“Goddamnit, haul your fat ass over here!” MacRae shouted into the trumpet. The composure was gone from his voice. As he cursed, his tenor went shrill and broke. His face went scarlet. He listened some more. “We need some leadership on this thing,” he said.

“Let me talk to him,” J. Allan Taylor said. He reached for the earpiece, but MacRae held onto it with a white fist.

Sam said, “I still don’t see why—”

Waddell grabbed him, hard.

“No, the city is not threatened, Walk, not directly,” Hugh MacRae said. “Christ Jesus—we’ve gone over all that! This thing is necessary. The long-term threat is there. We’ve got to do this thing. We talked about that.”

Walker Taylor was shouting into the other end—they all could hear the shrill buzz of his voice rattling the earpiece.

“We may not need you later!” Hugh MacRae said. “Later may be too late.”

“Let me go get him,” Donald MacRae offered. “He’s only a block away.”

Hugh ignored him and stared at the wall, still shouting. “We can’t stop it now—it’s too late, man!” He listened again, stamping his foot. “The Pinkertons’ report? We talked to the Pinkertons!” He listened. “I don’t give a good hoot in hell if you’ve changed your mind!”

Donald MacRae shook his head and stared at the Italian marble floor.

J. Allan Taylor stood by, wringing his hands, imagining what his grandfather would do at this moment if he were standing beside them here, in the family house he had built. They were all letting Hugh down. It was all a matter of technicalities. Rountree must have been talking to Walker—it had his stamp all over it. Legalities, that’s all it was. Paper laws.

Hugh MacRae clapped the earpiece into the cradle so hard he nearly tore the wooden telephone box off the wall. He didn’t have to explain—they’d all caught the gist.

Sam had never seen Hugh so worked up—almost too angry to speak.

“Do it yourself,” J. Allan said.

MacRae shook his head violently. “That’s not my place. It’s a military operation, that’s how we planned the goddamn thing.” He chopped the air with his hands. “We want action taken by the proper authorities.” He swore again. “I thought I had some goddamn soldiers I could count on.”

His brother Donald said, “Tom James can do it. He’s out on the steps.”

MacRae flung open the big doors and marched out, boots clicking, onto the marble steps. The mob cheered. At the fringes, Red Shirts collected in knots and pumped their rifles over their heads. “Let’s go get the niggers!” one of them cried, and the rest broke out in a chorus of cheering and hurrahs. They pressed closer.