There was a commotion in the back of the room. A woman entered. Gray’s eyes widened, for it was Caroline. An usher near the door tried to offer assistance, but she ignored him as she wended through the tables toward the stage.
Something was wrong. Her face looked sick.
Gray dropped his notes and left the podium as she reached him. “What’s going on?”
She grabbed his forearms. She was shaking. “Luke has been arrested. You need to come now.”
“What? But he’s in Cuba.” This didn’t make sense. Luke ran afoul of the authorities all the time. It was hardly something to get so agitated about. Men swiveled in their chairs to listen in, curious about the family drama unfolding in the middle of the closing luncheon. Dickie Shuster had his notebook open and his eyes pinned on them.
Caroline lowered her voice, and he could barely hear her shaking whisper. “They are accusing him oftreason. They say it’s a hanging offense.”
It was a kick in the gut. Gray was up to his eyeballs in politics, but Luke never had been. There had to be some sort of mistake.
He grabbed Caroline’s arm and pulled her toward the exit. “Let’s go,” he said grimly.
Two hundred men watched him leave the room, but he didn’t spare them a backward glance.
Caroline filled him in once they were in the carriage and heading toward the center of town.
“I got a letter from Philip Ransom,” she said. “He got word that Luke was arrested this morning, accused of conspiring with the Cuban insurgency.”
“Luke doesn’t care about politics.”
Caroline looked as helpless as he felt. “I know! That’s why this doesn’t make any sense. Philip should know more by now.”
They sprinted up the steps of the War Department building, then headed down to the basement, where Philip worked in the Nautical Map Department. The door to his office was open, and he sprang to his feet the moment he saw them. The tiny office was windowless, and the maps crowding the walls made it feel even more claustrophobic.
“Come in,” Philip said darkly, then closed the door behind them.
“What in the name of all that’s holy is going on?” Gray demanded, his voice echoing off the cinderblock walls.
“I got word a few hours ago,” Philip said. “Someone found letters between Luke and Cuban rebels who have been trying to throw the Americans off the island. It looks pretty bad.”
“I don’t believe it. I sent him down there to negotiate contracts for cayenne pepper. Luke is more likely to get into trouble chasing skirts than interfering in another country’s war.”
Philip looked skeptical. “Have you read any of his articles?”
“Look, I know he’s been dabbling in journalism—”
“It’s a lot more than dabbling,” Philip interrupted. “Have you read any of the articles he wrote forThe Modern Century?”
Gray instinctively recoiled at the name of the radical magazine. “I don’t waste time on that kind of garbage.”
“I usually don’t either, but I always read whatever Luke writes. It’s strong. Passionate. And I’m afraid what I read in those articles makes it plain that he’s far more engaged in politics than I realized. When they arrested him, they found the current location of American warships in his briefcase.”
Gray collapsed into a chair, dropped his head into his hands, and stared at the floor. This was his fault. He’d always been so hard on Luke. Unforgiving. Luke knew about Gray’s hostility to the American occupation, and maybe he’d started dabbling with the rebels in a stupid, misguided attempt to be heroic.
Gray couldn’t even lift his head. He just stared at the cracked tile beneath his feet. “How do we get him out?”
“We don’t,” Philip answered. “The best we can hope for is life imprisonment.”
Gray reared up in disbelief. This wasn’t possible. Not Luke, not in a cage for the rest of his life.
Tears clouded Caroline’s voice. “Philip, please ... you have to help us.”
“I would give my right arm if I could, but I don’t have any influence down there. I’m sorry, Gray. To the bottom of my soul, I’m sorry.”
Caroline was sobbing as they left Philip’s office, and it cut Gray to shreds. She probably couldn’t even manage the stairs leading out of this dank basement. He pulled her into his arms.
