One of their light beams caught the figure of a man sitting hunched over a small desk. A yellowed paper lay under one hand next to an inkwell that had spilled when he had slumped into death.
Pitt gently removed the paper and read it under his flashlight.
I have done my duty to the last of my strength. I leave my sweet, faithful engines in prime condition. They beautifully carried us across the ocean without missing a stroke and are as strong as the day they were installed in Richmond. I bequeath them to the next engineer to move this good ship against the hated Yankees. God, save the Confederacy.
Chief Engineer of the Texas,
Angus O'Hare
"There sits a dedicated man," said Pitt approvingly.
"They don't make them like him today," Perlmutter agreed.
Leaving Chief Engineer O'Hare, Pitt led the way past the big twin engines and boilers. A passageway led into the officers' quarters and mess, where they found four more undressed bodies, all reposed on bunks in their individual cabins. Pitt gave them little more than a passing glance before stopping at a mahogany door mounted in the aft bulkhead.
"The Captain's cabin," he said definitely.
Perlmutter nodded. "Commander Mason Tombs. From what I read of the Texas' audacious fight from Richmond to the Atlantic, Tombs was one tough customer."
Pitt brushed off a tinge of fear, turned the knob, and pushed open the door. Suddenly, Perlmutter reached out and clutched Pitt's arm.
"Wait!"
Pitt looked at Perlmutter, puzzled. "Why? What are you afraid of?"
"I suspect we may find something that should remain unseen."
"Can't be worse than what we've already laid eyes on," Giordino argued.
"What are you holding back, Julien?" Pitt demanded.
"I–I didn't tell you what I found in Edwin Stanton's secret papers."
"Tell me later," Pitt muttered impatiently. He turned from Perlmutter, shined his light through the doorway, and stepped inside.
The cabin would have seemed small and cramped by most contemporary warship standards, but ironclads were not built for long weeks at sea. During the fighting along the rivers and inlets of the Confederacy, they were seldom away from dock for more than two days at a time.
As with the other quarters, all objects and furniture that were not attached to the ship were gone. The Tuaregs, having no skills for handling tools and wrenches, had ignored any fixtures that were built in. The Captain's cabin still retained bookshelves and a mounted but broken barometer. But for some inexplicable reason, as with the stool in the pilothouse, the Tuaregs had left behind a rocking chair.
Pitt's light revealed two bodies, one reposed in a bunk, the other sitting as though slumbering in the rocking chair. The corpse in the bunk was lying on its side against the bulkhead naked, the position the Tuaregs had crudely shoved it in when stripping away the clothes and bed covers and mattress. A thicket of red hair still covered the head and face.
Giordino joined Pitt and closely studied the figure in the chair. Under the bright glare of the max optic light, the skin reflected a dark brown shade with the same textured leather look of Kitty Mannock's body. It had also mummified from the dry heat of the outside desert. The body was still clothed in old-fashioned one-piece underwear.
Even in the sitting position it was evident the man had been quite tall. His face was bearded and exceedingly gaunt with very prominent ears. The eyes were closed as if he had simply drifted off to sleep, the brows thick and strangely short, stopped abruptly as if clipped at the outer edge of the eye. The hair and beard were jet black with only a sprinkling of gray.
"This guy is the spitting image of Lincoln," Giordino remarked conversationally.
"That is Abraham Lincoln," came Perlmutter's subdued voice from the doorway. He slowly sank to the deck, his back against the bulkhead, like a whale settling to the seabed. His eyes were locked on the corpse in the rocking chair as if hypnotically fixed.
Pitt stared at Perlmutter with concern and obvious skepticism. "For a renowned historian, you've taken a wrong turn, haven't you?"
Giordino knelt beside Perlmutter and offered him a drink from a water bottle. "The heat must be getting to you, big buddy."
Perlmutter waved away the water. "God oh God, I couldn't bring myself to believe it. But Lincoln's Secretary of War, Edwin McMasters Stanton, did reveal the truth in his secret papers."
"What truth?" asked Pitt, curious.
He hesitated, and then his voice came almost in a whisper. "Lincoln was not shot by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theater. That is him sitting in that rocking chair."
Pitt stared at Perlmutter, incapable of absorbing the words. "Lincoln's assassination was one of the most widely recorded events in American history. There were over a hundred witnesses in the theater. How can you say it didn't happen?"
Perlmutter gave a slight shrug of his shoulders. "The event occurred as reported, only it was a staged deception planned and carried out by Stanton using a near look-alike actor made up to appear as Lincoln. Two days before the fake assassination, the real Lincoln was captured by the Confederates and sneaked through Union lines to Richmond where he was held hostage. This part of the story is backed up by another deathbed statement by a captain in the Confederate cavalry who led the capture."
Pitt looked thoughtfully at Giordino, then back at Perlmutter. "This southern cavalry captain, his name by chance was Neville Brown."
Perlmutter's jaw dropped. "How did you know?"
"We ran into an old American prospector who was looking for the Texas and her gold. He told us about Brown's story."
Giordino looked as if he was waking from a bad dream. "We thought it was a fairy tale."
"Believe you me," said Perlmutter, unable to keep his eyes from the corpse, "it's no fairy tale. The abduction plot was hatched by an aide of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in an effort to save what was left of the South. With Grant tightening the noose around Richmond and Sherman marching north to strike General Lee's army of Virginia from the rear, the war was lost and everyone knew it. The hatred for the secessionist states in Congress was no secret. Davis and his government were certain the North would exact a terrible tribute when the Confederacy was totally defeated. The aide, whose name has been forgotten, came up with the wild proposal that by capturing Lincoln and holding him as a hostage, the South could use him as leverage to strike an advantageous deal for surrender terms."
"Actually not a bad idea," said Giordino, settling on the deck to take a load off his feet.
"Except for old nasty Edwin Stanton. He queered the deal."
"He refused to be blackmailed," said Pitt.
"That and other reasons," Perlmutter nodded. "To Lincoln's credit, he insisted Stanton join his cabinet as Secretary of War. He believed Stanton was the best man for the job despite the fact the man disliked Lincoln intensely, even sneering at him as the `original gorilla.' Stanton saw the President's capture as an opportunity rather than a disaster."
"How was Lincoln abducted?" asked Pitt.
"The President was known to take a daily carriage ride through the countryside surrounding Washington most every day. A Confederate cavalry troop, dressed in Union cavalry uniforms, and led by Captain Brown, overwhelmed Lincoln's escort during one of the outings and smuggled him across the Potomac River and into Confederate-held territory."
Pitt was having trouble putting the pieces together. An historical event he had fervently believed as gospel was now being revealed as a fraud, and it took all his willpower to keep an open mind. "What was Stanton's immediate reaction to Lincoln's abduction?" he asked.