On Secret Service
John Jakes
Praise for On Secret Service
“On Secret Service draws you back into the Civil War and the wrenching days preceding Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. The factual details are simply astonishing: You walk the muddy streets, smell the acrid smoke of battlefields, and experience firsthand the inner workings of a vast conspiracy.”
—Patricia Cornwell
“The author saves the best for last in dealing with Lincoln’s assassination, bringing the drama to life by giving each of his protagonists a crucial role as the conspiracy unfolds with expert pacing and suspense. Jakes uncovers the little-known history of espionage and counterespionage during the War Between the States with his signature combination of meticulous research and epic narrative.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Gripping, exciting, and historically accurate…a very good book.”
—Library Journal
“An absorbing study of how human affairs stubbornly fall outside the simplistic categories of ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’”
—Kirkus Reviews
“John Jakes has written another fine historical novel about his favorite period—The Civil War…. Jakes is a wonderful storyteller, mixing fiction with fact and capturing the feel and flavor of that turbulent time.”
—The Sunday Oklahoman
“Perhaps no author has made popularized American history more his own province than John Jakes…. [He] does the invaluable service of any historical writer in transforming history’s dusty pages into a living account. An excellent job of conveying the horror of that war now dimmed by the passage of the years.”
—Florida Times-Union
“[Jakes] gets the big story right, while writing in a clear style, keeping the narrative moving briskly from cliff-hanger to cliff-hanger, serving up portions of steamy sex in between, and offering us plenty of heroes and heroines to admire and several villains to hate. Even a deep-dyed Civil War buff…will find himself turning the pages to see what happens next.”
—Civil War Book Review
Praise for the Crown Family Saga
Homeland
“First-rate…chock-full of fascinating period detail…brings to life the sounds, smells, and tastes of turn-of-the-century America in a manner comparable to Michener’s Hawaii and Doctorow’s Ragtime. An absolute must.”
—Publishers Weekly
“This intelligently written novel, full of colorful characters, moves swiftly along, vividly resurrecting the America of the 1890’s. Quite simply, Homeland is John Jakes’s best work.”
—The Philadelphia Inquirer
“A powerful tour de force, a rich, sweeping story of America as only Jakes can tell it…Homeland, interspersed with real characters such as Teddy Roosevelt, Black Jack Pershing, and Jane Addams, is a marvelous blend of fact and fiction, the stuff of great historical novels. Another winner from an old pro.”
—Nelson DeMille
American Dreams
“Jakes has a grand old time spinning his yarns…. He mixes his fictional offspring with the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford, making us feel as if we too have brushed our shoulders with celebrity.”
—The Blade (Toledo)
“Realistic detail and period color galore keep this swift-moving story grounded…as the automobile and WWI arrive to shake the republic out of its golden idyll.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Historical fiction at its finest, as only John Jakes can tell it.”
—Wheaton Gazette
“A worthy successor to Homeland.”
—Columbia State (SC)
Praise for the North and South Trilogy
North and South
“In the history of U.S. book publishing, there’s never been a success story quite like that of John Jakes.”
—The New York Times
“A panoramic, populous…lusty trek through the pages of American history…thick as a brick with period detail drawn from extensive research.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
Love and War
“A feisty assortment of fictional heroes and heroines.”
—People
“Massive, lusty, highly readable…. In delicious detail are the wicked and tawdry doings of a memorable cast of characters…. A graphic, fast-paced amalgam of good, evil, love, lust, war, violence, and Americana.”
—The Washington Post Book World
Heaven and Hell
“Remarkably vivid.”
—Los Angeles Times
“He shows you George Armstrong Custer, Andrew Johnson, Buffalo Bill Cody, and a vast array of historical figures whose contending ambitions control the events…but he also shows you what people wore, what they read, and what they drank and ate…. What you get is the feeling that this is life. That’s art.”
—Chicago Sun-Times
JOHN JAKES
ON SECRET SERVICE
A SIGNET BOOK
SIGNET
Published by New American Library, a division of
Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.
Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane,
London W8 5TZ, England
Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood,
Victoria, Australia
Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2
Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182–190 Wairau Road,
Auckland 10, New Zealand
Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:
Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England
Published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,
a division of Penguin Putnam Inc.
Previously published in a Dutton edition.
Copyright © John Jakes, 2000
All rights reserved
ISBN: 978-1-1012-0934-9
REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA
Printed in the United States of America
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
BOOKS ARE AVAILABLE AT QUANTITY DISCOUNTS WHEN USED TO PROMOTE PRODUCTS OR SERVICES. FOR INFORMATION PLEASE WRITE TO PREMIUM MARKETING DIVISION, PENGUIN PUTNAM INC., 375 HUDSON STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10014.
This is for
my friend and colleague
Evan Hunter
Contents
Part One
DETECTIVES
1
January 1861
2
January 1861
3
January 1861
4
January 1861
5
January 1861
6
February 1861
7
February 1861
8
1836–1858
9
1858–1860
10
March 1861
11
March 1861
12
April 1861
Part Two
SPIES
13
May 1861
14
June 1861
15
June 1861
16
July
1861
17
July 1861
18
July 1861
19
August 1861
20
August 1861
21
August 1861
22
August 1861
23
September 1861
24
December 1861–January 1862
25
February–March 1862
26
March 1862
Part Three
RETRIBUTION
27
April 1862
28
April 1862
29
April–May 1862
30
May 1862
31
May 1862
32
May 1862
33
May–June 1862
34
June 1862
35
July–August 1862
36
July–August 1862
37
August 1862
38
August 1862
39
August–September 1862
40
October 1862
41
November 1862
42
November 1862
43
November 1862
Part Four
INSURRECTION
44
December 1862
45
January 1863
46
January 1863
47
February–March 1863
48
March 1863
49
June–July 1863
50
July 1863
51
July 1863
52
July 1863
53
July 1863
54
July 1863
Part Five
CONSPIRACY
55
November 1863–January 1864
56
May 1864
57
June 1864
58
June–July 1864
59
July 1864
60
August 1864
61
October 1864
62
October 1864
63
October–December 1864
64
January 1865
65
February 1865
66
March 1865
67
March 1865
Part Six
ASSASSINS
68
March 1865
69
April 1865
70
April 1865
71
April 1865
72
April 1865
73
April 1865
74
May 1865
Afterword
That war…produced the nation’s first mass armies, and a brutality that shocked the sensibilities of the day. It had aircraft, balloons, submarines, ironclad warships, automatic guns, trenches, a military draft—and the first organized espionage that the country ever knew.
—Harnett T. Kane
Spies for the Blue and Gray
Intelligence work requires people who are patriotic and sincere, and it is exactly these people who can accumulate the most emotional scars in pursuing it.
—Tidwell, Hall, and Gaddy
Come Retribution, the Confederate Secret Service and the Assassination of Lincoln
It is pardonable to be defeated, but not to be taken by surprise.
—Frederick the Great
Indeed, our employment may be reckoned dishonest, because, like great statesmen, we encourage those who betray their friends.
—John Gay
The Beggar’s Opera
secret service secret work for a government, esp. espionage [1730–40]
—Random House Dictionary
of the English Language
Part One
DETECTIVES
1
January 1861
“We must be near Galena already,” Lon said with a look at the closed door of the baggage car. “Nothing’s happened.”
“Wait,” his partner said. Sledge sat on a crated shipment, legs stuck out, the payroll bag between his heels. His boots were dirty and scarred. Lon’s were spotless except for a few streaks of slush. Around the office they called him Gentleman Lon because of his manners and neatness. He out-Englished the English operatives, of which there were several.
The Chicago & Galena express was traveling northwest, toward Dubuque across the Mississippi. Adams Express paid almost four hundred dollars a month to rent space in the line’s baggage cars. Its competitor, American Express, had similar arrangements, necessary because trains were favorite targets of thieves, and their routes crossed the territories of a legion of sheriffs who were crooks, bunglers, or both. Lon Price’s agency had contracts with both express companies and a group of six rail lines who together put up ten thousand dollars a year for protection for their real estate and rolling stock.
Lon and his partner were replacing a regular guard because of a robbery attempt on the same train at the same time last month. The attempt failed; the inept holdup men had blocked the track with a flimsy barrier of barn siding. The engineer had smashed the locomotive right through without stopping. The boss had tried to persuade the Chicago & Galena to ship its next Dubuque payroll by another train, at another time, but management lived by schedules and timetables. So here they were, rolling through the winter night, waiting.
Lon blew on his hands. The car was frigid even though he could see flames in the small stove. The flue pipe went out through the solid wall at the head of the car. Near the stove, the railway mail clerk sat on a stool with his elbows on the counter. All his mail was sorted in pigeonholes and he appeared to be dozing. The clerk struck Lon as suspiciously furtive. Careful observation was a habit the boss demanded.
From his left pocket Lon took a well-thumbed book. Sledge Greenglass, whose given name was Philo, worked his gold-plated toothpick in a crevice in his teeth. Where Lon was fair and broad-shouldered, but otherwise slight, Sledge was taller, heavier, with curly black hair and perhaps an Italian or Greek ancestor. He was ten to fifteen years older than Lon.
“What’s that?” Sledge said with a nod at the book.
“The latest by Charles Dickens. The latest novel published here, I mean. There’s a new serial running in England, Great Expectations. Dickens is my favorite writer after Edgar Poe.” Lon showed the book’s spine.
“A Tale of Two Cities. Invite him over, maybe he’ll write A Tale of Two Countries.”
Sledge’s sarcasm was justified. The Union was collapsing. Five days before Christmas, South Carolina had passed its ordinance of secession, and other Southern states were following—Mississippi, Florida, and Alabama last week. The commander of the Army garrison in Charleston had shifted his men to Fort Sumter in the harbor, and Star of the West, lame-duck President Buck Buchanan’s relief ship carrying reinforcements, had already been turned back by Charleston harbor defenses. The problem would confront the President-elect, whom Lon had met once in Chicago. He was a downstate lawyer who had for a while represented the Illinois Central. Lon wondered if such a peculiar, ugly man could do anything to save the country from war.
The locomotive whistled mournfully. The train creaked and rattled around a bend. Three oil lamps hanging from the ceiling swayed and smoked. The car reeked of old cigars. Lon read half a page, then read it twice more. He shut the book and made a face.
Sledge said, “Nervous?”
“Some. I’ve only been at this for a couple of years. Do you ever get used to the danger?”
They noticed the mail clerk watching. Sledge lowered his voice. “Been a copper nearl
y thirteen years, since I joined the New York force.” Sledge and the agency’s senior operative, Tim Webster, a former police sergeant, had been assigned to guard the Crystal Palace exhibition in 1853. The boss had met them, liked them, and hired them away.
Sledge continued, “I been shot at, knifed, mauled in the line of duty maybe a dozen times. And no, I’m not used to it. But even if they hit us tonight, I wouldn’t worry too much. Holdup men aren’t only crooked, most of them are stupid. Look how they mucked up last time. The rule is, no matter how scared you are, no matter what your belly’s telling you, keep it hid and always give back more than you take. That’s how you stay alive. That’s how you win.”
Lon Price mostly liked his more experienced partner, but not this kind of talk. “We’re supposed to be professional operatives, not roughneck detectives.” In fact the boss forbade the use of the word detective in his presence.
“Oh, I forgot,” Sledge said with his familiar mockery. “You grew up with a preacher in a preacher’s house. All hymns, holiness, heaven, and hallelujah.”
“Listen, Sledge. My father was a good man. He cut his life short trying to help Negroes escape to Canada. He was even shot once by slave-catchers. You can say anything you want about me but keep still about him.”
