Unholy Fire (24 page)

I squared my shoulders and marched straight in between them, with Billy just behind me. Inside the office, a high counter blocked further passage. On the other side of it, a group of clerks were working at long oak tables. One of them looked up from his ledger and said, “May I be of assistance, Captain?”

Through the open door behind him, I could see another hallway leading to other rooms and offices. Another sentry stood guard at the entrance to the rear corridor.

“I'm here with an urgent information request,” I said.

“You'll have to talk with Major Broo about that,” he said in a timorous voice, as if Major Broo sat at the right hand of God.

“Well, go get him,” I said imperiously. “I haven't got all night.”

Apparently, the clerk was used to obeying orders in that tone. He practically vaulted out of his chair and disappeared through the open door that led back to the other offices. He returned in less than thirty seconds.

“Major Broo will be out in a moment,” he said, regaining his place at the table.

Fully ten minutes passed before I saw an officer coming slowly toward us down the corridor, adjusting his uniform coat as he came.

Major Broo was almost winsomely plump, with a nose the size of a large grape, and prominent jowls that gave him the look of a bear that has fattened himself up for the winter. He exuded an air of self-importance, and his uniform had enough gold braid on it for a navy admiral.

“Yes?” he asked, in a bored voice from the other side of the counter.

I had already rehearsed what I planned to say.

“Captain Nevins,” I said with a frown, adding, “and I don't like to be kept waiting.”

“This department is officially closed,” he said, as if he had done me a favor by deigning to come out of his office. “Mr. Gimpel said you had an urgent request.”

“I need these documents immediately,” I said, placing my gloved hand inside my uniform coat and removing one of the sheets of paper I had drawn up on the packet boat. It consisted of a dozen requests for files related to personnel records in the departments of Ohio and Kentucky.

He took the paper from me, quickly scanned it, and chuckled derisively.

“You call this an urgent request?” he said, dropping the paper onto the counter as if it was soiled.

“You can come back tomorrow,” he said, looking disdainfully at my rumpled uniform. “Of course, we will need this request in triplicate, and you must have the necessary written approvals from the Adjutant General's Offices of Kentucky and Ohio before we begin. From that point, it should take about three weeks.”

“This happens to be a special request,” I said.

“They are all special,” he said right back, with a supercilious smile.

“Very good, Major Broo,” I said, picking up the document and putting it back inside my blouse. “I will go back now and inform the president of your decision.”

Removing a small writing pad from my blouse, I held my pencil over it.

“What is your full name, Major?” I demanded, in the tone of a Spanish inquisitor.

“The president?” he said, his haughtiness gone in an instant.

“Yes, the president,” I said. “I just left him in his private office along with my father, General Nevins. Perhaps you are aware that he commands the military-procurement section of this department. I want your full name before I inform them of your response to their request.”

“General Nevins is your father?” he said, seemingly awestruck.

Giving him a contemptuous glare, I turned on my heel and began stalking toward the door.

“No … wait,” he said in a pleading voice. “Which documents were they again?”

I handed him back the list.

“It would take most of the night to assemble these files unless I use all my available staff,” he said.

“Well, get them started, then,” I said. “I will provide the services of my sergeant to assist them.”

Major Broo hurriedly assembled his battalion of clerks and began reading aloud the list of personnel records I had requested. When he was finished, he led them down the corridor to the document repository. It was as large as a college gymnasium, and filled with row upon row of floor-to-ceiling stack shelves, each crammed with hundreds of files. I was glad that Billy and I had gone over the exact location of the shipping manifests again on the packet boat. Putting my arm around the major's shoulder, I steered him toward the door of his office.

“While the menials are engaged in this unpleasant task, I would like to get your views on procurement reform, Major Broo. The president said he was keen to learn what those on the front lines really think about my father's current purchasing procedures.”

“They are perfect in every respect, Captain Nevins,” he said earnestly, as I escorted him back to his office.

A few minutes later, Billy emerged from the repository with a six-inch-thick set of file folders under his arm. He motioned me to come out in the corridor. I saw Major Broo start to get up from his chair.

“I'll take care of this,” I said peremptorily, and he sat back down.

With our backs to him, I briefly scanned the first file folder. It was page after page of routing manifests for gun carriages. They included the names of each manufacturer as well as the artillery units to which each gun carriage was shipped, and on what date. Most important, there were notations from inspectors identifying those manufacturers whose carriages had not passed initial inspection. All Sam would have to do was contact the batteries that had received the defective carriages and make sure all of them were replaced before the attack.

“I think you know what you have to do now, Sergeant,” I said, giving him back the folders along with a private wink.

Billy grinned at me and began walking toward the outer office door. We had already agreed that if he was successful in locating the files, he was to head straight for the waiting packet boat at the navy yard.

“What does he have to do? Where is he going?” whined Major Broo, suddenly alarmed.

I gave him an icy stare.

“You may have read about the sergeant's exploits at Antietam,” I said, beginning to enjoy myself, “when he single-handedly killed five Rebels with his bare hands. He just told me that he needed to relieve himself. Do you have a problem with it?”

“No,” replied the major in a small voice.

I waited five minutes to make sure that Billy was clear of the building and then pulled my watch from my pocket.

“I didn't expect it to take this long,” I said. “I need to go back over to the mansion to tell them the information is on the way. As soon as you have completed things here, bring the files to the president's private office on the second floor.

He gave me an apologetic frown.

“What is it now?” I said.

“I don't have authorization to enter the mansion,” he said meekly.

“I'll take care of that right now. Hand me your order book.”

In the order book I wrote, “Captain Nevins hereby authorizes Major Broo of the Quartermaster Corps to forthwith present himself to the president.”

I ripped the order form out of the book and handed it to him.

“I will see you shortly, Major,” I said, standing up.

“Yes, sir,” he said.

Walking down the stairs, I felt like giving out with a Rebel yell. In my mind's eye, I saw Major Broo arriving at the mansion with the Ohio and Kentucky personnel records at around four that morning and demanding to see the president. Emerging at the side entrance, I glanced up and down Seventeenth Street. Billy was gone. The manifests were on their way back to Falmouth.

The black sky was clear of rain as I started toward Pennsylvania Avenue. I decided to walk to Mrs. Warden's, get a good night's sleep, and then begin my search for the girl in the morning.

I was crossing the avenue when a large black brougham bore down on me and stopped in the middle of the roadway, blocking my path. The passenger door swung open, and a man stepped down. In the murky darkness, I saw that he had an Asiatic face.

“Get in, please,” he said, holding the door open for me. He was short and squat but very powerful looking.

It was too much of a coincidence, considering where I had just been. I looked toward the president's mansion, where I knew that sentries were still standing guard along the sidewalk. A second later I felt pressure against my ribs. Looking down, I saw a small-caliber revolver in his hand.

“Get in, please,” he said again.

The interior of the brougham was lit with two small side lamps. It had tufted leather seats and thick carpeting on the floor. An enormous man with a milky right eye was sitting in the seat facing backward. Opposite him was a man dressed in formal evening clothes. I immediately recognized him as the leonine stranger who had threatened me at the Silbernagel trial. In the pallid light of the coach lamps, his amber eyes and chalk white skin lent him the aspect of a living corpse.

As I sat down next to the man with the milky eye, the Asian closed the door behind me and then began loping toward the side entrance of the War Office. The man in evening clothes tapped his knuckles loudly against the mahogany-paneled ceiling, and the brougham swung around on the avenue, before moving slowly back in the direction I had just come.

“I suppose I should introduce myself,” he said. “My name is Laird Hawkinshield.”

Even I had heard of him. Everyone in Washington had. He was a congressman from Ohio and a powerful member of the Committee on the Conduct of the War. Harold Tubshawe thought he walked on water.

“Where are those shipping manifests?” he asked me politely.

I looked back at him but said nothing as the brougham came to a halt in front of the War Department at almost precisely the same place that our carriage had stopped just thirty minutes earlier.

“You should know that when Major Duval was released from custody, he immediately informed General Nevins that someone would be coming for the files,” he said. “I must now assume you already have them.”

Through the coach window, I saw the Asian returning on the run from the entrance to the War Office. Major Broo lagged behind him, desperately trying to keep up. He ran with his legs wide apart, as if his crotch was sore.

The Asian leapt agilely up to the box with the driver. Major Broo came straight to the open door. As soon as he spotted Laird Hawkinshield in the back, he began groveling.

“Congressman, I tried to tell your man that no procurement files have gone out of the office since I came in tonight,” he said, wringing his hands. “I'm fully aware of General Nevins's orders.”

When he looked over and saw me in the other seat, his face relaxed into a relieved smile.

“Why, Captain Nevins here can tell you. He was right in the office with me part of the time.”

“You're a stupid imbecile,” said Hawkinshield, narrowly missing the major's face as he slammed the door shut. He tapped the ceiling with his knuckles again, and the brougham moved off, leaving Major Broo on the sidewalk.

“I must assume that someone is already on his way back to Falmouth with the files,” he said, as the coach gathered speed. “Well, setbacks are inevitable. It just means that I will have to schedule a public hearing tomorrow to expose the corrupt manufacturers of the gun carriages myself.”

“A true man of the people,” I said.

“I would like you to join me for a nightcap back at the Willard Hotel, Captain McKittredge,” he said.

“I don't drink,” I said.

“Oh … that's right. You're an opium eater, aren't you? Don't worry … I can accommodate your tastes.”

I was unable to conceal my surprise.

“We know more about you than you think,” he said.

A few minutes later, we rolled up to the carriage park at the rear of the Willard Hotel. The man with the milky eye swung the door open and motioned me to step down. The Asian was already waiting for me on the sidewalk. Together they led me inside the vestibule. Laird Hawkinshield followed, keeping ten feet of distance between us.

The hotel was lavishly decorated for the Christmas holidays, and its corridors were festooned with aromatic wreaths of evergreens and lifesize papier mâché religious figures. A crowd of people in formal dress emerged from one of the ballrooms and drifted toward us down the corridor. I was immediately alert to the possibility of using their presence to effect an escape. Again I felt the pressure of the pistol in my ribs.

As soon as the party goers saw Hawkinshield coming along behind us, they became as animated as children, whispering to one another as if a conquering hero was suddenly in their midst. He doffed his top hat to them as he went by, all the while smiling and murmuring inanities such as, “It's an honor,” and, “A vast pleasure, I'm sure,” as their faces lit up in admiration.

His suite was on the seventh floor and faced onto Pennsylvania Avenue. Hawkinshield put down his top hat and gloves on a marble top stand in the foyer and led me inside. The sitting room was filled with rosewood furniture. Two gaslit crystal chandeliers illuminated a collection of old oil paintings. Thick Persian carpets covered the polished hardwood floors. Comfortable armchairs and couches were grouped together underneath the tall windows.

A tall blonde woman was standing next to one of the windows, looking down at the avenue below. She looked like she had just come from church and had on a silk gown of sapphire blue, with an overdress of pale pink. It rose up to her neck in a prim lace collar, which was set off by a small gold locket. Her hair was adorned with a garland of tiny red roses.

“Captain McKittredge, I would like you to meet Miss Ginevra Hale,” said Hawkinshield. “Ginevra, Captain McKittredge is one of your father's constituents. He comes from a small island off the coast, I believe.”

I immediately recognized her name, too. She was the daughter of our senator, Charles Hale, and widely considered to be the most beautiful and elegant young woman in Washington society.