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It would be easier, if he could believe anything she’d willingly tell him. Still, he might learn something from her falsehoods, if he asked for the right ones, in the right way. “All right,” he tried. “What’s the true nature of Desmond’s project? The one I’ve signed off on, but know so precious little about. ”
“How much do you know already?” she replied—which wasn’t an answer, but the basis for another trick. It was one Grant had used himself in the past, usually while trying to manage someone who outranked him.
“I know it’s based on the technology you deployed against Union prisoners in Tennessee. Some kind of gas, wasn’t it?”
She didn’t rise to the bait. Maybe it wasn’t bait. “Some kind of gas, yes. One hundred percent effective, both as a killing agent and as a psychological weapon. ”
“One hundred percent?” he exclaimed, knowing he’d picked the less interesting of the two things to ask about. But he’d get to the other one shortly.
“Yes. Better than that, really. ”
“How so?”
“One hundred percent of the soldiers were neutralized, and some of the neutralized soldiers killed those who had avoided the test weapon altogether. It was awful,” she said, so flatly that Grant thought maybe she meant “awful” in the Biblical sense rather than any humane one. “Best of all, word traveled fast, through the survivors—and the guards, the administrators, nearby neighbors, and passers-through. The incid
ent went from a scientific experiment to a legend in less than a week. ”
“Experiment?” He choked out the word, wondering how many helpless men had died at this woman’s hand, only to be dismissed by such a clinical term.
“A tactic, then, if you prefer. You’ve killed more men in a casual afternoon strategy when you still manned the front. Though not so brutal as your cohort Sherman, I believe; I’ll give you that much credit,” she said, but her voice darkened, and Grant had a feeling he’d received no credit whatsoever. “You never scorched the earth. You never burned the homes of women and children who were already destitute and left them with less than nothing. And that, sir, is why I’ve left my gun in my lap and tolerated this conversation. ”
Privately, Grant had similar sentiments about his fellow general; but it wouldn’t do to share them, and he refused to give her the idea that they might hold any feelings in common. It would only give her power, and he’d lost enough of that already.
“I suppose I should thank you for your patience,” he said, not believing for a moment that it was patience that prompted her to give him an audience. It was something else, crueler and more calculating. She wasn’t there to answer questions; she was there to ask them. So it was up to him to ask them first. “Now, let’s see how long I can persuade you to indulge me. Tell me about the weapon. Tell me about the project. I don’t even know its name, if Desmond ever gave it one. ”
“Project Maynard,” she graciously supplied.
“Maynard? A rather … uninspiring title. Not very evocative of a plan to wipe out a nation. ”
“Of course not. That’s the point of a code name, isn’t it? It’s fitting, though. Named for the first man to die of the gas. ”
Grant filed that bit of information away, suspecting it was minor enough to be true. “How does it work?” he pressed, wringing the conversation out, even if it only told him things he already knew, or half-truths to wonder about later. He wouldn’t have her attention for too much longer—he could sense it—so his questions became more direct.
“The gas kills anyone who inhales it. But a significant portion of those who breathe it don’t stop moving. Instead, it takes over their nervous system and makes them into mindless cannibals. They turn on their fellow men, spreading the contagion while seeding terror. ”
“I should think so,” murmured Grant. “If I heard that dead men were coming to eat me, I’d be quite terrified. ”
She leaned forward, her thorny smile brightening. “Oh, but that’s not even the worst of it. Everyone’s afraid to die, yes, but everyone dies eventually—we all know it, even if we’d rather not think about it. But imagine all the horrors of dying, without the reward of resting. Imagine no longer being in control of your own faculties, at the mercy of a chemical flood, a brainless compulsion that turns you against the people you once knew and loved. That, Mr. President, is truly a fate worse than death. And our studies have shown that, indeed, men fear becoming one of the shambling plague-walkers more than they fear a bullet to the head. ”
It was such a precise comparison that Grant knew it must be based in experience, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask. He couldn’t bring himself to say anything, for a moment.
“So this is what it’s come to. ”
She reclined, somewhat crossly. Apparently that wasn’t what she’d wanted to hear. “Yes, this is what it’s come to. You want the war to end? This is how you end it. ”
“It sounds … unethical. Unfair. It doesn’t sound like war; it sounds like cheating. ”
“Call it what you like. But for all your talk of preserving and restoring the Union, I’m the only one doing anything about it. You’ve been sending boys to do the jobs of men. It hasn’t worked out. Now it’s time to give a woman a crack at it. And let me assure you: I will do what needs to be done. I’ll do what none of you have been able to do so far, or what you haven’t had the stomach for. ”
Grant shook his head, then sat forward to tap one finger on the edge of the desk for emphasis. “Now, Miss Haymes, it is my understanding that this weapon is only effective for a mile or so—that’s one of the only things I know about it for certain—and that it’s too big and heavy to be deployed from a cannon, or even hurtled down a hill. That was my complaint to Desmond, when he brought it up: Your magnificent war-ending weapon needs a team of, what—two dozen men? At least?—to deploy it, and those men will almost certainly die in the delivery. Even if we could find men willing to sacrifice their lives on account of this stunt, it’s highly unlikely that one of these gas bombs would be enough to end the war. I’m not certain it could even turn the tide, except to galvanize the South. Deploying a weapon of such … terror, that was the word you used? Deploying such a thing will frighten them more than it will harm them. ”
“And fear does no harm?”
“Sometimes fear is a source of strength. You’re talking about a nation that has been at war for an entire generation—and, like what’s left of the United States, their population has become almost complacent about it. Warfare has become the standard of existence, a miserable constant, but a predictable one, given this long-running stalemate. ”
“But it’s not a stalemate,” she argued. “The South is in decline. ”
He launched the tapping finger of emphasis once more. “Precisely. We have held on long enough that they’re finally bending under the weight of this conflict. To change the rules now is to risk a resurgence in effort and planning on their part. Your weapon will give them something new to rally against—it will give them back the focus they’ve begun to lose. ”
