The Pinkerton Files Five-Book Bundle (16 page)

The runners had watched me kick my cabin to pieces along with everyone else. They had also seen me arrive with a Pinkerton. They would not be inclined to trust me. One of them laughed at the sight of me, recalling my tantrum.

“I need to have copies made of these documents.” I said.

I held the telegraphs in one hand. The runner waved me away.

I raised my other hand. The thousand dollars clenched in my fist was high enough for everyone to see.

*   *   *

Kate Warne

July, 1861

The seamstress sent one of her assistants to my hotel room. I asked for the large girl with thick hands who I'd seen in the shop's back room. My corset needed to be tighter than any of the princesses from the showroom could have managed.

Women dress the way they do because they have other women in mind. Men, stupid brutes that they are, will never understand. They stamp their feet at the time it takes a woman to primp, all the while repeating that they look fine already. No woman would put such effort into appealing to a man's taste.

The real audience is other women. Fashion is a way for us to speak to each other. No message has ever been delivered more quickly or clearly than the malice broadcast by wearing the same necklace as another woman at a party.

I bent over a chair. Tiny breaths of air leaked into my lungs as the girl bound the corset tight. My ribs bent. I felt blood vessels burst around my eyes. I didn't mind. Makeup would cover the blemish.

Tonight, every woman would see how far I was prepared go. One woman, in particular, would learn how much I could take, how much she would have to do to break me.

She was the widowed wife of a State Department official, a southern belle who kept her lofty status afloat by throwing lavish soirees to mark every season in the social calendar. Her name was known to all who mattered in the capital: Rose Greenhow.

She and Washington were the same. As a city, Washington was the mud flat of world capitals. It was impossible to go anywhere without getting filthy. The White House was a majestic symbol but, marooned in dismal surroundings, it looked like a real estate investment gone bad.

In spite of this, Washington was the American capital. For as long as a great nation stood, the city would not be ignored.

Rose Greenhow reflected this same quality. Her husband tried to turn a crass Maryland chamber maid into a worldly snob. Southern roots run too deep. In conversation, she made a person feel as though they had said too much, even after saying nothing at all. It was impossible to trust her sincerity, yet equally impossible to avoid her company.

For all her disagreeable traits, she could not be ignored. If you had business in the capital, you made an appearance at the Greenhow functions.

I was half dressed when a knocked sounded at my door. It was her. The breach of etiquette left no room for doubt.

The seamstress girl escorted her into my bedchamber, voice wavering as she announced Mrs. Greenhow. I sent the girl home with a generous tip. Once we were alone, Rose reverted to plantation manners.

“I am un-inviting you Ms. Warne.” She said.

“Our friend, Senator Wilson, is expecting me tonight.”

“I will extend your regrets. Tonight's fundraiser is beside the point, though. I want you to leave this city. Whatever invitation brought you to Washington, consider it revoked.”

Harry would have treasured this exchange. It was the sort of thing he told me to expect.

No one invited me to Washington. Chesapeake Bay was carved out of the earth. Thousands died in an explosion caused by Major Robert Anderson. Nothing could have stopped me from coming. I wanted to see Anderson hang for his crime and believed Harry Vinton could point me to him.

My first day was awful, a total embarrassment. I presented myself at Vinton's office before sunrise. I left after the last intern turned out the lights, escorted by security from the premises. Harry had never even entered the building.

Harry has a door with his name on it but he does not work at an office. That was my first Washington lesson. As attache to the President, he treats the whole city like his office. Everyone's desk is Harry's desk.

The next morning, a court decision was expected out of New York. The ruling would help confirm that President Lincoln's blockade of southern ports was legal under the Constitution. I cornered Harry Vinton at a press junket following the announcement.

“President Lincoln is pleased, naturally. He never doubted the court system in New York.” Harry said. “There is nothing illegal about the blockade.”

With a nod and a wink, he exited the scrum. He did not appear to notice me so I followed him as far as the lobby where a police detail surrounded me.

“Gentlemen, please. You would only hurt yourselves” He said. “Ms. Warne is a friend.”

I walked with him. That is the only way to speak with Harry; in motion.

“I don't know where to find Major Anderson.” He said. “If I did, the President would already have dispatched the militia to . . .”

“ . . . to die or convert.” I said. “Anderson is building an army.”

“I realize that but I can't tell you what I don't know.”

Harry slipped through the morning crowd and ducked down an alley. I raced to keep up, failing to notice at first that he had led me to a ladies' boutique.

“There is a dinner tonight in honor of General McDowell. He has been awarded command of the Union Army.”

Two women started taking my measurements. I was appalled.

“Mr. Vinton, show some restraint. We will not be dining together. If you refuse to help, there is no reason for me to be in Washington at all.”

“Surely you don't mean to leave.”

My outburst confused Harry. He had not expected me to be so ignorant.

“Kate.” He said. “I am helping you. You have more power than you realize.”

It took time for me to understand. Washington is not like other capitals.

Social hierarchies in places like Vienna and London come in layers. They are nurtured by generations of aristocrats whose elaborate shows of privilege set them apart from the low classes.

Nothing like that exists in America. Our aristocrats are all artificial.

In America, rich families are rich and nothing more. They crave the importance that their counterparts in Europe claim as a birthright. To fill this need, they barter in secrets and gossip.

Harry made me see that I could be a dangerous woman in Washington. My most terrible secrets were splashed on the headlines. The socialites could not threaten me but, as a Pinkerton operative, I could bring frightful problems to their doors.

On my first night, I learned what that meant. We attended the McDowell function. It was dour. The fineries and excess I had seen with Harry aboard the President's train were muted by drab military decor. Before dinner, a fine southern gentleman offered me a glass of champagne for a toast. It was spiked with the same poison that sent me into the abyss at Harrisburg.

Everyone at the party knew. They wanted to see me reel out of my mind for the fun of it.

I drank the flute. My heart slowed. Each beat was an explosion. It felt like my blood turned to sand. I thought my chest might crack open.

Soon, the pain was replaced by lightness. I felt giddy.

The gazes saved me. I felt Washington's elite watching me. A dark mood wiped away the drug's happy oblivion.

We toasted the General.

“To victory.”

I placed the glass down as carefully as I could. With Harry at my arm, I scoured the crowd. He supported my weight when the drug's effects were too strong. Only one other man approached to offer a hand. Harry thanked him but declined the help.

Together, we found the gentleman who gave me the tainted drink. He stood with Mrs. Rose O'Neal Greenhow. I bowed. Ten minutes later, I was passed out in my hotel room.

The same woman now stood by my bed, weeks later, un-inviting me from Washington. It was too late. Mrs. Greenhow had become a special project of mine after the General's dinner.

I did what the Pinkertons taught me. I watched her. I camped in the green space outside her home, followed her minions as they ran errands and kept track of her guests and visitors.

The romance I uncovered, between her and Senator Henry Wilson of Massachusetts, was a scandal in the making. Mrs. Greenhow was a southern sympathizer with connections to the Confederate rebels. Senator Wilson was part of the Union committee on Military Affairs.

The greater point of interest for me was that Senator Wilson had been the only one at General McDowell's dinner to offer me assistance. He disapproved of Rose's little game with the poison flute. I used that opening to torture the woman.

Harry arranged for me to brief the Military Affairs committee on the plot to kill President Lincoln. These were closed caucus meetings to which Mrs. Greenhow was not invited.

At social functions, I allowed Senator Wilson to dine on my reputation. He impressed the other men in his circle by appearing to have close ties to an infamous public figure.

He liked me. It was clear as day.

This was a nightmare for Rose Greenhow. If her heart was invested in the affair, watching me steal moments with him would have been torture. If she was using the Senator to filter information about Union war plans, the damage was just as bad.

I wanted it to hurt. She was the sort of person I vowed as a girl never to become. She climbed a ladder that only existed in her mind, and did so by attaching herself to men.

After her visit to my hotel room, I told her to expect me at the fundraiser later that night. I had no plans to leave the city.

Washington dug into its pockets to support a new kind of hospital that would serve soldiers on the front line of the coming war. Under President Lincoln, the Union army would not deploy its full arsenal of weapons against the Confederates. A proposal to turn the north's huge technological advantage to a humane use had gained traction in Congress.

One of the biggest wartime challenges faced by a modern army was clearing wounded soldiers off the battlefield. Men sometimes waited days before medical staff could move them to a safe location. By that time, their wounds were often mortal.

To address this problem, mobile hospitals were built using the same advances that powered the weapons President didn't want to use. The hospitals were made up of one central hub, primarily for operations and extended treatment, and ten satellite units small enough to extract injured men from a warzone.

Both the operating hubs and smaller satellite units were mounted on pontoons made of industrial rubber. The pontoons were inflated by compressed steam, spiralling through support braces and escaping through holes underneath. This kept the surgical units level on uneven terrain. It also provided a low resistance propulsion system.

Hospital hubs moved slowly over large distances. Smaller satellites were more nimble, able to match the dizzying pace of battle. During a live fight, conveyors were attached to the satellites so that large numbers of soldiers could be whisked to the hub from any location.

People in the north were mad with optimism. None dared suggest that the southern rebels posed a big enough threat to justify using steam powered weapons. They were so confident, Union supporters talked about allowing the Confederates to use these mobile hospitals. Soon enough, everyone discovered that having an army and fighting a war were two different things.

While we were dining in Washington, Union and Confederate soldiers waited. Most citizens, disconnected from the reality of the war, thought of the conflict between north and south as something that ranged over wide stretches, from New York to Louisiana and everywhere in between. Maybe it will be at some point.

In those early days, the theatre of war spanned less than a hundred miles. The White House and the Confederate capital at Richmond were protected by armies camped between.

Both sides were eager to attack the enemy capital. Both were anxious to protect their own. They assembled within striking distance of each other but neither knew what to do next.

“You are as familiar with the rebels as any in this room.”

Senator Wilson was behind me. I turned expecting to find him holding court with a group of other statesmen. To my surprise, he was alone.

In the bustle of the event, he stood closer to me than would normally have been acceptable. The crowd was large tonight. There was little room.

A glistening light display suspended from the ballroom ceiling rotated above. Pure white light was flecked with shimmering colors, bathing the dinner tables, bandstand and dance floor. Flecks of shaved crystal fell from the display, catching and reflecting the light. It was like being underwater with diamonds floating all around.

“I am holding an advisors' meeting tomorrow. Decisions will be made about how to proceed against the Confederacy. I should very much like to discuss their tactics with you.” He said. “Over breakfast, perhaps.”

A knowing grin crept into the corner of his mouth. I looked over his shoulder. Rose Greenhow stood beyond. This was my moment to shatter her.