Fiddlehead

Maria’s frown became more thoughtful. “Warhawks sowing a plague.… That’s a dark theory, Mr. Epperson.”

“But you don’t doubt it, do you? That there are men—and women—capable of manipulating tragedy to their own benefit?”

“I’m too good a gambler to bet against the bottomless depths of human depravity,” she replied. For once, Gideon agreed with her.

Henry continued. “So it’s true that I’m here on my personal time. But even so, I’m here with my badge and my authority, and I mean to make myself useful.”

Abraham Lincoln made use of the opening. “And you’re here with information, too. Possibly something of tremendous importance. Go on, tell them who you saw in Danville last week.”

“You were in Danville?” Gideon interrupted. Not alarmed, but intrigued, and tired of other people steering the discussion. Here was something that interested him, so he seized on it. “At last week’s Congress?”

Henry nodded. “Yes, I was there—again, on my own time, and at my own risk—and I saw two people of note. To be more precise, two Southern women of infamy and repute: Sally Tompkins and Katharine Haymes.”

Nelson Wellers let out a low whistle and sat back in his chair, folding his arms across his belly. “Katharine Haymes. God Almighty.”

“Haymes…” Gideon repeated. “I know the surname. Does she have any co

Abraham Lincoln said, “Oh, yes. She is the ‘sons’ in Haymes and Sons. Whether it’s a joke or a matter of practicality in a world of businessmen, I have no idea; but it was her father’s company, and when he passed away, when there were no actual sons to take the reins, she assumed control. Under her command, it’s become a million-dollar weapons factory.”

The pieces clicked together in Gideon’s head, tap-tap-tap, like the printing device’s keys pounding ink onto paper. “She financed a good portion of the research back at Fort Chattanooga. Her money was generally welcome there, but not entirely. There were stories.”

“What kind of stories?” Maria asked. “I ask at the risk of boring these other gentlemen, but I seem to be the only one here who hasn’t heard of her.”

Lincoln supplied the missing unpleasantness. “She tested chemical weapons on Union prisoners of war. As far as the North is concerned, she’s a war criminal.”

“And she’s not much more popular in the South,” Henry added. “Even the CSA wasn’t happy about that particular incident. There was a general outcry, and it even made the papers in a few places.”

Gideon had been present in Te

But Nelson Wellers shook his head. “No, not at all. Too many Southerners have family of their own stuck in Union camps. Even if you think they lack all milk of human kindness, you have to grant them a fear of retribution. Should word get around that Southerners were casually gassing war prisoners, maybe the North would start doing something equally awful to the men in their charge.”

“All right,” he relented. “I will grant them that.”

“While you’re at it,” Maria Boyd added, “you may as well grant them a sense of fair play. War has rules, and let’s all be as direct as Dr. Bardsley prefers: The South will lose this conflict. Sooner rather than later, I expect. And when that day finally comes, they’ll want to bow out with some shred of grace—and a decent surrender treaty is difficult enough to negotiate without the shadow of war crimes looming over the proceedings.”

“You’re asking me to grant them pragmatism, but tell me—have they learned any, in the last twenty years? Because last time I looked, they instigated a war with a larger, better fortified neighbor … while policing a slave class that vastly outnumbered them in its strongest enclaves. If I sit here and think about it for a few minutes, I might be able to come up with a worse idea.”

“Well, you’re the genius,” she said, not bothering to hide her displeasure with the veneer of civility.

He laughed. “If it weren’t true, you wouldn’t be angry.”

“I’d demur and say that you’re right, but you know that already. So instead I’ll remind you that there’s nothing I can do about the past, and that we have work to do here, now. Someone tell me about Katharine Haymes.”

Henry answered quickly. “She’s become an unpleasant secret. No one brought any charges against her for the incident with the war prisoners, which was ridiculous, and everyone knows it. It looked like all she got was a slap on the wrist and a scolding, but she was also asked to keep her head down. The CSA wants her money, but they want it quietly. Too many people in their ranks think she ought to be in prison, even though they protect her operations in Missouri, and are more than happy to make use of her information and technology.”

“So what was she doing in Danville?” Wellers asked.

“Just … watching,” he said. “Watching Sally Tompkins say her piece, and then watching her get dragged off the congressional floor.”

Maria Boyd gasped. “They did what? To Captain Sally?”

Henry explained. “She was there to speak on the subject of the Robertson Hospital and its expenses; but when she got up to speak, she was mostly concerned about a disease, some illness striking the Southern troops. It sounded very much like the walking plague we already know here in the North—in fact, if it was anything else, I’d be astonished. But she was shouted down and physically removed from the premises. It was one of the most astonishing things I’ve ever seen, and I’m almost certain that Katharine Haymes was the one who orchestrated it.”

Five

The War Department meetings were not technically secret, but Grant could never quite shake the impression that they were clandestine nonetheless: always held in the evening, always at some private location, and without his personal guard staff—even the men who protected the nation’s leaders were left outside to eavesdrop and wait.

More than once, Grant had idly wondered if he’d ever missed any of these meetings, simply by virtue of not having been invited. He was only the president, after all. President of the United States, or what was left of them.

Tonight’s meeting was held in the dreaded yellow oval, an elaborate office he would’ve never picked for himself—and certainly wouldn’t have decorated as it stood, not if his life depended on it. But there was something fixed about the place, or that was how it felt; even Julia agreed, and she was more than willing to tweak anything else in the presidential homestead. It was her right as first lady—she’d told him so more than once—but at night when they’d lie close together and talk about the day, she would admit that this particular room felt strangely untouchable.

He stood behind “his” enormous desk, pretending to look out over the gardens. It had rained that day, and the humidity had lingered, then frozen. The roses and other assorted bushes glimmered oddly as the electric lanterns sparked, casting chilled condensation into the night in soft wisps.

But he was not looking at the gardens.

He was watching the window glass, tracking the reflections of the other men in the room as they milled about, helping themselves to brandy and chattering just quietly enough to sound like they were discussing important things, matters of state. It was more likely that they gossiped like old hens.

But it felt like something important would happen any minute now.

He sensed it in the rising tension of the department members who had showed up on this occasion—which was most of them this time. As often as not, fully half would skip the formalities and ask for someone to send them word, as if Grant’s secretary had nothing better to do than sit around and print up the minutes of these tedious meetings.