Assassin's Honor (9781561648207) (29 page)

Port Tampa, Florida

Dawn Friday

16 December 1892

“Scaring up” the transport—a term possibly more literal than figurative—took Rork about thirty minutes. When he returned to us, he jauntily announced, “Got us transport, sir. Ain't posh, but it'll do. 'Tis an empty phosphate train that'll pull out in an hour an' a half, at five. On their way to Bartow, they'll stop in Tampa for us to get off.”

“How fortunate to find transport at this time of the morning,” said Cano affably, clearly trying to impress his future father-in-law with a positive attitude after his dismal performance the previous night.

Rork shrugged and slapped him on the back. “Oh, 'tis nothin' to crow about, laddee. Why, once we had to scare up a whole ship! Remember that one, sir?”

“Yes I do, Rork. And a damned close-run thing it was.”

“Phosphate train?” grumbled Gardiner, ignoring our banter.
“What is that? I'm hungry. Is there a club car? Where will we sit on this train?”

“Ooh nay, sir. 'Tis a workin' train with no passengers an' nary a seat. We'll be standin' in the locomotive cab with the crew. No worries, though. 'Tis only ten miles or so. The chap at the yard says about forty-five minutes to Tampa.”

To preclude any more of Gardiner's bellyaching, I said, “The train will be fine, Rork. Thank you. Please get Commander Gardiner's trunk over to the train for him. After that's done, you and I will tour this wharf. It's a good opportunity to see how they're doing here. Might come in handy someday.”

“Aye, sir.” He bestowed an insincere smile on Gardiner and said, “'Tis an honor to help the commander.”

With his one real hand he lifted the heavy trunk and slung it onto his shoulder, something few men could do. All the while he was looking at Gardiner. I noticed it wasn't an amiable look. Gardiner never noticed anything.

“I guess I'll go along with Commander Gardiner,” said Cano, rather hesitantly.

“Good idea, Dr. Cano,” I replied.

After shepherding them to the train, Rork left the two of them sitting dejectedly on their baggage next to a locomotive in the dark, then joined me at the end of the wharf. Our walk about the place showed that Mr. Plant had further improvements in mind for the wharves, for huge phosphate elevators and conveyor belts were being constructed to speed up the loading process. The smell of money was in the dusty air, along with the smell of rain in the southwest wind.

The train got under way exactly when the engineer, a crotchety old Italian-Cuban immigrant named Buttari, had predicted, at 5 a.m. It was crowded in the cab with six men—the four of us and two crewmen—and our baggage inside. Buttari wasn't talking, so we navy men and Cano stood there mutely swaying with the train over the uneven rails as it chugged through a swamp.

I estimated we'd arrive in Tampa just before dawn, which suited my plan fine. The other warship would be arriving at the anchorage in Hillsborough Bay about then, but it would take a while for them to sway out a boat and row the couple miles up to the city. The most important thing was that we'd won the race. Martí and Cuba's future would be safe, and the United States would be spared an international assassination inside her borders.

My plan had the incentive of a pleasurable victory phase. On my return to the ship after notifying Martí or his people of the Spanish plot, I would stop by Plant's fancy hotel and look for Maria. With any luck, she'd be there and we could have breakfast together, perhaps a romantic repast in her room.

Jerking and swaying, the train picked up velocity. I was congratulating myself for being almost done with my mission and soon in my lover's arms. After that beautiful but brief respite from my naval responsibilities, I'd take
Bennington
back to Key West and the squadron. Then I'd be at sea, living my life as I should be, and at last free of Gardiner, the damned Orden Público, coded messages, and the sordid world of espionage.

We'd run at least a mile toward Tampa when a thud sounded, the train lurched faster, and a curse suddenly roared from the after end, some fifteen cars back. This elicited a reciprocal curse in Italian from the engineer. He quickly spun a valve and pulled a lever, allowing a cloud of steam to envelope the locomotive. We slowed quickly to a stop. My companions' eyes looked to me, for there we were, in the dark, in the middle of swamp, nine miles from the city each of us wanted to reach.

“Problems . . .” Buttari said to Rork as he hopped down out of the cab and walked aft along the track bed, swearing all the way.

“Gonna be a long day today,” drawled the mulatto boiler-fireman, as he leaned on his shovel.

He then explained what had happened. It turned out the engineer and boiler man had heard in that original curse what had escaped our ears—the coupling for the last two hopper cars
had broken. This was the third time that week it had happened. It would need to be fixed and the cars reattached before getting under way again. Maybe an hour, he said with a shrug. Maybe more.

Rork and I exchanged glances. I knew what he was thinking. The date in the message was the sixteenth—today. I tried to remain optimistic. We still had time.

Gardiner huffed something unintelligible and got down out of the cab to pace on the rocky track bed. Cano got down and stretched his arms.

The wind had gotten stronger from the west southwest. Now the rain I'd smelled in the air began to fall. Lightly at first, then building steadily into a solid downpour.

Dawn arrived in an unsettling amber half-light. Our environs were bleak—a swamp as far as we could see. Buttari and the brakeman called for the mulatto to come aft and help. Rork offered to lend a hand, but the mulatto said no, he would just get in the way.

So the four of us remained on our feet and waited. At seven o'clock the crew returned to the cab and reported the repairs were complete. Backing up to the errant cars, they reattached them and headed off once again for Tampa.

The rain had stopped but the sky was filled with racing dark clouds sailing in rapidly from the southwest and west, and I knew it would be a nor'wester by the next day. Two nor'westers so close together? I had a worrying thought.
Bennington
was secure for the moment, but for how long? I was glad Warfield was in charge in my absence, for he knew what to do.

The transit to Tampa was made at reduced speed, due to the jury-rigged coupling. Buttari explained he would stop the train
near
the Tampa Bay Hotel only for two minutes to let Gardiner and his baggage off, but it couldn't be right
at
the hotel, for phosphate trains weren't allowed to go onto that spur—the guests didn't want a dirty cargo train disturbing their relaxation. Gardiner would have to walk a quarter-mile with his hand bags
to the hotel and engage a porter go back and retrieve his trunk. He didn't take the news happily. Nobody, including the train crew, cared.

When he departed, there was no goodbye or words of any kind among us, just low grumbling on his part and disinterest on ours. Above the pine tree tops, I could see the minarets and towers of the hotel in the distance. It would be a long walk in the rain. Buttari opened the steam valve and we started moving again.

We crossed the railroad bridge over the Hillsborough River north of the hotel and entered the city of Tampa on Polk Street. Looking south, down the river and out into Hillsborough Bay, I saw the foreign cruiser anchored. Smoke was funneling out of her stack so she had probably just arrived and let go her hook. Even at four miles distance, I recognized her—
Reina Regente
.

The official reason for her port visit would be something benign like “a courtesy visit to our fellow countrymen of Spain, including our dear citizens from Cuba, in Tampa's Spanish Quarter of Ybor City.” Few Cubans in Ybor would be fooled.

Buttari slowed the train for a moment in front of the main passenger depot at Polk and Ashley streets so we could disembark. It was evidently against regulations, for he only slowed and was picking up speed again even as Rork, Cano, and I stepped off.

The depot was mostly deserted at that hour, but the telegraph office in the main lobby was manned, so we went there first. I banged on the counter to wake a young fellow lounging in a rocker.

“Is the line to Key West open yet?” I asked.

He jumped awake and quickly looked me over. “Yes, sir. It finally opened this morning. They got the cable routed around the sinkhole easy enough, but had a devil of a time finding that break underwater south of Sanibel Island. Say, are you named Wake? I have a cable here for a navy man named Wake.”

I assured him I was and opened the proffered envelope.
It was from Rear Admiral Walker, predictably terse, and unpredictably in clear language.

XX—ONI CONFIRMS MSG INFO BUT CAN GIVE NO ORIGIN—X—SEND TAMPA SITREP—X—RETURN TO SQDN OPS AT KW WHEN DONE THERE—XX

I wrote a “SitRep”—Situation Report—reply in the clear on a cable form straight away, telling the clerk to send it priority traffic.

XX—JUST ARVD—X—GERM-SPAN CRUZRS FOLWD US UP COAST—SPAN CRUZR HERE—X—GERM LOCAT NOW UNK—X—RETURNING TO KW WHEN DONE—XX

There was a new steam-powered street car service in the town, which might be faster, so I inquired, “When does the next street steam train leave for Ybor City?”

“Morning train left ten minutes ago, sir. Next one leaves at eleven a.m.”

“How about the electric street cars?”

“Afraid you're out of luck, sir. Just got word the electric car line on Maryland Avenue is out this morning cause of the rain making hell with the wiring, or something like that. They say they're working on it, but it's what they always say.”

“Any hackneys available?”

“No hackneys neither, not this early in the morning when there's no passenger train from up north. Maybe later on in the morning you can find one over at one of the hotels around here. Let's see . . . there's the Franklin. They're nearby, but no, come to think of it they won't have nothing like that there this time of the morning. And there's the Palmetto and the Orange Grove, but they're a long walk. No hire carriages there either, probably.”

He snapped his fingers. “Now the big one across the river, Mr. Plant's Tampa Bay Hotel, that'll have a hire for you! It's
the finest and fanciest hotel in all the Southland, sir. You could find one there, even this time of morning. They keep one ready twenty-four hours a day. Just a couple minutes' walk four streets down to Lafayette Street, turn right and cross the bridge, and you can't miss it.”

Damn. I hadn't counted on that. It was raining hard again and I didn't relish a two mile walk out the muddy road through the scrub land to Ybor City—at least half an hour, probably longer. A hackney could get us there in ten minutes, make us independent of train schedules, and take us all the way back to Port Tampa afterward.

Cano, who was still unaware my mission was similar to his, piped up in a nervous staccato, “Today is the day of his evening speech and I need to get to Martí without delay by whatever means. Why are we waiting here?”

“All right, let's go, gentlemen,” I said. “A walk in the rain to the fancy hotel it is.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” replied Rork, before he thickened his brogue and added, “Nary's the worry, lads. 'Tis just like a misty day back in the Sainted Emerald Isle. Ooh, an' here's a bright spot—maybe we'll be honored by seein' Commander Gardiner again! Aye, methinks His Highness'll already be livin' the grand life there, amongst all those quality swells. Like a big hog in deep slop, he'll be. Just his cuppa tea.”

Cano hoisted his valise and declared, “
Vamonos, caballeros
,” and we all headed out into the rain.

Tampa, Florida

Friday morning

16 December 1892

Rork, as he has done many times before in our misadventures around the world, proved annoyingly prophetic. When we three sodden and exhausted souls at last trudged up onto the four-hundred-foot-long verandah of the magnificent Tampa Bay Hotel, we were greeted by a sight that brought out the worst in me in both mood and word.

“That friggin' sonofabitch,” I blurted out.

“Uh, oh. Not good,” moaned the bosun, who belatedly registered what I'd seen. “Not good at all . . .”

Cano asked, “What is wrong?” He didn't get an answer.

The enormous verandah around us was crowded with high society matrons and patrons beautifully attired in their morning best, clearly reveling in their tropical Florida escape from the cold north, even on a gray morning. Sheltered from the rain, they were enjoying a sumptuous breakfast feast, the aromas of
which were like a beckoning narcotic in my starved condition. Attentive waiters in immaculate tie and tail, potted palms and bougainvillea flowers, and exotic foreign tunes by a lively string quartet completed the atmosphere of total decadent leisure.