‘Sir,’ he said, prompting Nicolson. ‘Sir?’
‘Yes,’ said the captain. ‘Yes.’ Then, as if waking from a reverie, he drew himself erect. ‘Tell them we hear them, Master Sa’rnt,’ he said crisply. ‘Ask them—’
Wells was already elbowing one of the cadets away from the slot nearest him. Putting his mouth to the aperture, he pulled in a deep breath and then bellowed ‘You up there!’
‘We hear you!’ came the reply.
‘Who are you?’ Wells shouted. ‘What do you want?’
Willowfield told them.
He told them that he had a hundred men behind him, which was a considerable exaggeration they were in no position to challenge. He told them he was giving them a five-minute truce in which to send a man to check his statement that there was enough dynamite beneath the express car to blow it the rest of the way to Cheyenne. After that, he told them, they had two more minutes in which to throw their weapons out of the express car, and come out with their hands on their heads. Then he waited while Master-Sergeant Wells swung down from the express car, ducked beneath it, and returned to report his findings to Captain Nicolson.
‘It,’ Captain Nicolson said. ‘He. It can’t be. True, I mean. He couldn’t. Won’t. Sergeant, you don’t think he’d blow the train up do you?’
He was thinking of the priceless treasures which were, at least nominally, his responsibility, and about what their loss would mean to his career. These bandits obviously intended to steal them. There was little choice: he must die heroically defending them. He drew himself erect again.
‘I’ll go out there,’ he said, pulling his tunic down. ‘I’ll talk—’
‘Begging the captain’s pardon,’ Sergeant Wells said, sharply. He knew better than to actually lay a hand on the officer, but he also knew that if he had to, he’d knock the silly bastard unconscious before he let him step outside the car.
‘Meaning no disrespect, sir,’ he said quickly as Nicolson paused. ‘But those bas—those people out there have already killed three men. We’ll prove nothing by letting them have you for a target.’
Nicolson blanched. It hadn’t occurred to him that they would quite likely kill him out of hand.
He probably thinks they wouldn’t dare, Wells thought, him being the brigadier’s son.
‘Well,’ Nicolson said, as though considering every aspect of what Wells had just said. ‘Well, then. I think we may just let them sweat it out.’
‘Sir?’ Wells said, aghast. What was the stupid bastard up to now?
‘Sergeant,’ Nicolson said, patiently, using the tone that a grownup uses to explain a concept to a small child. ‘They want what is in this baggage car. They cannot get it with us in here.’
‘Sir,’ Wells said, carefully. ‘The dynamite … ’
‘They’d never set it off,’ Nicolson said, confidently. ‘Destroying the contents of the express car would negate the purpose of the holdup.’
He looked defiantly at the cadets. Not one of them would meet his eye. He was about to open his mouth again when Willowfield shouted once more.
‘You have exactly one minute left!’ he yelled.
Nicolson heard the words and broke like a reed. ‘Oh, my God,’ he groaned. ‘Sergeant ... ’ Master-Sergeant Wells was already wrestling with the bolts of the express car door.
By the time Willowfleld came down from the rim with five heavily armed men to back him up, the cadets were on the track, their weapons at their feet, hands on their heads. Willowfield surveyed them with satisfaction, and their officer with undisguised contempt. Leaving them to stand beneath the cold regard of his men, he climbed awkwardly into the express car, and surveyed the contents with a small smile playing on his face. No triumph: not yet. There was still a very great deal to do. Yet he was strangely elated. George Willowfield, he thought, you have come a long way. A long way from the parade ground at Salisbury where they had drummed him out of the Queen’s Own 17th Lancers, a long way from the canebreaks of Missouri where he’d ridden on the coat-tails of Quantrill’s cutthroats. What he had done here today would make Jesse and Frank James look like the country louts they had always been. George Willowfield had done the impossible.
The Freedom Train was his.
Chapter Two
‘You’re sure it’s not a hoax.’
It wasn’t really a question, and the speaker, a gray-haired man in his mid-fifties, didn’t really expect an answer. Nevertheless, President Ulysses S. Grant gave him one.
‘It’s not a hoax,’ he said.
The two of them were sitting on opposite sides of the president’s rosewood desk in the Oval Office of the Executive Mansion. Through the window across the porch the rose garden was still bright with nodding blooms and the scent of late magnolia blossom came through the open windows. At this time of year, squirrels would come down from the trees and eat from your hand in the gardens. Grant looked drawn and tired, as well he might, the visitor thought. 1876 had been a pretty bad year for the president. Nobody had actually gone as far as to accuse Grant of venery, but there’d been enough hinting to sink a battleship. The Belknap scandal, the destruction of the 7th Cavalry at Little Big Horn, everything from malfeasance to vote rigging had been laid at Grant’s door, and there was no question that in the forthcoming election he would leave the Executive Mansion forever. And if U.S. (Unconditional Surrender) Grant’s year had been nothing but bad news so far, the holdup of the Freedom Train was just about the right weight of straw to break the camel’s back. ‘You’ve read the letter,’ the president said.
‘I have indeed.’
‘And?’
‘And I think we’d better make arrangements to get the money together.’
‘You’d pay?’
‘There is no option, Mr. President. We have to play for time.’
‘Time,’ the president said, rolling the word around his mouth as if he were tasting it. I could do with a little of that myself, he thought. He leaned back in the big brass-studded leather armchair and relit his cigar, waving at the humidor on his desk by way of invitation.
‘No, thank you,’ the attorney general said. ‘I’ll smoke my own.’
He picked up the letter and read it for perhaps the twentieth time, thinking how fast this situation had developed, snowballed. The non-arrival of the Freedom Train at Cheyenne. The discovery, almost immediately, that the telegraph lines between that place and Laramie—from where the Freedom Train was due—were dead. Then, before the UP officials at Cheyenne had put together a special train to go up the track to look for the missing train, Engineer Pat O’Connor had arrived on a lathered horse and given his account of the fate of the Freedom Train. That information, together with the text of the letter which the attorney general now held in his hand, had been telegraphed instantly to Washington.
General U.S. Grant, President of the United States.
Sir,
My men and I have captured the Freedom Train. We are holding it presently at Sweetwater Cut, Wyoming Territory, where both its personnel and its contents remain safe. The price of its release is $250,000. This sum, in used currency of denominations no larger than fifty dollars, is to be sent to a destination I shall designate upon receipt of your agreement to my terms, which should be forthcoming no later than 48 hours after your receipt of this message. If I have received no such agreement by midnight, Tuesday, October 3, the Freedom Train and its contents will be destroyed and all its personnel executed. Lest you be misguided enough to consider armed action of any kind in relief of the train, I would advise you to first consult the Army Topographical Corps for details of the configurations of the Sweetwater Cut and the impossibility of attacking it in any way which would preclude my executing the destruction of the train. The army map grid-references are Sheet 154A/2 North 1422/ West 45. I enclose a bona-fide.
Your obedient servant,
George Willowfield
‘What was the bona-fide?’ the attorney general asked.
Grant gestured at the sh
eet of paper in a sandwich between two pieces of glass which lay upon his desk: the flowery script plainly gave the title of the poem, The Star Spangled Banner.
‘Someone from the Library of Congress is coming to pick it up later,’ Grant grunted.
‘Ah, yes,’ smiled his visitor. ‘I imagine they would.’
Grant leaned forward in his chair now, his brow knotted in anger, using his cigar in jabbing emphasis of his points.
‘I won’t have it, Charles!’ he growled. ‘It’s not on. I won’t have some goddamned renegade holding the United States of America to ransom!’
The attorney general said nothing.
‘Oh, I know what you’re thinking,’ Grant said. ‘You think I’m worried about my reputation, more mud to throw at the Party just before the election. It’s not that, I assure you. There’s a principle involved. I’d rather order the entire goddamned army into the field than knuckle under to this … this scum, whoever he is. Send them out and tell them to take him and hang him to the nearest goddamned tree they can find!’
‘I know how you must feel, Mr. President,’ the attorney general said, ‘but we don’t dare use force. If he actually carried out his threat to destroy the train … Did you speak with the Topographical Corps?’
‘Yes, dammit!’ snarled Grant, slapping the desk in his impatience. ‘They confirmed what this, this Willowfield claims. No way of even getting close to that damned train without being spotted. Two men could hold Sweetwater Cut against a hundred.’
‘Yes,’ the attorney general said. ‘This Willowfield gives every indication of having planned his raid down to the smallest detail. I think we must send word that we accept.’
Grant looked up, his expression mule-stubborn. His gaze locked with the level eyes of the attorney general and then dropped. The angry light in his eyes faded and he shrugged, pressing a bell on his desktop. The double doors opened and one of his aides came in.
‘Get a clear line through to the United States marshal in Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory,’ Grant said, speaking slowly, as if every word was being dragged out of him with pincers. He scribbled something on a notepad, tore the page off and handed it to the man. ‘Send this.’
‘Yes, sir,’ the aide said, taking the paper and leaving the room, already on the run. The news of the ransom of the Freedom Train was already the hottest topic inside the Executive Mansion, and bets were being laid on what Grant would do. The aide read the scrawled words and shook his head.
‘Advise Willowfield of my acceptance,’ he said aloud. ‘Inform me immediately of his reply.’
Well, he thought, the president had better know what he was doing. Just handing over a quarter of a million dollars to some gang of renegades out west was very dangerous ground for anyone in Government. For the president of the United States to do it was suicidal. There wasn’t a damned thing in Article Two that gave him that kind of freedom. The in-joke around the place was that Grant was hoping the renegades would burn the Constitution, so that he could write a new one himself which covered his actions. The aide hurried down the hallway to the basement where the telegraphers were waiting.
Meanwhile, back in the Oval Office, Grant lit another cigar and leaned back in his chair. He looked at his attorney general with eyes narrowed against the wreathing Havana smoke.
‘Well, Charles,’ he said. ‘Les jeux son fait.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said the attorney general. He couldn’t bring himself to call Grant Ulysses, and he had never met anyone who did. ‘It’s done.’
‘You know what they say now, Charles.’
The attorney general nodded.
‘Rien ne va plus,’ he said quietly. ‘No more bets.’
~*~
They didn’t have long to wait.
John Barclay, U.S. marshal of the Wyoming Territory, sent the word through about eight hours later –just four hours short of the deadline. The telegraph line between Laramie and Cheyenne had suddenly become operative again—it didn’t take a genius to figure out that it was the renegades who’d cut it—and the telegraph key in the railroad depot at Cheyenne had chattered out its staccato message. Barclay had then transmitted it direct to Washington, and it reached the president as he and his attorney general were drinking great mugs of the hot, strong coffee on which some people swore Grant lived. Others said it was whiskey, and the attorney general couldn’t help but wonder whether Grant actually liked this awful brew: it tasted like thinned-down ship varnish and he said so.
‘Coffee’s no good unless the spoon’ll stand up in it, Charles,’ Grant grinned. ‘You’re getting effete.’
‘I’m getting a bellyache,’ his visitor said inelegantly. ‘Haven’t you got any whiskey?’
Before Grant could reply, there was a discreet knock and the young aide who had taken the president’s message earlier came into the room. He had a sheet of paper in his hand which he passed wordlessly over the president’s desk.
‘The reply, sir,’ he said. ‘From Cheyenne.’ He pronounced it Shy-enn, the way Easterners do.
‘Good, good,’ Grant said, getting up and taking the paper from him. ‘That’s all, Edward. Thank you.’
‘Sir,’ Edward said, going out. Grant didn’t even look at him, so intent was he upon the contents of the transcription. Without comment he handed it to the attorney general.
THE MONEY IS TO BE SENT BY SPECIAL TRAIN TO CHEYENNE TO ARRIVE AT NOON ON OCTOBER 5. AT NOON IN THAT DAY IT IS TO BE PLACED IN A ONE-HORSE BUGGY DRIVEN BY ONE MAN ALONE. HE WILL PROCEED TO HORSE CREEK CROSSING, TWENTY-SEVEN MILES NORTHWEST OF CHEYENNE, UNHARNESS THE HORSE, AND RIDE IT BACK TO CHEYENNE, LEAVING THE BUGGY WITH THE MONEY IN IT AT THE CROSSING. THE ENTIRE PROCEEDINGS WILL BE CAREFULLY OBSERVED BY US. ANY DEVIATION FROM THESE INSTRUCTIONS WILL RESULT IN THE IMMEDIATE DESTRUCTION OF THE FREEDOM TRAIN. IF THEY ARE FOLLOWED EXPLICITLY, THE FREEDOM TRAIN WILL BE RELEASED AT MIDNIGHT ON OCTOBER 5. ANY ATTEMPT TO PURSUE HARASS OR CAPTURE MYSELF OR ANY OF MY PEOPLE DURING THE CONSUMMATION OF THESE ARRANGEMENTS WILL BE CONSIDERED A VIOLATION OF THE AGREEMENT AND THE TRAIN WILL BE DESTROYED.
The attorney general looked up to find President Grant watching him closely for a reaction.
‘He’s giving us no time to set anything up,’ he said. ‘Very smart. Very professional. Almost as if he knows what our reactions will be before we have them.’
‘I don’t want to hear how clever the sonofabitch is!’ snapped Grant. ‘I want to know how we’re going to stop him from walking away with a quarter of a million dollars of taxpayer’s money!’
During the waiting period, instructions had been passed to the Treasury Department to prepare the ransom money as Willowfield had instructed: a quarter of a million dollars, no single bill larger than fifty dollars. It made two quite substantial bundles. The attorney general had also sent a message across to his own office in the big old building on Pennsylvania Avenue. There was much to be done and he told the president so.
‘We have to move fast now,’ he said. ‘A special train, I think. Engine tender and caboose, nothing more. Top priority clearance all along the line from the railroad people—’
‘I’ll see to that,’ Grant nodded.
‘Two of my men as guards for the money,’ the attorney general continued. ‘One of them to go out to, where was it? Horse Creek Crossing with the buggy, the other to lie low and pick up the trail of this Willowfield as soon as the Freedom Train has been released.’
‘Good,’ Grant nodded. ‘You think we’ve a chance of stopping this man, Charles? Bringing him in?’
‘We have a chance, sir,’ the attorney general said. ‘How good a chance I wouldn’t care to say.’
‘Then you’d best make damned sure you’ve got your best two men on that train, Charles.’
‘I’ve already started the ball rolling,’ the attorney general said.
‘Your very best men, mind,’ Grant insisted.
‘Frank Angel,’ the attorney general said. ‘And Bob Little.’
‘Little and who?’ Grant said.
/>
‘Angel, sir. Frank Angel. One of my very best men.’
‘That’s a hell of a name for one of your people, Charles.’
‘Yes, sir,’ the attorney general said. ‘I took the liberty of sending for Little, sir. He’s waiting outside.’
‘Good,’ Grant said. ‘Wheel him in.’
The attorney general got up and went to the door, holding it open for Bob Little, who had been waiting in the anteroom. He was a big, rangy man with corn-yellow hair and an open, farm boy’s face. When he smiled he had the look of a mischievous schoolboy. He could not have looked less like a killer, but Grant knew that all of the Justice Department’s special investigators were taught the killing arts, and if the attorney general said Little was a top man, it meant he was about as good a man as could be found anywhere in these United States. After the introductions, Little listened carefully as the details of his mission were outlined. Both the president and the attorney general confessed their misgivings about the whole business, their unease at sending him into such an open-ended situation.
‘I can’t tell you what to do or how to do it, Bob,’ the attorney general said. ‘Only that, no matter what, Willowfield’s not to be allowed to walk away with that money. I’m going to suggest that you take Frank Angel along as your backup. You ride the buggy out to the rendezvous. Angel can pick up the trail, and then you can play the rest as you find it. Of course,’ he said, gently, ‘you can choose your own backup. It doesn’t have to be Angel if you’d prefer someone else.’
Bob Little grinned his schoolboy grin. ‘No, sir,’ he said. ‘Angel’d be fine. Can’t think of anybody I’d rather have along.’
‘Good,’ said the attorney general. ‘Take Angel. And get going.’
Chapter Three
It could just about be done, the experts said.
They shook their heads over the time element, then allowed—albeit reluctantly—that whatever else Willowfield might be, he seemed to know with almost uncanny accuracy just exactly what the Union Pacific Railroad could do if it pulled out all the stops. And all the stops, by direct order of the President of the United States, were pulled all the way out. No expense, no effort was to be spared to get the two Justice Department men across the country in time to meet the deadline that Willowfield had set. UP’s engineers figured it out on paper: a Special, using their fastest, most powerful locomotive with just a tender and one of the new lightweight cabooses, could rack up enough knots to cover the distance between Omaha and Cheyenne in the time that Willowfield had specified: as long as Little and Angel could be in Council Bluffs in time to make the connection.
Warn Angel! (A Frank Angel Western--Book 9) Page 2
