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Grant harru it for a second opinion "What if we could get Southern casualty reports? Send soures to feed into your ainst, wouldn’t it? It’d give us a hint about how open they’d be to … a conversation, as you put it"

Lincoln’s good eye glittered warht But, as you’ll recall, there was an explosion last night--speaking of spies"

"I’ain?"

"Two men," he told him "If not spies, then mercenaries--sent to destroy the Fiddlehead, and kill the man who’d created it Froht to make the attack alone Someone paid the smile spread across Lincoln’s crooked face "Who? Not precisely But I appreciate that we both understand the why, and that we choose not to insult one another by pretending"

"You want to blame ks like Desmond, or his brethren on the other side of the line But ould they go after your calculation machine? How many people even know it exists? How many people would put stock in the conclusions of a … a … a fortune-telling heap of nuts and bolts, assembled by a coloredout of office, but I’m not exactly no one," Lincoln replied stiffly "Gideon’s work is sound The machine is unprecedented, afinger--"history will bear this out The war has to end We have to turn our attention to the leper threat We must bury all the dead and see to it that they remain buried"

"I can’t push a button and end hostilities," Grant fussed … but again he thought of Desht do just that "You can’t ask for such a thing based on a pile of paper that no one understands but you And your teao in front of Congress with the e that Abe Lincoln says we should all find some hobby other than war because deadabout that, instead You have to bring me ood eye narrowed "I don’t have more Not yet And someone--perhaps a Southerner, perhaps so hard to make sure I don’t come up with any additional evidence"

"How so?"

"Because they went after Gideon, and when they couldn’t catch him, they went for his family They’ve taken his mother and nephew--kidnapped the pair of theed theood ers You’d know the na about hiuess I remember the old case well--nasty business, that I appreciate your discretion But as for the scientist’s fa to take him away from his work?"

"As likely as not Gideon is the only man on earth who could rebuild or re-create the machine Someone, somewhere, already knohat the Fiddlehead will tell us--and without that ainst theirs"

"The word of a forht"

"Then add the word of a forure, instead It will carry ht than you think, and they know it They’re afraid I’ll say so or unable to co that I have nothing without hi that he’s vulnerable"

"And I expect they’ll learn the hard way that he’s not" Grant rin

Lincoln closed his eye When he opened it again, it was to plead with him "Yes, they will But I need your help while I hold theive you? Money? Men? I know you don’t think much of the Secret Service, and neither do I sometimes … but they’re at our disposal"

"Oh, no I can’t trust them any more than you can I’ll stick with the Pinks, if you don’tMr President, my old friend … what I need is information"

Three

Maria Boyd, sometimes called Belle and so closer to the big iron furnace in the corner of the room She drew her shawl around her shoulders and eyed the e iron hearth, where Andrew Kelly usually sat He ay on assign, cold week

"To hell with it," she muttered After all, no one was present to object: Rose Anderson was out of the office chasing down a al paperwork following that affair in New York last Tuesday; and Timothy Hall had been sent down to the jailhouse to bail out Percy Jones--who had gone and done it again, andon the boss’s mood

Only James Elders was left on the ency office And yes, he’d probably notice if she , and was not precisely subtle about it

Maria wasn’t worried that he’d tattle to Mr Pinkerton, who probably cared less than anyone in the whole of Chicago, but she didn’t want to look weak She hated looking weak likefoolish, and she worked studiously to prove that she was up to the same tasks as everyone else