Dan Simmons - The Fifth Heart

He had nodded and started to turn away when Paha Sapa gripped him firmly by the upper arm. Again it was as if Holmes had walked into the spinning coil of the dynamo.

“Lucan, kte,” said Paha Sapa. Lucan, he kills thee .

Holmes felt the cold fist of absolute fate start to close around his heart but pushed that away.

“Holmes, uŋktepi! Yakte!” It was said almost in a whisper but it struck Holmes like a shout, a wild war cry in the prairie wind. Holmes , you kill him. Thou killest him!

“Yes,” whispered Sherlock Holmes.

Paha Sapa smiled. His deep voice came softly in normal tones as he said— “Toksha ake čante ista wascinyanktin ktelo. Hecetu. Mitakuya oyasin!”

Holmes understood it completely— I shall see you again with the eye of my heart. So be it. All my relatives!

“ Mitakuya oyasin!” replied Holmes. All my relatives!

The two men walked away in opposite directions and it took Holmes almost two minutes before he remembered that he was supposed to go to the pier where the boat should be waiting.

The full moon was still in the paling western sky beyond the White City when Sherlock Holmes brought Henry James with him to the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building before six a.m. on Monday.

“I don’t understand why I have to be part of this . . . whatever this is,” said the sleepy and irritated James.

“Because you do,” said Holmes. “You have been from the beginning and today there must be an ending. You need to be there. Besides, I gave the lady your name for the key . . .”

“What lady? What key?” stammered James, but fell silent as he saw Colonel Rice, Agent Drummond, and Chicago Police Chief McClaughry waiting for them at the largest of the Great Buildings.

Rice unlocked the door, let them all in, and locked the door behind them. Holmes led the way to the Otis-Hale Company’s exposed elevator. There was a metal gate surrounding the elevator area that stayed locked when the lift was closed to the public. Colonel Rice unlocked that outer gate now and handed the key to Holmes, who used it to unlock the actual gate to the elevator.

“You see, Mr. James,” said Holmes, handing him the key, “the same key opens both gates. Use it only if a certain lady shows up and asks to go to the promenade roof level. She may be . . . persuasive.”

“But I have no idea of how to handle . . . to control . . . to operate . . .” said James.

Drummond stepped into the elevator and showed a lever to the left of the doorway. “Pull to the left to go up. Further left you go, the faster you ascend. Don’t forget to stop at the roof level or we’ll have to look for you and your passenger on the moon.”

“There’s a mechanical sensor that slows it to a stop there no matter what the operator is doing,” said Colonel Rice, obviously worried that James would take Drummond literally.

James still shook his head and tried to hand the key back to Holmes.

“Nonsense,” said Holmes, refusing to take it. “You’ve been in a thousand lifts, Mr. James.”

“Not so many,” grumbled the writer. It was certainly true that London had little use for the modern elevator, any more than his beloved Rome or Florence.

As if the matter had been settled, Holmes turned to Drummond, the two standing within the cage of the elevator car. “How many marksmen did you decide on?”

“President Cleveland is adamant about refusing to have men with rifles visible on the rooftops,” said Drummond. “He says that it would make this joyous day feel like Lincoln’s Second Inaugural with soldiers stationed on every building.”

“Fine, fine,” said Holmes. “How many subtle, out-of-plain-view marksmen did you settle on?”

“Twelve,” said Drummond. “Prone or otherwise hidden on the top levels of every other Great Building that visually aligns with the full south promenade of this building.”

Holmes nodded. “Telescopic sights?”

“Twenty-power,” said Drummond.

“Do not forget to remind them that they are not to shoot unless I either give the signal or have been shot down,” said Holmes. “We don’t want a gun battle raging above the heads of one hundred thousand people.”

“How can you be so sure that Lucan Adler will choose the promenade of this building for his sniper’s nest?” asked Colonel Rice.

“I just am,” said Holmes. “He will be at the easternmost end of the promenade deck. Essentially beside or behind the giant German spotlight mounted there.”

“A difficult target from all the angles the marksmen will have,” said Chief McClaughry.

“Precisely,” said Holmes.

“But we’ll never let him get out of this building alive,” said Rice.

Holmes smiled and turned to James. “People will be going up and down to the Observation Deck all morning until ten a.m., James,” he said softly. “Then men from Colonel Rice’s Columbian Guard will make a clean sweep of the entire rooftop area to make sure no one has stayed behind and after that, they will lock both the elevator door and the cage door. You will have the key.”

“To give to what lady?” asked James. His voice was shaky.

“You will recognize her from the Irene Adler photograph I’ve shown you. Auburn hair. Strong chin. Amazing cheekbones. Eyes that are almost violet.”

Holmes held out his hand. “Good-bye for now, old boy. Thank you for everything.”

James shook the hand and gave one apprehensive glance up at the two hundred vertical feet through which he was supposed to guide that elevator. The four men left the building and Colonel Rice locked the outside door again.

“The Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building will open at its usual scheduled time,” Rice said to Henry James. “At ten a.m., my men will make their sweep to empty the Observation Deck and rooftop level and then we’ll put up the sign saying that the elevator attraction and promenade deck will be closed to the public between ten a.m. and two p.m. Many will want to get up to get a better view of the president, but all the high walkways will be closed through those hours. You need to be here at ten.”

James looked at the large key and put it in his waistcoat pocket. “What should I do until then?” he asked somewhat plaintively.

“If I were you,” said Agent Drummond, “I’d take that waiting power boat back to Senator Cameron’s yacht and catch another couple of hours’ sleep. Just make sure someone wakes you so that you can be here—with the key in your pocket—at ten a.m. You won’t have to say anything to anyone—the sign will explain the closure, the outer cage door will be locked, and the disappointed public will go outside on the ground level to see the president.”

Later, James didn’t remember even nodding before he turned and walked back to the pier.

The morning grew chill and cloudy and was threatening rain until minutes before the President of the United States arrived, when the sun emerged on cue and bathed spectators and dignitaries with rich light.

Holmes heard the huge crowd gathered on the Parade Ground around the Administration Building cheer and clap the sun even before the president’s procession of carriages came into sight. The detective peered out of the long, narrow slit he’d had Colonel Rice’s crew cut out of the metal base below the giant searchlight on the southwest corner of the Observation Deck on the Manufactures and Liberal Arts Building. He could see the length of the walkway to the identical searchlight and metal base on the south east corner of the building. If Lucan Adler had chosen some other place for his sniper’s roost, the world-famous detective Sherlock Holmes would be the fool lying, sweltering and sweating, in the tight airless box despite the cool morning, curled up like a useless fetus while the President of the United States was shot dead from some other sniper’s roost.