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

on the top stones, the pillar looked to be as tall as the Singer Building he had seen in New York City, which Abbott once had boasted was six hundred feet tall. Hoping that this was a case of a confusing perspective, Bell reached for the bottom rung.

He felt the bridge trembling the instant he touched the ladder. It seemed to be shaking harder than when he’d run across it hours earlier. But not much harder. Was the coal train having the promised effect? Was it stabilizing the bridge? Baffled by the Wrecker’s intentions, Bell climbed faster.

His wounded forearm where Dow had shot him was beginning to throb. He was less concerned by the pain, which was growing sharper, than by what it meant. He had a long way to go to the top of the bridge and needed all four limbs in working order. The higher he climbed, the shakier the bridge felt.

How much worse would it shake without the added weight?

He smelled smoke as he neared the top, which seemed odd since there were no trains running on the bridge. At last, the ladder topped out on a catwalk that traversed the steel arch and led to a shorter ladder to the deck. He hauled himself up the last few rungs and swung his legs onto the deck, where he found himself in the narrow space between the coal train and the open edge. His head was reeling with the effort, and he leaned over to rest, bracing himself with his hand on the gondola.

He jerked his hand back with a startled shout of pain.

The steel side of the gondola was hot—so hot it burned his skin.

Bell ran to the next gondola and touched it tentatively. It was hot, too. And now he smelled the smoke again, and he realized in a flash the diabolic trick the Wrecker had pulled. So-called down pressure was stabilizing the bridge as he had promised. But the vibrations from the water pounding the weakened piers were shaking the bridge. In turn, the bridge was shaking the train, which was shaking the coal. Deep inside fifty coal cars, thousands of pieces of coal were rubbing against each other and creating friction. Friction made heat, like a frontiersman rubbing two sticks to start a fire.

Even as Bell realized the perverted genius of Kincaid’s scheme, the coal ignited. A dozen small sparks became a hundred flames. Soon, a thousand fires would mushroom through the coal. The entire train was smouldering on the middle of the bridge. Any second, the wooden crossties under the train would catch fire.

He had to move the train off the bridge.

The staging yard was jammed with stranded trains and locomotives. But with no work to do, none of the engines had steam up. Bell spotted the big black Baldwin attached to Hennessy’s special. It always had steam up, to heat and light the Pullmans and the private cars and to be ready to move at the railroad president’s whim.

Bell ran to it. Every brakeman and yardman he saw he ordered to throw switches to direct the Old Man’s locomotive to the bridge. Hennessy himself, looking frail in shirtsleeves, was standing next to the Baldwin. He was breathing hard and leaning on a fireman’s scoop.

“Where’s your train crew?” Bell asked.

“I was keeping up steam before they were born. Sent every hand below to work on the coffer dams. Just had to catch my breath. Something’s wrong. What do I smell? Is that fire on the bridge?”

“The coal has ignited. Uncouple your engine. I’ll pull the train off.”

With Hennessy directing brake- and yardmen, who ran around throwing switches, Bell drove the Baldwin off the special, ran it forward, then backed it onto the bridge. Partway across, he coupled onto the lead coal gondola, while every man still in the yard worked to switch a path of rails to an isolated siding where the burning train could be safely moved.

Bell shoved the Johnson bar forward and notched the throttle ahead, feeding steam to the pistons. This was the hard part. He had spent enough time in the cab to know how to drive locomotives, but driving and pulling fifty heavy gondolas were two different propositions. The wheels spun, the train did not move. He remembered the sand valve, which spread sand under the wheels to improve adhesion, and found its lever. Smoke was billowing from the gondolas now, and he saw flames start to shoot up. He reached for the throttle to try again.

Suddenly, the Wrecker spoke through the side window.

“With what will you replace the weight?” he asked mockingly. “More coal?”

57

“BALLAST WOULD HOLD THE BRIDGE, BUT SOMEHOW SIGNALS GOT crossed. Hennessy ordered track ballast. He kept getting coal. I wonder how that happened.”

The Wrecker swung into the cab through the open back and whipped a knife from his boot.

Suspecting a backup weapon identical to the sword he had ruined, Bell swiftly drew his Browning and pulled the trigger. But the automatic had suffered one too many douses of mud and water. It jammed. He heard the Wrecker’s knife click. The telescoping blade flew out and struck him before he could move in the confined space.

It was no flesh wound, but a terrible thrust below Bell’s shoulder. Stunned, wondering if the sword had punctured his lung, Bell reached under his jacket. He felt warm blood on his hand. He couldn’t focus his eyes. The Wrecker was standing over him, and Bell was surprised to discover that he had collapsed to the footplate.

58

CHARLES KINCAID DREW HIS SWORD BACK TO RUN ISAAC BELL through his heart.

“I was not unaware of my weapon’s weakness,” he said. “It wasn’t made to stand up to a beat. So I always carry an extra.”

“So do I,” said Bell. He tugged from an inside pocket Kincaid’s own derringer, which he had picked up from the tracks earlier. It was slippery with his blood, sliding in his hand. The shock of the wound was making him see double,