Fiddlehead

Twelve

Grant sat alone in the yellow oval, a drink in his hand, but only his second of the afternoon. His second of the late afternoon. And he wouldn’t allow himself another until sundown; that was the bargain he’d made with Julia. Espionage required clarity.

Again he considered if he were even capable of espionage within his own cabinet. Breach of privacy? Absolutely. Breaking and entering? You could make a case for it.

But the maid at the congressional office had a key.

And she had arrived.

Grant heard his elderly but reliable butler Andrews, who had been warned that the girl must be brought to the formal office whenever she appeared, and to lead her up through the back stairs. She’d come through the kitchen, he guessed. Even if the president didn’t mind a more direct approach, the rest of the staff would never have tolerated the impertinence; and it likely wouldn’t have occurred to the girl to wander up to the White House and knock anyway.

This teenage girl being ushered quietly in to see the commander in chief might’ve provoked gossip, if not for the fact that Julia was with him now, seated behind the oversized desk with her sewing and paying the needle and thread just enough attention to keep from sticking herself or ruining the piece.

Grant hadn’t planned to involve Julia. No one would’ve dreamed that he’d bring her into the fray of secrets. But that was the point: should anyone look askance at the arrangement, this was a maid, being brought to interview with his wife.

An utter fabrication, of course. It wouldn’t have withstood even a moment’s scrutiny by anyone the ruse needed to fool. Katharine Haymes, for example, would’ve spotted it in an instant—that this was the girl who worked the halls of the Capitol building, who cleaned Desmond Fowler’s office, who had accidentally interrupted her conversation with the president. Even Fowler himself might have taken a second look. But the president had a suspicion that, in general, girls like Betsey Frye were largely beneath the concern of men and women like Katharine and Desmond.

Girls like Betsey were the foot soldiers of the world, after a fashion. First to go in, last to leave, little respected, largely interchangeable, and virtually invisible … but indispensable if you needed someone with good eyes and ears and a willingness to follow orders. She kept her head down and did her job, unless you required something else of her. She was a lesser Andrews.

Ephraim Andrews himself was a stately, mannered colored man who must’ve been old enough to be Grant’s father, and who’d worked at the White House since he’d been a boy barely big enough to hold a coin. If Andrews couldn’t be trusted, then the whole damn world might as well burn.

It had been Andrews who learned the girl’s name and address, and who had tracked her down that very same evening. He’d delivered the president’s message and made the invitation without any telltale notes to haunt them later; and made the arrangements to see the girl and her mother moved to more comfortable quarters, in payment and gratitude for her service to the nation.

That was how Grant put it, anyway. He didn’t know how, precisely, Andrews had phrased it. He hadn’t been there. Maybe Andrews told her she’d answer to the president or be drawn up on charges; maybe he told her nothing except to appear, or else. Whatever the old man had said, it worked.

And here she was.

Still wearing her plain linen uniform, but covered with a winter cloak and a bag slung across her chest, Betsey stood before him. Eyes downcast, but flickering surreptitiously around the office. Back and forth between Julia and Grant, the rows of books, and the shimmering fixtures. Back and forth between the door and the windows, and at Andrews, until he left them there alone.

Julia, always the savior of such moments, set her sewing aside. “Betsey—that’s your name, isn’t it, dear?”

“Yes, ma’am,” she said clearly, but quietly.

“We appreciate you coming, and we know that it’s a risky thing you’ve done,” Julia warmly assured her. “I understand that your employers might look askance at this, even with the president’s permission.”

“Insistence, really,” he corrected his wife. “Do you have the folders I asked for?”

The girl nodded, pulled the bag’s strap up over her head, and stepped forward to deliver it into his hands. “I picked up the two with that name on it—the one you told me, I mean. And another one I found nearby. I thought it might be important.”

“Hmm.” He opened the bag and saw the neatly bundled papers, only a little mussed from the covert trip. “Thank you,” he said, even though he wasn’t altogether pleased that she’d read the files. He hadn’t even known she was literate, but she must be, if she’d realized any other material was pertinent. But there was nothing he could’ve done to stop her, and if he couldn’t rely on her silence now, he was damned regardless.

He’d relied on plenty of politicians over the last decade and change, and it had never worked out very well. Now he’d try his luck with another class—a better class, if you asked him, though he might change his mind when he considered the sentiment sober. People were only people, and some were more easily compelled by power than others.

Fine, then. He’d use his power where it actually worked, instead of boardrooms and war rooms where he was treated as a friendly pawn, and see if that panned out any better.

When Betsey had been sent on her way, Ulysses Grant carried her clandestinely delivered package toward the liquor cabinet out of pure habit.

“It isn’t dark yet,” his wife noted.

“She was early. And if ever any reading on earth required a drink, I believe this might be it.”

Fresh drink in hand, he dropped himself heavily into the chair Katharine Haymes had taken the week before. He retrieved the first file—MAYNARD—and opened it up, taking a hearty swallow from the beverage before he began to read.

“It can’t be that bad, can it, dear?” Julia asked. She didn’t pick up her sewing again, instead stuffing it into her kit and folding her hands.

“That bad and worse. There’s nothing I’d put past this woman,” he said, skimming for the important words. He saw mostly things he already knew on the first page. “She’s a regular Lilith. Put her and Fowler together, and they’d end the world for giggles on a weekend.”

“You don’t really believe that.”

“You haven’t met her. It’s like sitting across the table from a snake.”

Julia frowned, very faintly. “Would you say she’s any worse than any of the men you’ve dealt with?”

“Worse,” he said firmly, eyes still fixed on the pages in his lap.

“Truly your greatest adversary yet? Or worst simply because she’s a woman?”

“A little of both,” he murmured.

She sighed. “You’re making her sound like a monster.”

“You haven’t met her,” he repeated.

“She’s not a witch or a demon; she’s a person. She’s only different from what you commonly see, and the people you commonly fight.”

“Dearest,” he said, fluttering the pages in a pointed fashion, “now is not the time.”

But Julia persisted. “You behave as if you can’t possibly comprehend her motives. When I asked last night what she wanted, you said it must be blood, souls, or a spot at the devil’s right hand.”

“Anything’s possible.”

“No.” She shook her head. “Only the usual things are possible. She wants a long life, power and money, freedom and respect. Just like any man you ever met. She’s only beyond your ken because you allow her to be.”

“I believe we’re finished here. I’ll have Andrews bring the carriage around. You should return to your mother’s estate tonight.”

“You can’t dismiss me like I’m some naughty child.”

“Then I’ll dismiss you like I’m the president,” he said, quicker than he meant to. Then, to soften it, he finished the last of his drink and set it aside. “I am sorry. But this is…”

Before he could offer some weak explanation or excuse, she rose. “I’ll go find Andrews myself, and have Amanda pack me a trunk,” she said on her way out the door.

“Dear, I didn’t mean…”

“I know what you meant,” she said, as she closed the door behind herself.

He sighed, refilled his glass, and continued reading.

At first, the folders mostly served to confirm what Haymes had told him. He was surprised to learn how much of what she’d said could be called true, though she had glossed over the details, and filed their edges to make them less sharp. According to a researcher for her company, the weapon’s actual range was up to a mile and three quarters square, and it would require an estimated fifteen men to successfully move and deploy it, though twenty were recommended.

But in the next dossier, he found something that confused him: lists of parts and supply chains, budget estimates, and time requirements … to make another eight weapons. Why would they need another eight weapons? The whole of her sales pitch had been that one weapon would end the war. If another eight were in the pipeline, why should she earn a pardon? Why should she be granted amnesty or asylum?

The next folder answered his questions. In it, he found a series of contracts signed by Katharine Haymes, and receipts signed by Desmond Fowler.

Military contracts.

Vast ones, the kind that would make Haymes one of the wealthiest women—nay, the wealthiest people—in the world, if she wasn’t already. A series of deals brokered by Fowler, behind Grant’s back.

“Son of a bitch,” he breathed. “They’re betting against the Union.” Or at least they were betting against a speedy victory. After all, it was entirely possible that she’d struck a similar deal with Stephens in Danville. For all he knew, she was playing both sides, selling the technology to the highest and blindest bidders.

But he wondered if the South had any money left to spend on her.

Maybe not, then. Maybe she was just throwing her lot in with the richer party, and plotting to bleed it dry.

He hated her. Deeply, vividly.

He gulped down the rest of his drink without even tasting it, without remembering what he’d filled the glass with in the first place.

One last folder. It was fastened shut with a little seal, the kind that meant it’d been classified at the highest level. Well, Grant was the highest level. “Commander in chief,” he mumbled his title, in case it meant anything to the little wax mark that spread a green stain across the paper’s seam. “It don’t get too much higher than that.” By then he was too drunk to notice that he was lying to himself again.

He briefly considered doing this the sneaky way, with a heated knife slipped carefully beneath the wax to preserve its shape. Then he thought, “To hell with it,” and snapped the thing in two. Who cared if anyone knew he’d seen it? Everyone who kept this secret found him beneath contempt anyway.

The last folder, this sleeved set of documents, fluttered open in his lap.

The top sheet was stamped: POTENTIAL TARGETS

He read. And he read. And with every line, his heart climbed another few inches up his throat. He gathered the papers and jumped to his feet, clutching the bundle to his chest and gazing wildly around the room. “I was right,” he said to no one. “Terribly right. Awfully right. She’s going to … she’s going to…”

Who could he tell? Who would believe him?

A glance at the grandfather clock said it was not late yet, only a little dark … but not too dark for the extra drinks he’d finished while he scoured his stolen files. He looked down at the papers, wishing he had something better to hold them. Then he folded the whole bundle in half and stuffed it inside his waistcoat. It looked ridiculous, but with his overcoat on, no one would notice.

Out the door he went, calling for Andrews all the way. “Andrews! Andrews, is my wife still here? Andrews?”

When the aging servant appeared, perplexed and wary, he asked, “Sir? Mrs. Grant has gone, yes. To her mother’s estate, she said?” He let the question dangle, but when Grant didn’t reply, he added, “Shall I fetch you another carriage?”

“Yes!” he said too quickly, jamming a wool hat atop his head. “As soon as possible. I have an errand to run, and it won’t wait.”

“I can drive you myself,” Andrews said solemnly, obliquely telling Grant that between Betsey’s transportation and his wife’s, there was no one else on hand to perform the task.

“Ah, I see. Yes, thank you, Andrews. Under ordinary circumstances, I wouldn’t ask it of you; but this is more important than I have time to explain. Please, if you don’t mind?”

The miles were short to the Lincoln compound; the world streaked past as Andrews rushed the horses at Grant’s insistence. Gas lamps and electric lights ribboned through the night, keeping to the roads along with everything else on the way out of the Capitol’s center. Grant held on to his hat with one hand and the inside carriage handle with the other, sometimes switching out and stopping to pat the important stuffing he kept against his belly.

When they finally arrived, skidding up the driveway, Grant didn’t give Andrews time to open the door. He flung himself out of the cab. Over his shoulder, as he ran for the main entrance, he cried, “Don’t wait for me! Go home to Helen! I’ll see you in the morning!”

Behind him, the stomping and panting of the recovering horses settled into something slower and more plodding as the carriage turned around under Andrews’s expert handling and rolled back into the street.

Grant beat his fist against the door, knocking harder than decency would really allow. But these were indecent times, and, as he told the serving girl who answered his repeated poundings, “I need to speak with Lincoln, immediately!”

“I … I … please sir, come in.” She fumbled with the door and then his coat and hat, arranging them on the rack and begging his leave awkwardly. “Just excuse me for a minute and I’ll run and get him.”

Moments later, the girl reappeared and said, “Mr. President? I’ll take you to him, if you’ll come with me. He’s in the study.”

Grant knew where the study was, but he let the girl lead. She gestured toward the open doorway and then vanished.

“Grant, what’s the calamity?” asked Lincoln. He was reclined on a settee by the fire, his chair beside him and his long legs stretched out.

“Sorry to interrupt your nap … or your early bedtime,” he tried.

Lincoln sighed. “I was reading, and then some lunatic came beating down my door, and here you are. So have out with it.”

Grant stepped quickly to his old friend’s side. Seeing no chair nearby, he seized a small stool and placed it close enough to share Fowler’s secrets. He reached into his waistcoat and retrieved the documents, all of the sheets rumpled and warmed by his body, and made a show of spreading them out, half on Lincoln’s furniture, and half across his knees.

“Good God, old man,” Lincoln asked, adjusting his spectacles and noticing the Secretary of State’s letterhead. “What is this? What have you done?”

“Only a few illegal things, and none of them immoral,” Grant assured him.

“Well, that’s a relief…”

“It’s Fowler. Or rather, it’s that woman Katharine Haymes. She’s working him like a sock puppet, her hand right up his backside, making him talk her words, and sign her papers.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Haymes? I knew of her involvement, and I knew she was in town; Mary saw her at the Senators’ Ball and was all aflutter about it. But…”

“But nothing. I’ve seen her. Spoken to her. She’s a viper in a dress, Abe. She’s the end of the world in a bonnet, is what she is. Do you know what she’s done? Have you heard?”

“Bits and pieces. She talked you into a pardon, I heard that much. You’re really going to buy that weapon of hers after all? Please tell me that’s not the case.”

“It’s not the case. Or it is the case, but it’s not me doing the buying. It’s … it’s Fowler; he’s the one. He’s got the court in his pocket and her hand up his ass. He’s the one who arranged it, structured it, and pulled the trigger. Or so I learned after the fact … well after the fact, and I’m … I’m lost, Abe. You were right about everything, and I tried to assume the best. Never again.”

“Now, let’s settle down just a moment. It can’t be as bad as all that,” Lincoln said mildly, but his good eye was racing across the pages before him.

“It’s plenty bad enough. If we try to stop that weapon the official way, it’ll go off before we can force the orders through the bureaucracy. Fowler will see to that.”

“You’re probably right,” he murmured, still reading.

“Which bit are you looking at there?” Grant asked, leaning forward and seeing the requisitions report. “Yes, that right there. You see? She’s making more of them, or planning to. It’s not just one weapon—that was never the plan.”

“I wish I could say I am surprised.” Without looking up, Lincoln asked, “Do you know if she’s approached the South? Do you think she’ll sell to both sides? She was a Southerner by birth, after all. Then again…” He shook his head.

Grant picked up the thought and said, “I doubt they have the kind of cash she’s chasing. She’s a mercenary, through and through. She’s here in D.C. because we’re the only people on the continent who can afford her. But, look. It gets worse. This one was sealed.”

“What is it?”

“A list of targets they’re considering.”

They fell silent as they skimmed through the pages together—Lincoln for the first time, and Grant for the second, still unable to believe what he was reading.

Lincoln swallowed, and turned to the next sheet. “None of these are military targets. Except maybe Danville, and that’s only a capital.”

“That probably won’t be the first pick,” Grant surmised. “She could do some damage in there, absolutely—but it might be too much damage. It might actually shut down their government and end the war in one shot, and she can’t have that. Not when there are eight other moneymakers on deck. No, she’d more likely shoot for New Orleans. It’s their most important port, and there are plenty of civilians to murder.”

“Yes, but then she’d have to contend with Texas, and that’s no small feat. If it’s civilians she wants to kill, there must be … oh, half a million people in Atlanta, and it’s closer. With no Texian military presence. That’d be a bigger mess, wouldn’t it?”

“At least half a million. And did you read the part about how the gas cloud will travel? It could wipe out thousands … tens of thousands … beyond its initial targets.”

“More than that if the wind, the water, the … God almighty. She can’t possibly realize what she’s unleashing.”

“On the contrary,” Grant argued. “No one else on earth knows as much about the gas weapon as she does. She’s the one who developed it.”

A quiet knock on the door frame announced an interruption. It was Mary, holding a package. She smiled and said, “Sorry to break up the chatter, boys, but this just arrived from Fort Chattanooga.”

Lincoln frowned quizzically. “Chattanooga? That doesn’t sound right. Miss Boyd was just in Richmond, getting into trouble at the Robertson Hospital.” Then to Grant, he said, “There was an incident. I don’t know the specifics yet.”

“Miss Boyd?”

“A Pinkerton agent,” he replied vaguely. “I thought she’d be on her way back to D.C. by now.”

Mary handed him the package, a large envelope. “Perhaps not. This looks like a woman’s script to me.”

She left them to continue their conversation. Once she was gone, Lincoln said, “I think she’s right. Let’s find out for certain, then.” He tore the envelope and extracted Maria’s letter. On top was a cover sheet, from which he read aloud. “Dear Mr. Lincoln: Included, you will find a series of notes taken hastily by hand, condensed from a much larger set of documents. The original documents—a series of missives from a nurse on the Western shore—have been sent elsewhere for safekeeping, as I’m sure you will understand. Please forgive me for not including the particulars of the Robertson incident. I will save those for later, as this is far more important. I will remain in Chattanooga through Friday, visiting with our distant family and inquiring after the camp workers who were present during Miss Haymes’s weapon testing. Depending on where this line of enquiry leads, I may either pursue the case elsewhere or return to D.C. at that time. Will keep you abreast of matters. Yours, Maria B.”

Lincoln turned his attention to the remaining pages of the message, and Grant read over his shoulder.

They finished at approximately the same time.

Lincoln turned to Grant, and said quietly, “Perhaps there is someone who knows more about the gas and its workings than Miss Haymes, after all.”

“This nurse … wherever she is,” Grant agreed.

Lincoln shook his head, but he did so with a hopeful smile. “Yes, the nurse, but also Sally Louisa Tompkins, and now Miss Boyd, for they have read the nurse’s letters. Likewise, if Henry is there with Miss Boyd, then he knows, too; and we also know, if only an abbreviated form. This is the way word spreads, my friend: hand by hand, reader by reader. This nurse from the Robertson … she might well have saved us all, if we can heed her warnings in time.

“Now,” Lincoln said, shifting his tone and setting the papers on the armrest beside him. “I must ask your assistance. My chair is beside you there, you see? Help me into it, if you would. I need to get to my desk and write a telegram. You and I have a Union to save.”