“You bastard.” Cloud spoke under his breath. “You treacherous bastard.” He glared at Howe, piercing him with icy green eyes. Cloud gripped the edge of his cot to keep his hands from going around Howe’s throat.
Howe shifted nervously, backing toward the gate toward the safety of the guards who sat playing cards in the outer room. With one large hand he grasped one of the iron bars.
Cloud threw his head back and laughed. Dark copper hair rippled as his head shook. “I am not going to attack you, Senator. At least not yet. There are still too many things I want to know.”
“For instance,” asked Howe, feeling much safer on the far side of the cell.
“You said you planned to turn over Captain Danty. What was your reason for asking her to bring in Lafitte?”
“Danty was right about Lafitte, Captain. That is what made this all so interesting. Neither of you could understand why we insisted that Lafitte be brought in when you knew he would help of his own accord when the time came. But actually that’s what concerned us.”
“And that’s why you wanted him locked up,” Cloud finished, more to himself than to the senator. “To make sure he didn’t help.”
“Exactly.”
“But now you don’t have Captain Danty. You can’t turn her over to the British, and you won’t be able to reach Lafitte. Where does that leave you and your friends?” He said the last word with as much contempt as he could muster.
“It leaves us with you,” Howe answered amiably, ignoring Cloud’s tone. “You will be hanged for treason, Captain, but hardly on the charges you anticipated defending yourself against.”
“And the charges are?”
“Giving vital information to the British. The Benedict Arnold of Mr. Madison’s little war.”
“You won’t get away with that, Howe. Someone will listen to me.”
“Do you think I would be telling you any of this if I thought that was even remotely possible?”
Suddenly Cloud felt weary. He wondered if this despair taking possession of his entire being was similar to what Alexis felt when she’d refused to look at him, when she had thought she’d failed. He held on to the thought of her, miles away, heading toward her goal, and it gave him strength. “The guards,” he said, clutching at any hope. “I’ll inform the guards.”
“They won’t listen. As far as they know you were already tried and sentenced in Boston. You were delivered here for execution because of the nature of your crime. They won’t believe anything you have to say and I have taken the added precaution of warning them to stay away from you. They’ll carry out the sentence in the morning.”
“Why are you going to all this trouble? Why not just kill me yourself or have one of those guards you had pick me up today do it for you?”
“It had occurred to me. You have Davidson to thank for your short reprieve. He realized we could make your death work for us in a way that compensated generously for the loss of Danty and Lafitte.” He leaned against the bars, releasing his grip, savoring his return to control over the captain. He allowed himself a brief satisfied smile as he realized how hopeless Cloud’s plight was and how secure his own position. “You will be executed as a traitor. The story will be released and there will be a great furor over the fact that one of our most respected commanders decided to become a turncoat. People on the fence over the issue of war will immediately leap to my side. Their anger over what you did may be enough to end this war before it gets too far along. What hope can they have when they find out what kind of men are fighting for them? Your name will be a disgrace. Don’t frown, Captain. I plan to exonerate you eventually.
“I’ll see that your name is cleared and it will be discovered that Madison himself was responsible for your death. It will be found that you were condemned without a trial. When the public finds out you were innocent their outrage will be greater than when they thought you guilty. What kind of administration is Little Jemmy running? they’ll ask. Doesn’t the navy know what’s going on in its own ranks? How can a man who let a thing like this happen possibly hope to win a war?”
“And you’ll be there to encourage that attitude,” Cloud replied, disgusted.
“Encourage it?” Howe asked incredulously. “I am going to feed it! I am going to make sure we end this debacle quickly! I am going to pull out every foundation Madison is standing on and I am going to make sure the United States survives this insanity. I am not a traitor, Captain. In spite of what you think. I want to see us with something left. The British will go easier on us if this is over soon.”
“Why do you assume we are going to lose?”
“Our eighteen warships against their eight hundred? I don’t assume it. I know it.”
Cloud chuckled joylessly. “And you are doing everything to make sure you are not wrong.”
Howe nodded. “You know, Captain, you exceeded all my expectations. You were the perfect choice.” He pressed his large bulk against the bars and called for a guard to let him out. He turned to Cloud and observed him coolly. “Even now you sit there as if you were entertaining in your own home. There’s an arrogance about you, Cloud, and this time it worked in our favor. You were so sure you could expose the truth of what we had done to Captain Danty. You were so sure you were right in releasing her that you blindly fell into our trap. Well, the truth you’ve discovered this evening is a little more than you bargained for, isn’t that so?”
“You know it is. I didn’t think people like you could find their way into our government.”
“I assure you, we do. And now that you know it, you’ll be more careful in the future, won’t you?” He laughed triumphantly.
The guard approached Howe from behind and released the gate. Howe stepped out, shut the gate, and motioned the guard to leave.
“You haven’t accepted this yet,” he said to Cloud. “I’d wager my next term in office that you still think there is some way out.”
Cloud shrugged his shoulders and lay back on his cot, stretching his long, lean frame over the rough blankets like a powerful cat feigning disinterest in the prey temporarily out of reach. “Perhaps not for me.” His voice was deceptively soft, almost a purr. “But you won’t get away either.”
