Click on image to enlarge.

	Regular				Club
You Pay:	$1.25				$1.06
Micropay Rebate:	50%				50%
Cost After Rebate:	$0.62				$0.53
You Save:	50.4%				57.6%

eBook Category: Historical Fiction/Mystery/Crime
eBook Description: Set on the Titanic's sister ship the Olympic in 1911, in Andersonville prison during the Civil War, and in the heady days when the war just started, "The Dead Line" follows Nathaniel Garrison as he tracks one of the South's most successful spies.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: The Blue and the Gray Undercover, ed. Ed Gorman, 2001
Fictionwise Release Date: January 2004

26 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [127 KB], eReader (PDB) [47 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [35 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [32 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [77 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [102 KB], hiebook (KML) [111 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [61 KB], iSilo (PDB) [29 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [36 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [64 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [51 KB]
Words: 10885
Reading time: 31-43 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

Nathaniel Garrison gripped the silver handle on his walking stick and cursed the unsteadiness of his legs. After three days, he should have had his sea legs. The Olympic was the largest ship ever built and, as a result, was steadier in the water than most. He had spent a fair number of years on ships--both before and after the war--and he had never had so much trouble walking on a deck.

Of course, in those days, he hadn't been recovering from a bout of pleurisy that had nearly taken his life. He hadn't been this thin since those horrible years in Andersonville, years he was still amazed he had survived.

The afternoon's weather was balmy and he couldn't stay confined to his stateroom. He was supposed to remain indoors--all that outdoor air was supposed to be bad for him, not that he cared. He had not made it seventy-four years by believing everything other people told him. His body craved light and air and exercise. By gum, he'd have both.

The Boat Deck was filled with people. Many were sitting in lounge chairs, blankets at their feet, staring across the railing at the surprisingly calm Atlantic. Others were gathered at tables, having animated conversations. Rich people, of which he was one. Captains of industry, their wives, children, and mistresses. People he did not socialize with unless necessity forced him into it.

He supposed he would find a great deal of entertainment among the luminaries on this ship. It was the Olympic's maiden voyage and, as a result, he found himself in a floating party, complete with reporters hired by the White Star Line to capture the grandeur, and allowed access to all the first class berths, so long as they did not bother the passengers.

Sometimes he wondered how difficult that was. In addition to him--a man who never gave interviews because he despised the influence of the scandal sheets--there were several other well known men, including J. P. Morgan who was here, of course, to monitor his investment. Several members of the British peerage were on board as well, many on vacation and some, like Lord Reginald Seton, to do business in New York.

If Garrison had been a reporter, he would have interviewed them all. What would the crew have done, after all? Thrown him off for violating his agreement? He suspected a number of journalists were taking notes, and the very thought of it kept him away from the public areas most of the time.

He rested his arms on the deck's wooden railing and stared at the gray Atlantic which stretched as far as the eye could see. The sky above it was bluer than the ocean but they still blurred at the horizon. Out in the middle of nowhere, going somewhere fast.

He looked down. Even though he'd been on the Olympic for three days, he still couldn't believe the size of her. Here, on the Boat Deck--A Deck as the brochures called it--he was as high as he could get. Seemingly miles above the frothing water, as if he were watching from the balcony of one of London's tall buildings overlooking the Thames instead of from the deck of a ship. A floating palace, the ads had called it, and that was probably true.

A floating palace filled with the usual sycophantic and self-absorbed courtiers, all of whom thought they were more important than they were.