Clive Cussler - The Chase

A tear came to her eye and Margaret dabbed a handkerchief at it, not sure if her emotions were twisted by Bell’s demise or her brother’s madness. “Where this time?”

“Not a mining town payroll,” he said, grinning. “I’ll throw them a curve and hit a town that doesn’t expect me, and leave them frustrated once again.”

“What town?”

“San Diego, here in California.”

“That’s almost in our backyard.”

“All the better,” said Cromwell. “My escape will be that much easier.”

“What makes San Diego so special?”

“Because the city’s Wells Fargo is fat with deposits, from merchants and from ships importing goods into the port. And because I’d love to poke a hole in my biggest competitor.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Do not call me crazy!” he said harshly.

“What do you call yourself? Everything we’ve worked for could come crashing down around us if you’re ever caught.”

“Not so long as they’re dealing with a mastermind,” Cromwell said brashly.

“When will you ever stop?” Margaret demanded.

“When the Cromwell Bank is as big as the Wells Fargo Bank and I am crowned king of San Francisco,” he said with a nasty glint in his eyes.

She knew it was hopeless to argue with her brother. Without his knowledge, she had quietly moved assets, little by little over the years, into the Wells Fargo Bank, where he would never think to trace them. The expensive jewelry she had purchased was put away in a safe-deposit box. If the worst came to pass and her brother was caught and hung, she would leave San Francisco, go to Europe, and live a life of luxury before finding a rich and titled husband.

They reached the automobile and Jacob helped his sister into the driver’s seat. As he cranked the engine to life, Cromwell’s self-confidence was overwhelming. Like a ship sailing into a heavy sea with all sails set, danger became a challenge that bordered on addiction. At the thought of outwitting every law enforcement officer in the West once again, his face beamed like that of a religious fanatic who had just witnessed a miracle.

Neither of them paid any attention to a man sitting on a bench near the car dressed like a worker, with a toolbox perched in his lap, casually smoking a pipe.

BELL’S TRAIN GOT HIM INTO SAN FRANCISCO AT EIGHT o’clock in the morning. By nine, he was meeting with Carter, Bronson, and five of his agents. Everyone was seated around a large conference table that was twice as large as the one in the office in Denver. Bell was dead tired, and his wounds still gave him trouble, but he ignored the pain, as he had with earlier injuries, and soldiered on. “Gentlemen,” he began, “now that our number one suspect for the Butcher Bandit is Jacob Cromwell, we are going to put him and his sister, Margaret, under twenty-four-hour surveillance.”

“That means their every movement outside their palace on Nob Hill,” added Bronson.

One agent held up a hand. “Sir, we’ll need photos for identification, since most of us have no idea of what they look like.”

Bronson picked up a bulky file on the table. “Photographs of them were taken while they were out and about town.”

“Who took them?” asked Bell.

Bronson smiled and nodded at one of his agents across the table. “Dick Crawford here is an ace photographer.”

“Didn’t the Cromwells get suspicious about a photographer following them around, shooting their picture?” asked Carter.

Bronson nodded at Crawford. “Dick, tell everyone how you pulled it off without them getting wise.”

Crawford had a narrow saturnine face with a small jaw and bushy eyebrows beneath a bald head. A serious man, he did not show any humorous disposition. “I wore coveralls and carried a toolbox with a small hole cut out in one end for the camera lens. All I had to do was reach into the box to adjust the focus and shoot their picture. They didn’t have a clue and never so much as gave me a glance.” He then set a small camera on the table and explained its application. “What you see is a Kodak Quick Focus box camera that takes postcard-sized images.”

As Crawford talked, Bronson passed out photos of Jacob and Margaret Cromwell.

“You will note that the photos are remarkably sharp and distinct,” Crawford continued. “The unique feature of the camera is that, unlike other cameras with a set focus, I could set the distance using the small wheel you see on the side. Then all I had to do was press a button and the front of the lens would pop out to the correct distance for exposure.”

Everyone studied the photos. They showed the Cromwells, individually or together, walking down the street, coming out of stores and restaurants. Several photos were of Jacob Cromwell entering and exiting his bank. Two showed him speaking at the opening of his sanitarium for the elderly. Crawford even followed them to Lafayette Park and shot them walking along a path. Bell was particularly interested in the pictures showing Margaret behind the wheel of an exotic-looking car.

“A Mercedes Simplex,” he said admiringly. “The Cromwells have good taste in automobiles.”

Bronson examined the photos showing the car. “It looks expensive. How fast will it go?”

“At least seventy, maybe eighty, miles an hour,” replied Bell.

“I doubt if there is a car in San Francisco that could catch it in a chase,” said a bushy-haired agent at the end of the table.

“There is now,” Bell said, his lips spread in a grin. “It was unloaded from a freight car this morning.” He looked at Curtis. “Am I correct, Arthur?”

Curtis nodded. “Your automobile is sitting in the Southern Pacific freight warehouse. I hired a boy who works in the railyard to clean it up.”

“You sent a car here from…”

“Chicago,” Bell finished.

“I’m curious,” said Bronson. “What automobile is so special that you’d have it shipped all the way from Chicago?”

“A fast motorcar can come in handy. Besides, as it turns out, it’s more than a match for Cromwell’s Mercedes Simplex, should it come to a pursuit.”

“What make is it?” asked Crawford.

“A Locomobile,” answered Bell. “It was driven by Joe Tracy, who drove it to third place in the 1905 Vanderbilt Cup road race on Long Island.”

“How fast is it?” inquired Bronson.

“She’ll get up to a hundred and five miles an hour on a straight stretch.”

There came a hushed silence. Everyone around the table was astounded and disbelieving.

They had never seen or heard of anything that could go so fast. Professional auto races with competing factory cars had not come to the West Coast yet.

“Incredible,” said Bronson in awe. “I can’t imagine anything traveling a hundred miles an hour.”

“Can you drive it on the street?” asked Curtis.

Bell nodded. “I had fenders and headlamps installed and the transmission modified for street traffic.”

“You’ve got to give me a ride in it,” said Bronson.

Bell laughed. “I think it can be arranged.”

Bronson turned his interest back to the photos of the Cromwells. “Any thoughts on what the bandit will do next?”

“After Telluride,” said Curtis, “I would bet his days of robbery and murder have ended.”

“Sounds logical if he knows we’re onto him,” agreed Bronson.

“We can’t be sure of that if he thinks all witnesses to the fiasco in Telluride are dead, including me,” said Bell. “He is a crazy man, driven to rob and kill. I don’t believe he can ever stop cold. Cromwell believes his criminal acts can never be traced. He simply does not fit the mold of Black Bart, the James Gang, the Daltons, or Butch Cassidy. Compared to Cromwell, they were crude, backwoods amateurs.”