Until the moment the bandits had attacked, the trip from New York had been relatively uneventful. Once they had crossed the Harlem River, it had been almost a pleasant ride in the country with Katrina and the two servants. He had found the young woman—she was younger than he—to be both pleasant and intelligent. In point of fact, she was extremely intelligent. Almost better, he discovered she had a wicked sense of humor. He enjoyed her company, however strange the current circumstances.
Now she stood a good chance of dying a violent, degrading, and painful death if he couldn’t come up with some way of resolving this brutal dilemma.
“Hey,” yelled Charley, “lookit this shit. Pretty boy is a sojer. Lookit the uniforms.”
The knife man looked at the blue uniform held up by Charley. “That true, hero? You a soldier? You gonna fight the Krauts?”
“I am trying to report for duty, yes. Now let her go and let us go on.”
The knife man sneered. “Then why ain’t you wearing the fuckin’ things? Know why? ‘Cause you a deserter!” He laughed. “Now I know what you and your woman are doin’. Shit, you’re runnin’ away. You ain’t gonna do nothin’ about me and Charley ‘cause you’ll get hung for desertin’ if you do.” He found this very funny and laughed loudly.
“I am not a deserter,” Patrick said grimly. “And I will kill you if you don’t let her go.”
The knife man used his other arm to give Katrina’s breast a painful, hard squeeze, which caused her to utter a small scream before she was able to stifle it. “Hero boy, we’re gonna ride out of here on your horses and, when we’re far enough away, we’re gonna take turns ridin’ your other mare.” He thought that witty and laughed again, as did Charley, who by now had the horses over by Katrina and the knife man. “And, like I said, when we’re through we’ll leave her for you to find.” He slid his hand from Katrina’s breast and let it wander down below her belly.
With a scream that came from the bowels of hell, the devil emerged from the bushes by the trail. In this case, Satan took the form of a half-naked woman, her hair singed frizzy, her face red and burned where it wasn’t bruised blue. She hurled herself forward with, instead of a pitchfork, a rifle and a long bayonet.
Charley turned and opened his mouth to say something, but before he could utter a sound, the bayonet entered his throat and came out the back of his neck. He fell to the ground as the rifle did an obscene dance with his body. As the knife man turned to face this new threat, Patrick raced the few steps that separated them and yanked Katrina away before the knife man could gather his shattered wits. Patrick jammed the revolver in the knife man’s side and pulled the trigger twice, with thunderous explosions. The knife man howled and fell to the ground as dead as Charley.
The sudden silence was as shocking as the violence. “Are you all right?” Patrick finally and inanely asked Katrina. She stammered that she was.
“Where’d she come from?” asked Patrick. The apparition was facedown on the ground, her back heaving as she moaned and sobbed, hollering for her father and someone named Cormac.
Katrina knelt beside the woman’s side. “She’s hurt rather badly. She’s very young, only little more than a child.” She put an arm around the sobbing girl’s shoulder and tried to comfort her. After a bit, she succeeded, and the girl calmed down enough to volunteer that her name was Molly and she had no idea where she was.
As Katrina helped Molly fix her clothing into something resembling decency, she also took stock of the girl’s injuries. She determined that neither the burns nor the bruises, although unsightly, were as serious as she had at first thought. Then the girl moved and her torn skirts parted. Katrina saw the additional bruises on her inner thighs and quickly realized what had happened.
“We will have to take her with us,” she said grimly. “She’s in no shape to be left alone.”
Patrick had the rifle and was examining it. “A bright, shiny German Mauser. I wonder how she got it.”
Molly Duggan raised her head and fixed him with a glare of hate through her swollen eyes. “I took it off a German. Hope I killed the fooker.”
CHAPTER SIX
TEDDY ROOSEVELT PACED nervously. It was nearly midmorning and nothing had been resolved. It was as if President McKinley didn’t want to confront the fact that the nation was at war. This was worse, he thought, than the vacillations that had so delayed America’s entry into the war with Spain.
And now the oppressed were not Cubans but white-skinned Americans who lived in his home state of New York. At least he had convinced McKinley of the need to call Congress into emergency session. Representatives and senators were converging on the capital with a briskness and a sense of urgency they rarely displayed. Roosevelt’s contacts on Capitol Hill told him there should be enough for a quorum by early this afternoon.
John Hay entered the president’s office unannounced, carrying a large and official-looking envelope. “Gentlemen, I just received this from the Italian ambassador.”
“Received what?” asked McKinley in a weak voice. “What does Italy have to do with our problems?” At least, Roosevelt mused, he acknowledges that we do have problems.
Hay continued as if the response had been totally adequate and normal. “This is an official message from the German kaiser that was given to the ambassador in Rome several weeks ago. The ambassador is quite embarrassed. He had no idea that what he would be bringing over was such a critical and infamous document. He assures us that he had no wish to be put in such a compromising position, and that his young nation is a friend of the United States’ and not allied with either the kaiser or his aims.”
Roosevelt’s impatience showed. “John, you’re not negotiating another treaty. Please finish the preamble and get on with it.”
Hay waved the papers. “This is an ultimatum from Germany. It was supposed to arrive here and in our hand no later than the Saturday before the invasion, so the Germans could say we had fair warning. But the fates intervened and the Italian ambassador’s crossing was delayed by faulty engines in the liner he’d taken; therefore, we just received it. Since he had no idea what he was carrying, he also gave it little urgency.”
Roosevelt gave up. “Will there be a time in the near future, say this year, when you might tell us what the ultimatum contains?”
Hay smiled and allowed that he would. Then he summarized the lengthy document.
Germany needed colonies for what she viewed as the legitimate expansion of the Reich.
Germany was a major world power and the United States was not.
Germany was better suited to govern the hitherto Spanish colonies than the United States. The fact that the United States was talking of freedom soon for Cuba and somewhat later on for the Philippines was a betrayal of the white man’s prerogative to govern the nonwhite races, who were, of course, incapable of governing themselves.
Germany was angry that the United States did not see the logic behind this argument.
Germany’s invasion was to show the United States the weakness of her position and the strength of the Imperial German military machine and, thereby, to put her in a better mood to negotiate the transfer of the requisite territories.
Germany would take from the United States the following: Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, the Hawaiian Islands, and Guam. From this time forward, Germany would be exempt from the Monroe Doctrine and would establish spheres of influence over the Isthmus of Panama and the republic of Venezuela, which, not coincidentally, owed Germany substantial sums of money and were in default. Of course, any prior arrangements regarding independence for either Cuba or the Philippines were cancelled.
Germany required that the U.S. Navy, upon completion of the hostilities, be reduced to a coastal defense force. Thus all battleships and cruisers were to be either scrapped or sold to Germany for a nominal amount. Germany was not particularly concerned about the size of any American army as, without a navy to transport it, the American army was of no consequence to Germany.
Germany would be paid the sum of one hundred million dollars in gold for the expenses incurred in the actions against the United States.
If Germany did not receive total acceptance of these terms by July 15, 1901, the amount of indemnity would rise by the amount of five million dollars per week.
For a moment, there was stunned silence. Then President McKinley looked up. “Is there any room for negotiation?”
Roosevelt jumped to his feet, his face a furious red. “Negotiate! What the hell is there to negotiate for? We’ve been attacked by a tyrant and a pirate. I say we raise the largest army this country’s ever seen and wipe Germany off the face of the earth.”