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

as it steamed into the station. Bell boarded, showed his ticket. Only when he sank gratefully into a plush seat in a warm first-class compartment did he realize how cold and weary he was and how much he ached.

Yet he reveled in a powerful sense of joy and accomplishment. The Wrecker was finished, run to ground for his crimes. Charles Kincaid would kill no more. Bell asked himself whether Emma Comden was sufficiently punished for helping him by spying on Osgood Hennessy. Had he let her go scot-free? The answer was no. She would never be free until she escaped the prison of her heart. And that, Isaac Bell knew better than most men, would never happen.

An hour later, the train slowed at Mittenwald. The conductors came through loudly warning passengers to have their papers ready for inspection.

“I came for the skiing,” said Bell, when asked by the border guard.

“What is this ‘luggage’ in the baggage car?”

“An old friend crashed into a tree. I was asked to accompany his body home.”

“Show me!”

Soldiers armed with Karabiner 98b rifles snapped to attention in the corridor and trailed closely as Bell followed the border guard to the baggage car. Archie Abbott was sitting on the coffin. He was smoking a Sturm cigarette, a nice touch Bell admired, as the Sturm brand was owned by the Nazi Party.

Abbott did not bother to stand for the border guard. Gray eyes cold, face a mask of disdain, he barked in flawless, curt German, “The victim was a friend of the Reich.”

The guard clicked heels, saluted, returned Bell’s papers, and shooed away the riflemen. Bell stayed in the baggage car. Half an hour later, they got off at Innsbruck. Austrian porters loaded the coffin into a hearse that was waiting on the station platform, accompanied by an embassy limousine. Both vehicles flew American flags.

An assistant charge d‘affaires shook hands with Bell. “His excellency, the Ambassador, sends his regrets that he couldn’t greet you personally. Hard to get around these days. Old football injuries, you know.”

“And half a ton of blubber,” muttered Abbott. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, grappling with the Great Depression, had defanged the obstacle of Preston Whiteway’s reactionary newspapers by appointing Marion’s old boss Ambassador to Austria.

Bell laid his hand on the coffin. “Tell Ambassador Whiteway that the Van Dorn Detective Agency appreciates his help and give him my personal thanks ... Wait one moment!”

Bell took a delivery label from deep inside his jacket, licked the back, and glued it on the coffin. It read:

VAN DORN DETECTIVE AGENCY

CHICAGO

ATTENTION: ALOYSIUS CLARKE, WALLY SISLEY,

MACK FULTON

IT WAS A RAW, cold morning in Paris when Isaac Bell disembarked from his train at the Gare de l‘Est. As he waved for a taxi, he paused to admire an elegant blue-and-black Bugatti Type 41 Royale. Touted as the world’s most expensive car, it was beyond any doubt as graceful as it was majestic.

The Bugatti swept silently to the curb in front of Bell. The uniformed chauffeur jumped from his open cockpit.

“Bonjour, Monsieur Bell.”

“Bonjour,” said Bell, wondering, Now what? and regretting he had left the German automatic in his bag.

The chauffeur opened the door to the luxurious passenger compartment.

Marion Morgan Bell patted the seat beside her. “I thought you’d like a ride.”

Bell got in and kissed her warmly.

“How did it go?” she asked.

“It’s done,” he said. “By now, Joe Van Dorn has his body on a cruiser in the Mediterranean. In two weeks, it’ll be in the States.

“Congratulations,” Marion said. She knew that he would tell her all when he was ready. “I am so happy to see you.”

Bell said, “I’m so happy to see you, too. But you shouldn’t have gotten up so early.”

“Well, I’m not entirely up.” She opened the top of her coat to reveal a red silk nightgown. “I thought you’d want breakfast.”

The car pulled swiftly into the traffic. Bell took Marion’s hand. “May I ask you something?”

“Anything.” She pressed his hand to her cheek.

“Where did you get this Bugatti Royale?”

“Oh, this. I was having a nightcap in the hotel bar last night and the sweetest Frenchman tried to pick me up. One thing led to another, and he insisted we use his car while we’re in Paris.”

Isaac Bell looked at the woman he had loved for nearly thirty years. “‘Sweetest Frenchman’ is not a phrase to assure a husband. Why do you suppose this old gentleman was so generous with his automobile?”

“He’s not old. Quite a bit younger than you are. Though hardly in such good condition, I might add.”

“Glad to hear it. I still want to know how you charmed him into giving you his car.”

“He was a hopeless romantic. The dear boy actually got tears in his eyes when I told him why I couldn’t go with him.”

Isaac Bell nodded. He waited until he could trust his voice. “Of course. You told him, ‘My heart is spoken for.’”

Marion kissed him on the lips. “Is that a tear in your eye?”