The Clockwork Century: Fiddlehead Part 10

Under pretense of stopping to adjust her shoe, she surrept.i.tiously checked and confirmed that one fellow was still on her tail-the fact of this never more obvious than when he realized she'd paused ... and he did likewise, investigating a news stand with sudden, intense interest.

"Maybe he's an amateur, or a Baldwin after all," Maria griped as she straightened up and resumed her path.

A sign posted beside the road pointed an arrow at the station, noting that she was still over a mile away; so, her recollection of how the city worked had been foggy indeed. She swore under her breath. A mile was a long way to run, and a long way to evade anybody. It gave the men plenty of time to close in on her, cut her off, and do whatever it was they planned to do.

And she still didn't see the second fellow. He could be anywhere.

However, she did see one of the new electric streetcars clattering toward her. It wasn't pointed in the right direction, except that right now the right direction amounted to "anywhere else but here."

Chicago did not yet have these electric street lines, so she had no experience with such things. She sized up the elongated, open-air car. It didn't look too complicated. When the painted trolley came close enough for her to touch it, she reached out and grabbed one of the vertical poles along its exterior, like she'd seen people do in other places during her travels.

It didn't move quickly, but it moved determinedly, yanking her off her feet with exactly the precision and insistence she'd hoped for. She grunted with surprise, then smiled as her feet found a step. Tightening her fingers around the bar, she shielded her eyes from the sun shimmering off the frosty city. She spied the first man at the curb behind her, visibly aggravated that he'd arrived too late to join her.

Moments later she saw the second man hunting down a side street. He did not see her hanging off the side of the streetcar like she did this every day, like any of the other pa.s.sengers who took such a casual att.i.tude toward their transportation and bodily safety.

When she felt confident that she was unaccompanied, at least temporarily, she waited for the next stop and asked the driver if he could help her reach the train station.

The driver delivered the gentle admonition that she'd gone the wrong way, and she pretended she hadn't known-because every man liked to be a hero, or at least enjoyed being of service to a lady in distress. And why deny the nice gentleman a warm feeling of helpfulness?

She finally made the right connection, and soon she reached the station, bought her ticket to Fort Chattanooga, and positioned herself comfortably on the last train of the day to the fort as the train prepared to depart.

Maria sat next to the window but turned her face away from it, in case anyone had caught up to her. She had no doubt that whoever'd sent the two men would learn her location soon enough, but there was no reason to make it easy for them.

The train lurched forward and found its rhythm.

And now she had hours before her with nothing else to do but familiarize herself with the nurse's missives.

The pages were difficult to skim, due largely to the questionable handwriting of the woman who'd composed them. At a glance Maria could see that the nurse had never enjoyed more than a few years of formal schooling, as the earnest, rounded letters showed the charming diligence of a child's hard-practiced lessons. But there was nothing charming or childlike about the message these shaky letters conveyed.

She checked the most recent letters and saw that the handwriting improved over the course of the correspondence, practice making something closer to perfect. Even so, the early pages were slow going, and the rollicking track of the train gave Maria a case of motion sickness that almost made her quit trying; surely it would be easier to finish the reading from a stationary location.

But a phrase leaped out at her. She drew the page in question up close to her face.

"... if you could hold him still for long enough, a doctor would p.r.o.nounce him dead."

Her attention now more fully engaged, she made the effort to peruse the entire section from whence the eye-catching line emerged.

I have now seen four cases here in the underground, and they all go the same: First, the victim breathes up some gas-usually because a mask springs a leak, or isn't fixed good on his face in the first place. But sometimes it happens because the mask gets knocked off, or one of the tunnels isn't sealed up as good as everybody thought. Doesn't matter how it gets inside, it always goes the same.

After a man breathes it, his nose starts running with yellow mucus, and the mucus is sometimes b.l.o.o.d.y. Sores break out around his eyes, ears, and mouth. It looks like the gas is eating him up from the inside out. Then the heart stops, the pulse quits. No more spit or tears, and the skin around his eyes turns yellow. He starts panting, and it sounds like his lungs are being chewed up into rags. You will never forget what it sounds like, when he breathes. For that matter, if it weren't for that breathing, you'd never know he was alive. Everything else about his body has done stopped, like he's been killed by a plague. If you could hold him still for long enough, a doctor would p.r.o.nounce him dead.

But he won't stop moving like a polite dead man. Just when he ought to lie down and take a proper Christian burial, that's when he starts running around, trying to bite people.

Sometimes it happens quicker than other times, from start to finish. The people I talked to say it's because the gas is very heavy, and it collects thicker in some places than in others. It moves like a real thick liquid, like a syrup you can hardly see.

Maria sat up straight and frowned at the paper. As promised by Captain Sally, the text described a poisonous gas, and it definitely sounded like the walking plague. In fact, the nurse had used both of those words, fairly close together: "walking" and "plague."

She kept reading.

Once a man's been bit by a rotter, treatment is pretty much a race against the clock. Whatever gets bit has to get cut off. The bite causes a festering that moves like blood poisoning through a body, or like septic rot, but faster. If a finger gets bit, you'd better cut off the hand. If a hand gets bit, you'd better take the whole arm. If the amputations don't happen in time, the patient will die within a day or two. I am told that a patient who dies from a bite will not start walking like a rotter, and so far this seems to be true. But I only seen it on three occasions so far, and that is not enough for me to say for certain.

"Gruesome," Maria murmured with fascination. She flipped to the next page.

n.o.body knows how long the rotters will keep moving, but the oldest ones have been kicking around for about fifteen years, by everybody's best guess. The real old ones are raggedy now, and when you see them, you wonder how they manage to move at all. Most of the skin has rotted off, and the muscles are hardly more than strings. I hear they take nourishment from what they eat, but since their blood don't flow I'm not sure how that's possible. And since there is not much to eat inside the walls, it makes me wonder. I guess they have been eating the Doornails or the Station men, but I am told that, these days, it is unusual for more than half a dozen men to die that way in a year. For the most part, people have figured out how to live here without getting eaten. But those first few years after the wall went up, a whole bunch of people got killed by the gas and the rotters. Mostly I think people were trying to get inside the city and either loot it or get back the stuff they'd left behind. And I'd like to tell you that it was a stupid thing for them to do, but until they did it, n.o.body knew what would happen to them. Now everybody knows.

I know what happens to the men who do the gas-drug, too, but no one will listen to me. I've tried to tell people, and to ask for help. I used letters and the taps as best I could, but no one from the Dreadnought has answered-though my friend Angeline says I should try the Texas Ranger again. His name was Horatio Korman, and if you can reach him, he may be of some help to you. You might also ask after the captain on the train, a man by name of MacGruder. I have got to say he conducted himself like a hero, but I doubt you'll have any means of finding that one, as he's someplace up north. I am told there's also an airman named Croggon Hainey who might serve as witness, but him being colored and being a pirate, he's not likely to be believed.

Maria was startled to see the air pirate's name. Croggon Hainey was the captain of a ship named the Free Crow (though it was briefly called Clementine). It had played a role in her first case as a Pinkerton agent, the one she'd been rea.s.sured had been resolved to everyone's satisfaction ... including the pirate's.

"Small world," she said under her breath.

She flipped back to the top of the stack, scanning for a location or an address. Nestled between two stacks of notes tied with twine, Maria found a brown paper envelope with the information she hunted.

The name on the envelope was "Venita Lynch," at odds with the reports themselves, which were usually signed "Mercy." "Seattle," she read aloud from the return address, wondering if she was p.r.o.nouncing it right. "The Washington Territories." She knew where Washington was, at any rate. It was as far west and north as you could go, without getting very, very wet ... or wandering into Canada. Upon inspection of the postal mark, she saw that the envelope had not been mailed from Seattle at all, but from Tacoma. "Where the transcontinental line ends," she mused. The two cities must not be far apart.

But she was confused by some aspects of Mercy's reports. These rotters ... they were obviously victims of the walking plague, or something very like it, but she'd implied that they got that way from breathing the air, not taking a drug. What on earth had happened in Seattle?

For that matter, if a catastrophe had occurred, how did people still live there? And furthermore, why?

The mention of gas masks gave her one clue, as did the reference to an "underground." But if there was more to be gleaned, she'd have to keep reading.

So she did. And by the time she reached Fort Chattanooga, she had drawn some terrible conclusions about the poisoned city of Seattle, the walking plague, and Katharine Haymes's diabolical weapon.

Nine.

"Leave me alone," he ordered the nameless, blank-faced agent who walked in his shadow. "Stay right here, and don't move until I return. I can look after myself for ten minutes in the washroom, for G.o.d's sake. No one's here today, anyway."

Secret Service indeed. Couldn't keep secrets. Didn't perform much in the way of service. He should've done as Abe suggested and sent them away. Better a paid force than a government agency. Better to have a receipt.

Besides, Grant had bigger guns and better reflexes, never mind more experience and a faster eye. In his entirely unbiased opinion, he could've outshot any of the young bucks they a.s.signed to him-knowledge of which didn't make him feel safer in the slightest. He abandoned these silent, suited men every chance he got. They felt too much like crows on a laundry line. Vultures in a tree.

The agent knitted his brows and twisted his lips in a disapproving grimace, but he followed orders and held his position.

And with one or two fierce, insistent glances backwards to make sure the man stayed put ... Grant was free to roam un.o.bserved.

Desmond Fowler had an office in the Capitol Building. Just like everyone else these days, or so Grant thought as he walked the gleaming, echoing halls in search of the door with the right name stenciled on the gla.s.s in black paint and fancy lettering. This plan was ludicrous and he knew it-so ludicrous that he wanted to be sober for it, and had a headache for his pains. And he'd kept it from his wife, who didn't need to know anything about it.

He was the president. He could wander the building on a Sunday if he liked.

He was clearing his head, if anyone asked. Heading for the washroom, like he'd told his forced companion. Taking a little stroll.

Or he could even tell the truth, to a point: I'm looking for Fowler, and I thought he might be here.

On the contrary, he very much hoped that the Secretary of State was out, and planned to stay that way for the afternoon. He hoped it so much that he a.s.sumed it, partly because he'd made his secretary insist on a rare weekend meeting at Fowler's estate on the other side of town to sign and clear up some paperwork. Scheduled for this very time. Why on a Sunday? So the signatures and all their attendant useful seals could be filed first thing Monday morning. That's what Fowler wanted, wasn't it? Immediate approval and full cooperation? Well then, he could do a little work on a Sunday, and perhaps the Lord would forgive him.

Grant did not know if the Lord would forgive him for this particular trespa.s.s. But there were so many other things in the heavenly queue for which he was even less likely to be forgiven that he didn't worry about it too much.

If everything went as expected, he'd have at least three hours before Fowler could possibly return. His office should be deserted, locked up for the Lord's Day, with no potential spies or villains there to report to the Secretary that the president had been up to no good.

And inside that office, he expected to find ... what, precisely?

Evidence? Information? Leverage?

He didn't know, but he was tired of being left in the dark by those he'd appointed to a.s.sist him; he was exhausted and ashamed for feeling useless in the great seat of power, with no power to speak of except what was granted to him by subordinates.

Well by G.o.d, he would not be left in the dark anymore.

Though, if he had a drink, he was reasonably certain he could do something about that headache.

No. Clearheaded was the only way to proceed, even if that clear head came with a cost. He couldn't seize control of his life and his administration as a sick old drunk, so he'd do it as an angry sober man with nerves of steel and shaking hands. The people had elected him. They'd hired him, and they depended on him, and he'd turned over the henhouse to the foxes because he hadn't known what else to do.

Here was a chance to redeem himself, through petty crime with an ethical underpinning. He could trust no one-at least, no one he felt comfortable endangering.

The buck stopped here, at Fowler's office, where he would break the law and save the nation ... or maybe that was a grandiose delusion of an old drunk. But he liked the sound of it, so he rallied around it as he quietly stalked the hallways.

Yes, he could admit it to himself: His third presidential term had been weak. He'd overheard whispers about how he shouldn't have taken the post again-that he ought to have left office in favor of going on a speaking tour, or writing his memoirs, or some other entertainment to which he'd be equally ill-suited, in his opinion.

But no, he'd stuck with the job. Not for Fowler. Not for Congress. Not for the courts, nor the lawyers, nor the slick, strange men who made their money on the misery of others-on weapons, murder, and government contracts.

Not for them. But for everyone else.

For the abolitionists and the people of color who he refused to think of as slaves, even down in Mississippi and Alabama, where the Southerners still called them that. The Southerners were wrong, and he'd show them the hard way if he had to. But they'd insisted upon that, hadn't they?

He stayed in office for the soldiers, old and young-the ones who'd lost limbs and lost sleep, the ones who'd gone home only to die slowly of the sudden confusion of not having anything to fight for. He did it for the ones who'd rather end it quickly, even after they'd slipped through the corpse-catching sieve of the front and were given the chance to begin again.

He stayed for the ones who never got the chance. Who never came home. Tens of thousands of them, hundreds of thousands now. More like a million, when you factored in everything-the disease, the suicides, the civilians ... and the walking plague.

His reverie was interrupted when he reached the door bearing Fowler's name. It was painted on the frosted gla.s.s door in the expected fancy letters, for a fancy man who thought he knew better than everyone else. Grant had once believed it, too, that Fowler was the smartest, the cleverest politician of them all.

And now? G.o.dd.a.m.n, but he hoped he was wrong.

He reached for the k.n.o.b, but its firm, rea.s.suring lock suggested that a smith would be required to compromise it. The president didn't have a smith handy, and he didn't feel like calling one. Instead, he had the silence of this particular hall, confidence that the office's occupant was absent, and a hammer hidden inside his coat.

He wrapped the hammer in his scarf and shattered the door's gla.s.s with one heavy swing.

Before the last clattering, clinking shards had fallen to the office floor, Grant jammed his hand into the hole and unlocked the door from within.

Was this a crime? Perhaps.

Was anything a crime, if the president authorized it? An excellent question, and one he'd put to Lincoln the next time he saw him. A good philosophical starting point for a conversation over brandy-he could imagine it now, and he did so with great antic.i.p.ation, particularly with regards to the brandy. He'd been dry for hours, and those hours were starting to tell.

The door scooted open, sc.r.a.ping the broken gla.s.s aside and clearing a rainbow-shaped path on the enormous rug that filled most of the room.

"Close the door behind you, if you don't mind."

He froze, one hand on the k.n.o.b.

"Not that we can have a private chat at this point, given the state of the door, but I would appreciate the gesture all the same. Mr. President?"

He found his voice. "Yes?"

"The door."

Slowly, he drew it shut until it clicked into the frame.

Katharine Haymes was seated behind Desmond Fowler's desk, more perfectly at home than if her own name had graced the gla.s.s before it was broken. She wore a pair of reading gla.s.ses, which she now took off and set on a dictionary that Fowler had probably never opened. "Please," she urged, gesturing with a pen in her hand. "Won't you sit down?"

The president's head swam with confusion and embarra.s.sment, but a fresh infusion of anger steadied it. "I will, but not at your request. This isn't your office to occupy, Miss Haymes."

"Nor yours to vandalize, Mr. President. Let's have a civilized talk instead, shall we?" As he made his way to one of the chairs that faced the desk, she added, "Could I make you a drink?"

"You'd like that, wouldn't you? Get me off my toes and into my cups."

"I'm only being courteous. Why? Are you implying that I might do something untoward if I could compromise your faculties?"

"No such thing was implied," he responded, trying to keep the hint of defensiveness out of his voice. But he was off-kilter already, thrown by the situation. He wouldn't have admitted it, but the drink might well have sharpened him.

"Well, in my experience, people who break into offices rarely have polite intentions, so you'll have to pardon me. But you were going to do that anyway."

"It doesn't work like that."

"It doesn't?" She c.o.c.ked her head. "Desmond tells me otherwise. But you and I both know that the world doesn't run on his word. He certainly likes to think so, though, doesn't he?"

Grant sniffed. "So what does that make you? The power behind the throne?"

"Oh no, don't be silly. I stand behind no throne, Mr. President. Not his. Not yours."

"But you came to us. You're the one who needed a deal."

She shook her head. "No, I didn't need one. I merely wanted one, and Mr. Fowler made it easy for me. I don't require your clemency any more than I require your affection or respect. My time and my money are my own, and I've never needed permission to make use of either. I won't start asking now."

"So why, then? What game are you playing at?" he asked, determined not to be led in circles.

"The same game I always play, and I always win." She leaned back in the Secretary of State's oversized chair. It made her look small, almost childlike.

Grant reminded himself that it was an illusion. "What are you so afraid of?" he asked her.

"Afraid?"

"Only the frightened are so hungry for power."

"Oh," she said, appearing to consider this. "I see. You think I'm compensating for some loss, or gathering up my coins against the coming storm. Not so at all, I'm afraid. I like games, and I like being in charge. The economics of warfare are a perfect fit."