Rook glanced at his crew of men and decided they could spare him for a few minutes. A wagon loaded with more sandbags had just arrived. It was enough to keep them busy for a little longer.
A few minutes later, Rook and Springfield were sitting beside each other on a bench in Lafayette Park.
“I didn’t want to approach you while you were sandbagging,” said Springfield. “I heard what happened at the meeting.”
“I got sandbagged all right.”
“It’s a shame, sir.”
“Don’t worry about it. Technically, as one of my men, you’re supposed to be over here piling bags too. But I don’t care what Scott thinks. I want you to keep doing what you’re doing.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What do you have for me?”
“I started intercepting Grenier’s mail. One letter caught my eye because of who sent it.”
Springfield removed a letter from his pocket and gave it to Rook-it was the April 19 letter describing the loss of Lucius, signed by Langston Bennett. Rook skimmed it.
“I knew Bennett in Mexico,” said Rook. “I didn’t know him personally, but by reputation. He was an officer during the war. He lost a leg and returned home. I haven’t heard his name in ages.”
“It comes from South Carolina.”
“Yes, that’s where I believe he was from. That’s all?”
“He must be a secessionist.”
For a moment Rook thought that perhaps Scott had a point after all. It looked like a harmless piece of mail. Were they spending too much time obsessing over conspiracies?
“I don’t think there’s much to it,” said Rook.
Springfield must have had the same thought. “I’ll let it go through,” he said.
“Anything else, Sergeant?”
“No, sir.”
“What about that visitor she had?”
“I haven’t seen him.”
“You will soon. I’ve got a plan to learn more about him.”
It was late afternoon when Mazorca returned to his room at the boardinghouse. He had risen before dawn to examine the bridges leaving Washington, one by one. Originally he had planned to rent a horse for the day, but with so many the people leaving the city following the catastrophe in Baltimore, horses were hard to come by and exorbitantly priced. He had the money for it but did not want to be seen as having the money for it. So he walked. There were four bridges in all, and Mazorca wanted to see how long they were, how well they were guarded, and what the other side of the river looked like. He did not actually cross any of them, because turning around and heading right back would draw notice, especially if the sentries at one bridge were to compare notes with the sentries at another.
First he went all the way to the Chain Bridge, to the west. Then he proceeded eastward, observing the bridge in Georgetown and the Long Bridge south of downtown. The last bridge, spanning the east branch of the Potomac, interested him the most. It was the only one leading into Maryland. The other side of the river was technically a part of the District, but Maryland lay just beyond, across an invisible line in what appeared to be sparsely populated countryside. Soldiers at the other three bridges were on the lookout for military activity in Virginia, and there were enough of them posted at each to hold off an advancing column until reinforcements could arrive. The last bridge, however, was different. An attack from Maryland wouldn’t come from across the bridge. There were few guards. Mazorca liked what he saw.
Back in his room, Mazorca opened his trunk and removed a pile of maps. He searched through the small stack until he found the one he wanted. It was of southern Maryland. He unfolded it on the floor. A few small towns were sprinkled around the region, though for the most part it seemed to be a mixture of rural farmland and swampy wilderness. Coves, creeks, and inlets pockmarked the Potomac. It looked perfect.
Mazorca knew from experience that the information contained on maps often required verification. There was a big difference between studying an area on paper and visiting it in person. Doing it properly, he realized, would require a horse, even at some expense.
But that was a problem for another day, and this one was coming to an end. He was happy with what he had learned. He was one step closer to an escape plan. Now he needed to think about a plan that would make his escape necessary.
He had purchased a copy of the Evening Star on his way back from the bridge. The small type on its front page described the news and other events, but his eye drifted over to the right-hand columns, full of little advertisements. One in particular caught his eye. It was for French amp; Richstein, a bookstore at 278 Pennsylvania Avenue. The proprietors proudly announced the arrival of “the first elegant household edition” of The Pickwick Papers, by Charles Dickens.
Mazorca had heard of the popular British author. He decided to buy a copy of this new book. But he had no intention of reading it.
James Leery had not moved to Charleston specifically because he wanted to free its slaves. He had arrived there from New York in 1859 to open a photography studio. After working as an apprentice for three years in his native city, he wanted to succeed on his own. But the picture business was fierce, and he feared failure. Then his father, an indulgent man who supported his son’s fascination with this newfangled technology, made a vital connection.
The elder Leery was a trader who dealt extensively with commodities from the South. He came into frequent contact with men from the region and learned much about life in a part of the country he had never seen with his own eyes. It gave him tremendous sympathy for the Southern cause. One day a conversation with a visitor from Charleston turned to photography-and it did not conclude until after they had walked to the shop where the young Leery coordinated sittings for customers and took photographs that were ultimately credited to the owner of the studio. Within a week, the three men had settled on a plan: the father and his friend would invest in the son, who would start a new studio in Charleston, which had not yet embraced photography with the enthusiasm of Northern cities.
At first, James did not want to go. Unlike his father, whose livelihood depended on a thriving Southern economy, James detested the South and its culture of forced servitude. He believed slavery was immoral, corrupting both the lives of those in bondage and the souls of the men who kept them there. He attended abolitionist meetings and subscribed to William Lloyd Garrison’s newspaper, The Liberator. He felt a strong sense of guilt over the fact that his prosperous upbringing-which included a good home, an expensive education, and the ability to shirk his father’s profession in favor of the photographic arts-had been made possible, in part, by the product of slave labor. The idea of living in the South to provide a service to the people who cracked the whips did not appeal to him.
Yet his love of photography was strong, and the opportunity to run his own studio proved too tempting to resist. He resolved that he would indeed go to Charleston and take pictures of planters and their families-but that he would also work against the slave system. His business thrived from the start. Leery resolved to use the money the planting class threw at him to purchase the freedom of young slaves whose whole lives lay in front of them. This was how he came to know Marcus, his studio assistant. He bought him at auction, took him back to the shop, announced to the startled boy that he was free-and offered him a job.
Leery’s reputation for charity spread quickly through Charleston’s large community of free blacks. It later became known to many of the city’s slaves that he was a friend. When a runaway knocked on his door late one summer night, he consented to give the man some money. A few weeks later, another runaway showed up and Leery agreed to harbor him for a few days. To the whites who ruled Charleston, Leery was an eccentric Northerner who provided a unique service. They had no idea of what else he did-and he was always cautious about doing too much.