The Thief by Clive Cussler (pocket ebook reader .txt) 📕

a bath. International Mercantile Marine has been sorely used by the British government and the American Congress. Perhaps he sees an opportunity in Imperial Film. However it was financed aside, Imperial is poised to seize a controlling interest in much of independent film manufacturing, distribution, and exhibition. That’s the sort of meat Morgan feasts on.”

“But Krieg and the German Army—”

“Things change, Isaac. Events do not always unfold as first planned.”

THE BOOKCASE IN IRINA VIORET’S office slid open on silent, ball-bearing tracks. Christian Semmler emerged from his stairwell. “Tomorrow night,” he said, “after the Iron Horse company returns from taking pictures, I want you to ask Mrs. Bell to do you a favor.”

“What sort of favor?”

“I overheard our bloody director upstairs threatening to quit—just when they finished building the ship and pier.”

“Why?”

“He says the scenario won’t work. Something about the searchlights in the dark. I want him fired tomorrow. Then I want you to ask Mrs. Bell to help you by staying late to take pictures for his immigrant arrival scenario so the carpenters can clear the ship and a pier and build her Iron Horse stage set.”

“What if she says no?”

“You know as well as I do that Marion Bell will not say no to anything that would help her production. Nor would she miss an opportunity to take pictures in the dark by the glare of searchlights. She will rise to the challenge. Particularly when you can tell her that the original director quit because he wasn’t up to it.”

Irina Vioret’s dark eyes filled with anxious foreboding. “What are you going to do to her?”

“Nothing! Gott im Himmel, what are you thinking, woman? I promise you I will do nothing to derail the success of The Iron Horse. Just make sure that damned cowboy has gone before you ask her.”

MINUTES BEFORE ISAAC BELL WENT TO LA Grande Station to meet Singleton Brooks’s train, Los Angeles field office chief Larry Saunders reported that the city records clerk, who Saunders had hoped would admit to the existence of a secret set of blueprints for the Imperial Building, had been crushed to death under an Angels Flight funicular railway car.

“The cops say he got oiled and tried to walk up the tracks. But being they are so steep, I’d expect that stunt more of a drunken sailor than an overweight, middle-aged file clerk. I’m sorry, Mr. Bell, he was my best shot, but I’ll keep trying.”

Bell thought hard. Then he said, “Larry, I want you to take personal charge of the Van Dorn Protective Service men guarding Clyde Lynds starting right now.”

The dandified Saunders asked why.

Isaac Bell replied in a manner that left no latitude for debate: “Because I have a very strong feeling about tonight.”

Then Bell switched tactics at La Grande Station.

Singleton Brooks’s Limited was due in at nine. Instead of simply walking up to Brooks and challenging him, Bell decided to have the J. P. Morgan executive followed first. Where he went might reveal a lot. He believed that Brooks might lead him to Christian Semmler—or did he merely hope? Regardless, Brooks would likely recognize Bell. Even if Bell disguised himself in his black motorcycle costume, the odds were Irina had alerted him to Bell’s suspicions.

So Bell had ordered Texas Walt Hatfield to do the primary tracking, and Texas Walt was ensconced in a saloon just outside the station’s main entrance. Bell would point out Singleton to him. Bell had another Van Dorn standing by in an Oldsmobile taxicab in the event that Singleton was picked up in an auto, while Balant, the blind newsie, transformed tonight into a gawking tourist, would follow the New York banker if he boarded a streetcar.

VAN DORN DETECTIVE CHUCK SHIPLEY, a young, eager-to-prove-himself transfer from the Kansas City office, sat inside the blind newsie’s stand wearing a cap rented from a rooming house neighbor who made a living hawking newspapers on the street. Mr. Saunders had encouraged Shipley to get a nickel-plated changemaker to hook over his belt, enhancing his disguise. But Detective Balant had forbidden him to wear dark glasses, explaining, testily, that even if the Germans inside the vice-consul’s mansion were stupid—and there was no evidence they were—they would still wonder why the recently installed newsstand on their corner employed only blind men.

“In other words, Chuck, get your own disguise.”

Along with the cap and the changemaker, Shipley affected a severe limp, but seated behind the counter it was hard to show it off, as the only time he got to step out was when the trucks arrived with fresh editions. But here came one now, bearing bundles of the Los Angeles Examiner. The driver stayed behind the wheel. The helper slung a bundle under his arm and brought it around to the side, blocking the door so Chuck Shipley couldn’t get out to strut his limp.

“Where’s the blind guy?”

“He’s off tonight. His old man got sick.”

“Here, I got something for him. You give it to him.”

“What is it?”

“Look here.” The helper was holding something below his knees. Chuck looked. He saw nothing but the helper’s hand, which suddenly formed a fist encased in brass knuckles that traveled at his jaw like a rocket. Caught flat-footed, Chuck saw fireballs of different colors and then nothing but night.

The helper stretched Shipley out on the floor and grabbed more bundles from the truck to cover the body.

Then the Examiner truck pulled across the street and stopped in front of the German vice-consul’s mansion. Six powerful men in a variety of slouch hats and loose-fitting suits of clothes exited the mansion by a basement door. Most wore short beards; all had the blue-eyed, strong-jawed features of the South African Dutch. They piled into the truck, which drove straight to the Imperial Building. The six entered the lobby by the side entrance. The doormen greeted them warmly, like old comrades-in-arms.

THE GOLDEN STATE LIMITED RUMBLED into La Grande Station on time.

From a distance, Bell spotted a