Read Chapter 10: SILAS CRANE

Silas Crane had been living in New York for nine months under the name Samuel Crewe.

Once Elias knew to look for him, he found the trail in a day.

A room rented near Hanover Square. Payments through a London correspondent. Small purchases of paper, sealing wax, and imported tobacco. No wife. No servants. No public business. The sort of life designed not to be noticed by men who did not already know what they were seeking.

Elias watched the house from a coffee room across the street.

At four in the afternoon, a thin man emerged.

Age had bent him slightly, but the clove tobacco remained.

Silas Crane.

Alive.

He wore a brown coat and carried a cane. He walked north without hurry.

Elias followed at distance.

Crane entered Trinity Churchyard, crossed among the graves, and stopped beside a stone angel blackened by soot from the Great Fire. Five minutes later another man joined him.

Thomas Price, the red-haired naval clerk.

They spoke briefly. Price handed Crane a packet. Crane handed him nothing.

British channel.

Then, near dusk, Crane went east to a chandlery where Miriam had once collected a message.

Continental channel.

Elias almost admired the elegance.

Crane had recreated his system inside Elias’s system, using similar marks to contaminate both. He did not need to expose Elias outright. He only needed each side to distrust him until someone acted.

That night Elias entered Crane’s rented room.

Amos had acquired the key from the landlord’s maid for two shillings and a promise of imported tea.

The room was spare. Bed, desk, washstand, trunk. No obvious papers.

Elias examined the desk first. Empty drawers. He checked beneath them, behind the frame, inside the inkstand.

Nothing.

Amos went to the fireplace.

“Cold ashes,” he whispered.

“Search them.”

They found fragments of burned paper, too small to read.

The trunk contained clothes and a pair of pistols.

“Professional,” Amos muttered.

“No. Patient.”

Elias lifted the mattress.

Beneath it lay a wooden board with shallow scratches. Not words. Numbers.

Columns of numbers.

He copied them.

At the warehouse, he compared them to old shipping prices. Nothing. Exchange rates. Nothing. Biblical references. Nothing.

Then he noticed repeated figures matching warehouse dimensions.

“Inventory coordinates,” he said.

Amos leaned closer.

“Crane used this system with your father. Shelf, bay, stack.”

They went to Warehouse Two after midnight.

The coordinates led to Bay Four, upper rack, third stack of old sailcloth.

Behind it they found a narrow iron box.

Inside were copies of Elias’s reports.

Not all. Enough.

British messages, Continental messages, invoices, forged notes in Elias’s hand, and a list of payments connected to Jonas Pell, Caleb Orr, and three names Elias did not know.

At the bottom lay a document that made his mouth dry.

A deposition signed by Nathaniel Vale.

It stated that Elias had knowingly supplied intelligence to His Majesty’s forces for personal profit, manipulated Continental operations, hoarded provisions, and endangered patriot agents.

Nathaniel’s signature looked genuine.

“It’s false,” Amos said.

“The signature?”

“Yes.”

Elias examined it.

“Good enough for a man who wants to believe it.”

The second document was worse.

A British memorandum alleged that Elias had used rebel contacts to lure loyalist patrols into ambushes and had concealed smuggled French goods intended for Continental forces.

Two cases. Two audiences. One conclusion.

Traitor.

Crane was preparing to destroy him from both directions.

“Why hide this in our warehouse?” Amos whispered.

“So it can be discovered.”

“When?”

“Soon.”

Elias sat on a bale.

The clever move would be to remove the box.

The expected move.

Which meant Crane might be watching for it.

“Put everything back,” Elias said.

Amos stared.

“Back?”

“Yes.”

“And wait for soldiers to find it?”

“No.”

Elias smiled for the first time that night.

“We let them find something better.”