Captain Doss wore a smart white semi-uniform to greet her guests. The captain had beautiful, dusky skin and the angular features of a storybook pirate queen. Her short black hair matched even Valentine's own mane in its glossy sheen.
A third woman, who helped Valentine and Harper into the White Lightning, stood over six feet tall and had the long, graceful limbs of a ballerina. "Give me the bags up," she said perfunctorily, and Valentine realized he had heard a foreign accent for the first time in his life.
Once on board, the White Lightning seemed smaller than it had looked from the dinghy. It was wide-waisted; the top of what was obviously the cabin area filled the middle third of the ship. It had a wheel to steer it-someone had spent a lot of hours carving and polishing the spokes-placed in front of the rear mast. All the woodwork, save the planks of the deck and the decorative wheel, was painted a uniform light gray.
The captain introduced her crew. "You've met my first mate, Mr. Silvertongue. My second mate, who works so hard I don't need any more crew, is Eva Stepanicz. She crossed the Atlantic four round trips before ending up in the Lakes."
"It will be more times, once I have goods enough for my own ship," she said.
"You mean gold enough?" Harper asked.
"No, sir. Goods. In Riga is agent of tradings, who pays most for paintings brought back from America. I anf here collecting arts."
The captain smiled. "It's hard not to indulge someone so determined. And she's a hard bargainer. I don't know a Picasso from an espresso, but I think our Mr. Stepanicz has enough to start a gallery."
"But I'm forgetting my manners," Harper said, reaching into his haversack. "Captain, compliments of my last trip through Tennessee," he said, handing over a pair of elabo-rately wrapped and sealed bottles of liquor. In the muted light, Valentine couldn't read the black labels, but they looked authentic.
"Sergeant Harper, you just bought us a new coat of paint, and maybe some standing rigging. My thanks to you, sir."
Harper pointed to the three bags of correspondence. "You'll also find a box of cigars for each of you in those bags. If you don't smoke them yourselves, a little good tobacco helps grease the Quisling wheels, I believe."
"You southern gentlemen are too kind. I wish those Green Mountain Boys would show the same courtesy," Silvertongue said, with a curtsey involving her overbaggy trousers.
"Enough playacting," Captain Doss interrupted. "I'd like to be anchored off Adolph's Bunker by midnight. You Wolves want to pay a call on Milwaukee? Get a little taste of life in the KZ?"
"We're always interested in the Kurian Zone. But would that be wise, Captain?" Valentine asked.
"Well, Lieutenant, the pathfinder look would have to go. But we've got some extra whites in the slop chest. The Bunker's a rough spot, but I've never heard of the Reapers going in there. The owner never makes trouble; in fact, I've heard he turns troublemakers over to them. I'd like a little extra muscle showing for the deal we need to do. I'll make it worth your while."
Valentine thought for a moment. "Is this deal anything the New Order would object to?"
"If they knew about it, Lieutenant," Doss said, looking at the wind telltale. The tiny streamer fluttered east. "You might say we're fucking with the Quislings."
"Count us in, then."
An hour later, the yawl tacked into Milwaukee's harbor. A single decrepit police boat, piloted by a Quisling whose sole badge of rank was a grimy blue shirt, motored alongside and illuminated the White Lightning with a small spotlight.
Captain Doss held up a hand and flashed a series of hand signals that would have done a third-base coach proud. The Quisling nodded, satisfied.
"Just arranging what you might call the port charges," Doss explained to Valentine. The Wolves now wore white canvas shirts and trousers, as well. While more tattered than the mates' uniforms, they still found it a pleasant change from sweat-stained buckskins. During the run south, Valentine had questioned the captain about the Lakes Flotilla and its habits, and had learned a little about how the sails were balanced. Valentine sponged information off anyone he met, his mind always ready to learn something new.
They pulled up to the main civic pier, a cracked concrete affair that sloped toward Lake Michigan at a twenty-degree angle. Valentine noticed that the captain pivoted as she brought the ship in so that its bow pointed out to the lake.
"The Kurians aren't too big on infrastructure repairs," Sil-vertongue commented as she tied the White Lightning to the dock. A few boats, none of which matched Captain Doss's in lines or upkeep, bobbed along the pier.
"Stepanicz, you've got the first anchor watch. Don't give me that look; after the deal, I'll take over for you. If we're not back in two hours, or if anything goes down, you raise sail. There's a good wind for it tonight."
"Aye, aye, sir," she answered, drawing a sawed-off shotgun from the chart locker. She broke it open and inserted two loads of buckshot.
"And if our broad-shouldered young men would each grab one of the barrels lashed to the mast in the cabin-Silver, help Mr. Valentine with the knots, would you-we can be about the rest of this night's business."
Adolph's Bunker looked like a transplant from the Maginot Line. Whatever its original purpose, its builders had wanted it to last. They constructed it from heavy concrete, with narrow windows imitative of a castle's arrow slits. The bleached white of the concrete and the irregular rectangular slits gave it the countenance of a toothy skull. It lay on the lakeshore, set well away from the dead and empty buildings frowning behind.
"Why is it called Adolph's Bunker?" Valentine asked as they approached the squat, brick-shaped building. The ten-gallon cask grew heavier with each step.
"The guy who runs it is a dictator, for starts," Captain Doss said.
Silvertongue turned and looked at the men, each laboring with a cask on his shoulder. "There's a feeling about the place. It's a piece of sanity in an insane country. Or maybe a slightly different insanity within the insanity, take your pick. It's popular with the Quislings. When we found out we had to meet you this week, we contacted a Chicago big shot, so we could kill two birds with one stone this trip."