The Wrecker by Clive Cussler (book club reads .TXT) 📕

“James, I could never have said it aloud if you hadn’t told me what you learned. Well done. Mr. Van Dorn will hear about you ... Conductor! Back the train to the dispatcher’s office. I want his telegraph.”

The dispatcher’s office occupied a wooden building in the middle of the busy train yard. The floor shook as switch engines shuttled trains past with only inches of clearance. Bell dictated a telegram to Archie Abbott at the Cascade Canyon Bridge: “ARREST SENATOR CHARLES KINCAID.”

The telegrapher’s eyes popped wide.

“Keep writing! ‘KINCAID IS THE WRECKER.’

“Keep writing! ‘TAKE EVERY PRECAUTION. DO NOT FORGET—REPEAT—DO NOT FORGET—HE GOT THE DROP ON WISH CLARKE AND WEBER AND FIELDS.’

“Send it!”

The telegrapher’s key started clicking faster than a belt-fed Vickers. But he got no further than the word ARREST. His hand froze on the dash knob.

“What are you waiting for?”

“The wire’s gone dead.”

50

“WE’VE BEEN HAVING TROUBLE ALL DAY.”

“Wire Dunsmuir!” said Bell. He had posted Van Dorn operatives at that railroad center. He would order them to commandeer a locomotive north to tell Archie to arrest the Wrecker.

The telegrapher tried, with no success. “Dead to Dunsmuir.”

“Wire Redding.” Texas Walt Hatfield was watching Redding.

“Sorry, Mr. Bell. It appears all lines are dead from here in Sacramento north.”

“Find a way around it.”

Bell knew that multiple telegraph lines connected Sacramento to the rest of the country. Commercial networks linked large towns and cities. The second system was the railroad’s private network for transmitting train orders.

“I’ll get right on it.”

With Bell at his shoulder, the telegrapher polled train-order stations in the region, trying to gauge the extent of the system’s failure.

The anxious dispatcher hovered, explaining, “North of Weed, Western Union lines follow the old Siskiyou route to Portland. The new Cascades Cutoff has only the railroad wires.”

“They’ve been deluged by rain,” said the telegrapher, still waiting for responses. “Ground gets soft, poles fall.”

Bell paced the floor.

All wires down?

Not due to weather, he was certain.

This was the Wrecker’s work. Kincaid was taking no chances that Bell would figure out who he was. He had isolated the Cascades Cutoff railhead for a final assault on the bridge to bring the cutoff to a standstill and bankrupt the Southern Pacific. He would attack the reinforcement effort while the piers were still vulnerable.

“Avalanches of mud, too,” said the dispatcher. “And there’s more rain coming.”

Desperate to placate the grim-faced, furiously pacing detective, the dispatcher snatched the morning papers off his desk. The Sacramento Union reported rivers twenty feet above the low-water mark and numerous washouts already. Preston Whiteway’s San Francisco Inquirer ballyhooed the “Storms of the Century” with a luridly embellished illustration of the Weather Bureau map that showed a series of Pacific storms hot on the heels of the first.

“‘The floods could be the most serious in Oregon’s history,”’ the dispatcher read aloud. “‘Railroad tracks in the valleys are underwater and may be washed away.”’

Bell kept pacing. A freight trundled by, rattling windows in their wooden frames. Clouds enveloped the building as Bell’s locomotive, parked alongside, was forced to let off steam she had built to speed him to the Cascade Canyon Bridge.

“The wires are open to San Francisco and Los Angeles,” reported the telegrapher, confirming Bell’s worst fear. The Wrecker—Kincaid—was concentrating on the Cascades route.

“Loop around through San Francisco or from Los Angeles up to Portland and then down from there.”

But the Wrecker’s telegraph saboteurs had thought about that, too. Not only was all telegraph dead from Sacramento to the north, lines from farther north—from Dunsmuir, Weed, and Klamath Falls—were down, too. Charles Kincaid had completely isolated the cutoff railhead at the Cascade Canyon Bridge.

Bell whirled toward a commotion at the door. Jason Adler, the American States Bank auditor, burst in.

“Mr. Bell. Mr. Bell. I’ve just gone through the telegrams we picked up when we arrived here. We’ve found a company he controls through the Schane and Simon Company. They bought East Oregon Lumber, which has a contract with the Southern Pacific Railroad to supply crossties and lumber to the cutoff.”

“Where?” Bell asked with a sinking heart. But the name said it all.

“Above the Canyon Bridge on the Cascade River. That’s the same bridge his Union Pier and Caisson—”

“Clear the track!” Bell commanded the Sacramento dispatcher in a voice that rang like steel.

“But materials and work trains have priority on the cutoff, sir.”

“My train has authority straight through to the Cascade Canyon Bridge,” Bell shot back.

“But with the lines dead, we can’t clear the track.”

“We will clear the track as we go!”

“I protest,” said the dispatcher. “This is a breach of all safety procedures.”

Bell hurried out to the train, shouting orders.

“Uncouple the Pullman. Accountants, lawyers, translators, and auditors: stay here. Keep digging until we know everything Kincaid planned. We don’t want any more surprises blowing up in our faces. Armed operatives, get on the train!”

Brakemen scrambled. When they had uncoupled the extra car, Bell saw James Dashwood standing forlornly in the Pullman’s vestibule.

“What are you waiting for, James? Get on the train.”

“I don’t have a gun.”

“What?”

“You said ‘armed operatives,’ Mr. Bell. Van Dorn apprentices are only allowed to carry handcuffs.”

Guffawing detectives exchanged incredulous looks.

Hadn’t anyone told the kid that that was the first rule you broke?

Bell raised his voice. “Boys, meet James Dashwood, former apprentice with the San Francisco office. He’s just been promoted for uncovering a key clue that exposed Senator Charles Kincaid as the Wrecker. Can anyone lend him a firearm?”

Fists plunged into coats, hats, waistbands, and boots. An arsenal of automatics, revolvers, derringers, and pocket pistols flashed in the rainy light. Eddie Edwards got to Dashwood first and thrust a nickel-plated six-gun into his hand.

“Here you go, Dash. It’s double-action. Just keep squeezing the trigger. Reload when it stops making noise.”

“Get on the train!”

Bell climbed up into the Pacific’s cab.

“We’re cleared through to Cascade Canyon,” he told the engineer.

“How they gonna know we’re coming with the telegraph dead?”

“Good question. Stop at the roundhouse.”

Bell ran inside the dark and smoky cavern, where twenty locomotives were undergoing noisy repairs on