The Chase by Clive Cussler (ebook reader 8 inch .txt) 📕

The old man nodded. “Rumors circulated that the train was carrying gold. If the truth be known, it was not gold but hard cash.”

“Forty-four years,” Kaufman said slowly. “A long time for a train to go missing. Maybe the money is still inside the car.”

“Perhaps,” said the tall man, looking toward the horizon at a vision only he could see. “Just perhaps we’ll find the answers when we get inside.”

THE BUTCHER BANDIT

1

JANUARY 10, 1906 BISBEE, ARIZONA

ANYONE SEEING AN OLD DERELICT SOT SLOWLY SWAYING down Moon Avenue in Bisbee that afternoon would have mistaken him for what he was not, a man who had grown old before his time working the mines that ran through the mineral-rich mountains under the town. His shirt was grubby and he smelled unwashed. One suspender held up torn and ragged pants that were stuffed into scuffed and worn boots that should been thrown in the trash gully behind the town long ago.

Snarled and greasy hair straggled to his shoulders and merged with an uncut beard that hung halfway down his protruding stomach. He looked through eyes so dark brown they were nearly black. There was no expression in them; they seemed cold and almost evil. A pair of work gloves covered the hands that had never held a shovel or a pick.

Under one arm, he carried an old gunnysack that appeared empty. Almost whimsically, the dirty burlap had DOUGLAS FEED & GRAIN COMPANY, OMAHA, NEBRASKA stenciled on it.

The old man took a minute and parked on a bench at the corner of Moon Avenue and Tombstone Canyon Road. Behind him was a saloon, mostly empty because it was the middle of the day and its usual patrons were hard at work in the mines. The people walking and shopping in the little mining town paid him no more than a quick, disgusted glance. Whenever they passed, he pulled a whiskey bottle from a pant pocket and drank heavily before recapping it and putting it back. No one could have known it was not whiskey but tea.

It was warm for June; he guessed the temperature to be in the high nineties. He sat back and looked up and down the streets as a trolley car passed, pulled by an aging horse. Electric-motored trolleys had yet to come to Bisbee. Most of the vehicles on the streets were still horse-drawn wagons and buggies. The town had only a handful of automobiles and delivery trucks, and none were in evidence.

He knew enough about the town to know that it was founded in 1880 and named after Judge DeWitt Bisbee, one of the moneymen behind the Copper Queen Mine. A good-sized community, its population of twenty thousand made it the largest city between San Francisco and St. Louis. Despite the many miners’ families that lived in modest little wooden buildings, the main economy was based around saloons and a small army of shady ladies.

The man’s head nodded to his chest; he looked like a drunk who had dozed off. But it was an act. He was conscious of every movement around him. Occasionally, he glanced across the street at the Bisbee National Bank. He watched with interest, through half-closed eyes, as a truck with chain drive and solid-tired wheels rattled up to the bank. There was only one guard, who got out of the truck and carried a large bag of newly printed bills inside. A few minutes later, he was helped by the bank’s teller to lug a heavy chest through the door and onto the truck.

The man knew that it was a shipment of gold, a piece of the three million ounces that had been produced at the local mines. But gold was not what piqued his interest. It was too heavy and too risky for one man to dispose of. It was the cash that brought him to Bisbee, not the prized yellow metal.

He watched as the truck moved away and two men, whom he had identified as security guards at the giant Phelps Dodge Mining Company, walked out of the bank. They had delivered the cash to pay the mining company payroll the following day. He smiled to himself, knowing the assets of the Bisbee National Bank had risen to a new level.

He had watched the people who came and went from the bank for nearly two weeks until he could identify them by sight. He had also noted the time when they came and went. Satisfied now there was no one in the bank except one teller and the owner/manager, he looked at his watch and nodded to himself.

Leisurely, the old derelict rose, stretched, and ambled across the brick street and trolley tracks to the bank, carrying the large, empty gunnysack over one shoulder. Just as he was about to enter, a woman unexpectedly walked past. She gave him a look of loathing, stepped around him, and went inside. She was not in his plan, but he decided to deal with the matter rather than wait. He checked the street and followed her into the bank.

He closed the door. The teller was in the vault and the woman waited until he reappeared. The derelict removed a model 1902 Colt .38 caliber automatic from his boot, struck the woman on the nape of the neck with the barrel, watching with detachment as she slowly folded to the wooden floor. It happened so suddenly and silently that the owner of the bank did not see or hear anything from his office.

Then the drunken miner suddenly turned bank robber leaped sprightfully over the counter, entered the owner’s office, and put the gun barrel to his head. “Resist and you’ll be shot dead,” he said in a low but forbidding tone. “Now, call the teller into your office.”

The bald, fat, shocked bank owner looked at him with brown eyes widened with fright. Without argument,