“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.”