Jason smoothed the map out on the rough table. The firelight flickered across the paper, illuminating the borders of empires that looked permanent but were already rotting from the inside.
"Sarajevo," Jason said.
He tapped a tiny dot in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Roosevelt frowned. He leaned over the map, his thick glasses reflecting the candlelight.
"The Balkans?" TR scoffed. "A powder keg of goat herders and anarchists. What does that have to do with Standard Oil?"
"Everything," Jason said.
He looked up at the President. He dropped the mask of the businessman. He let the cold certainty of the time traveler bleed into his voice.
"You worry about my trust, Theodore? You worry about the price of kerosene? You are worrying about a candle when the forest is about to catch fire."
Jason traced a line from Berlin to Paris.
"It starts there," Jason whispered. "In four years. Maybe five. An Archduke dies. A treaty is triggered. And then the dominoes fall."
"War?" Roosevelt straightened up. "Europe is always at war. They squabble over borders every decade."
"Not this war," Jason said. "This isn't a squabble. This is the end of the world as you know it."
He stood up and walked around the table. He began to speak, not like a man guessing, but like a man remembering.
"The cavalry is dead, Teddy. You charged up San Juan Hill on a horse? That courage is obsolete. The next war won't have charges. It will have trenches. ditches filled with mud and rats and mustard gas that melts a man's lungs from the inside out."
Roosevelt stared at him. The bluster was fading from his face, replaced by a deep, unsettling focus. He was a student of war. He knew when a man was describing a nightmare.
"Machine guns," Jason continued. "Not the Gatling guns you know. Belt-fed nightmares that fire six hundred rounds a minute. They will mow down entire battalions in seconds. Men will run into a wall of lead and simply... evaporate."
"You sound like a madman," Roosevelt whispered. But he didn't look away.
"I sound like a realist," Jason said. "And do you know what wins this war? It isn't courage. It isn't the Rough Riders."
Jason pointed at the map.
"It's engines."
He slammed his hand on the table.
"Tanks. Armored fortresses that crawl over trenches. Airplanes. Flying machines that drop bombs from the clouds. Trucks that move a million men to the front line in a week."
He grabbed TR's whiskey bottle and poured himself another shot. His hand didn't shake.
"And what do engines eat, Mr. President?"
Roosevelt looked at the fire. He looked at the map. He saw the logic locking into place like the tumblers of a safe.
"Oil," Roosevelt murmured.
"Oil," Jason repeated. "Oceans of it. The British Navy runs on coal. They are slow. The German Army runs on railroads. They are rigid."
Jason leaned in close.
"But if America enters the 20th century... if we have the oil... if we have the rubber... if we have the assembly lines to build ten thousand trucks a month..."
He let the sentence hang in the air.
"We become the arsenal of democracy," Roosevelt finished.
"Exactly."
Jason sat down. He looked exhausted. The performance took everything out of him.
"You want to break my company? Go ahead. Smash Standard Oil into fifty pieces. Cripple Ford with regulations. Save three cents on a gallon of gas for the little man."
Jason took a sip of whiskey.
"But when the Kaiser marches across Europe... when the lights go out in London and Paris... and they call Washington for help... what are you going to send them? A subpoena?"
The silence in the lodge was absolute. The only sound was the crackle of the logs in the hearth.
Roosevelt walked to the window. He looked out at the dark, frozen wilderness. He stood there for a long time, his back to Jason.
The Bull Moose was wrestling with the truth.
He hated monopolies. He hated the arrogance of men like Jason. But he loved America more. He loved the idea of American strength.
Finally, Roosevelt turned around.
He looked older. The manic energy was gone, replaced by the heavy weight of leadership.
"If you are lying," Roosevelt said, his voice low and dangerous, "if this is just a story to save your profits... I will hang you myself. I will find a law, or I will make one up, and I will hang you for treason."
"If I'm wrong," Jason said, "the Germans will hang us both."
Roosevelt walked back to the table. He picked up the bottle. He poured himself a drink.
He raised the tin cup.
"What do you want?" TR asked.
"Call off the dogs," Jason said. "The investigation into Future Holdings ends. The Ford factory stays open. No more freezing orders."
"And in return?"
"The Navy gets priority," Jason said instantly. "At cost. Forever. I will build a strategic reserve of oil and rubber that only the White House knows about. When the war comes, your ships will never run dry. Your tanks will never stop moving."
Jason extended his hand across the table.
"Let me build the machine, Theodore. You drive it."
Roosevelt looked at Jason's hand. He looked at the map of Europe, stained with invisible blood.
He sighed. A long, resigned exhale.
He reached out.
His grip was crushing. A callus-to-callus handshake.
"Done," Roosevelt grunted. "But Prentice?"
"Yes?"
"Don't ever let me catch you looking at the White House like it's an asset you can buy. I'm letting you survive because you're useful. Not because I like you."
"I don't need you to like me," Jason said. "I just need you to win."
The next morning, the sky was a brilliant, piercing blue.
Jason stood on the porch of the lodge. His city coat felt thin again, but the cold didn't bother him as much.
Roosevelt stood in the doorway. He was holding a rifle. He looked ready to hunt.
"You're leaving," TR said. It wasn't a question.
"I have a factory to run," Jason said. "And a war to prepare for."
Roosevelt stepped out. He looked at Jason with a strange expression. Curiosity? Fear?
"You know," TR said. "I've met kings. I've met generals. I've met killers."
He adjusted his glasses.
"You're the first man I've met who looks at the future like he's already read the history book."
Jason froze.
Does he suspect?
"I just understand patterns, Mr. President," Jason said carefully.
Roosevelt laughed. "Patterns. Right."
He saluted. It was ironic, but there was a sliver of respect in it.
"Get out of here, Prentice. Before I change my mind and feed you to the bears."
"Goodbye, Mr. President."
Jason walked down the snowy trail. He didn't look back.
He walked past the ancient pines. He walked past the frozen stream.
When he reached the bottom of the trail, his private carriage was waiting. Thomas, his valet, rushed out with a warm blanket.
"Sir! You look frozen! Was it... did it go well?"
Jason climbed into the carriage. He wrapped the blanket around his legs. He leaned back against the plush velvet seat.
He felt the vibration of the carriage as the horses started to move.
He closed his eyes.
He had survived the Bull Moose. He had secured the truce. The government was no longer an enemy; it was a partner.
He thought about the map he had left on the table.
He wasn't a prophet. He was just a man who knew the tragedy that was coming.
"It went well, Thomas," Jason whispered.
He looked out the window as the carriage rattled toward the train station.
The trees blurred past.
"We just bought the war," Jason said to himself.
Now he just had to make sure he owned the winners.