Against the Tide (19 page)

21

B
ane was cautious as he approached the Navy Yard. Ever since last autumn’s disaster with Lydia, the admiral had wanted nothing to do with him. The blistering contempt in Admiral Fontaine’s eyes when he ordered Bane to keep away from the Navy Yard was hard for him to forget, so the urgent telegram begging Bane to return to Boston was a surprise.

Even more unusual, Eric ordered him to report to his private residence rather than his office. Why was Eric at home in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon?

Three armed guards stood at the front of Eric’s house. Bane eyed them curiously as he mounted the steps. “Are the British coming?” he jested, but the guards eyed him grimly. One of them escorted him inside while the other two maintained their posts.

The house was strangely silent as the guard escorted him to Eric’s private office. Bane opened the door to see Eric standing beside the fireplace.

“Miss me?” Bane asked.

Eric vaulted across the room, and Bane’s head snapped back
from the fist that connected with his jaw. “Where is my son?!” Eric demanded. “What have you done with my son?”

Pain shot through Bane’s jaw, but he did not defend himself, staring in shock at Eric as he struggled to regain control. Never in twelve years had Bane seen Admiral Fontaine lose his temper in such a fashion.

“My boy is missing,” Eric said tersely. “I was told to come to you for answers.”

Bane rubbed his jaw, working the muscles and glaring at Eric. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Perhaps this will help,” Eric said as he threw an envelope at Bane’s chest. Bane snatched the creamy paper before it fluttered to the floor. The note inside was short, polite, and ruthless:

Jack Fontaine will be a guest in my home for the foreseeable future. I suggest you contact Alexander Banebridge for the details.

Professor Edward Van Bracken

Bane felt the bottom drop out of his stomach, and he sagged against the doorframe. Rachel’s son! After all these years, his worst nightmare was taking shape before his eyes. The Professor had found a weakness in Bane’s armor and was moving in for the kill.

Enclosed with the note was a short newspaper clipping. It was about the progress of a bill moving through Congress to curtail the use of opium in medical preparations. The Professor made a small note in the margin:

Tell Bane to put a stop to this. Your son’s health depends on it.

“When did he go missing?” Bane asked weakly.

“Two days ago,” Eric responded, his voice grim. “The note was delivered the night he disappeared.”

Bane handed the note back to Eric, an avalanche of guilt pouring down on him that made it difficult for him to even stand. He closed off the inconvenient emotions and crossed the room to stare out the window, the peaceful sight of gently falling snow a stark contrast to the fear that was roiling inside him.

“Close the door,” he said softly. His mind rattled through the options, rejecting them almost before they could fully form. He dreaded telling Eric what had happened to Jack. The odds of getting the boy back were too bleak to even contemplate.

He met Eric’s grim eyes. “The man who has your son is Professor Van Bracken, the opium drug lord I told you about all those years ago.”

“Why would he go after
my
child?” Eric demanded.

“Somehow he must have learned that your family was important to me,” Bane said. “I don’t know how, but he figured it out.” It didn’t really matter how the Professor had learned about Jack Fontaine; all that mattered was figuring out a solution.

“If he wants a ransom, I’ll pay it,” Eric said.

Bane’s voice was bleak. “That’s not what he wants.”

“Then what?”

The question hung in the air. Bane saw no easy way to soften the blow. “He wants to control me.”

Eric’s voice was unequivocal. “Then do what he wants.” It was not a request, it was an order. He pointed to the newspaper article. “If he wants you to get out of the opium legislation, then get out of it.”

“It is not that easy.” Bane turned to look out at the snow, unable to bear the anguish his next words were going to cause Eric. “If I do what Van Bracken wants, it will guarantee your son’s safety,
but it will not gain his release. The Professor is happy to keep hostages for years to ensure good behavior.” In most cases, he kept the hostages for a decade or more. In all likelihood, Eric would not see his son again until he was a grown man.

“That is unacceptable,” Eric said.

Bane still could not turn around. “I’ll get him back. I swear it. If it is the last thing I do on this earth, I will get that boy back to you.”

Now that the shock was wearing off, his mind was clicking back into gear. Negotiating with Van Bracken would be impossible. Bribing the Professor’s servants was an option, but it also carried the risk of backfiring. He knew Eric wanted his son back immediately, but that wasn’t going to happen. It would require weeks or months to study the mansion, observe the servants, and plan a strategy.

“I suspect the Professor is keeping the boy in his mansion in Vermont,” he said.

Eric’s voice lashed out. “If you know where he is being held, I’m going there with a private army and getting Jack out.”

“Don’t,”
Bane said. “The Professor has contingency plans for everything, and your son won’t live through that sort of rescue attempt.” Bane knew exactly what would happen if anyone ever tried to raid the remote Vermont fortress. Not so much as a bone or a tooth from the hostages would remain. There was an old well that had gone dry decades earlier behind the mansion. The Professor kept canisters of kerosene beside the well, and if Fontaine’s army managed to get on the property, they would not be able to save the boy before he was disposed of down that well. There would be no trace of evidence left to support charges against the Professor.

Bane looked at Eric. “The Professor has spies everywhere, and if he gets wind of any rescue plan, he will simply eliminate the evidence. Don’t take that risk. Give me the time I need to plan this carefully, and I
will
get Jack out safely.”

Jack was probably going to face several months of captivity, and Bane needed to understand the boy’s strengths and weaknesses. He spent the next hour asking Eric endless questions about his son. Strengths? The boy was clever. He was mechanically inclined and good with languages. He had a sense of humor he relied on when under pressure. As for weaknesses, Jack’s vision was poor and he needed reading glasses, which had been left behind when he was taken. He had no respect for rules and was stubborn to the point of intransigence.

Bane prayed that Jack would rely on his natural sense of humor to help him through the next months, because if there was one thing the Professor despised, it was stubborn little boys.

Bane pulled the cap low over his head, making sure the brim covered his face. With his battered pea coat and heavy boots, he knew he looked like any of the thousands of sailors from the docks along the Boston harbor. He leaned against the grainy brick wall of a hardware store across the street from the bakery where Lydia worked.

Lydia emerged from the bakery at two-o’clock, the end of her shift. She did not glance his way as she walked down the steps, adjusted her cloak, and headed toward home.

She didn’t look good. Her face looked ashen and drawn, as though she had not slept for a week. Was it because she was still adjusting to living in a new rooming house? Or it could be the loss of her job at the Navy Yard? When Karl had told him about Lydia’s termination, he had been sick for days. He had hoped she would spring back after he left, find some other challenge to sink her teeth into. Instead, she was working herself to the bone in a bakery because he had gotten her fired.

He should be shot for even thinking about drawing Lydia back into this mess. She had suffered enough on his account, and now he was scheming new ways to put her at risk, all because of his own private vendetta against the Professor. He steeled his resolve. He would do what was necessary to rescue Jack Fontaine, and that meant involving Lydia. He pulled the collar of his coat higher and began following her.

The Professor was holding the boy at his Vermont mansion. Bane had bribed a clerk at the market that delivered the weekly supplies to the estate for this information. He scrutinized the lists of supplies the market was sending to the mansion, noting the regular delivery of schoolbooks suitable for young children. The clerk said such schoolbooks had been delivered for a number of years to the estate, which made Bane believe there was at least one other hostage. Last week’s list had had a curious item: a special order for a pair of spectacles with frames suitable for a small face. They must be for Jack Fontaine.

Now that he knew where Jack was, it was time to set the rest of his plan in motion. And for that, he needed Lydia.

He thought she would go to her rooming house, but to his surprise, she took a seat on an iron bench at a streetcar station. When the horse-drawn streetcar came to a stop before her, she caught the driver’s attention.

“Does this car stop at the public library?” she asked. At the driver’s nod, Lydia hopped aboard.

He didn’t want to confront her on a public streetcar. Now that he knew where she was going, he would bide his time and wait for the next car.

Lydia was embarrassed at how much she did not know.

She liked to think of herself as a well-educated person, but as
she sat in the huge, cavernous reading room of the Boston Public Library, she wrestled with the daunting terminology in the medical textbook before her. It was the only book she had been able to find on opium addiction. She was too mortified to ask the librarian, a grim shadow of a man, if there was a book about opium that was a little easier to understand. What would he think of a young lady asking after such a thing?

But Lydia needed to learn, so she struggled through the dense terminology, seeking insight on the effects of opium dependency and withdrawal. The section on withdrawal mentioned anxiety and insomnia, which Lydia suffered from, but who wouldn’t be anxious after losing her job and her home? The book went on to describe nausea, paranoia, and abdominal cramping as other indications of withdrawal. She had none of those symptoms, so that must prove she was not addicted. She was suffering through a difficult period in her life, and headaches and insomnia were perfectly normal at such a time. Nothing to worry about. She straightened her spine and looked up in relief.