The Pinkerton Files Five-Book Bundle (2 page)

The interceptor rides a single rail. It hops on or off at any point, locking into place on rows of opposing magnets. With no friction, it can easily out run a train. Reclined in the saddle, an agent can winch steel arms out to grab tracks or swing between levels.

I tried to catch a train riding one of those buggies once. The only thing I intercepted was the back end of a piece of track.

Kate is a marvel. The train beneath us lost ground as we passed through an interchange. Kate sped toward it, climbing out of the saddle to allow the interceptor's frame to split in half. She crawled amid the moving pieces, which folded and reassembled on the underside of the track. All the while, she accelerated.

We emerged from the interchange and looked back. Still below, Kate had safely flipped upside down and was riding beneath the rail. Our track unhitched to change levels. With devil's luck, Kate piggy backed the rise and slid next to us when two platforms overlapped.

The axel of her interceptor folded to a right angle and she advanced beside our window. Walls shuddered as magnets took hold. In no hurry, Kate tapped on the glass.

Father swung the window open and she climbed inside, dressed in thick black leather. She peeled away a cap and goggles. Her hair was darker and shorter than when I last saw her. It framed her pouchy cheeks, suiting her.

A flash of yellow below the collar hinted at a business-like outfit underneath. Father loves that attention to detail, especially from her.

*   *   *

Allan Pinkerton, Principal

April, 1861

What place could such a comment have in a detective's case file? Robert wonders why I am compelled to seek Ms. Warne's counsel instead of his. Leave it to my son to make an invasion of his private thoughts a waste of time.

*   *   *

Kate Warne

February, 1861

A girder hit while I was taking off my gear. The impact almost knocked me down. That would have been a sight: heels up with the Pinkertons standing over me.

I was sure I'd given the interceptor enough clearance. At the next interchange, a platform swung into its nose and magnets tore the window away.

Robert laughed. If it had been his brother, William, this would have made me furious. Coming from Robert, I saw the humor.

Mr. Pinkteron fell into the liquor cabinet. A bottle tipped over, poured down his sleeve and emptied out his cuff. I was frozen in place, one leg still in the leather coveralls. Whiskey ruined my outfit. It was a funny sort of scene.

Mr. Pinkteron didn't think so. He was still scolding Robert when a porter arrived to ask after our safety.

Whatever Mr. Pinkerton doesn't see in Robert makes me wonder what he does see in the rest of us. We skulk after suspects trying not to be seen. Robert hides in plain sight if at all.

I heard from Ginny that, at Northern Central, he walked up to the front door, picked the lock and marched to the file room. I am surprised Kennedy caught him.

Robert fussed with gears in his lap while Mr. Pinkerton and I discussed security at PWB. Tensions between the north and south have escalated since the election of Abraham Lincoln last November. With his inauguration approaching, Mr. Felton worried that PWB would be sabotaged to unsettle the capital.

These concerns were valid. I said so to Mr. Pinkerton on the train and to Mr. Felton once we arrived in Philadelphia. Our operatives in the south had not seen secessionist rebel William Hunt in New Orleans for months. There was reason to believe that Hunt would strike against the north. PWB made an attractive target.

“How can these people not see: they have more to lose fighting the Union than they have to gain separating from it?” Felton said.

He was wide across the chest, a rail operator raised to an executive role. It didn't suit him. He marched around his office picking up items and putting them down again. I cringed watching a once-competent man reduced to this anxiety.

Mr. Pinkerton tried to will a sense of calm over the room. It was the patience of a doctor waiting for leeches to clean a sick man's blood.

“Is there some final grievance yet to be resolved with the south?” Felton said.

“Final grievance?”

The voice was so like Mr. Pinkerton's that both Felton and I looked at him. He glared over his shoulder at Robert.

“We haven't addressed their first grievance yet.”

“That will do, Robert.” Mr. Pinkerton said.

Felton slapped his desk.

“What on earth do you mean, sir?”

“You know precisely what I mean.” Robert said. “Rich men in the south will fund saboteurs until rich men in the north share their technology.”

Robert lifted the brass mechanism from his lap as an example.

“Let them invent something of their own. Their industries are hopeless. So long they uphold that blasphemy of a slave trade, there can be no innovation.”

“They say that until you share your innovation they have no choice but to uphold the slave trade. It is you who must see: these troubles aren't ending, they are beginning.”

Mr. Pinkerton stood, skin on the back of his neck turning red.

“We are not politicians.” He said.

Facing away from the client, Mr. Pinkerton put his hands on Robert's shoulders and pressed his son back down into a chair.

“We are detectives. If you wish to lobby for closer relations with the south, Mr. Felton, I can recommend you to a statesman. If you wish to protect your rail line from William Hunt, or anyone else, we are at your service.”

“Yes, yes. By God, let's focus on the matter at hand.” Felton said. “How do you propose to help me, Pinkteron?”

“I have a man in the south. He is one of my best.”

“Good.” Felton moved items on the left side of his desk to the right.

“Timothy Webster will get to the bottom of this threat against your business.”

Felton reached out to shake Mr. Pinkerton's hand.

“Webster is too old.” Robert said.

Interrupting his father on the verge of closing a deal with a client like PWB was rash. It bordered on self destructive.

I took a long look at Robert; his eyes, his mouth, his breathing. I wanted to record in my mind the way this recklessness looked so I could recognize it in the future.

Robert seemed very calm. After a few moments, I no longer remembered why I had looked over. I was just staring at him.

Mr. Pinkerton smiled at Felton. It was a closing-all-accounts sort of smile.

“Pardon me.” He said.

Mr. Pinkerton opened his arms like he meant to gather Robert and I together. He made little swiping gestures with his hands and ushered us toward the door.

When Robert and I were in the waiting room, Mr. Pinkerton walked back to the office and closed the door without saying another word. I should have been angry.

I wasn't. I wanted to make a joke of it, like Robert might.

“No one can accuse you of nepotism.”

“Yes, my takeover of the New York office will have to start at the ground floor.”

I laughed and didn't stop to think about what I said next. I just said it.

“You're right about Webster.”

“I'm glad you see it that way. Hunt attracts young toughs to his gang: the Knights of the Golden Circle.” Robert made a bogey man face.

“Even the name.” I said. “Only a boy could see himself in it.”

“Hunt isn't in the city. He's moving over open country. That's rough. It takes slow minds and strong backs. I don't see Timothy Webster fitting in.”

“I know someone who might. Have your father or brother ever told you about Ernie Stark? He isn't with the Agency. Stark picks his own cases.”

“They aren't sharing tips at present, no.” Robert said.

“Stark goes deep. That's his reputation.”

“And you can convince my father to switch from Webster to this freelancer?”

“That's not what I had in mind”

“You were thinking . . . hire Stark even with Webster on the case?”

It was a good question. What was I thinking?

“You give him orders to stay out of Webster's way.” I said. “If he gets close to William Hunt on his own, maybe he can protect PWB should things go wrong.”

The door opened. Mr. Pinkerton emerged alone. He'd made his deal with PWB.

For the second time, I tried to read Robert's face. Would he consider getting in touch with Ernie Stark?

Robert folded the broken gears into their housing. He gave nothing away. We didn't even make eye contact. For the second time, I caught myself staring at him.

*   *   *

Robert Pinkerton

February, 1861

Father made a mistake. Webster is a fine man but sending him to infiltrate the Golden Circle was absurd. On the train leaving Philadelphia, I saw how I had pushed him to this bad decision. That weighed on me.

Father runs the Agency as he sees fit. He can pretend that America will find peace by protecting north against south. He can cherish the status of equipment we borrow from clients while ignoring its usefulness to detectives. He takes his own advice.

But he was a cad on the train and a bully in Philadelphia. All joking with Kate Warne aside, Father will never grant me control of the New York office. He would sooner pull me out of the field altogether.

When the meeting with PWB was at its most delicate, I attacked. That brought out the worst in him. It was punch and counter punch.

PWB will blow up in Father's face. I'm sure of it.

If I apologize, he will make me swear an oath to his views on all things. I would do it if I thought he might also change his stance on sending Webster after William Hunt.

He won't. Stubborn goat.

If I do nothing, Father will walk into failure. If I grovel at his feet, he will stay the course. If I contact this man Stark, what then?

I don't know. There is a chance of it doing some good.

*   *   *

Allan Pinkerton, Principal

April, 1861

I remember. Ms. Higgs brought me the errant shipping receipt.

Robert charged a delivery to one of our accounts but provided no case number for the expense. This was his sloppy way of (how did Kate Warne describe it?) hiding in plain sight.

Even a superficial follow up would have led me from the receipt to the gauntlet to Stark, but I had no patience left. Three weeks had passed since Robert's outrageous conduct in Felton's office. Litigators from New York were pressing him to return for trial. I couldn't bear to be any more involved in his affairs.

I told Ms. Higgs to treat the bill as an accounting error and shift the expense to petty cash. Then I put the whole issue out of my mind.

The blood and shame are on Robert. Not on me.

*   *   *

Ernie Stark

February, 1861

It was screwy business from the start. A contract was posted by one of the sons, not the old man. I should have seen trouble coming. There's enough double talk when a job starts. I don't need any surprises in the blasted paperwork.

Robert shipped me the melee gauntlet as soon as I signed the contract. I didn't ask him to. That boy loves anything with a bolt in it.

I set up in Charlotte to start. It took a week to get outfitted for a trip to the woods. This gave me time to argue with shopkeepers and scrap with drunks for my cover: hair trigger prospector out for a quick score.

The gauntlet was dangerous. Carolina is southern territory and nothing marks you as a Union man like that kind of equipment. Late at night in a hotel room with no windows, I figured out how to make it work.

At first, I fastened the sleeve of rods and pulleys backwards. When the springs wound, it folded my arm the wrong way. After bandaging my elbow and getting the gauntlet set straight, I could see why Robert was keen. It's a useful thing.

Clenching a fist winds the forearm and gives a hell of a wallop when released. Twisting down at the wrist winds the springs back to lift a huge load. I ruined that room figuring out what it could do.

The next morning, I rode out. My overcoat concealed the gauntlet. A new hat was like a beacon. It announced inexperience. Locals mocked me in plain view. That was perfect. My cover was solid.

I took well travelled roads to Asheville near the Appalachian corridor. Hunt would be on that route north. I wanted to be seen by unfriendly Carolinians heading into the deep rough.

A gang like Hunt's would run out of cash and supplies, forced to forage as they got close to Union states. His roughs would have to steal their wares. Hunt might not like robbing from southerners but, being that close to the Union, his boys would be ornery enough to leave him no choice.

This was my way in. I made camp and took care to look ill suited. Wasted supplies and a poor shelter were signs of an amateur in trouble. After a few days, I heard Louisiana whispers in the dark. I was an easy mark.