LITMIR.BIZ

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for the North, the opposite of a Copperhead.

      “And three months ago,” Thorne went on, “you were a rebel on Johnson’s staff, am I right?”

      “Yes, sir.”

      “And back then, Faulconer, our Young Napoleon was marching on Richmond. No, that is the wrong verb. He was crawling toward Richmond, while Detective Pinkerton,” Thorne mocked the description with his tone, “was convincing little George that the rebels had two hundred thousand troops. You sent information that would have corrected that misapprehension, only the news never got through. Some clever bastard on the other side replaced your dispatch with one of their own devising and so Richmond survived. I almost stopped that clever bastard, Faulconer, indeed I broke a leg trying, but I failed.” He grimaced, then sucked on his cigar. The smoke hung in the room like the lingering skein of a rifle shot.

      “Back then, Faulconer,” Thorne continued, “I was working for the Inspector General’s Department. I did the jobs no one else wanted. Now I am more exalted, but still no more popular with this army than I was when I inspected their damned latrines or wondered why they needed so many clerks. But now, Faulconer, I have a measure of power. It is not mine, but belongs to my master and he lives in that house there.” He jerked the cigar toward the White House. “You follow me?”

      “I think so, sir.”

      “The president, Faulconer, believes as I do that this army is largely commanded by cretins. The army, of course, believes that the country is ruled by fools, and perhaps both are right, but for the moment, Faulconer, I’d put my money on the fools rather than the cretins. Officially I am a mere liaison officer between the fools and the cretins, but in reality, Faulconer, I am the president’s creature in the army. My job is to prevent the cretins from being more than usually cretinous. I want your help.”

      Adam said nothing, not because he was reluctant to help, but because he was astonished by Thorne and his words. He was also cheered by them. The North, for all its power, seemed to be wallowing helplessly in the face of the rebellion’s energy and that made no sense to Adam, but here, at last, was a man who had a vigor to match the enemy’s defiance.

      “Did you know, Faulconer, that your father has become Deputy Secretary of War for the Confederacy?” Thorne asked.

      “No, sir, I didn’t.”

      “Well, he is. In time, maybe, that will be useful, but not now.” Thorne pulled a sheet of paper toward him and in so doing toppled another pile that spilt close to the gas jet. A corner of paper burst into flames that Thorne slapped out with the air of a man forever extinguishing such accidental fires. “You left the Confederacy three months ago and joined Galloway’s Horse?” he asked, taking the facts from the paper he had selected.

      “Yes, sir.”

      “He was a good man, Galloway. He had some bright ideas, which is why, of course, this army starved him of men and resources. But it was still a damn fool idea for Galloway to get mixed up in battle. You were supposed to be scouts, not shock troops. Galloway died, yes?”

      “I’m afraid so, sir.”

      “And his second in command is missing, maybe dead, maybe captured. What was his name?”

      “Blythe, sir,” Adam said bitterly. He had never liked, much less trusted, Billy Blythe.

      “So Galloway’s Horse, so far as I can see, is a dead beast,” Thorne said. “No employment for you there, Faulconer. Are you married?”

      The sudden question surprised Adam. He shook his head. “No, sir.”

      “Quite right, too. A mistake to marry early.” Thorne went silent for a moment. “I’m making you a major,” he said abruptly, then waved Adam’s embarrassed thanks to silence. “I’m not promoting you because you deserve it, I don’t know if you do, but because if you work for me you’ll be constantly harassed by brainless staff officers and the higher your rank the less obnoxious that harassment will be.”

      “Yes, sir,” Adam said.

      Thorne drew on his cigar and stared at Adam. He liked what he saw. Major Adam Faulconer was a young man, fair haired and bearded, with a square, trustworthy face. He was, Thorne knew, an instinctive Unionist and an honest man, but maybe, Thorne reflected, those were the wrong qualities for this job. Maybe he needed a rogue, but the choice had not belonged to Thorne. “So what are you to do, Faulconer? I shall tell you.” He stood again and began pacing up and down behind his desk. “We have hundreds of sympathizers behind the enemy lines and most of them are no damn good. They see a rebel regiment march past and they’re so overawed by the column’s length that they report ten thousand men where in truth they’ve only seen a thousand. They send their messages and Detective Pinkerton multiplies their figure by three and Little George quakes in his fighting boots and begs Halleck to send him another army corps, and that, Faulconer, is how we’ve been conducting this war.”

      “Yes, sir,” Adam said.

      Thorne tugged up a window sash to let some of the cigar smoke out of the room. The city’s sewage stench wafted in with a flutter of moths that flew suicidally toward the yellow-blue flames of the gas jets. Thorne turned back to Adam. “But I have a handful of agents of my own, and one of them is of particular value. He’s a lazy man and I doubt that his allegiance to the North is anything other than a cynical calculation as to the war’s outcome, but he has the possibility of revealing the rebel’s strategy to us, everything! How many? Where? Why? The same kind of thing you tried to reveal on the peninsula. But he’s also a timid man. His patriotism is not so strong that he fancies a hempen rope round his neck on a rebel gallows, and for that reason he is a cautious man. He will send us dispatches, but he will not use any means except those of his own devising. He won’t risk his neck trying to ride through the lines, but said I could provide a courier who could run that risk, but he insisted it would have to be someone he could trust.” Thorne paused to draw on his cigar, then jabbed it toward Adam. “He named you.”

      Adam said nothing. Instead he was trying to think of someone who matched Thorne’s description, someone he obviously knew well in his native Virginia, but he could pluck no name or face out of his tangled memories. For a few wild seconds he wondered if it was his father, then he dismissed that thought. His father would never betray Virginia as Adam had done. “Might I ask—” Adam began.

      “No,” Thorne interrupted. “I’m not giving you his name. You don’t need his name. If a message reaches you then you’ll probably realize who he is, but it won’t help you to know now. To be frank, Faulconer, I don’t know what will help you. All I know is that one weak man in the Confederacy has told me he’ll address his dispatches to you, but beyond that all is mystery.” Thorne spread his arms in a gesture that expressed his own dissatisfaction with the clumsy and imprecise arrangements he was describing. “How my man will reach you, I don’t know. How you will reach him, I cannot guess. He won’t take risks, so you’ll have to. All I can tell you is this. Just over a week ago I sent this man a message demanding that he find an excuse, any excuse, to attach himself to Lee’s headquarters and I have no reason to think he will disobey. He won’t like it, but he will do as I ask. He will stay close to Lee’s headquarters and you will stay close to McClellan’s. Little George will think you’re a nuisance, but you’ll have papers saying that you work for the Inspector General and are preparing a report on the efficacy of the army’s signaling systems. If Little George does try to hobble you, tell me and I’ll rescue you.” For a moment Thorne faltered, suddenly beset by the hopelessness of what he tried to do. He had told Adam the truth, but he had not revealed how ramshackle the whole arrangement was. His man in Richmond had provided Adam’s name weeks before, not in connection with this scheme, but as a messenger who could be trusted and now, in utter desperation, Thorne was recruiting Adam in the hope that somehow his reluctant Southern agent could discover Lee’s strategy and communicate it to Adam. The chances of success were slender, but something had to be done to neutralize Pinkerton’s defeatist intelligence and to ward off the dreadful prospect of a Southern victory that would invite the damned Europeans to come and dance on America’s carcass.

      “You’ve

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