Текст книги "The Thief"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

Соавторы: Justin Scott
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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

45

Delicately, but shaking with the effort, Christian Semmler pulled the smooth blade from his flesh. The pain threatened to knock him off his feet. He staggered to the life net, propped an elbow on it to keep his balance, and spewed a mouthful of blood. Then he slashed his coat sleeve with the razor-sharp knife. Spitting more blood, he wadded the cloth, stuffed it in his mouth, and bit down hard to staunch the wound.

He had to get moving. He had to get away. Fire engines were coming. He was afraid he would pass out. But a second explosion blowing glass from more windows galvanized him with the realization that the fire was spreading so fast that if Isaac Bell somehow did manage to reach the roof ahead of the flames, he and his bride’s only way down was to jump to the life net.

The Acrobat’s sudden laughter lanced pain through his face, but he couldn’t help it. It was such perfect justice for all Bell had done to him. With Bell’s own knife, he slashed the ropes that held the net.

* * *

White smoke seeped into the secret stairwell. The acrid, tarry stink of nitrate gas clawed at Bell’s lungs. As he raced by the film exchange, a judas hole cover blew open and hot flame shot through the spy hole like a fiery arrow. Bell ducked it and kept climbing, bounding three steps at once, pursued by smoke and fire. He passed the opening to the recording studio. The fire was there ahead of him, licking the bodies, having leaped up an elevator shaft or another stairway, and he prayed that Marion had not left the temporary safety of the rooftop studio in a doomed attempt to descend.

At the fifth-floor landing, when he was halfway to the top of the building, the flames feeding on the hundreds of reels in the film exchange far below breached a vault and detonated tons of film stock stored inside. The explosion shook the stairs under Bell’s feet. A shock wave traveled up the shaft and lofted him off the rubber treads.

He tumbled down half a flight of stairs, clambered to his feet, and ran harder, climbing past Irina’s office on the seventh floor, Clyde’s laboratory on the eighth, and Semmler’s lair on the ninth. After one more flight he was at the top, gasping for breath and stymied by walls on every side. He yanked open a judas door and saw a studio stage in semidarkness, with a looming shadow of a ship and towers bearing Cooper-Hewitt light banks. Silhouetted against a lurid sky, Marion was stepping through the door in the northern glass wall, climbing out on the terrace that overlooked the life net.

Bell shouted. The wall was thick, and she could not hear him.

Remembering the sliding fourth-floor wall, he spotted the bulge where the wall thickened to make room for the pocket. He looked for a lever but saw none. He flattened his palms against it and tried to slide it, which had no effect. Then he saw what looked like an ordinary electric light switch on the floor molding. He moved it and the wall glided aside.

“Marion!”

A second explosion rocked the building.

Bell ran the length of the studio stage, dodging wires and camera tracks, and tripped over a sandbag counterbalancing a fly lift. He rolled to his feet and pulled open the door in the glass wall. Marion was climbing the steps that had been built in hopes of one day convincing an extra to try the life net.

“Marion!”

“ Isaac?Oh my God, it’s you. Hurry! All the stairs are blocked. The elevators won’t come. We have to jump.”

Bell bounded up beside her and held her close, overwhelmed with the relief of finding her alive. The net appeared even smaller than it had when he last saw it from here. Flames leaping from many windows were lighting it clearly. There were dark splotches on the white canvas that he hadn’t noticed before.

“They built it strong enough for two,” said Marion. “Irina wanted a ‘Lovers’ Leap.’”

“We have to hold each other tight, or we’ll smash into each other when we bounce.”

“Thank God, you’re here. I didn’t know if I had the courage to jump.”

“What is that dark color? Those splotches?”

“They shine,” said Marion. “Like liquid.”

A third explosion shook the building. It felt as if it were swaying in an earthquake. Bell, staring down at the net, puzzling over the splotches, saw great torrents of fire thrusting from windows on the sixth floor. They had moments to jump before the building collapsed. “I’ll be right back,” he said. “Don’t leave without me.”

* * *

“We can’t stay here, General Major,” Herman Wagner pleaded with Christian Semmler.

A fire engine thundered up the street, pulled by two bay horses, and from the opposite direction came police on

bicycles.

Wagner’s chauffeur, who kept turning around to stare anxiously, opened the glass that separated the passenger compartment. “We’re blocking the gate. We have to move.”

“Wait!” said Semmler, his voice muffled by the blood-soaked coat sleeve he pressed to his face. “Do not move this auto.”

“But they will see that you were wounded, General Major.”

Semmler did not deign to reply to the obvious, saying instead, “Wounds and war march in lockstep. That is the reason I ordered you to stand by. Don’t disappoint me– Look!” Semmler pointed at the parapet of the Imperial Building. The flames, fanned by a stiffening wind, were shooting higher than the roof. Suddenly something moved in front of them. A man in white teetered on the parapet. “See! There he goes!”

Smoke obscured the figure. Then he separated from the parapet, as if he were pushing off with all his strength to clear the building, and fell through the air.

“I think it’s both of them.”

“My God, it is.” Hermann Wagner held his breath. It seemed that it took them forever to plunge past the burning windows. How afraid they must be that they would miss the tiny net. What would they do if they saw that they were falling off course? To Wagner’s immense relief, the poor couple did not miss the net. They landed dead center. But instead of bouncing back up in the air, they smashed through it to the ground.

“Bull’s-eye,” said Christian Semmler.

“The net collapsed,” cried Wagner. “It didn’t hold.” He stared at the wreckage, but, of course, no one moved from it. How could they? A moment later a section of the building’s wall gave way and thundered down, burying their remains under tumbled bricks.

The first team of fire horses clattered alongside the auto.

“Drive!”

Wagner’s chauffeur almost stalled the motor in his haste to get away.

“Where now, General Major?” asked Wagner, staring back over his shoulder at the burning building, and grateful that the wooden fence blocked his view of where Bell and his wife had died. “To the freight yard?”

“Take me to a doctor. While he sutures this, charter a special to New York. We are done in Los Angeles. For now.”

Christian Semmler sounded remarkably pleased, Wagner thought, for a man who had seen his entire enterprise go up in smoke. And he displayed a God-like indifference to his grievous wounds. God-like, or machine-like – it was as if he didn’t feel pain.

Semmler noticed him staring. “Of course it hurts,” he said, spitting blood so he could speak. “You should pray you never feel anything like it.”

* * *

“We’re running out of rope. Hang on! I’ll see what I can do.”

Isaac Bell let go of the last inches of a seventy-foot-long string of Cooper-Hewitt light cables and stage fly ropes he had knotted together, and dropped ten feet to the roof of the Imperial Moving Picture Palace marquee that sheltered the sidewalk in front of the building. He landed on stinging soles and looked up. Flames were gushing from windows they had descended past moments ago.

“Let go. I’ve got you.”

Marion slid down to the end of the rope, shredding the little that remained of her gloves, and opened her hands. Bell caught her in his arms, swooped her to a gentle landing, and held her tightly for a grateful moment.

The clatter of hoofs and the throb of steam pumps heralded the arrival of the fire department. “Firemen!” Bell called down to them. “Did you boys happen to bring a ladder?”

* * *

“I still can’t sleep,” Marion whispered, “I keep seeing that sandbag burst on the ground. That could have been us.”

Bell held her close. “But it wasn’t us. Don’t worry, we’re fine.”

Marion laughed. “I’m not worried. And I know why I can’t sleep. It feels so wonderful to be awake – Isaac, thank God you saw his blood on the net. But what made you think he cut the ropes? I’d have thought he would have run for his life, particularly if he was so badly wounded as to be bleeding like that.”

“He’s a killer. He calls himself a soldier, but he is first a killer. In fact, I’ll bet he waited to watch us hit bottom.”

“When he finds out you tested the net with a sandbag, he’s going to be badly disappointed.”

“He’s going to be more than disappointed,” Bell promised grimly, climbing out of bed and kissing her good night. “Sleep tight.”

“Where are you going?’

“New York.”

“Why New York?”

“Christian Semmler’s got what he came for. He’s going back to Germany.”

“How do you know?”

“He asked me, mockingly, ‘Looking for something?’ I was searching Clyde’s body because Clyde told me as he died that he had kept the real plans. Doesn’t ‘Looking for something?’ sound like Christian Semmler already found them?”

Marion sat up. “And since he asked when he saw you searching Clyde, that means he found them in Clyde’s clothing.”

“Meaning he can carry them in hisclothing.”

Bell dressed hastily. He filled his pockets, holstered his spare Browning in his coat and a fresh throwing knife in his boot, and reloaded the empty derringer he had managed to palm without the Acrobat noticing.

“From the sound of his scream, I’d say he’s sporting a good-sized bandage. In fact, I’m hoping he needed stitches. Lots of them.”

“But how do you know he’s going to New York?”

“I don’t for sure, but it’s a good bet. If Clyde’s plans were on his person, then Semmler’s traveling light. And if he’s traveling light, the fastest way home to Germany is a train across the continent and a boat from New York.”

46

Joseph Van Dorn welcomed Isaac Bell to the New York headquarters with words that Bell could have construed as compliments were it not for the thunderclouds on the boss’s face.

“Excellent reasoning,” said Van Dorn. “Downright intriguing, even: traveling light, swathed in bandages, a murderer responsible for the deaths of two of my best agents races fleet-footedly across the continent, having stolen the plans to a revolutionary machine in which I have invested heavily, and boards a steamship for Germany. Our investigative agency pulls out all stops; we cover every Limited train station between Los Angeles and New York; we pull every wire we have in the government to obtain passenger manifests from eastbound German and French liners; we shake hands with the devil – currently masquerading as a British earl and military intelligence officer – to obtain the passenger lists of British ships; we canvas shipping clerks to watch for a man who fits Semmler’s description booking passage to Europe; we pay enormous sums of money to policemen and customs officers to help watch those ships when our forces are stretched to the breaking point. And who do we find?”

“No one, yet,” answered Bell.

“Did it ever occur to you that he might have gone the other way and boarded a ship in San Pedro, in which case he is now steaming hell-for-leather toward the Panama Canal?”

“A Talking Pictures machine is doing just that,” replied Isaac Bell, “aboard a German freighter, which will reach the canal in ten days. After they traverse it they will likely load the machine onto a warship. The Imperial German Navy has a squadron stationed off Venezuela.”

“What?”exploded Van Dorn. “He has the machine? How do you know that?”

“Tim Holian and his boys traced it and a gang of gunmen from the Los Angeles Southern Pacific freight yard to San Pedro and onto the ship. Holian is positive that Semmler wasn’t with them.”

“I was told that Holian was shot four times.”

“Apparently it didn’t take. Flesh wounds.”

“Well, he had flesh to spare, last time I saw him. So they have the machine?” Van Dorn smiled and stroked his beard. “I think I can pull a wire or two in the Canal Zone and have that freighter held up.”

“No, sir,” said Bell.

“What do you mean, ‘No, sir’? Why not?”

“Clyde switched machines. He gave Semmler a contraption that will cause them no end of confusion. Better to let them take it to Germany.”

“Where’s the right one?”

“Burned up in the fire.”

“Destroyed,” Van Dorn said, gloomily.

“Except for the plans.”

“Which General Major Semmler has.”

“I’m afraid so.”

Van Dorn sighed. “What about that Russian woman, Isaac? Might she not be helping him?”

“She vanished. The Los Angeles office is hunting, but she’s nowhere to be found.”

“So she could be with him.”

“Highly unlikely. She betrayed him, hoping I would kill him.”

“A sentiment echoed warmly in this office, Isaac. Unfortunately, first you have to find him. I saw in the wires you exchanged at your train’s station stops that you think Semmler may have chartered a special.”

“So far nothing’s turned up,” said Bell. “The difficulty is, even though we’re watching the German consulates like hawks, his private contacts, German businessmen or commercial travelers, could have chartered it for him.”

“So the long and short is that General Major Christian Semmler, Imperial German Army, Military Intelligence, could be sleeping upstairs in one of the Knickerbocker’s palatial suites directly over our heads.”

“I would not rule that out,” Bell admitted. “He is a guerrilla fighter – a behind-the-lines operator. But we can hardly roust every guest in the hotel without management taking notice and terminating our lease.”

“You are remarkably flippant for a detective who has no idea where his quarry is.”

“He is either in New York or still on his way to New York, and he’s going to board a ship to Europe.”

“You sound awfully sure for a detective with no facts.”

“I have more irons in the fire.”

“Other than the obvious advice to keep an eye peeled for doctors, I saw no talk about ‘more irons’ when I read your wires.”

“Not everyone talks by electricity,” said Bell. He reached for his hat.

“What does that mean? Isaac, where in hell are you going?”

“Harlem.”

* * *

The Monarch Lodge of the improved Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks offered a home away from home on West 135th Street to Pullman porters laying over in New York. A man could get a decent meal and sleep on a clean cot. Or he could smoke in a comfortable chair in a big parlor and swap tales, both true and fanciful, with friends from all across the United States who served on the trains. It was true that the whiteBenevolent and Protective Order of Elks was suing the Negro Elks to stop them from using a similar name, but the Monarch Lodge remained, for the moment, a sanctuary. No one there would shout “George” to demand service, as if a black man didn’t have his own name. In fact, a white man crossing the Negro Elks’ threshold was extremely unlikely, which was why everyone looked up when a tall white man in a white suit knocked at the door, took his hat off as he stepped inside, and said, politely, “Excuse me for interrupting, gentlemen. I’m Isaac Bell.”

Heads swiveled. Many stood to get a better view of him. They knew the name. Who didn’t? One dark night – the story went – when the Overland Limited was highballing across Wyoming at eighty miles per hour, a passenger named Isaac Bell who had won a big hand in a poker game had tipped a porter one thousand dollars. The Pullman porter might be the highest-paid man in his neighborhood, but he still had to work two years for a thousand dollars, and few in the Elks parlor had believed the tale until they saw him standing there.

Bell said, “I wonder if I might speak with Mr. Clement Price– Oh, there you are, Mr. Price,” and when Clem stepped forward, Bell thrust out his hand and said, “Good to see you again. Did you have any luck?”

“Just walked in myself,” said Price, a fit young fellow with an eye for the ladies, whom the others were a little wary of. Clem kept talking about how everybody would be better off forming a labor union, which leveler heads feared would provoke the Pullman Company to fire every last one of them, as it had done numerous times in the past.

Price addressed the room. “Mr. Bell has his eye out for a yellow-haired, green-eyed gentleman riding to New York wearing a fresh bandage on his head or neck. Such a gentleman was seen in Denver and someone similar-looking might have passed through Kansas City, but no one I saw in Chicago had seen him when Mr. Bell asked me yesterday.”

“Bandage?” echoed a sharp-eyed older man, who looked Bell over carefully and asked with a smile, “Like he ran into something?”

“Me,” said Bell, to knowing winks and laughter.

“Is he riding in the open section or a stateroom?”

“Stateroom, almost certainly,” said Bell.

The men exchanged glances, shook heads, shrugged.

“Not that I’ve seen.”

“I just got off from D.C. Didn’t see him.”

“He’s traveling from the west,” said Bell. “Though he could be plying a circuitous route.”

“I just come in from Pittsburgh. Didn’t see him. Didn’t hear anyone mention him, either.”

“He would have stood out, aside from the bandage,” Bell answered. “He has unusually long arms. I was really hoping his appearance would have caused some talk. Long arms, heavy brow. And a bright smile that could sell you ice in Alaska. Here. Here’s a sketch.”

They passed it around, shaking their heads.

“Would have stood out, if folks had seen him,” the porter in from Pittsburgh ventured.

Bell said, “It is possible that he’s traveling with someone else. Possibly a doctor.”

“Doctor?”

“For his injury.”

“Well, funny you should say doctor, Mr. Bell.”

“How’s that?’ Bell asked, eagerly.

“I saw two men like you’re saying, but they weren’t on a Pullman. Least not a scheduled one.”

“He could have chartered a special.”

“It was a special I saw. Out in New Jersey, in the Elizabeth yards. They were walking by a special that had just pulled in. I thought they were tramps, but they could have got off the special. And the other fellow was carrying a little bag, that could have been a doctor’s bag.”

“Was he wearing a bandage?”

“I don’t know. But when you ask, I realize he had his collar turned up and his hat pulled low.”

“Yellow hair?”

“Hard to tell under that hat – big old slouch with a wide brim pulled down low.”

“Did you notice whose special it was?”

“I think she was private. I just wasn’t paying much mind.”

“I don’t suppose you saw the engine number?” said Bell.

“Sorry, Mr. Bell. Wish I had. Mr. Locomotive was pointed the other way.”

* * *

“It is strange,” Bell told Archie, “to think it was Semmler whom the porter saw in the Elizabeth yards. If he crossed the continent on a special, why did he get off way out in Elizabeth?”

Archie agreed. “You would think he would take his train closer to the steamship docks. Step from the privacy of a special train to the privacy of a First Class stateroom.”

“Once on the boat, he takes his meals in his room. No one sees him till he lands in England or France or Germany – First Class and private all the way from Los Angeles to Berlin.”

“So why did he get off in the Elizabeth yards?”

Bell pulled a regional map down from the ceiling of the Van Dorn library. “He could go anywhere from Elizabeth. Newark has a German community. The German steamers dock at Hoboken. Or he could catch the train or the tubes into Manhattan. Lots of choices.”

“But not so private and not First Class.”

Bell raised the map, spun on his heel, and stared at Archie, his eyes alight with sudden realization. “But Christian Semmler did not arrive in America in First Class.”

“What do you mean?”

“He did not disembark from the Mauretaniawith the First Class passengers at Pier 54.”

“He wasn’t a passenger,” said Archie. “He did not intend to sail on the Mauretania. He would have taken Clyde and Beiderbecke off the ship in Liverpool Bay if you hadn’t stopped him.”

“He crossed the ocean in the Mauretania’s stokehold and landed on a coal barge without leaving a trace of his arrival. What if he goes back the same route? No one in the black gang is going to question a knife wound. I’ll bet half the trimmers who return to ship are bunged up from bar fights and saloon brawls. So while we’re canvassing ship lines, ticket clerks, and customs agents, Semmler will leave the United States the same way he came.”

Bell grabbed the Kellogg’s mouthpiece. “Get me Detective Eddie Tobin. On the jump!”