Unholy Fire

by Robert J. Mrazek

  “Colonel Burdette is outside in his coach,” he said. “He asks that you join him there as quickly as possible.”

  I put on my uniform and greatcoat and went downstairs. The house was completely dark except for the lamp that Mrs. Warden always left burning in the front parlor window.

  Val was waiting for me in the coach.

  “I just returned to Washington this afternoon,” he said, “and I read your memorandum on the Silbemagel case. It’s time you understood the dimensions of what we are up against.”

  The muddy, rain-swept streets were empty of people, except for the poor unfortunates who had no place else to go in the overcrowded city and were forced to find lodging in doorways or under the raised wooden sidewalks.

  We had traveled no more than five blocks before turning into a narrow, cobblestoned alley off Pennsylvania Avenue. To the left I could see the west wing of the Treasury Building through the coach window, and then we rolled through a small copse of trees. A large brick stable loomed up on the right, and the carriage swung toward it onto a rutted gravel path. Up ahead I saw two sentries standing by an opening in a high, iron rail fence.

  Beyond them sprawled a vast unlit building. Even through the pouring rain, I recognized it immediately as the east wing of the president’s mansion. The carriage pulled to a stop at the edge of the path, and we alighted. At the guard post we presented our identification papers to the sentries, one of whom held a lantern in our faces while the other found Val’s name on a printed document that he was trying to protect from the rain under his cape.

  “You’re expected, Colonel,” said the second sentry. He escorted us along a footpath that led around the southeast corner of the mansion. Suddenly, from the dense plantings off to my left, I thought I heard a woman’s cry. Something bounded across the path, causing me to stumble into the sentry.

  “What was that?” I called out, as the apparition darted into the thicket on the other side of the path.

  “Tad’s goddamn goat,” the sentry muttered sourly.

  He brought us to an unguarded door at the base of the southeast corner of the mansion. A small portico provided us temporary shelter from the driving rain.

  “Thank you, Corporal. I know the way from here,” said Val.

  “Yes, sir,” said the sentry, heading back to his post.

  We went in through a small vestibule and down a dark, silent hallway. Val opened a door at the other end. Behind it was a narrow wooden staircase, and we followed it up to the next floor, coming out in a much wider corridor that was lit every twenty feet by copper-clad oil lamps set into the walls.

  A threadbare Oriental carpet covered the floor, and numerous sets of muddy footprints attested to the fact that it had been well traveled that same evening. I was beginning to doubt that anyone was still awake in the mansion when we passed the first brightly lit room. Under a crystal chandelier, a young man with a black beard was working at a small mahogany desk, furiously writing in a large letter book.

  We climbed yet another flight of stairs and found ourselves in a corridor that ran parallel to the one we had just traversed. A soldier stood at attention next to the big rosewood door on the right. It was open, and we went on through. There were three men in the room, one standing with his back to us, the second seated behind him, and the third sitting at a long library table. Val headed directly toward the second man. Suddenly nervous, I followed slowly behind him.

  “Ahhh … the great mastodon,” came a reedy voice.

  I couldn’t see his face because an elderly black man was blocking his body. The black man wore a starched white jacket and was cutting the seated man’s hair with a pair of shiny scissors. As I crossed in front of him, the enormous head of Abraham Lincoln came into view.

  “Speaking as your commander-in-chief,” he said, staring up in mock distaste at Val, “let me say that your uniform is a gross insult to the military profession.”

  In fact, I was surprised to note that Val had actually made an effort to improve his normally disheveled appearance. He had combed his hair and buttoned his uniform. Unfortunately, this sartorial splendor was undercut by a matting of orange cat hair that covered the front of his coat.

  “I will continue this level of dedication to military decorum until you make me a civilian again,” replied Val.

  Two gnarled hands emerged from under the white sheet that covered Mr. Lincoln up to his neck. He grasped Val’s right hand with both of his own.

  “I would rather make you a general, old friend, but then you would be bound to fail like the others.”

  “Then I’ll stay a colonel,” said Val, as the barber continued to snip the edges of the president’s thick, unruly hair.

  “This is the first chance I’ve had to get a haircut since the newspapers started comparing me unfavorably to a gorilla again,” said the president. His skin was almost the color of saffron.

  “You’re the most comely gorilla I’ve ever known, Abe,” said Val.

  President Lincoln’s haggard eyes moved to take me in.

  “This is one of my officers … John McKittredge,” said Val. The president gave me an appraising glance as he shook my hand.

  “It’s my sad duty to report that the war has finally come home to roost,” said Val. “Captain McKittredge and I were just attacked out on the lawn by Tadpole’s goat.”

  “He’s a seasoned warrior that one. I would have assigned him to McClellan long ago, but of course the general already had a convenient scapegoat in me,” said President Lincoln, as the barber finished his work and gently removed the sheet.

  The president’s private office was as large as a farm kitchen. There was a massive round oak table in the middle of it with a base carved into gigantic lion’s paws. Horsehair chairs were scattered around the room. On the far wall, two leather-covered sofas faced each other under the two draped windows. A slant-front desk stood in the corner, its pigeon holes stuffed with documents.

  President Lincoln uncoiled his long legs and stood up from the chair, wincing as he did so. He was wearing old carpet slippers on his feet.

  “John, it’s time for you to go home,” he said to the clean-shaven young man who was writing at the oak table. Turning to Val, he said, “This is John Hay, the man responsible for everything that turns out right around here. John, meet the great mastodon of Springfield.”

  “I’ve heard the president speak of you,” Hay said. “‘The best courtroom lawyer I’ve ever known,’ were his exact words.”

  “And he doesn’t exaggerate,” said Val, with a grin.

  “I began calling him the mastodon thirty years ago. It was because, like the great wooly mammoths of the Ice Age, he seemed a gentle soul until he got his Irish up, after which he ran amok in front of a jury, trampling those of us unlucky enough to be opposing counsel. He flattened me on more than one occasion,” President Lincoln added with a rueful smile.

  “I think I’ll run over to see Brooks, and then come back in case anything breaks,” said John Hay.

  “No. I don’t want to see you until tomorrow morning,” replied the president in an admonishing tone.

  The young man nodded, giving me a lingering glance as he went out the door.

  “Mary had some food sent up a little while ago,” the president said, pointing to a platter of cold meat, pickles, and sliced bread on the round oak table. “Please, help yourselves.”

  A large silver pot of coffee rested on a separate tray, its rich aroma filling the room. While Val and the president went over to pour themselves a cup, I watched as the barber knelt down on the floor and carefully swept up the president’s hair with a small hand broom. He put the trimmings in the pocket of his jacket.

  “You treat those clippings like they were gold bullion,” I whispered.

  The man seemed to swell up with pride.

  “To some people they are, sir.”

  He gathered up his tools in a small leather bag and started to leave.

  “Thank you, Henry,” said Presiden
t Lincoln.

  “May God keep you safe, suh,” said the old man.

  Val went over and closed the door behind him as the president crossed over to the leather sofas under the windows. He walked as if his feet hurt, his legs bent at the knees, his feet barely lifting off the carpet. Dropping to the sofa, he curled his right leg over one of the arms and let himself fall backward.

  “It’s still hard for me to believe,” said Val, “that in this whole vast nation, the people turned for their president to a one-horse lawyer from a one-horse town.”

  “For me, too,” said President Lincoln. “But it happened at a time when a man with a policy would have been fatal to the country. I have never had a policy.”

  As I watched, his left eyelid began to droop down. Oddly, the right one stayed fully open.

  “Well, you look even more worn out than the last time I saw you, Abe,” said Val. “And that was when the doctors mistakenly thought you had smallpox.”

  The president nodded.

  “Have you ever seen a nestful of just-hatched baby birds, Val?” he asked. “All of them beseeching their mother to find enough worms to feed their ever-demanding beaks?”

  Val nodded and said, “Sure.”

  “Well, it is my unpleasant duty to have to feed that horde of baby birds every morning. They line up downstairs by the dozens … connivers who want to be postmasters, incompetent officers demanding promotions, shipowners who want my permission to buy Southern cotton, crackbrained inventors with the plans for secret weapons that will end the war, devious salesmen begging for a sutler’s license or a government contract … all of them beseeching me to anoint them with their life’s desires.”

  The melancholy eyes focused for a moment on me.

  “As if that isn’t usually enough to wear me down, tonight I was blessed with the opportunity to preside over another harmonious cabinet session. If only the people of this land could see my cabinet team working in harness. You know, of course, that they all hate each other. Every one of them. In fact, to my knowledge, they only agree on one thing.”

  “What is that?” asked Val.

  “That each and every one of them would have made a better president than me,” said the president with a mordant grin.

  Seated just a few feet away from him, I realized that the deeply furrowed creases around his eyes and mouth were actually laugh lines. They completely disappeared each time he smiled.

  “There are just too many jealous pigs for the teat,” he said next.

  “‘But jealous souls will not be answered so,’” said Val in what I knew had to be one of his arcane Shakespearean references. “‘They are not ever jealous for the cause …’”

  President Lincoln’s eyes glimmered with recognition as Val paused in midsentence.

  “‘But jealous for they’ar jealous. It is a monster begot upon itself, born on itself,’” the president continued.

  “Precisely,” said Val, and they both chuckled together.

  President Lincoln pulled a gold watch out of his vest pocket and quickly glanced at it.

  “How goes your investigation?”

  Val’s smile disappeared.

  “First, and most important, let me say that I believe there are several plots being hatched to kill you, Abe.… It’s hard to separate the rumors from fact.… Mostly, the rumors involve Confederates; but as you know, there are a lot of people right here in the capital who …”

  The president held up his right hand in a motion to stop.

  “A handful of people know what I am about to tell you,” he said, with a glance toward me.

  “Kit can be trusted,” said Val.

  “Do you know where Mary and I occasionally go to get away from the stench of that canal out there?” he said.

  “The Soldier’s Home near the hospital?”

  “Yes. Well, it was in September … a few nights after the Antietam battle, I was working late in this office. Mary and the boys were already there waiting on me for dinner. The military escort I was expecting to accompany me had not arrived, so I decided to ride over alone. I was going north on Sixteenth Street no more than a mile from here when my horse suddenly shied. As I leaned forward to calm him, I heard a shot ring out, and the horse took off, thankfully with me still on board. When I got to the Soldier’s Home, I told Ward Lamon what had happened. He asked me where my top hat was, and I told him that it must have blown off when the horse got spooked. Later that evening Lamon pulled me aside and showed me the hat. He had gone back and found it lying by the edge of the road. There was a bullet hole through it.”

  “My God,” said Val.

  “So I know you are right. But I have come to the realization that if someone wants to kill me badly enough he will find a way to do it. If I wore a coat of chain mail and surrounded myself with a praetorian guard, it would be of no import in the long run. And I cannot be held captive to those fears and still do this job, as frustrating as it sometimes is. I must try to do the best I can with each day that I’m given.… Maybe God will grant me the chance to make up for some of the mistakes I’ve made. Now tell me about your investigation while I am still reasonably coherent.”

  He winced again as he got up to pour himself another cup of coffee.

  “You brought me here to try to get a handle on the pervasive corruption,” said Val, “and I can tell you now that it will be almost impossible to stem the tide. The corruption is systemic. It began with your appointment of Simon Cameron as secretary of war. He put up the for sale signs to all the predators.”

  President Lincoln came back and sat down opposite us again.

  “Whatever understanding I have developed in this life about the peculiarities of human nature, it was inconceivable to me that a man of Cameron’s position could be a thief of such monumental proportions. I remember asking Thad Stevens about it when the rumors first began coming back to me. He has known Cameron for the last thirty years. Tell me the truth, I asked him, would Cameron really steal? ‘No, Mr. President,’ Thad told me.… I don’t think Cameron would steal a red hot stove … at least not if it was bolted to the floor.’”

  I couldn’t help grinning. Val, too.

  “Well, Thad Stevens wasn’t exaggerating,” the president went on, “which is why I finally made Cameron ambassador to Russia. I figured that was far enough away to keep him out of mischief, although I was tempted to write to the czar to warn him to bring his things in at night.”

  Val didn’t smile this time.

  “I wish the corruption ended with Cameron,” he said, “but it has only gotten worse, Abe. What he started has become an epidemic of greed, profiteering, and criminal misconduct. Two years ago Washington was a sleepy Southern town of thirty thousand souls, most of them God-fearing civil servants. Now there are almost two hundred thousand soldiers based in and around the capital. The city is filled with thieves, deserters, pickpockets, flimflam artists, cutthroats, and spies. Hell, there are more whores in this city right now than Baptists, and the police receive payoffs to protect the whorehouses, as well as every other form of criminal activity. On top of that, you have a military establishment that is up to its ears in graft. The War Department is corrupt at every level … from the commissary butchers to the most senior officers in the Quartermaster Corps. I have gathered substantial evidence that a number of senators and congressmen are involved, including members of the Committee on the Conduct of the War.”

  “I am not surprised,” said the president, wearily shaking his head. The left eyelid began to droop again. His right eye remained on Val, who pulled a document out of his breast pocket and handed it to the president.

  “Here is my report,” he said. “I can already prove that many of the bids for military equipment and supplies are systematically rigged for favored contractors who have paid large bribes. And it is not at the margins, Abe. Millions are being stolen from the Treasury every month. A lot of the defective equipment is what you would expect … boots that separate from their soles … shovel blad
es with the tensile strength of eggshells. But now we are seeing disablements that have not only cost men their lives but could well cost us a major battle.”

  “A battle? How is that possible?” asked President Lincoln in a skeptical tone.

  “The most deadly peril involves our heavy artillery. It ranges from faulty primers to gun carriages that actually disintegrate, in some cases after only a dozen firings. The first one self-destructed about a month ago, shortly after the Ordnance Bureau began replacing all the carriages for our guns. Since then there have been more than twenty similar incidents. You can imagine the impact if these failures were to occur in the middle of an opening barrage or while providing fire support during a major attack.”

  “Why can’t you just remove the ones that fall to pieces?” demanded President Lincoln. “The impact of this could be devastating.”

  “It’s not that simple. Although they were fabricated by a number of different manufacturers, the carriages are identical in specifications. Unfortunately, none of them carry markings that identify the individual manufacturer, so there is no easy way to identify which ones are defective. That was probably done intentionally by Cameron’s people.”

  “Well, you don’t have much time,” said the president. “Burnside is planning to launch his attack against General Lee. It is of vital importance that all his ordnance function properly.”

  “I have issued a request for the names of all the manufacturers of the carriages, as well as the friction primers. Tomorrow morning I am heading down to Falmouth to try to locate and question the individual inspectors who passed muster on the defective ordnance. There is no way these things could have passed proper inspection.”

  “Is it sabotage?” asked President Lincoln.

  “No, I don’t think so,” said Val, “but I believe it is just as insidious. There are those who would be quite happy to see this war go on for years … the longer it lasts, the greater their profits. Have you ever heard of a company called Consolidated Supply and Manufacturing based in Philadelphia?”