Fortis raised his voice. “Thank you, John Claggart. This will even things up. You are a true friend to labor.”

Henry Clay replied, “I wish I could have brought you more ammunition. Only thirty rounds. But once you get the Vulcan King’s range, you ought to blow enough holes in her to sink her before they get off too many shots. Better yet, blow up a boiler. Remember, her boilers are directly underneath her wheelhouse. If you manage to hit a boiler, the explosion will sweep away the whole forward part of the boat, from the wheelhouse down to the waterline, and bury their guns.”

“And the state militia,” said Fortis.

“And the Pinkertons,” said Clay. “And the Coal and Iron Police. Good luck, boys. God go with all of you.”

•   •   •

A U.S. MARSHAL boarded the railroad ferry from Jersey City to Cortlandt Street with a prisoner in handcuffs and leg irons who recognized Mary Higgins from the union. He looked away so as not to cause her trouble. She had just bought a sandwich in the terminal. She carried it over and asked the marshal, “May I give this to your prisoner?”

A smile got him to allow it.

It was a short walk from the ferry terminal to Wall Street. She paused in Trinity Church cemetery, and paused again to stare in the tall windows of Thibodeau & Marzen. It looked like a bank.

Nearby, she found the Congdon Building, the tallest on the block. The doorman eyed her borrowed coat and the hat Henry Clay had bought her and asked politely who she had come to see. Her voice failed her. She had lost her nerve. Stammering something unintelligible, she hurried away. She rode a streetcar uptown, clutching Clay’s revolver in her bag, walked a bit, and came back down on the Third Avenue El. The doormen had changed shifts. The new man was polite, too, equally impressed by her coat and hat.

“Mr. James Congdon, please.”

“Top floor,” he said, indicating the elevator.

The elevator runner, a gawky kid who in a better world would still be in school, asked her what floor, and when she told him he asked, “What’s your name, please, miss? I have to call ahead to Mr. Congdon’s floor.”

So much for surprising the great man in his lair. “Mary Higgins.”

He called on the intercom, spoke her name, and listened.

“He wants to know who you are.”

“A friend of Mr. Clay.”

“He says bring you up.”

The elevator delivered her to a small foyer with a reception desk. A middle-aged woman at the desk pointed toward a series of rooms that spilled one into another. “Through there. Close each door behind you, please.”

Mary Higgins went through the first door, closed it, and in through a second. Each room was quieter than the last. In the third she found a closed door and knocked.

A strong male voice shouted, “Enter!”