In a firmer tone, he said, “You don’t have the privilege to tell me no. You are still in my employ. Or would you prefer not to be?”
“I won’t stay,” I said. “If you don’t send me somewhere closer to the action, that’s it. I’ll resign and go myself. Watch for my telegrams.”
“Warne, Warne, Warne,” he said, resting his elbows on the desk. He had rolled up his sleeves. There was more exhaustion than anger in his voice when he said my name. “We can’t lose you.”
“You’ve lost me if you don’t put me to use.”
“Don’t you believe I know what’s best for you?”
“All due respect, Boss, I don’t care what’s best for me. You shouldn’t be thinking of me. Think of the country.”
I could see right away I’d overstepped. It was inappropriate to imply that he was letting his feelings get in the way of his decisions. But all the same, I wasn’t sad I’d said it. As much as lies were our business with everyone else, between us, there needed to be nothing but truth.
He said, “I’ll think on it.”
I bit back what I most wanted to say: Think fast.
? ? ?
The waiting seemed interminable, but I knew better than to rush him. If I wanted to be treated as a professional, that was how I had to act. It had been enough so far. So there would be no wheedling or whining, no words of persuasion, no batting of my eyelashes, no gamesmanship. Only waiting for his decision. And if he made the wrong one, then I would react.
Three days later, I had my orders and my new identity.
I was flabbergasted when Pinkerton told me I was right and that I was needed in a place of great danger. He explained that he was sending me where I wanted to go, right up next to the action, but I wasn’t going alone.
I was to report to the train station immediately—I already had my bag—and therefore had little time to process the news about my traveling companion until I stepped up into the railcar and sat down next to him.
Tim Bellamy.
He eyed me without surprise—Pinkerton must have prepared him as well—and commented, “Looks like we’re equally pigheaded.”
“Looks that way.”
The train made its lurch into motion, sending us both swaying along with everyone else in the car, and we were underway, bound for Washington.
Chapter Twenty-One
Intelligence
We talked little on the ride, caught up in our own thoughts, reading and memorizing files we knew we’d need to destroy as soon as we reached our destination. Our lives had been built on subterfuge for years, but there had never been quite this much riding on our success at it, and our enemies had never been so thick on the ground.
Even before we got to Washington, I could tell it had changed since my last visit. Miles out from the city, a blossoming of white covered the countryside. Smaller blue figures swarmed about. It was the army, encamped. We glided slowly past their tents, and I searched for the expressions on the faces of the soldiers, but for better or worse, I was not close enough to see.
When we finally arrived, we stepped off the train into hot swamp air. I had spent summers all over the Cotton States and had never felt heat like this before. Beads of perspiration clustered at my hairline as we waited outside the station for our carriage. I desperately wanted to shed layers of clothes and go about with my legs and arms bare. Failing that, I wanted to plunge into a pool or simply turn tail and go north again. But I had already planted my stake in the ground. I couldn’t be a passionate patriot only when the whim struck me. I needed to serve, day in and day out. And so I would. Which on this mission, meant Tim Bellamy always by my side.
I knew what it meant, pretending to be husband and wife. Had we been in a different city, pretending to be more well-off citizens, we might have maintained separate bedrooms and not been questioned. Many wives and husbands slept apart. But hotel rooms were not so easy to come by, at least not in the neighborhood we needed to inhabit. Paying for two would have been an extravagance and a visible, dissonant one. So we would share.
Of all the things my job as an operative had asked of me so far, this seemed like it might be the most taxing. I’d feared for my life. I’d lied and cheated, let myself be treated like chattel, been harmed for the good of the case. But all of those things, terrible as they were, were over quickly. This would be weeks, if not months, of work. Even years. From my earliest days at the agency, Pinkerton had avoided assigning us to work together, and now I wished he hadn’t. Now, I was facing the hardest assignment of my life, relying completely on the cooperation of a man who still did not seem to trust or respect me.
Then again, I told myself, what man did trust or respect me? Only Pinkerton and DeForest, and neither of them were here. I wished for a moment that the boss had sent DeForest as my partner instead, but I had to trust he had his reasons.
Anyway, we had our orders. We followed them.
With letters of introduction—some forged, some real—we settled into our new roles, and within two weeks, we had the invitation we needed to get underway. Tuesday night, we were to report to General Greene’s house on Capitol Hill. The general himself was beyond reproach, as much as any man could be in these wild times. We were there to keep an eye on one of the guests, a Mrs. Rose Greenhow.
We’d been preparing since our arrival, but this was our first big night to debut as our new identities. I readied myself as we stood in the anteroom, waiting for dinner to start. A bell rang out. The man next to me introduced himself, and I swept low in a curtsy, bending and straightening in exactly the manner my mother had taught me ever so long ago.
When I rose, Kate Warne was gone. I was Mrs. Annie Armstrong and none other.