Robert watched in stunned silence as the Buffalo Soldiers operated on the museum like gifted surgeons. Every single shot was perfectly timed to Airship One’s mighty horn. Crystals and precious metals glittered with gunfire. The soldiers took positions behind mineral displays and dinosaur bones with clockwork precision. Four men opened fire from behind the skeleton of an ancient sea turtle more than thirteen feet high. Some enemies were shot through rows and rows of glass cases. Others were ambushed by Buffalo Soldiers hidden behind massive brontosaurus bones. One villain was shot in front of a claosaurus display, splattering his blood all over the broken lizard. Another enemy suffered the indignity of being crushed by a giant octopus suspended above him. Room by room, floor by floor, the battle moved through the building while Robert Todd Lincoln and the Secret Service raced to the basement. They had a superweapon to disarm and the president’s eldest son to rescue.
But who would be downstairs waiting for them? Would it be a bound and gagged Bob Taft, or would it be the cruel gunmen who abducted him?
It was both.
Chapter XXVIII
Skull and Bones
A deep rumble shook Skull and Bones Hall, wiping the smile from Basil’s face. “C’était quoi ça?” he asked his henchmen.
Realizing that help had come at last, Taft regained his senses and let his blood cool. He leaned back in his wooden chair and innocently tapped his chest with his fist. “Excuse me,” he added, hoping to pass the recent rumble as indigestion.
It did not work.
Unnerved, Basil stood up and whispered to the guard with the bandaged hand. As the gunman left the room, the anxious gentleman glanced at the grandfather clock in the dining hall. He compared its time to the magnificent pocket watch on his waistcoat.
Taft’s eyes focused like binoculars on the silver timepiece. “That’s a very interesting pocket watch you’ve got there.”
“Yes, it is,” Basil said impatiently.
“You mind telling me where you got it?”
“Mr. President, we already gave your wife an anniversary present,” snapped the gentleman. “Clearly, it did not make a strong enough impression. Next time, I will simply suggest some more arsenic.”
The entire world around William Howard Taft slowed and dimmed. “What did you say?” he whispered.
Basil scowled. “How did a simpleton like yourself ever get elected president? While I am impressed you felled our android and discovered our experiment in Alaska, I attribute that more to our failings than to your mental faculties.”
“What did you say about my wife?” Taft repeated slowly and clearly.
“Mr. President,” a bullying Basil smirked, “do you think it was coincidence that your wife fell ill so soon into your tenure? Your Secret Service chief discovered the bomb we planted at the White House for your inauguration.37 We had no choice but to change our tactics once you assumed the presidency.”
“What did you do to my wife?”
An amused Basil Zaharoff grinned menacingly and swaggered between the silver skull and the portrait of Taft’s father. “Mr. President, your nation should not have stepped upon the world’s stage so unprepared to play the greatest game. Kingdoms and countries are commodities where I come from. All my employers did was challenge you to a friendly game of chess. And in my experience, when facing an opponent who does not know how to play, you simply rob him of his queen.”
Taft twitched his mustache, and then he attacked.
The president shoved the dining table forward with both hands, knocking Basil and two of his guards to the floor. As the third thug raised his shotgun, Taft seized the silver skull and lobbed it at the man as if it were opening day at National Park. The shining orb hit the gunman like a cannonball to the face, sending him crashing into the grandfather clock behind him. Both the man and the clock fell silent. Taft then leaped across the table for Zaharoff, but the coward fled through the great hall’s double doors. The two gunmen on the ground scurried to their feet and aimed their weapons, but Taft got the drop on them. He landed heavily against both men, forcing them back to the ground. While crushing one of the thugs under his weight, Taft seized the other by the throat and smashed his head against the table like a glass bottle. The gunman’s neck snapped instantly.
It was at this point that the guard with the bandaged hand hurried back into the room. As Taft looked up at him amidst his broken enemies, the gunman gasped out, “Mon dieu!” The president rushed at the man, carrying one of his fallen adversaries as a shield. The assassin raised his shotgun and fired, but his former colleague absorbed the blast. Panicking, the gunman fired a second time. Taft’s human shield exploded like a piñata, spraying the president with human gore but not nearly enough buckshot to stop him. The blood-covered president seized the gunman before he could fire again, snapped his wrist, and then lifted him off the ground by his crotch.
On the other side of the double doors, Basil listened fearfully as the gunman’s screams raised in a sickening crescendo. Taft, having just subjected his nemesis with the bandaged hand to the dreaded “Skull and Bones,” hurled his opponent through the doors, knocking them both open. Basil backed away in horror as the blood-splattered president stared down his adversary with determined, Yale blue eyes.
Taft lunged at Basil, but the villain rushed into a closet and slammed it shut just as the president reached its doorknob. Locked! Enraged, Taft punched the door repeatedly, trying to break it open with such intensity that he did not notice Secret Service Agents Bowen and Murphy as they rushed into the Tomb. They were just as stunned by the carnage inside its halls as their chief when he arrived.
“Jesus Christ…” said Wilkie, looking over the heroic mess Taft had made of his enemies. “What the hell happened in here?”
“The door!” Taft pleaded, completely oblivious to the buckshot lodged in his hip. “Someone open the door!”
Wilkie walked to the president and unloaded his revolver at the closet, destroying its lock and likely killing anyone inside it. “That should do it,” he assured, chomping on his cigar as the president ripped the door off its hinges.
Alas, there was nothing inside the closet but mounds of garbage and a revolving bookcase that disappeared into a darkened tunnel. Basil Zaharoff had escaped.
“No!” Taft cried. He tried squeezing inside the narrow passage, but it was impossible. “Someone get in there!” Taft ordered.
“Mr. President, are you hurt?” asked Wilkie. The president was covered with blood.
“No! I’m fine,” Taft insisted.
“Good.” Wilkie and his agents seized the president and forced him out of the building.
“What are you doing?” Taft resisted. “That man! We need to capture him!”
“Mr. President, we’re getting you out of here. The superweapon is real! Bob found it in the tunnels.”
“He did?” asked Taft, stunned. “What was it?”
“I don’t know! Whatever it is, Mr. Lincoln has it taken care of.”
“What about my son!”
“Mr. President, no matter where he is, you’re leaving! Boys!”
Wilkie’s agents forced the Tomb’s heavy doors open and raced with the president into the epic battle outside. The Peabody Museum was secured and Airship One had just evacuated the last of the soldiers there. However, there was still heavy fire coming from the Kent Laboratory, forcing Wilkie and his agents to push the president back against the Tomb’s front doors.
“What happened?” gasped Taft. “This was supposed to be a covert mission!”
“It was,” said Wilkie, reloading his revolver, “but things got louder than a—”
“Will! John!” The men looked across the street to see Robert Todd Lincoln and his three bodyguards racing toward the Tomb.
“Bob!” called the president. “How did you get here?”
“We took the tunnels. Will, your son is safe! He was in the basement of the museum!”
“My boy…” Taft’s eyes watered. “Is he all right?”
“Yes! He’s completely unhurt! He’s already aboard the zeppelin.”
“What about the weapon?” asked Wilkie.
“We took care of it! It’s neutralized and aboard the airship. However, there may be more capsules in the tunnels. We had no time to search them all. We need to leave!”
“Can we go the way you came?”
“Trust me, chief. You don’t want to take the route we did.” Agent Sloan had been shot through the hand and Agent Wheeler was bleeding from his arm and shoulder.
“They’re getting desperate,” said Robert, whose jacket was frayed by bullets. “They’re converging on the Tomb from all over the campus.”
“Are there any buildings the zeppelin can pick us up from?”
“Not anymore,” said Wheeler.
“All right, all right! I’ll just signal Archie to drop some ropes.”
“That won’t work,” Taft corrected. “I can’t climb ropes.”
Wilkie took a long puff from his cigar. “I guess we’ll have to opt for plan B then.” The chief looked up at the enormous zeppelin and blew a whistle. After a small light flashed from its communications room, Wilkie signaled the airship in Morse code using his flashlight.
* * *
“Major Butt?”
“Yes, sergeant.”
“We just received a signal from Chief Wilkie. The president is safe at the Tomb, but we cannot extract him. He’s requesting we use plan B.”
Under different circumstances, Major Butt would have cringed after hearing this. However, since his zeppelin was leaking hydrogen and each passing second meant life or death for the president, he had no time for anything but action.
“Very well.” He turned to his crew in the airship’s bridge and gave the order: “Plan B!”
Airship One changed its course and quickly moved toward Grove Street Cemetery. As it descended, the skipper used its mighty horn to send a message loud and clear throughout New Haven:
“— · · ·”
Chapter XXIX
“That’s my cue.”
George Robinson put on his driving goggles and raced the president’s 1909 Pierce-Arrow limousine to the Skull and Bones tomb. Just like the massive airship in the distance, the fine auto had been recently repainted black.
Several gunmen opened fire at Robinson as he came barreling down High Street, but the driver had no reason to be afraid. Not only had the president’s car been fitted with bulletproof glass and armor plating, but its driver had been personally assured by Attorney General Wickersham that no policemen would pull him over for speeding. That was all Robinson needed to unleash the daredevil inside him.
The car raced through Chapel Street and screeched to a stop in front of Skull and Bones Hall. As he honked his horn, Airship One used its searchlights to dazzle the remaining riflemen, distracting them from the auto.
“Time to fly, Mr. President!” Robinson shouted through the melee.
“Right on time.” Wilkie smiled. The Secret Service agents rushed Taft and Robert inside the limousine and shielded them with their bodies while Wilkie climbed into the passenger seat. “Move!” he ordered, and the car accelerated toward Grove Street Cemetery.
In the backseat, Taft had three agents on top of him. “I can’t breathe back here!” he shouted to Robert, who could not even speak. Agents Jervis and Wheeler had Mr. Lincoln pressed against his car seat so tightly that he could not keep his hand on his father’s pocket watch. Throughout the ride, he flailed his right arm desperately.
“Shotgun!” Wilkie shouted. Agent Sloan handed his boss a shotgun from the backseat. As Robinson raced the auto toward the zeppelin, Wilkie opened fire on every gunman he could see. Once his last cartridge was spent, Wilkie tossed the weapon from the car and shouted, “Machine gun!”
As Bowen and Murphy handed Wilkie his heavy Colt “potato digger” from the backseat, the remaining gunmen throughout Yale rushed to the enormous Egyptian gateway of Grove Street Cemetery. Since it was no longer safe for the Ninth Cavalry to fire from the descending zeppelin, their jubilant enemies thought they had the airship beaten. However, the truth was that Wilkie could not have been happier to see so many adversaries converging at the end of High Street. He chomped on his cigar and blasted away with his machine gun, reaping a bountiful harvest of condemned men for the graveyard. Almost all the villains fell when Robinson sped through the sandstone arch into the cemetery. Airship One was nearly touching the ground, and the daredevil behind the wheel knew he had to time things perfectly.
But then, just as the auto was about to race up the zeppelin’s cargo ramp, a gunman behind a tombstone fired a single shot at Chief Wilkie. The bullet went straight for Wilkie’s heart, and bounced off his armored flask. The precaution saved his life but unfortunately sent him sideways into Robinson, causing the driver to lose control. The startled chauffeur knew that if he crashed his car, the fires would engulf Airship One, killing everyone.
Fortunately, Robinson managed to safely skid a few feet away from the zeppelin. Its cargo hatch was still open, but the whole airship was slowly ascending.
“INSIDE!” screamed Wilkie.
The Secret Service agents leaped out of the car and rushed the president up the ramp. However, the airship rose so quickly that the remaining men had no choice but to jump aboard. Robert Todd Lincoln in particular was so winded that he had to be pulled up the ramp. Once he was helped back onto his feet, it appeared that everyone was on the airship safely: the president; Mr. Lincoln; Chief Wilkie; Secret Service Agents Sloan, Wheeler, Jervis, Bowen, and Murphy; and a relieved George Robinson.
But then, Robert felt inside his pocket to find only a handkerchief. He looked down and watched in horror as his father’s pocket watch slid down the ramp. As the airship shot skyward, the timepiece disappeared over the edge and into darkness.
The pocket watch was gone.
Fortunately, Wilkie dove across the floor and caught the timepiece just as it slipped off the edge, nearly taking the chief with it.
“Can someone help me!” he shouted with half his body out of the airship. Wilkie watched in terror as, with these words, his lit cigar tumbled over Grove Street Cemetery.
The Secret Service agents grabbed their man by his legs while President Taft personally pulled his bodyguard back onboard Airship One by his belt. His hat was missing and his thinning hair was a mess, but Chief Wilkie was alive.
And holding a magnificent pocket watch, its lid open for the world to see.
The chief swaggered over to a disbelieving Robert Todd Lincoln and handed him the golden timepiece.
“I believe this is yours, Mr. Lincoln.”
Robert was reunited with his father’s pocket watch and, seconds later, an overjoyed President Taft embraced his rescued son.
The New Haven raid of 1911 was a success.
Chapter XXX
The Pullman Conference
June 23, 1911.
The President arose early this morning in spite of the fact that he did not arrive here from New Haven until after midnight, but he slept well on the train. I did not get down to breakfast until late, and I found him in a most uncommunicative mood. I knew that something had happened since last night to upset his equilibrium. It was not long for me to find out …38
Shortly after the spectacular nighttime battle was over, Major Butt steered a battle-damaged Airship One back to West Point. Although there had been many injuries, not a single member of the academy’s triumphant Ninth Cavalry was killed. The battle, as Taft described it, was a “splendid little victory” for everyone except Professor Moore of the Weather Bureau. That unfortunate fellow spent the next several days deflecting criticism about the “freak summer squall” he failed to predict hitting New Haven Harbor. As for the extensive damage done to Yale campus, the whole affair was resolved quickly thanks to a generous endowment from the Tafts and a surprise donation of nearly a hundred cadavers to the Yale School of Medicine.
Basil Zaharoff, however, remained missing, leaving
nothing behind but his briefcase and its mysterious contents. For the entire day, state and federal investigators scoured every yard of Yale campus, every crevice of its steam tunnels, and every darkened corner of Skull and Bones Hall for any clue that might bring them closer to the madman.
The president, meanwhile, reunited with his son, and boarded Robert Todd Lincoln’s private train for New York while Major Butt stayed behind to repair the zeppelin. When Taft pulled into the city that afternoon without reporters or fanfare, an incognito Nellie was waiting for him alongside Attorney General Wickersham. Together, the three paid a visit to J. P. Morgan at his library while Wilkie waited outside his study smoking a fresh Meridiana Kohinoor.
That evening, as Major Butt piloted Airship One back to Washington, President Taft departed New York more frustrated than he had ever been in his presidency. Aboard Mr. Lincoln’s luxurious Pullman Palace train car, the president had a late-night meeting with his closest aides.
Also, at Nellie’s insistence, the president had a terrible secret to share.
“Poisoned!” gasped an outraged Arthur Brooks.
A heartbroken Taft nodded heavily. “Yes. Arsenic, I am so sorry to say.” The somber president firmly held his wife’s hand as he said this.
“Is there any way this could’ve come from someone on the White House staff?” Wilkie put to Brooks.
“Absolutely not! Mr. President, Madam President, we have known each other for many years. I can personally assure you that nobody employed at the mansion would ever harm you.”
“John, this treachery may not even have occurred in the White House,” noted Robert. “With the president and madam president’s many travels, there is no telling where this cruel act occurred.”
“Could the automaton have done this?” Wilkie suggested with his eyes afire. “Brooks, has that thing ever been allowed near the first lady’s food?”
“Please don’t call me that,” Nellie interrupted. The car fell silent as the first lady took a long breath from her new silver cigarette holder. “I never cared for that term,” she puffed.
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