by Ed Gorman
Robert J. Randisi has had over 375 books published since 1982. He has written in the mystery, western, men’s adventure, fantasy, historical, and spy genres. He is the author of the Nick Delvecchio series, the Miles Jacoby series, and is the creator and writer of The Gunsmith series, which he writes as J. R. Roberts and which presently numbers 240 books. He is the founder and executive director of the Private Eye Writers of America.
Allan Pinkerton and his already famed detective agency had their hands full during the Civil War spying for the Union. Timothy Webster was one of Allan’s top operatives, until he was caught and hung by the Confederacy. But that fateful end is still in his future at the time of this story.
THE KNIGHTS OF LIBERTY (“THE DOUBLE SPY,” FROM THE CASE FILES OF TIMOTHY WEBSTER)
Robert J. Randisi
ONE
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
OCTOBER 1861
“Damn you, Timothy Webster, you’re a goddamned spy!” the man shouted. His name was Mike Zigler, and while he was known to some of the men in the saloon, he was not as well liked as good ol’ Tim Webster.
“What are you babbling about, Zigler?” one of the others asked.
“This man’s a damned Yankee spy!” Zigler shouted. “I saw him in Washington yesterday.”
Webster rushed to his own defense with the truth.
“He’s right,” he said calmly. “I was in Washington yesterday. Many of you know that already.”
“Yeah,” Zigler said, “but do they know that you were in the company of the chief of the Yankee detectives?”
Now Webster had no choice but to call the man a liar by being one himself.
“You are a liar!” he cried, with as much indignation as he could muster.
“Damn you!” the man shouted, and sprang at him.…
* * *
When Timothy Webster was summoned by Major E. J. Allen he knew he would once again be placed in danger while performing a service for his country. He had no problem with that. It was the way he preferred to live his life, risking it from time to time. From the time he first went to work as a detective for the major’s agency his fife had become worth living. Prior to that he’d just been marking time. He’d come to America from England with his parents when he was twelve. They’d lived in Princeton, New Jersey, where he had worked as a mechanic. Eventually, he went to work for the New York City Police Department. It was the kind of work he wanted, but still not enough. So when he met the major and was offered a job to work for him, he jumped at the chance.
Now, five years later, he was working for the major in a different capacity. This time he was a spy for the newly formed secret service, serving President Lincoln and the Union cause. However, it was not so much patriotism that brought him to this work—even though he had adopted the United States as his country—as it was loyalty to the man for whom he’d worked for five years.
When President Lincoln decided there was a need for a “secret” service he went to the one man he thought could head up such an operation. That man was now known as Major E. J. Allen—but, in reality, his name was Allan Pinkerton.
* * *
Webster had been a Pinkerton detective for five years, and only recently had he been pressed into service as a secret-service man. Pinkerton had closed his offices and, in accordance with President Lincoln’s specifications, had formed his secret service—and many of the men he pressed into service were his own operatives. Of them all, Timothy Webster was the best. This was not vanity on Webster’s part, but Pinkerton’s own opinion. That was why he summoned Webster for the dangerous job of becoming the country’s very first double spy.
“Come in, Tim,” Pinkerton said, using a firm handshake to draw the man into his office. As usual Pinkerton was looking prosperous in a tweed three-piece suit, a gold watch fob hanging from a vest pocket. He accepted President Lincoln’s appointment on the condition that he would not have to wear a uniform. He preferred to worry about blue and gray only when talking with his tailor. He proffered a well-fed appearance which he attempted to temper with sideburns and a heavy mustache.
“How are you, my boy?”
“Fine, sir.”
“Sufficiently recovered from your last assignment to take another, do you think?”
“I’m ready when you are, sir.”
“Good man!” Pinkerton went around behind his desk and indicated the chair located directly in front of it. “Have a seat and let me explain it to you. This one might be extremely dangerous.”
Webster was a tall, impressive man, sometimes referred to as “Big” Tim Webster, but it was not his size, nor his courage, which made him an effective double spy. Rather it was his ability to ingratiate himself to anyone, to make friends at a moment’s notice. In addition, there was his incredible good luck. It was the sort of luck that Pinkerton, his fellow operatives, and his friends thought could only be brought by a Guardian Angel. Some thought Webster depended too heavily on this luck, took it for granted, and would someday pay the price. Perhaps he would, but that did not stop him from putting it to the test.
This time, explained Pinkerton, it would be put to the test in Baltimore in pursuit of a group of hostile Southern sympathizers known as the Knights of Liberty.
“You would be alone among the enemy, using your uncommon charm to ingratiate yourself to the extent that you will be invited to join this brotherhood of Rebels. Do you think you can do this?”
Webster smiled and said, “It’s a challenge I gratefully accept, sir.”
“As I knew you would, my boy,” Pinkerton said, proudly, “as I knew you would.…”
TWO
Baltimore, Maryland, was under a state of martial law when Webster arrived. Southern sympathizers were at work everywhere. Lincoln’s administration had arrested people in authority, city officials, newspaper editors, and the like, bur some of the Baltimoreans who were also Southerners had formed organizations whose purpose it was to undermine the government at every turn. One such organization was the Knights of Liberty, and it was Webster’s assignment to insinuate himself into their service for the purposes of disbanding them and having the members arrested.
Webster had done his double-spy work in the South before, and had also been to Baltimore in the past. For those reasons, when he arrived this rime he was recognized by some and greeted as a friend of Dixie. He arrived in grand style, too, as Pinkerton had supplied for him a generous expense account. He took up residence in the Miller Hotel, one of the finer establishments in Baltimore. Not as alone as he might have thought, he made contact with another agent of the North named John Scully, whose assignment it was to assist Webster in any way possible.
* * *
“In what way will you establish yourself?” Scully asked during their first meeting. They were sitting in the bar of the Miller Hotel, preferring to be seen in public rather skulking about in private someplace. This way their meeting seemed very innocent, and no one else could hear what they were saying. They sat with a glass of sherry each, and sipped slowly. It would not do for a double spy to become drunk and loose-lipped.
“I have already taken steps to do so,” Webster said. “I have railed openly against Union outrages and predicted victory for the Confederacy. Also, I have offered to transport papers, maps, and anything of that sort into Washington for any Southerners who have messages they need delivered.”
“And will you deliver them?”
“Oh, yes,” Webster said, “but only after we have opened them, copied them and sent them on to Mr. Pinkerton.”
Only Lincoln, some of his staff, and the operatives who worked for him knew that “Major E. J. Allen” was actually Allan Pinkerton.
“That is devious,” Scully said. “I don’t understand how you do it, Tim. Everyone seems to trust you.”
“It is a gift,” Webster said, “and one I have always used to my best advantage.”
“That is why I am glad we are colleagues,” Scully said, “and not friends.”
Webs
ter understood exactly what his “colleague” meant. You cannot betray a man with whom you are not friends.
“I propose a toast,” he said, raising his glass, “to our business relationship.”
* * *
And so, for the next two weeks Webster worked flawlessly at establishing his identity. He did make trips into Washington, lest anyone check his story closely, and he was able to send Pinkerton copies of many messages sent into the capital city by Southerners—some harmless, some not so. By the end of those weeks no one in Baltimore doubted his veracity, all thought him a fine fellow working for the cause of the South.
But perhaps not all.…
* * *
Webster had just returned from Washington, a trip which had not yielded very much in the way of information, but still he was in good spirits. Many of the Southerners he had ingratiated himself with were actually fairly good fellows whose company he enjoyed. That would not, however, keep him from doing his job and having them arrested if the need arose. Whenever an arrest took place as a direct result of his actions, he was the one who protested the loudest about the indignity and unfairness of it. This only endeared him that much more to his Southern friends.
On this particular night he was in one of Baltimore’s popular saloons with a dozen or more of his “friends” around him. Nowhere in sight was John Scully; it was just Webster and a roomful of Southerners. Suddenly a man appeared, sullen and scowling, and pushed his way through the crowd so he could face Webster nose-to-nose.
This, then, was Mike Zigler, who was presently springing at Webster with very bad intentions.…
* * *
Before anyone could move, Tim Webster’s fist caught the man right in the face and sent him to the floor. He sprang up angrily, a knife in his hand. At this point Webster produced his pistol and pointed it at the man, unwaveringly.
“Get out of here before I kill you.”
Zigler glared at Webster, then looked around him and shared the glare with the others.
“You’ll get what you deserve if you befriend this man.”
“Ah, you’re crazy!” someone shouted from the back. “I’d just as soon believe that Jeff Davis hisself was a spy, as ol’ Tim here.”
Others piped in with their agreement and Zigler had no choice but to skulk from the saloon and melt into the darkness.
Webster bolstered his gun and called out, “Drinks for everyone!” which was met with a chorus of cheers. The incident served to bolster Webster’s position as a fellow Southerner, but he still had not achieved his ultimate goal—to be invited to join the Knights of Liberty.
He assumed that invitation would require a very special act.
THREE
After the incident in the saloon Webster decided he needed to do something drastic to further cement his position as a true Southerner. He decided that a few secret trips into lower Maryland and Virginia while carrying secret messages would do the trick. He decided to take Scully with him. His admiring Southern friends warned him to be on constant lookout for Union soldiers, because “those Yankees are capable of anything.”
Webster and Scully were actually able to move very easily in and out of the areas because they carried secret Union passes. Meanwhile, the messages they were given to carry enabled the Union to connect to the South persons never even previously suspected. These forays into “Union territory,” enabled Webster to facilitate the arrest of many Southern sympathizers while also serving to endear him further to his fellow Baltimoreans.
When he returned, he found himself hailed as a Southern hero, and waiting for him was the very invitation he had been waiting for.
* * *
He was several days returned from Virginia when a man came up beside him in a saloon and offered to buy him a drink.
“I have one, sir,” Webster said, “but I’ll gladly take you up on the offer when I’ve finished.”
“No,” the man said, “not here.”
“Where, then?”
“Are you aware of the Knights of Liberty?”
Webster took a good look at the man now. Slightly built, thinning gray hair, probably in his mid-forties, with just the hint of a Southern accent.
“I certainly am,” Webster said.
“They have been watching you,” the man said, “and have decided it is time to invite you to be one of us.”
Webster looked around and then lowered his voice. “You are a member of the Knights of Liberty?”
“I am,” the man said proudly, “and it is my duty to make you one. What say you?”
“What else could I say,” Webster asked, “but ‘Lead on.’”
“Not now,” the man said, lowering his voice even more and glancing about. “We meet at midnight. Meet me here at quarter-to and I will take you there.”
“I cannot wait, sir,” Webster said. “This is indeed an honor.”
“For us as well, Mr. Webster,” the man said. “Your exploits are well known to us. No one has risked their life more for the South without actually donning a uniform. Quarter till midnight, sir.”
“I’ll be here.”
The smaller man nodded, and then faded away into the crowded saloon.
* * *
Still later, seated at a table together, he made his arrangements with Scully.
“You’re going in alone?” the other agent asked.
“I must,” Webster said, “tonight and other nights, as well. I must discover all I can before we take steps to disband them. We must know who all their members are, and who their contacts are, as well.”
“But I could follow you, see where you go, and then bring troops to rake them—”
“Not tonight, Scully,” Webster said. “We must wait until the time is right.”
“If you have another incident like that night in the saloon with that fellow Zigler—”
“I’ll have to take my chances, John,” Webster said. “I implore you, do nothing tonight but wait for me to contact you.”
Scully worried his bottom lip but finally agreed.
* * *
Webster met with the slight man in the saloon as arranged. He was then taken to a deserted street corner where they stopped.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“You must be blindfolded from here.”
“But if I am to be a member, why can I not see where we are going?” Webster asked, contriving to sound confused.
“First you must be accepted as a member,” the man said. “That is what tonight is for. Once you have been accepted you may come and go to meetings freely.”
Webster wondered if this was a trap. Had they found out who he really was, perhaps from that man Zigler, or someone like him? Was he being blindfolded and led to his death?
He decided he must take the chance. He was so close to his ultimate goal, the disbanding of the Knights of Liberty, that he had to accept the risk.
“Very well,” he said. “Blindfold me.”
FOUR
Once the blindfold was in place he was led down the street, the slight man—whose name he still did not know—holding him by the arm. They stopped at a gate, where the man gave a proper password, and then they went down a concrete stairway and along an alleyway until they reached a door which was opened only after a second password was uttered. Webster fervently hoped, as he was led down another stairway, this one inside, that when the blindfold was removed he would not be facing cocked pistols and rifles.
Finally they reached a room and stopped. He could sense the others around him, knew he must be in a crowded room full of Southern supporters who, if they knew who he really was, would tear him apart.
“Timothy Webster?” a strange voice said.
“Yes.”
“If you are to be a member of the Knights of Liberty,” the voice said, “you must take an oath to support the South and to thwart, hate, and violate the Northern abolitionists until you draw your last breath, or until we have won this accursed war. Do you so swear?”
“
I swear,” Webster said. “With all my heart.”
“Remove the blindfold.”
Someone did so and Webster had to wait for his eyes to adjust before he could look into the faces of the men who surrounded him. Suddenly they surged forward, closing on him, and after a moment of panic he saw they were smiling. Then they were shaking his hand and patting his back heartily, and just like that he was a Knight of Liberty.
* * *
That night he was called on to make a speech and he did so with verve and vigor, denouncing the Yankees and all they stood for. In the end the place exploded with applause and he was truly accepted as a brother.
That night, and for many nights after, Webster attended the meetings and memorized names, and faces, and facts. He learned that they did, indeed, work in direct contact with the Southern army, and that they had branches outside of Baltimore. He stored enough information in his mind to cripple their organization, and yet he still would not allow Scully to close in and round them up.
Then one day Scully said, “I think you should contact Mr. Pinkerton, Tim, Let him decide what to do.”
“And if I don’t,” Webster asked, “you will?”
“The longer you are inside, the more danger you are in. It is my duty to look after you,” Scully said, “and that is what I intend to do.”
“Very well,” Webster said. “I will consult with Mr. Pinkerton.”
Scully nodded his thanks and breathed a sigh of relief that the matter had been taken from his hands.
