Precipice

by Thomas Webb

  Montclair nodded. “They know,” he said.

  Randall died in Montclair’s arms.

  Montclair buried his face in his brother’s neck. He shook as sobs wracked his body.

  Form the corner of Montclair’s eye, a gray-coated soldier raced toward the manse. Randall had forced the soldiers around the practice ground to swear oaths not to interfere, no matter the outcome, but the rest of Randall’s men had sworn no such oath.

  Montclair looked down at his brother, Randall’s eyes closed, his face serene. If not for the blood, he might have been sleeping. Randall was at peace, his reckless quest to restore the Montclair family name at an end. In a way, Montclair envied him. Randall’s war was done, but Montclair’s was just beginning. How could he go on now? How could he face Greg or his crew? Christ the Healer give him strength, how could he face Ayita after all this? Just the thought of it was a weight crushing the life from him, too much to bear.

  Montclair wiped his eyes and looked over to the makeshift stands. Phineas, eyes red-rimmed from crying, stared at him.

  "I loved your father,” he said to Phineas, “even though he—” Montclair’s voice broke. He gathered himself. There wasn’t much time. “It is your right to seek vengeance someday,” Montclair told his nephew, “as it is that of your brother,” he nodded toward little Randall, his face still hidden in his mother’s arms, little shoulders shaking with grief, “and your sister. Should any of you ever choose to claim that right, and though it might very well break me, then I-I would accept.”

  Montclair placed his brother’s head onto the ground, as gentle as if he were laying a child down to sleep, touched his face, kissed his forehead, and then crossed himself and whispered a prayer.

  Montclair stood on wavering legs. He glanced toward the manse. Soldiers would be pouring out of it soon.

  He met the cornflower-blue eyes of his brother’s widow and held them, though the act of doing so tore him apart. “I’m so very sorry,” he said, the words a world away from adequate, but what else could he say?

  Rebecca’s face was a mixture of grief, shock, and anger.

  He turned to his stepmother, meeting her gaze unflinching, matching her hatred drop for drop. “You,” he hissed. “You’re to blame for this.” He spat in the dirt. “If it wasn’t for my niece and nephews, I’d kill you where you sat.”

  “You’ve taken everything now,” Sadie said. “You’ve already killed me.”

  Shouting emanated from the Montclair manse. Any minute now, the practice field would be flooded with soldiers who’d been loyal to his brother. There wouldn’t be a single man or woman among them not wanting to tear him to pieces.

  Montclair spared his family one last glance then looked to the darkened swamps — swamps he knew like the back of his non-clockwerk hand. With enemies fast approaching, Montclair turned his back on what remained of his family and fled into the bayou.

  26 Washington, D.C. - DSI Headquarters, November 1866

  The grandfather clock’s ticking was driving Abe mad. The shadows from the morning sun had shifted since he’d arrived, and still, he waited.

  He sat on the hard wooden bench, dressed in his best suit, worrying and sweating like hell. A set of oak double doors, intricate inlaid carvings of twin lion heads on each, stood on the opposite side of the hall. Two clockwerk sentries — mechanical limbs polished to a blinding silver, rifles at right shoulder arms, and the seal of the Department of Strategic Intelligence stamped prominently on their chest plates — stood guard outside them.

  Abe glanced at the magnificent grandfather clock whose incessant ticking had tortured him for the past sixty-plus minutes. He appreciated the aesthetic beauty of it, its clockwerk technology a precursor to that of the mechanical sentries posted throughout DSI headquarters. He paid no attention to the position of the hands on its face. Instead, he chose, for what seemed the hundredth time, to check his own pocket watch. Taking it in and out of his waistcoat gave him something to do while he waited.

  Abe hadn’t seen another human since the clerk at the entrance had ushered him in. The clerk had offered Abe a glass of water, which he’d accepted. The glass sat in a puddle of its own condensation, untouched, next to him on the bench.

  Just when he’d begun to wonder how the morning could get any worse, his stomach rumbled. The hunger pangs served as a sharp reminder of the breakfast he’d missed.

  At last, the clockwerk sentries stepped aside, moving in lockstep as they pulled the doors open. Abe stood, took a deep breath, straightened his neckerchief, and marched in. A diminutive woman, the sole person in the meeting room, sat behind an oaken conference table large enough to accommodate several dozen with room to spare. Someone had placed a single chair in the center of the cavernous room, a good ten feet directly across from where the woman sat. He’d been clueless as to who waited on the opposite side of those double doors. Now, he knew.

  Abe walked forward until he stood beside the empty chair. He bowed slightly at the waist. “Vice Chairwoman Huffman,” Abe said, hoping he’d managed to disguise the nervousness in his voice. If one of the chairs of DSI Oversight herself had summoned him here, it meant he was in deep trouble.

  Vice Chairwoman Pratley Huffman smiled pleasantly. “Please, Agent Fluvelle,” she said. She indicated the chair beside him. “Have a seat.”

  Abe raised an eyebrow. If she was about to have him clamped in irons and sent off to some Healer-forsaken secret prison, she was certainly being polite about it.

  Abe looked around, as if at any second an army of clockwerks would come bursting through the doors to drag him away. A moment passed then two, but no men or machines entered the room, not even the two clockwerks stationed just outside.

  Still wary, Abe took his seat, very nearly knocking the chair over in the process. The identity of trained assassin and DSI agent hadn’t completely eclipsed the awkward, naïve young man he’d once been.

  Abe settled in and met the Vice Chairwoman’s gaze. Her eyes were kind despite all they’d seen. A mug of something — coffee, by the smell of it — sat steaming at her right hand.

  “Do you know why I called you here today, Agent Fluvelle?” she asked.

  If she sensed Abe’s discomfort, she wasn’t letting on. Her eyes may have been kind, but the rest of her was unreadable. It had to be that way, Abe supposed. Couldn’t exactly wear your heart on your sleeve, running an entire agency of spymasters specifically trained to pick up on such things.

  Abe swallowed hard, ready to accept whatever punishment came his way. “I assume this is about the mission to apprehend Worthington, ma’am,” he answered. “That and-and what happened to my minder.”

  The Vice Chairwoman nodded. “That’s correct, agent. You can relax,” she added. “You’re not in any trouble.”

  “I’m not?” Abe asked, thinking perhaps he’d misheard. He was professional enough not to sigh with relief. “Well, Vice Chairwoman, if, as you say, I’m not in any trouble… then what’s this meeting about?”

  Vice Chairwoman Huffman nodded toward the double doors. As if on command, the two clockwerks posted outside opened them.

  “You?” Abe said incredulously to the man who walked in.

  The man nodded. “Me,” he replied, laughing.

  Same brown skin, same salt and pepper beard, but the paint on his face was gone. The buckskins and moccasins he’d worn in Nebraska were gone as well, now replaced by a crisp suit tailored to fit the man to a tee.

  “Agent Fluvelle,” the Vice Chairwoman began, “I believe you’ve already had the pleasure, but let me formally introduce you to Agent Jamison Charles.”

  “No need for the formalities, Vice Chairwoman,” Agent Charles said. He turned to Abe and stuck out his hand. “You can call me Blackjack.”

  Abe stood and grasped the older man’s hand, his grip firm and dry. "Your moniker is Blackjack?” Abe asked. “As in the card game?"

  Blackjack laughed. "Something like that.” He tapped the skin on the back of his hand, as b
rown as a dried tobacco leaf in late fall. “Although I think it probably had something to do with this, too."

  Blackjack took his time walking around the table. He pulled out a chair next to the Vice Chairwoman and took a seat. They both sat across the table facing Abe.

  "Now that we’re all here,” the Vice Chairwoman said, “let’s get down to business.” She took a sip of her coffee. “First things first, we know you met with Scarlet and Colonel Montclair prior to your mission. As you know, this was in direct violation of your orders.”

  Abe’s heart sank. So he was in trouble. Abe went to open his mouth then thought better of it.

  Vice Chairwoman Huffman held up a hand. “No need to explain, agent, or to apologize. In matter of fact, it is we,” she hung her head, ”it is I… who owe not only you but all our agents an apology.”

  Abe frowned. “I don’t understand, Vice Chairwoman.”

  “We allowed a traitor into our midst, agent, right under our noses. We should have known, but he’d been laying the groundwork for this for years.”

  “Some did know, Vice Chairwoman,” Blackjack said.

  “Yes. Some did.” There was sorrow in her voice. “But their calls went unheard for far too long until they had no choice but to take matters into their own hands.”

  Suddenly, Abe understood. “You’re talking about the coup attempt,” he said.

  The Vice Chairwoman nodded. “Copperhead along with his protégé and a few others realized what was happening. They saw McCormick for who and what he truly was. It shames me to say that we on the Oversight Committee did not. We failed the agency. More importantly, we failed the agents. And-and Copperhead.” Her voice wavered. “You have no idea how much it pains me to say that.”

  Abe fought to control his anger. He turned to Blackjack. “What about you? Why didn’t you speak out against what was going on? Where were you when Copperhead needed you?”

  Blackjack met Abe’s eyes. Abe saw his own sadness reflected there. “Spent the last year and a half in a Spanish prison,” the spymaster said. “I escaped, of course.” He dismissed the act with a wave of his hand, as if it were no more difficult than a stroll in the park. “Just took me a while.”

  Abe looked at the man across from him, unconvinced.

  “It’s a long story, young man. I’ll tell it all to you one day, though.” Blackjack winked at him.

  Abe frowned. It was a sorry-assed attempt at lightening the mood in his opinion. If Blackjack noticed Abe’s displeasure, he ignored it.

  “Your minder was McCormick’s man,” Blackjack said, now serious. “Kingfish was keeping tabs on you the whole time. He would have killed you, too, had his conscience not got the best of him. Instead of ending you, he ended himself.”

  “Kingfish told me as much,” Abe said. “Before he did it, I mean, but it appears you’re all overlooking one fact. Yes, he would have killed me… unless I’d killed him first.”

  Blackjack laughed at that, deep and long. “That’s the spirit,” he said. He turned to Vice Chairwoman Huffman. “I like this boy. He has promise.”

  “Yes,” the Vice Chairwoman agreed. “He does.” She turned back to Abe. “Agent Fluvelle, you’ll be interested to know that Vice Chairman McCormick is now on the run. It’s a long overdue attempt at correcting an egregious error, but as of early this morning, McCormick has been officially sanctioned.”

  About damned time.

  Abe had only one question. “Where are Scarlet and Copperhead?”

  “Agent Alayne is safe,” the Vice Chairwoman said.

  Abe sent up a silent prayer of thanks to the Healer.

  “She’s here in Washington, and you’ll be pleased to learn her part in your joint operation with the Union Army and Marine Corps was a success.”

  “The Gambler’s in custody?” Abe asked.

  A slow nod from Vice Chairwoman Huffman was his answer.

  “And Copperhead?” Blackjack asked.

  Abe studied the senior DSI agent. How much of a history did he and Copperhead have?

  The Vice Chairwoman shook her head. “We don’t know Copperhead’s exact whereabouts yet.”

  Abe leapt to his feet, his concern for Scarlet alleviated and replaced by a terrible need to find Copperhead. “You don’t know where he is? The Gambler knows, and he’s in our custody. How the hell could you not know?”

  Blackjack tensed, ready to move. “Easy, son. I know you’re angry.”

  “Which is precisely why I’ll overlook your lack of decorum,” Vice Chairwoman Huffman interjected, “this time.”

  She waited for Abe to sit. Abe noticed that kindness he’d seen in her earlier had gone on hiatus. He found himself staring down a set of chestnut eyes as hard as wrought iron.

  “Now then,” she began, “if you’ve quite gotten a hold of yourself, agent, I can tell you that we do in fact have some idea of Copperhead’s location. Agent Alayne was able to question the Gambler extensively, and her interrogation has produced a lead. It was unfortunate, but even the Gambler wasn’t completely certain that Copperhead would still be in the same place. So no, we’re not one-hundred percent on finding him, but at least we have a place to start.”

  “Where?” Abe asked, already planning the operation in his head.

  “We think he’s being held somewhere on a DSI asset.”

  Blackjack looked over at the Vice Chairwoman, a question on his lips. “I’ve been out of the loop for some time, Pratley. I have some of the facts but not all of them. You’ll have to help me get up to speed here, so I ask you, if the agency owns the asset where he’s being held, then why don’t you just order Copperhead released?”

  Vice Chairwoman Huffman’s mouth formed a hard line. “McCormick’s treachery went deeper than we could ever have imagined,” she said. “He had his tentacles into everything. We recently discovered that McCormick had established several factions within DSI itself, complete with their own assets and the people to protect them.” The Vice Chairwoman exhaled. She closed her eyes, lowered her head, and massaged her temples. “A complete audit of the department has to be conducted. At this point, we don’t know who’s loyal to McCormick and who’s loyal to the agency. Some of the areas McCormick misled into joining him may not even know they’re following unlawful orders. We must proceed with the utmost caution, gentlemen.”

  Abe felt the anger welling up again. “How could this have happened?” he asked. “I’d thought DSI was impenetrable. Weren’t there safeguards in place?”

  The Vice Chairwoman had no reply.

  “We’ll find him, Abe,” Blackjack said. “I give you my word.”

  Abe frowned. He wanted to trust this man who called himself Blackjack, but he’d been burned before. “When Scarlet goes in to get her minder,” Abe said, “I want to be there with her.”

  Vice Chairwoman Huffman shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea agent. You see—”

  Abe gritted his teeth. His mind was set. “I don’t give a damn what you say, Vice Chairwoman. I’m going.”

  The Vice Chairwoman’s eyes narrowed. Her nostrils flared, her normally porcelain complexion flushing an angry red. “These are unusual times we find ourselves in, agent. Our friends and colleagues are in danger. We’re all angry, and we’re all hurting. It is for that reason and that reason only that I will let that last transgression slip. You’ve stepped out of line with me two times this morning. There will not be a third. Have I made myself clear, agent?”

  Abe considered the Vice Chairwoman’s eyes and saw that she meant it. “Yes, ma’am,” he answered. “Crystal.”

  “Good,” the Vice Chairwoman replied. “Now then,” she said, her tone softening, “you didn’t allow me to finish. What I was going to say is that I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to make that decision on your own. It’s something best left to your minder.”

  “My minder is dead, Vice Chairwoman,” Abe said bluntly.

  “You’re right, agent, a fact that is probably to all our benefits. Per
haps I misspoke? That decision will be up to your new minder.” The Vice Chairwoman turned to Blackjack. “What do you say to your protégé’s request, Agent Charles?”

  Blackjack smiled at Abe. “Like I told you when we first met, son, you deserved better. Better even than me, really, but I’m the best you’ve got. I promise I’ll try to be worthy of that. First thing I’ll teach you as a minder? For good or ill, we don’t always get what we deserve. Now as to your request…”

  Abe held his breath.

  “I was one of the first recruits Copperhead put through Indoctrination,” Blackjack said. “I owe that man as much as anyone. Soon as we verify Scarlet’s lead, then you, me, and her will be out of here on the first thing smoking. We’re getting Copperhead out of whatever shithole he’s been stashed in. I wouldn’t dream of leaving you behind."

  27 U.S.S. Intrepid - 45.2538° N, 69.4455° W, November 1866

  Frigid November wind bit through leather, wool, cotton, and flesh, cutting all the way to bone. Scarlet’s cheeks were numb, and she’d bet her last greenback they were as red as her fiery hair.

  She watched Vindication fade off into the distance. The Vindy had gotten them here, where they’d transferred onboard the Intrepid. Now, Major Stevens’ airship sped toward the aerial latitude and longitude of Copperhead’s last known location. In exchange for a cozy Union house arrest, the Gambler had sang like a sparrow, telling them everything he knew. There was no way to verify if the intelligence was stale, but it was the best chance they had of finding Copperhead.

  Enemy strength, vessel layout, even exact location were all unknown variables. Going in with that many question marks, with only the vaguest of idea what they were getting into, made this op rife with danger. There was a decided lack of information. Lack of information made for unknowns, and unknowns got agents killed. With only a slim chance Copperhead might still even be there, Scarlet admitted to herself that it was a stretch, but all the mission planning, what little they’d had time for, was done. Now, there was nothing left to do but execute.