Fiddlehead (The Clockwork Century)

by Priest, Cherie

  Henry knew he meant D.C. Softly, he said, “Baltimore for now. Details are in the packet. So’s the money and their free papers. Get ’em there safe, and there’s another fifty percent waiting for you. Our good uncle knows you really bent over backwards to get here.”

  “I guess he knows how I feel about the District, too.”

  Henry cleared his throat. “You might-could talk an extra bonus out of him, considering.”

  “Nah. This is what we agreed, and it’s enough. This one’s important.”

  Maria asked, “Because of the scientist?”

  Troost nodded. “That man’s got a bigger brain than anybody I ever met, and if you knew the crew I run with, you’d know that’s saying something. If it’s true what he says about his toy, and what it’s told him…” His voice trailed off like he was thinking of something else, and he wasn’t very happy about it.

  “You know about his machine?” Maria asked. “I thought it was of the utmost secrecy.”

  He laughed, and a puff of smoke flowed down his chin. “Secrets ain’t a thing to me, Cleopatra. I collect them like some men collect butterflies, except I don’t put ’em in a case for show. I live on them. They keep me alive.”

  “You must have some good ones.”

  “I do at that.”

  She pushed. “The kind that have kept you away from the District?”

  “That kind, yes.” For a moment he looked irritated, but it quickly passed. “And this kind, too. On the house, all right?” he said to Henry, in a voice dripping with conspiracy. “I understand you’ve got Miss Haymes involved in the situation.”

  Henry’s eyes narrowed. “You understand correctly.”

  “She’s trouble, that one. Worse trouble than this one.” He cocked his thumb toward Maria, who very nearly took it personally. “Chatting up your Secretary of State in a real friendly way.”

  “She wants a pardon,” Henry said. “That’s what our uncle told me. And she’s offering some new toys from her daddy’s workshops in exchange.”

  Troost snorted, not quite a laugh but definitely a sound of derision. “That’s not why she’s sniffing around the District. It’s just an excuse.”

  “Why, then?” Maria asked. “I thought she was wanted for murder.”

  “Murder, war crimes, what have you. She’s got enough money to shake it off. No, that’s not what she wants. She’s gunning for a Union weapons contract. Give the war another five years, and she’ll have more money than God.”

  “But the war won’t last another five years,” Henry argued. “Everybody knows it—and I thought that was the whole point of letting her come play up north: wrapping up this whole thing all the sooner.”

  “Oh, who knows how long it’ll last,” Troost said, coming to the end of his cigarette. He dropped the last coal to the floor and crushed it with his boot. “All she has to do is give the South something to get good and mad about, something they can take the moral high ground on, since they lost that the day they fired on Sumter. Then she can drag out the war indefinitely.”

  “And how do you think she’s going to do that?” Maria asked. She thought of the hungry dead who never stop chewing, but she said nothing of it.

  Troost rose from his seat and slipped his fingers back into his glove. “I don’t know for certain,” he said. A new stab of fear went jolting through Maria’s heart. This was not a man accustomed to uncertainty. “But it will be big, it will be bad, and the whole world will see it. Right now the South is an international object of pity. God help the Union if Europe stops feeling sorry for the CSA, and becomes outraged on its behalf.”

  He turned to go, but Henry stopped him. “Wait. Don’t go like that. What else have you got?”

  He leaned down to whisper, just loud enough for Maria to hear him, too. “I’m told they’re calling the project ‘Maynard.’ So keep your ears open. When you hear the big heads talking about it … that’s when you really need to worry.”

  Twelve

  Grant sat alone in the yellow oval, a drink in his hand, but only his second of the afternoon. His second of the late afternoon. And he wouldn’t allow himself another until sundown; that was the bargain he’d made with Julia. Espionage required clarity.

  Again he considered if he were even capable of espionage within his own cabinet. Breach of privacy? Absolutely. Breaking and entering? You could make a case for it.

  But the maid at the congressional office had a key.

  And she had arrived.

  Grant heard his elderly but reliable butler Andrews, who had been warned that the girl must be brought to the formal office whenever she appeared, and to lead her up through the back stairs. She’d come through the kitchen, he guessed. Even if the president didn’t mind a more direct approach, the rest of the staff would never have tolerated the impertinence; and it likely wouldn’t have occurred to the girl to wander up to the White House and knock anyway.

  This teenage girl being ushered quietly in to see the commander in chief might’ve provoked gossip, if not for the fact that Julia was with him now, seated behind the oversized desk with her sewing and paying the needle and thread just enough attention to keep from sticking herself or ruining the piece.

  Grant hadn’t planned to involve Julia. No one would’ve dreamed that he’d bring her into the fray of secrets. But that was the point: should anyone look askance at the arrangement, this was a maid, being brought to interview with his wife.

  An utter fabrication, of course. It wouldn’t have withstood even a moment’s scrutiny by anyone the ruse needed to fool. Katharine Haymes, for example, would’ve spotted it in an instant—that this was the girl who worked the halls of the Capitol building, who cleaned Desmond Fowler’s office, who had accidentally interrupted her conversation with the president. Even Fowler himself might have taken a second look. But the president had a suspicion that, in general, girls like Betsey Frye were largely beneath the concern of men and women like Katharine and Desmond.

  Girls like Betsey were the foot soldiers of the world, after a fashion. First to go in, last to leave, little respected, largely interchangeable, and virtually invisible … but indispensable if you needed someone with good eyes and ears and a willingness to follow orders. She kept her head down and did her job, unless you required something else of her. She was a lesser Andrews.

  Ephraim Andrews himself was a stately, mannered colored man who must’ve been old enough to be Grant’s father, and who’d worked at the White House since he’d been a boy barely big enough to hold a coin. If Andrews couldn’t be trusted, then the whole damn world might as well burn.

  It had been Andrews who learned the girl’s name and address, and who had tracked her down that very same evening. He’d delivered the president’s message and made the invitation without any telltale notes to haunt them later; and made the arrangements to see the girl and her mother moved to more comfortable quarters, in payment and gratitude for her service to the nation.

  That was how Grant put it, anyway. He didn’t know how, precisely, Andrews had phrased it. He hadn’t been there. Maybe Andrews told her she’d answer to the president or be drawn up on charges; maybe he told her nothing except to appear, or else. Whatever the old man had said, it worked.

  And here she was.

  Still wearing her plain linen uniform, but covered with a winter cloak and a bag slung across her chest, Betsey stood before him. Eyes downcast, but flickering surreptitiously around the office. Back and forth between Julia and Grant, the rows of books, and the shimmering fixtures. Back and forth between the door and the windows, and at Andrews, until he left them there alone.

  Julia, always the savior of such moments, set her sewing aside. “Betsey—that’s your name, isn’t it, dear?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” she said clearly, but quietly.

  “We appreciate you coming, and we know that it’s a risky thing you’ve done,” Julia warmly assured her. “I understand that your employers might look askance at this, even with the president’s per
mission.”

  “Insistence, really,” he corrected his wife. “Do you have the folders I asked for?”

  The girl nodded, pulled the bag’s strap up over her head, and stepped forward to deliver it into his hands. “I picked up the two with that name on it—the one you told me, I mean. And another one I found nearby. I thought it might be important.”

  “Hmm.” He opened the bag and saw the neatly bundled papers, only a little mussed from the covert trip. “Thank you,” he said, even though he wasn’t altogether pleased that she’d read the files. He hadn’t even known she was literate, but she must be, if she’d realized any other material was pertinent. But there was nothing he could’ve done to stop her, and if he couldn’t rely on her silence now, he was damned regardless.

  He’d relied on plenty of politicians over the last decade and change, and it had never worked out very well. Now he’d try his luck with another class—a better class, if you asked him, though he might change his mind when he considered the sentiment sober. People were only people, and some were more easily compelled by power than others.

  Fine, then. He’d use his power where it actually worked, instead of boardrooms and war rooms where he was treated as a friendly pawn, and see if that panned out any better.

  When Betsey had been sent on her way, Ulysses Grant carried her clandestinely delivered package toward the liquor cabinet out of pure habit.

  “It isn’t dark yet,” his wife noted.

  “She was early. And if ever any reading on earth required a drink, I believe this might be it.”

  Fresh drink in hand, he dropped himself heavily into the chair Katharine Haymes had taken the week before. He retrieved the first file—MAYNARD—and opened it up, taking a hearty swallow from the beverage before he began to read.

  “It can’t be that bad, can it, dear?” Julia asked. She didn’t pick up her sewing again, instead stuffing it into her kit and folding her hands.

  “That bad and worse. There’s nothing I’d put past this woman,” he said, skimming for the important words. He saw mostly things he already knew on the first page. “She’s a regular Lilith. Put her and Fowler together, and they’d end the world for giggles on a weekend.”

  “You don’t really believe that.”

  “You haven’t met her. It’s like sitting across the table from a snake.”

  Julia frowned, very faintly. “Would you say she’s any worse than any of the men you’ve dealt with?”

  “Worse,” he said firmly, eyes still fixed on the pages in his lap.

  “Truly your greatest adversary yet? Or worst simply because she’s a woman?”

  “A little of both,” he murmured.

  She sighed. “You’re making her sound like a monster.”

  “You haven’t met her,” he repeated.

  “She’s not a witch or a demon; she’s a person. She’s only different from what you commonly see, and the people you commonly fight.”

  “Dearest,” he said, fluttering the pages in a pointed fashion, “now is not the time.”

  But Julia persisted. “You behave as if you can’t possibly comprehend her motives. When I asked last night what she wanted, you said it must be blood, souls, or a spot at the devil’s right hand.”

  “Anything’s possible.”

  “No.” She shook her head. “Only the usual things are possible. She wants a long life, power and money, freedom and respect. Just like any man you ever met. She’s only beyond your ken because you allow her to be.”

  “I believe we’re finished here. I’ll have Andrews bring the carriage around. You should return to your mother’s estate tonight.”

  “You can’t dismiss me like I’m some naughty child.”

  “Then I’ll dismiss you like I’m the president,” he said, quicker than he meant to. Then, to soften it, he finished the last of his drink and set it aside. “I am sorry. But this is…”

  Before he could offer some weak explanation or excuse, she rose. “I’ll go find Andrews myself, and have Amanda pack me a trunk,” she said on her way out the door.

  “Dear, I didn’t mean…”

  “I know what you meant,” she said, as she closed the door behind herself.

  He sighed, refilled his glass, and continued reading.

  At first, the folders mostly served to confirm what Haymes had told him. He was surprised to learn how much of what she’d said could be called true, though she had glossed over the details, and filed their edges to make them less sharp. According to a researcher for her company, the weapon’s actual range was up to a mile and three quarters square, and it would require an estimated fifteen men to successfully move and deploy it, though twenty were recommended.

  But in the next dossier, he found something that confused him: lists of parts and supply chains, budget estimates, and time requirements … to make another eight weapons. Why would they need another eight weapons? The whole of her sales pitch had been that one weapon would end the war. If another eight were in the pipeline, why should she earn a pardon? Why should she be granted amnesty or asylum?

  The next folder answered his questions. In it, he found a series of contracts signed by Katharine Haymes, and receipts signed by Desmond Fowler.

  Military contracts.

  Vast ones, the kind that would make Haymes one of the wealthiest women—nay, the wealthiest people—in the world, if she wasn’t already. A series of deals brokered by Fowler, behind Grant’s back.

  “Son of a bitch,” he breathed. “They’re betting against the Union.” Or at least they were betting against a speedy victory. After all, it was entirely possible that she’d struck a similar deal with Stephens in Danville. For all he knew, she was playing both sides, selling the technology to the highest and blindest bidders.

  But he wondered if the South had any money left to spend on her.

  Maybe not, then. Maybe she was just throwing her lot in with the richer party, and plotting to bleed it dry.

  He hated her. Deeply, vividly.

  He gulped down the rest of his drink without even tasting it, without remembering what he’d filled the glass with in the first place.

  One last folder. It was fastened shut with a little seal, the kind that meant it’d been classified at the highest level. Well, Grant was the highest level. “Commander in chief,” he mumbled his title, in case it meant anything to the little wax mark that spread a green stain across the paper’s seam. “It don’t get too much higher than that.” By then he was too drunk to notice that he was lying to himself again.

  He briefly considered doing this the sneaky way, with a heated knife slipped carefully beneath the wax to preserve its shape. Then he thought, “To hell with it,” and snapped the thing in two. Who cared if anyone knew he’d seen it? Everyone who kept this secret found him beneath contempt anyway.

  The last folder, this sleeved set of documents, fluttered open in his lap.

  The top sheet was stamped: POTENTIAL TARGETS

  He read. And he read. And with every line, his heart climbed another few inches up his throat. He gathered the papers and jumped to his feet, clutching the bundle to his chest and gazing wildly around the room. “I was right,” he said to no one. “Terribly right. Awfully right. She’s going to … she’s going to…”

  Who could he tell? Who would believe him?

  A glance at the grandfather clock said it was not late yet, only a little dark … but not too dark for the extra drinks he’d finished while he scoured his stolen files. He looked down at the papers, wishing he had something better to hold them. Then he folded the whole bundle in half and stuffed it inside his waistcoat. It looked ridiculous, but with his overcoat on, no one would notice.

  Out the door he went, calling for Andrews all the way. “Andrews! Andrews, is my wife still here? Andrews?”

  When the aging servant appeared, perplexed and wary, he asked, “Sir? Mrs. Grant has gone, yes. To her mother’s estate, she said?” He let the question dangle, but when Grant didn’t reply, he added
, “Shall I fetch you another carriage?”

  “Yes!” he said too quickly, jamming a wool hat atop his head. “As soon as possible. I have an errand to run, and it won’t wait.”

  “I can drive you myself,” Andrews said solemnly, obliquely telling Grant that between Betsey’s transportation and his wife’s, there was no one else on hand to perform the task.

  “Ah, I see. Yes, thank you, Andrews. Under ordinary circumstances, I wouldn’t ask it of you; but this is more important than I have time to explain. Please, if you don’t mind?”

  The miles were short to the Lincoln compound; the world streaked past as Andrews rushed the horses at Grant’s insistence. Gas lamps and electric lights ribboned through the night, keeping to the roads along with everything else on the way out of the Capitol’s center. Grant held on to his hat with one hand and the inside carriage handle with the other, sometimes switching out and stopping to pat the important stuffing he kept against his belly.

  When they finally arrived, skidding up the driveway, Grant didn’t give Andrews time to open the door. He flung himself out of the cab. Over his shoulder, as he ran for the main entrance, he cried, “Don’t wait for me! Go home to Helen! I’ll see you in the morning!”

  Behind him, the stomping and panting of the recovering horses settled into something slower and more plodding as the carriage turned around under Andrews’s expert handling and rolled back into the street.

  Grant beat his fist against the door, knocking harder than decency would really allow. But these were indecent times, and, as he told the serving girl who answered his repeated poundings, “I need to speak with Lincoln, immediately!”

  “I … I … please sir, come in.” She fumbled with the door and then his coat and hat, arranging them on the rack and begging his leave awkwardly. “Just excuse me for a minute and I’ll run and get him.”

  Moments later, the girl reappeared and said, “Mr. President? I’ll take you to him, if you’ll come with me. He’s in the study.”