by David Luchuk
Union ships were not firing this way. They were more concerned with merchant vessels at port. This didn’t stop Confederates in the hills from firing all manner of outdated cannon at the northern fleet.
The ground shook. Flack fell everywhere. The safest place was the docks, which neither side viewed as a target.
Wearing the goggles, I peered down into that part of the harbor. If I was lucky, maybe I could see a way to cut from there to a better vantage. As it turned out, there was no need.
The Hampton Roads shipyard was active. This was to be expected. Unfinished boats in the harbor made good targets. They could only be protected inside the factory dry dock.
Hampton Roads was a modern facility capable of assembling fifteen boats at a time. All the machinery and materials required for these huge projects were on site. At full capacity, there were enough welders, fitters and engineers to occupy a small town. Further, if circumstances required emergency service in another part of the country, Hampton Roads could even detach from shore and sail along the coastline.
Men worked in teams. They hooked boats in the quay onto winches reaching from the factory wall, and hoisted them onto a conveyor. Nothing was out of the ordinary except that some of the men wore blue slacks. Others wore grey. Some used green sashes to hold their pants up. Others used red sashes.
Men are vile and stupid. A man will eat a dollar bill just to keep you from taking it then cut his own guts open to buy a flash of your skirt. Their code of honor is a study in nonsense and hypocrisy. There is only one thing you can count on from men. They will die for their colors.
Knowing this, it caught my eye that teams loading ships into dry dock at Hampton Roads mixed different pieces of Union and Confederate uniforms together. Such a thing would be heresy among army regulars. These were the troops I had been sent to find.
I shaved a fresh flint chip, loaded an ultraviolet flare into its sling and lit the fuse. My arms were still sore from my fight with the Golden Circle. I gritted my teeth when the spring released and the sling fired.
I flipped the lens over my goggles to watch the flare streak through the sky. Despite the smoke and cloud cover, I saw it explode.
I waited. Operators on the Cumberland bomber high above fired their own signal. They were tracking behind me as planned.
I discarded my protective gear, save for pistol, and hiked down to the shipyard. I wore a brown pantsuit, frayed at the hem, with a man’s shirt buttoned to its collar. The cuffs and one breast pocket were stained with ink. I also dabbed ink between my index finger and thumb. The outfit stank of cigarettes.
I carried myself with a haughty posture but looked like I could not afford to buy a cup of coffee. This was my disguise. I was a newspaper writer.
I crossed paths with enough journalists. They followed me home or posed as clients in crisis, always offering to tell my side of the Harrisburg story before making me out to be an even bigger harlot than the ones who came before.
What I learned about writers is this; they want to feel brave doing something that carries no risk. The ones who turned my name into a synonym for fallen women made it seem, in their articles, like they were putting their lives in danger to tell the truth. I knew them well enough to pull this off.
The avenue leading to Hampton Roads shipyard was empty. With the Union fighting blockade runners and Confederates firing at the Union, not even a stray shell landed on that street. It was intact and safe.
I walked down the avenue with my chest puffed out like I had challenged the devil to a fistfight. A sentry came into view. I sat beyond his firing range and took notes.
The sentry looked at me through a spyglass then called another to consult. They mulled for ten minutes. The first sentry picked up his rifle and approached.
“You there.” He said.
I didn’t answer. Already missing the safety of his post, he stammered on.
“State you business or move along.”
“I’m looking for the man who posted this.”
I held out one of the amnesty notices recovered from Charleston.
“The Tribune wants to publish it.” I said. “I’d rather let the man who printed it have his say for our readers.”
The Tribune never printed the names of its writers, preferring to for the paper to take all the credit for news they broke. My cover was plausible. The sentry saw an opportunity to get ahead by bringing publicity to their cause.
I went back to taking notes. A professional writer would be aloof, forgetting the soldier as soon as he stopped speaking.
“I can bring you to that man.” He said.
I followed him to the factory floor. A dozen ships sat on the conveyor with more queuing on the winches. Soldiers drew every vessel at Hampton Roads inside.
I felt the eyes of men on me from every corner. Some pretended not to notice me. Others flexed under heavy weight so I would notice them. They were like so many apes presenting their swollen rumps.
At the back of the building, I crossed over a metal grate. Below my feet, titanic clamps held the shipyard in place on the shoreline.
I was escorted into a room. Walls were covered with technical drawings detailing every facet of a ship’s design. The boat on display was to be loaded down with a propulsion system I had never seen before. It churned the very depths of the ocean. The sketches were beautiful.
“What do you want?” A man said.
He startled me. My eyes fixed on him and I was startled again.
He was hideous. His skin looked dead. It was far too thick, so tough that it seemed a strain for him to move. His body was a callous. The man’s face was the same. His eyes flitted in swollen sockets. Nothing moved when he spoke; not his lips, not his brow. His face was a mask.
“I am from the Washington Tribune.” I said.
“I mean, what do you want . . . Detective.”
The awful man saw surprise on my face. He might have smiled. I couldn’t tell.
“The warship Cumberland steams off the ocean.” He said. “It snares a single vessel, holds it briefly then lets it go. An airship escorts that boat to dock. Moments later, it blows up. Out runs infamous Pinkerton agent Kate Warne.”
I backed away. How could he have been watching the whole time?
“Be at ease. You are safe.” He said. “Please, what do you want?”
“Are you Major Robert Anderson?”
“Yes.”
I reached into my blazer.
“This is for you.”
I handed him the letter Harry Vinton had given Mr. Pinkerton. He read it on the spot.
“It’s from the President.” He said. “He asks me to return to Washington.”
Anderson dropped the letter on a table. That it came from Abraham Lincoln was of no importance to him.
“Mr. Lincoln is going to lose this war before he even fights it.” He said.
“He is the President.” I said.
“He is a confused man who thinks he can win by not using his weapons.”
“Maybe he prefers not to slaughter his own people.”
Anderson stared at me in silence. It was the most unnerving feeling, to be looked at by that man. His face was a stone silhouette, a badly rendered statue.
“I was made this way when the steam chamber at Fort Sumter exploded.” Anderson said. “This deformity saved my life. The island exploded. I skimmed over the water like a pebble.”
“What do you intend to do?”
“I hoped to settle with General Beauregard here at Chesapeake. He isn’t here.”
I didn’t understand.
“None of the rebel leaders are here. They are staying away. They don’t think Lincoln will last. When his ridiculous blockade is shot down in court, the government will fall.”
The man’s arrogan
ce was more offensive than his appearance.
“And you will take the President’s place?” I said. “Lead the Union to victory?”
“I will force them to take up the fight.”
He was a boaster. This disgusting man with his misfit army was just like so many others. He thought he was strong because weak men followed him.
I was no weak man.
Anderson discarded the President’s appeal like so much garbage. He thought the outcome of a country’s war against itself could be turned by his deformed hand.
I reached into my boot for the pistol. Standing straight, looking Anderson in the eye, I shot him in the neck.
He fell against the wall. Wonderfully intricate pictures fell onto that wicked man.
Soldiers rushed in. I recognized one of them. It was the Lieutenant who visited my cabin on the Cumberland. Rifles were cocked, poised to shoot me down.
“No!” Anderson said.
He climbed back to his feet. The ball I fired was lodged in the skin of his throat. He pulled it away and dropped it on the floor.
“I have a question, Miss Warne.” He said. “I have wondered about it since my accident. You claim not to remember what happened on that train, that drugs wiped your memory away.”
The floor shook. Hampton Roads shipyard detached from the shore. Anderson went on.
“That is a lie, isn’t it? I was boiled alive. If my brain could turn that memory into an empty hole, it would.”
The Lieutenant grabbed me from behind and bound my arms against my chest. Anderson’s face was only inches from mine.
“You know exactly what happened on that train.” He said. “The things they say about you in the papers are close enough to the truth, aren’t they? The fact is, you are one of those people who prefer the company of monsters.”
They dragged me outside. The bomber that deployed from the Cumberland was waiting on shore. Officers of that noble warship had mutinied and joined Anderson.
We climbed in. The shipyard was a quarter mile into Chesapeake Bay, drawing fire. The airship lifted. I saw the Cumberland in the distance. She pulled well back of the fighting.
“All is ready, Sir.” The Lieutenant said.
The shipyard plowed through boats, approaching the entrance to Chesapeake Bay. Anderson kept his eyes on the water as he spoke.
“The President cannot hide behind his blockade any longer.”
Hampton Roads shipyard exploded. Steam engines from every Union ship mounted on conveyors inside detonated at once.
At first, the force of the blast sucked all other ships toward it. This lasted a heartbeat before Chesapeake was swallowed in a ball of shattered earth. When that bubble burst, a screeching noise preceded a concussion so strong that it nearly swept us out of the sky.
Chesapeake Bay was gone. Everyone was dead.
“Find somewhere to land over Union territory.” Anderson said. “Miss Warne will prefer to travel on her own, I suspect.”
They left me at Georgetown. The Lieutenant who betrayed my mission to Anderson dropped a sack of supplies at my feet. He was none too happy with the decision to let me walk away. Anderson saw nothing to gain from either holding me or killing me.
I watched the airship disappear and wondered whether Anderson had been right. The weapons were at play now. America was at war.
* * *
Allan Pinkerton, Principal
July, 1861
Bucholz died in the Ryker’s Island infirmary two days after being stabbed in his cell. He was an innocent man.
We could not say who murdered Henry Schulte. It might have been one of Schulte’s hunters, as Stark’s free slave suggested. Whoever it was, we knew it wasn’t Bucholz.
Ernie Stark was held in solitary confinement after the fracas. A guard at the facility contacted our Chicago office to ask about his status with the Agency and to suggest we retrieve him from the mad assignment.
With Robert at Norwalk, pursuing evidence that connected the Waring farm to the Schulte murder, it was difficult for us to extract Stark. My son had made some deal with local prosecutors.
I was happy, at that point, not to have fired our lawyer Byron Hayes. He set about having Stark released. It was a tricky affair.
Kate Warne never discussed her encounter with Major Anderson in detail. She confirmed that it was him and assured Vinton that she delivered the President’s letter. Beyond that, she said little. Having read her private account, her silence was worrying.
We were losing her. I didn’t know what to do.
Kate withdrew from us further when Anderson’s prediction, in part, came true. President Lincoln continued to defend his blockade in the courts. The case in New York loomed. The question of whether Judge Mansfield had been corrupted was still unanswered.
Amid this uncertainty, the President took a first step toward the fate Major Anderson was trying to bring about. I had wanted to keep us out of the war. Every decision I took during led us further into the conflict.
“Whereas an insurrection against the United States has broken out, I, Abraham Lincoln, call forth the Union militia to suppress said insurrection. The first service assigned to the forces will be to re-possess the forts, places, and property which have been seized from the Union. In every event, the utmost care will be observed to avoid any devastation, any destruction or any disturbance of peaceful citizens in any part of the country.”
- Abraham Lincoln, May 1861
* * *
Repository Note:
My objection to the Justice Department’s interference in our work has been dismissed. It was described as frivolous by a federal auditor and I have been reprimanded on record by senior managers here at the Library. Needless to say, my request for more staff to explore the Pinkerton papers has been quashed. It is a shame in every sense of the word. On one hand, I would like to know what became of the son’s investigation. The Pinkerton cases are as intriguing to me as their political entanglements. More significantly, though, I am struggling to make sense of a history I thought I understood but does not agree with Pinkerton’s claims. Not being allowed to pursue these questions will be the greatest disappointment and failure of my career.
- Diane Larimer, Chief Archivist—United States Library of Congress
Copyright
Copyright © 2010 by David Luchuk. All rights reserved.
Published by Audio Joe Inc.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
FIRST DIGITAL EDITION
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication information is available upon request
ISBN 978-0-9867424-1-5
THE PINKERTON FILES, VOLUME 3:
A Burglar’s Fate
David Luchuk
Repository Note:
Files hidden among administrative papers of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency confirm that, after the election of Abraham Lincoln, Allan Pinkerton pursued a series of cases that drove his operatives into the civil war. These investigations, which included a plot to kill the President and a murder tied to the Union blockade of Confederate ports, were uncovered as part of the Library’s effort to catalogue the Pinkerton archive. Our work was barred for a time by the Justice Department but a consortium of citizen groups funded by a private donor won an injunction forcing the documents to be released. It must have cost a fortune to beat Justice in court. I can’t imagine why anyone would pay that bill. Whatever the reason, we are free to continue looking for new entries in Pinkerton’s secret cache.
- Diane Larimer, Chief Archivist—United States Library of Congress
* * *
Allan Pinkerton, Principal
August, 1861
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Clients are turning their backs on our Agency. As a young man, when I first stepped from behind a policeman’s badge in Chicago, I knew what it was to be independent. Only now, when the vigour I have lost outweighs the wisdom I gained, do I know what it is to be alone.
I built this Agency from nothing. What lengths will I go to save it? The decision facing me now will provide an answer.
Harry Vinton visited me again. The boy has some backbone.
Bodies of dead soldiers are still being cleared at Bull Run. Neither the White House nor the Confederate capital fell in that skirmish. It produced only two outcomes. President Lincoln’s militia may now be called an army and the southern rebellion is officially a war.
In spite of these blasphemies, Vinton wore a broad smile as he knocked on my door. He had not been to our offices since convincing me to send Kate Warne to Chesapeake Bay. Back then, Vinton did not hesitate in using my loyalty to Lincoln as leverage. It came as no surprise when he did so again.
He delivered a message from the White House and, as before, left an envelope behind with a note from Lincoln. I don’t have to break the seal to know what the letter says. Vinton made it clear.
“You agreed to help us find Major Anderson at Chesapeake. Why would this be any different?” He said.
“Our aim at Chesapeake was to prevent war, not wage it. We also took a chance on rebuilding Kate Warne’s reputation. I would say it was very different.”
“Ms. Warne has reclaimed her career . . .”
“Whatever you have her doing in Washington, she is not working as a detective.”
“ . . . and the essential point remains. The President needs your help.”
“We are not spies.”
Vinton left Chicago without a firm commitment. President Lincoln is waiting for my answer. With clients walking away from our Agency, it would be a comfort to view the choice as mere financial necessity. The White House pays handsomely.