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

Jersey City, Hoboken, Weehawken, New York, Brooklyn, Staten Island. The Van Dorn Agency wants every body that washes up. I will pay for decent burials for our man and the innocent crew of the lighter. We must identify the criminals who were working for the Wrecker.”

Dawn broke on a scene of devastation that stretched to both sides of the harbor. Where six Communipaw piers had pushed into the river now there were only five. The sixth had burned to the water-line. All that remained of it were blackened pilings and a heap of ruined boxcars poking out of the tide. Every window on the river side of the Jersey Central passenger terminal was broken, and half its roof was blown off. A ferry that had been moored there listed drunkenly, struck by an out-of control tugboat that had holed her hull and was still pressed into her like a nursing lamb. The masts of ships beside the piers were splintered, tin roofs and the corrugated sides of pier shacks were scattered, the sides of boxcars split open with cargo spilling out. Bandaged railroad workers, injured by flying glass and falling debris, were poking through the ruins of the rail yards, and the frightened residents of the nearby slums could be seen trudging away with their possessions on their backs.

The most incongruous sight Bell saw in the dull morning light was that of the stern of a wooden sailing schooner that had been blown out of the water and landed on a triple-tracked car float. From across the Hudson, there were reports of thousands of broken windows in lower Manhattan and the streets littered with glass.

Abbott nudged Bell.

“Here comes the boss.”

A trim New York Police launch with a low cabin and a short stack was approaching. Joseph Van Dorn stood on the foredeck in a topcoat with a newspaper tucked under his arm.

Bell walked directly to him.

“It is time for me to submit my resignation.”

27

“REQUEST DENIED!” VAN DORN SHOT BACK.

“It is not a request, sir,” Isaac Bell said coldly. “It is my intention. I will hunt the Wrecker on my own, if it takes the rest of my life. While I promise you I will not impede the Van Dorn investigation led by a better-qualified investigator.”

A small smile parted Van Dorn’s red whiskers. “Better-qualified? Perhaps you’ve been too busy to read the morning papers.”

He seized Bell’s hand and practically crushed it in his powerful grip. “We’ve won a round at last, Isaac. Well done!”

“Won a round? What are you talking about, sir? People killed on the ferry. Half the windows in Manhattan blown out. These piers a shambles. All due to the sabotage of a Southern Pacific Railroad vessel that I was hired to protect.”

“A partial victory, I’ll admit. But a victory nonetheless. You stopped the Wrecker from blowing the powder train, which was his target. He would have killed hundreds had you allowed him to. Look here.” Van Dorn opened the newspaper. Three headlines of immense type covered the front page.

EXPLOSION DAMAGE EQUAL OF MAY 1904 PIER FIRE

WORSE Loss OF LIFE ON FERRY, 3 DEAD,

COUNTLESS INJURED

COULD HAVE BEEN FAR WORSE,

SAYS FIRE COMMISSIONER

“And look at this one! Even better ...”

THE WRECKER RAGED.

Manhattan’s streets were strewn with broken glass. From the railway ferry, he saw black smoke still billowing over the Jersey shore. The harbor was littered with damaged ships and barges. And the dynamite explosion was all the talk in saloons and chophouses on both sides of the river. It even invaded the plush sanctuary of the observation-lounge car as the Chicago-bound Pennsylvania Special steamed from its battered Jersey City Terminal.

But, maddeningly, every newsboy in the city was shouting the headlines on the extra editions and every newsstand was plastered with the lies:

SABOTEURS FOILED

RAILWAY POLICE AND VAN DORN AGENTS

SAVED DYNAMITE TRAIN

MAYOR CREDITS SOUND SOUTHERN PACIFIC MANAGEMENT

If Isaac Bell were on this train, he would choke him to death with his bare hands. Or run him through. That moment would come, he reminded himself. He had lost only a battle, not the war. The war was his to win, Bell’s to lose. And that deserved a celebration!

Imperiously, he beckoned a steward.

“George!”

“Yes, Senator, suh.”

“Champagne!”

A steward rushed him a bottle of Renaudin Bollinger in an ice bucket.

“Not that swill! The company knows goddamned well I will only drink Mumm.”

The steward bowed low.

“I’m terribly sorry, Senator. But as Renaudin Bollinger was the favorite champagne of Queen Victoria, and now of King Edward, we hoped it would make a worthy substitute.”

“Substitute? What the devil are you talking about? Bring me Mumm champagne or I’ll have your job!”

“But, sir, the Pennsylvania Railroad’s entire store of Mumm was destroyed in the explosion.”

“A VICTORY AT LAST,” repeated Joseph Van Dorn. “And if you’re right that the Wrecker is trying to discredit the Southern Pacific Railroad, then he cannot be happy with these results. ‘Sound Southern Pacific Management’ indeed. Exactly the opposite of what he had hoped to achieve with this attack.”

“It doesn’t feel like a victory to me,” said Isaac Bell.

“Savor it, Isaac. Then get busy finding out how he set this up.”

“The Wrecker isn’t done.”

“This attack,” Van Dorn said sternly, “wasn’t planned overnight. There’ll be clues in his method as to what he is scheming next.”

A search of the section of the schooner’s stern that had been hurled onto the railroad float revealed the body of a man the Marine Division police knew well. “A water rat named Weitzman” was how a grizzled patrol-launch captain put it. “Hung out with that schooner’s captain, a son of a crocodile named Yatkowski. Smuggler when he wasn’t up to something worse. From Yonkers.”

The Yonkers police searched the old river city to no avail. But the next morning, the captain’s remains drifted ashore at Weehawken. By then, Van Dorn operatives had traced ownership of the schooner to a lumber dealer who was related to Yatkowski by marriage. The dealer