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Hans stood stiffly at attention as Sharon took the insignia from Jesse, carefully pinned them over Hans' left breast pocket, and gave him a quick kiss. As she stepped back, Jesse could see tears beginning to well in her smiling eyes. He looked down at the insignia on Hans' chest-shiny silver wings with the radiator shield in the center-and felt a sudden lump in his own throat.

Jesse stepped forward and solemnly offered his hand.

"Congratulations, son. Very well done. I'm proud of you."

"Thank you, sir," Hans choked out.

Jesse smiled at him, "Oh, Hans, try to remember one thing, will you?"

Hans smiled broadly in return, "Yes, sir. I promise to remember. 'Don't screw the pooch.' "

Whatever Jesse might have wanted, soon became a moot point. Within an hour, Mike Stearns was out at the airfield along with, this time, what looked to be the entire cabinet except those members of it who were out of town. All of them tried to cram their way into the lower floor of the combination control tower and Air Force headquarters. Mike and Frank Jackson were the only ones actually able to get in, because the room was already packed with those people Jesse himself considered its proper habituйs-himself, Hans, the other youngsters he was training as pilots, and their various womenfolk or boyfriends.

"I am not a politician," growled Jesse, as soon as Mike came in. "So spare me the lecture. I told you-"

"Oh, be quiet," chuckled Mike. "I didn't come here to give you a hard time, you old grouch. I just wanted to invite you to the parade."

"What parade?"

Mike and Frank were both grinning. "The one I just told Henry Dreeson to organize," replied Mike. "You may not be a politician, but I am." He shrugged. "Hey, sure, it's a dirty job-but somebody's got to do it."

"It's gonna be one hell of big one, too," Frank added. Jesse frowned. He was a little surprised by the very evident tone of satisfaction in Frank's voice. As a rule, the head of the U.S. Army shared Jesse's own skepticism about the often rough-and-tumble nature of politics in the new United States.

Frank shook his head. "Don't be stupid. We just got another message over the radio this morning. From Becky. She's in Amsterdam now, Jesse. The first rumors about the destruction of the Dutch fleet seem pretty well confirmed. And from what she can tell, the Dutch are starting to fall apart. Apparently-we still don't really know how they pulled it off-the Spanish have taken Haarlem. That means they've cut Holland in half, and they've got their troops behind the Dutch line of fortifications. You know what that means, in this day and age."

Jesse sucked in a breath. In the 17 th century, warfare was mainly a matter of siegecraft, not field maneuvers. For decades, the Dutch had held off the Spanish with their walled towns and fortresses along the outlets of the Rhine. If the Spanish had gotten behind those lines…

"It's probably even worse than that," added Mike. "Becky's not sure yet, but from what reports they've been able to piece together-the news from England matches, too-it looks as if Richelieu's alliance is moving into the Baltic. With the Dutch fleet destroyed, that means the Swedes will be facing the French and the Danes and the English alone."

"What about the Spanish?" asked Hans. "Uh, sir." Despite the gravity of the moment, Jesse had to fight down a smile. The mere fact that young Hans could even ask a question in such august company was a subtle but sure sign of the effect on his self-confidence of that new insignia on his chest.

But Jesse didn't have much trouble suppressing the smile. He's going to need that self-confidence, soon enough. God damn it all to hell.

"From what we can tell, the Spanish seem to have dropped aside," Frank replied. "Makes sense, when you think about it. This alliance of Richelieu's-they're calling it 'the League of Ostend,' apparently-is a devil's alliance if you ever saw one. Each of the parties to it has their own agenda and their own axes to grind. It's bound to fall apart, eventually, but in the meantime…"

Mike picked up the thought. "In the meantime, like Frank says, it all makes sense. The Danes get the control of the Baltic they've always wanted, the Spanish get the Low Countries, and King Charles gets the French and Spanish money he needs to clamp down in England and keep his throne-and his head. We've gotten word from Melissa that the streets of London are being flooded with newly hired mercenary troops."

"But what do the French get out of it?" asked Kathy. "For themselves, I mean. Just looking at it, it seems like they're doing a lot of fighting-not to mention shelling out money-and not getting much in return."