The major had taken him aside as soon as he said that Black Jack Pershing had sent him. Sullivan had repeated exactly the code words that had been left in his head. "It's time to see the Pirate."
"How's the weather?" the major had asked in return.
"Getting hotter," Sullivan had responded as instructed. "That's why we need the Weatherman." The major's expression had turned grim but he had immediately given him a place to clean up and had sent someone to fetch him some food and a change of clothing. Thirty minutes later he'd showered, sucked down some bacon and eggs, along with a pot of coffee, and reported back to Arnold, who was busy coordinating men and supplies to the damaged area around Mar Pacifica.
When they were alone, the major had locked the door of his office and bid Sullivan to take a seat. "I don't know what this is about, but I promised an old friend that if this day came, I'd help. I've got a Silverado leaving for Hawaii in twenty minutes. You'll be on it." He reached into his desk and pulled out an envelope that had been sealed with wax. "I'll instruct the Silverado to follow these orders, but they will not help you in any way other than to take you to your destination as part of a training mission. They will not cross into Imperial territory. They're a good crew, and they'll keep their mouths shut. I assume you know what to do next."
"Yes, sir," he answered, taking the envelope.
"Good, because I don't. The General could be a cryptic man at times. I'm assuming this has something to do with the Peace Ray."
"Yes, sir." Sullivan had picked up a morning paper on the way here and read the lies. "Only it wasn't no anarchists like they're saying. It was the Imperium."
"That's not my area, mister… I don't decide who to bomb, they just tell me where to drop them. But off the record, I'd say you're probably right. The anarchists they're laying this on couldn't find their own ass in the dark. I've been pressing to deal with those Imperials for a long time. But there're too many politicians, making too much money off them for that to happen."
Sullivan nodded. That's why Pershing had given this man a piece of the puzzle. "What's gonna happen?"
"Nobody wants another war," the major said. "I'm afraid people will believe whatever they want. I think they're fools. War's coming, no matter what we say. All I can do is make sure my little corner of this machine is ready to fight." There was a knock on the door. "Now if you'll excuse me, Mister man whose name I probably don't want to know… duty calls."
Sullivan had returned his salute smartly. Duty calls.
The view out the window of the Silverado was breathtaking but his thoughts were elsewhere. Huge fuel tanks hung pendulous between the wings, pontoons even larger were below that. The ocean was dark blue as far as the eye could see. A dark shape came into slow focus as they drew near. It was an airship, and one of the biggest he'd ever seen. It was so far away that it was hard to make out details.
"What is that thing?" one of the soldiers asked.
"That? I read about that in the paper yesterday. That's the Imperium's new super airship. That Stuyvesant made a pretty penny off that pig I'd bet," the other answered smartly. "It's heading from Michigan out to Japan. I read the whole article."
Sullivan watched the huge craft in the distance. His scalp prickled at the sight of the rising sun painted large on the outer hulls. These were the bastards who'd robbed him of Delilah-not the same bastards, but they worked for the same madman. Not that being angry did him a lick of good. The Silverado was unarmed, and that monster sure as hell wouldn't be. Major Arnold's men weren't about to start an international incident just because he was in a foul mood.
The biplane was parallel to the distant dirigible, but they were easily passing it and he realized that it was stationary. There was a glint of light reflecting off something metallic below it, and it took him a moment to realize that they were hovering over a ship. The Chairman's airship dwarfed the tiny vessel.
Why were they tethered to a cargo ship? Airships had to gas up, same as anything else, but why do it at sea when they'd just passed over land? "Soldier… that article say if it ran off diesel?"
"No, siree, that thing's engines run off the hydrogen in its bags. UBF says it could fly nonstop all the way around the whole world if the wind was right. The crew has like a dozen Torches to watch for fire and its own Weatherman and-"
What else could they be picking up from a ship off the coast of San Francisco? That was brazen, even for his brother. There might not be anything he could do about it, but maybe somebody else could. Sullivan stood and lurched into the aisle. He caught the engineer midway up the cabin and grabbed the airman on the shoulder. "I need to use your radio." San Francisco, California Faye was swept up in the confusion as much as everyone else. Reporters had tried to take their picture when they got to the hospital, but Lance had swept her under his arm and gotten her inside with his wide-brimmed hat pulled down low over his face. "Last thing we need is for people who think we're dead to know we're not," he'd muttered. As Francis had gone by, the cameras had mysteriously broken and they'd retreated from the cursing reporters.
The hospital had been packed with injured. Several local churches had been pressed into service for the less serious burns and she heard that medical people were being brought in from all over the country. Heinrich told her that someone named Doctor Rosenstein was flying in from Chicago and that he'd personally see to Mr. Browning if they couldn't find a Healer.
The regular doctors had taken Mr. Browning away as soon as they arrived. Mr. Garrett had been taken to surgery. Lance had yelled at them about something, until they agreed to not sedate him while they tried to tend to his injuries. He also refused to part with his six-gun. "If the police talk to you, you were a guest at Francis's house. Don't say nothing else."
"I'll see to her, Mr. Talon," Isaiah assured him. "Please, go get yourself tended to. Please, Faye, have a seat with me. My back is killing me." The two of them sat down on a bench in the hallway. Mr. Rawls took a handkerchief from his pocket and cleaned his glasses. He looked tired, all covered in soot. Many of the other people in the hallway were also covered in ashes, so they fit right in.
Francis saw an older doctor pass them at a quick walk. "Excuse me, sir, do you have a Healer available?"
The doctor paused long enough to give an exasperated laugh. "Young man, don't be absurd. You couldn't afford a Healer."
Francis's face turned red. "I'll have you know I'm Francis Cornelius Stuyvesant the Second! I could write a check and buy this hospital!"
The doctor took in Francis's bedraggled condition, snorted, and spun on his heel. "That's a new one, usually people around here insist they're a Hearst," he called over his shoulder as he hurried along to more pressing business.
Francis's hands curled into fists and he went after the doctor, still demanding to be heard. "When I buy this place, the first thing I'll do is fire you!" He disappeared into the mob.
Faye sighed. It had been a very tiring day. Mr. Rawls patted her gently on the knee. Harkeness had sulked away as soon as there was a crowd. "Your friend isn't very nice," Faye said.
"Kristopher is having a difficult time, I'm afraid. The loss of his granddaughter is weighing on him greatly. We have no idea which way they went and they have a long head start on us."
She could understand. She couldn't bear to think of what that bully Mr. Madi would do to poor delicate Jane. "Mr. Harkeness said he's something like a Healer, but he couldn't help Mr. Browning or Mr. Garrett. What good is he?"
"He has some minor Power where he can stop the spread of disease. He kept their wounds from becoming infected. There are degrees of Healers, and in that family, I'm afraid that his descendents inherited far more Power than he has," he sighed.
"You sound really tired, Mr. Rawls."
"I am, dear. The elders sent me to secure the Geo-Tel"-he gestured around the dazed and ashen crowd.-"and none of you know about it, so I've failed. Pershing took it to his grave, but I think he underestimated the Chairman. He will find it unless we can destroy it. You see this, Faye? Imagine this a thousand times worse. Why, a single firing of the Geo-Tel could destroy all of California. America would fall, Europe would fall, and the whole world would surrender to the Imperium's horrible ways."
"That's terrible." Her heart ached at the sight of the people suffering. A little boy was crying, tears cutting paths through the dirt on his cheeks, and it reminded her of how her brothers had looked, tears tracking mud through the dust that had caked onto their faces when the soil had gotten all dry and the wind had blown it all away. Only this time it wouldn't be big clouds of dirt covering the sky, it would be ashes from all the beautiful cities burning. "I promised to kill the Chairman."
He shook his head. "Poor child. You don't realize, but we've tried, many times. He simply will not die. We've burned him, shot him, stabbed him, blown him up with bombs on many occasions. The Grimnoir have sent men to poison him, but he doesn't need to eat or drink, we've tried to capture him in his sleep, but he doesn't sleep. We once had a Torch scorch his flesh away in a pillar of fire, and he walked out, his clothes burned off, but he was fine. A Grimnoir knight once blew up a bridge while a train he was riding in was passing over it. The whole thing fell five hundred feet into a ravine and the Chairman walked out without so much as a scratch."
"But there has to be a way!" Faye insisted. "I could Travel right next to him."
"Others have tried. Basically you can't get close unless he lets you and that only happens while he's killing you. He has a strange Power that lets him pull all the knowledge and life right out of someone, just by laying his hands on them. The elders discussed how to destroy him with our smartest Cogs. Perhaps a direct hit with a Tesla weapon could do it, but other than that…" Isaiah shrugged.
So if you can't kill him, that's why the Grimnoir put so much effort into messing up his plans… She had promised General Pershing not to share his memories with anyone else, but Mr. Rawls was right. The Chairman was too smart. He'd find the piece on his own, just like he'd somehow tracked down Grandpa. She'd barely known the General. Maybe his sickness had made it so he wasn't making the best decisions… and she felt like she could trust Mr. Rawls. He wasn't just Grimnoir, he was like a boss Grimnoir, and if she couldn't trust them, then she'd never be a proper knight like her Grandpa had been.
Faye looked around to make sure no one was listening in. She leaned in conspiratorially and whispered, "I know where it is."
Mr. Rawls smiled. Mar Pacifica, California The Tempest made excellent time and he was in California before the smoke had even settled. Cornelius had commandeered one of the UBF Weathermen stationed at the Empire State Building and put him to work making sure that they'd had the wind at their back the entire way. It had left the Active exhausted, and it would probably cause erratic weather patterns across the entire nation in their wake, but it was a small price to pay.
They'd flown over the impact area and he couldn't believe his eyes. His son had insisted on building an estate on the rocky finger of land that had jutted into the ocean because it was so green and beautiful. Now it was wiped bare, under ash as thick as Michigan snow. The mansion was simply gone, timber and brick burned or hurled into the sea.
His hopes had been dashed. Nobody could have lived through that. Not even a Stuyvesant, and they had a talent for surviving anything. His once favorite heir was surely dead.
Oh, the way they'd fought. The boy had always been a rascal. While Cornelius could barely stand most of his heirs, brownnosers and sycophants the lot of them, young Francis had not been afraid to say what was on his mind, and he'd loved him for it. He was as much a contrarian at heart as the eldest Stuyvesant, and it did Cornelius proud to see that Stuyvesant fire in another generation.
Francis's father, Cornelius's least disliked son, had been a congressman and then ambassador to Japan. It was during that time that he had met John Pershing, and young Francis had taken a liking to the soldier. His father was too busy womanizing and collecting bribes to have given the boy a proper upbringing, so of course Francis had gravitated toward the manly activities of horsemanship and shooting. Cornelius had approved at first.
It wasn't until after they got back to Japan that he realized how much nonsense Pershing had put into his grandson's head. Francis was preoccupied with frivolous things, like right and wrong. Apparently he'd seen some atrocity or another at an Imperium school and that had soured his outlook on profiting from the Chairman's wild spending. His son had no such qualms, and had arranged many lucrative deals, but Francis would have none of it.
Then his son had died. It had been right after an argument with Francis, where the young man had stormed out, vowing to have nothing to do with his family. They said that it was a suicide, but Cornelius knew that was a filthy lie. No Stuyvesant would ever lower himself to such a fate. He knew that it had to be the work of that vile Pershing. No, it wasn't enough to turn his favorite heir, the boy who was his spitting image of his own youthful vigor, against him. Pershing and his mysterious Society had surely killed his son as well.
So he'd sought out a Pale Horse. With Pershing's foul influence gone then surely Francis would see reason and come back to the family, but as he looked out the windows at the wreckage, he knew in his heart that he'd been wrong, terribly wrong, and he could never take it back.
There was a polite cough behind him, and he turned to see a surgical mask. It took him a moment to remember why everyone was wearing masks. "What? Can't you see I'm mourning, idiot?"
"Sir, we have received a message. There were some survivors. Someone claiming to be a Stuyvesant is at a hospital north of here."
He looked back at the house. Impossible. But it was hard to keep a Stuyvesant down. Could it be? "What are you waiting for? Fire up the engines!" he shouted. "Full speed ahead!"