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

“You’ll do fine.” The miner leaned in and whispered, “See that chalk mark? Smack her there. We always set it to come down for the ceremony ... Gangway, boys! Give the man room.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to do this?” Bell asked Hennessy.

Hennessy stepped back. “I’ve dug plenty of tunnels in my day. You earned this one.”

Bell whipped the heavy sledge over his shoulder and swung hard at the chalk mark. Cracks spread, and a gleam of light showed in the wall. He swung again. The miners cheered as the rock collapsed and daylight poured in.

Bell stepped into the jagged opening and saw the Cascade Canyon Bridge glittering in the sunlight. The long, layered latticework of steel spanned the deep gorge of the Cascade River on two tall, slim towers set on massive stone piers. Floating high above the watery mists and foam, the most important bridge on the cutoff line looked almost complete. Crossties were already laid on it in anticipation of steel rails arriving through the tunnel.

Bell saw that it was heavily guarded. Railroad police stood every fifty feet. A sentry house stood at either end and one at each pier. As Bell watched, a cloud passed over the sun, and the shadow turned the silvery girders black.

“What do you think, son?” Hennessy asked proudly.

“She’s a beauty.”

How would the Wrecker strike?

In the shadow of the bridge nestled the town of Cascade, established where the original lowland railroad from the desert terminated at the foot of the mountains. He could see the elegant 1870s Cascade Lodge, long a draw for intrepid tourists willing to brave the long, slow climb on endless switchbacks up the foothills. From that railhead, Hennessy had built a temporary freight line with even more switchbacks to lift materials to the bridge construction site. Almost impossibly steep, it was a jagged series of sharp climbs and hairpin turns that had been nicknamed by the railroad workers the Snake Line. The grade was so heavy that a string of freight cars Bell saw ascending were pulled by three smoke-billowing locomotives, with four pusher engines helping from behind. The Snake Line locomotives had done their job. From now on, materials would arrive on the cutoff line.

The Wrecker wouldn’t hit the Snake Line, its job was done. He wouldn’t hit the town. He would hit the bridge itself. Destroying the long truss-and-pier bridge would set back the cutoff project by years.

“What the deuce is that?” asked Hennessy. He pointed at a column of dust racing up a switchback buggy road from the town below.

Isaac Bell’s face opened in a broad grin of appreciation. “That is the Thomas Flyer automobile you and I were talking about. Model 35, four cylinders, sixty horsepower. Look at him go!”

The bright yellow motor car topped the switchback, bounced over the rocky shelf, and skidded to a halt twenty feet away from where Bell and Hennessy stood in the mouth of the tunnel. The canvas top was down and folded back, and the only one in it was the driver, a tall man clad in boot-length duster, hat, and goggles. He jumped from behind the wooden steering wheel and strode toward them.

“Congratulations!” he called, whipping off his goggles with a dramatic flourish.

“What the hell are you doing here?” asked Hennessy. “Isn’t Congress in session?”

“Celebrating your cutoff hole through,” said Charles Kincaid. “I happened to be meeting with some very important California gentlemen at the Cascade Lodge. I told my hosts they would have to wait while I drove up to shake your hand.”

Kincaid seized Hennessy’s hand and pumped it heartily.

“Congratulations, sir. Magnificent achievement. Nothing can stop you now.”

THE BRIDGE

34

NOVEMBER 1 , 1907

CASCADE CANYON, OREGONi

RED-FACED, FIERY-EYED SOUTHERN PACIFIC TRACK BOSS MIKE Malone stalked from the mouth of Tunnel 13 trailed by handlers gripping heavy lengths of rail in their tongs and a locomotive behind them belching smoke and steam. “Somebody move that automobile before it gets squashed,” he bawled.

Charles Kincaid ran to rescue his Thomas Flyer.

Isaac Bell asked Osgood Hennessy, “Are you surprised to find the Senator waiting here?”

“I’m never surprised by men hoping for my daughter’s inheritance,” Hennessy answered over the clatter of Malone’s track gangs spreading roadbed stone ballast in front of the engine and laying down crossties.

Senator Kincaid came running back.

“Mr. Hennessy, the most important businessmen and bankers of California wish to throw a banquet for you in the Cascade Lodge.”

“I’ve got no time for banquets before I lay track across that bridge and build my staging yards on the other side.”

“Can’t you come down after dark?”

Mike Malone barreled up.

“Senator, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble would you please move that goddamned automobile before I have my boys throw it off the cliff?”

“I just moved it.”

“It’s still in our way.”

“Move it,” growled Hennessy. “We’re building a railroad here.”

Bell watched Kincaid hurry off to move his car again, and said to Hennessy, “I’d like to see what they’re up to at that banquet.”

“What the hell for?”

“It is a strange coincidence that Kincaid is here today.”

“I told you, he’s hanging around my daughter.”

“The Wrecker has inside knowledge of the Southern Pacific. How does he know about your plans?”

“I told you that too. Some busybody put two and two together. Or some fool blabbed.”

“Either way, the Wrecker is no stranger to your circle.”

“All right,” said Hennessy. “I can stand a banquet if you can.” He raised his voice over the din to shout. “Kincaid! Tell your friends if the invitation still holds in three days, I’ll take it.”

The Senator professed astonishment. “Surely you won’t be across and set up in only three days.”

“Heads will roll if I’m not.”

The shrunken old man snapped his fingers. Engineers rushed to his side, unfurling blueprints. Surveyors were right behind, propping transits on their shoulders, trailed by chainmen with red-and-white ranging rods.

Isaac Bell intercepted Kincaid as he climbed into his car.

“Funny coincidence that your meeting is here, of all places.”

“Not at all. I want Hennessy on my side.