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On Secret Service

Page 1

by John Jakes




  Praise for On Secret Service

  “On Secret Service draws you back into the Civil War and the wrenching days preceding Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. The factual details are simply astonishing: You walk the muddy streets, smell the acrid smoke of battlefields, and experience firsthand the inner workings of a vast conspiracy.”

  —Patricia Cornwell

  “The author saves the best for last in dealing with Lincoln’s assassination, bringing the drama to life by giving each of his protagonists a crucial role as the conspiracy unfolds with expert pacing and suspense. Jakes uncovers the little-known history of espionage and counterespionage during the War Between the States with his signature combination of meticulous research and epic narrative.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Gripping, exciting, and historically accurate…a very good book.”

  —Library Journal

  “An absorbing study of how human affairs stubbornly fall outside the simplistic categories of ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “John Jakes has written another fine historical novel about his favorite period—The Civil War…. Jakes is a wonderful storyteller, mixing fiction with fact and capturing the feel and flavor of that turbulent time.”

  —The Sunday Oklahoman

  “Perhaps no author has made popularized American history more his own province than John Jakes…. [He] does the invaluable service of any historical writer in transforming history’s dusty pages into a living account. An excellent job of conveying the horror of that war now dimmed by the passage of the years.”

  —Florida Times-Union

  “[Jakes] gets the big story right, while writing in a clear style, keeping the narrative moving briskly from cliff-hanger to cliff-hanger, serving up portions of steamy sex in between, and offering us plenty of heroes and heroines to admire and several villains to hate. Even a deep-dyed Civil War buff…will find himself turning the pages to see what happens next.”

  —Civil War Book Review

  Praise for the Crown Family Saga

  Homeland

  “First-rate…chock-full of fascinating period detail…brings to life the sounds, smells, and tastes of turn-of-the-century America in a manner comparable to Michener’s Hawaii and Doctorow’s Ragtime. An absolute must.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “This intelligently written novel, full of colorful characters, moves swiftly along, vividly resurrecting the America of the 1890’s. Quite simply, Homeland is John Jakes’s best work.”

  —The Philadelphia Inquirer

  “A powerful tour de force, a rich, sweeping story of America as only Jakes can tell it…Homeland, interspersed with real characters such as Teddy Roosevelt, Black Jack Pershing, and Jane Addams, is a marvelous blend of fact and fiction, the stuff of great historical novels. Another winner from an old pro.”

  —Nelson DeMille

  American Dreams

  “Jakes has a grand old time spinning his yarns…. He mixes his fictional offspring with the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford, making us feel as if we too have brushed our shoulders with celebrity.”

  —The Blade (Toledo)

  “Realistic detail and period color galore keep this swift-moving story grounded…as the automobile and WWI arrive to shake the republic out of its golden idyll.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Historical fiction at its finest, as only John Jakes can tell it.”

  —Wheaton Gazette

  “A worthy successor to Homeland.”

  —Columbia State (SC)

  Praise for the North and South Trilogy

  North and South

  “In the history of U.S. book publishing, there’s never been a success story quite like that of John Jakes.”

  —The New York Times

  “A panoramic, populous…lusty trek through the pages of American history…thick as a brick with period detail drawn from extensive research.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  Love and War

  “A feisty assortment of fictional heroes and heroines.”

  —People

  “Massive, lusty, highly readable…. In delicious detail are the wicked and tawdry doings of a memorable cast of characters…. A graphic, fast-paced amalgam of good, evil, love, lust, war, violence, and Americana.”

  —The Washington Post Book World

  Heaven and Hell

  “Remarkably vivid.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “He shows you George Armstrong Custer, Andrew Johnson, Buffalo Bill Cody, and a vast array of historical figures whose contending ambitions control the events…but he also shows you what people wore, what they read, and what they drank and ate…. What you get is the feeling that this is life. That’s art.”

  —Chicago Sun-Times

  JOHN JAKES

  ON SECRET SERVICE

  A SIGNET BOOK

  SIGNET

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

  New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane,

  London W8 5TZ, England

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood,

  Victoria, Australia

  Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue,

  Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

  Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182–190 Wairau Road,

  Auckland 10, New Zealand

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:

  Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

  Published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.

  Previously published in a Dutton edition.

  Copyright © John Jakes, 2000

  All rights reserved

  ISBN: 978-1-1012-0934-9

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  Printed in the United States of America

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE AT QUANTITY DISCOUNTS WHEN USED TO PROMOTE PRODUCTS OR SERVICES. FOR INFORMATION PLEASE WRITE TO PREMIUM MARKETING DIVISION, PENGUIN PUTNAM INC., 375 HUDSON STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10014.

  This is for

  my friend and colleague

  Evan Hunter

  Contents

  Part One

  DETECTIVES

  1

  January 1861

  2

  January 1861

  3

  January 1861

  4

  January 1861

  5

  January 1861

  6

  February 1861

  7

  February 1861

  8

  1836–1858

  9

  1858–1860

  10

  March 1861

  11

  March 1861

  12

  April 1861

  Part Two

  SPIES

  13

  May 1861

  14

  June 1861

  15

  June 1861

  16

  July
1861

  17

  July 1861

  18

  July 1861

  19

  August 1861

  20

  August 1861

  21

  August 1861

  22

  August 1861

  23

  September 1861

  24

  December 1861–January 1862

  25

  February–March 1862

  26

  March 1862

  Part Three

  RETRIBUTION

  27

  April 1862

  28

  April 1862

  29

  April–May 1862

  30

  May 1862

  31

  May 1862

  32

  May 1862

  33

  May–June 1862

  34

  June 1862

  35

  July–August 1862

  36

  July–August 1862

  37

  August 1862

  38

  August 1862

  39

  August–September 1862

  40

  October 1862

  41

  November 1862

  42

  November 1862

  43

  November 1862

  Part Four

  INSURRECTION

  44

  December 1862

  45

  January 1863

  46

  January 1863

  47

  February–March 1863

  48

  March 1863

  49

  June–July 1863

  50

  July 1863

  51

  July 1863

  52

  July 1863

  53

  July 1863

  54

  July 1863

  Part Five

  CONSPIRACY

  55

  November 1863–January 1864

  56

  May 1864

  57

  June 1864

  58

  June–July 1864

  59

  July 1864

  60

  August 1864

  61

  October 1864

  62

  October 1864

  63

  October–December 1864

  64

  January 1865

  65

  February 1865

  66

  March 1865

  67

  March 1865

  Part Six

  ASSASSINS

  68

  March 1865

  69

  April 1865

  70

  April 1865

  71

  April 1865

  72

  April 1865

  73

  April 1865

  74

  May 1865

  Afterword

  That war…produced the nation’s first mass armies, and a brutality that shocked the sensibilities of the day. It had aircraft, balloons, submarines, ironclad warships, automatic guns, trenches, a military draft—and the first organized espionage that the country ever knew.

  —Harnett T. Kane

  Spies for the Blue and Gray

  Intelligence work requires people who are patriotic and sincere, and it is exactly these people who can accumulate the most emotional scars in pursuing it.

  —Tidwell, Hall, and Gaddy

  Come Retribution, the Confederate Secret Service and the Assassination of Lincoln

  It is pardonable to be defeated, but not to be taken by surprise.

  —Frederick the Great

  Indeed, our employment may be reckoned dishonest, because, like great statesmen, we encourage those who betray their friends.

  —John Gay

  The Beggar’s Opera

  secret service secret work for a government, esp. espionage [1730–40]

  —Random House Dictionary

  of the English Language

  Part One

  DETECTIVES

  1

  January 1861

  “We must be near Galena already,” Lon said with a look at the closed door of the baggage car. “Nothing’s happened.”

  “Wait,” his partner said. Sledge sat on a crated shipment, legs stuck out, the payroll bag between his heels. His boots were dirty and scarred. Lon’s were spotless except for a few streaks of slush. Around the office they called him Gentleman Lon because of his manners and neatness. He out-Englished the English operatives, of which there were several.

  The Chicago & Galena express was traveling northwest, toward Dubuque across the Mississippi. Adams Express paid almost four hundred dollars a month to rent space in the line’s baggage cars. Its competitor, American Express, had similar arrangements, necessary because trains were favorite targets of thieves, and their routes crossed the territories of a legion of sheriffs who were crooks, bunglers, or both. Lon Price’s agency had contracts with both express companies and a group of six rail lines who together put up ten thousand dollars a year for protection for their real estate and rolling stock.

  Lon and his partner were replacing a regular guard because of a robbery attempt on the same train at the same time last month. The attempt failed; the inept holdup men had blocked the track with a flimsy barrier of barn siding. The engineer had smashed the locomotive right through without stopping. The boss had tried to persuade the Chicago & Galena to ship its next Dubuque payroll by another train, at another time, but management lived by schedules and timetables. So here they were, rolling through the winter night, waiting.

  Lon blew on his hands. The car was frigid even though he could see flames in the small stove. The flue pipe went out through the solid wall at the head of the car. Near the stove, the railway mail clerk sat on a stool with his elbows on the counter. All his mail was sorted in pigeonholes and he appeared to be dozing. The clerk struck Lon as suspiciously furtive. Careful observation was a habit the boss demanded.

  From his left pocket Lon took a well-thumbed book. Sledge Greenglass, whose given name was Philo, worked his gold-plated toothpick in a crevice in his teeth. Where Lon was fair and broad-shouldered, but otherwise slight, Sledge was taller, heavier, with curly black hair and perhaps an Italian or Greek ancestor. He was ten to fifteen years older than Lon.

  “What’s that?” Sledge said with a nod at the book.

  “The latest by Charles Dickens. The latest novel published here, I mean. There’s a new serial running in England, Great Expectations. Dickens is my favorite writer after Edgar Poe.” Lon showed the book’s spine.

  “A Tale of Two Cities. Invite him over, maybe he’ll write A Tale of Two Countries.”

  Sledge’s sarcasm was justified. The Union was collapsing. Five days before Christmas, South Carolina had passed its ordinance of secession, and other Southern states were following—Mississippi, Florida, and Alabama last week. The commander of the Army garrison in Charleston had shifted his men to Fort Sumter in the harbor, and Star of the West, lame-duck President Buck Buchanan’s relief ship carrying reinforcements, had already been turned back by Charleston harbor defenses. The problem would confront the President-elect, whom Lon had met once in Chicago. He was a downstate lawyer who had for a while represented the Illinois Central. Lon wondered if such a peculiar, ugly man could do anything to save the country from war.

  The locomotive whistled mournfully. The train creaked and rattled around a bend. Three oil lamps hanging from the ceiling swayed and smoked. The car reeked of old cigars. Lon read half a page, then read it twice more. He shut the book and made a face.

  Sledge said, “Nervous?”

  “Some. I’ve only been at this for a couple of years. Do you ever get used to the danger?”

  They noticed the mail clerk watching. Sledge lowered his voice. “Been a copper nearl
y thirteen years, since I joined the New York force.” Sledge and the agency’s senior operative, Tim Webster, a former police sergeant, had been assigned to guard the Crystal Palace exhibition in 1853. The boss had met them, liked them, and hired them away.

  Sledge continued, “I been shot at, knifed, mauled in the line of duty maybe a dozen times. And no, I’m not used to it. But even if they hit us tonight, I wouldn’t worry too much. Holdup men aren’t only crooked, most of them are stupid. Look how they mucked up last time. The rule is, no matter how scared you are, no matter what your belly’s telling you, keep it hid and always give back more than you take. That’s how you stay alive. That’s how you win.”

  Lon Price mostly liked his more experienced partner, but not this kind of talk. “We’re supposed to be professional operatives, not roughneck detectives.” In fact the boss forbade the use of the word detective in his presence.

  “Oh, I forgot,” Sledge said with his familiar mockery. “You grew up with a preacher in a preacher’s house. All hymns, holiness, heaven, and hallelujah.”

  “Listen, Sledge. My father was a good man. He cut his life short trying to help Negroes escape to Canada. He was even shot once by slave-catchers. You can say anything you want about me but keep still about him.”

 

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