The silver bullet ps-1

by Jim DeFelice

  “ Fire!” he yelled, banging first on the lieutenant’s and captain’s door. “Fire!”

  The officers, who didn’t have to go through the bother of removing a barricade to get out, emerged and ran down the stairs. Herstraw took much longer, coughing from the thick smoke when he finally came out, both boots in his hand.

  Jake, lying in wait with his mouth covered by a water-soaked rag, would have preferred that he left them in the room but had realized he wasn’t likely to be that lucky. The patriot had taken up a post near the door just in case of this contingency, and tripped Herstraw immediately, sending him flying across the hallway into van Clynne, who had the duplicate bullet in his hand.

  Caught off balance, the Dutchman staggered backward and then fell to the floor, as did the boot and its bullet. There was considerable and commendable confusion as Jake fanned the smoke toward the tumble of men and yelled at them to seek safety. The situation was compounded as the lieutenant returned to the house armed with two buckets of water, which he promptly unloaded on Herstraw and van Clynne.

  “ Goddamn it, you food!” growled Herstraw, struggling to his feet. “Give me my boots!”

  “ They’re right here,” said van Clynne, groping for the bullet.

  To describe what happened next, we first have to suspend this scene and turn the clock back a few short hours, joining a horse and rider on the road to Connecticut. The horse is worn almost to death, but the rider pushes on all the harder, ignoring his own pain and wounds.

  The rider is Major Manley, having just realized he has gone off in the wrong direction, he is retracing his steps, inquiring after Jake at every house along the road. Finally he sees it would be more profitable to ask after Herstraw and his British escort. His horse gives way, there are various and sundry other difficulties — with no wish to make this villain seem more heroic than necessary, we join him outside Roelff’s, where he meets the soldiers assigned to accompany Herstraw. They are oblivious to the “fire” just now being lit, grumbling that they have to sleep in tents while their officers push aside soft goose feathers and ogle the proprietor’s daughter.

  “ Six of you, come with me,” commanded Manley in such a presumptive tone that the men did not even think to question him. He led them straight to the house, where the alarms were just breaking out. Assuming that his quarry was somehow involved, the assassin rushed inside and up the stairs — and straight into van Clynne, tripping over the prostrate squire as he grabbed for the bullet.

  The shouts, the alarms, the smoke — greater confusion had not reigned since a mouse snuck into the queen’s birthday celebration. Guns were fired over van Clynne’s head; Jake shouted and fired back. People flew through the air like witches, and there was all manner of running and disorder. It was a miracle that the Dutchman was able to pluck the two silver balls from the floor where they’d rolled together and toss one into Herstraw’s boot as the messenger grabbed it and ran outside. If luck did not clear van Clynne’s path, then the patron saint of portly Dutchmen surely did.

  Jake’s timely fling of a smudge pot into Manley’s face may also have helped, as the British secret agent’s long body provided an effective barrier to the soldiers rushing behind him. They sprawled across the hall as if felled by one of those double-chained balls ship captains use to take down an opponent’s rigging.

  “ I’ve found you at last,” gasped Manley.

  “ Just in time,” said Jake, falling upon him. “I still owe you something from the lake.”

  Everything else happening in that cramped hall melted away as the two men locked their bodies in a desperate duel. Though Manley had spent much energy arriving here, he was far from weak, and managed the first serious blow, flicking Jake off his back. He jumped to his feet and kicked at him, landing a sharp blow to Jake’s ribs.

  Jake bounced up, dodged another kick, then aimed a punch at Manley’s chest. The force of the blow was dulled when the Englishman turned at the last moment. The pair exchanged a few glancing shots, then momentarily fell back against the opposing walls to catch their breaths and clear their eyes in the thick haze of smoke.

  Never had Jake fought a man so much taller than himself. His limbs were narrow and yet he had remarkable strength, whipping his punches back and forth as if he were cracking a bull’s tail. Jake threw himself forward, fighting off the pummeling to grab Manley around the torso. He shoved his knee upward; Manley moaned as he fell back. But the British agent surprised Jake with a roundhouse right as he surged forward again, and the American fell off to the side.

  Not even the coca leaves Manley chewed could match the fury in Jake’s muscles as he called on his body’s reserves to deliver him from this English demon. Liberty herself aimed Jake’s fist as he threw it, cracking Manley’s head back against the wall. Manley brought his arm around and punched Jake’s neck, but as he tried to slide away, Jake struck with the dagger he’d caught in midair on the lake. The red ruby in the hilt end seemed to glow as sharp blade found its way into the villain’s heart.

  Three times he plunged into the vast chest, waiting until he felt the death rattle reverberating through the long body as it slipped to the ground. He withdrew the knife and saw his enemy’s last glance, a bewildered, angry look that foretold several centuries of restlessness for his now homeless soul.

  Jake had no time to ponder Manley’s future as a ghost. He stepped back through the tumult of bodies sailing around him, then plunged down the steps, escaping outside.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Wherein, a small but critical error is discovered, leading to yet another change in plans.

  Given the reverses of the past twenty-four hours, Jake felt somewhat relieved to make the edge of the woods without pursuit. He felt even better when he heard a familiar grumbling up ahead in a clearing.

  Van Clynne had smashed his foot upon a log and was implying that Heaven had placed it specifically in his path. The squire’s mood lifted upon seeing Jake, whom he feared had been killed or at least captured by the untimely arrival of the British.

  “ Thank God you’re all right,” said the squire, clapping him on the back and forgetting all about his injured toe.

  “ Thank God for you, too,” said Jake. “You were a wonder in there, Claus. I really must admit I couldn’t have pulled this off without you. Wait until General Washington hears this story.”

  Ordinarily, van Clynne would bask in the glow of such praise. In fact, it is hard to imagine otherwise, given the squire’s hopes for the restoration of his property.

  But the Dutchman was a great student of odds. And though the average bystander would have computed the changes of his getting the right bullet into Herstraw’s boot at fifty-fifty, he knew that certain other laws came into play at a moment of crisis. Call it Van Clynne’s Law — the shoe will always be on the wrong foot when catastrophe strikes.

  “ The wrong bullet!” exclaimed Jake.

  “ Perhaps I am wrong,” said van Clynne. “You open the bullet and read the message.”

  But of course he was correct. And none of Jake’s curses — nor van Clynne’s — could change that.

  The troops had moved their tents to the front of Roelff’s property and doubled their guard. The windows were ablaze with light; no doubt van Clynne’s friend was now earning the extra money he’d been slipped by denying any knowledge of the rebels.

  Much to his chagrin, van Clynne agreed with Jake that there was only one course open: return to New York City and carry out the exchange aboard Howe’s ship, while Jake arranged a reception for Herstraw in the city.

  The prospect of crossing the water did not thrill the Dutchman, and he was silent the entire journey through the woods south of Roelff’s and down the road to Morisania. They had hopes of finding a boat there they might borrow.

  The phony patriot raid had not only delayed Herstraw and his company, it had placed the entire countryside on high alert. Jake and van Clynne nearly ran into a pair of German soldiers, who fortunately were too angry at s
ome slight from their sergeant to pay more than passing attention to the shadows diving for cover by the roadside.

  When the mercenaries had passed, van Clynne gathered his bearings and led Jake through two yards and a path, down to the rocky shore. A canoe was tethered a short distance away. Alas, the path was treacherous and wet; the Dutchman soon slipped and only just managed to keep himself from crashing into the sharp stones.

  The Dutchman’s fear of water had not abated, and so he may be excused for closing his eyes as he crawled forward on the rocks and groped for the vessel.

  His eyes were quickly opened again by a series of excited commands, in German, to give up and get out of the boat. As van Clynne dove in, Jake leaped from the land into the canoe, a bullet whizzing by his head and plunking into the water not three feet away.

  The other German was, fortunately, a worse shot, and Jake took advantage of the few seconds they needed to reload by paddling out into the current. All subsequent bullets whizzed harmlessly into the night, as long as you don’t count the one that struck van Clynne flat in the chest.

  The musket ball is a curious projectile. Much of its potential force is lost in the gasses that escape around it in the smooth bore of the barrel. Still, it retains a considerable amount of oomph; while not particularly accurate at one hundred yards — or ten, for that matter — it can still blow a nice size hole in one’s chest.

  Or in van Clynne’s

  The Dutchman went straight over when hit, plopping with such force that the canoe bounced wildly on the waves, nearly causing them to swamp.

  The plight of his friend gave Jake new vigor, and he soon made shore beneath the jagged heights of Harlem. It was difficult to haul the canoe up with van Clynne prostrate inside. Nevertheless, he managed; after securing it, he leaned back in the boat, wondering what he could do for the dead man.

  “ You can help me up.”

  “ Claus, you’re alive!”

  “ My purse seems to have saved me,” said the squire, reaching inside his clothes and coming out with a large leather bag filled with paper and coins — and one half-squashed led ball. “Now if this had been a Dutch bullet…”

  With Jake and van Clynne busy gathering their horses, tied a half mile away, now might be an appropriate time to sketch out the general environs of Manhattan island for readers unfamiliar with it. Trust that we will return to our heroes before anything of note occurs.

  The northern portions of the island are wooded and hilly, not much different from Morrisania and East Chester across the shore. The Post Road — alternatively called the Road to King’s Bridge — runs south from the north-eastern corner a ways, then takes a sharp turn to find the center of the island, a kind of noose at the base of the long neck of Manhattan. Fort George and Fort Washington, not to mention a large Hessian encampment in the middle, cut the head off.

  A battalion of ghosts haunt the grounds below the star-shaped walls of Fort Washington on the west side of the island. The fort had been the scene less than a year before of the patriot’s greatest loss in the war, a terrible and needless strategic blunder.

  After How had taken the city with a strike from the East River, General Washington retreated and held the Harlem Heights, a strong ridge about halfway across Manhattan. Following a brief but fierce and victorious battle, General Washington once more thought it prudent to retreat, taking up positions in White Plains and the Jerseys.

  And leaving behind a contingent at Fort Washington. These battlements consisted of redoubts on a position that commanded the battery above Jeffrey’s Hook. Among those who declared they could be held was Jake’s mentor Nathanael Greene, who had come from a sickbed to assist Washington in the final stages of New York’s defense.

  Combined with Fort Lee directly across the river and the assistance of some purposely sunken vessels between them, the Americans sought to block British shipping north. But the British had already shown that the river defenses were no more than a passing nuisance to their boats, and given both the strength and disposition of the English, trying to hold the makeshift fort was a fool’s mission.

  Unfortunately, those who perished in its defense were brave soldiers, not fools; among the dead were many members of Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Knowlton’s Rangers. Those who weren’t killed were captured, for all but the officers, this was mostly worse than death.

  Knowlton himself had been killed earlier during the action at Harlem Heights; in fact, Jake could see the spot as the dawning sun began extending its rays through the trees. Though never assigned to the colonel’s troop, he had always considered him a role model. His loss cost the patriots dearly.

  But enough sadness. Jake and van Clynne pushed south quickly, hoping to gain as much time for their operations as possible. As they passed James Delancey’s farm on the outskirts of the city proper, Jake held out his hand for Van Clynne to slow down; they trotted onto Grand Street in an almost leisurely pace.

  “ Hungry?” Jake asked van Clynne.

  “ Famished,” said the Dutchman. “But is it wise to venture onto the seas with a full stomach?”

  “ You’re only going into a harbor.”

  “ Is not the harbor an arm of the sea?”

  “ I think you need a tall mug of ale, despite the early hour,” said Jake.

  “ Rum, answered the Dutchman. “Strong rum.”

  After showing van Clynne inside a small inn where he was on good terms with the proprietor, Jake ran across the street to the shop of a purveyor whose name will be recorded here as William Bebeef. Bebeef was a man valuable to those whose politics coincided with Jake’s, doing good service by them. He was, unfortunately, suspected by the British of being a member of the Sons of Liberty, but as of yet he was free to come and go without apprehension. A large part of the reason for this was his fame as a supplier of various apothecary potions — and a few formulas that went beyond the usual cures for measles and love sickness.

  Bebeef’s encyclopedic knowledge of medicines and chemistry went far beyond Jake’s own, and the agent had some hope that the old man could conjure a temporary cure for van Clynne’s water phobia. But Bebeef was not in the shop; as a precaution, he’d taken to staying nights with his sister in Brooklyn. The lad he’d left in charge — woken with a discreet shake of his cot — was a mere apprentice who had hardly progressed beyond simple cures for dog distemper. Jake did not have any time to spend cobbling together concoctions himself, much less send for Bebeef. By way of compensation, he borrowed a package the chemist stored against contingencies, figuring his own might prove more urgent.

  The bundle was a special type of bomb shaped like a miniature keg, bound of a very light fire wood. A short fuse ran off each end and was twisted in the middle; there was a space of perhaps three seconds between lighting and ignition of the explosive.

  The powder at the center of the weapon was packed very tightly and shaped into an odd series of curlicues, held in place by starch-stiffened baffles, which, Bebeef had explained to the boy, acted like a magnifying lenses, except they worked on sound, not light. The effect of his meticulous engineering was to produce an explosion so loud that it could literally stun anyone within fifty feet into a temporary state of shock. Jake had seen one of these “noise kegs” stop the advance of a British column up Long Island last fall. While awkward to use, it was just the thing to cool a hot pursuit. Jake placed the bomb in his saddlebag, intending to reserve it for their escape from the city this afternoon, and then went inside the inn to retrieve his companion.

  The Dutchman was on the point of ordering a piece of pie to go with his run.

  “ I thought you weren’t hungry,” said Jake.

  “ The good woman tells me the pie here is made according to an ancient Dutch recipe, and it would be a shame to pass it by.”

  “ Take it with you then,” said Jake. “We have to go.”

  The Dutchman grumbled, but otherwise offered no protest as Jake called for a bill. “I was thinking,” he said, tugging Jake’s sleeve. “P
erhaps I should take some of that sleeping powder with me, in case I have trouble aboard ship.”

  “ I have no more,” said Jake, “and there isn’t time to prepare any. Besides, if you’re caught with it, Howe will realize something’s up.”

  “ Only after he wakes.”

  “ The operation depends on his never suspecting a thing. Here,” said Jake, reaching into the scabbard at his belt and producing the assassin’s knife. “Carry this with you.”

  “ That skinny thing?” Van Clynne pushed the dagger aside on the table. “I have my own knife, thank you.”

  “ It’s not just a knife. You see this?” Jake pointed at the ruby.

  “ I rather doubt the general will be bribed by such a bauble.”

  “ The knife is used only by members of the British Secret Service Department. The fact that you have it will signify to Howe that you’re a special agent. It will make him trust you.”

  “ Really?” Van Clynne picked the knife up and examined it carefully. “The Secret Department?”

  Jake nodded solemnly. Van Clynne turned the weapon over in his hand.

  “ Will they believe a Dutchman is part of their army?”

  “ I don’t see why not,” said Jake quickly, trying to boost his companion’s morale. In truth, the higher ranking officers might. He hoped van Clynne wouldn’t have to put it to the test. “The British are not given to asking questions where the department is concerned,” he added truthfully. “Generally, their agents have only one mission — to kill someone. They’ve assassinated princes all over Europe. Supposedly, they’ve even killed a pope or two.”