He leaned forward, setting the slip of telegram paper aside and folding his hands into that roof-top point that aimed at his grizzled chin. “And here’s one more thing, Miss Boyd. Should you apprehend or detain the captain of this pestering vessel, and should he turn out to be, in fact, the notorious Croggon Beauregard Hainey, I don’t care what you do with him.”

She stammered, “I…I beg your pardon?”

“Listen, the Union wants him, but they don’t want him badly. Mostly they want him to go away. The Rebs want him, and they want him badly as a matter of principle—in order to make an example out of him, if nothing else.”

“You’re telling me I should send him back to Georgia, if I catch him.”

“No,” he shook his head. “I’m saying that if you want to, you can. Whatever’s riding aboard the Clementine is more important to the Yanks than catching and clobbering a bank robber—”

“More like a pirate, I thought we agreed.”

“So much the stranger,” Pinkerton said. “He’s a bad man, and he ought to be strung up someplace, but that’s not part of our assignment. And if you think you can score a few points with your old pals down in Danville, then if you can catch him, you’re welcome to him.”

Again she fell into quiet, uncertain of how much to take at face value, and how she ought to respond. When she spoke again she said, “I’m not often rendered speechless, sir, but you’ve nearly made it happen today.”

“Why? I’m only giving you the same permissions I give all my men. Do what’s convenient and what’s successful. And if you find yourself in a position where you can nick a little extra for yourself, I’m not looking too close and I won’t stop you. If it makes you happy and if it’s easy, score back some of the credibility you’ve lost with the Rebs. The more friendly connections you have under your belt, the more useful you’ll be to me in the future.”

“That’s very kind of you to consider,” she said carefully.

And he said in return, “It’s not remotely kind. It’s practical and selfish, and I won’t apologize for a bit of it.”

“Nor should you. And I appreciate the vote of confidence, if that’s what this is.”

He waved his hand dismissively and said, “I appreciate your appreciation, and all that back-and-forth politeness that people feel compelled to exchange. But for now, you’ll find a folder on the last desk on the left—and inside that folder, you’ll find everything you need to know about the Clementine, the ship that chases it, and everyone within them both.”

“Really?” she asked.

“No, not really. The folder will barely tell you anything more than I’ve told you in here, but it’ll tell you how the money works, and it’ll give you some footing to get started. You’ll report every development to me, and you’ll report it promptly, and you won’t go more than seventy-two hours without reporting anything or else I’ll assume you’ve gotten yourself killed. Kindly refrain from getting yourself killed, lest you cause me deep aggravation and distress. Breaking in a new operative is expensive and annoying. It’ll gripe my soul if I have to replace you before you’ve done me any good. Be ready to hit the road in forty-five minutes.”

He paused to take a breath. She took the opportunity to stand, and say, “Thank you sir, and I’ll take that under consideration. You have my word that I’ll do my very best to prevent myself from getting killed, even though my very first assignment will throw me into the path of a hardened criminal and his crew of bloodthirsty air pirates.”

Pinkerton’s face fashioned an expression halfway between a grin and a sneer. He said, “I hope you didn’t think I was asking you here to sit still and look pretty.”

She was poised to leave the office but she hesitated, one hand resting on the back of the chair. She turned to the door, then changed her mind. She said, “Mr. Pinkerton, over the last twenty-five years I’ve risked my life to pass information across battlefields. I’ve broken things, stolen things, and been to prison more times than I’ve been married. I’ve shot and killed six men, and only three of those events could lawfully be called self-defense. I’ve been asked to do a great number of unsavory, dangerous, morally indefensible things in my time, and I’ve done them all without complaint because I do what needs to be done, whenever it needs to be done. But there’s one thing I’ve never been asked to do, and it’s just as well because I’d be guaranteed to fail.”

He asked, “And what’s that?”

Without blinking she said, “I’ve never been asked to sit still and look pretty.”

And before he could form a response, she swished out of the office, turning sideways to send her skirts through the doorway.

Outside the office door, the company operated in measured chaos. A man at a typewriter glanced up and didn’t glance away until Maria stared him down on her way past him. Two other men chattered quietly over a fistful of papers, then stopped to watch the lady go by. She gave them a quick, curt smile that didn’t show any teeth, and one of them tipped his hat.

The other did not.

She made a note of it, guessed at what she might expect from all three of them in the future, and found her way to the spot Allan Pinkerton had designated as hers.

The last desk on the left was empty and naked except for the promised folder on top. The folder was reassuringly fat until Maria opened it and realized that most of the bulk came from an envelope stuffed with crisp Union bills. Accompanying the envelope was a note explaining how to record her expenses and how to report them, as well as a small sheaf of telegrams that added up to a clipped, brief synopsis of what Allan Pinkerton had told her. And then, typed neatly on a separate page, she found the rest of what was known about the details of her first assignment.

She withdrew the wooden chair and sat down to read, momentarily ignoring Pinkerton’s initial order that she be on the road within forty-five minutes. She’d rather be fully prepared and a little bit late than overeager and uninformed.

In drips and drabs, Maria extracted the remaining facts from the small sheaf of paperwork. The Clementine was coming from San Francisco, where it underwent a hull reconstruction following battle damage—for it was a retired war dirigible. On the ship’s voyage back east she was moving medicine, bedding, and canned goods to a sanatorium outside Louisville; and there, she would be assigned to a Lieutenant Colonel (presumably of the Union persuasion) by the name of Ossian Steen. Upon the Clementine’s safe and formal arrival into this man’s hands, Maria would be recalled to Chicago.

Little was known about the ship in pursuit. It was described as a smaller craft, lightly loaded and perhaps lightly armed. This unknown vessel had made at least two attempts upon the Clementine. The most recent had resulted in a crash outside of Topeka, Kansas, but wreckage of the unnamed ship had not been located. It was suspected that the ship was once again airborne, and once again hot on Clementine’s tail.

At the bottom of the folder, Maria found a ticket that guaranteed passage aboard an airship called the Luna Mae. It would take her from Chicago to Topeka, where the pirate Croggon Beauregard Hainey and his crew had been spotted by a Pinkerton informant. The fugitive had been seen bartering in a gasworks camp for parts and fuel.

Just as Maria was on the verge of closing the folder, Allan Pinkerton approached her desk with a second slip of telegram.

“Incoming,” he announced. He dropped the paper into her hand and said, “Your lift leaves in thirty minutes. There’s a coach outside to take you to the docks. You’ll have to change the ticket when you get there.”

“Yes sir,” she said. Her eyes dipped to scan the paper but then she swiftly asked, “Wait, sir? Change the ticket?” But he’d already whisked himself back to some other department, and was gone.

She looked down at the new telegram. It read:

HAINEY NEARING KANSAS CITY STOP CRAFT DAMAGED BUT STILL FLYING EAST ROUGHLY ALONG COACH ROUTES STOP INTERCEPT AT JEFFERSON CITY STOP ADVISE GREAT CAUTION BEWARE OF RATTLER STOP SEE ALGERNON RICE 7855 CHERRY ST STOP

Maria gathered up her folder, her papers, and she tucked the money into her skirt’s deepest pockets. She gathered up the large carpeted bag she almost always toted (a lady needed to be prepared, and anyway, one never knew what trouble might lurk around a bend); and she palmed a smaller handbag for essentials.

She was as ready as she was going to get.

“Beware of rattler? What on earth does that mean?” she puzzled aloud, but no one was within earshot to answer her, and outside, a coach was waiting to take her to the passenger docks.

3

Croggon Hainey, first mate Simeon Powell, and engineer Lamar Bailey gave up on the unnamed ship somewhere over Bonner Springs, Missouri. Smoke had filled the cabin to such an extent that it could no longer be ignored; and maintaining altitude had become a losing struggle in the battered, broken, almost altogether unflyable craft. They’d set the vessel down hard west of Kansas City and abandoned her there to smolder and rust where she lay.

Fifteen miles across the bone-dry earth, as flat as if it’d been laid that way by a baker’s pin, the three men lugged their surviving valuables. Lamar was laden with ammunition, small arms, and two half-empty skins of water. Simeon toted a roll of maps and a large canteen, plus two canvas packs crammed with personal items including tobacco, clothes, a few dry provisions, and a letter he always carried but almost never read. The captain held his own satchel and his own favorite guns, a stash of bills on his money belt, and a white-hot stare that could’ve burned a hole through a horse.

The Rattler was in its crate, gripped and suspended by Hainey’s right arm and Simeon’s left. It swung heavily back and forth, knocking against the men’s calves and knees if they fell too far out of step.

Simeon asked, “How far out do you think we are?”

And Lamar replied, “Out of Bonner Springs? Another four or five miles.”