Warn Angel! (A Frank Angel Western--Book 9) (3 page)

He picked up the letter and read it for
perhaps the twentieth time, thinking how fast this situation had
developed, snowballed. The non-arrival of the Freedom Train at
Cheyenne. The discovery, almost immediately, that the telegraph
lines between that place and Laramie—from where the Freedom Train
was due—were dead. Then, before the UP officials at Cheyenne had
put together a special train to go up the track to look for the
missing train, Engineer Pat O’Connor had arrived on a lathered
horse and given his account of the fate of the Freedom Train. That
information, together with the text of the letter which the
attorney general now held in his hand, had been telegraphed
instantly to Washington.

General U.S. Grant, President of the United
States.

Sir,

My men and I have captured the Freedom
Train. We are holding it presently at Sweetwater Cut, Wyoming
Territory, where both its personnel and its contents remain safe.
The price of its release is $250,000. This sum, in used currency of
denominations no larger than fifty dollars, is to be sent to a
destination I shall designate upon receipt of your agreement to my
terms, which should be forthcoming no later than 48 hours after
your receipt of this message. If I have received no such agreement
by midnight, Tuesday, October 3, the Freedom Train and its contents
will be destroyed and all its personnel executed. Lest you be
misguided enough to consider armed action of any kind in relief of
the train, I would advise you to first consult the Army
Topographical Corps for details of the configurations of the
Sweetwater Cut and the impossibility of attacking it in any way
which would preclude my executing the destruction of the train. The
army map grid-references are Sheet 154A/2 North 1422/ West 45. I
enclose a bona-fide.

Your obedient servant,

George Willowfield

‘
What was the bona-fide?’ the attorney
general asked.

Grant gestured at the sheet of
paper in a sandwich between two pieces of glass which lay upon his
desk: the flowery script plainly gave the title of the poem,
The Star Spangled
Banner.

‘
Someone from the Library of Congress
is coming to pick it up later,’ Grant grunted.

‘
Ah, yes,’ smiled his visitor. ‘I
imagine they would.’

Grant leaned forward in his chair now, his
brow knotted in anger, using his cigar in jabbing emphasis of his
points.

‘
I won’t have it, Charles!’ he
growled. ‘It’s not on. I won’t have some goddamned renegade holding
the United States of America to ransom!’

The attorney general said nothing.

‘
Oh, I know what you’re thinking,’
Grant said. ‘You think I’m worried about my reputation, more mud to
throw at the Party just before the election. It’s not that, I
assure you. There’s a principle involved. I’d rather order the
entire goddamned army into the field than knuckle under to this …
this scum, whoever he is. Send them out and tell them to take him
and hang him to the nearest goddamned tree they can
find!’

‘
I know how you must feel, Mr.
President,’ the attorney general said, ‘but we don’t dare use
force. If he actually carried out his threat to destroy the train …
Did you speak with the Topographical Corps?’

‘
Yes, dammit!’ snarled Grant, slapping
the desk in his impatience. ‘They confirmed what this, this
Willowfield claims. No way of even getting close to that damned
train without being spotted. Two men could hold Sweetwater Cut
against a hundred.’

‘
Yes,’ the attorney general said.
‘This Willowfield gives every indication of having planned his raid
down to the smallest detail. I think we must send word that we
accept.’

Grant looked up, his expression
mule-stubborn. His gaze locked with the level eyes of the attorney
general and then dropped. The angry light in his eyes faded and he
shrugged, pressing a bell on his desktop. The double doors opened
and one of his aides came in.

‘
Get a clear line through to the
United States marshal in Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory,’ Grant said,
speaking slowly, as if every word was being dragged out of him with
pincers. He scribbled something on a notepad, tore the page off and
handed it to the man. ‘Send this.’

‘
Yes, sir,’ the aide said, taking the
paper and leaving the room, already on the run. The news of the
ransom of the Freedom Train was already the hottest topic inside
the Executive Mansion, and bets were being laid on what Grant would
do. The aide read the scrawled words and shook his head.

‘
Advise Willowfield of my acceptance,’
he said aloud. ‘Inform me immediately of his reply.’

Well, he thought, the president had better
know what he was doing. Just handing over a quarter of a million
dollars to some gang of renegades out west was very dangerous
ground for anyone in Government. For the president of the United
States to do it was suicidal. There wasn’t a damned thing in
Article Two that gave him that kind of freedom. The in-joke around
the place was that Grant was hoping the renegades would burn the
Constitution, so that he could write a new one himself which
covered his actions. The aide hurried down the hallway to the
basement where the telegraphers were waiting.

Meanwhile, back in the Oval Office, Grant
lit another cigar and leaned back in his chair. He looked at his
attorney general with eyes narrowed against the wreathing Havana
smoke.

‘
Well, Charles,’ he
said.
‘Les jeux son fait.’

‘
Yes, sir,’ said the attorney general.
He couldn’t bring himself to call Grant Ulysses, and he had never
met anyone who did. ‘It’s done.’

‘
You know what they say now,
Charles.’

The attorney general nodded.

‘
Rien ne va
plus,’
he said quietly. ‘No more bets.’

~*~

They didn’t have long to wait.

John Barclay, U.S. marshal of the Wyoming
Territory, sent the word through about eight hours later –just four
hours short of the deadline. The telegraph line between Laramie and
Cheyenne had suddenly become operative again—it didn’t take a
genius to figure out that it was the renegades who’d cut it—and the
telegraph key in the railroad depot at Cheyenne had chattered out
its staccato message. Barclay had then transmitted it direct to
Washington, and it reached the president as he and his attorney
general were drinking great mugs of the hot, strong coffee on which
some people swore Grant lived. Others said it was whiskey, and the
attorney general couldn’t help but wonder whether Grant actually
liked this awful brew: it tasted like thinned-down ship varnish and
he said so.

‘
Coffee’s no good unless the spoon’ll
stand up in it, Charles,’ Grant grinned. ‘You’re getting
effete.’

‘
I’m getting a bellyache,’ his visitor
said inelegantly. ‘Haven’t you got any whiskey?’

Before Grant could reply, there was a
discreet knock and the young aide who had taken the president’s
message earlier came into the room. He had a sheet of paper in his
hand which he passed wordlessly over the president’s desk.

‘
The reply, sir,’ he said. ‘From
Cheyenne.’ He pronounced it Shy-enn, the way Easterners
do.

‘
Good, good,’ Grant said, getting up
and taking the paper from him. ‘That’s all, Edward. Thank
you.’

‘
Sir,’ Edward said, going out. Grant
didn’t even look at him, so intent was he upon the contents of the
transcription. Without comment he handed it to the attorney
general.

THE MONEY IS TO BE SENT BY SPECIAL TRAIN TO
CHEYENNE TO ARRIVE AT NOON ON OCTOBER 5. AT NOON IN THAT DAY IT IS
TO BE PLACED IN A ONE-HORSE BUGGY DRIVEN BY ONE MAN ALONE. HE WILL
PROCEED TO HORSE CREEK CROSSING, TWENTY-SEVEN MILES NORTHWEST OF
CHEYENNE, UNHARNESS THE HORSE, AND RIDE IT BACK TO CHEYENNE,
LEAVING THE BUGGY WITH THE MONEY IN IT AT THE CROSSING. THE ENTIRE
PROCEEDINGS WILL BE CAREFULLY OBSERVED BY US. ANY DEVIATION FROM
THESE INSTRUCTIONS WILL RESULT IN THE IMMEDIATE DESTRUCTION OF THE
FREEDOM TRAIN. IF THEY ARE FOLLOWED EXPLICITLY, THE FREEDOM TRAIN
WILL BE RELEASED AT MIDNIGHT ON OCTOBER 5. ANY ATTEMPT TO PURSUE
HARASS OR CAPTURE MYSELF OR ANY OF MY PEOPLE DURING THE
CONSUMMATION OF THESE ARRANGEMENTS WILL BE CONSIDERED A VIOLATION
OF THE AGREEMENT AND THE TRAIN WILL BE DESTROYED.

The attorney general looked up to find
President Grant watching him closely for a reaction.

‘
He’s giving us no time to set
anything up,’ he said. ‘Very smart. Very professional. Almost as if
he knows what our reactions will be before we have
them.’

‘
I don’t want to hear how clever the
sonofabitch is!’ snapped Grant. ‘I want to know how we’re going to
stop him from walking away with a quarter of a million dollars of
taxpayer’s money!’

During the waiting period, instructions had
been passed to the Treasury Department to prepare the ransom money
as Willowfield had instructed: a quarter of a million dollars, no
single bill larger than fifty dollars. It made two quite
substantial bundles. The attorney general had also sent a message
across to his own office in the big old building on Pennsylvania
Avenue. There was much to be done and he told the president so.

‘
We have to move fast now,’ he said.
‘A special train, I think. Engine tender and caboose, nothing more.
Top priority clearance all along the line from the railroad
people—’

‘
I’ll see to that,’ Grant
nodded.

‘
Two of my men as guards for the
money,’ the attorney general continued. ‘One of them to go out to,
where was it? Horse Creek Crossing with the buggy, the other to lie
low and pick up the trail of this Willowfield as soon as the
Freedom Train has been released.’

‘
Good,’ Grant nodded. ‘You think we’ve
a chance of stopping this man, Charles? Bringing him
in?’

‘
We have a chance, sir,’ the attorney
general said. ‘How good a chance I wouldn’t care to
say.’

‘
Then you’d best make damned sure
you’ve got your best two men on that train, Charles.’

‘
I’ve already started the ball
rolling,’ the attorney general said.

‘
Your very best men, mind,’ Grant
insisted.

‘
Frank Angel,’ the attorney general
said. ‘And Bob Little.’

‘
Little and who?’ Grant
said.

‘
Angel, sir. Frank Angel. One of my
very best men.’

‘
That’s a hell of a name for one of
your people, Charles.’

‘
Yes, sir,’ the attorney general said.
‘I took the liberty of sending for Little, sir. He’s waiting
outside.’

‘
Good,’ Grant said. ‘Wheel him
in.’

The attorney general got up and went to the
door, holding it open for Bob Little, who had been waiting in the
anteroom. He was a big, rangy man with corn-yellow hair and an
open, farm boy’s face. When he smiled he had the look of a
mischievous schoolboy. He could not have looked less like a killer,
but Grant knew that all of the Justice Department’s special
investigators were taught the killing arts, and if the attorney
general said Little was a top man, it meant he was about as good a
man as could be found anywhere in these United States. After the
introductions, Little listened carefully as the details of his
mission were outlined. Both the president and the attorney general
confessed their misgivings about the whole business, their unease
at sending him into such an open-ended situation.

‘
I can’t tell you what to do or how to
do it, Bob,’ the attorney general said. ‘Only that, no matter what,
Willowfield’s not to be allowed to walk away with that money. I’m
going to suggest that you take Frank Angel along as your backup.
You ride the buggy out to the rendezvous. Angel can pick up the
trail, and then you can play the rest as you find it. Of course,’
he said, gently, ‘you can choose your own backup. It doesn’t have
to be Angel if you’d prefer someone else.’

Bob Little grinned his schoolboy grin. ‘No,
sir,’ he said. ‘Angel’d be fine. Can’t think of anybody I’d rather
have along.’

‘
Good,’ said the attorney general.
‘Take Angel. And get going.’

It could just about be done, the experts
said.

They shook their heads over the time
element, then allowed—albeit reluctantly—that whatever else
Willowfield might be, he seemed to know with almost uncanny
accuracy just exactly what the Union Pacific Railroad could do if
it pulled out all the stops. And all the stops, by direct order of
the President of the United States, were pulled all the way out. No
expense, no effort was to be spared to get the two Justice
Department men across the country in time to meet the deadline that
Willowfield had set. UP’s engineers figured it out on paper: a
Special, using their fastest, most powerful locomotive with just a
tender and one of the new lightweight cabooses, could rack up
enough knots to cover the distance between Omaha and Cheyenne in
the time that Willowfield had specified: as long as Little and
Angel could be in Council Bluffs in time to make the
connection.

So schedules were altered, switches thrown,
trains diverted, stations closed, passengers discommoded, and a
large number of Union Pacific personnel given unpleasant tasks at
unholy hours in uncomfortable places. There were curses and
complaints, there were threats and brandished fists, and later
there were a couple of hundred very irate letters. But the train
went through. The two Justice Department men got to Council Bluffs
on time, and ten minutes after their arrival, the Special shunted
out of the maze of yards, across the river, and away down the line
on the start of its six hundred mile run toward the far
mountains.