The noise inside the Detroit factory was deafening.
CLANG. HISS. THUD.
It sounded like the heartbeat of a mechanical giant.
Jason Underwood walked along the catwalk overlooking the assembly floor. Below him, thousands of men moved in synchronized rhythm.
They weren't building cars anymore.
The Model T chassis had been shoved to the side. In their place were long, brass cylinders. Artillery shells.
Thousands of them.
Henry Ford walked beside Jason. He looked pale. He held a handkerchief over his mouth, trying to block out the smell of hot metal and sulfur.
"It's a slaughterhouse, Ezra," Ford shouted over the noise. "I built this factory to liberate the common man. To give him freedom of movement."
Ford pointed a shaking finger at the crates of munitions being loaded onto the train cars.
"And now? I'm building coffins. Every one of those shells is going to kill a boy in France."
Jason stopped. He leaned on the railing. He looked down at the sea of brass.
"It's supply and demand, Henry," Jason said coldly. "The British Army is firing ten thousand rounds a day. They are running out. If they run out, the Germans break the line at Ypres."
"Let them break it!" Ford yelled. "It's not our war! I'm a pacifist, Ezra! I believe in peace!"
"Peace is expensive," Jason said. "War pays cash."
He grabbed Ford's arm. He forced him to look at the workers.
"Look at them, Henry. They have jobs. They have wages. Detroit is booming because of this contract."
"It's blood money," Ford whispered.
"It's survival money," Jason corrected.
He let go of Ford.
"If the Kaiser wins, he controls the Atlantic. He controls the trade routes. He puts a tariff on every car you try to sell in Europe. Do you want Wilhelm deciding the price of a Model T?"
Ford slumped. The idealism drained out of him, replaced by the cold reality of capitalism.
"Just keep the line moving," Jason said. "Double the shifts. The British need another hundred thousand rounds by Christmas."
He turned and walked away.
He didn't look back at the shells. To him, they weren't weapons. They were just units of leverage.
The telegram arrived at 26 Broadway at midnight.
Jason was in his office, drinking whiskey. The lights were low. He was staring at the map of the Atlantic Ocean, marking the positions of his tankers with red pins.
There were too few pins.
Senior walked in. He was wearing his dressing gown. He looked furious.
"They sank the Gulflight," Senior rasped.
Jason put down his glass.
"Torpedo?"
"U-boat," Senior said. "Off the Scilly Isles. Thirty thousand barrels of crude. Gone."
Senior slammed his cane on the floor.
"That was my oil! Pirates! German pirates!"
"They're blockading the island," Jason said. "They know the British fleet runs on our oil. They're trying to starve them out."
"I don't care about their strategy," Senior growled. "I care about my profit margin. Insurance won't cover acts of war. We are losing ships faster than we can build them."
There was a knock at the door.
Alta entered. She looked tired.
"There's a man to see you, Ezra. He says he's from the British Consulate. But he doesn't have an appointment."
"Send him in."
A moment later, a man in a rain-soaked trench coat stepped into the office. He was young, sharp-featured. He had the eyes of a man who hadn't slept in a week.
"Mr. Prentice," the man said. "I'm Captain Smythe. Naval Intelligence."
"You're MI6," Jason said.
Smythe didn't deny it. "The Admiralty is panicking, sir. We have two weeks of fuel left for the Grand Fleet. If the tankers don't get through... the Royal Navy stays in port. And the Germans invade."
"Your navy can't protect my ships," Jason said. "The U-boats are wolves. They hunt in packs."
"We need a solution," Smythe pleaded. "We will pay double the spot price. Triple. Just get the oil to Scapa Flow."
Jason looked at the map. He looked at the red pins.
He saw the American flags on the pins. That was the problem. American ships were neutral, but the Germans were sinking them anyway, claiming they carried contraband.
"The flag is the target," Jason murmured.
He turned to Smythe.
"I can't stop the U-boats. But I can confuse them."
"How?"
"We re-register the fleet," Jason said. "Not as American. Not as British."
He pointed to a tiny spot on the map. Central America.
"Panama," Jason said. "Liberia. Neutral nations with no navy, no political stake. We fly their flags. We use shell companies to hide the ownership."
"Flags of convenience?" Senior asked, frowning. "Is that legal?"
"It's a grey area," Jason smiled. "But a U-boat commander will hesitate to sink a Panamanian freighter. It buys us time. It buys us doubt."
He looked at Smythe.
"I'll create a Shadow Fleet. Ghost ships. But the price isn't triple, Captain."
"Name it."
"I want the postwar rights to the Mesopotamian oil fields," Jason said. "When you carve up the Ottoman Empire... I get Iraq."
Smythe hesitated. It was a king's ransom.
"Done," Smythe whispered.
Jason poured another drink.
"Then tell your Admiral to keep his engines warm. The oil is coming."
The office was quiet again. Senior and Smythe were gone.
Jason sat alone in the dark.
The whiskey burned in his stomach. He felt heavy. The weight of the shells, the sunken ships, the dead sailors.
He closed his eyes.
He saw the map of Europe. But the lines weren't ink anymore. They were veins. And they were bleeding.
"Jason."
The voice was soft. Familiar.
Jason's eyes snapped open.
He thought he was hallucinating. The whiskey playing tricks.
But she was there.
Standing by the door.
Sarah.
She looked different. Older. Her hair was cut short, practical. She wore a grey uniform with a red cross on the armband.
She looked tired. Bone deep tired.
"How did you get in?" Jason whispered.
"I still have the key you gave me," Sarah said. "From the safe house."
She walked into the room. She didn't smile. She looked at the luxury of the office, the leather chairs, the crystal decanters.
"I just got back from France," Sarah said. "I'm working with the Red Cross. Field hospitals."
Jason stood up. He wanted to go to her. He wanted to touch her to see if she was real.
But the look in her eyes stopped him. It was cold. Judgmental.
"I saw your name," Sarah said. "On the crates. In the mud."
She reached into her pocket. She pulled out a jagged piece of brass. Shrapnel.
She tossed it on his desk. It clattered loudly.
"That came out of a nineteen-year-old boy's lung," Sarah said. "It has a stamp on the bottom. 'Standard Oil / Ford Mfg.'"
"It's a war, Sarah," Jason said, his voice tight. "I didn't start it."
"No. You just franchised it."
She stepped closer. Her eyes were burning.
"I saw them die, Jason. Thousands of them. Screaming for their mothers. Drowning in their own blood. And every shell casing I stepped over... every truck that brought more bodies... it all came from you."
"I am supplying the Allies!" Jason shouted. "If I stop, the Germans win! Do you know what happens then? Fascism! Dictatorship!"
"Don't give me the history lesson!" Sarah screamed back. "You don't care about fascism! You care about the contract!"
She reached into her uniform. She pulled out a blood-stained letter.
She slammed it onto his chest.
"Read it."
Jason looked down. The paper was stiff with dried blood.
"Read it!" Sarah commanded. "His name was Thomas. He was from Ohio. He died holding my hand because there was no morphine left. He wrote this to his wife."
Jason stared at the letter.
He could smell the blood on it. He could smell the trenches.
If he read it... if he let himself feel it... he would break.
The algorithm would shatter. The logic would fail.
He grabbed the letter.
He walked to the fireplace.
"No!" Sarah gasped.
Jason threw the letter into the flames.
It curled. It blackened. It turned to ash.
"I don't sell death, Sarah," Jason said, turning his back on the fire. "I sell the end of the war. The faster I build the shells, the faster it ends."
Sarah stared at him. She looked horrified.
"You burned it," she whispered. "You burned his last words."
"I burned a weakness," Jason said.
He looked at her.
"Go back to France, Sarah. Save the bodies. I have to save the world."
Sarah backed away. She looked at him like he was a stranger. Like he was a monster she had read about in a book.
"You didn't save the world, Jason," she said. "You just bought it. And it cost you your soul."
She turned and ran out.
Jason stood alone.
The fire crackled. The letter was gone.
He poured another drink. His hand was shaking.
He drank it.
He looked at the map.
"It cost more than that," he whispered to the empty room.