Assassin's Honor (9781561648207) (2 page)

Leaving the shade of the bridge wing above me, I strolled forward along the main deck to survey my steel domain. The recently commissioned 3
^rd
class cruiser
Bennington
rolled gently at anchor off the Royal Navy Dockyard in the harbor of Kingston, on the south coast of the British crown colony of Jamaica.

Gleaming in the sun, she was quite a sight to behold. A beautiful manifestation of the ship designer's blending of art and science, her lines bespoke speed and her guns showed determination.
Bennington
could outrun anything bigger and outfight anything her size. It filled me with gratification when British officers came out several times a day to ogle my vessel, conjecturing about her abilities and potential missions. For the past twenty-five years, it had been American officers envying the Royal Navy's ships.

Half my officers and men were ashore on liberty, enjoying the notorious delights of the city's waterfront taverns on Harbour Street. Hopefully, the officers were patronizing less vulgar establishments than the crew, but I knew some of the more rambunctious young gentlemen were, no doubt, exploring places which were less than genteel. It was all to be expected, and time would tell whether my preliminary admonitions to them about safety and propriety had taken effect.

With her population thus reduced, it was relatively quiet
aboard the ship. No throbbing of engines came up from below, for
Bennington
's boilers were at minimum pressure and the ship herself was relatively dormant. Those sailors remaining in the ship were kept busy by the disagreeable duty of swabbing the weather decks and interior spaces, for we had refueled the day before and coal dust had infiltrated everywhere.

My tour of the main deck completed, I repaired to my cabin to sift through a pile of paperwork waiting for me. Twenty minutes later, I was going over division reports when the signal officer, Ensign Yeats, brought me a coded telegram sent out to the ship from the cable station ashore, via the U.S. consulate.

“Captain, it's marked urgent, and it's from Flag, North Atlantic. Not copied to any other ship or station—it's just to you, sir.”

Flag, North Atlantic
. That meant my superior, the legendary Rear Admiral John Grimes Walker, commander of the North Atlantic Squadron. I was expecting a routine ship-movement order, but not an urgent message. Yeats had deciphered it into plain language, a short task, for it was in Walker's typical no-nonsense style.

The squadron, scattered across the Caribbean and the northern coast of South America, wasn't scheduled to rendezvous in Key West until ten days hence, on December 18. Then we would begin our annual three days of gunnery practice and evaluations at the nearby Dry Tortugas Islands. After the gun drills were completed, the squadron would steam in various battle formations to the naval station at Pensacola. Arriving there by the twenty-fourth, a lucky few of the officers and men would board trains to head home for Christmas with their families.

But this wasn't a squadron-wide order. Obviously, something serious had developed. What? If it was that serious, why wasn't
the entire squadron summoned? The Kingston newspaper had displayed no momentous headlines lately. In fact, the region was relatively calm, without any new developments other than the usual litany of petty local assassinations, revolutions, coups, war threats, and political blustering. Certainly nothing involving the United States or the Europeans was on the horizon.

Whatever the reason, one never dawdled when Walker sent one an order to move immediately. Accordingly, I issued orders changing the sultry day from routine to rigorous. The Blue Peter crew recall signal was hoisted, the whistle sounded, and a blank signal gun fired to bring
Bennington
's people from shore; the on-watch engineers started raising steam; the bosun's men hove the anchor's cable short and began to bring the ships boats and booms aboard; and all departments secured their areas of the ship for sea

The initial recipient of these commands was
Bennington
's executive officer, Commander Norton Gardiner. He was clearly upset by this intrusion into his personal plans, for he possessed special invitations from the local swells. The first was to a polo luncheon at Torrington House by the Kingston Race Track. Later in the evening, he was to be a guest at a high society soiree at Wadston Plantation in the cool hills above the city. For the previous two days, Gardiner had repeatedly bored me with the details of his sartorial preparations, telling me how much the local society reminded him of his family's circle of sophisticated friends in Boston.

That did not impress me. I also was originally from Massachusetts, but arose in far different circumstances. Born and raised in a seafaring family on the coast—culturally quite distant from the comfortable salons of Boston—I thought of high-class social functions as pure fakery and senseless drivel. They were something to be occasionally endured by a professional naval officer, but certainly not anything to be enjoyed. So, with that prejudice firmly established in my being, I will fully admit a certain perverse pleasure was derived in the disruption
of Gardiner's anticipated hobnobbing with the British colonial upper crust, whom I found even more obnoxious than the American version

Nonetheless, with scowling face and sarcastic tone, Gardiner did his duty and got
Bennington
ready for departure. Four hours and much grumbled commotion later, all our men were aboard, some of them suffering from a bit too much liberty while ashore. Officers and men assumed their stations, smoke poured out the stack, the anchor was in its stops, and our signal gun boomed out a salute to Queen Victoria's empire as we steamed past Fort Charles at Port Royal Point, bound for the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haiti.

Using all the mechanical power we could muster, and all the sail we could carry,
Bennington
traveled the 732 miles from Kingston to Key West Naval Station in a little over fifty hours, a record time for the squadron. Upon our arrival in Key West's outer channel, the station's signal mast informed us that I was to report to the admiral directly upon mooring.

Accordingly, eighteen minutes after the main hook was let go in Man of War Anchorage off Fort Taylor, I landed at the naval wharf near the foot of Duval Street, ascended the brow of the 2
^nd
class cruiser
Chicago
, the admiral's flagship, and entered his day cabin. It was precisely 10:00 a.m. on the tenth of December, in the year 1892.

I remember the date and time vividly, for that was the moment when a chain of events was set in motion that changed my life forever.

Key West Naval Station
Saturday morning
10 December 1892

Somewhat breathless at my hasty arrival in the admiral's palatial quarters, I was announced by a pale-skinned junior lieutenant on the squadron staff. He glanced at me with an odd mixture of pity and envy as he knocked three times, then opened the door and reported to the admiral, “
Bennington
has arrived, sir.”

Sitting at his large desk, Walker wasted no time in polite preamble, his long gray forked beard flapping like semaphore pennants as he gruffly greeted me.

“Thank you for getting here so quickly, Wake.” Pulling out a pocket watch, his gray eyes glanced at it and added, “Impressive transit. I suppose you have very little fuel left?”

“Correct, sir. Only forty tons of coal out of three hundred and seventy. At three tons per shaft per hour, I have only six hours full-ahead steaming left.”

“Machinery and boiler condition?”

“Satisfactory for right now, sir. But she'll need a maintenance overhaul soon after this last run. The usual—boiler tank, flues, tubes, and lines.”

“Ammunition and guns?”

“Full load out in all calibers, and all bags and casings look good. Every gun is operative, sir.”

“Provisions?”

“Short, sir. We didn't have time to take enough onboard at Kingston.”

His brow furrowed as he continued, “Yes, well, time is of the essence on this matter, so the boiler overhaul will have to wait, but we can get you coal and provisions right away. Now, sit down and listen closely.”

Choosing a straightback cane chair instead of the more comfortable upholstered wingbacks, I felt the old pounding in my chest. A mission at sea. It had been years since I'd felt that sensation.

A slight smile showed for a second on the admiral's face, then disappeared as he spoke. “You've been out of the Office of Naval Intelligence for years now, but this situation will bring back memories and, I hope, some of those arcane skills you were so good at.”

The last comment made my stomach feel queasy. “Arcane skills” probably meant some of the more disagreeable things I'd had to do on ONI missions—things I'd tried to forget.

The admiral leaned back with a long sigh. “Yes, well, you were in Venezuela about five weeks ago, mid-October, I believe, so you know the general situation there regarding the Germans, their railroad and other commercial enterprises, and the turmoil with the new local president, if I can be so generous as to use that term. Correct?”

My reader understandably may not be versed in Venezuela's convoluted history, so I will digress briefly about what happened
in 1892. The country was sadly typical of Latin America. Foreign investors, mostly German and British, built and controlled most of the transportation and communication systems there, exerting tremendous pecuniary influence over the country's politics. The previous national leader, a liberal reformer named Pulido, had been removed from office on October 7 by the grand-sounding “Legalist Revolution.” That particular crew was led by a distinctly nonliberal fellow named General Joaquín Crespo, who had been the country's head man some years earlier.

At first, the Germans tentatively backed both sides in the conflict, waiting to see which would prevail before donating larger amounts to the frontrunner. Once Crespo started winning, the foreigners, particularly the Germans, started backing him seriously.

“Yes, sir, I'm familiar with the place,” I said. “President Crespo is consolidating his hold over the country following his coup. There are still remnants of opposition on the Caribbean coast and in the interior, but they are dwindling fast and the civil war is effectively over. The country is relatively calm now, and the Germans are officially supporting Crespo and are loaning him a lot of money. Our government just recognized him as well.”

“All true. And what do you know of the Red D Line steamer
Philadelphia
's recent role in all this?”

“Nothing, sir. Except she's American flagged and works that route out of New York, and occasionally New Orleans.”

“Yes, she does. A month ago, shortly after you'd taken
Bennington
over to Costa Rica to calm the ever-faint hearts of American merchants there,
Philadelphia
was at her usual port call in La Guaira, Venezuela. She took aboard as a passenger one General Mijares, ex-governor of Caracas and sworn enemy of Crespo. Mijares was fleeing to the United States, but the ship was delayed in sailing. General Crespo got word Mijares was on the steamer and sent troops onboard with orders to snatch his antagonist away to a dungeon.

“
Philadelphia
's Captain Chambers protested there was no court-issued warrant and thus it was an illegal search of an American ship—thereby bluffing the soldiers off his ship without getting their man. Chambers then weighed anchor and rapidly exited the coast. He deposited General Mijares in New York, but not before a supposedly accidental gunshot in the first-class bar salon almost killed the general, which would have been very convenient for Crespo and his new German allies. Nothing could be proven, of course. So far?”

“Understood, sir.”

“Very good. Now, to get to the point. While on another voyage, that same steamer put into Key West five days ago—Monday, the fifth—needing to recoal on her way from La Guaira, Venezuela, to New Orleans. It wasn't unusual, of course, since this island is right on the course. A quick, routine port call of only one night. However, while she was at the commercial coal dock adjacent to us, something very unusual was discovered aboard the
Philadelphia
. It was that discovery, and the accompanying evidence, which is the salient issue for us today.”

Admiral Walker looked at me and paused, his bewhiskered face showing perplexed consternation, not a typical expression for him. He clearly wanted me to ask the obvious question, so I obliged him.

“And what was that, sir?”

“The dead body of a passenger, Wake. Not your average passenger, mind you. Quite an unusual man, actually, who ended up quite unnaturally dead. I've spent forty-two years, man and boy, in Uncle Sam's navy, and I have seen and done it all. You know I am not given to exaggeration, but this situation has me baffled and concerned. And that's the reason why you have been ordered here so abruptly.”