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

hurried after him with a cup of coffee and a stern lecture about the value of breakfast for a man who had been up all night working. Breakfast sounded good. But before Bell could accept, Barrett, the special’s conductor and telegrapher, stood up from his key with a message he had written out in clear copperplate script. His expression was grim.

“Just come in, Mr. Bell.”

It was not from Archie but from Osgood Hennessy himself:

SABOTEURS SET RUNAWAY TRAIN AND CUT TELEGRAPH.

STOP.

HEAD-OF-LINE YARD A SHAMBLES. STOP.

EXPANSION YARD IN FLAMES. STOP.

LABOR TERRORIZED.

Isaac Bell gripped Barrett’s shoulder so hard it made him wince.

“How long would a freight train take to get from the cutoff railhead to here?”

“Eight to ten hours.”

“The empty freight that just came through. Did it leave the railhead after the runaway?”

Barrett looked at his pocket watch. “No, sir. He must have been well out of there.”

“So any train that left after the attack is still between us and them.”

“Nowhere else for him to go. It’s single track all the way.”

“Then he’s trapped!”

The Wrecker had made a fatal mistake. He had boxed himself in at the end of a single-tracked line through rugged country with only one line out. All Bell had to do was intercept him. But he had to take him by surprise, ambush him, before he could jump off his train and run off into the woods.

“Get your train moving. We’ll block him.”

“Can’t move. We’re sidelined. We could run head-on into a southbound freight.”

Bell pointed at the telegraph key. “Find out how many trains are between us and the railhead.”

Barrett sat at his key and began sending slowly. “My hand’s a little muddy,” he apologized. “It’s been a while since I did this for a living.”

Bell paced the confines of the baggage car while the key clattered out Morse code. The bulk of the open space was around the telegraph desk. Beyond was a narrow aisle between stacked trunks and boxes of provisions, cut short by Lillian’s Packard Gray Wolf, which was tied down under canvas. She had shown the car to Bell the previous night, proudly reminding him of what a man like him who loved speed already knew: the splendid racer kept setting new records at Daytona Beach.

Barrett looked up from his key warily. The cold resolve on Bell’s face was as harsh as the icebound light in his blue eyes. “Sir, the dispatcher at Weed says he knows of one freight highballing down the line. Left the railhead after the accident.”

“What does he mean ‘knows of’? Are there more trains on the road?”

“Wires to the north were down in a couple of places through the night. The dispatcher can’t know for sure what moved there while the wires were out. We’ve got no protection, no way of knowing what’s coming from the north, until the wires are fixed. So we have no authority to be on the main line.”

Of course, Bell raged inwardly. Each time the empty freight had stopped for water, the Wrecker had climbed the nearest pole and cut the telegraph wires, throwing the entire system into disarray to smooth his escape.

“Mr. Bell, I’d like to help you, but I can’t put the lives of men in danger because I don’t know what’s coming around the next bend in the road.”

Isaac Bell thought quickly. The Wrecker would see the smoke from the special’s locomotive miles before he would see the train itself. Even if Bell stopped their train to block the main line, the Wrecker would smell a rat when his train stopped. Plenty of time to jump off. The terrain was gentler here south of the Cascade Range, less mountainous than up the line, and a man could disappear in the woods and hike his way out.

“How soon will that freight come through?”

“Less than an hour.”

Bell leveled an imperious hand at Lillian’s automobile.

“Unload that.”

“But Miss Lillian—”

“Now!”

The train crew slid open the barn doors in the side of the baggage car, laid a ramp, and rolled the Packard down it and onto the buggy road beside the track. It was a tiny machine compared to Bell’s Locomobile. Standing lightly on wide-spread airy wire wheels, the open car scarcely came up to his waist. A snug gray sheet-metal cowling over its motor formed a pointed snout. Behind the cowling was a steering wheel and a leather-backed bench seat, and little else. The cockpit was open. Below it, on either side of the chassis, bright copper tubes, arranged in seven horizontal rows, served as a radiator to cool the powerful four-cylinder motor.

“Strap a couple of gasoline cans on the back,” Bell ordered, “and that spare wheel.”

They quickly complied while Bell ran to his stateroom. He returned armed with a knife in his boot and his over-under two-shot derringer in the low crown of his wide-brimmed hat. Under his coat was a new pistol he had taken a shine to, a Belgian-made Browning No. 2 semiautomatic that an American gunsmith had modified to fire a .380 caliber cartridge. It was light, and quick to reload. What it lacked in stopping power it made up for with deadly accuracy.

Lillian Hennessy came running from her private car, tugging a silk robe over her nightdress, and Bell thought fleetingly that even the consequences of passing out from three bottles of champagne looked beautiful on her.

“What are you doing?”

“The Wrecker’s up the line. I am going to intercept him.”

“I’ll drive you!” Eagerly, she jumped behind the steering wheel and called for the trainmen to crank her engine. Wide awake in an instant, eyes alight, she was ready for anything. But as the motor fired, Bell leashed all the power of his voice to shout, “Mrs. Comden!”

Emma Comden came running in a dressing gown, her dark hair in a long braid and her face pale at the urgency in his voice.

“Hold this!” he said.

Bell circled Lillian’s slender waist in his long hands and lifted her out of the car.

“What are you doing?” she shouted. “Put me down!”

He thrust Lillian, kicking