Lincoln's Wizard Read online

  Chapter Three

  Mr. Lincoln’s War

  “Captain Wright?”

  Braxton’s head snapped up at the sound of his name. The unmistakable silhouette of Allan Pinkerton stood in the open doorframe, but Braxton was having trouble getting his eyes to focus on the man. He pinched the bridge of his nose and blinked until Pinkerton came into focus.

  “Sorry, sir,” he said, trying hard not to blush in embarrassment. “I was admiring your music box and must have dozed.”

  “Not to worry, lad,” Pinkerton said, reaching out and pushing in the little rod that would stop the balance gear from spinning. The machine trembled and came to a halt.

  Braxton felt more alert almost immediately and he stood, shaking off the last of the groggy feeling.

  “I see you fixed it,” Pinkerton said, blowing out the lamp in the machine’s center with a quick puff of air. “Very clever of you.”

  “Thank you, sir, but it was just a bent rod.”

  “Well, I appreciate it nonetheless,” Pinkerton said. “If you’ll follow me, the President is ready for you.”

  Braxton stepped around the chair, pushing it back in as he went, then followed the older man out into the hall. A pair of soldiers in blue coats with polished brass buttons stood at attention, their rifles resting easily at their sides.

  The hallway ended against a set of double doors, with the corridor running off to either side. An intricate inlayed scene of a feudal Samurai warrior receiving his sword from his liege covered the doors. As Pinkerton knocked, Braxton was forced to wonder what he would be receiving beyond those doors. Clearly he’d been brought here for some reason, though he couldn’t imagine what.

  “Come in,” a muffled voice called.

  Pinkerton opened the doors and went in. The room resembled Pinkerton’s office, though it seemed larger owing to the glass skylight that dominated the ceiling. A tea service had been laid out on a low table between two couches, and a tall man in a dark suit stood behind it looking for all the world like the butler. His face was angular and lined, and there was a sadness in his eyes that made him seem old. Braxton had heard that Lincoln was tall, but was not prepared for the reality of it. The man stood well over six feet and was all arms and legs.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Captain Wright,” President Lincoln said, reaching out to shake Braxton’s hand.

  Braxton took the offered hand and tried not to tremble as he shook it. If his father could only see him now. He’d never believe that his boiler-monkey of a son was meeting the President of the United States.

  “It’s an honor, Mister President,” he replied, unable to keep his enthusiasm in check. “A real honor, sir.”

  “The honor is entirely mine. Have a seat, Captain,” the President said, indicating one of the couches. “Would you like some tea?”

  “Yes, sir,” Braxton said, and sat as the leader of his nation poured him tea. As he handed Braxton his teacup, he smiled with an unforced geniality that belied the sad eyes.

  Braxton relaxed as he sipped his tea. Lincoln sat on the couch opposite, next to Pinkerton.

  “You may have heard that I am something of a collector and purveyor of tales, Captain Wright,” Lincoln said with studied casualness. “I do not profess to be a professional in this regard—perhaps at best a hobbyist—but I find that I often deal in stories.”

  Braxton nodded from behind his teacup.

  “So what’s your story, son?” Lincoln asked in a quiet voice.

  Braxton choked, nearly spilling his tea. At once, the “official story” sprang into his mind, the one his superiors had insisted he tell, the one that made him appear a quick thinking military genius instead of what he was, merely a hapless survivor. How could he sit in Lincoln’s parlor and lie?

  The President, however, continued speaking through his easy smile. “Of course, we all know about your heroic deeds at Parkersburg. Why, the newspapers have been nearly beside themselves recounting your daring escapades.”

  Braxton swallowed hard, setting down his cup. “The papers, sir, tend to exaggerate.”

  “So I have often noted,” Lincoln observed.

  Lincoln and Pinkerton exchanged a glance before the President continued.

  “What was it like, facing down a dragon?” Lincoln asked.

  “I really couldn’t say, sir,” Braxton replied. “We were repelling the Gray Soldiers when it hit the Monitor and knocked her into the river.”

  “Quite the harrowing tale,” he said. “You seem like a man who can think on his feet even when the Monitor under him is losing its own footing. The kind of man who knows how to get things done in the face of adversity.”

  “I’ve seen my share of that,” Braxton admitted. He’d been right, this meeting was more than a social call. “Begging your pardon, sir, but you seem like a man with something on his mind.”

  Pinkerton barked out a short laugh. “Told you,” he said, nodding to Lincoln.

  “I must confess, you’re right, Captain” the President said, rising. He strode to a cabinet on the wall and withdrew a rolled up paper. “If you’re willing, I have a job for you.”

  Braxton took heart at that. Maybe this made up story of his valor could do some good, perhaps even get him back on the tall gun team, or better yet, on Chief Engineer Ericsson’s project, whatever that was. Either one would be a dream come true.

  Lincoln returned to the couch and spread out the paper on the low table. Braxton’s heart sunk when he saw it was a map depicting the southern state of Alabama. Why would they need an engineer that far behind enemy lines?

  “This will be a dangerous assignment,” Pinkerton said, confirming Braxton’s impression. “But a man of your abilities might just be able to pull it off.”

  Braxton’s mouth went dry and he could feel himself start to sweat into his new coat. He tried not to let the distress show on his face.

  “This mission is critical,” Pinkerton said.

  “The fact of the matter, Captain,” Lincoln said, leaning back in the couch, “is that we’re losing this war.”

  Braxton hesitated, then spoke. “May I speak freely, sir?”

  It was Pinkerton who nodded. “This conversation is entirely off the record, lad,” he said. “Say what’s on your mind.”

  “Meaning no disrespect, sir, but anyone who’s been out there on the front lines knows the war is lost,” he said. “First the Gray soldiers, and now the Frenchies are giving the Rebels dragons? Do you know, sir, that after a battle, Rebel gleaners comb the fields for every corpse they can drag back to their own lines? They stitch them up, then do whatever ungodly horror they do to bring them back, and then send them back into the lines all over again to take up arms against us. Our own friends and kin.”

  Braxton shuddered at the thought of seeing Laurie, gray faced and white-eyed, marching across a smoky battlefield in Rebel colors.

  “Your gun platform did good service against all that,” Pinkerton said.

  “Again, all due respect, we can’t make them fast enough,” Braxton said. “I helped design them. I know.”

  “What are you getting at, Captain?” President Lincoln asked in a quiet, surprisingly gentle voice.

  “Maybe it’s time to sue for peace, sir,” Braxton said. “Maybe it’s time to end the war.”

  Lincoln paused before he spoke, as if he were letting Braxton’s words sink in, weighing them carefully against his response.

  “Why are you fighting this war, Captain?” he asked.

  “I suppose it’s because the idea of one man holding another in bondage against his will, for no crime other than being born different … well, it just isn’t right,” Braxton shrugged.

  Lincoln considered this for a moment, then went on.

  “That’s a good answer,” he said. “Slavery is an abomination, to be sure, but this war is about so much more than that evil practice.”

  “I’m not sure I understand, sir,” Braxton said, genuinely confused. He’d heard the Rebel cl
aims that the war was about seizing their land and goods for the industries of the north, but doubted that’s what the President meant.

  “Have you studied history, Captain Wright?”

  “A little,” Braxton admitted. “When I was in school.”

  “If you look back in history,” Lincoln said, “you’ll find only a handful of nations where men tried to be free, to live together under their own rules, not at the suffrage of some king or magistrate. Every other society in history has been some form of tyranny,” he said. “Whether ruled by potentates, prophets, or parliaments, it’s always been the will of the privileged few that governed the common man. The United States are the exception to thousands of years of history, a nation ruled by its people, subject to laws made by those selfsame people. Would you agree, Captain?”

  “Yes, sir,” Braxton nodded slightly. “I believe I would.”

  “It is a blessed state of freedom we live in,” Lincoln said, his dark eyes intent on Braxton. “That’s what we have to preserve, Captain Wright. History says that the odds of any free nation surviving are not good.”

  “Why?” Braxton asked. “Begging your pardon, sir.”

  “Because, the agents of tyranny are always among us,” he said. “There are always arrogant and evil men who believe that their ideas are better than their neighbor’s. If such men cannot convince their neighbors, they then seek to coerce them. Liberty becomes anarchy, and anarchy always gives way to tyranny, freshly born.”

  “Look what happened in France,” Pinkerton said. “They had a revolution based on anger and envy, not ideas. It devolved almost immediately to anarchy, and within a decade they had old Bonaparte declaring himself emperor.”

  “That’s the tricky part of freedom, Captain,” Lincoln said. “It only works when the people are morally sound.”

  “You mean like John Adams.” Braxton had read that in school.

  “That’s right, son,” Lincoln nodded. “What did he say?”

  “That our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

  “Now ask yourself,” Pinkerton said. “Can we be a moral people if we tolerate the evil of slavery?

  Braxton felt his skin go cold. Inside he knew Pinkerton was right.

  Lincoln leaned forward, his eyes intense, glittering in his gaunt, pale face. “I believe this Union is the best hope for freedom in the world,” he said. “Maybe the only hope. We have to preserve her, whatever the cost. If we don’t, I fear our children and grandchildren will come under the yoke of tyranny, just as the French have. That’s why I won’t sue for peace. That’s why I’m fighting this war.”

  He let the words sink in, drawing out the silence in the room.

  “What I need to know, Braxton,” Lincoln said, using the captain’s familiar name for the first time, “is are you with me?”

  Braxton felt his chest tighten like the air was being squeezed out of him. He couldn’t argue what he’d heard. Somewhere in his soul, he knew it to be right. If freedom was to survive, they had to win. He met Lincoln’s gaze and nodded.

  “God help me, sir,” he said. “I am.”

  “We had hoped for nothing less,” Pinkerton said, leaning over the map again. “You mentioned the Rebel’s Gray soldiers,” he said. “They’re pressing our boys pretty hard even without the dragons. We think we’ve found a way to even the odds a bit.”

  Despite his trepidation, Braxton leaned over the map as well.

  “We know the Rebs have to inject the Grays with some chemical solution at least every fortnight,” Pinkerton explained. “We suspect that if they don’t, the Grays will begin to deteriorate.”

  Braxton shuddered at that image. The lifeless Gray soldiers were terrifying by themselves, he couldn’t imagine them marching on Union lines all rotten and gangrenous.

  “Now,” Pinkerton said, indicating a rail line running north to south. “My spies have learned that a special train moves up and down this line, stopping at the camps to refresh the Grays. Every six weeks, however, it travels back to Atlanta, where we assume the source of their chemical brew is located.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Braxton asked, not seeing where this was going.

  Pinkerton moved his finger down the track until it was well behind the Rebel lines.

  “As the Gray train travels back from picking up supplies,” he said, his finger coming to rest on the bridge running across the Tennessee River. “The train crosses this bridge on its way north,” he said. “We want you to cut this bridge and send the train to the bottom of the river. That will cripple Rebel operations in the western states and give our boys a chance to mount a counter offensive.”

  Braxton nodded. Now his presence here made perfect sense. You couldn’t just stuff a bridge support with powder and expect the bridge to come down, especially if you wanted it to take a train with it. Blowing up a bridge required a knowledge of engineering if you wanted to do it right—that and a lot of powder.

  He shook his head.

  “We’d never be able to blow that bridge without being seen,” he said. “It would take dozens of kegs of powder and days to set it up.”

  Pinkerton smiled and pulled a cigar from the inside pocket of his coat.

  “Here,” he said, tossing it across the table.

  When Braxton caught it, he realized immediately that it wasn’t a cigar. While it was the right size and shape, it appeared to be wrapped in heavy paper with a fuse sticking out of the top.

  “What’s this?”

  “The latest thing in explosives,” Pinkerton said. “Nitroglycerin packed in sand.”

  At the word “nitro” Braxton’s hand trembled and he handed the cigar-shaped tube carefully back to Pinkerton.

  “Oh don’t go all wobbly on me, lad,” the detective said. “This stuff is perfectly safe.” To illustrate his point, he slammed the tube down on the low table a few times.

  Braxton’s heart skipped several beats but nothing happened.

  “It’s called dynamite,” Pinkerton said. “All the power of nitro and you can carry it in your knapsack. Your squad will be provided enough to get the job done, don’t you worry about that.”

  “My squad?”

  “A half-dozen men,” Pinkerton said. “Handpicked by me.”

  “This mission is vital, Captain,” Lincoln said. “It could very well turn the tide of the entire war. Much will depend on your success.”

  “I’m not sure I can do this,” he admitted. “This train is deep into enemy territory and I grew up in Maryland. I don’t know the land. And what happens if we do manage to sink the train?”

  “Your squad has three men from Alabama to act as guides,” Pinkerton said. “They’ll be responsible to get you in and out.”

  Braxton looked at the map again, tracing the route of the Gray train with his finger. He had to admit the whole idea terrified him. He wasn’t a proper soldier after all, he was an engineer. Still, he had to bring down the bridge, and that was a job only an engineer could do. It didn’t seem like he had much choice.

  “All right,” he said, extending his hand. “I’m your man.”

  Lincoln took Braxton’s offered hand and smiled. “Thank you, Captain.”

  “Where do I meet my squad?”

  “Air Marshal Sherman has a launch on the roof,” Pinkerton said. “He’ll take you to his flotilla and you’ll start south immediately. Your team and the dynamite are already aboard.” He held out his hand and passed Braxton an elaborate ring made up of three, interwoven silver bands. “One of my operatives will try to join up with you in Alabama. He’ll know you by that ring, so don’t take it off and don’t lose it.”

  Braxton slipped it on his right hand and everyone stood. The outer door opened and a steward waited there to conduct Braxton out.

  “Good luck, Captain,” President Lincoln said. “I find the beds here in New York a bit short for my frame and I left such a fine one in Washington, not to mention
a capitol building half-built. With your help, we may yet walk down Pennsylvania Avenue after a good night’s rest and get that building built.”

  Braxton saluted. “Thank you, Mister President,” he said, then turned and followed the steward back into the hall.

  O O O

  “This way, sir,” the steward said, turning down the left hallway to a small, unadorned door. He opened it, revealing a stairway made of black iron, spiraling upward in the small space. Without pausing, he mounted the tightly turning staircase and climbed, leading Braxton upward to the roof.

  At the top of the stair a sturdy door, bound in iron, blocked their way. The steward slid aside a heavy bolt and pushed it open. Light flooded in on the narrow landing and Braxton had to shield his eyes.

  “I had your gear sent aboard,” the steward said, moving aside so Braxton could step out onto the roof. “You’d better hurry; Sherman isn’t known for his patience.”

  With that the steward stepped back inside and Braxton heard him shut the door and bolt it. A squad of armed soldiers in flawless blues were scattered around the roof, walking patrol with their rifles strapped over their shoulders. A wooden walkway ran out, away from the stair entrance to the center of the roof where a raised platform had been erected.

  The top of the platform held Braxton’s attention. A small boat sat there, with black smoke billowing form a short stack at its back. The smoke rose up and wafted over an enormous bag, easily twice the size of the boat, staining it black along the rear quarter. The bag was attached to the boat by ropes and cables, with brass pipes running up from the boat and disappearing inside.

  He’d seen airships before, but only as tiny man-made clouds soaring overhead. He had never actually been this close to one.

  He stopped and stared, taking it in.

  “Don’t just stand there, boy,” a man in an embroidered coat yelled down from the platform. “I’ve got a schedule to keep.”

  Startled out of his reverie, Braxton broke into a trot and mounted the steps up to the platform. The boat had a panel in its side that had been let down, with steps attached to its inside. He followed the man in the embroidered coat aboard.

  “You’re supposed to ask permission to come aboard,” the man growled, running an appraising eye over Braxton. He was about Braxton’s height with a craggy, weathered face and blue eyes. His hair was short and unkempt and he wore a chin beard without any mustache.