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

Some pushed baby buggies or toy wagons, and yet, amid the nightmare, everyone was gracious, courteous, and considerate toward others.

Bell stopped beside a young man who seemed to be merely standing around and watching the fire across the street from the wharfs. He held up a twenty-dollar gold piece. “If you know how to drive a car, take this one to the Customs House and turn it over to Horace Bronson of the Van Dorn Detective Agency and this is yours.”

The young man’s eyes widened in anticipation, not so much from the money but the chance to drive an automobile. “Yes, sir,” he said brightly. “I know how to drive my uncle’s Maxwell.”

Bell watched with amusement as the boy clashed the gears and drove off down the crowded street. Then he turned and joined the mass of humanity that was escaping the destruction of the city.

Within three days, over two hundred twenty-five thousand people left the peninsula where San Francisco stood, all carried free of charge by the Southern Pacific Railroad to wherever they wished to travel. Within twenty-four hours of the quake, overloaded ferryboats were departing San Francisco for Oakland every hour.

Bell showed his Van Dorn credentials and boarded a ferry called the Buena Vista. He found an open place to sit above the paddle wheels and turned back to watch the flames shooting hundreds of feet into the air, with the smoke rising over a thousand feet. It looked as if the whole city was one vast bonfire.

Once he stepped off the Mole in Oakland, a railroad official directed him to the repair shop where his locomotive was sitting. The mammoth steel monster was a grand sight up close. It was painted black from the cowcatcher to the rear of its coal tender. Bell guessed the cab’s roof was at least fifteen feet above the rails. The big drive wheels were eighty-one inches in diameter. In its time, the Atlantic-type locomotive was a masterwork of mechanical power.

To Bell, it looked mean and ugly. The number 3455 was painted in small white letters on the side of the cab; SOUTHERN PACIFIC, in larger type, ran across the side of the tender, which fueled the boiler with coal and water. Bell walked up to a man wearing the traditional striped engineer’s coveralls and striped cap with brim. The man held a big oil can with a long spout and looked to be oiling the bearings on the connecting rods running from the piston cylinder to the drive wheels.

“A mighty fine locomotive,” said Bell admiringly.

The engineer looked up. He was shorter than Bell, with strands of salt-and-pepper hair straying from under his cap. The face was craggy from years of leaning out a cab window into the full wind stream from a speeding engine. The eyebrows over a pair of sky blue eyes were curved and bushy. Bell judged he was younger than he looked.

“None better than Adeline,” the engineer answered.

“Adeline?”

“Easier to remember than her four-figured number. Most locomotives are given a woman’s name.”

“Adeline looks very powerful,” said Bell admiringly.

“She’s built for heavy passenger service. Came out of the Baldwin Works no more than five months ago.”

“How fast will she go?” asked Bell.

“Depends on how many cars she’s hauling.”

“Let’s say none.”

The engineer thought a moment. “On a long, straight stretch of open, empty track, she’d top a hundred miles an hour.”

“My name is Bell.” He handed the engineer the paperwork. “I’ve chartered your engine for a special job.”

The engineer studied the papers. “Van Dorn detective outfit, huh. What’s so special?”

“Ever hear of the Butcher Bandit?”

“Who hasn’t? I’ve read in the newspapers he’s about as deadly as they come.”

Bell wasted no detailed explanation. “We’re going after him. He chartered a Pacific-type locomotive to haul his special private car. He’s steaming to Salt Lake City before heading north for the Canadian border. I reckon he has a five-hour head start.”

“More like six, by the time we take on coal and get a load of steam up.”

“I was told there were repairs. Are they completed?”

The engineer nodded. “The shop replaced a faulty bearing in one of the truck wheels.”

“The sooner we get going, the better.” Bell paused to extend his hand. “By the way, my name is Isaac Bell.”

The engineer’s shake was vigorous. “Nils Lofgren. My fireman is Marvin Long.”

Bell pulled his watch from its pocket and checked the time. “I’ll see you in forty-five minutes.”

“We’ll be at the coal-loading dock just up the track.”

Bell hurried toward the Oakland terminal until he came to a wooden building that housed the Western Union office. The wire chief told him that only one wire was open to Salt Lake City and it was hours behind getting messages through. Bell explained his mission and the chief was most cooperative.

“What’s your message?” he asked. “I’ll see that it’s sent straightaway to our office in Salt Lake.”

Bell’s wire read:

To the Van Dorn office director, Salt Lake City. Imperative you stop locomotive hauling freight car number 16455. It is carrying the Butcher Bandit. Use every precaution. He is extremely dangerous. Seize and hold until I arrive.

Isaac Bell, special agent

He waited until the telegrapher tapped out the message before leaving the office and walking to where Lofgren and Long were taking on coal and water. He climbed up into the cab and was introduced to Long, a heavy, broad-shouldered man with large muscles stretching the sleeves of his denim shirt. He wore no hat and his red hair almost matched the flames inside the door to the firebox. He pulled off a leather glove and shook Bell’s hand with a hand that was hard and callused from long hours wielding a coal shovel.

“Ready whenever you are,” announced Lofgren.

“Let’s do it,” answered Bell.

As Long stoked the fire, Lofgren took his seat on the right side of the cab, locked the reverser Johnson bar into place, opened the cylinder cocks, and pulled the rope above his head down twice, causing the steam whistle to scream an about-to-move-forward warning. Then he gripped