Fiddlehead

Bald as an onion, the man was not young—closer to fifty than forty, Gideon guessed; and he had a scar across his cheek that must have come from some grievous old wound. But right now he was smiling from ear to ear, crinkling the scar and his eyes alike.

He opened his arms toward them and cried, “Gentlemen! I am Captain Croggon Beauregard Hainey, and I bring you the services of my ship and crew.”

Gideon was taken aback. “Hainey? Of the Macon Madmen?” Well, that accounted for the accent.

Captain Hainey performed a little bow. “At your service! Are you the renowned doctor, Gideon Bardsley?”

“I am.”

“Then it’s a pleasure!” He came forward, hand extended, and vigorously shook Gideon’s hand. “From one old criminal to a young one: I’ve heard great things about you—great things indeed!”

President Grant came forward and gave the next handshake. “I’ve heard many tales of the Macon Madmen. You’re the last of them, aren’t you?”

“So far as I know,” the captain confirmed. “I was innocent of all those crimes, but I’ve since committed plenty I could be convicted for more fairly. Perhaps I can talk a pardon out of you before the sun comes up.”

“You’ve got one whenever you want one,” the president assured him. “That was some amazing shooting. What sort of gun is it?”

“Oh, that?” he said casually. “That’s the Rattler. It’s a Gatling conversion. I’ll show it to you, if you like. But first…” He turned his attention to Lincoln.

Lincoln sat serenely, a peaceful and knowing expression on his face. “Do I have Kirby Troost to thank for your intervention?” he asked.

“You know Troost: The man’s a miracle, but he can’t be every place at once. So, yes, you owe it in part to that strange little fellow, and in part to those strange little ladies.” He jerked a thumb back over his shoulder, where Mary and Polly were descending the dirigible steps with caution.

“Wait … how?” Gideon began to ask, and then he shouted to the women, “You’re supposed to be in the attic!”

To which the captain said, “I found them on the roof, which is close enough. They flagged me down, and good on ’em for doing so! I wasn’t sure I could find the place; there’s not a ray of light anywhere for a mile. The weather’s done a number on the District, taking the power and taps alike—but your missus was up there with a lantern, waving it around on the widow’s walk like … like a little maniac,” he grinned.

Nelson Wellers gasped. “Mrs. Lincoln, you could’ve been shot!”

“But I wasn’t!” she hollered back. Then, in an ordinary voice, she said, “Thank you, young man,” as a tall, slender negro with long, braided hair took her elbow and helped her down the last step.

“That’s my engineer,” Hainey told them, as the man saluted. “And the first mate’s inside. Mr. Lincoln, I want you to know: It was your name that brought me here. I would’ve done it for the scientist, here … but you were the reason we came so fast. It took us twenty hours of wild flying through storms and darkness, and I don’t mind telling you we’re just about spent … but you were the man who said the truth the loudest, and made it law: You were the man who reminded the world that we are free.”

Twenty-two

LEAD DEVELOPING RE HAYMES IN MISSOURI STOP DETAILS TO COME STOP MAY NEED TO ARRANGE TRAVEL ON SHORT NOTICE STOP UNTIL THEN REMAIN IN DC WITH WELLERS STOP APINK

COURIER PACKAGE RECEIVED STOP ARRANGING MY OWN TRANSPORT STOP DO NOT ASK FOR DETAILS AND I WILL NOT INVOICE YOU STOP I WILL WANT A VERY NICE COAT STOP PERHAPS ALSO AN EXPENSE ACCOUNT STOP MB

IF THE RIDE IS FREE THE COAT IS YOURS STOP APINK

Twenty-three

Three Weeks Later

To the west of St. Louis, Missouri, was a small outlying town known to few who did not live there. Ballwin, it was called, and it boasted little of interest—no major industry remaining, no famous hometown sons or daughters, not even a site of former military action. The only thing worth mentioning at all was that it seemed to be the only city named Ballwin on the entire continent, a point of trivia that Maria Boyd found a little pitiful.

But Maria knew something about the town that few others did, even those who lived there—who’d spent their lives within a ten-mile radius of the place.

Which was: At the edge of this town on the edge of a city on the edge of a river was a large compound built of brick and stone. It had begun its career as a foundry; and when the foundry closed it’d become a storehouse; and now that the storehouse had packed up and moved on, it hosted a factory that made very dangerous things under the direction of a very dangerous woman, who had thus far altogether escaped the justice she so richly deserved.

Katharine Haymes still roamed freely, which surprised no one who had any idea how money worked. Haymes had more money than any other woman in the freshly reunited country, so far as Maria knew. She might well have been one of the richest people in the world.

HAYMES AND SONS INDUSTRIES, read the sign over the gate, and the office that bore Haymes’s name was empty when Maria carefully peered inside, a gun in one hand and something more unusual in the other.

Croggon Hainey had given it to her before he’d set her down in the woods outside, with a promise to pick her up again at dusk. He’d said she was going to need it.

He’d asked if she wanted help, or company, but she’d told him no. He was supposed to be going straight. It was her turn to be the pirate.

Even though she knew that the factory had been shut down—at least, officially—she hadn’t expected it to be so empty, populated only with massive machines that hadn’t been fired up for weeks. She hadn’t anticipated that there would be no exterior lights, no workers, no guard dogs to keep trespassers like herself away.

She had not expected to feel like a ghost, haunting a place she’d never been.

In the rooms without windows, the factor was dark as a tomb, but only half as silent. The place pinged with stray drips of oil and settled with the creaks and groans of old floors holding heavy things; and the rooms echoed every small sound into a bigger one that said someone, somewhere, might be home after all.

Allan Pinkerton had provided Maria with architectural drawings, including schematics of the basement, which had received a great deal of restoration following a flood six years ago. The restoration details had been filed with the county, as is the way of such things; they had been stamped and approved by someone, somewhere, and left in a cabinet for a man like Mr. Pinkerton to find, once Maria had thought to ask about it.

As soon as she’d seen the schematics, Maria had known where Katharine Haymes was hiding. Oh, but there was no one there!, the policemen told her. The factory had been investigated!

But she doubted they’d gotten to the underground level, the expansively renovated basement with the unmarked entrance strategically hidden by an industrial vat that looked too heavy and too rusted in place to have serve as a door. Surely that wasn’t the case. That would be ridiculous.

No, ridiculous would’ve been hoping for the architect to note the entrance in pencil before filing the work order away.

Maria praised God for ridiculous men.

She examined the vat, running her hands along its rough contours, its rivets, bands, and bolts. To one side she saw a scuff on the floor that gave a hint in which direction it may have been moved. She got a good grip and leaned against it with her shoulder and thigh. It moved aside with only the faintest scrape, much more easily and quietly than she would’ve expected.

And descending below the vat, she discovered a narrow set of stairs. At their bottom a dim light glowed, from a source that was either feeble or quite far away. She readied her gun again and put Croggon Hainey’s gift inside her skirt pocket. It barely fit, but it nestled against her leg in a comforting fashion. In a way, it was more comforting than the gun.

Down the steps she went, slowly and carefully, letting her eyes adjust to the lessened light. It was the color of muddy water, and it showed her mostly shapes and angles, but little detail. She had an electric torch in her bag, but such things were hot and unreliable, and would only call attention to her presence.

And she didn’t need it yet.

She’d committed the schematics to memory, so she knew where she was. Under the old storage room floor. Proceeding toward an open area beneath the center of the factory, partitioned off into sealed rooms that locked from the outside.

She passed a huge door that looked ready to be shut in case of emergency, capping off the entire wing and trapping any threat in place. The sort of thing that might be a safeguard against fire, though Maria knew better than to think that the door—or doors, for here was another one—were installed to save the building or protect its inhabitants. These doors were a safeguard against the weapons themselves, the very products that were being developed in the cavernous, secret place below.

She heard a weird, unsettling buzz from down there, no louder than a whisper. A faint, mechanical drone on a frequency so low that her ears could barely detect it. The timbre made her shudder; it sent shivers up and down her arms, though the underground level was almost too warm for her preference.

A clatter. A shuffling thump.

Maria held very still and listened. It came again, uneven and slow, the stuttering motion of something mindless that wanders.

The corridor ended in a T, offering her the option of proceeding left or right. Left would lead to a series of chambers that might be offices. Right would send her to an open area without cover, an unmarked space that looked to be a testing center.

Maria went left.

The hazy murk of light grew stronger, and soon she knew why: along one side of the hall, there was a series of doors with small, square windows fixed at face height. The rooms were lit from within, and what spilled out into the corridor gave plenty of illumination, none of it reassuring.

The dull thumping sound grew louder; it came from the second door. She stood on tiptoe to peek inside, and at first she saw nothing—only a yellowish fog too thick to scry. The fog wavered, swirled, and settled, disturbed by the movement of something ponderous and grim. She finally spied a shape at the far end of the smallish room: a figure like a man, but it didn’t move like anything human, like anything alive. ns class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true">