The First Assassin

TEN

FRIDAY, APRIL 19, 1861

The parade of visitors would arrive soon. Faintly through the door, he could hear one of his secretaries lecturing a couple of them in the waiting room. These high-class beggars would march in and out of his office twenty-four hours a day for four whole years, he supposed. Sitting down with each individual petitioner, hearing him describe his important connections in dull detail, reading his reliably flattering letters of introduction, and listening to him grovel for a minor office-some days it made him little more than the national appointment-maker, the commander-in-chief of a vast system of political patronage. The party hacks would have liked nothing better than for the president to devote himself exclusively to this task. They seemed more concerned with pestering him about the postmaster of Marshall, Michigan, than with letting him concentrate on the disaster in Charleston. There might be a crisis of union-but they had friends and relatives who needed jobs!

Sitting in a high-backed chair, with his feet propped on his desk, Abraham Lincoln decided to wait a few minutes before beginning the revue. He gazed across his room in search of a distraction. Maps were good for that, and three hung on the east wall. The one of Charleston Harbor, all the way to the left, would have to come down soon. It had been the first one up, and he had spent many hours studying it. He knew its markings so well he hardly needed to look at it anymore. Little Sumter, surrounded by forts and batteries, never stood a chance. Now the map annoyed him. It was a symbol of his first failure in office, though it was true that he had inherited the problem from the previous administration. Perhaps there was nothing he might have done to prevent Fort Sumter from falling, short of permitting Southern secession. Whatever the circumstances, this was his watch. He would have to take final responsibility for what had happened there. He would order that map removed this very day.

The next map, to its right, displayed all the Southern states, from Virginia to Texas. They were starting to call themselves the Confederate States of America, but Lincoln insisted that nobody in his government use that name. They were still part of the Union because secession was unconstitutional. This was an important legal point, even though it did not conceal the obvious fact that it was a map of enemy territory. Lincoln had it on his wall for a military purpose. In just a few hours, his cabinet would announce a naval blockade of the Southern ports. This was General Scott’s idea, and Lincoln agreed that a successful blockade would put a strangling pressure on the region’s export-dependent economy. Weeks would pass before it took full effect, but the decision to do it would provide a signal to the public that the president now believed the national emergency would last into the summer.

This thought led his eye to the right, where a third and final map was tacked to the wall. Here was northern Virginia, from Harper’s Ferry in the west to the widening of the Potomac in the east, where it flowed into the Chesapeake Bay. Washington sat about midway between these two points, and Lincoln worried about its vulnerability from every direction. If Virginia assembled an army soon, it might seize the capital without much of a fight. The city was almost completely defenseless against a few boats floating up the river for a bombardment too. Fort Washington, on the Maryland shore, was essentially unmanned. Alexandria, the port on the Virginia side, probably would welcome the raiders and supply them. Lincoln believed he needed more soldiers in a hurry.

In one gangly motion, the president grabbed a brass cylinder from his desk, swung his feet to the ground, and rose. There was a window just to his right, stretching almost from the floor to the ceiling. From this second-story vista, he could see for miles to the south. He twisted the brass tube, and the thing expanded to three times its original length. It was a telescope, and Lincoln now raised it to his eye for a long look. He spotted the buildings of Alexandria in the distance. The docks on the waterfront were busy, as usual. The city was a rail terminal for the whole South-travelers destined for Washington by train would end up here, where they could get on another train and cross the Long Bridge or take a ferry to the wharves on Sixth Street. Lincoln could see one of these boats approaching Washington now. He might have watched it come in, except for the knock on his door.

“Yes?” called out the president, wearily. John Hay, his young secretary, stepped inside.

“Mr. President, perhaps we should get started. The lines will only grow longer today, especially if we don’t get through a few of these people before your other meetings this morning.”

“I guess somebody has to keep me on time, no matter how badly I want to avoid these office seekers,” said Lincoln with a forced smile. “All right, Hay, send one of them in.”

Lincoln returned his spyglass to its place on the desk. If he had continued to look through the window, he would have observed the George Page, a ferry steamer that shuttled people between Alexandria and Washington. On this trip, it was moving in Lincoln’s direction. The ship stopped at a dock and unloaded a handful of passengers.

The last person to disembark was a man who had made it to Alexandria only the day before, after spending the night in Richmond. He slipped a bank note to a porter and asked him to look after his trunk-he would send for it in a few hours. Unencumbered, the man now turned his sights to the city spread before him.

Mazorca had arrived.

Lucius awoke before anybody else in the Bennett manor. Truth be told, he had hardly slept after watching Portia and Joe ride away. Nerves had kept him up for long stretches. Even when he dozed fitfully, his head was full of questions and worries: Where were they now? How far had they gone? What if somebody saw them on the roads? It occurred to him that he might never know their fate. If Portia and Joe were caught between here and Charleston, they would be brought back. That would probably happen in the next few days, if it were to happen at all. If they were captured outside of South Carolina, their fate would depend on whether they revealed who owned them. They would be held in prison until they confessed or someone claimed them. If neither came to pass, they would be sold at auction.

If they actually made it all the way to Washington, thought Lucius, he probably would not hear about it. Confirmation simply would not come. They did not know how to write, and he did not know how to read. Even if Portia and Joe had somebody do the writing for them, there was no chance of Bennett letting a note pass through to him. So Lucius figured no news would be good news-or at least it would not be bad news. He would have to learn to cope with the anxiety of not knowing.

A rooster crowed in the distance. Lucius barely noticed as he wandered around the mansion. He moved with the careful silence of a thief, avoiding the squeaky floorboards. The house sometimes seemed empty during the daytime, with no family in it. Now it was desolate. Bennett only occupied a fraction of its rooms-mainly a study, the dining room, and his bedroom. Yet he insisted on having the whole place kept up, as if it were full.

Lucius paused in front of a portrait hanging above the mantle in the dining room. The picture showed Bennett sitting in a chair, with one son on either side. The boys must have been ten or twelve years old when it was painted. Lucius remembered when they sat for the artist, and how hard it had been to keep them still for more than a few minutes at a time. Bennett had a warm look of satisfaction on his face-something Lucius had not seen much since the boys’ death in Kansas.

That was the real reason the Bennett home seemed so lonely. Most plantations had large clans of white folks living on them. There were sometimes three or even four generations’ worth, and lots of visiting relatives besides. Children were almost always around too. Whenever Lucius accompanied Bennett on a social call to another plantation, he never failed to notice how the white kids and slave kids played indiscriminately. It had been that way on the Bennett farm as well, when Bennett’s boys were growing up. But there came an age when the white folks insisted that the play stop, usually around the time the slave children could start performing useful chores. Before that moment, though, these kids were innocent of what separated them. This was one of the things that prevented Lucius from hating white people-he thought they were not born bad, but made bad.

The other thing, of course, was his relationship with Bennett, however much slavery stained it. When he told Portia that he could not do what he was asking her to do, he only told part of the truth. He was certainly too old to attempt any kind of escape. But neither could he envision life away from Bennett. The very idea of it was inconceivable. Where would he go? What would he do? Slavery was not something he enjoyed, but he frankly could not imagine improving his lot. For Portia and his other grandchildren, of course, the matter was entirely different. They had many years to live, and he wanted freedom for them.

He remembered the night Lincoln was elected, and all of Bennett’s bitter cursing. For months he had listened to Bennett lecture on the horror of Lincoln, and he realized during one of these little speeches that this politician from the North represented hope. Lincoln was the subject of much whispered talk in the plantation fields and anywhere else black people gathered away from white ears. Nobody knew very much about him, but many, like Nelly, had come to view him as a savior. Lucius was not comfortable going that far, though he did suspect that if the plantation owners hated Lincoln, then he was probably someone to like. It was this half-formed conviction that inspired Lucius to send Portia on her journey.

He wondered where she was at that very instant. Had she hidden in the woods now that the sun was coming up? Would she try to sleep? What would they do with the horses?

Lucius stepped from the dining room to the foyer, opened the front door, and walked onto the front porch. The sky was clear of clouds. The first slaves were already in the fields, with more on their way. He heard Tate issue instructions to a group of young men in the distance. Hammers clanged in the direction of the blacksmith’s shop. Smoke billowed from the kitchen chimney. Then he looked down the long lane to the main road. This was the path Portia and Joe had traveled just hours before, and the last place he had seen them. They had left at a trot. Lucius recalled his final view of Portia, how she turned around and waved to him just before slipping into the darkness. He closed his eyes and remembered the image.

“Good morning.”

Lucius nearly fell off the porch at the sound of Bennett’s voice.

“I didn’t mean to startle you, Lucius,” said his master.

“Sorry, sir. I didn’t hear you.”

“What are you looking at? I’ve been watching you from behind for a couple of minutes.”

“Oh, nothing. It’s just a nice day.”

“Indeed it is!” said Bennett. He joined Lucius at gazing into the distance. “I was thinking that later this morning you would join me on a little expedition to the slave quarters. We need to distribute the new clothes we brought from Charleston. I haven’t been down there in months. It will be good to do some visiting. I can’t be a stranger on my own plantation, after all.”

“No, sir,” said Lucius.

Bennett tapped him on the shoulder and smiled. “And I can’t wait to see your granddaughter.”

As Rook passed through the front door of Brown’s, he tried to remember the last time he had dressed out of uniform. It had been at least a month, since before the inauguration. It felt awkward. On the walk to the hotel, he had hoped that none of his fellow officers would spot him. He did not want to have to explain himself to Scott.

A lunchtime crowd filled the lobby. Rook moved away from the door and toward a wall, where he would not call attention to himself. He scanned the lobby for Clark. The corporal was seated in a chair by a column and looking straight at him. Rook nodded slightly and then left through the front door. He crossed Sixth Street and stood on the brick pavement outside the National. From this vantage point, he could watch the entrance to Brown’s and try to blend in with the loiterers on the sidewalk. It was harder than he had anticipated. Most of the people standing around him were slaves, waiting for their owners to finish their business inside. But not all of them were, and Rook was glad not to draw any suspicious glances. After about five minutes, Clark emerged from the hotel.

“Any sign of our friends yet?” asked Rook in a low voice.

“Davis is down here right now. Stephens will show up soon.”

After about thirty minutes, the Southerners exited Brown’s. Davis was big and tall, with black hair, dark eyes, and skin tanned from hours in the sun. Stephens was his opposite: short, scrawny, fair-haired, and ruddy. On Pennsylvania Avenue, they headed southeast. Rook and Clark followed about fifty feet behind. The tailing was easy. Davis and Stephens made no attempt to see if anybody was tracking them.

“It looks like they know where they’re going,” said Clark as they approached Second Street.

“Right for the Capitol,” said Rook.

As they left the commercial stretch of the Avenue, Rook and Clark were able to drop back a bit further and still keep Davis and Stephens in sight. The Capitol did not appear much changed since the inauguration. Rook wondered if any work had been done on it at all. As they circled around to the east side of the building, the colonel noticed the grounds were still a mess, littered with piles of coal and wood, marble blocks, and columns in various states of assembly. Several statues stood amid the clutter, waiting for someone to put them inside the unfinished building. One was a big sculpture of George Washington that made the first president look like a Roman general.

When Davis and Stephens reached the wide steps on the eastern front of the building, they paused. A handful of soldiers sat near the top smoking pipes. They did not appear to be on duty. Rook assumed that because they were new to the city, they would not recognize him.

The two Southerners seemed uncertain about what to do. They exchanged a few words and looked around. As Rook and Clark approached the foot of the steps, Davis and Stephens began to climb them. At the summit, they turned around to take in the view.

Rook raised his hand to his mouth so nobody could read his lips. “Keep moving forward,” he said.

He and Clark walked past the stairs. Now their backs were to Davis and Stephens. If the Southerners were testing them, turning around would blow their cover. If they kept walking, however, they might lose their quarry for good. Rook knew he had to make a decision. He casually stuck his hand in a pocket and found a penny.

All of a sudden, he halted and bent over. “Look at this,” he said, trying to sound surprised as he touched the ground. He made a great show of holding up the penny, as if he wanted to study its design in the light. From the corner of his eye he was able to see the top of the steps. He could see the soldiers, but not Davis and Stephens. Rook and Clark raced up the steps, taking two at a time. “This isn’t going to be easy indoors,” said Rook when they arrived at the top.

They passed through a doorway and almost immediately were in the Capitol’s rotunda, which was open to the sky. A massive wooden scaffolding rose from the center of the room, reaching toward the hole where the dome was supposed to rest. More than a hundred feet above his head, Rook could see a few men clinging to the planks and moving a giant crane. They were continuing the slow work of construction. President Lincoln had insisted that their efforts not stop, because they held symbolic importance to a divided nation.

As Rook gazed at the scene overhead, he saw one of the workers move off the scaffolding, grab a rope attached to a cornice, and lower himself to the ground in a matter of seconds. To the colonel, it was an incredible feat of acrobatics. He had seen it before, but it still impressed him. Others in the room had become used to it. Just a few feet from where the fellow had landed, a group of soldiers did not even look up from their card game. Elsewhere, men occupied themselves by reading and napping.

Rook studied the scene for a moment but did not see Davis or Stephens immediately. “There they are,” whispered Clark. “On the far side of the scaffolding.”

Davis was running his hand along a thick beam supporting the crane. He pointed upward and said something to Stephens. It appeared as if they were thinking about climbing the steps that spiraled up the middle of the scaffold. Then Davis shook his head. The Southerners studied the rotunda for a few more minutes. Rook tried to stay out of view. Then he realized they were not looking at people. They were examining the room itself. When they were done, they exited through an opening on Rook’s left, which led toward the House of Representatives, on the south side of the building.

Rook did not want to follow them too closely, so he stood still for a moment and then moved cautiously toward the passageway with Clark. When they got there, Rook stood to one side, gestured for Clark to stay back, and peered down a long corridor. Soldiers were hammering wooden boards into place along both sides of the hall, apparently to protect the statues that lined it. Rook could see all the way to the House doors, but Davis and Stephens were nowhere in sight. Could they have gone so far in so little time?

Before Rook had a chance to wonder where they went, he heard the patter of footsteps on his right. In his haste, he had overlooked a small doorway that led to a curving staircase. Davis and Stephens must have used it. But had they gone up or down? He could not tell. He supposed it was even possible that they had separated. Rook knew from previous visits to the Capitol that up led to congressional offices and down led to the basement. He went up and ordered Clark down.

Compared to the grand space of the rotunda and the long hallway to the House of Representatives, the staircase was cramped. Rook could see only a dozen or so steps in each direction before they curved out of view. He climbed cautiously, not wanting to bump into Davis and Stephens. He also treaded lightly, not wanting to make a sound.

The staircase led to new opening, where a private stood at attention. He was the first soldier Rook had seen that day in the Capitol who actually appeared to be on duty. He could not have been a day older than twenty years.

“Excuse me,” said Rook, “did a couple of men come this way just now?”

“No, sir,” said the soldier. “It’s been quiet up here for a while.”

Rook offered a swift word of thanks, turned around, and descended the winding staircase. A moment later, he was with Clark in the Capitol basement. A long hallway stretched to the right. On their left, a large room occupied the space directly below the rotunda. It was full of thick support columns. The light was poor. They heard someone talking in a part of the room they could not see.

“…and they’re planning to build a set of bakery ovens over here.”

Rook recognized the voice of Lieutenant Easley, a man assigned as a liaison to the troops housed in the Capitol. He knew that Easley was working with architects to find suitable places for building ovens that would serve the troops. Rook was about to step forward and ask Easley if he had seen anyone pass when a deep Southern accent stopped him cold.

“So your deliveries will come in over here?”

Easley, still out of sight, answered that they would and added that they were going to stockpile flour in a warren of rooms nearby. It sounded as if he were giving Davis and Stephens a guided tour of the basement. Sometimes Rook could hear what they were saying; other times their words fell out of earshot. This went on for several minutes. Then came silence. Either they had left the room or the conversation had ended. Rook was about to step forward when Easley, heading straight for the staircase, nearly bumped into him.

“Pardon me,” said Easley.

“Good afternoon, Lieutenant.”

Easley looked up. “Colonel Rook? Is this an inspection? You’re not in uniform.”

Rook would have preferred not to encounter Easley at all. He wondered if he could bluff his way through a conversation.

“Why, yes, that’s exactly right. When I’m dressed up, sometimes I worry that I’m not seeing things as they truly are-you know, everybody standing at attention and acting as they think they should rather than as they usually do.”

“Very clever, sir,” said Easley as he straightened his spine.

“Who were those men you were just with?” asked Rook.

“They are traders. I found them walking around the basement. They looked lost. People don’t come down here much, except for soldiers. When I asked if they needed help, one of them asked a bunch of questions about selling flour and produce to the troops.”

“They asked about food?”

“Yes. They wanted to know how much the soldiers would need, who would pay for it, where they might deliver it. They aren’t inspecting things with you, are they, sir? I answered their questions as best as I could, which probably wasn’t very well.”

“Oh no, they’re not with us. Don’t worry about that.”

Rook asked Easley to show him where the men went. The lieutenant led him through the big room beneath the rotunda, around one of its thick columns, and pointed toward a portal on the left-hand side. “They went that way, to the west front of the building. They can’t be more than a couple of minutes ahead of you.”

“Thank you very much, Lieutenant. You may be on your way.”

As Easley left, Rook opened the doors and looked out. Trees dotted the landscape between the Capitol and the other buildings of Washington. Their branches were just starting to bud. Several hundred feet in front of them, walking straight toward the Avenue, were Davis and Stephens.

“Do you really think they’re traders?” asked Clark.

“They’re either traders or traitors,” said Rook.

Rook and Clark continued their pursuit. They stayed far behind Davis and Stephens, but always in sight. When they reached the Avenue, they picked up their pace slightly, remaining a couple of blocks behind the two men. Rook expected Davis and Stephens to return to Brown’s, ending their jaunt from where it had started. But when they reached Sixth Street, they kept walking. They had somewhere else to go.

As they marched up the Avenue, crossing street after street, Rook and Clark closed the gap. By the time they reached Willard’s, at Fourteenth Street, they were just half a block behind the two men. At Fifteenth Street, however, the massive Treasury Department prevented them from continuing in a straight line. They turned right and slipped out of sight.

When Rook and Clark reached the corner, Clark glanced backward for a quick view of the Capitol, more than a mile away. For a moment, he imagined what the scene would look like when the dome was finally finished and Pennsylvania Avenue properly paved. It would present a grand vista for the nation-a commercial street framing the country’s chief political building.

“It’s odd how the Treasury stands where it does,” said Clark. “It blocks the view between the White House and the Capitol.”

“The city’s designers originally had planned an unobstructed view,” said Rook. “But twenty years ago, Andrew Jackson insisted on the construction of the big building right where it is. And so it went up.”

Davis and Stephens were back in sight, moving north on Fifteenth. They crossed F street and then G street. They turned left, rounding the State Department and heading for Lafayette Park. They cut through it diagonally, right beneath the statue of Jackson. At the northwest corner of the park, they paused for the first time since leaving the Capitol. They seemed indecisive. Davis pointed one way, Stephens another.

Suddenly, they began walking on east on H Street, along the northern edge of the park. They stopped at the intersection of H Street and Sixteenth Street. Again, they paused. Stephens appeared to want to go back in the direction from which they had just come. Davis, however, pointed to a building on the north side of the street. He crossed H Street and Stephens followed. They marched up the steps and knocked on the front door. A moment later it opened and they entered.

Rook could not see who let them in. The building was a private residence. He did not recognize it. He ordered Clark to stay put and walked to the corner of H and Sixteenth streets for a better look. It stood three stories tall, with a facing of red brick, a black door, and a series of dark windows. Nothing about it was especially distinctive. To Rook, who did not appreciate the finer points of architecture, it was just another fine home in the best section of the city. He did not want to pass right in front of it, for fear of someone noticing him, but he approached close enough to check the home’s address.

Rook walked back to Clark, who was not alone-Springfield was with him. The sergeant had been carrying out his orders of keeping a watch on the area and its inhabitants.

“Do you know who lives in the building they entered?” asked Rook.

Springfield squinted in the direction of Sixteenth Street. “Exactly which one did they go into?”

“The address is 398 Sixteenth Street.”

Springfield nodded. “I suppose that’s not much of a surprise,” he said.

“Why not?”

“That’s the home of Violet Grenier.”

Mazorca had seen impressive mansions before, and the White House was not one of them. Compared to several that he knew, it was a modest country house-a big box of a building whose plain shape was broken only by a columned portico jutting from the structure’s north side. After a moment, Mazorca realized it had the architectural effect of making the two-story house appear much smaller than it really was. The president’s home may not have looked magnificent, but it certainly was large.

People often stopped and stared at the White House. Mazorca, however, did not want to attract any special attention. He began a slow, clockwise walk around a circular gravel driveway that swooped by the portico, where he saw visitors coming and going as they pleased. There were a couple of soldiers by the front door, beneath the overhang. They stood against the wall like sculpted bas-reliefs and did not move to prevent a single person from entering. Mazorca wondered what they thought they were guarding, because he could not tell.

For a moment he considered going into the building. It would have been easy. He had read that the building was more or less open to the public. The cheap guidebooks to Washington that he had been reading sometimes described the custom as a testament to the strength of American democracy. Whatever it was, Mazorca thought it was a weakness.

Maybe he could just walk in right now. Then he reminded himself that the purpose of this visit was simply to have an initial look at the White House exterior. He counted the windows: there were eleven facing north on the second story, all in plain sight except for one on the left, which was obscured by a tree. Smaller trees covered the view of most of the windows on the first floor. A decorative iron fence stood between the driveway and the house, with an open gate in front of the portico. The black fence was so short that any able-bodied person might have hopped over it without much trouble. It seemed even less useful than the guards.

Small sheds flanked the White House. A conservatory was on the right. A bronze statue of Thomas Jefferson, with his right hand placed over his heart, stood before the mansion in the middle of the driveway. Bright flowers surrounded the granite pedestal block. They were freshly planted, judging from the overturned soil.

A soldier approached from Pennsylvania Avenue. He was a private. The man was about to pass Mazorca when they both heard a loud commotion coming from the portico. Dozens of men poured out the front door. They were a rowdy bunch, whooping and boasting and knocking each other around. Mazorca stepped onto the grass to let them go by. The soldier did the same.

There must have been a hundred of them. Many had pistols stuffed in their belts. Others had big knives. When they reached Pennsylvania Avenue, they turned right, turned right again on Fifteenth Street, and eventually disappeared behind the State Department and Treasury.

As they left the White House grounds, the soldier turned to Mazorca.

“Are you one of Jim Lane’s men too?” he asked.

“Excuse me?”

“I suppose not. You don’t really look it.” The soldier pointed toward the vanishing horde. “The ‘Frontier Guards.’ At least that’s what they call themselves. They’re more like a mob. They arrived yesterday from out West and spent the night here. They couldn’t have been more out of place. There are a lot of them-two or three times the number that just passed by. They say they’re here to protect President Lincoln.”

The bluecoat apparently was a talker. “And they’re all in the White House?” asked Mazorca.

“They’ve turned the place into a bivouac. I’ve never seen such a rabble. But the truth is we need every man we can get these days. We’re short of soldiers all over the city, and those fellows look ready to fight.”

“At least the president is safe.”

“I suppose. With the soldiers on duty here, plus Lane’s men, I think we could hold off a small group of attackers. I’m sure you’ve heard all the rumors of kidnapping plots and that sort of thing.”

“It seems as though people move in and out of the building with ease.”

“Mr. Lincoln has insisted on keeping the house open at all times. He talked to us the other day about it and said that when he was a congressman during the Polk years, the house was shut to the public. He said it created an appearance of aloofness, and he wanted no part of that.”

“Interesting.”

“I definitely see his point. But sometimes I wonder how safe he really is in there. He calls it ‘the people’s house,’ but it’s his house as well. I sure don’t want any harm to come to him.”

“I’m sure you don’t.”

“What’s your business here?”

“Just looking.”

“Have you come for a job?”

Mazorca narrowed his eyes. “You could say that,” he replied.

The soldier thought nothing of it. “That’s what most of the people who come here are doing,” he continued. “They’re asking Mr. Lincoln to give them jobs in the government.”

“I see,” said Mazorca. “Well, right now I’m just looking.”

“Good to meet you, mister,” said the soldier. He walked into the house.

Mazorca watched him go. “I’ve already got a job,” he said, to no one but himself.

When Violet Grenier heard the Irish girl marching up the stairs, she rose from her chair and smoothed her dress. The door opened, revealing a plain-looking girl in a plain-looking dress. Polly was perhaps seventeen years old, and she possessed precisely what Violet wanted in a servant: an appearance so thoroughly ordinary that none of Violet’s male visitors would notice her. If there was one thing Violet Grenier was good at, it was securing the attention of men.

“Mrs. Grenier, you have visitors,” said Polly, in a meek brogue.

Violet already knew. She had been writing a note at her desk when she glanced out the window of her second-floor study, looked across Sixteenth Street to St. John’s Church on the other side, and saw two men walking straight for her front door. She had not recognized either of them.

“They called themselves Jeff and Alex,” continued Polly. She seemed unsure of herself, which was normal except that now she seemed hesitant even by her own standards. “They didn’t give last names, and they said it didn’t matter because you wouldn’t know them by their names but by a phrase. They made me memorize it: ‘Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction.’” The girl’s face, usually expressionless, showed a flash of distaste.

Violet recognized the words immediately. It surprised her to hear them. She asked Polly to repeat the line. The girl closed her eyes and spoke it again.

“Tell our guests that I will join them presently,” said Violet.

Polly nodded and left. Violet stayed behind and paused before a mirror. She was one of those women who was not beautiful at first glance but became so as a man studied her. She was tall and slim, with olive skin that flushed into color on her face, thick eyebrows crowning brown eyes that somehow sparkled, and just a touch of gray in her black hair, which was parted straight down the middle and drawn back tightly despite a current fashion calling for rings and curls. Her beauty was the kind that comes with maturity, a confident pose of female experience that younger women could only hope to achieve one day. She also had a good figure-one that few women could duplicate even in their youth. At the age of thirty-nine, Violet had never felt better about herself.

There was a time when she would have thought feeling good about herself was impossible. Just six years earlier, she had become a childless widow when her husband died on a business trip to California. The news came to her in a telegram. She had read it in this very room. For months she was despondent. Her husband had left her with enough money to remain comfortable, but also more grief than she thought she could bear.

Slowly but surely, however, Violet overcame her sadness. It had been like recovering from a long convalescence. Yet when it was gone, it was gone for good-and Violet once again threw herself into the Washington political scene as a high-powered hostess whose guests came from the ranks of cabinet members, military officers, and foreign diplomats. When her friend James Buchanan was elected president in 1856, she achieved even greater levels of prominence. An invitation to dine at her home had become a prized mark of social success.

Although Violet had no shortage of suitors, a widowed woman in possession of a good fortune does not necessarily want a husband. Violet enjoyed her newfound prestige and decided that she would rather entertain senators than marry one. She met most of them in drawing rooms and across dinner tables, but these were by no means her only places of congress. They were not even the most important ones.

Violet had discovered a talent for bewitching men. At first she deployed it for her own amusement. Before long, however, she realized that her paramours were willing to share their intimate knowledge of Washington politics-she heard what was said behind the closed doors of committee rooms, which public men were to be trusted under no circumstances, and who aspired to high office but would never get there because of a drinking problem. Sometimes men confided in Violet because they wanted to impress her. Other times they did it because they just wanted to talk and she was willing to listen. Their motives hardly mattered to Violet, who realized that she occupied a unique and privileged position. And she saw it as an opportunity to exploit.

Personal ambition was only a part of her motive, and it was not even the biggest part. Instead, Grenier had become radicalized by the times. Between North and South, there was no question about her own loyalties.

She had grown up in Maryland, about two dozen miles from where she now lived, on a small plantation that grew tobacco and wheat. The entire operation depended on slave labor. As Violet grew up, it had not occurred to her that slavery might be unjust. Quite the contrary, she viewed it as the natural order of things and felt that slaves often were not sufficiently appreciative of the lives they were allowed to live.

This particular sentiment owed much to a family tragedy. When Violet was a girl, her father spent a dreary afternoon at a local tavern. In the evening, it started to rain hard. Violet’s father passed the hours by continuing to drink. Shortly after midnight, the rain stopped and he decided to leave. He was intoxicated and barely able to mount his horse. His manservant, a slave called Jacob who often traveled with him, helped Violet’s father onto his steed. They departed together.

Violet’s father never made it home. Somewhere along the way, he suffered a fatal head injury. Jacob insisted that he had fallen from his horse and struck a rock. The slave thought that perhaps the horse had slipped in the mud, causing its rider to lose his balance. A doctor who arrived on the scene confirmed that the wound came from a blow to the head but speculated that perhaps it had been delivered after the fall-in other words, that the slave had finished off his master. There was a trial, a verdict, and a hanging. Violet was too young to remember the details, such as the fact that Jacob was judged by an all-white jury and could not call character witnesses. Yet she grew up thinking that her father had been murdered by a slave and believing that the sons and daughters of Africa deserved bondage and should be more grateful for it.

As a widow in Washington, she knew any number of figures who supported freeing the slaves. She even liked a few of them. But that was on a personal level, and she despised their opinions. For a time, she kept these views to herself. Debating political or moral issues was not considered proper behavior for a society lady. Yet it became increasingly difficult to keep opinions bottled up, even in settings that were supposed to be filled with conviviality. Abolitionists from the North started refusing to break bread with slaveholders from the South, and vice versa. When the two sides did meet, often the best a hostess could hope to achieve was a frostiness that kept everyone’s manners in check. The dinner party had been an essential feature of life in the capital because it allowed politicians from different parties, regions, and branches of the government to meet outside the halls of formal power, and hostesses like Violet provided an essential service. When the Republican Party nominated Abraham Lincoln for president and the Democrats splintered into hostile factions, however, it broke down completely.

Over the years, Grenier had made a habit of sharing the information she had obtained by her various methods with favored politicians. Most were from the South, but a few, such as Buchanan, were Northerners who were amenable to the South. Sometimes she merely repeated what she had heard verbatim, but she was not above planting false rumors when she thought these would serve a purpose, such as harming the chances of a certain congressman’s winning a prized committee seat. Buchanan once called her “the Lady Macbeth of Washington.” He meant it as a joke; Violet considered it a compliment.

In 1860, as it became apparent that Lincoln would win the election, Violet began telling acquaintances that no matter what happened, she would remain in Washington. She told her most trusted friends that she would be willing to serve as the eyes and ears of those who could not be there with her, either because they felt they had to leave or because they already lived elsewhere. Furthermore, she let them know that she would be glad to participate in plans to undermine the Lincoln administration, whether it meant merely making observations about cabinet deliberations or collecting data on local troop strength-or perhaps even something more extreme. The milk of human kindness was not her way. Lady Macbeth would have understood.

Violet and her far-flung network did not believe that they could communicate in the open, so they developed a system of codes and techniques that would allow them to make contact under watchful eyes. She kept a few ciphers in her desk drawer, as well as other materials that helped her send and receive messages to contacts in Richmond, Montgomery, and elsewhere. One of her correspondents was Langston Bennett of South Carolina, whom she had met through her husband some years earlier. Yet it was not to him that her mind turned when Polly delivered the message from her visitors. She thought of someone else entirely.

Several months ago, on a day when her anger at Lincoln’s victory was particularly intense, Violet had discussed an extravagant plot with a New York merchant whose livelihood depended on his ability to transport slave-produced goods from Southern ports to European cities. When their conversation was done and the man gone, Violet reflected upon it-and concluded it was complete nonsense. There was no way the man could accomplish what he had proposed. It was simply too bold. But she also remembered how he had picked up a Bible on her shelf and flipped to the book of Matthew. “You will know my agents by the thirteenth verse of chapter seven,” he said. Violet followed his finger down to the black letters: “Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction.”

She decided that she had spent enough time looking in the mirror. She was not sure that associating with these men was wise, but now they were here and they spoke the words from the book. It meant that no matter how much Violet might have wanted it otherwise, they already were associated. She decided at least to meet with them for a few minutes.

Violet walked down the steps and moved to the front of her home, where a pair of small red parlors stood side by side. A crimson silk curtain separated the rooms, hanging from a wide doorway. Gold candle sconces and small portraits of prominent statesmen decorated the walls. Several were familiar to anybody who kept abreast of federal politics: Senator Stephen Douglas, Secretary of State William Seward, and the late Southern political giant John Calhoun. A large tete-a-tete sat in the parlor by the front door, and a rosewood piano with pearl keys dominated the parlor in back.

Grenier moved silently beside the piano and watched her two guests, who had their backs turned to her as they stood and looked at the decorations in the front parlor. She could not see their faces, but their clothes were well-worn and lacking in the finery that most of her visitors displayed. One of the men was a good deal larger than the other.

“Good afternoon,” said Grenier as she passed into the front parlor. She spoke in a voice that was meant to convey a cool formality rather than a warm hospitality.

Both men spun around. At first, they said nothing. Their eyes ran up and down Grenier-a habit of many men, and one that Grenier occasionally even enjoyed, especially when she was making an effort to impress. Yet these two men were coarse. Grenier wished they would simply announce their business.

“How may I help you?” she asked, hoping that one of them would speak.

The larger of the two gave her a mischievous grin. “Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction,” he said.

“So I have heard.”

“Our employer suggested that we meet with you,” he said.

“My name is Davis, and this here is Stephens, except that those aren’t our real names.”

“Then why do you bother giving them to me?”

“Our real names aren’t important. These are the ones that we’re using as we pursue our current project.” Davis raised his eyebrows, seeking some kind of acknowledgment from Grenier. She did not give him any. “You do know about our current project, don’t you? Wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction?”

“You have already said that,” replied Grenier. “I’ve met with your employer, and I think I know what you are planning. It is certainly ambitious.”

Davis and Stephens began to smile, but their smiles vanished as Grenier continued.

“I’m also concerned that it’s the wrong approach for right now. Sumter has fallen. Here in Washington, the government is confused and in disarray. What you are planning could create sympathies where none now exist.”

“All of this has been thought through,” said Davis. “We are beyond the point of reconsideration. I was told that you were consulted on these plans.”

“I wouldn’t use the word ‘consulted.’ But I was certainly made familiar with what you are intending to do. Perhaps you will succeed. My concern is that the risks are great and the price of failure is enormous. Events are going our way right now, all across the land. A mistake could change that.”

“We won’t make a mistake.”

Grenier did not respond immediately. She was distracted by the smaller of the two men-Stephens, the one who had not spoken. He was rubbing his fingers on a pale Romanesque bust that decorated a table.

“Please don’t touch that,” said Grenier sharply. “You’re supposed to look at it, not play with it.”

The reprimand jolted Stephens. He moved away from the statue and placed his hands behind his back. He did not even apologize, leading Grenier to believe that he had been sworn to silence. Davis wanted to do all of the talking.

“Please excuse us,” said Davis with a phony smile. “We are not men of great elegance. We have come to Washington with a single purpose. Upon the instructions of our employer, we have come here to seek your blessing and your advice.”

Grenier thought she had already delivered the advice to stop. But apparently this was not an option.

“It is more important that you not fail than that you succeed. There is a difference, you know.”

Davis laughed. “Don’t worry, we won’t fail.” Stephens let out a chuckle as well.

An uncomfortable quiet then filled the room. Grenier wanted the men to leave. She thanked them for coming and politely pushed them toward the door. A moment later, they were gone. This is a clumsy plan and these are clumsy men, she thought. Grenier was perfectly willing to support radical action in Washington, but radical action also had to be intelligent.

The most intelligent man she had ever met was Langston Bennett. She had not heard from him in a few weeks. Yet she knew that he was planning something bold because they had corresponded in the fall about the problem of a Republican president and the lengths to which they might go to prevent him from taking action against the South. Nothing was ruled out of bounds. For such an important assignment, he would not associate himself with low-rent ruffians. He would work only with the most capable of men.

I can’t wait to see your granddaughter. The words tormented Lucius all morning. Did Bennett know she was gone?

The old slave stood outside the front door of the manor, waiting for Bennett to finish writing a few letters and come out. A couple of younger men had just loaded several boxes of new clothes onto a cart. As soon as Bennett joined them, they would make their way to the slave quarters.

There was no way he could know, Lucius kept telling himself. Bennett had gone to bed before Portia and Joe had even arrived at the stables, and he had just gotten up when he made that troubling comment. It seemed impossible that he could know. And if he did know, would he play this kind of mind game? Lucius doubted that too. That was not like him. Bennett was a blunt man. He did not concern himself too much with runaways either. He generally let Tate handle those details. Yet Bennett had always taken a special interest in Portia. Would he treat her escape differently?

That was probably the real reason Bennett had mentioned Portia on the porch: she was a favorite. Her position had much to do with the fact that she was related to Lucius, but it was more than that, too. Portia had been an adorable girl growing up, with bright eyes and a precocious mind. She loved the company of adults and was a constant source of amusement for them. Since then she had grown into a striking young woman. There was not an unmarried male slave on the plantation who was not attracted to her, thought Lucius, and a few of the married ones must have desired her too. Over the years, Bennett had become quite fond of her, though his attentions were more innocent. He just seemed to like Portia. Everybody did.

I can’t wait to see your granddaughter. Perhaps there was nothing suspicious behind those words at all. Lucius again looked down the lane where the runaways had slipped off the night before. He knew he would eventually have to cover for Portia. He had not expected that moment to come so soon, though. He would have preferred for a day or two to go by before Bennett or Tate started asking a lot of questions. But Lucius knew that he could not avoid a reckoning. Every hour between now and then counted. Lucius determined he would try to keep Bennett’s curiosity about Portia to a minimum. It would be a real accomplishment, he now believed, if he got through the entire day without anybody realizing she was gone.

Big Joe was another matter. There were probably a few people wondering about him already. He was the sort of worker whose presence would be missed soon. Lucius still believed it was a mistake for Joe to have joined Portia on her flight, but he felt that the two of them had forced his hand the night before. What else could he have done, call the whole thing off and recruit another runaway? That would take a few days to arrange at a minimum, and Lucius was not sure how much time he had to spare. It had been more than a week since he had seen Lincoln’s would-be killer in Charleston. It might already be too late to stop him. Besides, Portia really was the best choice-she was smart, she had been to Charleston before, and she knew Nelly. It made sense for her to be the one. Joe might even come in handy on the road. Unfortunately, his absence on the plantation probably would cause a search party to begin a hunt sooner than if Portia had gone by herself.

There was still no sign of Bennett in the manor. Lucius looked at the fields. Normally they would be full of slaves at this time of day. Now they were empty. He spotted Tate in the distance making his way toward the slave cabins. The overseer had spent the last half hour telling the field hands to pause in their work and assemble for Bennett’s visit. Lucius wondered if Tate supposed that Joe was missing. With so many slaves on the plantation, it was not likely he would notice on his own, at least not right away. A slave might have reported it to him, though. Tate had plenty of informants on the plantation, and reporting a runaway was an easy way to keep in the good graces of the overseer. Another one of the overseers-there were four besides Tate-might have noticed Joe’s absence too.

Lucius thought that if he could somehow prevent the news of Joe’s disappearance from making the rounds until later in the day, or perhaps into the evening, then he might buy the runaways another night before a group of slave catchers went out after them. He just was not sure how to do it.

“Hello!” said Bennett as he emerged from the house. He sounded cheerful. The master of the plantation loved these gift-giving excursions to the slave quarters. Perhaps twice a year, he handed out blankets, clothes, shoes, and other items to the slaves. These were not gifts, actually. They were necessities, and somebody would have to supply them if Bennett did not. But Bennett took great pleasure in handing out these items personally. It allowed him to play the patriarch. He also believed it made him more popular among the slaves. He wanted them to think he was a good master.

“Let’s go,” said Bennett, heading in the direction of the slave quarters. He descended onto the gravel driveway with the cautious steps of a man owning a wooden leg, yet it might have been said that there was a spring in his step. Lucius walked beside him. The cart with the boxes followed. A few minutes later, when the slave cabins came into view, they saw a big gathering of men, women, and children. The group let out a few whistles and claps. Tate was standing to the side. He immediately approached. It was clear that he had something on his mind.

“Mr. Bennett,” he said. “May I have a quick word with you?”

“Certainly.”

“Big Joe isn’t here,” Tate said in a low voice.

Bennett stopped in his tracks, about fifty or sixty feet away from the cabins and the assembly of slaves. Lucius ordered the cart to halt. “Really?”

“That’s right. I heard this morning that he hadn’t shown up where he was expected. I didn’t think too much on it-this is Big Joe, after all, and he’s never given us any trouble. I figured on seeing him here with the others. Well, he’s not here. I’ve asked around, and nobody seems to know where he is.”

“That’s odd. You don’t suppose…” Bennett’s voice trailed off.

“It’s not like him,” said Tate. “But you just never know who’s going to get the notion in his head.”

Lucius knew that if he was going to intervene at all, this was the time. He hardly knew what he was going to say when he spoke up. “Excuse me,” he said. Bennett and Tate snapped their heads in his direction. They were not accustomed to being interrupted by a slave, even if it was Lucius.

“I woke up early,” he continued, speaking slowly and choosing his words with care. He was making this up as he went along. “I saw Big Joe walk by the house and waved to him. He came up to me and said a tool had broken and he needed to borrow one from the Wilson farm. So I suppose that’s where he is. He’s probably on his way back now. I guess I assumed he’d gotten a pass from you, Mr. Tate.”

Lucius could not tell whether he had convinced them. He worried that he was not a very good liar.

“He definitely didn’t speak to me,” Tate said, “and he knows the rules. If he wants to leave the plantation for any reason-even if it’s to fetch a tool from down the way-he needs to talk to me first. He didn’t do that and he certainly didn’t get a pass. He knows better than this. Besides, we can fix tools here.”

Tate spoke as if he were accusing Lucius. The old slave shrugged his shoulders.

“What tool did he say was broken?”

“I don’t think he said which one. He just said a tool. That’s what I remember. We talked about other things.”

“What other things?”

“The weather. His family. Things like that.”

Tate looked at Bennett. “I’m not so sure about this.”

“Well, if Lucius says he saw him, then he must have seen him. Don’t worry about it now, Mr. Tate. Give him a little while longer. He’ll probably be back soon,” said Bennett, starting to walk again toward the slaves. “You can speak to him then about the rules and handle this situation however you please.”

“Oh, I’ll handle it,” said Tate, casting a look at Lucius and tapping his whip. “I’ll definitely handle it.”

Rook studied the exterior of Violet Grenier’s home. He wanted to be inside listening to these men who called themselves Davis and Stephens as they talked to a lady about whom he felt he needed to know much more as soon as possible.

“Why would a couple of fellows who seem to be up to no good want to meet Grenier?” It was a rhetorical question. Neither Clark nor Springfield tried to answer it.

They backed away from H Street to a place in the park where they could keep an eye on Grenier’s front door without making themselves obvious.

“The first step in figuring out why they would want to see Grenier is to figure out why they’re in Washington in the first place,” said Rook. He briefed Springfield on how he and Clark had followed the men from Brown’s to the Capitol and then to here.

“The most peculiar thing is their interest in the Capitol’s basement,” said Springfield.

“Yes, and it worries me,” said Rook. He was silent for a moment. “Have either of you heard of Guy Fawkes?”

The two men looked at each other. They did not know the name.

“Let me give you a little history lesson,” said Rook. He described the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, in which Fawkes tried to pack explosives into the cellar of the British Parliament and blow it up on a date when the king was scheduled to visit. Before Fawkes could commit his crime, however, he was betrayed: the authorities arrested, tortured, and killed him.

“Do you really think these guys want to destroy the Capitol?” asked Springfield.

“I have no idea what to think,” said Rook. “But I don’t want to rule out anything either. Davis and Stephens concern me. They have come to Washington with assumed names, we have overheard them say provocative things, and they’ve traveled through a part of the Capitol that would have interested Guy Fawkes if he were a secessionist today. Now they’re meeting with Violet Grenier, whose antipathy toward the Union is well known. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to suspect that trouble may be afoot.”

They discussed the possibility that Davis and Stephens were targeting the Capitol. How many explosives would it take? Where would they have to be placed? What could they possibly hope to achieve?

“If they actually bombed the Capitol,” said Clark, “it would wipe out any sympathy there is in the North for the South.”

Rook considered this. It seemed plausible. “They would probably ignite a war,” he said. “But maybe a war is what they want, for whatever foolish reason.”

The door to Grenier’s home opened. Davis and Stephens emerged and walked in the direction of Brown’s and the Capitol.

The soldiers had discussed what they would do when Davis and Stephens reappeared. Springfield stayed put. His job was to monitor Grenier’s home for further activity. Clark walked briskly to Brown’s, ahead of Davis and Stephens, on the assumption that this was where they were going. Rook waited for them to pass. When they were a couple hundred feet ahead of him, he followed.

Davis and Stephens walked down Fifteenth Street and turned left on Pennsylvania Avenue. They seemed unaware of the fact that anybody might be tracking their movements, which made Rook think that they were possibly overconfident. Or perhaps, he thought, they really are not plotting anything at all. They could be visitors from out of town who wanted to see the Capitol and an old friend. Rook knew that he lacked any real evidence against them. All he had were a few vague suspicions and wild speculations. Was he too rash to think of Guy Fawkes? He could hear General Scott berating him for wasting his time in this pursuit and Locke snickering in the background.

But Rook did not intend to tell Scott about today’s activities. He would not include it in his next briefing at the Winder Building. He would mention other things: troop positions, activity on the bridges, reports from Virginia-anything but this.

Rook knew he could not spend many more days tracking the likes of Davis and Stephens. If he did, Scott would find out somehow. Easley already had recognized him at the Capitol. Rook doubted that he could survive the general’s wrath, not after the explicit order to quit surveillance. He would have to do something quickly to learn more about Davis and Stephens, or to force their hand in some way.

Two blocks from Brown’s, Rook paused. As he had expected, Davis and Stephens walked straight to the hotel. By now, he figured, Clark would be there. He could take over observations for a few minutes.

Meanwhile, Rook examined the storefronts on his side of the Avenue. He was standing almost directly in front of what he was looking for: Brady’s National Photographic Art Gallery. In addition to serving as a studio for Mathew Brady, the up-and-coming photographer, it sold small pictures of famous people. Rook wanted to buy one of the president. Then he would have a chat with Davis and Stephens.

With help from Lucius, Bennett stepped onto the cart. “Greetings,” he said, with outstretched arms and a big smile. The slaves erupted in approval. Their noise energized Bennett, who now laughed with joy at the reception they gave him. “It’s good to be here.” More cheers. Someone in the front replied, “Welcome back, Mr. Bennett.”

“Thank you very much,” said the plantation master. “Yes, it’s good to be back. And it’s good to see you. All of you look wonderful.” There were a few scattered handclaps. “I’m returning a little bit later this spring than I had intended. There is much ado in Charleston this year!” He paused, seeming to expect another outburst, as if he were addressing a convention of slaveholders. Instead, there almost was no response at all.

“Good to be back, yes, good to be back,” he said, almost to himself. Then he recovered. “Shall we see what I’ve brought from the city?”

This met with a better reception-the applause returned, and so did Bennett’s smile. He reached into the box and pulled out something big and brown. He fumbled with it for a moment and then announced, “Trousers!” He looked at the crowd. “Who would like a new pair of trousers?”

A balding man who appeared about forty years old stepped forward. His own pants were shredded at the bottom of their legs. There was a hole at one of his knees. “Willie! It’s good to see you, my boy,” shouted Bennett as he tossed the trousers to him. “Looks like you could use a pair!”

Willie caught the pants. “Thank you, Mr. Bennett,” he said.

Bennett continued with more trousers and went on to a box of shirts. Then shoes. Then belts. Then hats. There was no method to how he went about it. He just moved on to the next box and reveled in the task of passing out each item individually. Tate tried to make sure the goods went to the slaves who needed them the most, and he had to settle a few small disputes over who received what. Bennett went on interacting with each of the recipients, albeit briefly, and made sure to say a slave’s name every time. Lucius noticed that Bennett missed a few of the names, using one incorrectly or having to be reminded of it. In years past, he had almost never made a mistake.

Bennett was most of the way through the boxes when it happened. He lifted the top off the next one and announced, “Dresses!” He pulled out an attractive maroon garment, and a few of the women stepped forward in anticipation. “Ah, yes,” said Bennett, admiring the piece of clothing. “This one is for Portia! Where’s Portia?”

Lucius looked down at the ground and kicked the dirt.

“Portia? Where are you?”

No one came forward.

“Portia?”

There was now a general commotion among the slaves. When it became clear that Portia was not among them, they threw suspicious glances at one another. Most of them said nothing. A few cupped their hands and whispered into the ears of their neighbors.

“Portia?”

Lucius peered into the crowd, pretending to look for her. Then he caught the eye of Sally, Big Joe’s mother. She was staring right at him. It was a hard look, full of anger. Her eyes narrowed, and she shook her head back and forth, almost imperceptibly. At that moment, Lucius knew that she knew.

“Lucius, where is Portia?”

The old slave looked up at his master, still standing on the cart holding the maroon dress.

“I’m sorry, sir, what were you saying?”

“Where’s Portia?”

“My granddaughter?”

Bennett raised his eyebrows. “There’s only one Portia on this farm.”

“Yes. Of course,” said Lucius. “I’m sorry, sir. She told me she wasn’t feeling well this morning and wanted to take a little walk. I should have told you. I forgot to do that. I’m sorry, sir.”

Bennett said nothing for a moment. He just stared at Lucius.

“A little walk this morning? Why isn’t she back?”

“Maybe she took a nap. She didn’t look very well.”

“I see. That’s peculiar. She’s a healthy girl, isn’t she?”

“Yessir. Most of the time anyway.”

“And you forgot about this, even though we spoke about her just a little bit ago?”

“I’m sorry.”

Bennett dropped the maroon dress onto the floor of the cart. “Mr. Tate,” he cried, “please help me down from here.” The overseer hurried to the cart and assisted his boss. “Thank you, Mr. Tate. I am getting a bit tired. Perhaps you will finish this business for me?”

Tate hopped onto the cart and grabbed the maroon dress. He handed it to a woman standing almost right beside him, and then he went back into the box for more.

Bennett walked over to Lucius. “Something isn’t right.”

“I’m sure she’ll be back soon, sir.”

“I’m not talking about Portia.”

Lucius was dumbfounded. This was all beginning to unravel too quickly. What a mistake he had made. What a terrible, dreadful mistake.

“Listen here,” said Bennett. “You’ve been working long hours for me the last few days. I want you to take the rest of the day for yourself. Stay down here and visit with your family. I can get by until morning.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Lucius. “But I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“You will do what I say.”

Bennett spoke with a sharpness Lucius did not often hear directed his way. The tone troubled him. Surrender seemed the only course. “Yessir,” he replied, bowing his head. Lucius felt like an exile. He watched Bennett amble away toward the manor. The distance between them was growing, in more ways than one.

Bennett walked up the path and disappeared from the view of the slaves. He was tired. An activity like this used to take almost nothing out of him. Now he could hardly complete it. He might have gone on, but he was disappointed to hear about Portia. Two of his favorite and most obedient slaves were absent, and Lucius seemed to be the only one who knew anything about where they were. The implications were obvious, but he did not want to think about them. He decided to take a nap and not to worry about the situation until later in the day. Perhaps he had been too irritable with Lucius. A rest might do him good. Surely Portia and Joe would be back by then. This mystery would solve itself soon enough.

He was almost to his house, his mind set squarely on his bed upstairs, when he heard a woman’s voice calling him from behind.

“Mr. Bennett! Mr. Bennett!”

He turned around. It was Sally, Big Joe’s mother, and she was coming toward him at a jog.

“Yes, Sally?”

“Oh, Mr. Bennett, I’m so glad I can speak to you alone like this,” she said. “I need to tell you something.”

After leaving the White House grounds, Mazorca wandered around the city. He had memorized details from guidebooks, but studying maps and reading descriptions only went so far. Nothing provided as clear a sense of place as being there. His immediate concern was to find somewhere to stay-a base of operations.

He roamed up and down Pennsylvania Avenue and explored its intersecting streets. The south side of the Avenue-the part called Murder Bay-was full of shady saloons and brothels. Things improved to the north, but Mazorca did not want to check in to one of the large hotels that lined the Avenue. He wanted something smaller, a room at a place where he might come and go without having to pass through a crowded lobby. He eventually found what he was looking for at a boardinghouse several blocks north of the Avenue, between Sixth Street and Seventh Street.

The address was 604 H Street. It was a three-story building squeezed between two others. More important, though, was its location near the city center but not so close as to be a part of it. Mazorca watched it for a few minutes from across the street. In the middle of the day, it was impossible to tell how many people it housed-they were probably all at work. But he did see a woman bustling around the first floor. He figured she was the proprietress.

“Good afternoon!” she said when Mazorca walked through the door. “My name is Mary Tabard. Are you looking for somewhere to stay?”

She was a large woman, tall and heavy. A frumpy dress covered her shapeless body. Her pale brown hair was held in a bun. Mazorca guessed that she was fifty years old.

“Yes. I expect to be in the city for a few weeks. I would like a place where I may have a bit of privacy.”

“You will definitely find that here!” said Tabard. Mazorca got the feeling that she would have said the exact opposite if he were to have remarked that he wanted a boardinghouse where all the guests became boon companions. That kind of salesmanship probably would have gone on anywhere, though. Still, he wanted to make a few things clear to her.

“I’m glad to hear that,” he said, acting relieved. “Sometimes I find that the people running these boardinghouses just suffocate their guests with attention. I can tell already that you aren’t the nosy type.”

“Oh no! Not me!”

“Wonderful. I have some business in the city. I’m not sure how long I’ll be here-but I’m willing to pay for a month’s room and board right now if you can promise me a door with its own lock.”

“I’ve got six rooms total-and exactly the right one for you. Every room has its own key.”

They quickly agreed on a price for a second-story room. A window looked onto H Street. For a name, Mazorca told her that he was called “Mr. Mays.”

Tabard offered to call for his trunk, and then she had the good sense to leave him alone. There was no avoiding that they would become familiar, thought Mazorca as he pulled up the right leg of his trousers and unbuckled a holster from his calf. He assumed his habits would become apparent to some of the other guests as well. They might come to know that he kept odd hours. Mazorca had no intention of showing up for meals, even though he had paid for them. This would cause them to whisper too. Yet Mazorca believed he could keep plenty of secrets from them. He found that preferable to engaging in conversation around a table, where he might have to concoct elaborate cover stories-and perhaps arouse suspicions that would otherwise lie fallow. After a week or so, they would probably come to regard him as a harmless recluse. If they showed too much curiosity, Mazorca had a few options available. This final thought passed through his mind as he removed a small derringer pistol from the holster and inspected it.

His trunk arrived within an hour, and a muscular black man carried it to his room. When he was alone again, Mazorca pushed it under the window. He unlocked the trunk and lifted its lid. The shirts and trousers were still stacked in neat piles. On the left-hand side rested a coiled brown belt, with the buckle facing away from him. A large knife lay beneath it with the cutting edge turned toward him. On the right-hand side was an upside-down book, with the spine facing away. Everything appeared as he had left it. Satisfied by this, he began removing the contents. When he had burrowed about halfway down, he found what he was looking for.

Mazorca reached into the trunk and removed a rifle. It was a Sharps New Model 1859 breechloader-a deadly weapon that could hit a target from a good distance. Right away, he started to clean it.

Rook walked through the front door of Brown’s to find the hotel lobby in the lull of the middle afternoon, between the busy periods of lunch and dinner. About two dozen people milled about, some in conversation, a few reading newspapers, and two or three seeming to do nothing at all. Clark stood near a bar and caught the colonel’s eye. He nodded toward the back of the room, where Davis and Stephens nursed drinks. Rook headed straight for them. He took a seat at their table and gave a big smile. It was not returned.

For a few seconds, Rook just stared at one man and then the other. Davis narrowed his eyes at Rook. He looked menacing. “What can we do for you?” he finally asked in a tone that suggested he did not want to do anything at all for Rook.

“That depends,” replied Rook, affecting a slight Southern drawl.

“Depends on what?”

“It depends on why you’re here.”

“Our affairs are not your affairs.”

“Perhaps not. But then again, perhaps they are. I’m intrigued by the fact a couple of boys like you would show up right now in our nation’s capital.” Rook inflected those last three words with sarcasm. “Where are you from? Alabama? Mississippi?”

Davis and Stephens said nothing. Clark took a seat at a nearby table, with his back to this conversation, and opened a copy of the National Intelligencer.

“Well, it hardly matters where you’re from exactly,” continued Rook. “I’m just interested in where you’re from generally. There aren’t many Southerners arriving here nowadays. There are even fewer calling themselves Jeff Davis and Alex Stephens.”

Davis raised an eyebrow. Rook sensed an opening.

“Gentlemen, it does not take a genius to read a hotel registry,” said Rook. He smiled again and took a small palmetto brocade from his pocket and placed it on the table. “Understand something. The number of people who think the way we do dwindles by the hour around here. Guests check out of Brown’s these days, rather than check in. So your arrival is conspicuous. Most of those of us who remain behind are planning to get out soon. In my case, I must attend to some unfinished business.”

Rook reached into his pocket again and pulled out the Brady photo of Lincoln. He put it on the table beside the brocade and made sure both Davis and Stephens saw what it was. Then he took the pin of the brocade and stabbed it into Lincoln’s face. He twisted it around, carving a small hole where Lincoln’s head had been. Rook let the brocade and defaced photo lie before Davis and Stephens for a moment. When he thought they had taken a good look, he collected both items and returned them to his pocket.

“As I said, I must attend to some unfinished business,” said Rook. He was pleased to see that Davis and Stephens had dropped their threatening looks. Rook leaned into the table and spoke in a hushed voice. “And I’m always on the lookout for new business opportunities.”

Stephens glanced at Davis, in a clear sign of deference. The big man did not budge. He still stared at the table, looking at the place where the defaced photo had rested. Finally his eyes moved to Rook.

“I appreciate the invitation, Mr.-?”

“Bishop,” replied Rook.

“Mr. Bishop. Very well. I wish you every success, Mr. Bishop. I really do. But it appears as though we are working toward different ends, despite our shared sympathies. You have your intentions, and I have mine.”

“What better intention could you have than this imposter who calls himself president?”

“I didn’t say I had a better intention, just a different one. We may serve our interests best simply by staying out of each other’s way.”

“I don’t think it’s that easy,” said Rook. “If one of us succeeds, the other surely will find his task much more challenging. Security is weak across the city, but it won’t stay that way forever. Your hints intrigue me, Mr. Davis. They raise an important question: should one of us assist the other? I am native to this city and have resources at my disposal that you may find invaluable.”

Davis tapped a finger on the table. “I will consider your offer,” he said at last. “But it is too early for anything more. I’m waiting for a shipment to arrive, and it won’t get here until the morning. Meet me in this place tomorrow evening. Perhaps we can talk in some detail then.”

“If you need help on the Potomac docks with unloading a shipment, I can gather some men-”

Davis chuckled. “No, the shipment will not arrive by the river.”

“Then at the train depot-”

Now Davis laughed, and Stephens with him. “Mr. Bishop, the shipment will not arrive by river, and it will not arrive by rail. Or even by road. Let’s leave it at that. I do not seek your assistance with the shipment. Not now, anyway. We can meet again tomorrow night. Good day, sir.”

Rook nodded and rose from his chair. He walked straight for the door and was gone from the hotel within a few seconds. Davis and Stephens watched him depart.

“I thought we were going to be gone by tomorrow night,” said Stephens. “I hope you don’t mean to change our plans.”

“Of course not. I suspect Bishop himself may not even make the meeting we’ve just arranged. There will be so much commotion in this city tomorrow night, nothing will go as intended. If Bishop is smart, he will realize what has happened and who is responsible. He can show up here if he wants, but he’ll wait a long time before he sees either of us again. We’ll be miles away, and Washington will be gripped by terror.”

A few feet away, Clark continued to stare at the pages of his newspaper. He heard every word.

“Sally, what would you like to discuss?” asked Bennett.

“It’s about my son, Joe. He’s the one everybody calls Big Joe.”

“Of course,” said Bennett, his interest suddenly aroused. “I know Big Joe. He is a fine young man, with a solid reputation around here. Mr. Tate praises him quite highly.”

“He’s very good, Mr. Bennett. Even when he was a little boy, he was very good, always listenin’ to his mother. He never gave me any trouble. Never! You don’t always see that around here.”

“I know what you mean. I can’t think of a single time Joe has given us any difficulty. I must say, though, there have been some questions raised about him this very day.”

Sally broke eye contact with Bennett. She had been looking straight at him, but now she gazed at the ground.

“Mr. Bennett, I don’t want you to hurt him.”

“Is there something I should know?”

Her eyes were back on him, and Bennett saw that they had started to fill with tears.

“Mr. Bennett, please tell me you ain’t gonna hurt him.”

“Oh, Sally,” said Bennett, trying to achieve a comforting tone in his voice. He put his arm around her. “I don’t want to hurt anybody, but I don’t think I can promise anything until you tell me what you know.”

“Maybe there’s one thing you can promise me,” she said as she pulled up her apron and wiped the tears from her eyes.

“Please don’t do to him what you did to Sammy last fall. You remember Sammy? He’s Roberta’s boy.”

Bennett had to think for a moment. He did recall Sammy-a real troublemaker who required the constant attention of an overseer before he would do any work. It was quite a shame too, because Sammy was a strong one who might have made a contribution to the farm if only he had put his mind to it. But when he ran off and hid in the woods last year-and then Tate caught him two weeks later stealing chickens from one of the coops, after several had already disappeared-that was the end of it. Bennett ordered him put up for auction. Sammy was sold to a buyer from Georgia for a bit less than what Bennett thought he should have gotten, but he was glad to be rid of the problem. Attitudes like Sammy’s had a way of spreading like a contagious disease if they were not confronted, he believed. Sometimes a plantation master must set a clear example, even at the cost of breaking up families.

“Yes, I do remember Sammy,” said Bennett, at last.

“Please tell me you won’t sell Joe! It just broke Roberta’s heart when Sammy left. I don’t know how I could go on if Joe were to leave.”

“It sounds to me as though he may have left already.”

“Yes,” sniffled Sally. “I do believe he has.”

“What can you tell me about it?”

“Oh, Mr. Bennett, I just want him back. Please just bring him back to me. I promise you, I’ll give him a good, hard talking to the way only his mother can! He won’t leave again! Please just bring him back and tell me you won’t sell him off!”

She was sobbing now, and Bennett gave her a moment to collect herself.

“Sally, don’t worry about Joe getting sold. Sammy’s situation was very different from Joe’s. I’ll be honest with you. When we get Joe back, we’re going to have to deal with him in some fashion. I don’t know what that will be. It will depend on what happens between now and then. It may also depend on how much you cooperate with us. The fact that you are speaking to me right now, however, is a great comfort. I want to get Joe back too. In all my years of running this plantation, I have learned one thing about runaways-they’re best caught early. The longer they stay missing, the harder they are to find. So it’s important to get started on this immediately. Perhaps you can help me figure out where he’s headed. I received a report this morning that he might be going to the Wilson farm. Does he know anybody there? Maybe there’s a girl he wants to see. He’s at that age, you know.”

“There’s a girl, all right, Mr. Bennett. But she ain’t one of Mr. Wilson’s.”

“This is a good beginning, Sally. Come with me inside the house. We can sit down and relax. Then you can tell me everything you know.”

They went into the dining room of the manor and sat at the table. It occurred to Sally that she had been in this room only a couple of times in her whole life, and certainly not to sit down with Bennett. When one of the house servants asked Bennett if he would like something to drink, she was astonished to hear him ask her if she wanted something too. A minute later, a pair of tall glasses of iced tea rested before them. It was the most delicious drink Sally thought she had ever tasted. She did not know what to say, and Bennett initially saved her from saying anything at all.

“There you go, Sally. Make yourself comfortable and tell me your story.”

“Thank you, Mr. Bennett. I’m gonna tell you everything.”

“Please do.”

“Yesterday morning, I was cooking in the kitchen, like I do almost every day. I started feeling a little queasy. I don’t know why, I just did. Margaret told me to go lay down and she would cover for me. So I did. I was there in my bed for about twenty minutes and already startin’ to feel better when I heard Joe through the window. He was talkin’ to someone, a woman who was beggin’ him to run off with her. I listened for a spell. She said her grandfather wanted her to deliver some kind of photograph to Mr. Lincoln in Washington.”

“A photograph?”

“You know, one of those real-life pictures?”

“I know what a photograph is,” said Bennett. “But I’m puzzled why someone of your class would care about one.”

“It sounded so crazy, Mr. Bennett, I hardly believed it. But that’s what they were talkin’ about-gettin’ all the way to Washington. Joe wasn’t saying yes, but he wasn’t saying no. I ran outside and broke them up. Joe wouldn’t promise me that he wasn’t going to run away. He kept sayin’ that he had to get back to work before Mr. Tate wondered about him. I finally got him to promise that he wasn’t going anywhere, but I wasn’t sure he was tellin’ the truth. I think he was just tryin’ to put me off. He avoided me the rest of the day, and then I didn’t see him at all last night or this morning. I do believe he’s gone, Mr. Bennett, and I just wanna get him back here where I know he’s safe.”

This took a moment to absorb. Bennett took a sip from his drink and set it back on the table.

“First of all, Sally, thank you very much. Your cooperation is very helpful. With it, I’m certain we’ll get Joe back soon.”

Sally perked up at this. She was gratified by Bennett’s response. He did not seem angry. That possibility had worried her. She always thought Bennett was a good master-better than all the other ones in these parts. But she had seen him mad too, and even the best masters could be cruel.

“I do have a few questions, Sally.”

“Yes?”

He tried to comfort her with a smile, but the anger inside him was mounting and the effort strained.

“Who was the woman you heard talking to Joe?”

“It was Portia.”

Bennett felt his rage begin to swell. The pleasant demeanor he had tried to present to Sally vanished as he barked out more questions.

“Did either Joe or Portia mention the Wilson farm?”

“No. Not at all.”

“Did they discuss how they intended to get to Washington?”

“I didn’t hear nothin’ about that.”

“And they planned to take a photograph to Mr. Lincoln?” He spit out the name with obvious distaste.

“Yes, Mr. Bennett.”

“Do you know what was in this photograph?”

“From the way it sounded, it was a picture of a person. Someone who was gonna hurt Mr. Lincoln.”

“Did you see the photograph?”

“No, sir.”

“Didn’t they have it?”

“No, sir.”

“Damn it, Sally, what do you know?”

The slave woman lowered her head. She began to shake with sobbing. Bennett knew he was pushing her hard. He had done a good job of winning this woman’s trust, and now he saw it slipping away. His mind faulted his approach. Yet he was too furious to stop. He forged ahead.

“Sally, look at me!” he shouted. He saw the tears in her eyes when she lifted her face. “Where was the photograph when you overheard them?”

“Someone else had it.”

“Who?”

Sally looked away from Bennett. She knew he would not welcome the answer. At this point, though, she had made her decision to confide in him. She could hardly hide it.

“Lucius.”

Bennett shot up from the table and thrust his chair backward with such force that it gouged the wall behind him. In the same motion, he grabbed his walking stick, which had been resting against the table, and let out a roar. His eyes fell on the half-full drink in front of him. He raised his cane and whacked the glass. It shattered into a hundred pieces, spraying across the room. Sally screamed and covered her face in her hands as several house servants hurried into the room. Bennett pointed to one of them. “Get me Tate!” he growled. The slave immediately sprinted out of the manor.

Bennett gripped his cane in both hands now, so tightly that his knuckles turned white and his hands trembled. Then he stumbled out of the dining room, pushing one of the slaves out of his way as he lurched into the foyer and then through the front door and onto the porch. He started pacing back and forth. His peg leg pounded against the boards like a hammer.

Sally staggered out a moment later. She fell to her knees in front of Bennett and clasped her hands together, as if in prayer. “Please don’t hurt my Joe, Mr. Bennett! Please don’t hurt him!”

Bennett stopped in front of her and picked up his cane. For a dreadful few seconds he held it there, as if he were thinking about bashing it into her. Sally shut her eyes, expecting the blow.

“Get up,” he ordered at last. Sally rose to her feet. “Get out of here.”

As Sally ran down the steps crying hysterically, Tate raced toward the manor. In a minute, he was on the porch in front of Bennett. “Yes, sir, Mr. Bennett?”

“We have two runaways, Tate, and also a conspirator who’s still on the farm.”

“Big Joe and Portia?”

“Yes.”

“And who did they leave behind?” Tate asked. The corners of his mouth turned upwards ever so slightly. He seemed to take a perverse pleasure in this development.

“Lucius.” Bennett could hardly have spoken the name with more venom.

“I will gladly take care of him,” said Tate, beginning to unfasten the whip at his side.

“No, I will handle him,” said Bennett. “Come with me.”

The two men walked through the front door and made their way to Bennett’s study. The old plantation master sat down at his desk and scribbled a short note. He handed it to Tate.

“Have this delivered to Mr. Hughes right away. I’m asking him to rush over here as soon as possible. Then fetch Lucius. Take him to the shed. I will be there shortly.”

“Yes, sir.”

Tate turned to go, but Bennett stopped him. “One more thing, Mr. Tate,” said Bennett, pointing to the lash dangling from Tate’s hip. “That’s the least thing Lucius needs to worry about.”

In Lafayette Park, about ten blocks from Brown’s Hotel, Rook wondered how long it would take for Clark to arrive. They had agreed to meet here, and the colonel grew anxious about being out of uniform for so long. It was the middle of the afternoon. He would have to blaze through his rounds.

He sat beneath the bronze statue of Andrew Jackson mounted on a rearing horse. Many people believed that Jackson was the best man the country had produced since Washington. Rook knew that Scott was no admirer, but it was hard to avoid regarding Jackson as anything but a hero. As a general during the War of 1812, he saved the country’s honor by winning the Battle of New Orleans. Then he became president and opposed South Carolina in the first secession crisis, a generation before the current one. Rook thought that the country needed a new leader like Jackson, someone who could rally the South for union. Looking at the White House, he wondered whether Lincoln had what it would take. He was not optimistic.

Clark came into sight as he passed the State Department on the corner of Fifteenth Street and Pennsylvania Avenue. He took a seat on the bench beside Rook.

“Whatever they’re planning to do,” said Clark, “they’re planning to do it before tomorrow night.” He described what he had heard following Rook’s departure.

“This is strange,” replied Rook. “We’re missing a piece. The thing that really gnaws at me is the comment about how the shipment is supposed to get here. It won’t arrive by river, rail, or road? That’s doesn’t make any sense. It’s like a riddle.”

“It’s as if he wants us to think something will fall from the sky. His comment makes me wonder whether there really is a shipment at all. Maybe he was trying to throw you off.”

“There’s more to this. Davis is too satisfied by his own cleverness. He and his men are leaving clues all over the place, from their false names to where they go and what they say. They’re convinced that they can fool us.”

Rook didn’t give voice to his next thought: And so far, they are succeeding.

Tucker Hughes galloped hard to the Bennett manor. It was difficult to see in the dark, but he knew the roads well. When he turned onto the lane leading to Bennett’s home, he spurred the beast into a full dash, like a cavalry soldier charging an enemy line. The horse’s speed exhilarated him. So did the uncertainty behind the summons. Bennett had never requested his presence as urgently as he had in the note Hughes still carried in his pocket. He pulled up just short of the front porch. Hughes was not even off the horse when a pair of slaves appeared out of nowhere to take the reins. Tate was right behind them, holding a torch.

“Is Bennett in his study?” asked Hughes as he dismounted.

“No. He’s down in the shed.”

“What’s he doing there?”

“A little disciplining. Come with me.”

The two men walked briskly. They passed the kitchen and then went between two rows of small buildings. Soon they descended into a small hollow. Hughes heard the groans before he saw the shed. The sound was jarring, and Hughes only recognized it as human because he had heard it before, on his own plantation. It was the animal noise of deep pain, a strange mix of moans and whimpers. Bennett shouted something, but the only words Hughes could make out were “betrayal” and “traitor.” Then came the sound of a whip whooshing through the air and ripping into flesh, followed by a miserable yelp and more of Bennett’s yells.

Tate halted outside the door. “Let’s wait here a few minutes.”

The shed was not a shed at all. That was just what everyone called it. It was actually one of the older buildings on the farm, a brick structure that had gone up decades earlier, when the first generation of Bennetts came to this place. It had been used for storing tools and other equipment until Bennett’s father replaced it with some of the newer buildings closer to the manor. It had remained in disrepair ever since, even as it gained a new use: this was where Bennett and the overseers meted out punishments to slaves. If somebody on the Bennett plantation was “taken to the shed,” it meant he was beaten here.

“Why is Bennett doing this himself?” asked Hughes.

“He’s mighty upset about something,” replied Tate. “I never thought I’d see him do this to Lucius.”

“Lucius?” Hughes was stunned. “He likes that slave more than he likes a lot of white people.”

“I don’t think that’s true anymore.”

The door of the shed flew open, and Bennett stomped out. Inside, Hughes could see Lucius on his knees, with both wrists held above his head and chained to an iron ring mounted on a post. It almost looked as though he were genuflecting, except that he was obviously slumped over. He was breathing, so he was still alive. Yet his neck and back were streaked with blood. Hughes knew something of whippings, and this looked like a thorough one.

“What took you so long?” barked Bennett when he saw Hughes.

“Good evening to you too, Langston.”

“We have a big problem here,” snapped Bennett, ambling by Hughes and Tate and heading toward the house. The two younger men fell in beside him.

“What’s the trouble?”

“Two of my slaves have run off, and they’ve got something we need. That turncoat Lucius told me everything.”

Hughes waited for an explanation, but Bennett did not elaborate. They walked back to the manor. Bennett stopped in front of it.

“It is of the greatest urgency that we track down the two fugitives,” said Bennett. He pointed at Tate. “You may do nothing more important for me during your employment here than this. In fact, if you succeed in this task, I will double your salary for the next three months.”

“You can count on me,” said Tate.

“Unfortunately, I’m afraid we don’t have time to organize a whole party. The two of you will have to leave immediately.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” said Tate.

“I didn’t think so. Now, Mr. Tate, I would like a word with Mr. Hughes.”

“I’ll need a few minutes to get the dogs.” The overseer hurried away.

“I’m confused,” said Hughes. “What does this have to do with me?”

“The runaways-Portia and Big Joe-have a photograph of Mazorca in their possession.”

“What?”

“You must get it back.”

“Lucius told you this?”

“No. Somebody else told me. But Lucius confirmed it. He actually helped take the picture in Charleston, the day we met with Mazorca.”

Hughes didn’t reply. Bennett just glared at him, making sure Hughes understood what it meant: this trouble might have been avoided entirely but for the photography session that Hughes had arranged.

“How did he do it?” asked Hughes.

“The details hardly matter. Suffice it to say they have a photo, and we must get it back. I don’t care if you catch them or kill them-just get that photo back.”

“It’s against the law to kill a slave.”

Bennett shot him a nasty look. “Just get me that photo. I don’t care how you do it.”

“Are you certain that Portia and Big Joe are traveling together?”

“Yes. They’re on horses headed for Charleston. Lucius says he doesn’t know what they’ll do when they reach the city-or if he does know, he isn’t saying. But that’s where they’re going. That ought to give you enough information to find them.”

For a moment, Hughes said nothing. He was thinking about Portia and his recent encounter with her.

“You mentioned Portia. Is she the one-?”

“Yes. She’s the one you offered to purchase from me only two days ago. If you catch her, you can keep her and do with her as you please.”

Hughes smiled. “I may very well do that.”

Just then, Tate arrived with the dogs. Bennett’s overseer was an experienced slave catcher. There were a few professionals in the area, and Bennett had hired them from time to time. But Tate was their equal on the chase. Hughes knew what he was doing too. He had once remarked to Bennett that chasing runaways was like a sport to him. “No other hunting compares to it,” he had said. “I never grow bored with it, for the quarry has courage and cunning. Runaways are the most exciting game-the most dangerous game.”

When they set off, Bennett walked into the manor and went to his study. He looked at the clock. It was a few minutes to midnight-much later than he liked to be awake. He sat down at his desk and took out a piece of stationery. He wrote in a clear cursive and left wide spaces between the lines.

April 19

Dear Violet,

Please accept my apologies for waiting so long to write since my last letter. The developments in Charleston have kept me busy. I am quite hopeful for the future, though.

Do you remember Lucius, my old manservant? I’m sorry to report he has recently suffered a terrible bout of something-it’s so hard to say what-and may not last the night. I will miss him so.

Sincerely,

Langston Bennett

When Bennett finished composing these words, he put down his pen and ran his fingers along the left-hand side of his desk. They paused about halfway across and then pulled on something. It was a hidden compartment. Among the items Bennett removed from the little drawer was a tiny brass key. He set it on the edge of the desk. Next he touched up the letter he had just written, addressed an envelope to Violet Grenier in Washington, and sealed the letter inside. In the morning, he would order a rider to take it to the postmaster.

Then he took the small key and unlocked a drawer to his right, on the front of the desk. He put the key back in its hidden compartment and opened the drawer he had just unlocked. He reached inside and pulled out a pistol. He turned it in his hand and admired its design. Then he opened the chamber to confirm that it was loaded.

About ten minutes later, everybody on the Bennett plantation heard a single shot echo through the night. It came from the vicinity of the shed.