Fiddlehead (The Clockwork Century)

by Priest, Cherie

  “So this is where you tell us about your program to end the war. Or how you got the money for it, behind my back, if I can infer a few things from your grand announcement,” the president said, just loudly enough to dampen the room’s uncomfortable murmur. When surprised silence was achieved, he added, “Because I sure as hell didn’t sign off on this.”

  Fowler stood up straighter and placed a hand on Katharine’s shoulder. Grant couldn’t shake the impression that he didn’t mean to calm her, but to draw on her strength—and it unnerved him, though he couldn’t find a clear enough place in his head to sort out precisely why.

  “Mr. President,” the Secretary of State began, with a defensive note in his voice. “Allocation of funds occurs at your discretion, yes—in this instance, at any rate. But I believed in Miss Haymes’s program, and I was able to strike a deal that wouldn’t dip into the Union’s coffers.”

  Grant pulled up a chair. It was a big, heavy chair, and he moved it easily, leaving a trail as he drew it roughly across the knotted rug, which he found perversely satisfying. He dropped himself into that chair, facing both Desmond and Katharine. Fixing them with a gaze that demanded answers, even if he was afraid to hear them. “This must be one hell of a deal, then. It must be so good, you’ll hardly have to sell it. I’m sure we’ll all be on board the very minute the explanation leaves your mouth.”

  The room’s other occupants—nine men of various allegiances, motives, calibers, and competencies—congealed around the scene, lurking at the sideboard and the liquor cabinet, or milling about at the edges of their bright, unhappy circle.

  Fowler didn’t waver or find a chair of his own. Katharine patted his hand, and then she answered for him. “Gentlemen, Mr. President, thank you for granting me an audience this evening. I am well aware that my presence here means this isn’t a typical war meeting, but I want to assure you all that war is the matter at hand. I am here to offer you the keys to victory.”

  Jemison Simms, an old-timer from Pennsylvania, was almost as difficult to impress as the president. And, apparently, he was better briefed. “That’s a peculiar proposition, ma’am, seeing as you’re a Southerner yourself. You’ve tamed your accent well, but your reputation precedes you.”

  Her reputation hadn’t gotten anywhere near Grant yet, a fact which he was prepared to place squarely in the deliberate, conniving hands of Desmond Fowler. He covered for his ignorance with a guess. “Yes, Miss Haymes—do explain why a Confederate woman of means has such an interest in seeing her nation defeated.”

  “Southern, yes. Confederate, no. They have nasty words for people like me south of the line, Mr. President.”

  Oh, but he had no doubt. And it took true physical effort on his part to keep from saying so. “Surely not,” he mustered successfully, if without sincerity. Maybe it wasn’t fair, the way he disliked her already—but if she wanted to make a better first impression on people, she could keep better company.

  “If there’s another name they’d like to give you, I’d expect it might be ‘criminal,’” Simms pushed, his fluffy white facial hair hiding most of his uncertain frown, but not all of it.

  Grant wasn’t sure what Simms was talking about, but Wigfall chimed in. Usually the way Wigfall liked to state and repeat the obvious annoyed him. This time, he was glad for any shred of context he could glean.

  “The Rossville incident,” Wigfall said. “The Rebs may not have held you accountable, but you may rest assured that Washington will.”

  Desmond Fowler cleared his throat. “On the contrary.”

  “She’s a war criminal,” Jemison Simms asserted. “And an enemy sympathizer, at that—though considering how much she’s contributed to the war effort down South, we may as well call her a treasonous enemy. She shouldn’t be allowed in the District at all, and you’ve brought her into a closed meeting.”

  A dim recollection started to take shape in the back of Grant’s mind. All these little pieces were adding up to a memory, some bit of trivia overheard and ignored. A Southern woman, making weapons and testing them … testing them inappropriately. Did she do it at a prison camp? Was that right? It felt right, as he turned the idea over, testing its familiarity. The more he thought about it, the more certain he was that yes, this was that same woman. Haymes. Not the sort of name that stuck out in a conversation. Not his fault that he hadn’t recognized it immediately.

  Wigfall joined in with Simms. “Perhaps we should contact the authorities, have her arrested on the spot.”

  Wryly, and not at all nervously, she replied, “I’m sitting in a room with the president. If you have a higher authority than that in mind, I’d like to hear about it.”

  This rebuttal caused all eyes to turn to Grant. Now he really hated her. But Desmond Fowler had cleared his throat and said … he’d said … oh, yes, now he remembered. The president asked, “What did you mean by ‘on the contrary,’ Fowler? Why isn’t she accountable here? Do you know something I don’t?”

  The question was so huge and ridiculous that he smiled in its wake. Fowler smiled back, and for one narrow, unreproducible instant, they might’ve shared a moment of camaraderie, had the subject been anything else in the world.

  The moment passed. Fowler’s grin condensed into something harder and differently cruel. “Miss Haymes and I have come to an agreement. A formal, legal agreement which has been signed off upon by Salmon P. Chase.”

  “Signed … signed off upon? That’s not even English,” Grant complained, but that wasn’t what really made him mad. “You think you can go running to the Supreme Court every time you want to take steps I don’t approve of?”

  “You’ll approve of this one when you hear it. But I didn’t have time to convince you outright, so I’ve taken a shortcut. And before you say so, yes, I know you can fight the Chief Justice on this. I have only his word to back it up. The rest of the court is not yet involved, though it certainly could become part of the game if it has to.”

  “Don’t threaten me, Fowler.”

  “No one’s threatening anyone!” he protested. “I’m only explaining why I’ve taken the path of least time investment and resistance. And if you’ll only let the lady speak, I think you’ll agree that I’ve come to the right conclusion.”

  “If you’re so sure I’d come around, why didn’t you just ask me in the first place?” Grant demanded. He walked over to the liquor cabinet despite only halfway noticing that he needed another drink, so accustomed were his hands to finding refills before he’d even detected the glass was empty.

  Fowler snuck a glance down at Katharine, who sat calmly and still. “Because Miss Haymes makes her case better than I do, but I was compelled to guarantee her safety during her visit. I did not have time to risk the possibility of your disapproval. Now, I’m asking you, Mr. President, if you’ll kindly hear her out. She might surprise you.”

  “Fine. Talk,” he commanded, and when he was finished pouring, he found his seat again. He leaned back, feeling stronger with the drink in his hand. “You’ve gone to all this trouble, after all. It’d be a shame to waste a judge’s signature. But I don’t care if you surprise me. I want you to impress me—and it had better be good, or I might well be sending a carriage around to Justice Chase’s house. The impolite hour be damned.”

  “Very well, and thank you,” she said, and the other men in the room hovered closer, huddling nearer to the tense little axis of drama.

  She began: “First, I’d like to thank you for giving me your time and your attention. And second, I must thank Mr. Fowler for being kind enough to make the arrangements which have made my visit possible.”

  Grant, out of patience and full of drink, interjected, “I hope ‘third’ brings us to the point.”

  “Third,” she continued, as if she hadn’t heard the naked irritation in his voice, “I am here because the CSA is losing the war, and I don’t want to go down with it. I’m not altruistic, and by your definition I absolutely am a criminal. I have nothing to hide, because all I wan
t is to protect myself. I want to survive the fall of the Confederacy, and whatever comes after it.”

  “And how do you plan to do that?” Jemison Simms asked, his usual grumpiness tempered by curiosity.

  “I enjoy bargaining, and I do it well; indeed, this is something that Mr. Fowler and I have in common—a deep-seated belief that in the midst of any difficulty, there is a compromise to be found that will benefit all parties.”

  “So what do you bring to the table, Miss Haymes?” Grant asked, because he knew better than anyone that political bargaining was just another way of saying “gambling.”

  “I bring the end of the South’s rebellion. I bring the end of your war—thanks to a weapon the likes of which the world has not yet seen.”

  “We’ve already got one of those—a submarine we’ve fished out of New Orleans. Our engineers are having a devil of a time with it, but they say exactly what you’re saying: It could end the war, reestablish the Anaconda plan, choke off their supplies at last.”

  A flicker of annoyance shadowed Haymes’s brow. “I’ve heard of this machine. The papers say it’s a modern marvel, and I have no reason to disbelieve them. But if I understand correctly, you can barely pilot the craft at all, and there’s only the one prototype. If you’re very lucky, you’ll ‘choke them off,’ as you put it, within another year or two at best. More likely three or four, if you ask me.”

  She wasn’t entirely wrong, and that was the only reason Grant didn’t interrupt.

  Since no one else interrupted, either, she went on. “I can bring you something better. Something faster, and more powerful. Something tested, proven, and catastrophic—something that could end the war in a single battle, if the battle is chosen wisely. Or a single target, depending on your personal commitment to the war’s conclusion.

  “I will provide you with this weapon, and it will cost you nothing.”

  “Oh, it’ll cost us something,” Simms growled.

  “Nothing you value,” she clarified. “I ask for amnesty and immunity with regards to any charges resulting from the Rossville incident in 1878, so that when the Union is ultimately restored, I can rejoin it with a clean slate. No charges, no threats—just the chance to begin again.”

  “Without a cloud hanging over you?” Simms asked, almost as rude sober as Grant could be while drinking. “That’s what it was, am I correct? Or that’s how I’ve heard it described.”

  Grant didn’t have time to hide his confusion. “A cloud?”

  “Of gas. Poisonous gas, used on our soldiers. One witness said it looked like an enormous yellow cloud, heavy enough to settle across the compound and kill everyone who breathed it.”

  Without so much as a penitent lowering of her eyes, Katharine Haymes replied, “Not a bad assessment. That is what it looks like to the uninformed observer, yes—a yellow cloud. But whatever it looks like, Fort Chattanooga demanded a field test, and you can’t seriously think that they would allow me to test it on Confederate soldiers. They were the ones who decided to use prisoners, not me. And once the results hit the papers and telegraph wires, they needed someone to blame for the breach in wartime protocol, so they picked me. The weapon was designed with my money, in my factory, with my scientists and developers. My name was attached from start to finish. I was an easy scapegoat.”

  The president found it very difficult to believe that this woman had been anyone’s scapegoat; she struck him as the kind of person who used other people, not the reverse. But she was a woman, it was true; and she was a woman with money, and he’d known plenty of men who didn’t like that combination. He mustered a small sliver of doubt, only to feel it wither and crumble.

  She continued: “I know all too well what the Union thinks of me now, but none of it was my call. I want to make clear that I’m an ally, and I was an American before I was ever declared a Confederate. That’s why I’m requesting formal amnesty.”

  She sighed, and made a visible effort to soften herself. “As you must know, it can be difficult for an unmarried woman to survive in this world, in this war. While my father was alive, I could rely on him—never my mother, who passed away when I was a child. So you see? I’ve been alone, without guidance or protection for all of my life. And I’ll be the first to admit I’ve made mistakes. Plenty of them, if you want the truth. But I refuse to allow this one to haunt me through the reconstruction of my nation. I am a patriot, Mr. President, but I have fought for my own survival long enough. It’s time for me to fight for my country: the United States of America.”

  “That’s a pretty way of saying you don’t want to go to prison.” He looked down at his glass. It was empty. He couldn’t remember having taken a single swallow.

  “Take it as you like. But I’d like to throw my weight behind the Union, if the Union will have me. I’ll end your war in a fortnight if you’ll let me take charge of the project, or if you’ll allow Mr. Fowler to pursue it on my behalf, with my assistance.”

  “That’s a bold claim.” The way Grant said it was just short of an accusation. She couldn’t possibly do any such thing. Could she?

  “It’s a bold program.” She patted Desmond Fowler’s hand. “And it’s a bold man you have on your team, to take such a risk. As for the weapons we’re developing—I could arrange for a demonstration, perhaps. Not soldiers, of course,” she specified. “Maybe dogs, or horses, or—”

  Grant was too drunk to keep the horror to himself. “Dear God, woman. If the weapon is half what you claim it is, it ought to be tested in battle—not on dogs, and certainly not horses!”

  She smirked at him, and he wanted to punch her—a desire which shamed him even as the thought of it delighted him. The prospect of running a fist into her smug, pretty face. A face that Desmond Fowler could scarcely stop looking at. A lying face. He was as confident of that as the drink in his hand. Except the drink was gone, his glass empty.

  Fine, then. He wasn’t sure of anything.

  “Very well then, Mr. President. I understand your reluctance, and I’m flattered by it. You give me credit for having created something terrible, and I thank you.”

  He shuddered. “What an awful thing to say.”

  “More awful than war itself?” she asked. “Terrible things are necessary sometimes. One might argue that any means to the end of hostilities might call itself a virtue, no matter how frightful the initial cost. If we kill a few thousand people in the South and they tremble before the Union’s military might … then we might save the lives of tens of thousands more. How many have died already, Mr. President?”

  “More than tens of thousands. Hundreds.”

  “Hundreds from battle alone, or hundreds more from the disease, terror, and famine that comes in a war’s wake?”

  “I could not say.” He did not know.

  “But you’ve seen it yourself. You know the war better than anyone, and I do not think that you love it. I believe you want to see it concluded, in order to begin the long work of reconstructing the nation.”

  She had him there. “I hate the war. If I could end it tomorrow, I would do so.”

  Her smile was both sharper and more frightening than a line of bayonets, and Grant had walked right into it. “Then we do agree after all. I do think we can work together, Mr. President. I’ll end your war if you let me. I’ll give you back your country, in exchange for a clean reputation.”

  He shook his head, not to argue with her but because she was asking for more than he could offer. Immunity from prosecution? That was easy enough to come by; he could hand it over with a signature. But should he? He did not believe her when she’d called herself a scapegoat. He did not believe that she’s unknowingly been party to a war crime, and he did not believe that she wanted nothing else from him—nothing at all. But if he asked her now, she’d only lie some more, and he was too drunk to sort out the particulars.

  There was nothing else he could say. He could either play along and pretend he was running the show, or he could fight and lose, and then everyone would
know how weak he’d truly become.

  And to think, these men wanted him to run for another term. But he hadn’t fought that, either. He’d missed his chance. And now, he was on a ballot, in a yellow oval, in a white house, in a cage of his own making.

  Could he survive a fourth term? Would he want to?

  He stood up without another word, set his glass down on the sideboard by the door, and walked out.

  He did not stumble until he was around the corner, so no one saw it, thank God; except then Jemison Simms stuck his head out to ask, “Mr. President?”

  Grant did not turn around, only waved and said, “I’m fine. Leave me alone. I need to think.”

  Simms, having known the president since they’d served in the war together, on the ground and on horseback, in uniforms instead of suits … decided (wisely, in Grant’s estimation) to leave the matter alone and go back inside.

  The president assumed that Simms would settle things and send the cabinet home from what had to be one of the worst War Department meetings in the history of such meetings. Was it even an official meeting? No. Not with that woman there. Not with that cat among pigeons.

  And Desmond Fowler—the fattest, worst pigeon of them all—was standing right behind her. His hand on her shoulder, not to control her but to take direction from her. Grant did not like that. Not in the slightest. Because Fowler was right about several things, including a few he hadn’t said, but only implied, like the fact that Grant would lose if he fought him. And that was the crux of it, wasn’t it? He’d brought Fowler in to be the Secretary of State because Fowler understood the way Washington worked. He understood politics, and politicking, as a duck knows water. That’s why he’d needed him eight years before, and that’s why he’d become so powerful: because Grant was a soldier, not a statesman. He did not know—and had never understood, not for five sober seconds—how things worked between men of state.

  Maybe war wasn’t the most terrible thing of all. It was easy to understand, for all the carnage and misery. Here is one side. Here is another. You try to kill each other, and the best army with the best strategists wins, barring unexpected interference.