The Two Georges

V

Major Michael Foster’s boyish face was petulant, as if his mother had forbidden him a hoped-for sweet.

“Nothing,” he said glumly. “Not a fingerprint anywhere except your own, Colonel Bushell. Not on the photograph, not on the ransom note, not on the cardboards. There are prints on the envelope itself, of course, but a hopeless jumble of them: it went through the mails, after all. But I would wager any amount you care to name that none of them will prove in any way connected to the Sons of Liberty.”

“You’re only too likely to be right,” Bushell answered. “The Sons are all too good at what they do. But have you by any chance examined the stamps? There, if anywhere, some significant fingerprint might be lurking: a Son would have bought them at a post office, would he not? He probably wouldn’t have worn gloves for such a purchase, not in summertime.”

The forensics specialist from Victoria respectfully dipped his head. “Well reasoned, Colonel. But take a closer look at the stamps.” He pointed to the envelope on the conference table. “Notice how the top edges are imperforate. That means they came from inside a booklet, whose outer covering could be handled by any number of Sons of Liberty without our being any the wiser from the stamps themselves.”

Bushell ran a forefinger across his mustache. He wanted to express his detailed opinion of the criminal competence of the Sons of Liberty, but was inhibited in his choice of language by the presence of Patricia Oliver, who sat next to Major Foster. “Captain, are they using a familiar machine?” he asked, curious to see how she’d react after the previous night’s scene.

“As far as I can tell on hasty first examination, no,” she answered coolly. “I hope further study will show I’m wrong there. If we can identify the typewriter, we’ll have a start on knowing where the ransom note was composed. It was posted locally, of course, but that doesn’t have to mean anything.”

“My guess is that the photograph isn’t local,” Bushell said. “I brought all the New Liverpool dailies the morning and afternoon after The Two Georges was stolen, and I don’t remember any headline from them exactly matching the one we see there. It’s something to research, at any rate.”

“So it is.” Sir Horace Bragg rested his chin in his hands. His expression was dolorous. “We have so much to research, and so few answers.”

“Have you spoken with Sir Martin Luther King yet?” Bushell asked. “Would His Majesty’s North American government pay ransom to the Sons of Liberty to get The Two Georges back?” If one such theft is paid, how many more would come in future?

“Were it up to me, I’d not give them a counterfeit ha’penny,” Sir Horace said. “What Sir Martin will choose to do, however, who can say? And I did find the timing of the ransom deadline . . . intriguing. Wouldn’t you agree, Tom?”

“Intriguing is a good word for it, sir,” Bushell said slowly. “Disturbing is another one that springs to mind.” The Sons of Liberty had threatened to destroy The Two Georges if they didn’t get their fifty million pounds by the day before that on which Charles III, King of England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, the North American Union, Australia, and New Zealand, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India and the African Possessions, Lord of Gibraltar, Malta, and Cyprus, Protector of the Ottomans, the Chinese, and the Hawaiians, was scheduled to arrive on his state visit to Victoria. Coincidence? Bushell didn’t believe in coincidence, not in a case like this.

The rest of the RAMs in the room looked curiously from him to Bragg. He realized they hadn’t yet been told of the King-Emperor’s impending visit. He also realized that, if the Sons of Liberty knew about it, they must have heard from someone who did know: either someone from London or, more likely, someone close to Sir Martin Luther King. He took out a cigar and, after a nod from Patricia Oliver, struck a lucifer and lit it.

He’d already known she didn’t mind smoke, of course, but he was doing his best to pretend - perhaps to himself as much as to the outside world - their encounter had never happened. By the casual, practiced way she responded to his silent question, she had plenty of experience with like pretenses. That eased his mind and saddened him at the same time.

Sir Horace said, “Matters of timing notwithstanding, we have our preliminary lines of inquiry laid out for us. Seeing if we can match the typewriter’s typeface and identify the newspaper whose headline is being utilized here will - or at least may - give us some notion of the locality in which this demand originated. We should also investigate the local post office from which the missive was actually sent, in the hope that a clerk will recall the person who handed him the envelope - if it was handed in rather than dropped into a letter box, that is. And, of course, I shall have to convey the ransom demand to the governor-general for his response.” A twitch of his shaggy eyebrows showed how much he looked forward to that. The RAMs who’d accompanied him from Victoria rose and left the conference room. So did most of the officers from New Liverpool with whom they’d be working. After a couple of minutes, the room held only Bragg and Bushell.

When Bushell made no move to go, Sir Horace looked at him in some surprise and said, “Is anything wrong, Tom?”

“Oh, not much,” Bushell answered, a sardonic bite to his voice. “I just wanted to thank you for coming and taking the investigation right out of my hands. ‘We need to do this. We need to do that. I’ll tell Sir Martin.’ Thank you very much, Lieutenant General Bragg, sir.”

Bragg held up a placating hand. “Take it easy, will you, please? For now, I’m the senior officer on the scene, that’s all. In a few days, a couple of weeks at most, I’ll be back in Victoria and the case will be yours again.”

“When an admiral comes aboard a ship commanded by a captain, that doesn’t make him ship’s commander, not unless he’s been ordered to take over,” Bushell said stubbornly. “Either this is my case or it isn’t. And you may go back to Victoria, sir, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be running things by telephone and wire. If you’re going to do that, please give me formal orders so I know where I stand. Sir.”

“You can be most exasperating when you’re nominally most obedient, do you know that?” Sir Horace said.

Bushell stood mute.

Bragg sighed. Just for a moment, as he exhaled, his hollow cheeks filled out and made him look like a well-fleshed man. Then they sagged again. He seemed older, more tired, than Bushell had ever seen him.

“What am I supposed to do with you, Tom?” he asked quietly.

He hadn’t intended that as a question to be answered; he’d started to say more. But Bushell, given the opening, charged into it: “Stand back, get out of the way, and let me do my job.”

“It’s not as simple as that.” Now Sir Horace sounded almost pleading. “Don’t you see? This isn’t just a criminal case - it’s a political one, too.”

“I don’t give a damn about politics,” Bushell said. “Find the painting and all the political nonsense goes away, anyhow.”

“If we rescue it, yes,” Sir Horace Bragg said. “If, on the other hand, we cause it to be destroyed, Sir Martin Luther King - to say nothing of everyone else in the NAU and the mother country - will be looking for a scapegoat. Do you really want everyone looking straight at you?”

Bushell’s eyes widened. “Of course I do. Hell, I’ll be looking at myself, too, and pointing a finger at my face in the mirror.”

“You mean it.” Bragg shook his head. At first Bushell thought that was wonder; after a moment, he realized it was more resignation. Sir Horace went on, “It’s no good arguing with you. I’ve known that for years, just as I’ve known you truly don’t care a fig for politics. I’ve always thought you were more able than I am, Tom, but not caring about politics is a fatal flaw for a man in public service. It’s why I am where I am today, and why you are where you are.”

Would changing his nature be worth a lieutenant general’s crown and crossed sword and baton? Would it be worth a knighthood, with the hope of a patent of nobility upon retirement? Bushell shrugged. The questions were irrelevant, since he could no more change his nature than the shape of his face. He said, “I suppose I’ll have to live with that, sir. Now, who is running this investigation?”

“I didn’t come to New Liverpool to take it away from you,” Bragg answered.

“No, sir. But it seems to have worked out that way.” With a quick-snapped salute and a precise about-turn, Bushell strode out of the conference room, leaving Sir Horace Bragg staring at his back. The telephone jangled. Bushell made a typographical error. Muttering a low-voiced curse, he spun his chair around so he could pick up the phone. It was not the first such interruption he’d had today.

“Bushell,” he said.

A woman’s voice spoke into his ear. “I have a long-distance call for you from New Orleans, Colonel, uh, Bushell.” She hesitated over his name, but pronounced it correctly.

“Go ahead,” he said wearily.

“Go ahead,” the operator echoed, and a man came on the line: “Good afternoon, Colonel; I am Chauncey Dupuy, of the Herald-Leader and Picayune.” He sounded like a New Orleans man, with an accent that at first hearing sounded more nearly northeastern than southern. “I wish to ask you some questions about this outrageous ransom demand for the return of The Two Georges.”

“Go ahead,” Bushell repeated. He knew what the questions would be before they were asked, and answered them with mechanical competence. Yes, he had received the ransom note. Yes, the photograph appeared genuine. No, he couldn’t say anything more about it than that. Yes, fifty million pounds was, as far as he knew, the largest ransom demand in the history of the NAU (Dupuy was thorough; not all the newshounds asked that one). Yes, the demand had been passed on to Sir Martin Luther King. No, Bushell didn’t know whether Sir Martin intended to meet it.

“What would you do if it were up to you, Colonel?” Dupuy asked.

“Go on with my work without having to answer some reporter’s questions every half hour,” Bushell answered. “Good day, sir.” With that, he hung up.

He turned the swivel chair back toward the typewriter. After he’d erased his error, though, he hesitated, then spun around to the desk again. He picked up the telephone, rang up the RAM switchboard. He told the operator who answered, “Direct any more calls for me from reporters to Lieutenant Thirkettle, if you’d be so kind. He can tell them as much as I can.”

“Very good, Colonel,” the operator said sympathetically. “I’ll pass the word on to the rest of the crew. Shall we brief the next shift in the same way?”

“Probably a good idea,” Bushell replied after a moment’s thought. “I’m liable to stay on after you’ve gone home.” He was liable to fall asleep in his chair again, too. He thought about ordering a cot sent up and installing it in his office. If things got worse, he would. How could things get worse? he asked himself, and was afraid he might find out.

He knew brief guilt at dumping the reporters in Lieutenant Thirkettle’s lap. But what was a public information officer for, if not to give the public information? And reporters, as they themselves like to brag, were part of the public.

Conscience thus assuaged, Bushell rang the Hotel La Cienega and asked to speak to Kathleen Flannery. After a moment’s silence, the hotel operator replied, “I’m sorry, sir, but Dr. Flannery checked out earlier this morning.”

“Thank you,” Bushell said, and hung up. He hadn’t told Kathleen she couldn’t leave town; he’d had no reason to justify telling her anything of the sort. But she’d be in transit for the next two or three days if she was going back home to Victoria, and so hard to reach. He supposed he could track down which train or airship she’d taken and wire ahead to one of its stopping points, but a moment’s thought told him it wasn’t worth the effort. All he’d wanted to know was her view of ransoming The Two Georges, and her view wouldn’t count. That decision rested on the shoulders of Sir Martin Luther King. Now that he’d given Thirkettle the joy of dealing with reporters, he had some small hope of catching up on the paperwork the reporters had been interrupting. He turned back to the typewriter and plunged ahead. Just as he was beginning to concentrate on the report in front of him, someone knocked on the frame of the open door.

He looked up with a snarl, ready to rend whoever had the temerity to break in on his thoughts at the exact moment when he was starting to accomplish something. Lieutenant General Sir Horace Bragg, however, was not rendable, not by a mere colonel. “Sorry to bother you, Tom,” Bragg said, as if they had not quarreled a few hours before, “but Sir Martin had summoned both you and me to a meeting in his suite at the Grosvenor to discuss our proper response to the demand you received this morning.”

“I wasn’t the only one who got it,” Bushell answered. “As best I can tell from the telephone calls I’ve got, word of the ransom demand went out to every newspaper in the civilized world except maybe the St. Petersburg lskra. I’ve not had a call from Russia, at any rate.”

As he spoke, he covered the typewriter and got to his feet. The governor-general had the power to bind and to loose. If he wanted to see Bushell, Bushell would indeed go see him. And if that meant Bushell didn’t get any paperwork done the rest of the day, he bloody well didn’t, and that was all there was to it. No denying the subject Sir Martin wanted to discuss was an important one - the important one, at the moment.

“Let’s go,” he said. With luck, he might even turn the meeting to his own ends. Sir Martin Luther King was staying in the Royal Suite at the Grosvenor Hotel. So far as Bushell knew, the suite had never actually been occupied by royalty, but, as the King-Emperor’s direct representative essentially, viceroy - for the NAU, Sir Martin came close to that exalted status. Only Bragg and Bushell represented the RAMs at the meeting. Sir Martin had with him but a single civilian aide: Sir David Clarke. Bushell nodded coldly to the man who’d taken Irene away from him.

“Thank you for joining me this afternoon, gentlemen.” The governor-general pointed to a sideboard atop which sat a silver tea and coffee service. “Please help yourselves. We’ll stand on no ceremony here, and the presence of servants would be not only distracting but possibly disastrous.”

Sir Horace Bragg poured himself a cup of tea - English Breakfast, Bushell thought it was, a safe choice whatever the hour. Sir Horace also picked up a couple of biscuits and set them on the saucer’s outer rim. Bushell took coffee. He looked at the biscuits but decided he didn’t care for anything sweet. He and Sir Horace set their saucers on the mahogany table in front of the couch where Sir Martin and Sir David were sitting, then brought up velvet-upholstered chairs. Bushell didn’t like the arrangement - it smacked of civilians vs. police - but could do nothing about it. He sat down. The chair’s upholstery enfolded him, almost like a lover’s embrace.

Sir Horace Bragg laughed. “We’d best get down to business, Your Excellency, because if we sit quietly here for long, these chairs are plenty comfortable enough to sleep in.” Having put his fundament at the none-too-tender mercy of a hard, wooden swivel chair the night before, Bushell could only nod.

“The business is simple, but unpleasing,” Sir Martin Luther King said. “Do we pay the Sons of Liberty their ransom, or do we say be damned to them? Neither course seems appetizing.”

“Were it up to me, I’d not give them a farthing,” Bushell said. Bragg sent him a surprised look; he seldom threw his opinion out with such reckless abandon.

“You’d let The Two Georges be destroyed?” Sir David Clarke said, shock in his voice. He put a little too much shock there, like an actor overemoting on stage. Bushell had been sure Sir David would oppose him - and sound shocked doing it - no matter what he said.

He answered, “Yes, I would. Why not? It would show the Sons of Liberty up for what they are: a pack of bloody-minded know-nothings who care only for themselves, not the NAU. As for The Two Georges, it’s very fine, but there’s more to bind the NAU to England than a stretch of oil paint on canvas. People know it, too.”

“You have no understanding of symbolism,” Clarke said.

“Maybe not, but I understand what giving the Sons of Liberty fifty million pounds will do. I understand that all too well.” Bushell leaned forward in his chair, even though it did not seem to want to let him go.

“And if you make one more smart crack, you’ll regret it for a long time.”

Sir Horace Bragg held up a hand. “Gentlemen, please - this is not quite an either-or proposition. We can negotiate with the Sons of Liberty for the picture’s safe return while we keep on trying to find it. Should our investigation prove fruitless as the deadline approaches, we can then decide what we ought to do next.”

“However attractive that may seem, it may also prove impracticable,” Sir David said. “Suppose the Sons of Liberty demand, as a condition for the safe return of The Two Georges , that we cease our search for it until the ransom be paid? Such a proviso, I fear, strikes me as all too likely.”

Bushell waited for Sir Horace to knock that into a cocked hat. When his superior sat silent, he gave Sir David Clarke his own answer: “Bugger the Sons of Liberty and what they want.”

Sir Martin Luther King had let the other men wrangle; he’d listened, fingers steepled, face inscrutable. Now he spoke for the first time: “Come what may, investigation into the theft shall continue. The Sons of Liberty would assume we made any pledge to refrain under duress, and that we would clandestinely break it whenever opportunity presented itself. They would not, in my judgment, hold such investigation against us despite their rhetoric to the contrary.”

“There is that, of course,” Sir David said. Flexible as a stem of grass, he bent to his chief’s opinion, whatever it might be.

“I can tell you one thing I’d like to see investigated, Your Excellency,” Bushell said, “and that’s how the Sons learned the King-Emperor was coming to the NAU. It can’t be a coincidence that the date they set for their deadline is one day away from the one on which His Majesty reaches Victoria. If we pay the ransom then, our humiliation is at its peak. If we don’t pay, they’ll greet Charles III by destroying the painting. How did they know?” By the way he scowled at Sir David Clarke, he had one possible answer in mind.

Clarke glared back. “See here, sir,” he said angrily, “I find your demeanor insulting.” Bushell folded his arms and said nothing, relishing the moment. Dueling was illegal in Upper California, as it had been in every province of the NAU for many years. Nevertheless, it did happen now and again. If Sir David said one more word, it would constitute a challenge. As challenged party, Bushell would choose pistols - and blow off Sir David’s handsome head.

“If we fight among ourselves, gentlemen, the only gainers are the Sons of Liberty,” Sir Horace Bragg said. “If it suits Your Excellency, I will take personal charge of finding out how - or if, if you’d prefer, Sir David - the Sons learned His Majesty was sailing to this side of the Atlantic on that particular date.”

“Please do, and I thank you,” Sir Martin said. “As you rightly pointed out, personal animosities serve no helpful purpose here.”

“You’re right, of course, Your Excellency,” Bushell said. “I apologize to you for the inconvenience I may have caused.” He did not apologize to Sir David Clarke.

“I have but one reservation, and that purely hypothetical, in regard to Sir Horace’s undertaking this investigation,” Sir David said. “If he is the guilty party, he would naturally be able to suppress that fact.”

Bushell sprang to his feet. Had the table not stood between him and Sir David, he would have gone for the bigger man’s throat. Easy, he told himself. And it would be easy, all too easy, for the real hatred he bore Sir David to turn on him and wreck everything he’d been trying to do here. Use the rage, don’t let it use you. “Listen to me, Clarke,” he hissed, all but spitting the unadorned surname, “you’ve already done your worst as far as I’m concerned, but if you start smearing tar on my friends, I’ll give you a thrashing to make the last one you got seem like a pat on the cheek. Do you hear me?”

“For God’s sake, Tom, sit down,” Sir Horace Bragg said, reaching out to take his arm and restrain him at need. “I’m not insulted, and there’s no call for you to be insulted on my behalf. Sir David said he was speaking hypothetically. He would be failing His Excellency if he didn’t examine all possibilities.”

“Quite,” Sir Martin Luther King said, his voice icy. “Please sit down, Colonel. You are most definitely out of order.”

Like a dirigible unable to stay airborne because of a leak, Bushell sank slowly back into his seat. He knew what he had to do next. And if it was to be done, it had to be done well. Looking Clarke in the eye, he said, “Sir David, I apologize for my violent, intemperate remarks.” Every word came out burning like vitriol.

“Let it pass,” Sir David Clarke said. “We are not friends, and we shall not be friends: I understand that. Your loyalty to a man who is your friend deserves nothing but commendation.”

If anything, giving Sir David the chance to be magnanimous at his expense hurt worse than apologizing. Sir Horace Bragg pulled the meeting back toward the purpose for which it had been called: “Your Excellency, let us suppose it draws near the middle of August. His Majesty the King-Emperor is on the high seas, sailing nearer to Victoria day by day. Despite our best efforts, we have not succeeded in recovering The Two Georges . What then? Do we pay what the Sons of Liberty demand? Or do we cast defiance in their face?”

Bushell knew his answer. He’d already given it. But then he’d proceeded to discredit that answer by his own conduct, just as the actions of the Sons of Liberty discredited what they called patriotism. That was more humiliating even than Sir David’s magnanimity. As Sir Horace had said, a public servant should have a certain rudimentary feel for politics.

Sir Martin Luther King looked unhappy. No politico enjoyed being put on the spot. But no man of sense - which Sir Martin certainly was - faced the future without a plan. Reluctantly, the governor-general said, “If worse comes to worst, Sir Horace, my thought is to pay the ransom, recover the painting, and then bend every effort toward capturing those responsible for the theft and regaining the money. They may get their ransom, but they shall not employ it.”

Sir David Clarke beamed as if his favorite football club had just won the All-Empire Cup. Sir Horace Bragg, by contrast, was utterly expressionless. “I shall conduct myself according to your decision, Your Excellency,” he said, his voice empty.

“And you, Colonel Bushell?” Sir Martin asked. He was justly proud of his powers of persuasion, and wanted everyone to be happy with his choices once he’d made them.

“Your Excellency, you represent His Majesty in North America, so of course I shall obey your orders,” Bushell said. Even now, though, he would not leave well enough alone: “If you’re asking my personal opinion, however, I believe you are making a dreadful mistake. If you once treat with these bandits and murderers, you and your successors will have to do it again and again for the next hundred years.”

“Thank you for expressing your views so forthrightly, Colonel.” Sir Martin’s tone was anything but grateful. He got to his feet. “I think everything that needs saying for the moment has been said.” Bushell would have bet he thought a good deal more than needed saying had been said. The formalities as the meeting broke up were perfunctory at best.

Walking back to RAM headquarters, Sir Horace Bragg sadly shook his head. “You do look for new and different ways to stick your foot in it, don’t you, Tom?”

“If you mean I won’t say chalk is cheese just because someone wants me to, you’re right,” Bushell said.

“You didn’t seem any too happy with the notion of ransom, either. What policeman would?”

“Even if we have to pay it, it may work out all right.” Bragg sounded like a man trying to convince himself. “One thing’s sure: if the Sons start spending sterling like a sailor home from six months at sea, they’ll every one of them be wearing the broad arrow in short order.”

“That’s so,” Bushell said, “but if they were stupid enough to do that, they’d not be the problem they are.” He walked on a few paces in silence then changed the subject: “Just how long do you expect to be heading up the investigation here in New Liverpool, sir?”

“A fortnight or so at most, as I said before,” Sir Horace answered. “Why?”

“Just wondering, sir,” Bushell answered innocently.

At a little past nine the next morning, Bushell walked into Major Gordon Rhodes’s office. That he’d had a decent night’s sleep was shown by the gently steaming cup of tea he held in his hand. He was unsurprised to find Samuel Stanley huddled with Rhodes over their charts. Both men glanced up as he came in and shut the door behind himself.

“Uh-oh,” Stanley said. “I don’t like the look on your face, Chief.”

Bushell could not see the expression he was wearing, but had no trouble figuring out what it was. “I don’t like it, either,” he said. “Now, gentlemen, I want your promise that what I’m going to tell you will not go beyond this room.”

Stanley nodded at once, Rhodes after a moment’s hesitation. Bushell did not think ill of him for that pause; he was visibly deciding whether he could in good conscience make such a promise. “Go ahead, sir,” he said at last.

“I met with Sir Horace, Sir Martin, and his chief of staff yesterday,” Bushell began, unwilling even to name Sir David Clarke. He explained what Sir Martin had decided to do, and also how long Sir Horace was likely to stay in New Liverpool to head up the investigation.

When he was through, Samuel Stanley’s face twisted. “Paying ransom,” he said, as if someone had dropped a large, dead, stinking fish in front of him. “You just can’t do anything worse than that.”

“You’re right, Sam,” Rhodes said. “You beat me to it, that’s all.”

“You both knew it, and I know it, and Sir Horace knows it, too, but the politicos don’t know it, and that ties Sir Horace’s hands, and that ties ours,” Bushell said. “The only thing I can think of to do is to make sure The Two Georges is safe before the deadline gets here. I can’t do everything I would be doing to make sure we recover the painting, because Sir Horace will be doing most of those things himself. I am not going to let myself be taken out of this game, either. I’m responsible for The Two Georges’ going missing, and I’m not about to sit on the shelf while it’s being found.”

“What will you do, Chief?” Stanley asked. “What can you do, in a fix like that?”

Bushell’s smile was half predatory, half beatific. “For some reason or other, Sir Martin’s chief of staff and I had a disagreement yesterday. I don’t think Sir Martin is happy with me for that, or for saying I didn’t want to ransom The Two Georges. If I suggest that I go off investigating at places far, far away from New Liverpool, I doubt the prospect will break His Excellency the governor-general’s heart. In fact, I think he’ll leap to say yes before I change my mind. And that, by God, will get me out from under Sir Horace’s thumb.”

“And let you do what you wanted to do all along,” Stanley said admiringly. “Tell me, did you pick the fight with Sir David on purpose?”

“Who, me?” Bushell said, as if in surprise. “But he is a piece of work, that one. He even had the cheek to insult Sir Horace, for no better reason than to bait me.” Scowling, he shook his head again, then turned to Major Rhodes. “When I go into the field, Gordon, the weight of coordinating the investigation will fall even more heavily on you. You’ll be Sir Horace’s prop, that’s certain. You may have to be his brains as well; I have no notion of how good he is at casework these days.”

“I can see where you might be worried, sir, but I think I can handle it,” Gordon Rhodes said, without arrogance but also without false modesty. He would have been doing most of the job under Bushell; now he might be doing more still, but his shoulders seemed wide enough to carry the weight. Bushell clapped him on one of those shoulders. “Stout fellow!” He resolved to do something to get Rhodes a promotion when this mess finally ended. What with the political odor he was in at the moment, the best thing he might be able to do for the up-and-coming major was to stay as far away from him as possible. Well, he was taking care of that.

Sir Horace Bragg had been installed in an office not far from Rhodes’s; the two captains who had shared it were now squatting with a couple of other officers of similarly unexalted rank. “Good morning, Tom,” Bragg said, looking up from a copy of the New Liverpool Tory. Like all the other dailies, the conservative newspaper headlined the Sons’ demand for fifty million pounds. Bragg neatly folded the paper and set it on his desk. “What can I do for you?”

“You can say good-bye, sir, and wish me luck,” Bushell said.

Behind his reading glasses, Bragg’s eyes widened. He peered over the rims of the spectacles to see Bushell clearly. “My God, Tom, you’re not so upset about yesterday that you’re quitting on me?” he said, something like horror in his voice.

“Quitting on you? No, sir,” Bushell answered. A great many things had passed through his mind since The Two Georges was stolen, but resigning from the RAMs was not among them. He explained what he did have in mind.

Sir Horace took off his glasses and set them atop the Tory. His usually doleful expression grew even more so. “I know why you want to leave, but please reconsider,” he said. “If you go gallivanting off into the wilderness, it will be like cutting off my right hand here.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I don’t see it that way,” Bushell answered. “With you here, I don’t have either enough work or enough responsibility to make staying worth my while. From where I stand, I’m not your right hand now; I’m put away on a shelf. I can’t bear that.”

“Then I’ll go back to Victoria,” Sir Horace said, getting up from his chair as if he intended to start walking that very instant. “I’ll stay in overall charge of the case from the capital, but the day-to-day search here will be in your hands.”

“That’s - extraordinarily generous of you, sir,” Bushell said, touched at the confidence his old friend and present superior vested in him. But, gently, he continued, “It’s impossible, though, and you know it as well as I do. After yesterday afternoon, Sir Martin would never let you go away and leave me at the top of the tree here - and if the thought even crossed his mind, Sir David would talk him out of it.”

“I’ll speak to Sir Martin - ” Bragg’s voice stumbled and faltered. He didn’t imagine he could change the governor-general’s mind, either. He glared at Bushell. “I’m sorrier than I can say that you feel the need to do this, Tom. I would have stayed home had I thought my coming here would make you want to leave. But since you do, I wish you Godspeed and good luck.” He stuck out his hand. Bushell took it, squeezed hard. “Thank you, sir. I’ll bring that painting back.” Without waiting for Sir Horace’s reply, he turned and left the office. He hadn’t even got to the hall before a wide smile spread over his face. He’d been difficult, he’d been stubborn, and he’d got away with it. He hadn’t been up in his own office long before someone tapped on the door frame. He looked up from paperwork to find Lieutenant-Colonel Felix Crooke standing there. “Yes?” Bushell asked, wondering if Sir Horace had sent up the expert on the Sons of Liberty to try to change his mind.

“Lieutenant General Bragg tells me you’ll be leaving New Liverpool to pursue your investigation of the theft,” Crooke began. Bushell nodded cautious agreement, still not sure what the RAM from Victoria had in mind. Then Crooke’s very blue eyes kindled. “Would you be so kind as to consider letting me accompany you, sir? When I bearded Sir Horace about it, he didn’t look happy, but - ”

“ - Then again, he never looks happy,” Bushell finished.

“Well, yes,” Crooke beamed. “In the end, he gave his permission: said he would have told me no if he could, but he didn’t see the way to do it.”

“He told me very much the same thing, but he didn’t find a way to say no to me, either,” Bushell answered. “There’s a certain freedom you find when you defy authority and pull it off, isn’t there?”

“Yes, sir,” Felix Crooke said enthusiastically.

“I’d be delighted to have you along,” Bushell said, warming to that enthusiasm. “Do you have the gear you’ll need? We may be going into rugged country now and again, and I aim to leave New Liverpool tomorrow, by airship if possible. I’ve no idea how long we’ll be gone.”

“What I don’t have, I’ll beg, borrow, or buy when we get where we’re going,” Crooke replied. He hesitated. “Where are we going?”

“First stop I have in mind is Skidegate,” Bushell said. Crooke nodded; he remembered where the little town was. Bushell went on, “From there, I have no idea. With luck, either we’ll find leads there or more will turn up here to give us our direction.” Without luck, he’d be stuck on the Queen Charlotte Islands utterly devoid of ideas, a notion he found too depressing to contemplate. Felix Crooke must have felt the same way. “Capital!” he exclaimed. “I shall have to lay in a mackintosh, then, or something of the sort. I didn’t think I’d need one, coming to New Liverpool in June.”

“I expect we’ll be able to fit you out with one here at headquarters,” Bushell said. “It does rain in New Liverpool, though not in June. I have one question: did you bring a weapon with you?”

“A weapon?” Crooke stared at him as if he’d suddenly started speaking Finnish. “Colonel, I tell you honestly, the thought never once crossed my mind.”

“Well it bloody well should, for this jaunt,” Bushell said. “The Sons killed Tricky Dick with a rifle. They’ve been shipping more rifles into New Liverpool, how many God only knows. One of the men who actually lifted The Two Georges menaced the guards with a pistol. These are not chaps who play by the rules.”

“You’re right, of course, and I thank you for reminding me,” Crooke murmured. “The need would never have occurred to me if you hadn’t. Even the Sons don’t, or rather didn’t, commonly go in for firearms. Can I draw a revolver from your armorer?”

“If you can’t, we’ll have a new armorer this time tomorrow.”

Felix Crooke smiled. “Capital!” he said again, and looked excited, from which Bushell concluded he’d never been under fire. “Where do I find the gentleman?” Bushell gave him directions. He set off with a spring in his step. Bushell envied him his innocence.

The RAM chief was pounding away on the typewriter when another knock made him spin in his chair. Samuel Stanley had already stridden into the office and now shut the door behind him. Bushell studied his face, then said, “All right, Sam, what’s gone wrong this time?”

“Sir, I have a favor to ask of you.” Stanley sounded so solemn and formal, dread grew to flower in Bushell’s heart. He didn’t remember the last time his adjutant had called him sir, as opposed to chief, when the two of them were alone together.

“Whatever you need,” he said expansively. Only after the words were out of his mouth did he remember the trouble Herodotus said Xerxes the Persian king had found for himself with a similar rash promise. The trouble with a classic education was that you commonly didn’t remember the wise precepts you’d picked up till it was too late to use them.

But Samuel Stanley, instead of asking for the moon, the stars, or something equally unattainable, said, “Sir, when you go after The Two Georges, please take me with you.”

“You’re the second one to ask me that in the past couple of hours,” Bushell said, bemused. “I just said yes to Lieutenant-Colonel Crooke, but why you? I’d counted on your staying here to help Gordon Rhodes keep things running steady while Sir Horace is at the helm.”

“Sir, I’d be just as much spare baggage under Major Rhodes as you are under Lieutenant General Sir Horace Bragg.”

“I’m sorry, Sam, but that doesn’t strike me as reason enough,” Bushell said. “There’ll be plenty down here for you to do, and - forgive me - you’re not having your command taken away from you, as I am.”

“Oh, I understand all that, sir.” Stanley looked as miserable as Bushell had ever seen him. “I don’t really know how to explain the problem to you.”

“You’d better try. Forgive me again, but you’re not making much sense now.”

“I know, sir. Part of the trouble is, you and Sir Horace, you’ve been friends a long time, and you and I, we’ve been friends a long time, too. But it doesn’t follow from that - ” Samuel Stanley turned away.

“Forget I ever asked you, sir. I shouldn’t have come up here. I see that now.”

“No, wait - don’t go,” Bushell said. His adjutant halted with obvious reluctance. Bushell said, “It doesn’t follow that. . .” His voice trailed off, though not in the same way Stanley’s had. He’d just been thinking about classical allusions. Classical logic had its place, too. “It doesn’t follow from my being friends with you and Sir Horace both that you and he are friends with each other. Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes, sir,” Stanley answered unhappily.

“Well, I can see that,” Bushell said. “His family used to be aristocrats some generations back, to hear him tell it, but he’s the first Bragg in a long time to amount to much. In his own fashion, I suppose, he’s been almost as driven to make good as old Tricky Dick. It never much bothered me, but I can see how it might set your teeth on edge. Is that what’s troubling you?”

“That’s - some of it, Chief.” When Samuel Stanley used the more familiar title, Bushell knew a good deal of relief. After a moment’s hesitation, Stanley added, “Most people now, they’ve let go of those plantation days. Sometimes I think Sir Horace wouldn’t mind seeing them back.”

“If he has a successful term as RAM commandant, he may end up with a patent of nobility to pass down to his eldest son.” Bushell had a sudden burst of insight. “That’s probably one of the reasons he’s so worried about this case. If The Two Georges is gone for good, he’ll never be a baronet, much less a baron.”

“As may be, Chief. But I wouldn’t be doing all I should for the case if I stayed here. A lot of people can fill in for me with Major Rhodes. You, Chief, you’re going to need all the help you can get.”

“God knows that’s true.” Bushell stabbed a forefinger out at his friend. “What will Phyllis have to say about your taking off for parts unknown for only heaven can guess how long?”

“Phyllis knows about the trouble I have with Sir Horace,” Stanley answered quietly. “She’ll understand why I need to do this.”

“Which is still more than I do,” Bushell said. Sam Stanley sounded very sure about his wife’s views, which surprised Bushell; his adjutant usually left work behind at the office. If he’d been talking about Bragg with Phyllis, the RAM commandant was indeed on his mind. Bushell threw his hands in the air. “All right, Sam, you’ve argued me down.”

“That’s first-rate, Chief,” Stanley said. “Now: details. Do you want to go by train or airship?”

“Airship’s faster, at least up to Wellesley on the Puget Sound,” Bushell answered. “I’ve been making inquiries, as you’ll gather. They won’t fly dirigibles north of the Puget Sound: the winds make safe passage too risky. We go by train up to Prince Rupert and then by ship across to Skidegate. There’s an airship leaving for Wellesley at eight o’clock tomorrow morning, so I’ll see you at the port then. I’ll call and book another stateroom for you.”

“Very good, Chief. That’d be the Empire Builder, wouldn’t it?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, it would.” Bushell paused and gave his adjutant a suspicious stare. “You’ve been checking up on this yourself.” He laughed at how accusatory he sounded.

“Guilty as charged,” Samuel Stanley said, laughing, too. He abruptly grew serious again. “You’re going to want us to go armed, aren’t you?”

“I’m damned glad you think straight, Sam,” Bushell said. “Felix Crooke gaped at me as if I’d just grown a second head when I suggested that he draw a pistol from the armorer. After he thought for a bit, he conceded the need, but he never would have seen it for himself.”

“Not an army man, then,” Stanley judged. “You get shot at once or twice, you don’t want the other fellow to have himself a gun when you’re without one. I wish I had a rifle to bring along; going up against a Nagant with a revolver isn’t my idea of a pleasant holiday, either.” He shrugged. “At a pinch, I suppose we can borrow longarms from the navy chaps.”

“I hope it doesn’t come to that.” Bushell reached for the telephone. “Go on, get out of here now that you’ve had your way with me. I’ll book that stateroom - and I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Right you are, Chief.” Stanley closed the door behind him as he left. Bushell called Sunset Airships, Ltd., and confirmed a stateroom for Samuel Stanley. Then he leaned back in his seat, put his hands behind his head, and laced his fingers. He took a deep breath, let it out. Almost for the first time since The Two Georges was stolen, he had a moment to think of something else. After a few seconds, he sat up straight again and unlocked the upper right-hand drawer of his desk. He picked up the pint of Jameson, looked at it, and set it on the floor by the desk. Then he turned over the framed photograph of Irene.

Her black-and-white image smiled sunnily up at him: dark hair, light eyes, wide, happy mouth in a pleasantly plump face. Her hair was cut in the shingle bangs that had been the height of style ten years before, when the photograph was taken. Even after he came out to New Liverpool, he’d hung her portrait on the wall below the print of The Two Georges until, at last, he could bear to look at her no more.

“Why?” he asked the flat, blank, dead photo.

Getting no reply, he turned it facedown once more. He picked up the whiskey bottle, yanked out the stopper, and gulped down a long harsh swallow. Then he closed it and stuck it back in the drawer, which he locked. The whiskey burning in him, he went back to work.

The airship port was cool and foggy. The sun might not burn through for several hours yet. The rolling mist now revealed, now hid the dirigibles at the mooring towers. The leviathans of the air reminded Bushell of the great whales of the Pacific, yet were vaster by far than any creatures of mere flesh and blood.

He pushed the baggage cart he’d hired for a florin toward the Empire Builder, which, by luck, was moored at the tower closest to the garage where he’d parked his steamer. Men and women were already ascending the stairway to the passenger gondola. The airship would depart in less than a half an hour.

A Negro clerk carefully examined Bushell’s ticket and checked his name off on the passenger list.

“You’ll be in stateroom twelve, sir,” he said. “Stateroom twelve is on the starboard side. Turn right once you go up the stairs, then left at the first hallway. Your stateroom will be the third one on the left. Here is your key - yes, this is number twelve. I hope you have a pleasant flight.”

“Thank you,” Bushell said, smiling a little at the man’s fussy precision. He handed his bags to a muscular fellow with green eyes, carroty hair, and a face full of freckles.

The loader started to haul them up the ladder to the baggage compartment, then stopped and looked back at Bushell. “You’re the chap trying to get The Two Georges back, ain’t you, sir?” he asked.

“So I am,” Bushell said. He was glad no reporters had got wind of his imminent departure.

“Hope you find it, sir, and catch the ones what took it, too,” the loader said. “Right bunch o’ bastards they are, you ask me.” His large, knobby-knuckled hands curled into fists. Bushell sent him a grateful smile; he was always delighted when such an obvious Irishman showed his loyalty to King-Emperor and country.

The Negro clerk, however, sniffed and said, “Please don’t vex the passengers with conversation, O’Leary.” The loader brushed a forefinger to the bill of his cap to show he’d understood and would obey.

“I wasn’t vexed,” Bushell said. The clerk looked through him as if he hadn’t spoken. Plainly, the fixed policy of Sunset Airships, Ltd., took precedence over the whim of any one traveler. The brief delay let Felix Crooke come up to join Bushell. He was carrying his bags himself. “Bloody fog!” he said. “The cabby I hired lost his way twice. I was afraid you’d have to depart without me. This isn’t the weather for which New Liverpool is famous, you know.” He looked at Bushell as if holding him personally responsible.

“It’s often like this in June,” Bushell answered. “By the way, Sam Stanley, whom you will have met, is accompanying us on our flight north.” He turned to the clerk, who was droning through the formalities of Crooke’s finding his stateroom. “Could you tell me if Samuel Stanley is abroad the airship yet?”

The Negro made a point of finishing his business with Felix Crooke before deigning to consult the passenger list for Stanley’s name. At last he said, “Yes, sir, that gentleman has checked in.” He made it sound as if the admission had been forced from him by a clever barrister in a court of law. One after the other, Bushell and Crooke climbed the detachable stairway to the passenger gondola. A Nuevespañolan steward in a morning coat stood at the entrance to make sure they did not stumble.

“I’m going to my room,” Crooke said. “How about you, sir?”

“I like to watch takeoffs from the lounge,” Bushell answered. “Probably won’t be much to see today, what with this mist, but you never can tell.”

Signs led him to the lounge; as on the Upper California Limited, it lay on the starboard side of the gondola, though some airship lines preferred to put it to port. As he’d expected, Bushell found himself alone in the hall that led to the lounge entrance. Watching gray tendrils of fog swirl around the Empire Builder as it rose was not a pastime which held mass appeal. But he would not be alone in the lounge: he realized that as he neared the door. Someone was playing the piano in there - quite well, too. Bushell set his jaw before he went in; “I Remember Your Name,” a sentimental favorite from two decades before, had been the song he and Irene always thought of as theirs. Whenever he heard it now, it was a dash of salt in the wound that never quite seemed to close.

“I Remember Your Name” came to a sudden, jangling halt when Bushell walked into the lounge. Samuel Stanley sprang up from the piano bench, guilt and worry on his face. “I’m sorry, Chief,” he said quickly.

“Been too long since we’ve flown together, dammit. I forgot you’ve got the lounge habit, too.”

“It’s all right,” Bushell said. “Go ahead and play it, Sam. You might as well take it all the way through to the end. I know how it goes.”

“But - ” Stanley bit his lip. Now he was wrong whether he finished the song or he didn’t. At last, unhappily, he sat back down and hurried through the last part of it. His mind wasn’t on his playing; he made more fluffs in those few bars than he usually did in a week, and finished with obvious relief. Bushell sat down on a rattan chair. In keeping with its name, the lounge of the Empire Builder had an East Indian theme. The furniture was of rattan and teak, with bright, intricately patterned cushions. Carpets from Armritsar and Bangalore covered the floor, some with elaborate Urdu calligraphy. On the walls, British soldiers in pith helmets and red uniforms of bygone days rode to battle atop war elephants. A middle-aged man, an elderly woman in the black dress and veil of mourning, and a young man in checked trousers came into the lounge one by one. Politely reserved, they sat well apart from one another and from Bushell and Stanley. The young man asked the woman whether she minded him smoking. When she waved permission, he lit up a meerschaum.

Bushell drew out his pocket watch. At seven minutes of eight, the pumps began draining the airship’s ballast chambers. Less than a minute later, the middle-aged man hastily left the lounge. Sam Stanley caught Bushell’s eye. Neither of them laughed or even smiled, but each enjoyed the other’s amusement. At two minutes of eight, the airship’s motors started up. The low roar filled the lounge. The overhead speaker crackled to life: “This is your captain, ladies and gentlemen. We will be taking off momentarily, and I advise you to find a seat if you’d be so kind. The nose of the airship will rise a bit, which means the floor will tilt until we reach our cruising height of fifteen hundred feet. Thank you, and I hope you’ll all have a pleasant flight with us today aboard the Empire Builder.”

A snap Bushell felt as much as he heard announced the release from the mooring tower. For a moment, the dirigible simply floated in the air. The motors began to work harder. Mist swirled away as the Empire Builder began moving through it. As the captain had warned, the floor did tilt, but not to any great degree. Soon Bushell could see only gray all around; the airship might have been packed in dirty cotton batting.

After a few minutes, the rate of climb leveled off. A steward came around with tea and coffee. Bushell chose Darjeeling, Stanley Irish Breakfast. The steward said, “We shall be serving breakfast in the dining area beginning at a quarter of nine, gentlemen.”

“Nothing but fog today, I’m afraid,” Stanley said, waving at the gloomy prospect outside the observation windows. “You might as well have gone to your stateroom.” By his tone, he wished Bushell had gone to the stateroom. Then he could have played “I Remember Your Name” without embarrassment.

“It doesn’t matter, Sam,” Bushell answered. He didn’t know himself whether he meant the mist or the song. After a moment, he lowered his voice and went on, “For the rest of this trip, I think I’d best be just Tom and Lieutenant-Colonel Crooke Felix. Too many people have heard my rank and surname, and maybe yours and his, too.”

“Incognito we shall be - Tom,” Stanley agreed, and laughed at the hitch he’d put in what should have been a smooth sentence. “I’ll have to work to remember that,” he added seriously, his face full of concentration. “The habit of subordination is hard to break.”

“True enough,” Bushell said, taking out a cigar. “I’ve known Lieutenant General Sir Horace Bragg what seems like a thousand years now, and I count him a good friend even if you don’t. But whenever we talk, on duty or off, he’s always sir, and whenever I talk about him he’s Sir Horace or Lieutenant General Bragg, not plain old Horace.”

Whatever Stanley thought about Bushell’s friendship with Sir Horace, he kept it to himself, saying, “Ah, but you have it easiest here - Tom.” He paused again, and ruefully shook his head at the blunder before continuing. “Superiors can call inferiors by their Christian names, but not the other way round. You’re used to going Sam and Felix, but we aren’t used to Tom.”

“By the time we finish this case, I expect you will be,” Bushell answered. When he’d smoked the cigar down to a short butt, he stubbed it out and went with Samuel Stanley to the airship’s dining room. Felix Crooke was already there, holding a couple of seats against the polite protests of the waiters. “Good thing you came to my rescue, sir,” he said to Bushell. “I was beginning to fear they’d heave me over the side.”

“Can’t have that,” Bushell said gravely. “Now as for this sir business - ” He explained his notion to Crooke.

“Very sensible,” the RAM from Victoria said at once. “The less public we can keep the investigation, the better it will go and the happier we all shall be.” Courteously, he turned to Stanley. “Don’t you agree, Sam?”

“Absolutely, Lieu - uh, Felix,” Stanley said, following the flub with a muffled “Dammit!” All three RAMs laughed.

“Good to see you gentlemen in such fine humor this morning,” a waiter said, coming over to their table with pencil poised above notepad. “And what would you care to have for breakfast?”

“Eggs Benedict for me, please,” Bushell said. “Since I’m here, I have every intention of enjoying myself.”

“An excellent notion,” the waiter said. He nodded to Samuel Stanley. “And you, sir?”

“I want four rashers of bacon cooked very crisp, with toast and marmalade alongside.”

“Very good, sir.” The waiter wrote it down, then looked a question to Felix Crooke. Crooke coughed a couple of times. “I don’t see it on the menu, but could you grill me a bloater and serve it up with mashed potatoes?”

The waiter almost lost his professional impassivity at that emphatically proletarian choice, but said, “I shall enquire of the chef, sir. We do endeavor to satisfy every taste.” He was shaking his head as he walked back toward the kitchen.

“I like bloaters,” Crooke said defensively. “I’ve been eating them since I was a boy, and I still do, every chance I get.”

“I didn’t say a thing,” Bushell replied. “Did you say anything, Sam?”

“Me? Not a word,” Stanley said solemnly. “Felix, if fancying bloaters for breakfast is the craziest thing you do, then you’re one of the saner men I’ve met.”

“He doesn’t say present company included, mind you,” Bushell put in, pointing to himself, “but he’s thinking it, never fear. Your adjutant is like your valet: he knows you too well to give anything near the amount of respect you think you deserve.”

“I like that, by God.” Felix Crooke made silent clapping motions. “Given half a chance, I expect I’ll steal it. I tell you openly, you see, for I’m a brazen thief.”

“That’s how you got to be our chief student of the Sons of Liberty, is it?” Bushell shot back. “They set you after them because they know you thought the same way?”

Samuel Stanley struck an injured pose “The two of you are going at each other so hard and fast, I didn’t get to say I thought Tom was spouting rubbish.”

“Your mother trained you up right, Sam, and taught you not to interrupt,” Bushell said. “Now you’re suffering for it.” All three men were smiling broadly. Bushell hadn’t known how Crooke would fit in with Stanley and himself, but a man who could take banter and give it back promised to be easy to work with. The waiter returned with three covered plates on a tray. “Your eggs, sir,” he said, setting one in front of Bushell and removing the metal lid with a flourish. Bushell smiled in anticipation as the poached eggs, smothered in rich hollandaise sauce and topping ham and muffins, were revealed. The waiter gave Sam Stanley his bacon and toast, then turned to Felix Crooke. “Here is your bloater and mash, sir. I am told the chef does keep them on hand, as several of our engine mechanics have a fondness for them.”

So there, Bushell thought. Crooke might as well not have heard the waiter’s editorial remark. He gazed on the large, lightly smoked herring with pleasure unalloyed. Steam rose from it and from the large mound of fluffy potatoes with which it shared the plate. He sprinkled the potatoes with salt and pepper, then dug in.

The bloater’s strong odor distracted Bushell from his own more delicate breakfast, but only till he took the first bite. After that, nothing short of the airship’s falling into the sea could have made his attention waver from the food.

The Empire Builder reached Drakestown just past one in the afternoon, within a few minutes of its scheduled arrival. By then, the sun had long since succeeded in burning away the morning mist. It sparkled off the little waves in San Francisco Bay, which somehow had not changed its name when Upper California passed from Franco-Spanish to British possession.

The bay was full of ships, not only those of the Royal Navy and Royal North American Navy but also merchant vessels flying every flag in the world and a great multitude of ferryboats traveling back and forth between Drakestown and the smaller cities on the eastern shore of the bay. Bushell watched the ferries for a while, then turned to Samuel Stanley and asked, “Do you think they’ll ever bridge the bay? They’ve been talking about it since I was a boy - do you remember the drawings in the supplements to the Sunday papers?”

“As if you were looking down from an airship, with all the steamers on the bridge as tiny as ants?”

Stanley said, nodding. “I think everyone remembers those. A few years ago, I would have said it might happen. But after that last earthquake? How would you like to be on a bridge going across the bay when the ground started shaking?”

“No, thank you,” Bushell said. “Getting through an earthquake while you’re on solid ground is bad enough, if you ask me. I suppose you’re right; and the ferryboats do a good enough job, by all accounts. Still, a bridge that size would have been grand to see, don’t you think?”

“For as long as it stood, yes.” Listening to Stanley, anyone would have pegged him at once for a veteran sergeant or a police officer. He had a deep and abiding faith that things would go wrong. The Empire Builder dropped its mooring lines. With the help of the ground crew at Drakestown’s airship port, it locked itself to a mooring tower to disembark some passengers and take on others, along with fuel and water for ballast. By half past two it was airborne again, swaying a little in a crosswind from the west.

Before sunset, it crossed from Upper California into the larger but more sparsely settled province of Oregon. “Are we scheduled to stop at West Boston on the way up to Wellesley?” Felix Crooke asked.

“On the Columbia, you mean?” Bushell said. “Yes, I believe we are. It’s a nice enough town; I’ve been there once or twice.” The last time had been the mission from which he’d decided to come home early. To keep from thinking about that again, he went on, “Did you know it was almost called West Portland?

The first settlers were Massachusetts men, and they spun a shilling, or so the story goes, to see after which of their towns they’d name this one.”

“I looked at the itinerary in my stateroom,” Samuel Stanley said. “We’re supposed to stop at West Boston from ten o’clock to just before midnight. We get into Wellesley at a little past four tomorrow morning.” He rolled his eyes to show what he thought of that.

“Good,” Bushell said, which made both the other RAMs stare at him. He explained: “God willing, at that heathen hour all the reporters will be sleeping peacefully in their nice, warm beds.”

“At that heathen hour, I want to be sleeping peacefully in my nice, warm bed,” Felix Crooke said feelingly.

Bushell sought his own nice, warm bed not long after supper. He was far enough behind on sleep not to mind going to bed early, especially when he knew he’d have to rise early, too. The captain’s voice from the ceiling speaker woke him from a dream in which The Two Georges had somehow stolen Sir Horace Bragg and was holding him for ransom: “Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to do this to you, but I have to let you know we will be arriving in Wellesley in half an hour. Please do prepare for departure. Thank you.” A hiss of static, and the speaker went dead. Bushell yawned, knuckled his eyes, and groped for the light switch beside his bed. He found it, clicked on a lamp, and sat up, blinking against the sudden glare. He was pulling off his pyjamas and putting on a suit of dark gray wool when a steward pounded on the door and said, “Landing soon, sir. Are you awake in there?”

“No,” Bushell answered as he buttoned his fly.

The steward paused, coughed, chuckled, and said, “Sorry to disturb you, but it has to be done on these early-morning arrivals.” He went down the corridor to rap on the next stateroom door. Despite the captain’s announcement, despite the stewards’ diligence, Bushell was sure somebody would still be sleeping when the Empire Builder locked itself to the mooring mast at the Wellesley Municipal Airship Port.

A cup of English Breakfast tea, so strong it was almost bitter, helped him face the prospect of being alert at four in the morning with something like equanimity. Stanley drank English Breakfast, too; Felix Crooke opted for black coffee.

The three RAMs were among the first passengers off the airship once it was safely moored. Before Bushell had taken more than two steps on the ground, a fusillade of flashbulbs went off in his face. “Why are you in Wellesley, Colonel?” somebody shouted. Somebody else yelled, “Will you be staying here?”

“Where do you go from here, Colonel Bushell?” a woman’s voice bawled.

“I’m sorry, but I have nothing to say,” Bushell answered, and repeated that again and again as he and his colleagues claimed their bags and headed for the cab stand at the kerb a couple of hundred yards from the airship. The reporters followed. Some, like cats, followed the RAMs in front of them, and complained almost as bitterly of trod-on toes as of the lack of satisfactory answers for their questions. Among them, Bushell, Stanley, Crooke, and their gear filled to overflowing the steamer they hired. “Can you get us to the train station without having that pack of vultures on our trail?” Bushell asked, pointing back to the reporters, who were wrangling over who would take which of the other cabs at the stand.

“Do my best, sir,” the cabbie answered, and put his vehicle in gear. Bushell leaned back in the seat, aghast at how many reporters had come to meet him and how persistent they were. He’d known the case would be conducted in the glare of publicity, but he’d hoped to be able to escape that glare every now and again. The Sons of Liberty were going to know his every move almost before he made it. The cab driver, to his great relief, did escape before the pursuit got properly organized. By the time his steamer reached the station - a huge, half-timbered building that resembled nothing so much as a Tudor palace - approaching sunrise was lightening the gray, overcast sky in the east. Bushell tipped him a green ten-shilling note, which sent him on his way with a smile on his face. Inside the station, a ticket agent confirmed the reservations Bushell had made over the telephone. A stout porter took charge of the RAMs’ bags. The police officers went into a small cafe across from their departure platform and ordered breakfast. “I don’t want to be sitting out there in the open for those blasted reporters to see,” Bushell said. “That would make me a perfect target.”

Sure enough, a couple of reporters did come wandering by. One of them even poked his head into the cafe. Bushell kept his own head down and escaped unnoticed.

He and his companions boarded the train as soon as it pulled up to the platform. Samuel Stanley stared in surprise at the informational brochure he pulled from a box mounted on the door near the entry.

“Bloody roundabout way of getting from here to Prince Rupert,” he said, pointing to a map on the back page of the brochure. It showed the route looping through half the province of Vancouver. “I thought we’d just go straight up the coast.”

“Mountains in the way, with no good passes,” Bushell said. He read over his adjutant’s shoulder as Stanley unfolded the brochure. “When luncheon comes around, I want to try the fish chowder they’re talking about. If it’s half as good as they make it sound, you can walk on water once you’ve eaten it.”

The chowder - simmered haddock and salt pork with potatoes, onions, and garlic in a broth of rich cream and fish stock - might not have been good enough to serve as a prelude to miracle-working, but it was tasty and filling. The spectacular mountains and pine woods through which the train passed made the long trip worthwhile. A bear pawing at an old stump looked up as the noisy locomotive rolled by, then went back to grubbing for mice or honey or whatever it was after.

They pulled into Prince George, the gateway town to Vancouver province’s northwest, about seven that evening. The sun was still high in the sky; at fifty-four degrees north latitude, summer days lingered long. But Prince Rupert was still 450 miles - nine long hours - to the west.

“Another four o’clock arrival,” Samuel Stanley said mournfully. “Shame to get into a town at a time when you can’t do anything useful there.”

“And after that, another six hours by ship to Skidegate,” Felix Crooke put in.

“We’ve had all this time to plan,” Bushell said. “When we get there, we go into action.” He could hear he could all but taste - the eagerness in his own voice. To be out and doing - that was why he’d become a RAM in the first place. His last chance might be here now. He intended to make the most of it.