The Corps of Discovery Trilogy Box Set: Books 1-3: A multiverse series of alternate history

by James S. Peet

  “What if the stolen car’s not charged?” Matt brought up.

  Everyone looked at Ford.

  “Well, we could take a spare battery. That should suffice for a small recharge until we can get a full recharge on it.”

  “Find a battery, then. Thoughts?” Bill asked.

  “Who goes on recce, and who’s in on the assault?” Rhodes asked.

  Bill nodded toward the Confederate. “Ford flies. Either Matt or Jordan on recon. We’ll need another person who can fly the other car, so that’ll have to be one of you two.” Bill gestured to Rhodes and Matt. “Jordan, Lane, and I’ll be the main assault team with whichever one of you two’s not flying the car. We’re gonna have to stuff three up front and three in the trunk, as best as I can figure.”

  He turned to Ford. “Can that flying car of your’s lift and carry six people? We’re talking about a half a ton.”

  Ford shrugged. “Can’t say. We never tried it.”

  “How about we try it now? If it can’t, we’ve got time to revise our plans.”

  The test disabused them of the notion that the Dixie Flyer could fit all six of them. It could barely get off the deck, and nobody wanted to try and go out over the open water in it. It was a quick test, with everyone wearing life vests and carrying the weapons they expected to carry. Parachutes weren’t necessary for this part of the plan, although Ford and Matt would be wearing them during their recons. They already knew it could carry three at a time, so a tentative plan was formulated around carrying four. Two cars needed two drivers, along with four explorers and a kidnap victim, that equated to three and four people per car. Only the essentials would be taken.

  After they landed and secured the car, they all retired to the lounge once again. This time they were joined by Summer. Summer, looking distinctly uncomfortable in the presence of so many whites, elected to sit in a corner. Bill was having none of that. During the drive to Columbia, Bill had gotten to know her a little and could tell she was a woman made of the same stuff as Meri. Tough, but gentle.

  “Summer, you’re as much a part of this team as I or Jordan are, so, please, come join us.”

  She did so with a great deal of trepidation, paying particular attention to how Rhodes and Ford reacted. If they felt anything other than respect or acceptance for her, they kept it hidden well.

  Bill filled her in on the plan of action. “We’re gonna need you here to help out in case anything goes wrong. Do you have any medical training or knowledge?”

  She nodded. “A bit. I kin set a leg, stitch an open cut, or pack a dressin’ with the best of ‘em.”

  “Good. I’ll want you standing by, just in case. Meanwhile, relax a bit and have a drink if you’re interested.”

  Beron joined the group just as drinks were mentioned.

  Turning to the rest of the crew, Bill said, “Drink if you want but don’t get drunk. Ford, Matt, you should probably limit yourselves to two, since you go up at six. I think the rest of us can relax a bit, as I don’t expect we’ll be in any action until at least eight or nine o’clock tomorrow night.”

  At this, Beron cleared his throat. Bill and the others turned toward him.

  “Care to fill me in on what’s the expected course of action?”

  Bill did so, then asked the old sailor for any input.

  “Nothing on the plan I can’t handle, but have you considered what type of arms you’ll be facing, and what about after?”

  Bill was surprised that he hadn’t thought of those two items in detail.

  “Well, if we surprise them, we probably won’t have to worry about arms. What type do you think they’ve got?” Bill asked the captain.

  “Likely similar to us, a couple of fifty cals, and maybe a small auto-cannon, likely twenty or forty millimeter”

  “If the guns are for pirates, what are the odds that they’ll be manned?”

  The captain thought about it for a couple of seconds. “If this were a regular trip up the East Coast, I’d say not likely. But seein’ as to how they’re fleeing with stolen property and possible murder and kidnapping, then I’d say pretty likely.”

  “We definitely want to make it hard for them to see and hit us,” Rhodes chimed in. “Might I suggest that not only do we do this at night, but we wait until a bit later when most are asleep? And when we approach, we come in low and fast.”

  Bill nodded. “Good points.” Looking around the assembled group, he asked, “Anyone know if there’s a moon tonight and if so, when it’ll rise?”

  Beron, the only true seafarer in the lounge, and more attuned to the lunar cycles, answered. “Waxing crescent, rises at eleven-fifteen tonight”

  “Huh?” questioned Ford. Bill and the Explorers knew what the captain meant, but elected to let him explain.

  “That means it’s just coming out of the new moon phase. Give it another couple of weeks and it’d be full.”

  Ford nodded his understanding.

  “Okay, we move the assault to eleven this evening,” Bill said. “That is, if we find them.”

  “And after you complete your assault? Where then?” Beron asked.

  “We make for land?”

  In a droll voice, the captain answered, “I expected that, but where? You want I should head back for the Confederacy, or maybe you’d like to avoid that particular place?”

  Considering all the grief they had experienced, Bill and the other Explorers were more than a little desirous of avoiding the Confederacy. “How close will we be to the United States?”

  “Right next to it. By the time we catch up with them Heinies, then wait for nightfall, we’ll likely be well offshore between New Jersey and Long Island. From there to the closest US port’s likely another a hundred or a hundred fifty knots away.”

  “That’d make it pretty easy to get into New York City, wouldn’t it?” Bill asked.

  “Yeah, but is that what you want? Heinies got a lot of spies there, and they ain’t nice people. Sooner shoot you than say hello. I’d suggest putting in somewhere you don’t have to worry about that. Matter of fact, I’d recommend you put in somewhere south of New York, that way you don’t even have to go through it or bypass it. That is, if you’re planning on heading to the Republic of California once you get ashore.”

  Beron got up and came back with a nautical chart of the eastern United States from Delaware to New York City. Setting it down on the table, he said, “Y’all take a look at this here chart and decide on where y’all want to go. As long as the water’s deep enough, I can get y’all in plenty close.”

  They studied the chart and looked at the location Beron said they’d likely find the German freighter.

  “Okay, so we put into a relatively small town, somewhere in New Jersey. Ideally, one with a train station,” Bill began. “That way Morty can drop us off, and he and Ian can go where they want with the flying cars. If we’ve got a copy of the plans by then, we’ll be fine.”

  “How about we pull into Delaware Bay,” Ford said. “They probably won’t be expecting that.”

  Bill looked at Beron. “Would that do?”

  Beron looked at the chart. “We could pull into Breakwater Harbor in Delaware. Not much of a port, but enough that we could pull in and unload y’all. Of course, if’n y’all’d druther offload at sea before daylight, y’all could simply launch from offshore near Rehobeth Beach. It’s a bit closer. Heck, as the crow flies, it’s probably less’n five miles ‘tween the two. We could up our speed and get y’all there in three hours. That’ll let y’all get y’all’s flying cars off while it’s still dark. Nobody’ll be the wiser.”

  “Do either of those places have a railroad? We’ll only have two cars, and both of those are supposed to head back to the Confederacy, which means the rest of us’ll be riding the rails.”

  “Considerin’ Rehobeth is a tourist destination, it should. But that’s no guarantee. At a minimum, it’ll likely have an interurban. Besides, just because there’s a railroad don’t necessarily mean there’ll
be passenger cars. Most ports just run cargo trains.”

  “Interurban?” Matt asked.

  “Where in the hell are y’all from, y’all don’t know about the interurbans? Just a light rail that runs short distances between cities. Most are tied in with the local streetcar networks.”

  Bill decided to deflect the old seaman rather than see him more suspicious. “Well, the Republic of California is pretty hilly. We rely mostly on cable cars for short distances and cars for longer distances, like between towns and cities. Trains are for distance travel.”

  That seemed to mollify the captain.

  “So, first we find ‘em, then we move in about eleven o’clock. We’ll have Morty drop off Matt, Lane, and Ian with a fresh battery to charge the stolen car’s anti-gravity magnet. Morty returns for me and Jordan. Once we arrive, we find Einstein and the plans, and then get them off the ship. Beron,” Bill nodded to the captain, “should be bringing the yacht up, so Morty can drop off whatever we pull off the ship. Captain, if we need you to fire on that freighter, can we count on you?”

  “Hell, yeah. Ain’t no Heinie gonna take out a good ole’ boy and get away with it if I can help. Hell, it’s a freighter. I can run rings around it.”

  “Looks like we got us a plan. Anybody got a problem with that?” Bill asked the group. He was greeted with head-shaking all around.

  “All right, then. Once we get everything on board, we head for Delaware at full speed. Once we see the lights of town, we get the cars, Einstein, and the plans off. We’ll all meet on the beach. We can decide who flies after the op. Any questions?”

  Ford raised his hand.

  “Yeah, Morty?”

  “Not to be too much of a stick in the mud, but the Dixie Flyers and plans are technically mine. Well, my company’s. How do I know you gentlemen’ll abide by our agreement?”

  “That’s something you’re gonna have to trust us on,” Bill said.

  Rhodes immediately piped up. “Look, mate, we’ve already gone this far to get your stuff back. We aren’t Heinies — we gave you our word. Hell, we even got you this vessel to get your stuff back. How much more trust do you need?”

  Bill added, “Once we get everything on board, the cars are yours. We just want copies of the plans, and we can do that by taking photographs of them. We’ll even take three sets of photographs and give each of you one. As to Einstein, he’s gonna have to decide what he wants. I suggest we all offer him our support and see where he wants to go. He can stay with you, Morty, go with Ian, or, if he decides, come back to the Republic of California with us. The key thing is, he decides what he wants to do. We don’t.”

  Bill suspected Einstein, once he heard about Hayek, wouldn’t hesitate to take the Explorers’ offer of asylum.

  73

  The CBE agents finally made it to Savannah, with the first stop being the harbormaster’s office. Upon seeing Drew’s newly issued credentials, the old, overweight harbormaster was more than happy to help out. It turned out that there were several Imperial German freighters in port, but none had left recently, and he certainly hadn’t seen any flying cars. Drew had the man call the local customs officer. “We’re gonna board each and every one of those freighters, looking for that car. It’s supposed to be a cherry red Dixie Flyer. Probably got some bullet holes in it, too.”

  A couple of hours later, and after searching the sweltering interiors of half a dozen freighters, Drew concluded that the Germans hadn’t flown to Savannah. Or, if they had, they weren’t on any of the freighters in port. Drew had removed his jacket during the search, but that hadn’t stopped the sweat from soaking through his shirt, plastering it to his skin. Stepping on deck from the final vessel’s cargo hold, Drew could feel the onshore breeze evaporating the sweat, despite the high humidity. It felt a lot better than being in the un-air-conditioned cargo hold. How the hell does anyone work in that environment?

  Before heading south to investigate the next port, Drew reported back to Haussmann on his findings, and to see if the CBE agents from the other states had found the car yet. They had not.

  Rather than travel to each port as Haussmann had ordered, he decided to make phone calls, using the harbormaster’s office. While all of the ports he spoke to either had German freighters leave or arrive recently, none had any leave in the last day or so. Loading and unloading a freighter usually took several days to a week, depending on the cargo.

  When he called Haussman back and told him what he learned, he was told that the Germans had been spotted in Charleston, but they had already left.

  “If that’s where they were, then our suspects are either there or on their way, so get your butt up there,” Haussman ordered.

  Drew and the two other CBE agents hopped back in the car and made the hundred-and-ten-mile-long trip from the Port of Savannah to the Port of Charleston in less than two hours, which was a miracle considering the shape of the Confederate Highway System. Lunch was a couple of burgers picked up at a drive-in diner in Hardee, just across the Georgia-South Carolina state line, and eaten on the road. It didn’t help that the road was bumpy, and more than one piece of food, usually a tomato slice or mayonnaise-encrusted piece of salad, would slip out of the burger package into a lap, leaving an indelible stain on the crotch of the victim. For Drew, it was a tomato slice. He was definitely not having a good day.

  As they pulled up to the Charleston waterfront, Drew saw a number of vessels, including freighters, tankers, and yachts. The yachts were a combination of sailing and motor yachts. Agent Smith parked at the end of a wharf and the three agents got out and walked onto the wharf. A luxury yacht with a canvas-covered object on its quarterdeck and the name Enigma painted on the stern was just pulling out. What a strange name for a yacht, he thought. He then noticed the yacht sported two Ma Deuce .50 caliber machine guns, one at either end. He wondered how effective they were against pirates. Here it is, the twenty-first century, and we’re still dealing with pirates. You’d think the Brits, with their vaunted navy, would have put a stop to them by now. Had he thought about it a bit more, he probably would have suspected that the British were deliberately not putting a stop to piracy, particularly since most piracy affected shipping that didn’t fly the Union Jack.

  Had Drew also studied his Caribbean history, he would have learned that the Brits used to fund pirates, called privateers, against the Spanish, the French, and then against the old United States. Of course, privateers were, for the most part, legitimate, being issued Letters of Marque which allowed them to attack enemy shipping, with some of the proceeds going back to the government to help fund whatever war was happening. Few privateers operated nowadays, but occasionally Letters of Marque were issued, particularly by the smaller countries, such as the CSA, that were unable to fund a large standing navy.

  Drew looked around until he found somebody who looked like they worked there. Approaching the man, he asked where he could find the harbormaster.

  “Probably in the harbormaster office,” the man replied. Drew’s exasperation must have shown because before he could tell the man he wasn’t from Charleston, the man pointed down the street. “It’s down thataway. Go down Bay and turn a right onto Broad Street. You’ll find it right on the river.”

  Drew thanked the man and got the other two agents’ attention. “Let’s go check in with the harbormaster. He might know something.

  A short ride later, the three men were at the harbormaster’s office. Drew went in, introduced himself to the young lady manning the front desk, and requested to speak with the harbormaster. She told him that he was out, inspecting a vessel that was reported leaking bunker fuel, but she’d send a runner for him. Drew thanked her, then took a seat on the beat-up leather-covered couch in the waiting areas while she sent a young Negro to find the man.

  As Drew sat, he was grateful for the open windows and the sea breeze that blew through them. He could imagine it got quite difficult for the secretary on really windy days.

  The harbormaster showed up in les
s than ten minutes, sweat dripping off his beet-red face. The man was one who obviously enjoyed eating, as the buttons of his sweat-soaked short-sleeved shirt threatened to pop off from the strain exerted on them by his massive belly, which jiggled as he walked.

  “Mary said you needed to see me,” he said, holding out his hand. Taking the sweaty palm in his own, trying not to wince, Drew responded with a nod. “Can we talk in your office?”

  “Sure, it’s right there,” he said, pointing to a door behind the front desk. As the men headed to the office, the harbormaster said to Mary, “Honey, go grab us a coupla sweet teas.”

  “So, how can I help the CBE?” the man asked as he plopped down into a wooden swivel chair behind a desk that had a nameplate with “Hiram Bellfont” on it.

  “Looking for some murder suspects. They killed a police officer in Memphis, then a couple of CBE agents and another cop in Atlanta.”

  That caused Bellfont’s eyebrows to rise. “And you think they’re here.”

  “Yep. We suspect they were chasing after a couple of Germans who stole a flying car.”

  “I seen that! That there flying car, that is. Cherry red Dixie Flyer. The Heinies loaded it up on a Heinie freighter and took it out yesterday.”

  “That’d be the one. The guys I’m after are two whites, a Hawaiian, and a Negro. Have you seen them? They would’ve probably arrived yesterday or earlier today, if they haven’t already.”

  “Can’t say that I have. I’ll have my boys look around, though.”

  Mary returned with the sweet tea. It was clearly designed to throw the unsuspecting into a diabetic coma with just a few chugs, it was that sweet. But, it was also cold, and certainly hit the spot. Drew felt a bit guilty about having some while his companions sat alone outside, but not to the point of disrupting his conversation with Bellfont. But then, Mary said, “I hope you don’t mind, but I also took some tea out to them fine young fellows waiting for you outside.”