Airship Hunters

by Jim Beard

  Valiantine quickly complied. In the yellow gleam, Cabot stood before the open door of the safe.

  “Cabot, that’s—that’s amazing!”

  “Perhaps. Primarily it is very tiring. Take a look in there, will you, while I catch my breath.”

  Valiantine stepped forward as Cabot stepped back. “Really, I am very impressed. How did you do that?”

  “I had a good teacher,” Cabot answered. “He said, ‘Think of the safe as if it is a woman. You must be patient and gentle and kind. Especially patient. And then she will be yours.’ What do you find?”

  “Some currency—it will take your eye instead of mine to determine whether it’s genuine or fake. Papers. But nothing about our investigations, and I don’t see Wellington or Scarborough’s name on anything here.”

  “Nothing else?” Cabot’s spirits slumped.

  “A velvet bag. Here. Did you say Gallows put the coin in a wooden box?”

  “Yes!”

  “Then here we may be.” Valiantine drew three wooden boxes from a black drawstring bag and arranged them on Gallows’ desk. In a snap they were open, and the lamp shone on the coin within each.

  Cabot caught his breath. “That’s them! Not all, I think, but perhaps he doesn’t have them all.”

  He bent closer to examine the coins’ details. “Odd,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  “I can’t tell which is the one I found in Kansas. Maybe none is. But they all seem far more worn than the ones I’ve seen so far.”

  “The same type of coin as the ones you’ve seen?”

  “Oh, yes. And I can just make out the dates—again, same age as the ones I had in my hands. But they look so much older, worn down.” Cabot reached out and touched the dull surface of one of the coins. “By Gadfrey!”

  “What?”

  “Look—just my touch seems to have... smudged the raised surface of the coin, marred the design. And here, my fingertip: it’s shiny, as though the metal was turning to dust and lifted from the money onto my skin.”

  “Is it really gold?”

  “Yes, yes, I’d swear so. But the coin seems to be... I’m not sure. Decaying? I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

  “Do you suppose they are—it sounds completely fantastic even to me as I say it—turning into slugs like the others that were found by the police?”

  “I suppose that is possible—we certainly have reached the point where ‘fantastic’ means something different now than what it did several weeks ago. I had thought someone had stolen the other coins, replaced them with slugs. Perhaps one faction stealing from the other, or the original owners attempting to steal back clues they had accidentally left behind. But one metal degrading into another like that? It still seems rather unlikely.”

  Valiantine tapped a finger against Cabot’s shoulder. “Diamonds come from coal, I hear.”

  “But that requires... geological time. These coins have only been around a few weeks.”

  “Certainly it’s beyond my understanding. What next?”

  Cabot closed the boxes and handed one to Valiantine. “Take this one. I’ll take the others.” He put a box in each of his jacket pockets. “Return the bag to the safe, then we’ll close her up and be on our way.”

  “But what will we do with them? How do they help us? We still don’t know anything further about the plot, if there is one, what our superiors have to do with any of this...”

  “I don’t know,” Cabot said. “Perhaps we can use the coins as some sort of leverage, find out what’s going on. But there’s nothing else here we can use. Let’s clean up and leave.”

  As they swept the room for signs of their entry and search, Valiantine said, “Cabot, I want to say—I’m sorry about that outburst. On the train. You’ve been through a great strain.”

  “Forget it.”

  “But you can’t. It will be there, always. I’m a military man. I’ve experienced terrible battles, seen men do horrific things to other men. They come back when I least expect. Waiting for my eyes to close, for a relaxing moment in the sun, a drowsy afternoon while I’m gazing at leaves moving in a breeze.” They were standing by the door. He gripped Cabot’s arm. “I’m sorry, my friend.”

  Cabot nodded, then he gestured toward the door. “Let’s go.”

  He locked Gallows’ office door behind them, and did the same to the anteroom door. The two retraced their steps along the hall to the door at the top of the stairway. They paused to listen for sounds of any other movements before descending. Over the rail. To the door. Valiantine doused the lamp. Cabot cracked open the door.

  He opened it a bit farther. “Clear.”

  The two men slipped out the door and were down the steps and heading back for the trees in moments.

  A voice stopped them in their tracks: “Gentlemen, I am surprised to see you remaining so diligent about your duties even when you have been suspended from them.” Gallows’ voice.

  The Aero-Marshals turned. Gallows and another figure were approaching from the shadows at the near corner of the building. The second spoke: “I told you, sir. I saw Cabot on Burnley’s porch, then I followed him here. I kept an eye out for him, just as you asked.”

  “Yes, you did well, Mr. Turner.”

  Cabot’s flight reflex was pushed aside by a sudden fury. “Rufus, you ambitious, preening bastard. Get out of this. Now.”

  Gallows stopped a dozen feet away. “Mr. Cabot, that is hardly the professional demeanor I would have expected from you. Particularly toward a colleague.”

  Turner stood a couple of feet behind and to the left of Gallows. Light from a distant lamp gave his sandy hair the look of brown smoke. A timid smile twitched across his lips.

  “I’m not sure what you are about,” Gallows said. “But it is just as well you are here.”

  Valiantine whispered, “Cabot, a wise retreat is in order.”

  Cabot was tired of running from his anger, his fears, the mysteries that whirled just out of reach. He refused to listen to the lieutenant’s counsel. “What’s going on here, Director? We’re not sure what you’re about, either.”

  “You’re very bold, Cabot,” Turner taunted.

  Cabot released his venom: “As are you, Rufus, behind another man’s skirts.”

  Gallows tutted. “My goodness, Mr. Cabot, your time in the frontier has done you no good turn.”

  Cabot felt the leash to his anger fall away. He leapt upon Gallows bodily, a growl rolling from his throat. The older man fell back, Cabot upon him.

  Turner squawked and danced backward as Cabot pummeled Gallows’ face and body with all his might. His fury fused with his frustration and powered his fists as he thumped his former superior. Gallows did not cry out, but grunted and groaned as he was thrashed.

  Valiantine had dropped the lamp and clawed at Cabot’s shoulders, trying to pull his partner off the older man. But the younger agent’s rage kept him wiggling from the lieutenant’s grasp, and he continued to pound Gallows’ face, ribs and chest.

  Finally Cabot began to tire, and Valiantine succeeded in untangling his partner from atop Gallows. He got Cabot to his feet. The younger agent’s chest heaved. He looked down at Gallows and his sight seemed to clear. The man’s face was a bloody mess. The Director groaned a long, rolling moan like someone trying to wake from a nightmare. Turner stood a yard away, his feet moving here and there, clearly unsure whether he should help Gallows or flee.

  Cabot heard Valiantine’s voice in his ear: “He wasn’t fighting back. He wanted to keep us here. It was a delaying action. We must leave. Now.”

  Cabot wheezed, “Damn.” Valiantine turned him around and got his partner stumbling toward the deeper shadows under the trees.

  Then the shadows moved. The trunks of the trees seemed to walk toward the two agents. The darkness separated and the moving figures were men in uniform.

  “It’s them,” Cabot said.

  They wore uniforms like those of the first victim they had found in Lou
isville. There were at least twenty of them, all armed with rifles.

  Cabot turned to the left, Valiantine to the right. More of them were appearing from the shadows. The two agents were ringed in.

  Cabot shook his head, still angry but now exhausted. “I’m sorry, Valiantine. I’m sorry.”

  The guards halted. In their circle were the Aero-Marshals and Turner.

  The latter spoke up: “What is all this? Who are these men?”

  Two more figures advanced at a stately pace from under the trees. They took their place in the circle of soldiers: Wellington and the third man the agents had seen getting off the train in Luray.

  The latter gestured, and one of the soldiers fired. The sound was a shock to Cabot’s nerves, and his knees nearly gave way. But the greater surprise was seeing Turner collapse to the ground like a dropped bag of grain.

  Two of the soldiers approached and helped Gallows to his feet. He slumped between them as they led him away into the darkness.

  The third man stepped forward. Valiantine’s rage was clear in his voice: “What the hell is this? Who are you people? What is going on here?”

  The stranger smiled. “Lieutenant Valiantine, Agent Cabot. It is a pleasure finally to meet you. Please allow me to introduce myself. My name is Barnaby Scarborough. And you are my prisoners.”

  THE LAST HUNT

  Jim Beard

  October 1897

  Everything was wrong.

  Valiantine’s eyes flicked from spot to spot while in his mind he ticked off the list: dirt on boot, crease in trousers, button askew, hair on sleeve, crumb on seat. The list expanded as he identified spots, piling up around him with maddening speed.

  Everything was out of place. Everything seemed alien to him.

  Wrestling internally with his compulsions, he looked over at the chief source of his irritation, his so-called superior, Major Wellington.

  After Valiantine and Cabot’s capture at the Treasury building, they’d been divested of their pistols, handcuffed, and blindfolded. Later, they’d been made to sit in a cart for a few hours until the sun had come up and from there they’d been hustled onto a train, still blindfolded. It struck him the measure was more to keep them off-balance than from recognizing their surroundings; he himself had learned this tactic in the field, a valuable tool when dealing with insurgents and the like.

  Perhaps that’s what Cabot and I are now considered, he thought. Insurgents. So be it.

  Though they were no longer armed rebels, they still harbored something of value, or something Valiantine hoped was of value. While Cabot pummeled Gallows, he’d managed to slip the coins they’d taken from Gallows’ safe into his right boot, silently blessing the distraction. They rested there, strangely warm against the side of his foot and, so far as he could divine, unknown to those he’d come to think of as the Trio.

  Those thoughts served to distract him from his nervous tics. They’d gotten worse, as they always did when he was at rest, not engaged in movement or action or great mental concentration. While he and Cabot had been running hither and yon, hunting airships, his aberration was relatively quiet; now, in the present and under arrest, they began to manifest in ever growing waves. The stress of the situation, and the time to dwell upon it, did that.

  The agents’ blindfolds and, surprisingly, their handcuffs had been removed once the train had gotten underway, allowing them full view of that stressful situation. Wellington sat across from them and next to one of the uniformed soldiers. In nearby seats sat more of the soldiers, filling at least half the car; the remaining seats were occupied by men in suits, many of them with the appearance of importance or rank. There was no sign of Scarborough or Gallows.

  At one end of the car, a quartet of musicians sat playing a tune from Berlioz.

  No one but Wellington looked at Valiantine. The Army man fought down his compulsions and stared back at his former superior officer. The major looked pale, almost ghostly white, and Valiantine wondered why he hadn’t noticed the man’s condition before. It reminded him, for some reason, of the coins and their own degradation, and he wondered if there was some connection there.

  “I’m envious of you, Cabot,” he said, his eyes flicking over to his partner momentarily. He tried not to linger on the Treasury man’s bruised and swollen hands, but forced himself to concentrate his thoughts.

  “How’s that?” Cabot asked, sullen.

  Valiantine looked back to the major, locking eyes with him again. “Envious of your opportunity and wherewithal to thrash your boss. I should like a similar chance to pummel our friend here.”

  One side of Cabot’s mouth quirked up. “Shouldn’t speak so of your superior, Valiantine. It’s disrespectful of his office.”

  “Oh, he’s not my superior,” the lieutenant said in earnest, almost enjoying the smoldering, growing fire behind the major’s eyes.

  Cabot shrugged. “Your commanding officer, then. Whatever have you.”

  “No,” Valiantine corrected, “what I meant was that this man is not Bertram Wellington. He’s an imposter.”

  It had taken the lieutenant far too long to realize the truth of it, but he told himself there had been too many distractions along the way. Now, it was all too clear.

  The train had been moving slowly as it left the city, but it began to pick up speed. Valiantine saw they were chugging northward. He guessed they might be headed to Baltimore, or even Philadelphia. But why?

  The major sat forward suddenly, opened his mouth to speak, his eyes fiery but his face still cold and dead. A hand appeared on his shoulder, stilling him. Barnaby Scarborough.

  The great granite block of a man stepped from one side of Wellington and, ousting the soldier there, sat down beside him facing the two agents. The major actually had to slide over a bit to accommodate Scarborough’s massive frame. Valiantine studied the broad, rocky face, the wavy black hair, and the piercing blue eyes, as well as the man’s ghostly pallor. The paleness of his skin matched that of the major, yet perhaps it was even more blanched; the Lieutenant fancied it was glowing from within, colorless and luminescent.

  “You are both right and wrong, sir,” Scarborough said, settling his cane between his legs. “But for our purposes, this is the Bertram Wellington you know.” He indicated the major with a minute sideways jut of his huge jaw. Wellington glowered, frowning all the while. The musicians moved on to a Brahms melody.

  Scarborough appraised the two agents, as if for the first time. “You’ve caused us many a problem for two men whose backgrounds and histories seemed to indicate loyalty to duty and only minor forays into, shall we say, divergent thinking. You were meant to be of little use to us, and so, with your gross misconduct, we have now found a greater part for you to play. Both of you.”

  Valiantine ignored a small blot of dried condiment on Scarborough’s vest and returned the man’s gaze. “That makes little or no sense. What conspiracy are you up to? Why this complete sham of ‘Department A-13’? Why involve us at all, sending us out to investigate a thing of which you apparently possessed full knowledge?”

  The large man squinted at the lieutenant, the pale skin at the corners of his eyes crinkling like waxed paper in a butcher’s shop.

  “No,” he said. “No, I’m afraid we’re not here to answer your questions, Lieutenant Valiantine. We’re not some villains from your dime novels with ponderous explanations of our wretched schemes.”

  Cabot shifted beside Valiantine, and the lieutenant sensed his partner’s growing frustrations. It was all very maddening, the two men who sat across from them, seemingly solid and real, yet untouchable in a way, owing to their positions in the District of Columbia. He wanted to reach out and smash their skulls together until nothing was left but a pulpy red mass of bone and tissue.

  Scarborough smiled, but without mirth. He reminded the lieutenant of an albino reptile he’d once seen in a zoological garden.

  “We are explorers,” the man said, glancing at Wellington. “And, I suppose, scientists
of a kind, too.” He turned to skewer both agents in turn with his haunting eyes.

  “Your world is not yet ready for what we offer. And so, we have been acclimating it to ours.”

  The enigmatic words chilled Valiantine. His head swam from the sheer senselessness of them, so much that he momentarily forgot his compulsions.

  “And yet,” Cabot said quietly, “someone opposes you.”

  The lieutenant saw the reaction his partner’s words had on the two men. The two villains of the piece, he told himself, in spite of their high-minded talk. They reacted as if slapped across their faces.

  Scarborough recovered swiftly; Wellington did not. The large man frowned, gripping his cane, lifting it, and lightly tamping it back down again on the floorboards. Valiantine thought he might try and batter them with it.

  “You will be implicated in the death of Turner; we’ve seen to that,” the Executive Director said. “And more. Much more.”

  Valiantine watched as Scarborough’s eyes drifted heavenward. Cabot spoke again.

  “I presume you’re close to the President. Such proximity is dangerous to you, even for a snake. McKinley’s not a fool; he’ll find you out.”

  That produced a small glint in Scarborough’s eyes. He leaned a bit in the Treasury man’s direction, addressing him.

  “Why don’t you tell him all about it yourself, Agent Cabot?” he said with a slight grin. “Our new Commander in Chief is right here on this very train.”

  The coins in his boot had grown even warmer, or so Valiantine thought. Outside the railcar window, the landscape whisked by, but he paid it little attention.

  Around the two agents, the passengers went about their own business with little or no notice of them. The musicians continued playing. It was all very surreal.

  “You aim to assassinate him,” the lieutenant said. “It’s sheer madness.”

  Next to him Cabot shifted slightly; Valiantine sensed his partner’s dismay, but also his focus. If he knew him at all, even after the short time they’d been together, the Treasury man was priming himself like a rifle, ready for business. Good man, he thought.