t be open yet for business. But the tavern keeper and his employees would normally have been here already, setting up.

So. A black op. Well, medium gray, more likely. Neither Rebecca Abrabanel nor her boss Ed Piazza were the sort of people readily given to sliding stilettos between ribs—or ordering someone else to do it.

On the other hand, Gordon was pretty sure both of them fell quite a ways short of angelic status. “I’m getting the feeling that you’re offering me another job. Or would ‘assignment’ be a better description?”

Miro stuck out his hand and waggled it back and forth. “Either or both, depending on how you look at it.”

Rebecca sniffed. “Why do spies enjoy ambivalence so much? I am offering you a job, Mr. Chehab. The official title—for you, not your brother—is ‘envoy plenipotentiary.’ That indicates that you are an official of the USE’s government and are empowered to make a wide range of agreements with foreign nations or other bodies.”

“How wide ranging?”

Rebecca smiled serenely. “As wide as you choose until such time as the USE decides you were an incompetent nincompoop and disavows your actions.”

Gordon made a little snorting sound. “Why do politicians enjoy ambivalence so much? And what would Pete’s title be?”

“Assistant to the envoy plenipotentiary.” Rebecca cocked her head a bit. “Do you think he will resent the disparity in rank?”

“Pete? Hell, no. He’ll make jokes about it.” Gordon’s hand made a little groping gesture atop the table, searching for a beer mug that wasn’t there. Dammit, he could use a drink right about now.

“Let’s put the titles aside. What would you want me to do?”

Rebecca studied him for a moment without speaking. A bit abruptly, she then said: “That largely depends upon you, actually. After reading the reports you’ve sent in, we have developed a great deal of confidence in your judgment.”

Gordon was surprised to hear that. Pleased, too, of course, but . . .  “You don’t think I’m too inclined to be a goody-two-shoes?”

When Rebecca made no immediate response, it occurred to Gordon that the idiomatic reference was pretty obscure. The woman was completely fluent in the English language, since she’d grown up on the island. In fact, she spoke it with a contemporary London accent which sounded closer to Appalachian dialect than it did to what twentieth-century Americans thought of as an “English accent.”

“I have never been able to figure out the logic of that expression,” she said. “The ‘goody’ part is clear enough, but what do two shoes—any number of shoes—have to do with anything?”

“Uh, I don’t know myself. All I meant was—”

“I understood you. You wonder if we are not concerned that you are overly inclined to saving whales and hugging trees. Halting all progress for fear that an obscure bird or amphibian might be imperiled. Or perhaps more immediately to the point, wringing your hands over the plight of North America’s indigenes instead of dealing with the issue in a practical manner that might produce some results.”

He got a twisted smile on his face. “Yeah, that. My brother gives me a hard time about it pretty regularly.”

“Which is one of the reasons you will be in charge of the mission and not him. This century is seventeenth enough as it is, all on its own.”

She leaned back in her chair and regarded him for a moment. “There are times when your idealist impulses may prove to be a problem, true. Sometimes one has no choice but to be ruthless.” She got something of a twisted smile on her own face. “My husband has on occasion said the same thing to me that your brother says to you. But it is not a very big risk, we think. And we would far rather someone with your responsibilities err in that direction that in the all-too-easy direction of turning a blind eye to inconvenient realities.”

She sat up straight again. “The essence of the USE’s strategy in the New World has the following components, Mr. Chehab.” She planted her forefinger on the table top. “First, we are already fighting wars on many fronts. The last thing we need is another—and insofar as we do need to engage in military action in the western hemisphere, the priority is naval, and the enemy is the Spanish empire. In particular, although we favor the legitimists over the usurper Gaston, we have no desire to get directly embroiled in the ongoing French civil war.”

Now she planted her middle finger on the table. “Two. With regard to North America, our central goal is to do what we can to prevent any one power from becoming predominant on the continent. For a variety of reasons, the existence of many power centers, none of which is very strong, serves our interests—and, we think, will best serve the interests of the people living in North America as well. People of all races and origins, not just Europeans.”

The ring finger joined the others. “Three. While we are willing to provide some weapons and some other military equipment to selected parties, the emphasis is on the words some and selected. We think technical guides and medicines will be a far more effective tool of diplomacy.”

She laid her hand flat. “That is all there is, at least in broad outline.” She nodded toward Estuban Miro and his two still unnamed agents. “They will want to spend some time debriefing you and discussing the particulars of the USE’s strategy. And then, assuming you still wish to accept the position we have offered, you will be sailing back across the Atlantic. I just made a brief stop here on my way to the Netherlands in order to recruit you, so to speak. All that I have left to handle is a personal matter which . . . If you wish to discuss it privately, we can do so.”

“Does it involve my brother and his wife?”

Rebecca nodded. Gordon shrugged. “There’s no need for secrecy, that I can see. I assume she wants a divorce?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t blame her. Pete’s been an ass about the whole thing.” He reached into his jacket pocket and drew out an envelope. “Pete was expecting it too. This document—he’s signed it, in front of witnesses—turns over any pay he’s owed for past services and any he might be owed in the future from the USE to Penny. That should be enough to support her and their little girl, even if Penny isn’t working.”

Rebecca took the envelope from him, opened it, and quickly read through the letter enclosed. “More than enough, I should think. But how will your brother handle his own financial affairs?”

Gordon made another little snorting sound. “Pete? Don’t worry about him. He’ll manage, one way or another—and before you ask, no, I won’t be using State Department money to keep him afloat.”

Rebecca tucked the envelope away in a purse. “Actually, you can if you so choose. In addition to your own salary, you will have a rather large expense account, with no guidelines or restrictions on our part as to how you use those funds.”

Her hand came out of the purse holding a larger envelope. “You can draw the funds from Amsterdam’s Wisselbank,” she said, as she handed it over. “They have a branch in New Amsterdam. This contains all the information you need to do so.”

“Can I use them to set up a whale sanctuary?”

Her smile, unusually for Rebecca, came very close to a grin. “Legally, yes. I would recommend something more useful, however. In the year 5397—you Christians call it the year 1637—whales are not an endangered species.”

Gordon thought his current status as a “Christian” was probably pretty shaky, but he wasn’t going to argue the point. What was most interesting to him was that Rebecca’s statement about funds reinforced her earlier explanation of the great leeway he was being given.

Of course, looked at from one angle that leeway was inevitable. Even with radio communication— some communication, at some times and in some places—diplomatic affairs were not something that could be micromanaged across an ocean as huge as the Atlantic.

“And now, I have to go,” said Rebecca. She gestured toward Estuban Miro. “He will handle everything from here.”

And off she went.

* * *

As it turned out, just as Gordon had presumed, both of the unnamed companions of Miro were his agents. And now, they had names.

The older one, who had escorted Gordon from the docks to the Rathaus, was Adam Neuschell. The tall younger one’s name was Reitz Pauer. No further information was provided as to their place of origin or background.

Both of them would be accompanying Gordon back to North America. As far as their responsibilities were concerned, those of Pauer were simple and straightforward. One of the many refits, repairs and upgrades the Challenger was being provided with was a new and more powerful radio than the one which had been destroyed in the ship’s first trip across the Atlantic. Reitz Pauer was the radio operator—and apparently could handle any other type of radio they might wind up using.

Neuschell’s role in the expedition was a lot fuzzier. After listening to the man’s circumlocutions and periphrases for a few minutes, Gordon decided to label his assignment as spy and leave it at that. He was perfectly happy to let Miro’s agent handle the murkier aspects of the work they’d be doing. For one thing, he’d undoubtedly be better at it than Gordon himself. And for another, he was coming to have more appreciation for the phrase plausible deniability. Spies did sometimes get hung or shot, after all. Better Neuschell than him.

Most of the three hours that passed following Rebecca’s departure were spent with Neuschell debriefing Gordon. The man’s questions often brought out aspects of Gordon and his brother’s activities in the New World over the past year and a half that Gordon himself hadn’t thought much about. Call him agent, or spy, or whatever, he was clearly good at his job.

* * *

Once that was over, Gordon returned to the ship, only to find that Ingrid Skoglund was sitting on an upended suitcase—more like a small trunk—on the dock, reading a book. Ingrid was the mission’s doctor and, for some time now, had been sharing the main cabin of the ship with Gordon.

He’d done his best to make her what up-timers sometimes called “an honest woman,” but she’d refused his proposal of marriage. Twice, now. She’d given no explanation, but Gordon was pretty sure the reasons had little to do with himself. It was more a matter that the Swedish woman had become accustomed to running her own life as she saw fit, and feared that marriage—especially given some of the conventions of her time—might be chafing.

So be it. He just had to remind himself periodically that patience was a virtue. Reputed to be, anyway.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked.

“Maartens chased me off the ship. They’re starting to work on our cabin now, and he tells me they won’t be done for several days.”

Claes Maartens was the ship’s captain—at least, that was how Gordon viewed him. Maartens insisted that he was simply the Challenger’s “sailing master.” Whatever title you chose, he was the one who actually ran the ship.

Ingrid pointed to her left, to an edifice that was set back from the docks and quite some distance away. “I obtained rooms for us at that lodging house. Sofia went ahead to get things ready for us.”

She rose, reached down, and hefted the trunk. “I packed some of your things in here as well as my own.”

“Here. I’ll carry that.”

Ingrid wrinkled her nose. “I handle patients who weigh far more than this. I can manage, thank you.” She pointed to her side with her free hand. “Your job is to walk next to the street, so that you can be the one splattered by careless wagon drivers. And handle whatever drunks or ruffians might think to harass us.”

* * *

The next few days passed pleasantly. Maartens made it clear that Gordon would just be making a nuisance of himself if he tried to assist in the refitting of the Challenger, so they spent their time instead being tourists. Both of them had been to Hamburg before, but they’d been too busy to spend much time just sightseeing.

Unfortunately, in the year 1637, there really wasn’t enough to see in Hamburg to require several days of tourism. The somewhat gruesome truth was that, once you’d visited the Rathaus and the city’s oldest church, St. Petri, the most interesting sight were the ruins of Hamburg’s once-famous Wallanlagen, the fortifications that Admiral Simpson’s ironclads had demolished when they passed through Hamburg on their way to the Baltic in April of 1634.

No one had proposed rebuilding those fortifications afterward. First, because Simpson’s ten-inch guns had made clear that they’d be useless. Second, because Hamburg had been incorporated into the United States of Europe. The most powerful realm on the continent provided its own protection to its cities. And finally, because Hamburg was a boom town with a great need for building material— and the rubble that had once been the Wallanlagen was now the premier source of masonry in the area. Dismantling what was left of those once-great brick and stone walls had become a major industry in its own right.

So, they were left to their own devices, as the saying goes. Since those included plenty of leisure time and a sturdy and comfortable bed in their room, Gordon made no complaint. Neither did Ingrid.


September 20, 1637


Once they passed through the estuary of the Elbe and entered the Wadden Sea, Ingrid asked: “So where are we going now?”

His hands clasped and his forearms resting on the rail in the ship’s bow, Gordon looked to the southwest. The Frisian Islands were down there, but they were too far away to be visible.

“The Gulf of St. Lawrence,” he said, “and from there we’ll go up the St. Lawrence River as far as we can. Hopefully, that’ll be as far as Quebec. Champlain has been keeping his own counsel ever since the French civil war began. I’d be very surprised if he’s a Gastonard, but he hasn’t come out in favor of the legitimists, either. Not publicly, at any rate. I’d like to have a conversation with him, see where he stands—or is thinking of standing.”

“As I recall your account of your conversation with Secretary of State Abrabanel, she was quite firm in stating that the USE has no desire—particularly, no desire—to get embroiled in the French civil war.”

Gordon smiled. “Directly embroiled were her exact words. I’m not proposing we do so. I just want to have a chat with the leader of French Canada. Rebecca also stated that I had a wide latitude, remember?”

“Until they declare you a nincompoop.” She shrugged. “At which point we are left to our own resources. Fortunately, I am a doctor. I can probably support both of us for a while. Until you get a new job as . . . ”

She turned her head to look at him directly, cocking a skeptical eye. “By the way, what are you good at, Mr. Gordon? Besides meddling in the world’s affairs.”


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