“I implore you, Professor, I am only a man who wishes to understand the world around me,” he said as he noticed Dean Hansonn move to the far wall.
Hansonn walked toward one of the lanterns and blew out the flame. He then reached up, pulled the lantern from the wall, and smashed it to the floor, and the smell of lamp oil immediately permeated the lab.
“Now, we have but mere minutes, Professor, before the oil is ignited by my associates. So if you will, the fossil, please.”
Heirthall looked at his Norwegian colleague. The man glared at him in return.
“How can you do this? This science is for the betterment of all, and you are willing to destroy that over a fairy tale?”
P. T. Barnum looked from Heirthall to the man he thought was helping him purchase the fossil.
“There is no need for threats of violence. Professor Heirthall is far too important to gamble,” he said as he reached for a rag to clean up the spilled lamp oil.
The dean nodded to one of the large men, who stopped Barnum from going to his knees to clean the spill.
“Professor, we haven’t the need for your amazing mechanical apparatus. Just the fossil, please,” Hansonn said.
When Heirthall made no move to retrieve the fossil, Hansonn nodded for his men to take action. One held Heirthall and the others started tearing apart the lab as Dr. Hansonn stepped forward.
“Gentlemen, I implore you to stop this madness. The fossil is not worth losing this man’s work!” Barnum cried out to Hansonn. “You will not receive one red cent, I assure you. This is not the way!”
Hansonn gestured to a large wooden vault on the opposite wall while holding a white handkerchief to his nose and mouth.
Heirthall was straining in the arms of the bigger man as he saw the men tear through the thick wood of the vault and pull the glass-encased, alcohol-protected specimen out. Barnum stood stock-still in the arms of Hansonn’s hirelings and watched as the dean stepped up and placed a loving hand over the glass as he saw the remains inside.
“There truly is a God,” Hansonn said. “Take it out of here and get it to the ship. We leave on the next tide.” He turned to Barnum. “And I assure you, Mr. Barnum, you will pay me what is owed.”
“If you harm the professor, you’ll get spit from me. This was not the arrangement!”
“We will stop you. The world can never know about what that specimen represents,” Heirthall said, straining against the man that held him.
“It’s either this fossil or your wife, Professor. You looked shocked that I know about the medical procedure you performed on her several years ago. I know all about her illness, and how you arrested it. So it’s either this fossil, or your wife…. Which is it?”
“You scum, you could never harm my wife!”
“Yes, yes, we know your estate is very well guarded, that is why we were forced to come here. We are not barbarians, Professor, the sea angel you have here is quite enough,” Hansonn said as he nodded at the man holding Heirthall.
The knife went unseen to the professor’s throat and sliced neatly through it.
“I am truly sorry, but I can’t have the authorities chasing me forever. After all, I am going to be a very rich man from this day forward,” Hansonn said, looking with dead eyes toward Barnum. “Now, spread more oil on the floor; the professor is about to have a horrible laboratory accident.”
Barnum screamed in terror at what was happening.
“You bastard, nothing is worth this. I … will see you hang, sir!”
“Then you will hang right beside me, my American friend. After all, you will be in possession of the most remarkable fossil in the history of the world. So, Mr. P. T. Barnum, I would make sure there were two ropes hanging in the death gallery that day.”
Barnum went down to his knees when the evil plan was made clear to him. The world would never believe that the verbose pitchman wasn’t involved in this murder. He was doomed to go along.
As he slowly raised his head, he saw the boy hiding under the cot. Their eyes locked, and in that moment, Barnum learned more about himself than he ever thought he would. He shook his head, and with spittle coming from his mouth, said he was sorry so that only the boy could see.
Octavian’s deep blue eyes went from Barnum to his father’s body only inches from the cot. He tried to scream, cry, anything, but nothing came out. He heard the men leaving with their prize, and that was when he saw the dying eyes of his father. Roderick Deveroux, the man now known as Heirthall, was looking at his son, fully aware his death was imminent. The footsteps retreated to the nearby door, and a lighted match was tossed inside just before the doors closed.
The fire was starting to spread fast in the crowded lab and was working toward the highly explosive batteries. Heirthall managed to keep his eyes open even as his blood spread toward his cowering son. Then he tried to raise his hand. He extended his finger, but then his hand fell to the wooden floor and into his own blood. His eyes closed as Octavian reached out with a shaking hand and tried to touch his dying father. Heirthall’s eyes opened one last time. Instead of raising his hand to indicate for the boy to run, he allowed his finger to do his talking. He only managed three letters: HEN.
Octavian was being told to get the assistance of Hendrickson, the family’s American butler. However, the boy only reached out and grasped his father’s still hand. Heirthall, eyes closing, tried to flick the boy’s hand off his own, but failed. He tried to speak, but blood was the only thing to exit his mouth when he opened it.
Octavian could take no more. The fire was spreading and thickening, so he squeezed out from underneath the cot, sliding through the warm blood of his father. That was when the first and last tears ever shed by Octavian Heirthall appeared. As he stood, then slipped and fell, he screamed in anger as he felt his body was not responding. His hand fell upon his father’s journal that had fallen from his coat pocket. Octavian retrieved it and started crawling toward the doors as the fire reached the batteries. Reaching up for the handle of the double doors, he managed to open them and start out on his hands and knees when his only world exploded around him.
SEPTEMBER 23, 1863
THE GULF OF MEXICO—
THIRTY-FOUR YEARS LATER
The day was hot and the seas were accommodating as the HMS Warlord plied the gulf waters 120 miles off the coast of Texas. Her destination was Galveston. A thousand yards to her starboard quarter was the HMS Elizabeth; at equal distance to her port side was the HMS Port Royal. The two smaller frigates had been sent by the Admiralty for the protection of HMS Warlord, a 175-foot battle cruiser of Her Majesty’s Royal Navy.
On her teak deck stood two passengers dressed in civilian attire. The shorter of the two men was entrusted with the safety and well-being of the taller, far more intense person at his side. This gaunt man was one of utmost importance to Her Majesty’s government because he and the young nation he represented were now the British Empire’s newest ally. The man who calmly and silently watched the passing seas of the gulf was a diplomatic courier for the Confederate States of America.
The fledgling nation was close to the point of collapse. Abraham Lincoln’s Union Army had recently taken the mystique of Southern invincibility away with a stunning move in Tennessee by a small bearded general named Grant, at a place the Union papers called Shiloh Meeting House. In addition, and almost simultaneously, General Robert E. Lee had been stunned while venturing northward from Virginia through Maryland and into Pennsylvania, where he had met a small band of dismounted cavalry that was the vanguard of the entire army of the Potomac. Robert E. Lee, the Army of Northern Virginia, history itself—none would ever forget the name of the small town where two of the greatest armies of men ever assembled on the face of the earth would clash: Gettysburg.
Special Assistant Thomas Engersoll, a close friend and advisor to Stephen R. Mallory, the Confederate Secretary of the Navy, was standing on the fantail of Warlord watching the gentle swell of the gulf and the gathering of seabirds w
hich, he knew, signaled their closeness to the Texas coast, and the successful completion of his desperate and very secret mission. As he looked over the railing at the placid sea, he blinked his eyes as something resembling a jellyfish appeared. The animal didn’t seem too alarmed by the thin man looking down upon it, and it kept pace with the wind-driven ship with very little effort. He was just getting ready to call over a seaman to ask about this exotic animal when his thoughts were interrupted.
“Well, Mr. Engersoll, you are close to setting your feet once more upon your home soil. Your thoughts, sir?”
The thin man turned and studied Her Majesty’s envoy, Sir Lionel Gauss, for a moment as the Englishman smiled and reached up, placing his small hand upon Engersoll’s shoulder. He thought about telling him about the strange blue-eyed creature, then changed his mind.
Thomas Engersoll did not return the short fat man’s smile, but instead just nodded his greeting. He was tired and tried desperately to keep his lips from trembling.
“Home is a welcome sight for these eyes to be sure, but the thing that is of the utmost importance to my country is the signed letter and the accompanying documents locked up in the captain’s safe. Those items, and those alone, sir, are what are desperately needed ashore, not myself,” Engersoll stated without emotion.
The rotund courier representing Queen Victoria laughed and patted Engersoll on the arm.
“And with the might of the Royal Navy at your very disposal, I assure you, Thomas, the documents will be placed into the hands of your President Davis very soon. And the weapons, ammunition, medicinal supplies, and rations that are being carried in the holds of these vessels are just the start of our material friendship to your young nation.”
Engersoll returned the smile with just a twitch of movement from his mouth, and even that sad attempt never reached his eyes. He knew he was as high a rank in the Confederate government as he would ever achieve. It was well known, in the South as well as in the North, that he had been against the war in the years leading up to this foolishness, and now it was he who carried the very machinations needed to carry on the bloodbath that maddened his countrymen on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line. He knew that hidden in the captain’s safe was the answer to a Southern victory, and still this did not make him happy or proud.
The guarded gift was one of recognition—a political act that would finally drive the killing wedge between North and South forever. The words of men now but ghosts kept echoing in his mind: divide and conquer. One of two concessions that no American could ever tolerate, North or South, had been struck with his pen: the Royal Navy would forever have eight naval bases in the gulf of Mexico and South America, a deal with the Devil that would be a thorn in his young nation’s side forever.
However, maybe, just maybe, this mission would answer his prayer and put a stop to the mass killing of his fellow citizens, North and South. With God’s help, maybe then the split could at least be finished without the loss of more young men.
He turned away and watched as the seabirds cawed and swooped to the wave tops and then shot back skyward.
No more slavery—the single most important factor that had brought on the war was now a thing of the past. The one obstacle that stood between legitimacy and recognition by other nations, slavery, had been erased by a single swipe of his pen, bringing the South the most powerful ally in the world.
When the seas surrounding the three warships suddenly became silent, Engersoll looked up as the skies cleared of the diving and frolicking birds. He watched in amazement as they flocked away from the three warships.
“What’s this?” Sir Lionel asked aloud.
A thousand yards away, Her Majesty’s frigate Port Royal raised a line of signal flags. Then the sudden beating of a drum announced the crew of Warlord was going to battle stations. Eight royal marines quickly surrounded the two men as loud footsteps ran about them as the beating of the war drum became louder, as were the shouts of sailors as they took up their action stations.
“Is it a Union warship?” Engersoll asked.
“I don’t know, but I must be informed of our circumstance!” The angry courier pushed past the armed guard. They had orders from the Admiralty that dictated they avoid contact with the blockading American warships at all costs. Gauss knew they must land the treaty and arms that day.
Captain Miles Peavey stood on the quarterdeck as he surveyed the situation farther out to sea. He watched as the frigates Elizabeth and Port Royal made sharp turns to come about.
“I need more sail! Put on more sail!” he ordered, his spyglass going from his view of southern waters to that of the Warlord‘s smaller escorts as they maneuvered.
“I demand to know what is happening, Captain,” Sir Lionel asked as he arrogantly stepped into Peavey’s line of sight.
“Not now, sir!” Peavey shot back, not too gently shoving the man aside.
“I will report your boorish behavior, I assure—”
“Remove this man from my command deck!” the captain ordered, never taking his eye from the spyglass.
“Why, I never—”
“Now!” the captain shouted, turning away from the sight of his two escorts as they attempted to run interference for his larger ship.
The red-coated royal marine escort moved Sir Lionel forcefully away from the captain. Engersoll didn’t need to be manhandled, so he avoided confrontation, silently and calmly joining the group of men. The Warlord‘s first officer stepped up to the two men and whispered at close quarters.
“Port Royal has spotted a vessel five miles off. This … this ship has been spied several times in the last two days, and now appears to be making a move on our position.”
“A single vessel?” Sir Lionel asked incredulously. “This is the Royal Navy, sir, no single vessel, not even one of their mighty ironclads could hope to stop us from our goal!”
The executive officer did not answer at first, but instead looked to where his captain stood ramrod straight, watching the seas of the open gulf to the south.
“The vessel that has been following us is unlike any we have ever seen. We’re not even sure if it’s a ship at all,” he said feeling uncomfortable. “There is ridiculous talk that it’s some kind of sea—”
“Mr. Rand, Port Royal is attacking at maximum range. Report ship’s readiness!” the captain said loudly while still maintaining sight on the horizon.
Warlord‘s second in command just looked at the two politicos, half bowed, and then moved off to his master’s side.
“All stations report battle ready, Captain!” he said, as he had been informed a moment before that all seventeen of the cruiser’s thirty-two-pounder cannons were ready for action.
“Very good. Even though our sister ships of propeller, paddlewheel, and coal would be most welcome here, I figure we old sailing men can give the American Navy what for, hey, Mr. Rand?” The captain took his eye away from his glass for a short moment and winked.
“Yes, sir, we’ll show them what the Royal Navy is capable of.”
“Tell our gentleman guests they can stand at the stern railing and watch Port Royal and Elizabeth engage our new adversaries. They’ll have quite a shock realizing that the Confederacy has a new friend on the high seas.”
“Yes, sir,” Rand answered without enthusiasm or further comment as he turned and made his way back to Sir Lionel and Engersoll.
Just as the three men stepped to the rail, they saw the flash of powder long before they heard the reports of the large guns of Elizabeth and Port Royal. Then, over the surface of the gulf, the loud popping came to Engersoll’s ears. It was unlike what he imagined naval gunfire to sound like, even at this extreme distance.
“Both frigates have opened up their port-side guns. That means they must have caught the enemy off guard and crossed the T, a formation allowing them to bring the guns of both ships to bear,” Rand explained as he watched. “A fatal error by the American, if that’s who he is.”
“But why can’t we see
the American ship?” Sir Lionel asked.
“Well, they are more than likely over our horizon. We should be able to see them—”
A sudden, tremendous explosion lit up the blue southern sky as HMS Elizabeth vanished in a matter of a split second behind a solid wall of flame and smoke. All three men watched in astonishment as the sound finally reached them. Warlord shook beneath their feet as Rand started shouting orders. He spared a glance at Captain Peavey who stood stock-still, the spyglass slowly lowering to his side. Lieutenant Rand shouted to bring the ship about.
This order finally moved Peavey to action as he turned angrily toward his number one.
“Belay that order, make for the coast at all possible speed, we must—”
Without seeing the initial or even the second cataclysmic action, the sound wave of another explosion almost knocked Peavey from his feet. As he straightened and turned from his spot on the wooden deck, the mushroom-shaped cloud of red and black was rising from the spot where Port Royal had been just a moment before. In a matter of two stunning moments of elapsed time, two Royal Navy frigates had vanished without having the chance to reload their guns. As Peavey regained his feet and raised his glass, he could see no sign of either ship save for the debris and smoke still rising in the clear air.
“We have movement aft at five thousand yards and closing!” The call was shouted from high above in the rigging.
Engersoll tried desperately to spy the enemy vessel, but he failed at first. He gripped the handrail and then raised his right hand to his brow and strained to see.
Peavey shouted out orders and reversed his earlier command to run for the coast.
“My God!” Sir Lionel cried. “Look at that!”
Engersoll turned to the spot Sir Lionel was pointing to as Warlord turned hard to starboard to bring her main guns to bear on the suddenly visible target.
At a mile away from Warlord, Engersoll finally spied the enemy that had just cremated three hundred men in a matter of moments. It truly was a sea monster. The wave it created was spectacular as it charged the British warship. Three hundred feet into the air the wake rose, as water was pushed aside by a force no man aboard could have ever imagined.
Leviathan: An Event Group Thriller Page 3
