Clive Cussler - The Chase

“His freight car didn’t roll away by itself.”

“Trust me,” said Bronson, “no freight cars are being ferried to Oakland. Only people. The only moving trains are those coming in with relief supplies from the east.”

Bell came to his feet again, his eyes cold and fixed on Bronson. “Horace, I need an automobile. I can’t waste hours hiking the part of the city that’s not in flames.”

“Where are you going?”

“First, I have to find Marion and make certain she’s safe,” Bell answered. “Then I’m heading for the railyard and the dispatcher. If Cromwell hired, or stole, a train to take him out of the city, there has to be a record at the dispatcher’s office.”

Bronson grinned like a fox. “Will a Ford Model K do?”

Bell looked at him in surprise. “The new Model K has a six-cylinder engine and can churn out forty horsepower. Do you have one?”

“I borrowed it from a rich grocery store owner. It’s yours, if you promise to have it back by noon tomorrow.”

“I owe you, Horace.”

Bronson placed his hands on Bell’s shoulders. “You can pay me back by seizing Cromwell and his evil sister.”

MARION SLEPT FOR SIX HOURS. WHEN SHE AWOKE, she found the tent inhabited by five other single women. One was sitting on her cot, weeping. Two looked dazed and lost, while the others showed their strength by volunteering to help feed the suffering at the kitchen facilities that were being set up in the park. Marion rose from her cot, straightened her clothes, and marched with her new friends to several large tents that had been erected by the army as emergency hospitals.

She was immediately instructed by a doctor to treat and bandage wounds that did not require the services of doctors, who were busy in surgery helping to save the lives of the badly injured. Marion lost track of time. She shrugged off sleep and exhaustion by working in a shelter for children. Many were so brave it tore her heart. After tending the cuts and bruises of a little three-year-old girl who had lost her family, she turned away in tears when the girl thanked her in a tiny voice.

She moved to the next cot and knelt beside a boy brought in from surgery after having his broken leg set. As she tucked him in a blanket, she felt a presence behind her. Then came a familiar voice.

“Pardon me, nurse, but my arm fell off. Can you mend it?”

Marion spun around and threw herself into the open arms of Isaac Bell.

“Oh, Isaac, thank God you’re all right. I was worried about you.”

Bell smiled broadly through the grime on his face. “A little the worse for wear, but still standing.”

“How did you ever find me?”

“I’m a detective, remember? The emergency hospital was the first place I looked. I knew you’d be following in the footsteps of Florence Nightingale, your heart is too big not to help those in need, especially children.” He squeezed her and whispered in her ear. “I’m proud of you, Mrs. Bell.”

She pushed herself back and stared up into his eyes in confusion. “Mrs. Bell?”

Bell’s smile remained fixed. “Not exactly a romantic time or place to propose, but will you marry me?”

“Isaac Bell,” she cried, “how dare you do this to me.” Then she softened, pulled his head down, and kissed him. When she released him, she said slyly, “Of course I will marry you. It’s the best offer I’ve had all day.”

His smile faded, his lips tightened, and his voice harshened. “I can’t stay but a minute. Cromwell and Margaret are fleeing San Francisco. As long as there’s a breath in me, I can’t let a murdering scum like Cromwell go free.”

His fervor frightened her, but she embraced him fiercely. “It isn’t every day a girl is proposed to by her lover who then runs away.” She kissed him again. “You come back, you hear?”

“As soon as I can.”

“I’ll be waiting here. I don’t expect any of us will be leaving our shantytown soon.”

Bell held up her hands and kissed them both. Then he turned and disappeared from the hospital tent.

BELL DID not consider returning to the Cromwell mansion on Nob Hill to see if Margaret had flown. He was certain she had fled with her brother.

The palace houses of the rich and powerful were great blazing bonfires. From every part of town came the roaring of the flames, the rumble of crashing walls, and the explosions of dynamite.

The Model K Ford was light and fast. And it was durable. It climbed over the rubble in the streets like a mountain goat. Unknowingly, Bell took nearly the same route as Cromwell and Abner, skirting along the northern waterfront away from the fire. Barely half an hour had passed since he had left Marion when he stopped the car on the ramp at Cromwell’s warehouse, satisfying himself that the boxcar was indeed missing.

Switch engines were coupling cars to passenger trains in order to evacuate refugees to the southern part of the state, which still had open tracks, while freight cars were being dispatched to transport food supplies and medicine from Los Angeles. He drove the Ford into the railyard along the tracks until he reached a wooden building with a sign above the roof advertising it as the DISPATCH OFFICE. Bell stopped the car, leaped to the ground, and stepped inside.

Several clerks were busily working on the paperwork to dispatch trains and none looked up as Bell entered. “Where can I find the chief dispatcher?” he asked a harried clerk.

The clerk nodded toward a door. “In there.”

Bell found the dispatcher writing numbers on a huge blackboard that displayed the tracks leading to and from the railyard. The sign on the desk read MORTON GOULD. He was a short man with a recessed chin and hawklike beak for a nose. The board showed over thirty different trains dispatched over track that spread from the railyard like a spiderweb. Bell could not help but wonder which one included Cromwell’s boxcar.

“Mr. Gould?”

Gould turned and saw a man who looked as though he’d walked from one side of hell to the other. “Can’t you see I’m busy? If you want to catch a train out of the city, you’ll have to go to the Southern Pacific depot—or what’s left of it.”

“My name is Bell. I’m with the Van Dorn Detective Agency. I’m looking for a boxcar with the serial number 16455.”

Gould motioned toward the board. “Southern Pacific is moving heaven and earth transporting thousands of homeless out of the city on our fleet of ferryboats and tugs over to Oakland, where we’ve assembled passenger trains waiting to evacuate them from the area. Over fourteen hundred relief cars are coming in from all over the country. Cars—passenger and freight—on this side of the bay, all three hundred of them, are being routed around the lower part of the state. How do you expect me to keep track of just one car?”

Bell studied Gould’s eyes. “This particular car belonged to Jacob Cromwell.”

It was there, a barely perceivable indication of recognition. “I don’t know any Jacob Cromwell.” Gould paused to stare apprehensively at Bell. “What’s this all about?”

“You dispatched a locomotive to pull his private freight car.”

“You’re crazy. I wouldn’t dispatch private trains during an emergency such as this.”

“How much did he pay you?”

The dispatcher lifted his hands. “I couldn’t be paid by a man I don’t know. It’s ridiculous.”

Bell ignored Gould’s lie. “Where was the destination of Cromwell’s train?”

“Now, look here,” Gould said, fear growing in his eyes. “I want you out of here, Van Dorn cop or no Van Dorn cop.”

Bell removed his hat and made a motion as if cleaning the inside band. The next thing the dispatcher knew, he was staring into the business end of a derringer. Bell pressed the twin barrels against the side of Gould’s left eye socket. “Unless you tell the truth in the next sixty seconds, I will shoot and the bullet will horribly disfigure your face besides blasting away both of your eyes. Do you wish to spend the rest your life as a mutilated blind man?”