Read Chapter 18: THE MERCY ANNE

The Mercy Anne left Peck Slip under a wet southwest wind.

Nathaniel handled the tiller from shadow while Elias and Crane stood near the stern. Amos tended the small sail. From shore, it would appear a merchant fleeing with two crewmen and a passenger.

Crane watched the city recede.

“You have not given me the bill.”

“You have not given me Harcourt’s protection.”

Crane laughed.

“You still think I work for Harcourt.”

“You work for yourself.”

“As do you.”

“Then we understand each other.”

The sloop moved into the East River current.

Behind them, a British launch slipped from a darker pier.

To the east, another small boat hugged the Brooklyn shore.

Crane noticed both.

His hand went inside his coat.

“Do not,” Elias said.

“Is this a trap?”

“Yes.”

Crane drew a pistol.

Elias did not move.

“For whom?” Crane asked.

“Everyone.”

Crane’s face changed.

Below deck, Nathaniel struck flint.

A thread of smoke began to rise from the cargo hatch.

Crane smelled it.

“What have you done?”

“Ended the account.”

He aimed the pistol at Elias’s chest.

“Put us ashore.”

“No.”

Crane looked toward the British launch, now gaining.

“You intend to surrender me.”

“Harcourt thinks so.”

“And the rebels?”

“They think I am surrendering them.”

Crane understood.

“You mean to vanish.”

“Yes.”

“With me aboard.”

“You may leave.”

Elias pointed toward the starboard rail.

“There is a skiff.”

Crane laughed in disbelief.

“You expect me to row away beside you?”

“No. There are two skiffs.”

That was a lie.

Crane did not know it.

Smoke thickened.

The British launch shouted for the Mercy Anne to heave to.

From Brooklyn, a musket flashed. The shot struck water.

“Your friends,” Elias said.

Crane raised the pistol.

“Give me the bill.”

Elias held it over a lantern.

Crane stepped forward.

Elias dropped the paper into the flame.

Crane lunged.

The pistol fired.

Pain tore across Elias’s upper arm.

Nathaniel appeared from below and struck Crane with a belaying pin. Crane fell against the rail but did not lose the pistol.

Amos shouted, “Now!”

The fire had reached the lamp oil.

Flames rolled along the cargo hatch.

The British launch was close enough for Elias to see Lieutenant Barstow at the bow.

“Vale!” Barstow shouted. “Heave to!”

Across the river, another shot cracked.

Crane rose, blood on his temple.

“You little bastard,” he said to Nathaniel.

Then he fired.

Nathaniel twisted. The ball struck the mast.

Elias tackled Crane.

They hit the deck as flames climbed the sailcloth.

Crane was stronger than he looked. He drove a knee into Elias’s ribs and reached for the pistol again.

“Stop!” Elias shouted. “You can still get off!”

“Without the bill?”

“It is ash!”

“You made copies.”

“Of course I made copies!”

For one absurd second they both laughed.

Then the first powder charge went.

Not large. Loud enough.

The deck bucked. A section of railing burst outward.

The British launch veered away.

Smoke swallowed the stern.

Amos pulled aside the starboard canvas.

The skiff waited.

“Nathaniel!” Elias shouted.

His brother appeared, coughing.

Crane saw the skiff.

He understood the whole mechanism at once.

“You planned every inch.”

“Most inches.”

Crane looked at the burning sail, the approaching British boat, the dark Brooklyn shore.

Then at Elias.

“Take me with you.”

Elias hesitated.

Nathaniel shouted, “No!”

Another explosion sounded below, smaller but closer.

Crane stepped toward the skiff.

From the British launch Harcourt’s voice carried through the smoke.

“Crane! Stand away from Vale!”

Crane froze.

Harcourt himself was there.

Across the water Miriam’s voice shouted something Elias could not hear.

Two sides. Two witnesses.

Crane began to laugh.

“You have made me your corpse.”

Elias understood.

If Crane escaped with them, the story became uncertain. If Crane remained aboard, British and Continental observers might assume he and Elias died together.

“I did not plan that,” Elias said.

“Liar.”

This time the word held almost affection.

Crane raised the pistol—not at Elias, but toward Harcourt’s launch.

“Go,” he said.

Elias stared.

“Silas—”

“Your father never knew when to leave either.”

Crane fired toward the British boat.

Soldiers answered.

A musket ball struck Crane high in the chest.

He staggered.

Elias caught him.

Crane’s eyes widened with surprise, then irritation.

“Bad price,” he whispered.

He collapsed.

Nathaniel grabbed Elias’s wounded arm.

“We have seconds.”

They lowered into the skiff with Amos.

Before climbing down, Elias removed his signet ring and silver watch. He placed them beside Crane’s body.

Then he took his father’s blue coat off and laid it across the deck.

They pushed away under cover of smoke.

Twenty yards. Thirty. Forty.

The larger powder charge ignited.

The Mercy Anne became white fire.

The blast punched the night open.

Elias ducked as burning fragments hissed into the river.

When he looked back, the sloop was no longer a vessel, only flame collapsing into black water.

The British launch circled wreckage.

From Brooklyn, the Continental boat held distance.

Both had seen him board. Neither had seen him leave.

Nathaniel rowed hard toward a low, unlit marsh landing.

Elias pressed a cloth to his bleeding arm.

Behind them, Elias Vale died magnificently.

Ahead, a man with no name rowed into darkness.

For the hour before sailing, the Mercy Anne became a theater whose audience Elias could not fully see.

A sailor on a neighboring wharf repaired the same length of rope three times; British watcher. A fish seller lingered after her basket was empty; perhaps Miriam's observer, perhaps merely hopeful. Two boys threw stones into the water while studying every adult face. A carriage stopped at the corner and moved on without unloading anyone.

Elias felt strangely calm.

He had spent years fearing detection. Now detection was required.

Crane wandered the deck while the crew made ready.

“Your father once planned to fake a cargo loss,” he said suddenly.

Elias looked at him. “When?”

“1768. Tea shipment. Customs duty threatened to wipe out the margin. He proposed reporting water damage and selling the dry chests privately.”

“Did he?”

“No. Your mother discovered the plan.”

That sounded plausible.

“She stopped him?”

“She told him if he wanted to become a criminal, he should at least choose a crime with better profit.”

Elias laughed.

Crane's face softened for the first time.

“I liked Abigail.”

“She remembers you less kindly.”

“Sensible woman.”

For a few minutes they stood together at the rail like two merchants waiting for tide, not enemies surrounded by watchers.

Elias asked, “Did you truly mean to destroy the family?”

Crane considered.

“At first I meant only to frighten you. Then you kept surviving.”

“That was rude of me.”

“You redirected a British search onto Mercer in '77.”

“He cheated me on tar.”

“I knew then exactly whose son you were.”

“So you began feeding contradictions.”

“Yes.”

“Caleb Orr?”

“I learned Price was handling him and bought copies.”

“Bought?”

“Price has debts.”

Elias nodded. The banal answer seemed fitting. Not ideology. Not torture. Debt.

“Jonas Pell?”

Crane's mouth tightened.

“Pell discovered me. I had him questioned by men who were less careful than I intended.”

“Is he alive?”

“I don't know.”

The answer carried shame, or perhaps merely inconvenience.

Elias looked at the city lights.

“We leave a remarkable amount behind us.”

“Men always do.”

“Do you regret it?”

Crane smiled faintly. “Ask me after we reach wherever you think we are going.”

That was when Elias knew Crane still believed there might be a joint escape, some final bargain beyond the harbor.

He almost told him.

Then the British signal flashed from shore.

The theater had begun, and pity was another luxury that arrived too late.