the Spy (2010) by Cussler Clive (early readers .txt) 📕

O.K., let's measure how she sways after being hit by several shells. Wielding a wire snips, he severed at random two of the spiraled uprights and one of the rings.

Ready!

Wait! An architect sprang up the ladder and propped a sailor doll with red cheeks and a straw hat in the spotting top.

The test chamber rang with laughter, Kent's the loudest of all. Starboard salvo. Fire!

The rope was jerked, the top of the mast swayed sharply, and the doll flew across the room.

Bell caught it. Mr. Kent, may I see you a moment?

What's the matter? asked Kent as he snipped another vertical wire and his assistants watched carefully to see the effect on the mast.

We may have caught our first spy, Bell said in a low voice. Could you come with me, please?

Lieutenant Yourkevitch jumped from the stool before the Van Dorn Protection Services operative could stop him and grabbed Kent's hand. Is honor to meet, is great honor.

Who are you?

Yourkevitch. From St. Petersburg.

Naval Staff Headquarters?

Of course, sir. Baltic Shipyard.

Kent asked, Is it true that Russia is building five battleships bigger than HMS Dreadnought?

Yourkevitch shrugged. There is hope for super-dreadnoughts, but Duma perhaps say no. Too expensive.

What are you doing here?

The idea is that I meet legend Farley Kent.

You came all the way here just to meet me?

To show. See? Yourkevitch unrolled his plans and spread them over Kent's table. What do you think? Improvement of form for body of ship?

While Farley Kent studied Yourkevitch's drawings, Bell took the Russian officer aside, and said, Describe the Marine officer who gave you the password.

Was medium-sized man in dark suit. Old like you, maybe thirty. Very neat, very trim. Mustache like pencil. Very . . . what is word-precise!

Dark suit. No uniform?

In mufti.

Then how did you know he was a Marine officer?

He told me.

Isaac Bell's stern expression grew dark. He spoke coldly. When and where are you supposed to report back to him?

I don't understand.

You must have agreed to report to him what you saw here.

No. I do not know him. How would I find him?

Lieutenant Yourkevitch, I am having difficulty believing your story. And I don't suppose it will do your career in the Czar's Navy any good if I turn you over to the United States Navy as a spy.

A spy? Yourkevitch blurted. No.

Stop playing games with me and tell me how you learned the password.

Spy? repeated the Russian. I am not spy.

Before Bell could reply, Farley Kent spoke up. He doesn't need to spy on us.

What do you mean?

I mean that we should spy on him.

What are you talking about, Mr. Kent?

Lieutenant Yourkevitch's improvement of form for body of ship' is a hell of a lot better than it looks. He gestured at various elements of the finely wrought drawing. At first glance it appears bulky amidships, fat even, and weirdly skinny fore and aft. You could say it resembles a cow. In fact, it is brilliant. It will allow a dreadnought to toughen its torpedo defense around machinery and magazines, and increase armament and coal capacity even as it attains greater speed for less fuel.

He shook Yourkevitch's hand. Brilliant, sir. I would steal it, but I would never get it approved by the dinosaurs on the Board of Construction. It is twenty years ahead of its time.

Thank you, sir, thank you. From Farley Kent, it is great honor.

And I'll tell you something else, said Kent, though I suspect you've already thought of it yourself. Your hull would make a magnificent passenger liner-a North Atlantic greyhound that will run rings around Lusitania and Mauritania.

One day, Yourkevitch smiled. When there is no war.

Kent invited Yourkevitch to have lunch with his staff, and the two fell into a discussion of the just-announced building of the White Star liners Olympic and Titanic.

Eight hundred forty feet! Kent marveled, to which the Russian replied, I am thinking idea for one thousand.

Bell believed that the earnest Russian naval architect had wanted nothing more than the chance to commune with the famous Farley Kent. He did not believe that the self-proclaimed officer who approached Yourkevitch in a Sand Street bar was a Marine.

Why did he give the Russian the password without demanding he report on Kent's drawings? How had he even known to approach the Russian? The answer was chilling. The spy-the saboteur of minds, as Falconer called him-knew whom to target in the dreadnought race.

THIS FOREIGN-SPY STUFF is new to us, said Joseph Van Dorn. The boss was puffing agitatedly on a quick after-lunch cigar in the main lounge of the Railroad Club on the twenty-second floor of the Hudson Tunnels Terminal before catching a train to Washington.

We hunt murderers, Isaac Bell retorted, his tone grim. Whatever their motive, they are first and foremost criminals.

Still, we'll be making decisions on horseback.

Bell said, I had the research boys draw up a list of foreign diplomats, military attachEs, and newspaper reporters who might double as spies for England, Germany, France, Italy, Russia, Japan, and China.

The Navy Secretary just sent me a list of foreigners the Navy suspects could be engaged in espionage.

I'll add it to mine, said Bell. But I want an expert to look them over and save us wild-goose chases. Don't you have an old pal still in the Marines who pulls wires at the State Department?

That's putting it mildly. Canning's the officer who arranges for Marine Corps Expeditionary Regiments to storm ashore at State's request.

He's our man-tight with our overseas attachEs. Soon as he goes through our lists of foreigners with a fine-tooth comb, I recommend that we observe them in Washington, D.C., and New York, and around navy yards and factories building warships.

That will require an expensive corps of detectives, Van Dorn said pointedly.

Bell had his answer ready. The expense can be written off as an investment in friendships forged in Washington. It can't hurt to have the government rely upon the Van Dorn Agency as a national outfit with efficient field offices across the continent.

Van Dorn smiled pleasedly, his red whiskers spreading wide