Lincoln's Wizard (3 page)

He cast a furtive glance up at the boiler, now hanging above him. If they’d fallen the other way it would have been plunged under water and they’d both be dead.

Lucky.

Laurie groaned and pushed himself up. Blood ran into his face from a cut on his forehead and he blinked repeatedly to clear his eyes.

“I’m okay,” he said, sounding a little dazed. “Let’s go.”

He grabbed Braxton by the shoulder and turned toward the hole in the wall that used to be the boarding hatch. Braxton gasped in pain at the pressure and dropped to one knee.

“What is it?” Laurie said, kneeling beside him.

“Cracked rib,” Braxton said through clenched teeth. “Maybe broken”

“I’ll have a look when we get out,” Laurie said, helping Braxton rise. “I can boost you up to the hatch. Do you think you can make it to shore?”

The thought of swimming with the cracked rib made Braxton’s side throb, but what choice did he have? He nodded.

Laurie leaned him on the planking that used to be the floor, just below the hatch.

“Give me your foot,” he said. “I’ll lift you.”

Braxton did as he was told, groaning as Laurie lifted, sliding him up the sloping floor. When he reached the hatch, Braxton clutched his injured rib and rolled through the opening.

The icy water of the Ohio hit him like a hammer, threatening to suck the air from his lungs. He struggled to the surface, using his free arm and legs to make for the shore. Above him the
Monitor
was lit by the glow of the burning goo that still clung to its armor, casting a ruddy light over the dark water.

An angry hiss filled his ears and he knew he was out of time. Hoping the water would shield him, Braxton gulped as much air as he could and dove down.

The
Monitor
’s boiler exploded. Even underwater, the sound was deafening and it took all of Braxton’s will not to gasp as the pressure wave hit him. Shrapnel and chunks of metal the size of pumpkins plunged past him like iron rain, sinking slowly once their initial momentum was spent.

When Braxton could hold his breath no longer, he made for the surface, breaking through with a ragged gasp. All around him, burning wreckage bobbed on the water and a tree had caught fire on the far side of the river. From somewhere in the darkness, cheers were going up from the Confederate lines, and beyond them the sounds of battle raged, but Braxton heard none of it nor cared for any of it in that moment.

“Laurie!” Braxton yelled.

Grunting in pain, he turned himself around, scanning the rolling water for any sign of life.

“Laurie!” he called again, but there was no answer.

Chapter Two
The Hero’s Wage

The chairs in the office of the Director of Military Intelligence were the finest quality, comfortable and richly upholstered in woven linen. Soft, padded carpets covered the floor, though their colors were somewhat faded from age. Rumor had it they’d been brought from the White House when the Union abandoned Washington. Now the Presidential residence, and its associated offices, encompassed the entire top floor of New York’s fashionable Fifth Avenue Hotel.

Rechristened the Union House, the hotel now housed Congress on the first two floors, with the Presidential residence and offices above. This arrangement made for much sport in the New York papers, ran stories about Lincoln literally setting himself above Congress. Since these were the same newspaper men who proclaimed Braxton to be the Union’s greatest hero, he was inclined to think little of their opinions.

Despite, or perhaps because of, the richness of the furniture and the opulence of his surroundings, Braxton fidgeted in his chair. He simply couldn’t get comfortable. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually been at ease.

His hapless actions at Parkersburg had pulled the Confederate lines out of formation, allowing Colonel Hendricks to mount a successful attack on the Rebel flank. They had been forced to withdraw back across the river amid heavy losses. It was the most demonstrable Union victory in two years. The papers had declared Braxton the “Hero of Parkersburg,” printing sensationalized and downright fabricated accounts of the
Monitor
and his role in the attack. No one mentioned or seemed to care that he’d lost the
Monitor
in the battle, nor that he’d gotten his best friend killed.

Laurie.

Braxton sighed. He’d searched the shore for an hour before Colonel Hendricks’ troops found him. The river was filled with flotsam and the bodies of inert Gray soldiers, but no Laurie. It had taken a direct order from the Colonel himself to get Braxton to abandon the search and report to the medical tent.

In the two months following the battle, his ribs had healed and his fame had grown. Following the newspaper accounts, he’d been put on train after train and shown off to an endless succession of crowds as politicians and generals made speeches. They would praise him, and he’d stand and wave to crowds as they cheered the lie that had become his life.

Braxton hated it.

Worst of all, his fame took on a life of its own as the story was told and retold in taverns full of farmers and around campfires amid weary soldiers. The papers had printed a likeness of him in every city and town where he stopped, and people began recognizing him when he went out in public. It was worse than living a lie as he had to recount the carefully constructed story his superiors had concocted for him to eager people desperate for some good news from the war. It became a nightmare that constantly reminded him of the blood on his hands.

He fidgeted in his chair again as a large grandfather clock by the parlor door chimed the hour. He’d bought a new uniform coat for his meeting with the President and he twisted in his chair in a vain effort to make it stop scratching. The new shoulder-boards didn’t help either. As his fame had grown, someone had the bright idea to promote him to captain.

And all I had to do was blow up the army’s newest war machine and get my entire crew killed
, he thought bitterly.
I wonder how you make general?

Braxton stood and paced the floor of the office. It took some time as the room was quite easily as large as the house in which Braxton had been raised. The walls were painted white with gold trim and hung with all manner of art. Couches and chairs guarded the perimeter, separated only by the enormous floor-to-ceiling windows that let in the afternoon sunlight. In the center of the office sat a desk that couldn’t have been more imposing if it had been a throne. It was white, like the walls, with an enormous slate of white marble for a top. A pair of oil lamps flanked the desk like sentinels, the oil in their reservoirs glowing amber in the sunlight and casting colored shadows over the marble. In the center of this parade ground masquerading as a desktop were a great many maps, charts, and reports written in spidery script.

While Braxton was sure the mass of intelligence on the desk held tantalizing secrets, they were not what drew his attention. On the far side of the desk a green cloth had been carefully laid out in front of the leather chair. An elaborate music box made of porcelain and silver lay on the cloth. It was a fanciful thing that reminded Braxton of a miniature carousel with tiny glass prisms fitted inside it instead of horses. In the center of the box was a small oil lamp, around which the crystals turned when it was working, which it clearly wasn’t. The music box lay on its side with its bottom pulled out revealing the clockwork mechanisms. Someone had removed mainspring and the motion work, separating it into a neat row of gears and cogs.

Braxton walked around the desk and leaned over, being careful not to touch anything. From the chip of missing porcelain on the top of the music box, he guessed that someone had knocked it on the floor and was now trying to repair it. The gearing looked simple enough, but there seemed to be more than would be necessary just to play the music and turn the crystals. Before Braxton could examine it further, the door to the office opened.

Braxton looked up, expecting the young steward who had greeted him at the elevator when he arrived. Instead the door admitted a tall, stocky man with a square face, close-set eyes, and a trimmed beard. His hair was going gray at the temples and he had a look of weariness etched into the lines of his face, as if he were burdened with a great weight.

Braxton recognized that look. He’d seen it recently in his own mirror.

“Captain Wright?” the man asked as Braxton moved back around the desk. “My name’s Pinkerton, Allan Pinkerton,” he stuck out his hand and Braxton took it. “Do you know who I am?”

Braxton nodded. He’d never met Pinkerton, but everyone who’d read a newspaper knew of the man. He had founded his detective agency in his name—Pinkerton National Detective Agency—and had introduced a number of groundbreaking innovations to the sleuthing profession. His men were responsible for foiling the infamous Baltimore plot to assassinate President Lincoln as well as uncovering the Brunswick Conspiracy. Now Pinkerton was the head of Union intelligence.

“Good,” Pinkerton said, motioning for Braxton to sit. “The President’s asked me to sit in on your meeting. I’ll go make sure he’s ready for you, then I’ll be back to get you. Do you have any questions?”

Braxton nodded. “Why am I here?”

Pinkerton seemed surprised at that, but a smile crept immediately back onto his face.

“That’s a good question,” he said. “You’d be surprised how many people don’t ask good questions.”

“And how many of those people get an answer to their question?”

“Another good question,” Pinkerton said with a wry smile. “But as to why you are here, I’ll let the President tell you that.”

“I was noticing your music box,” Braxton said, indicating the orderly rows of parts.

Pinkerton scowled as if this were a source of immense displeasure.

“Confounded thing,” he muttered. “I had a devil of a time getting it made and then some fool cleaning woman went and knocked it on the floor. It hasn’t worked right since.”

“May I fiddle with it?” Braxton said. “Mechanical things and me, we have an understanding.”

The older man wavered, his face unreadable. It seemed to Braxton as if he were on the verge of saying something, but then he simply nodded.

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” Pinkerton said, then stepped out of the office once more, shutting the door behind him.

Braxton waited a moment as Pinkerton’s footsteps disappeared down the hall, then he moved to the desk, pulling out the heavy chair and sitting down. A row of tools lay beside the green cloth and Braxton selected a delicate screwdriver before setting to work.

The inner mechanism of the music box had been almost totally disassembled which made it easy to see the designer’s intention for the device. Each of the prisms was mounted on a track so they would not only rotate, but move in-and-out and side-to-side as well. It took Braxton a few minutes to work out how all the gears were supposed to work and it was the most fun he’d had in months. It was overly complex for something as simple as a music box. Still, as Braxton examined it, he began to see where the gearing could be simplified without comprising the intricate motion of the prisms.

After a few more minutes of poking around, he set to work. The problem with the music box had been evident to him the moment he sat down. The spindle on the balance wheel was bent, causing it to wobble and stop instead of keeping the device in time. Using the pliers, Braxton carefully straightened the metal rod, then began reassembling the network of gears, escapements, and lever arms. He was aware that Pinkerton had been gone for some time, but it didn’t bother him. This was the work he enjoyed most, creating order out of chaos, shaping the world with the power of his hands and the ingenuity of his mind.

When he had the gears reassembled on the base, he carefully fitted it back into the body of the machine, then set it upright on its silver feet. He reached for the key to wind it but stopped.

“Might as well get the full effect,” he said.

He reattached the little oil reservoir that fed the lamp in the center of the music box, then lit it with a match from his shirt pocket. The light burned slightly green and the smoke had a pungent aroma, like aged pipe tobacco.

Moving carefully, Braxton wound the key on the back of the music box. When he released it, the box hesitated, then began to turn. Tuneless music emerged from the base of the box, pleasing, but without the form one expects from a proper melody. Braxton frowned for a moment, wondering if he had been mistaken in the order of the gear assembly, but by then the tune seemed most pleasant to his ears. The prisms caught the light from the lamp and exploded in a dance of color and little rainbows.

Absently, Braxton noticed that the prisms hesitated a bit when they reached the end of their prescribed arcs. If he added jewel movements to the lever arms he could fix that. He thought about making a note of it, but his mind seemed strangely out of focus.

Taking a deep breath, Braxton leaned forward on his hands to watch the swirling play of color and sound on the desk before him. It was the most comfortable he’d been in months.

O O O

Pinkerton left the office, closing the door behind him. When he’d first read Braxton’s story in the papers he suspected the young man would be ideal for his purposes. Now that he’d met Braxton, he was sure.

He walked down the carpeted hall, past the armed sentries, to a set of ornate double doors, lacquered with an oriental scene. He knocked and went in without waiting for a response. The room beyond was long and rectangular with a vaulted ceiling surmounted by a skylight. Two long couches sat facing each other around a low table and beyond them crouched a massive desk. Behind the desk sat a somber man in a simple black suit who rose as Pinkerton entered.

“Well?” President Lincoln asked, moving around the desk to the sideboard. “Does this hero of yours meet with your approval?”

“He’s perfect,” Pinkerton said, joining Lincoln as the taller man poured two cups of tea from a china pot. Pinkerton accepted a cup from Lincoln and the two sat down on opposite couches. “He’s smart enough to get the job done, but not wise enough to see what’s coming.”

Lincoln sighed, allowing his tea to cool.

“You make it sound very tawdry, Allan,” he said, sipping from the cup. “You know I don’t much care for this.”

“I don’t much care for legions of Confederate Grays massing in every quarter,” Pinkerton said. “You know as well as I do that if something’s not done about that, and soon, we’re going to lose this war.”

Lincoln sighed again and nodded.

“I suppose it is as bad as that,” he said. “We really should bring Stanton in on this. He is my secretary of war.”

“No,” Pinkerton said, more forcefully than he intended, splashing tea on his cuff. “I’ve lost two good men trying to get someone into Castle Thunder Prison. The fewer people who know about this, the safer young Braxton will be, and the better our chances of success.”

He set his teacup on the table and wiped his sleeve with his handkerchief.

“You don’t trust Stanton, Mister Pinkerton?” Lincoln asked. His words were as much a statement as a question.

The remark was easy, almost in passing, but Pinkerton heard the hard edge below the innocent sounding question. Lincoln was fiercely loyal to his friends, and didn’t tolerate talk behind their backs.

Stanton had been with him from the beginning.

“All I’m saying,” Pinkerton said, choosing his words carefully, “is that we’ve got a leak somewhere. The Confederates were warned about our previous five attempts to get inside the Castle; there’s no other explanation for how easily our men were found out. Besides,” he said with a smile, “Stanton doesn’t approve of wasting resources on these kinds of operations and I don’t want to spend half the day arguing about a decision that’s already been made.”

Lincoln nodded and a faint smile crossed his face.

“Stanton can be headstrong,” he said. “I’ve found it necessary to plow around him from time to time, myself. That said, this is a major operation, Allan, one that will require an immense amount of our already dwindling resources. How can you be sure our young messenger will be sent to the Castle Prison?”

“Don’t you worry about that,” Pinkerton chuckled. “Every newspaper from here to Charleston has run the story of the Hero of Parkersburg, along with that illustration I had done.”

“That will make him easy to catch,” Lincoln agreed, “but what makes you think they won’t just send him to Andersonville? He’s no good to anybody there.”

“Even the dimmest Reb will think better than that,” Pinkerton mused as he shook his head. “Once they know they’ve got a war hero, they’ll want to keep him handy so they can exchange him for someone we’ve caught. They don’t want him starving in Andersonville; no, they’ll put him somewhere nice and safe and close to home. They’ll put him in the Castle.”