Mercury Revolts (17 page)

“Oh,” said Eddie, his face going white.
“Oh,
no.”

“What?” asked
Suzy.
“Who is it?”

“Her name really is Gabrielle,” said Mercury. “But you
probably know her by the male form of her name, Gabriel.
The
archangel.”

Chapter Eighteen
            
 

New
York and Philadelphia; 1776 - 1779

Benedict Arnold, Ethan Allen and
their men had little difficulty taking Fort Ticonderoga from the British. Not
having been informed that the continent was soon to be ravaged by a full-scale
war, the Brits were caught completely off guard and surrendered the fort with
minimal resistance. Seven days later, Arnold and fifty men went on to raid Fort
Saint-Jean in Southern Quebec. It was Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys
who got most of the credit for these attacks, though, and Arnold’s failure to
achieve widespread popular acclaim or the accolades of Congress despite his
consistently bold and clever military maneuvers was to be the defining theme of
his career.

After these initial successes, Arnold found himself charged
with the impossible task of forestalling a British naval invasion by way of
Lake Champlain. Not having a navy, the Americans found themselves at a
considerable disadvantage. Undeterred, Arnold summoned carpenters, sail-makers
and gunners from Connecticut and Massachusetts, and over the summer of 1776
managed to build a fleet of three schooners, two sloops, three galleys, and
eight gondolas. Facing the British Navy with such a fleet was comparable to
staring down a charging rhinoceros with a sock full of marbles, but Arnold was
undeterred.

He was encouraged in his efforts by the strange man—if he
could be called that—named Rezon, who visited him occasionally over the summer.
Rezon had a habit of asking Arnold if there were any particularly
insurmountable difficulties he was facing, and Arnold would tell him about the
sail-makers who were stuck in Connecticut because of a bridge that was out, or
the schooner that couldn’t be completed because of a shortage of nails. Rezon
would listen quietly and then disappear as mysteriously as he had arrived, and
more often than not Arnold found that somehow whatever problem had been
plaguing his little ship works had been miraculously solved. The bridge would
be repaired in the middle of the night, or an unscheduled shipment of nails
would appear, and so on. Once in late August, three of the carpenters were
miraculously healed of syphilis. Arnold accepted these gifts—if that’s what
they were—with aplomb, having little time to speculate on Rezon’s motives. But
in the back of his mind, he suspected that someday there would be a reckoning
for his help.

Arnold proceeded with his ships down Lake Champlain to the
north of Crown Point and situated them between Valcour Island and the western
shore, so that both his wings were covered and he could only be attacked from
the front. In this position he lay in wait for the British.

On October 11, 1776, Sir Guy Carleton’s squadron approached,
and the first naval battle of the war began. At sundown, after seven hours of
brutal fighting, the British withdrew out of range, intending to renew their
attack in the morning. Both fleets had been badly damaged in the fight, but the
Americans were so badly cut up that Carleton expected to force them to
surrender the next day. But Arnold’s ships slipped through the British line in
the foggy night and made for Crown Point as fast as the beat up fleet could
travel. The enemy eventually caught up with him late the next day. Arnold sent
most of his flotilla to flee to safety while he engaged three British ships in
his schooner for four hours. His ship was badly damaged and her deck covered
with dead and dying men when, having sufficiently delayed the enemy to allow
the rest of his ships to escape, he ran the schooner aground and set her on
fire. He and his men marched overland to Crown Point, rendezvoused with the
fleet, and brought the whole force safely to Ticonderoga. Carleton did not
press the attack.

Despite acquitting himself brilliantly in this battle,
Arnold never received due acclaim for his efforts. A retreat—even one handled
so
impeccably as this—is still a retreat, and rarely
receives the sort of accolades reserved for a victory. Arnold was passed over
for promotion by the Continental Congress, and, adding insult to injury,
personal rivals brought charges of corruption and malfeasance against him. He
was acquitted of these charges—in
fact,
Congress
ultimately found that he had gone deeply in debt in support of the war effort.
But the damage was done. Bitter and feeling unappreciated, Arnold found himself
in a dark corner of a Philadelphia tavern, brooding over his future.

It was in this dark moment that he was visited for the last
time by the man he knew as Rezon. Rezon, who was in fact Lucifer, First of the
Fallen, the original turncoat, had been doing some brooding of his own lately.
His initial glee at the outbreak of war had turned to ambivalence as he
realized that not only were the Americans going to win the war, but they were
going to do it without reverting to a military dictatorship, a puppet state of
France, or even a chaotic collection of rival colonies. It looked, in fact,
that they were going to emerge stronger than ever, as the world’s first
constitutional republic. The Americans had among them a truly first-rate group
of political thinkers, among them Jefferson, Franklin and Madison, and it was
clear that these men intended to establish a government designed to make it
almost impossible for someone like Lucifer to manipulate it. As a result,
Lucifer decided a change in strategy was needed: he was now going to do everything
he could to help the British win the war. And he knew just the man who could
make that happen.

So it was that Lucifer settled in across from Benedict
Arnold with the intent to reverse the course of both of their fortunes.

“Rezon,” muttered Arnold. “You always show up at the worst
times.”

“I show up when you need me,” said Lucifer. “But you’re not
doing so badly. They’ve put you in charge of Philadelphia and made you a
major-general. And I hear you’re courting a lovely young woman of a very fine
family.”

“How do you know about that?” demanded Arnold. “We’ve been
very discreet, given her family’s loyalist tendencies.”

“I have ways of finding things out,” replied Lucifer.
“Although, speaking frankly, it’s a shame you have to conceal your love for
this woman merely because of a few prominent Tories in her family. What
business is it of anyone who her family is? Love is love, is it not? And
certainly you deserve some
happiness,
after all you’ve
been through.”

Arnold smiled wryly. “You do have a way with words, Rezon.
Perhaps I could prevail upon you to exercise your persuasiveness with Congress.
Somehow they’ve seen fit to promote five lesser men ahead of me, even though
anyone with eyes could see that I should be second only to Washington himself,
given what I’ve accomplished.”

“Congress!” spat Lucifer. “An assembly of self-important
baboons who think they have the right to play puppet master to truly great men,
such as yourself. I wouldn’t condescend to an audience with such a glorified
mob.”

“Why are you here, then,” replied Arnold, “if you don’t
intend to grease the skids? I have no bridges in need of repair, other than the
metaphorical type. Are you here at last to demand comeuppance for your aid?”

Lucifer held up his hands. “You affront me, sir! My
assistance is offered without any expectation of reciprocation, in service to a
greater cause.”

“I’m beginning to realize that cause is not American
independence, however,” said Arnold.

Lucifer shrugged. “What about you, Benedict? What are you
fighting for?”

“I fight in service of my country,” replied Arnold.

“Which one?” asked
Lucifer.
“Up
until a few scant years ago, you were a loyal British citizen. Now you’ve taken
up arms against your former country at the whim of a noisome rabble. Tell me,
Benedict, do you trust the fate of this continent to a Congress that promotes a
jackal like Jedediah Wilkins over you?”

“What’s your game, Rezon? Now you’re suddenly rallying to
the British cause?”

“I have my reasons for reassessing the situation,” said
Lucifer. “But you knew when I first came to you that my motives probably
differed from your own. The question you need to ask is whether your interests
are being served by your present course of action. Someday this war will end.
You’ll be married, perhaps with children. Do you think your children will look
up to a man who serves at the pleasure of a Congress that that has repeatedly
scorned and ignored him?
And what of your future wife’s
family?
Do you think loyalists will be kindly treated in an independent
America? You’re a smart man, Benedict. I know you’ve asked yourself these
questions.”

“What would you have me do?” cried Arnold. “I’ve got
responsibilities! I can’t just…”

“You’ll have responsibilities wherever you go,” said
Lucifer. “You’re an important man, regardless of your circumstances. Someone of
your wit and cunning will find a warm welcome anywhere talent and intelligence
are appreciated. After all,” Lucifer went on, “you do possess significant
intelligence, do you not?”

Benedict stared into his beer, not speaking. The
double-meaning of Lucifer’s statement was not lost on him.

“I’m not here to strong-arm you,” said Lucifer, getting up
from the table. “But I do suggest you spend some time thinking about what’s
best for you and your future family.
And your country, of course.
Whichever country that may be. I will, of course, do whatever I can to assist
you in any transition you see fit to make.”

With that, Lucifer bowed slightly, turned, and walked out of
the tavern, leaving Benedict Arnold to ruminate on his words.

Chapter Nineteen
            
 

South Dakota; August 2016

“Tell
me again how you know where the bomb is?” Eddie said.

He and Suzy were back in the
Suburban, barreling east on I-90 through South Dakota. Suzy had taken over driving,
and Mercury was flying a few miles in advance to perform reconnaissance, in
case Michelle had put up checkpoints to try to catch them before they got to
Michigan.

“I worked on the damage
assessment software,” Suzy said. “We analyzed the potential effects of the
detonation of a Wormwood-style bomb in seventeen American cities. The only city
that Gabrielle mentioned that was also on our test list was Grand Rapids,
Michigan.”

“Hmm,” replied Eddie.

“What?”

“That doesn’t strike you as
strange?”

Suzy bit her lip. It did, in
fact, strike her as strange. “You think it’s a trap.”

“Well, they practically told
us where to go to look for the bomb. Of course, it could be anywhere in the
city.…”

Suzy shook her head. “No,
there was a very specific epicenter for each test. In Grand Rapids, it was on
the roof of the Vanden Heuvel Building. The bomb does more damage if it’s a few
hundred feet above ground.”

“What makes her so sure we’re
going to take the bait, though?” Eddie asked. “If we had any sense, we’d be on
the other side of the planet when that bomb goes off.”

“She’s betting on my
conscience,” replied Suzy. “She figures that if I walked out of Brimstone
because of ethical concerns,
there’s
no way I’m going
to let her actually detonate the bomb, if there’s any chance I can do something
about it.”

“Is she right?”

Suzy sighed.
“Yeah.
Mercury said never to do what they expect you to do.
I don’t think he’d approve of this plan if he understood what we were doing.”

“Hmm,” said Eddie again.

“You think he knows we’re heading
into a trap?”

“Hard to say,” replied Eddie.
“Mercury is a strange one. One minute it looks like he’s completely over his
head and the next he’s somehow made a fool out of everybody. I haven’t figured
out if he’s putting on an act or if he’s just incredibly lucky.”

“Or maybe he just has good
intuition,” said Suzy. “Some people just seem to muddle through just by
following their instincts.”

“Could be,” said Eddie. “Like
I say, he’s a strange one.”

They both jumped as something
thumped on the roof of the car. Mercury’s face appeared, upside down, in front
of the windshield, his silver hair whipping furiously in the wind. “Get off at
the next exit!” he yelled.
“Police cars up ahead.
We’re going to have to take back roads for a while.”

Suzy nodded and Mercury shot
into the air ahead of them. She took the next exit, which led to a two lane
road that wound through the hills to the southeast. They remained on this road
for the next three hours, when Mercury reappeared and told them it was safe to
take the next left to get back on the highway.

In this manner, taking the
highway unless warned to do otherwise by Mercury, they traversed the 1500 miles
to Michigan. Suzy did most of the driving, even though she was dog-tired and
Eddie, being an angel, didn’t need to sleep. She liked Eddie but his driving
made her nervous. He had a tendency to become interested in something on the
horizon and then drift toward it, as if he had forgotten what he was doing. He
wouldn’t snap out of it until he either hit gravel or Suzy barked at him to
straighten out. After the third time this happened, she insisted on doing the
rest of the driving.