Fiddlehead (The Clockwork Century) (36 page)

She squeezed the battered satchel that still hung around her neck, and yes, her gun was still there. But none of her bullets had survived the trip, so whatever was in the wheel was all she had left. Henry had done better for himself: His shoulder holster was under his coat, and therefore his firearm and supplies had survived the trip more completely.

She doubted their guns would be of much use against the Maynard device, but they made her feel better all the same.

Another hour passed, and her feet were blocks of ice. Her nose had lost all feeling, and her injuries hurt terribly. Henry was flagged as well: His ordinarily fair complexion had gone positively white, his glasses were long gone, and when he wiped at his nose with one torn sleeve, it left a damp, bloody streak on the back of his arm.

And then they heard voices, accompanied by the crush and roll of large wheels on uneven turf. Not far ahead, there were people. Carts. Horses.

And then the dome of the big black cargo dirigible came into view.

Henry stopped and took her arm. “Let’s leave the road. Come around to the side.”

“You want to sneak up on them?”

“I want to watch them before we try to engage. We might learn something. Spot a weak point. If we walk up to them now, they’ll shoot us before we get close.”

She wasn’t so sure, but she didn’t fight him when he led her off the tracks that passed for a highway and back into the trees. They circled quietly around, staying just beyond the clearly visible road, until they were within earshot.

The caravan had stopped. Only a few minutes of eavesdropping told them why.

“God
damn
this road! How does anyone ever move anything?”

“There’s not much left to move,” someone said wryly, but not loudly. “The state’s bankrupt—the whole
country
’s bankrupt. Hell, I’m just I’m glad there’s any road at all. We could be stuck hacking our way through the woods, and then what?”

“Then we’d be stuck in this hellhole forever,” griped someone close. “How are we going to get this thing going again? Frank said we can’t push the crawler’s motor any harder, or we’ll blow it.”

“Then we won’t push the crawler’s motor any harder,” said a new voice—someone who spoke with a commanding bent.

Maria strained to see him, but between the trees she saw nothing but a flash of gray uniform and a shock of hair beneath a cap that looked like it might be red. “There’s the man in charge,” she guessed aloud to Henry, who nodded.

The man in charge said, “We’ll have to dig ourselves out.”

“You’re sure the ship can’t lift us?”

“You saw us try it. Did it work? No? Then
yes,
I’m sure the ship can’t lift us. We can’t burn through its hydrogen, anyway. Not if we want a way home, when all’s said and done.”

“Sir, we’re … we’re fish in a barrel if we stay in the middle of this road.”

“Heavily armed fish in a military convoy. Pull yourself together, and get a shovel.”

“Do we have shovels?”

“Check with the ship; they might have some. If not, we’ll improvise. We have axes, and we have a whole forest full of wood we can commandeer if we have to. Bring me Lieutenant Engel, and I’ll see what exactly we have at our disposal.”

Henry leaned over and whispered into Maria’s ear. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll wander away from the caravan. We may have to swipe him, but we’ll make him listen to us.”

“We’re a pitiful pair of kidnappers, you and I.”

“We’re armed. We don’t have to overpower him, just surprise him.”

“Is that our plan?” she asked.

“It’s a possibility. Should we split up?”

She thought about it and said, “We could, but let’s not. We’d just double our chances of getting caught.”

He nodded. “All right. Let’s go together, then.”

Forward they crept, staying low and working toward the giant rolling-crawler—a Texian-made monstrosity that operated on floating axles, and was renowned for its ability to traverse uneven terrain. Apparently it wasn’t quite advanced enough for Georgia roads, which made Maria smile ruefully until she drew near enough to really look at the thing. It was huge—bigger than any such contraption she’d ever seen before, in the North or South. Six wheels on three axles, and about as tall as a single-story building, except for the back portion, which was open like a cart.

This segment was occupied by something huge and—if the set of the wheels in the road was any gauge—quite heavy. The rear half was bogged down, oversized tires lodged into fresh ruts that had been made all the deeper by their spinning, digging, lunging efforts to free the thing.

“Can you see it?” Henry asked, craning his neck.

“They’ve covered it up with something. We’ll have to get closer, though it may be dangerous.”

“We might … not have much choice,” he said slowly, turning his head sharply but carefully to the right.

Maria followed his new gaze, and was horrified to see a gray-dressed soldier with a large army-issue rifle. The rifle was long-barreled with its hardware in gleaming condition, and it was aimed directly at them.

He said, “Hello there. I’d ask what we have here, except I can make myself a guess.”

“It’s not what it looks like,” she promised him.

“It’s not two people spying on a military caravan?” he asked with a smirk.

Maria instantly disliked him, not that there was anything she could do about it. “No, it’s
not
that. Not exactly.”

Henry stood up straight from his crouch, and said, “I’m a U.S. Marshal, and I’m here to help. I’m going to get my badge out of my coat, see? I’m not drawing a gun.”

“U.S. Marshal my ass. Don’t you dare move.” Over his shoulder he shouted, “Hey, Captain, I’ve got something over here!”

“What?”

“A couple of spies; come and see ’em,” he called. “One says he’s a marshal.”

“A marshal?”

Seconds later the captain appeared—and, yes, it was the red-haired man they’d identified before, in a well-fitting uniform, as opposed to those of his subordinates. He was handsome in a way that red-haired men tended not to be, in Maria’s experience—though there was always an exception to the rule, and here he was. His eyes were cool, intelligent, and very blue.

Another gray-uniformed man appeared with him, and now they were outnumbered.

“Captain,” Henry said, not bothering to address anyone anymore, except the man who made the decisions. “My name is Henry Epperson and I’m with the U.S. Marshals Service. I was sent here by the president himself, with regards to Project Maynard.”

Maria gave him a bit of side-eye. She wasn’t sure she would’ve played it so on the nose, but between the pair of them, he was the one most likely to be listened to, so she chose to trust him. It was too late to do anything else, anyway.

“The president?” The captain huffed a small, incredulous laugh. “If you’ve got word from President Grant, then why are you sneaking up on us, hiding in the woods? And furthermore, let me see your badge.”

“It’s here in my coat pocket,” he said again, fumbling for it with his good hand, and finding it this time. He tossed it to the captain.

While the captain examined it, Maria answered the rest. “We’re sneaking up on your caravan because the big cargo ship you’re traveling with shot us down a few miles back down the road. You’ll have to forgive us if we weren’t fully committed to approaching you openly—not while that thing docks overhead.”

“Shot you down?” he frowned, and glanced back toward the road. “So that’s what all the commotion was about. We heard it, but couldn’t see it for the trees.” Over the trees they could all see the craft’s dome, bobbing slowly in the dying wind. “Why would they shoot you down? Why would…”

The man obviously had more questions, but maybe he had answers, too—and he didn’t like them much. He tossed the badge back to Henry, who caught it with a fast jab of his hand. “What about you?” he asked. “You’re not a marshal, are you, ma’am?”

“No, sir, I’m not. I’m a Pinkerton agent, hired by Abraham Lincoln. This marshal and I have been working together with regards to this project you’re transporting to Atlanta—and I do note that you didn’t contradict us, or argue, when Henry called it by its proper name. You’re Union soldiers, the lot of you. Blue wearing gray, undertaking a top secret mission to deploy a terrible weapon in Atlanta. You know it. We know it. And the president knows it, too. He’s trying to stop it.”

“Ma’am,” he said, adjusting his hat and shifting his weight. He lowered his voice, but not much. “This project is as top secret as they come, or so we’re told. If you’re Confederate spies, you’re not very good ones—traveling alone and naming names, when you ought to play dumb and ask for help. But your badge looks like the real thing,” he said to Henry, “and if you say the president sent you, then that’s either the stupidest tall tale you could pull out of your ear on a moment’s notice, or it’s the truth.”

Maria wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, but she didn’t dare, not yet. “Captain, we came here to warn you. The project is more dangerous than you know: It’s a suicide mission for you and your men, authorized through unofficial channels, and paid for by a warhawk tycoon with the help of the Secretary of State.”

The captain’s lovely eyes narrowed, and he crossed his arms. “Is that so?”

“Who gave you your orders? And don’t answer me—I’m asking you to ask
yourself.
Did it come from the top? Or from some underling who professed to speak with presidential authority?”

“The Secretary of State is hardly an underling, really.”

Maria stood to her full height and brushed scraps of forest floor off her battered dress. “He’s an underling to the
president,
who is scrambling, sir—absolutely
scrambling
—to put a stop to this project. And if I were to wager a guess, I’d say that his wasn’t the name on your orders. The cargo craft that accompanies you—I saw through their window with a spyglass. They’re Baldwin-Felts agents, hired by this warhawk tycoon.”

“But acting with the authority of…” His voice trailed off as he pondered the implications. The captain’s two juniors exchanged a worried glance, but their officer didn’t take his eyes off Maria, who refused to blink or retreat. “So you two … you’re the ones tasked with the mission of reaching us? And giving us this message?”

Henry responded, “There were half a dozen potential deployment locations, and no one could—or would—say exactly where the weapon was headed. Washington, D.C., is in disarray, Captain. At this time, it stands as divided as the nation. The president wants to bring the war to an end, but he’s being hampered and hindered on all sides by those who would profit from it.”

Again the captain looked up at the cargo dirigible, deliberating. “The men in that ship—they’re Baldwins, you’re right about that. They’re supposed to be our supply and evacuation team.”

“They’re trusting you to civilians?” Maria asked.

To which he replied pointedly, “Last I heard, Pinkertons were civilians as well, ma’am, and you profess to work on behalf of the District yourself. And I don’t believe I caught your name, but I know your accent isn’t any farther north than the line.”

“Maria.” Then she swallowed hard and said, “Maria Boyd. I come from Virginia, but I work from Chicago.”

If he recognized her name, he didn’t react to it. All he said was, “All right, then, Miss Boyd and Mr. Epperson. You know an awful lot about what we’re doing.”

“More than you do,” she said urgently. “Please, you have to listen to us, Captain … Captain, I don’t believe I caught your name, either.”

“MacGruder,” he told her. “I’m commanding officer for this operation, such as it is,” he added unhappily, gazing toward the trapped rolling-crawler.

“Captain MacGruder,” she said, turning the name over in her mouth, feeling the letters tumble together and thinking that it sounded familiar—very familiar—but she couldn’t put her finger on it. Finally, she gave up and asked, “Do you know what the weapon does?”

He hesitated. Maria thought that it must not be that he didn’t know, but that he wasn’t sure how much to tell her. “It’s a bomb. An advanced bomb that will do … untold damage.” He said it like he was confessing to himself. “But it’s a bomb that can end the war, like the president wants—and that is my mission. These are my orders.”

“No, sir, that
isn’t
your mission, and your orders were falsified. That weapon is a bomb, yes, and it will do far worse than untold damage—but it won’t end the war, you can safely bet on that. Katharine Haymes is readying herself to make a fortune on a gamble that this bomb works well enough to become the talk of the town, but not well enough to end a goddamn
thing.
”

“Haymes?” The captain looked startled. “That’s a name I know.”

Henry said, “You ought to. She killed hundreds of Union prisoners at a camp in Tennessee.”

“With gas,” he said thoughtfully. “She did it with gas; I heard about that. I tried to tell people, but they didn’t want to hear it.…”

“Hear what?” Maria asked. “Tell people what?”

He shook his head. “I told my superiors that I’d seen that kind of devastation before. I’d reported it once already … not that anyone listened then, either. What she did, that weapon she tested.… But, wait, I thought she was a Confederate?”

Maria shook her head. “No, she claims no nation. She belongs to whichever side can pay her best, and we both know that means she’s working for the Union now. That thing you accompany, it’s a gas bomb of such a size that it could wipe out half of Atlanta, including whoever’s nearby when it’s released. You’ll never escape it. There won’t be time.”

“But, the cargo ship…” The soldier with the rifle asked the captain, “The ship’ll pull us out, won’t it?”

“How?” Maria demanded, addressing him once more, rather than the handsome captain. “That thing isn’t big enough to hold the lot of you, and someone would have to stay behind and set the bomb off, anyway.”

The captain argued with her, but without much conviction. “We’re going to shoot it from the air. It’s a big enough target. But … I’ve wondered.” Then he muttered, like he couldn’t shake the significance, “If it’s … a gas bomb…”