“They know about the steam tunnels?” asked Wilkie with alarm.
A worried Robert Todd Lincoln rubbed his beard. All of a sudden, their well-thought-out plan appeared poised for disaster. “John, this is the only viable passage into the Tomb. The only other option is to besiege the building with the president still inside it.”
As Wilkie pondered this, the monotonous din of Airship One’s epic foghorn shook the building.
The chief lit a fresh cigar. “Flashlights, gentlemen! We’re going underground.”
Wilkie raised his pistol and kicked open the door to Yale University’s vast labyrinth of steam tunnels.
Chapter XXVI
The Gentleman
A bandaged hand adjusted the silver skull on the table so that it was staring straight at the injured president. Taft followed the man’s arm to see the angry thug whose hand he broke earlier. He was also the same villain who felled the president with a low blow.
“I’ll have you know that such behavior is most unsportsmanlike,” chided a fat-lipped and bruised Taft.
The thug responded by slapping the president across the face.
The dining table at Skull and Bones Hall stretched about ten feet in both directions from where Taft sat at its middle. Although the president was not bound, he was in no position to escape. On the opposite side of the table, the thug with the bandaged hand joined his three companions. The four men flanked the painting of Alphonso Taft with shotguns aimed at the president.
As Taft looked them over, a grandfather clock beside the bandaged thug tolled 10:15 P.M. Moments later, Taft could hear the faint sound of footsteps approaching. A door beside his father’s portrait opened, and a gray figure emerged through its darkened portal.
A tall, thin man about Robert Todd Lincoln’s age, maybe older, entered the dining hall with a cane and took a seat across from the president. He was bald with sparse white hairs and a feathery Van Dyke beard. He had a scaly neck, sunken eyes, and a prominent nose that pointed outward like a beak. Never before had Taft seen a man more closely resemble a vulture. Or more specifically, a vulture in a gray suit hovering above a silver skull. The president glared at this man he had every reason in the world to hate, but for all his anger, he could not help glancing at the portrait of his father hanging over him. The man in the gray suit noticed this and grinned as if he had been waiting all day to see this happen.
Still smiling and without breaking eye contact, the man reached into his jacket and produced a black box with gold lettering on it. The writing was in French. The stranger opened the box and gently placed it beside the silver skull.
“Chocolates?” he offered.
Taft winced. The man’s voice was uncomfortably overfriendly, as if he was trying to win the confidence of a child for purposes unknown.
“What are they?” Taft asked, thinking the treats might be poisoned.
The man’s eyes widened. “They’re … delicious, Mr. President! Please, try some!” The stranger picked up a chocolate and bit into it with his pinkie raised.
Taft strained his eyes and ears in a vain attempt to decipher the man before him. He spoke in a strange, indiscernible accent that rendered his place of origin a mystery. The president detected a slight French accent as well as a hint of Russian, but the man looked like he could be Greek or Turkish. Where did he come from? His every pore oozed maliciousness, and yet he presented himself in a way Taft imagined any culture would find sophisticated. Charismatic, even. The president was beginning to feel that he was not speaking to a kidnapper, but to a seasoned dignitary. The man was an ambassador, but to whom? To whose flag did he owe allegiance? Did he even have a flag?
Or was he a gentleman without a country?
A frustrated Taft stared at the chocolates and then back to the man across the table. His opponent’s eyes glowed eagerly as he discerned the president’s conflict. However, once Taft remembered something Nellie mentioned earlier, he picked up a chocolate and studied it. It looked and smelled delicious. Quite delicious.
Taft bit into it, and …
Almonds!
Whether it was cyanide or not, Taft figured it would take a lot more than one dose to kill him. He finished his chocolate and helped himself to another.
The gentlemen smiled proudly. “I am pleased to see I have so overwhelmingly earned your trust, Mr. President.”
“Actually,” Taft said, chewing, “my wife figured that if you wanted me dead, you would have done it a while ago.”
The gentleman continued smiling, but for a moment it seemed forced. “Yes. Your wife is most perceptive, Mr. President.” Once again, Taft shifted in his seat. The gentleman enunciated every word with too much saliva in his mouth. “How is she?”
Taft scowled. “She wants her son back. As do I.”
The gentleman licked his white teeth as he heard this. “Did she enjoy the anniversary gift?” He motioned toward the skull.
Taft’s gaze intensified with anger.
“I must confess, Mr. President, I was not expecting you to bring it. However, now that it is here, I think it makes the perfect centerpiece for our discussion.”
“Enough talk, you skinny buzzard. Who the hell are you?”
The delighted gentleman folded his hands as if he was watching an infant take his first steps. “Since you have blessed me with your confidence, Mr. President, it is my pleasure to introduce myself and the purpose of this meeting. My name is Basil Zaharoff, and I am here to facilitate a peaceful transaction between the United States government and parties that must not be named.” He sat back and smiled.
“Where is my son?”
“Mr. President, before we get to the matter of—”
Taft rose to his feet. His large belly forced the table forward. “Where is my son?”
The four gunmen raised their shotguns to Taft’s face while the gentleman waited patiently. “Mr. President, I can assure you with full confidence that your son is safe. The young man is unharmed; he is in this building, and nothing would make me happier than to have the two of you reunited.”
“Let me see him,” Taft demanded.
The gentleman pressed his hands to his lips as if in prayer. “Mr. President, I must insist that we continue this conversation seated.” Two gunmen hurried over and shoved Taft back into his chair. “For the sake of decorum, of course.” As the gentleman spoke these words, the thug with the bandaged hand smacked the president upside the head.
“You don’t know the meaning of the word, you stupid nincompoop!” Taft growled.
“Mr. President, I am a master of many languages.”
“Good. Then answer me in plain English: Where is my son?”
The gentleman signaled one of his guards to fetch something from another room. “Mr. President, as a legal man, I trust you are mentally fit to act as your own attorney?”
Taft’s brow furrowed. “What?”
“Are you of sound mind? Is your brain fully functional?”
Taft’s eyes were aflame with fury. “Oh, I can think of a number of things I’d like to do to you right now!”
“Good,” said the unaffected gentleman. “Because I included an insanity clause.”
A mystified Taft looked to the man’s left and saw a gunman return with a briefcase. The thug opened it for the gentleman, who carefully emptied its contents.
“Where is my son?” Taft insisted.
“Just a moment, Mr. President.”
Taft leaped back to his feet. “WHERE IS MY SON?”
The gunmen forced the president back down while Basil removed a piece of paper from the suitcase. “Here!” he offered eagerly, extending the document across the table.
Surrounded by primed shotguns, Taft seized the parchment angrily. As he looked it over, the blood in his veins went cold.
“What is this?” he whispered breathlessly.
The document was covered with rust-colored writing.
“What is this!”
“Mr. President,” said the gentle
man, grinning, “that document is your son!”
It was an executive order written in blood.
Taft roared like a wounded animal and reached across the table, but the gunmen held him back. The enraged president attacked one of them with a throat strike, but the thug with the bandaged hand knocked the president in the groin with the butt of his shotgun.
Taft collapsed into his chair while the gunmen rushed around the table to guard their master. “Mr. President, I am nothing more than a messenger,” said the gentleman. “I come bearing gifts of peace and the wisdom of honest words. If you want your son back, you must sign that document.”
“I’ll kill you with my bare hands!” Taft foamed, writhing in pain.
“Mr. President…” The gentleman disapprovingly shook his head. “Your hands are capable of so much more than that. My employer is a great harvester of hands, and to save your son, you must use yours. You will use your executive powers to abolish the U.S. Constitution. You will abolish the U.S. Congress and the judiciary. You will dissolve the union between the states. You will disband the U.S. military. And then, you will resign your office, as will all your secretaries and ministers.”
“Never!” Taft snarled.
“Mr. President, you must comply.”
“You’ll never get away with this! Even if you gutted the whole goddamn government, Teddy Roosevelt would take my place! You know he would!”
This proposal caught Basil Zaharoff by surprise. His employers had not considered it. “Then he will be executed,” said the gentleman. “Along with all his children.”
“You inhuman monster…”
“I am quite human, Mr. President.”
“Tell me my son is alive right now!”
“Mr. President,” laughed the gentleman, “only you have that power. Your son is here! On this campus! You can be reunited with him tonight if you only put a pen to that parchment.”
The guards placed an inkwell and an ivory pen in front of Taft. As the president’s hopeless eyes fell upon them, he realized the inkwell was filled with red liquid and the ivory pen was a finger bone.
“Who are you working for?” Taft insisted. Tears were streaming down his face.
“Mr. President, you must respect their privacy.”
“Is it Morgan? Guggenheim? Tell me!”
“Mr. President,” the gentleman said with a smirk, “I can assure you that neither Mr. Morgan nor Mr. Guggenheim know anything about this.”
Taft gasped. Not Morgan? Not the Guggenheims? “Then who?” he demanded. “Who are you working for?”
“Mr. President, please. I am trying to spare your life.”
Chapter XXVII
The Universe of Battle
Several stories beneath the battle for Yale campus, Robert Todd Lincoln, Chief Wilkie, and sixteen Secret Service agents raced through the university’s underground network of steam tunnels. It was a dark, humid place illuminated only by flashlights and wide enough for only two men at a time. It seemed to stretch on forever, and the agents had no blueprints to work with. Fortunately, John Hays Hammond and some of the bravest undergraduates in Yale history had been able to discover which passage led to the Skull and Bones tomb years ago. It was how Wilkie and his men planned to rescue their president without anyone on the surface knowing, and Robert Todd Lincoln was their guide.
“Which way, Bob?” asked the Secret Service chief at a crossing.
“Hold here!” called Robert, forcing the men to stop. Scattered across this central hub were hundreds of capsule-shaped objects that glistened like amber under the men’s flashlights.
“What the devil?” asked Wilkie. “Did someone try to Hansel-and-Gretel his way through this place?”
“John, step away!” Robert shouted. He was terrified of the effect Wilkie’s cigar might have on the objects. As he crouched and put on some white kid gloves, Robert asked, “Can you give me your knife?” Using Wilkie’s puukko, Robert studied the capsules while the chief and his agents watched impatiently.
“Mr. Lincoln, whatever they are, I’m sure we can hopscotch our way through this.”
Robert’s attention was elsewhere. The objects were the same shape and size as medicine capsules, only with a sickly color like brown mustard. Robert considered cutting one of them in half until he spotted specks of dirt sticking to their underside. He then noticed a waxy sheen left behind on his gloves and knife.
Robert froze.
“Enough of this,” huffed Wilkie. “Mr. Lincoln, I’m stepping through.”
“John,” Robert choked out, “this is the superweapon.”
Shocked, Wilkie shined his trembling flashlight on the capsules and backed away slowly. “What are these, Mr. Lincoln?”
“They’re time-dissolving capsules,” spoke Robert. “Tablets coated with a material that reacts instantly to air. In a matter of time, the coating will dissolve and expose whatever material is inside. If they contain what I think they do, the explosion would surge through the steam tunnels, killing all of us. I don’t believe it.” He gasped. “They found a way to turn the whole university into a weapon.”
As the men stared speechlessly at one another, Robert whipped out a handkerchief and started collecting the yellow capsules.
“What are you doing!” hollered Wilkie. “Are you trying to get us killed?”
“No, I’m trying to save us all! I can neutralize the reaction by putting the capsules into a desiccator. The Kent Laboratory should have plenty of them.”
“That laboratory is a fortress! You’ll get killed from three directions if you try to enter it.”
“The Peabody Museum, then.” Robert stopped working and looked up at the confused men around him. “Don’t just stand there. Help me!”
“You heard the man!” Wilkie ordered. One by one, the agents closest to Robert took off their coats and crouched down. “Sorry, Jimmy, but you’ll have to surrender your hat.” The chief took Agent Sloan’s boater hat, wiped the sweat from it, and threw it into the ring for the men to put their capsules into.
“Gloves! Gloves!” cautioned Robert.
“Mr. Wilkie!” shouted Agent Barker from afar. “We can’t get close enough!”
“I know!” Wilkie grumbled. The chief chewed his cigar and came to a decision. “Bowen, Murphy: You two are going to the Skull and Bones tomb with me. Here, give me that dynamite.… The rest of you, help Mr. Lincoln with his cleanup and escort him wherever he needs to go.”
“Aye, chief,” they answered.
Robert looked up from the ground. “John, are you sure you’ll be able to rescue the president with only two agents?”
“Are you mad, man? I’m going, too!” Wilkie shouted, pointing his gun to his own heart.
“John, do you even know how to get to the Tomb?”
After an embarrassingly long silence, Wilkie responded, “Well, are you going to tell me or not?”
* * *
Back on the surface, the Steam Department building was under siege. Although Airship One continued to rain death from above, the twenty Buffalo Soldiers on the ground continued their valiant defense against relentless opposition.
One of these brave warriors was James “Bell Bottom Jack” Jackson.
“Soldier!” shouted Robert Todd Lincoln.
Sergeant Jackson turned around to see fifteen men race up the staircase. “What is it, Mr. Lincoln?”
“We need to get into the Peabody Museum,” he panted. “Can your men cover us?”
“Whoa … Mr. Lincoln, you don’t want to go there. That place is a hornet’s nest! The president’s son is in there.”
Robert nearly dropped the bundle of capsules he was carrying. “They found him?”
“Where is he?” asked Agent Sloan, whose boater had never looked so filthy.
“He’s tied up in the basement. One of our men saw him through the windows when we tried to flank the museum. We couldn’t get to him, but we’ve notified the major. He’s already dropping men to take the building.” Robert
and his bodyguards looked out the window to see twenty, maybe thirty soldiers descending onto the museum.
“Mr. Lincoln!”
Agents Sloan and Wheeler pulled Robert away from the window just as two bullets whizzed past his head.
“If you need to get in there, it’s not going to be pretty,” warned Sergeant Jackson. “A race through those doors will be like charging Fort Wagner.”
“What about the Kent Laboratory?” asked Wheeler.
“We can’t help you there. My men are needed to cover the major’s assault. Just wait a few minutes, and the museum will be ours.”
“Sergeant, we have no time! We found the weapon of the enemy.” Robert lifted his bundle. “The museum is the only place we can neutralize it.”
After thinking this over, Sergeant Jackson blew a brass whistle. Soldiers stationed throughout the building rushed toward him while he signaled Airship One with his flashlight. “If that’s the case, you’re coming with us, Mr. Lincoln.”
Robert and the Secret Service agents nodded and waited.
And waited.
And then …
BRRRRRRRAAAAAWWWWRWRRRMRMRMMRMRMMMMM!
The enemy gunfire stopped. The Buffalo Soldiers charged out of the building with Robert Todd Lincoln surrounded by Secret Service agents behind them. More soldiers slid down lines onto the museum like spiders.
BRRRRRRRAAAAAWWWWRWRRRMRMRMMRMRMMMMM!
The charging cavalrymen opened fire while the soldiers on the roof broke through the museum’s windows. Airship One flashed its searchlights through the building, exposing its terrified occupants to sharpshooter fire.
BRRRRRRRAAAAAWWWWRWRRRMRMRMMRMRMMMMM!
The Ninth Cavalry reached and breached the museum’s main entrance, destroying its barricades with the butts of their rifles. As Robert rushed into the building alongside his protectors, his heart slowed to a near stop. He was completely unprepared for the awful yet awe-inspiring universe of battle being waged inside the Peabody Museum.
The Great Abraham Lincoln Pocket Watch Conspiracy: A Novel Page 20
