SCENE THIRTY TWO Richmond, VA, Isle d' Tresor, three nights later.
Isle d' Tresor was crowded, alight with hoardes of candles and full of dance music tonight, because Antoinette decided to move up the date of her Grande Balle Royale by a full week. And while some guests complained of the short notice, others were very well pleased with the surprises they for in such a short span of time. And while some guests came in various period costumes, most simply wore their best post-bellum attire.
Artemus was greatly enjoying himself surprising people by switching roles and costumes several times, from Athos, to Richelieu, to Buckingham's 'Good King Charles'. After one such change, the former actor was headed back downstairs, only to be surprised himself.
'temus! Hey there, Temus! We're coming with!" A chorus of youthful voices he hadn't heard in weeks called out. Artie turned around on the landing above the foyer, and grinned. Rushing towards him en masse was most of W Company, about half of the Veterans and two thirds of Company D. They all looked delighted to see the former actor. And they all looked somewhat rumpled, as if they'd been hurriedly packed in a huge steamer trunk that still wasn't big enough for them all.
"Well, it's about time you fellows showed up around here." Mac Macquillan announced, as he reached the landing. "Where in the Sam Hill have you been, anyway? What happened to you? Where are the Ls?"
"Hey, Prof, take it slow, take it easy there!" Youngest Jaimey, the elder of this rowdy crew insisted. "We all got shoved in a closet, you might say. And it wasn't that fun, and it was Oldest Torry who shoved us! That darned fool thought he hadta carry the whole … the whole megillah, like Temus calls it, around on only his shoulders! But the Ls finally picked th' danged lock, an' here we come. So, what've you fellows got up your fancy shirt sleeves, this time?"
"Gentlemen," Artie said, grinning fiercely. 'speaking for myself alone, I think this party would be a fine opportunity for you to enjoy yourselves, without 'giving away the store'. And you might even pick up a piece of interesting information here and there that could be … very worthwhile. We're expecting a very … diverse sort of crowd, and some of the most intriguing guests on the list are already here"
"And you're expecting some more real intrig… interes… y'know, more of them?" Jaimey asked, tripping badly over his eager tongue.
"A few more." Artemus nodded, and then pinned Jaimey and his brothers with a sharp look. "Including one… that if it comes back to me that you squealed to James…"
"Oh, Oldest won't get a peep from us, Temus, not one peep. He's sore anyhow, that we're not still all shut up and shut down." Courier announced, with a wide eyed look of harmless innocence, that didn't suit his chiseled features one bit. "C'mon fellows, we've got a job of work t' do t'night, eavesdroppin' and all that on all these … real nice folks."
"Not all of them, Cour." D'artagnan called out. 'some of Ani's guests are folks she really wants to be here."
"Oh, she WANTS that Fairholm… woman here, D'ar." Courier laughed, as he headed towards the buffet. "Ani WANTS to throw her right into the compost pile, she's saving up for all her roses. Come t' think of it, so do I! "
"Temus-Poppa! Temus-Poppa! Dere yous is! Temus-Poppa, wees Ehls, yous guddes' Ehls be camed t' be see yous 'gen!" Another higher pitched chorus called out and Artie turned around to grin at the sight of all four dozen and 3 members of
L Company dashing up the stairs towards him. They looked just as dishelved as their brothers but other than that fine.
"Well, hello, Sirs." Artie nodded. "I hear you were the ones who managed this little jail break. And I have to say, I'm very proud."
"Wees did be did what you be teld Ol'es, long an long, Temus-Poppa, to be usin what comes fer your hands. An' what camed fern us'ns hands was some of … wees fink, mebbees us'ns guddes' Ani's little hairs pinnin' fings. Sees dem?" Torry Sojer grinned and held up a set of turned metal hairpins, the color of highly polished bronze.
"Yes, yes, I do and they look to be just fine."Artie agreed, while thinking they were too bright a color to belong to Antoinette or, to her two closest companions, Mari and Zulie. "Well, alright, let's get to the party, friends and get it rolling."
For the rest of the evening, the Ls shyly kept close to Micah, Miguel and Ani, clearly their favorite members of the household. The Ws kept careful watch on the Ls, as they had the Watch, tonight, and only took a minute here and there to successfully raid the dessert table. D Company hung back at first, scorning as usual any social event. But they were spotted now and then peering at the dancers in the ballroom, as if watching some odd mating rituals in a zoo. V Company for the most part finally seemed to be feeling like kids let out of school, and acted like it.
Half of Mac's team took up the challenge of wearing Dumas pere costumes, suited to various roles from Monte Cristo to Mazarin, and from Aramis to Louis Quatorze. But the 'costume drill' was something neither Macquillan himself, or his protégé, Jim West had much taste for these days. They were dressed merely as what the Bostonian called 'a couple of fancy swells'.
"Well, at least James didn't ditch the party." Artie noted in one early conversation with Jacques. "I'm pretty sure he was ready to do just that. But someone let him know in no uncertain terms that wouldn't be exactly fair or very considerate, as the putative guest of honor."
"Vraiment." Jacques nodded. " Notre jeune ami has become quite the recluse since his uncle and aunt visited. The news of M'sieur Randolph's ill health struck Jim I believe even harder than he expected. Have you conversed with Jim at all, mon ami?"
"I've tried to half a dozen times. But he's been monosyllabic to the point of making me wish I never started. And that, I'd
be willing to bet is the reason he does it, Jacques." Artie frowned. "But before you ask, no, I'm not about to give up that campaign."
"Not even if takes all summer, Artemus?" Jim asked, after literally sneaking up behind his friends.
"Not even then." Artie growled. "What's with you tonight, James? You're acting like a rowdy schoolboy who can't play much at all in his Sunday go to meeting clothes."
"Ani made a strong point of getting me to this party. And you both know I don't like this kind of event very much at all. And you both know why I'm not much in a party mood. But for her sake, here I am, if only until I have the honor of a dance with Queen Anne." Jim answered.
"Well, at least you're using words of more than one syllable at a time tonight, Jim.' Artie jibed.
"Was I?" Jim quipped, and turned away.
"Torry! Here are you, mon ami!" Micah called out, rushing up to the trio. " Bon soir, Jacques, 'allo, Temus, comment allez vous?"
"Bien, mon petit, tres bien." Jacques laughed. "As I see you are, by the evidence of … I believe much raspberry sorbet on your chin."
"And strawsberry and lime, and l'orange!" Micah giggled. 'torry, come and taste some of the ices with me, please? Maman says they comed from Italy. But I think they would have melted into the ocean on the way from there, n'cest pas?"
"Absolutement." Jim nodded, took Micah's hand and promptly left his friends to help the little boy investigate the multiple flavored ices and sorbets on a table set against the far wall.
"Something is definitely up with him." Artie noted, frowning as Jim made his strategic retreat.
"What is actually worrying you to this extent tonight, Artemus?" Jacques asked. "Are you unwell, mon ami?"
"No, no, I'm fine. I told you, and you just saw it, unless he has to, Jim hardly utters a word, lately. Not only that he has next to nothing to say lately about his brothers. And, on top of all that, I don't think our young friend James is going to take it well at all, if the Man is able to get down here, tonight and surprises him." Artie answered.
"Non, c'est vrai. Jacques nodded. 'mais the whole subject of M'sieur L' President is something Jim will no longer discuss under any circumstances whatsoever. And that leaves me very ill at ease. Ah, there are Thomas, Jeremy and Frank, emerging from Miguel's study. Perhaps they have some word of whom we should expect later this evening."
Jacques and Artie crossed the hall, ducking guests, household staff and musicians, to reach their partners. But Frank shook his head as soon as they were in earshot. 'the President most likely can't make it tonight, and probably not for another fortnight at the least. He's keeping one eye on labor strikes already underway around Chicago, and the other on strike votes being threatened up around Boston. He's worried that he'll have to call up the Army to calm things down. And I'm worried that he'll decide he should go and do the calming down himself!"
"Oh, terrific!" Artie exclaimed. "And just how do we talk the President out of doing that?"
"Were any of you ever going to ask me how to do that?" Jim demanded, stepping in between Jere Pike and Frank Harper.
"You haven't exactly shown much interest in our discussions lately, James m' boy." Artie answered.
"Well most of them have been pretty boring lately. That's true. And it's also true I don't know our new President Wilson** very well at all. But this is kinda up my alley, or what used to be my alley. So, maybe I do have something to offer." Jim frowned.
[** Henry Wilson was Grant's second Vice President]
"Go ahead and offer, Youngster." Mac agreed. "What's your idea?"
"Well, if you could get.. I dunno, maybe Oregon or Indiana or even better, California to threaten secession," Jim joked. 'that would definitely distract him from going to talk to workers someplace else. On the other hand, that might cause a little problem… Didn't we run into something like this once before, Prof?"
"Yeah, a little problem we're calling the Civil War, these days, Youngster. Did you have another suggestion for us?" Macquillan laughed.
"Yeah, yeah I do. I think you should be absolutely honest with the Man, sit down and tell him he just can't leave the White House anytime soon. Cause there are strikes now and there are gonna be more up and down the northeast and midwest.
And there's all kinds of Indian troubles out on the plains and in the mountains. Also, there are some pretty cranky miners
out in Nevada, Montana, Utah and Arizona, cause they're running out of precious metals to get filthy rich from." Jim noted, straight-faced. 'So you just need to be stringently honest and tell President Wilson to stay at home… or to go on a tour of South America or a Grand Tour, cause in other countries, I hear everyone likes Americans a whole lot."
"Oh, fine! Fine idea, James." Jeremy chortled. "I don't suppose you'd like to take on the job of telling the President this plan of yours, yourself?"
The smile that had been creasing Jim's features fell away and died. "Nope. No can do. Not my job, not anymore." The younger agent said stiffly and all but marched away from the silenced group, and out of the hall altogether.
Jeremy winced and shook his head. "Well, that was my fault, fellows. Jim was practically chattering away. And being funny, too, for the first time in …. I don't know how long. And then I had to …"
"Ask a reasonable question?" Frank interjected. "No, sir. You didn't put the ramrod back up Jim's … tailbone. None of us did that. And the best thing I can think to say about it, is now we know who did. And wouldn't I love to get my hands around that so and so's neck!"
"Wouldn't we all?" Artie agreed hotly. "And all we have to do is find that monster on two legs, Gideon Boudin, somewhere we can arrest and indict and try and jail him, that's all! Damn! Jim didn't even stay to dance with Antoinette! Something's very wrong with that young… magnet for disaster!"
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Three hours later, with a fancy dinner over and cleared away, the guests were back to dancing in the main hall and the
foyer and most of the downstairs of Isle d' Tresor. Mac's team however was presently divided in three parts. First were those who were paying closest heed to one of Ani's most critical guests, Rowena Fairholm, just in case she let slip something incriminating they could add to their growing case. Second team were those who waited, while keeping tabs on other suspect wealthy Richmond natives, for some final word on Ulysses Grant's arrival here. And last were those who spent most of the evening trying to decipher and defuse Jim West's current mood.
The former soldier was edgy, contradictory, hot tempered and uncivil to everyone, excepting only Ani and her son. Jim was seen all but marching from one side of the ball room to the other at one point, scowling and muttering about what they couldn't tell. Then he took his promised dance with Ani, smiling and chuckling like a courtier, and delighted Micah by letting him cut in.
"Mon Cher Dauphin, ma tres belle Reine, I am most grateful for your kind indulgence this evening and now must bid you good night." Jim bowed and said having changed into the tunic, boots and trews, the embroidered cape and gloves Ani got him to wear as Buckingham. 'my personal cadre of constantly hovering vultures, otherwise known as Jacques, Jeremy and Jemison, or the team's doctors, have me on a absurdly strict curfew. And I am not at liberty any longer, so it seems, to dispute with them. Bon soir, ma plus cher, plus puissant et plus belle reine Anne, your completely devoted servant, mum, as always, and yours, my Prince."
"Mon tres cher Duc," Ani giggled, hoping Jim was actually having some fun with this nonsense tonight. "As always our court is made more brilliant by your presence, and therefore dimmed by your leaving us. May we hope to have your company, M'sieur L' Duc, on our 'progress' through Richmond… that is through our Beloved Paris, a deman?"
"It shall be with me as you command, Milady, always." the pseudo courtier agreed, with a crooked grin and bowing again, Jim left her side.
Later he was in the library, where a liberal amount of liquor was being served all night, or in the upstairs study, vacated for the night by his partners, laboriously paging through the Braille books he'd asked his friends to bring. All of the team, and especially Mac and Ori, who was moonlighting, reading the Law with Macquillan these days were aware of Jim's present fascination for anything related to the Militar Code of Justice, the Treasure Department's guidelines for its agents, and the Federal Criminal Code. They knew the former soldier was increasingly restive, even bored with his limitations. That was only to be expected. But when Jimmy Randolph confirmed that his nephew asked for his help and Robby's to 'translate' some of the casework on treason trials for Jim, even Thomas Macquillan became openly concerned.
"Youngster, this material takes most lawyers who go in for it ten, fifteen, or twenty years to get a handle on it." Mac told Jim the night of the Balle when he found his protégé huddled with a decanter of bourbon and a tome on Federal Capital Case Law.
"Then I'd best get back to work on it, Mac. I'm about nineteen years and eleven months behind." Jim jibed, and went back to sliding his right hand down each wide, high page.
"And can you at least tell me why you need to be the one who understands this case law?" The Bostonian asked.
"Because the person who would otherwise be the best advisor I could possibly get on the matter of pleading guilty in a treason trial won't even consider helping me with that." Jim shot back.
"Well, I can and I will advise you, Jimmy, that pleading guilty in a Criminal case, and even more so in a Capital Trial is always ill advised to say the least." Macquillan replied. "In fact it's almost as ill advised as a man in any criminal case at all trying to handle his own defense."
"Well, I've got no defense at all, Prof. So that's one less thing to worry about." Jim shrugged. Mac thought for a moment that the younger man was going to go back to reading. Instead, Jim slammed the big book shut and let it drop to the floor at his feet as he stood up.
"You could be helping me get ready for what I have to do, now, Thomas. You really could. But you're sticking to that old
idea about protecting your old friend's son, and in a way that's really about protecting your friend, I think. And you really shouldn't do that now, Prof. Nope. You really shouldn't. My Dad's been gone … six years now. So he needs nothing from you, least of all protection for his good name.
And I ..I'd change my name to Boudin tomorrow if that would keep what I've done from harming my family in Virginia, or down in Texas. But nothing can. Nothing. So all I can do is face it like a soldier, which I was, like an officer, which I was, and like a man, which … G-d knows I hoped to be, once. So, like I said, I could use your advice on the statement I'm trying to put together for whatever Federal Court or courts martial panel I end up allocuting for. But, of course …"
"Alright on that basis, let's hear what you've got so far, Youngster." Mac asked, thinking at least this would buy a little time while he waited for word on a certain traveler to Richmond tonight.
"Thanks, Prof." Jim said quietly and reached for the sheet of Braille he'd been adding to, almost word by word for days now. "Your Honor , With the Courts or… With the Panel's indulgence, I only wish to enter a statement into the record of these proceedings, which I believe will speed them to a swift and just conclusion for all concerned." Jim began reading and went through a detail account of the Courier Conspiracy as it became officially known. But then he added his own recollections and what information he'd gathered to date regarding the same plotter's failed conspiracy during the War.
"They took over what had, ironically enough, Sirs, been a convent school's campus and the adjacent convent of, I believe Sisters of Mercy, in the countryside west of Richmond and southeast of Fredericksburg. They took that property over in the summer of 1863, after Vicksburg fell, and the battle of Gettysburg was over. And from that time, which was mid July of '63 until October of 1864, the owners of that property took and held mainly Union prisoners to be used in a methodical process of torture. Those owners were shown on the deeds of that place to be one Reinhard-Peder Amadeus Mozart Branoch, and one Geoffrey Linnell Zukker. But those names were false, Sirs. The former was in fact Stephan Johannes Sebastian Aynsley and the latter was and is Gideon Alexander Remiel Boudin.
The point needs to be made here, Sirs, that there are no records, no correspondence, no reciepts, no ledgers, no documents at all indicating that the so called Confederate government in Richmond at that time had any knowledge of or contact with Aynsley or Boudin, or their 'prison'. Nevertheless, records exist to show that minor officials attached to General Wiedner's office in Richmond and to the Confederate prisons in that immediate area sent prisoners in their custody to this separate facility.
In total over those fifteen months some three hundred and eighty two prisoners were transferred and held there,
in an unofficial, uninspected, illegal, unauthorized place of confinement. They sent mostly captured officers from the Libby Prison and enlisted men held on Belle Isle, with some others from Castle Thunder and Castle Lightning in the city limits of Richmond. And in that same time period, some two hundred and three prisoners died and were buried in mass graves there.
I became one of the one hundred and seventy nine prisoners held in that place who survived, Sirs."
"The panel has some questions, at this time, Major West. Are you prepared to take our questions, as separate from your statement?" Mac asked, deliberately taking on the role of a courts martial judge or advocate.
"Y…yes, Sir." Jim answered, flummoxed by his mentor's tactics. "Please ask me whatever you wish, Brigadier Macquillan, Sir."
"That was a brevet promotion, long since expired, Major." Mac responded, dryly. "Nevertheless, the Court appreciates
your gesture of respect. This is our first question: 'do you know with a certainty beyond a shadow of a doubt, of your
own knowledge or from the records in your possession, Major West, what the purpose of this illegal facility was?"
"Yes, Sir. The purpose of holding prisoners there was to sift through that population by means of deprivation, isolation, abuse, illegal medical procedures and treatments, and through a process of implanting mesmeric or hypnotic cues called by its practicioners 'patterning', for men who could be used essentially as automatons directed as assassins against as many Union Commanders in the field as they could reach. In short, Sir, that prison in central Virginia during the War was the starting place and the founding bedrock of what became known five years later, in the District and in Baltimore as the
Courier Conspiracy." Jim answered as stiffly as if he were in a courts martial chamber.
"Very well, Major. We have at least one other question. Please notify the panel or the Judge Advocate if you need more time to prepare a response." Macquillan asked and glanced at the door of the study, where Artie stood nodding to him.
"Yes, Sir." Jim nodded.
"Very well. We'll ask only one further question at this time. Just in general for now, Major, please describe for the panel your own experience while being held a prisoner at that unlawful prison facility." Mac asked.
"My own experience, Sir?" Jim repeated, fighting to keep an inappropriate frown off his face. Mac was stalling him more and more by the minute. But for what?
"Yes, Major that was the substance of the question. Are you not prepared to answer it at this time?" Mac in the role of Judge Advocate demanded.
"No, no, Sir. That is, yes, Sir. I am ready to answer your question. I volunteered to investigate reports received about that prison and I entered its gates as a prisoner, supposedly transferred from the Libby, on August 7th, 1863. Five other agent officers of the Bureau had taken on the investigation at that point. But no reports had come back as to what they found. I soon learned all five our our agents had been executed and buried in one small grave, just outside the main building in the compound. Those men were Edward Ashton, Benjamin Franklin Harper, Jr, Carey Lawton, Robert Vann, and Jesse Lee, Sir."
"Go on, Major, what happened after you learned our agent's fates?" Mac probed, nodding back to Artie and Jemmy Singer at the door.
"I was put into solitary confinement for most of a week just at first, Sir. That proved to be the usual tactic used, especially against line officers taken there. After that, I was taken to what was called the hospital ward on the top floor of the main building in the compound. I had come down with a minor bout of malaria, Sir. And although the Confederate Army's doctors
at that point had little or no quinine for their troops, I quickly learned that the owners and operators of that place had a considerable stockpile of medicines and other supplies from the blackmarket. They used them in trade on a regular basis to supply the facility to some extent, and to keep their guards well paid and well fed.
The prisoners did not fare as well, which you might say was only to be expected, Sir. But the prisoners there throughout its operation had no better rations than the men starved to death during the worst months at Andersonville. Rough corn meal
of a nearly indigestible nature was passed out to us, and sometimes a chunk of … what might have been some sort of meat.
It was difficult to say. The prisoners naturally joked about this, saying they'd seen fatter rats in the sewers of Boston, New York and chicago than the pigs that so called bacon came from could possibly have been. I'm sorry, Sir. I digress. Was there something in particular you wished me to … to describe?" Jim asked, giving Mac the strong impression the younger man almost believed he was in a courtroom or courts martial.
"No, Major, actually we have a more general question to finish out this session. Can you delineate for us how it happened that the men who operated that prison, having failed in that endeavor, went on to conduct the Courier Conspiracy, five years later, in the District of Washington, and Baltimore?" Mac probed.
"Yes, Sir. It was because their plotting during the War years was never brought to the conclusion they sought for. Of the men who died at their hands, Sir, at least seventy or more were 'tested' to do their Courier-assassin's work. Of the men who survived, like myself, none were healthy enough at that point to keep our feet, much less attack anyone at all." Jim sighed, his nervous energy from earlier on waning now.
"None of the survivors were in any way healthy, Major?" Macquillan asked, nodding again to someone else in the wide doorway across the room. "None of them?"
"No,Sir. None. The survivors there, Sir were a total of one hundred and seventy nine scarecrows, as someone described us' Jim answered. "Was there anything else, Sir?"
"Yes, only one thing more we'd like to clarify, Major. All five of the solidier-agents who proceeded you there were executed." Mac said, hating what he was pushing Jim towards. " Is that correct?"
"Yes, Sir."
"But you were not. So the panel's remaining question, Major is simply to ask what purpose your captors had in maintaining you alive?"
Once again Jim stiffened, but he knew the Federal prosecutor or the Judge Advocate would surely ask him this. "Sir, I was chosen to undergo the testing used to select a Courier from among that prison population. They had yet to find what they called the Proper Courier Candidate. I admit to be as bemused by their choice at that point as the panel likely is, Sir. I was
ill almost the entire time with recurring malaria, often unable to leave what passed for a hospital cot. I fell at one point,
and broke my right leg in several places. And in plain fact, Sir, I was delirious so much of that time I cannot tell you how that injury occurred.
But then I realized why that choice was made. The man who as I said called himself Geoffrey Zukker, was someone I had known since childhood, Sir. He was a man named Gideon Boudin of Atlanta, who had done some business years ago with my uncle James Randolph's ship building concern in N'folk. And he, Boudin had developed an unexplicable, truly an irrational antipathy for my uncle and our family in general, Sir.
That was his reason for choosing me as a potential Courier. So he put me in isolation, he deprived me of either food or water for various periods of time. He and the guards and Aynsley used verbal and physical abuse. And I believe he dosed me more than once with compounds intended to confuse my thinking and bewilder my mind. And as part of the 'testing' I was given, Sir, as part of a systematic program meant to break the will of any man who went through it, Boudin … Gideon Boudin… Gave me a task, Sir… He ordered me … He ordered me to …"
"That's enough for the present time, Major West." Mac called out, having no wish to put Jim through another recitation of that part of the nightmare. 'the panel will call you back when all preparations are further along."
"Sir? Mac, what in the very devil are you doing now?" Jim asked, angrily breaking out of his defendant's role. "Am I supposed to tell the panel or the Court what happened there or am I not? Am I supposed to describe what those … monsters did and how they worked to make more monsters, like them, only with no mind, no will and no heart left inside their frames? Or am I supposed let the Court or the panel infer that somehow? I don't understand what you've been doing the past half hour or so, not one bit, Thomas!
Can you explain to me why you'd stop halfway through? Can you help me to understand how that could possibly help me get ready for … what you KNOW I'm facing, now? Can you, Mac? Cause right now I'm pretty damned lost on all this! I'm not trying to save my hide, which you already know damn well! I'm only trying to tell the truth in such a way that you might have some dim hope someday of stopping Remy Boudin, once and for all!
He and Aynsley and their well dressed, well fed absolutely revolting friends and aides there bought and sold men and boys and children. They stole spirits, minds, souls and hearts from everyone in there. They coerced innocents. They put children, invalids and men already at the brink of madness through the tortures of the damned! They sought to break a man's mind and dreams and world and life.
They used every possible dim, questionable or dark corner of a man to destroy him. They made weapons of every hope, every fear, every nightmare, every loss, every love and loyalty a man had in him at that point! They sought to tear a man's heart living out of his chest, to leave him… to leave me, empty-hearted and alone forever after. And whether you want me to say this again or not, Thomas, they brought me to the point of smashing the whole, entire Rules of Engagement by 'disposing' of the children they took as hostages there for them!
And they did all that to me and to all those others for their own insane purposes, for their own violent dreams to come true! And if you, Thomas, and Artemus and Jacques hadn't shown up that day in October of '63, with some of Phil Sheridan's Corps behind you… Well, we already know what those two bastards would have accomplished five years before they finally, finally did it! I was to go directly to General Grant's encampment. I was to go directly to him and murder him as quickly and silently as it could be done.
BUT, at that point I was to announce myself and what I'd done in full. I was to confess the deed entirely and kill myself there before any one else could make a move! And I was to carry two letters on me, just in case I was silenced by one of the General's detail. One letter was to the Commanding General, whoever would have become CG at that point, completely delineating the plot and my guilt. The other letter was to my Uncle James, to tell him what Boudin had just accomplished, through his flesh and blood.
Well, that was what those two wanted done during the War. And as you can surely tell, I was a very well credentialed Courier candidate. But it fell through. And it was, after all their first attempt. So that could have well been expected. So they left the country, Aynsley went back to Austria for a short while. Boudin returned to Haiti where he was born. And they waited for another time to strike. They waited for most of five years. And they waited for General Grant to become President Grant. And they reached out for their best possible Courier Candidate again, that being me.
And they took their time, laying and baiting a very elaborate, time consuming, murderous trap for me. First they killed, as we know now, more than twenty former Confederates in the District and Washington, to GET OUR ATTENTION. Then, they killed Artemus' friend and contact, Shimon Danielson and his wife, Zarah. But those two fine young people weren't JUST MURDERED, Mac, as you very well know. They were tortured and mutilated and defamed… as if the whole act was about them being Jewish. Which was JUST ANOTHER DAMNABLE LIE WE WERE GIVEN TO BELIEVE. The Danielsons were murdered to get Artemus out on the case, and especially if they could get his temper up and his good, common sense to fly out the window.
But for whatever reason these monsters didn't kill Artemus when he went after them. They came damn close, though. So maybe they just got interrupted. We'll probably never know the answer there. Artemus was beaten within an inch of his life by the thugs who worked for Aynsley and Boudin, the thugs who'd already abducted and murdered all those other former soldiers. And Artemus was nearly killed to bait the trap for me, the Courier Candidate they wanted all along! And I went into a fine feathered fury and I went out on the case even angrier, I think than Artie likely was. Our tempers work differently." Jim said and shook his head.
"And Mac, you're the one who taught me this business so you know it's the worst possible idea to go out on case when you're angry enough to take heads and ask questions later. So, into their trap, I … practically marched. And they… they had their Courier back again. So they … well, I guess what they did was to finish the patterning they'd started with me during the War.
And the truth is, the honest to G-d truth is, Thomas, I'd love to believe I didn't complete their bloody pattern for them. I'll wish the rest of my life that I never did exactly what Boudin and Aynsley wanted. But … I don't know how to … make that version … how to make both versions of that day in Baltimore mesh and fit together in what's left of my brain at this point. I can't. Because as far as I can understand, both versions CAN'T BE TRUE. And … after all this time… Honestly Prof, I'm not really sayin' all y'all are lyin'… I'm only sayin'… "
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