Clive Cussler: The Chase

“Poor devils. Drownin’ isn’t a good way to go.”

Bell was deeply marked by guilt and grief. His face was expressionless as he turned his gaze to the waters of the lake. The waves no longer looked deadly and were settling down to a mild chop. The chinook was moving east and the terrible winds had subsided to a stiff breeze.

“No,” he murmured. “Not a good way to go at all.”

APRIL 16, 1950 FLATHEAD LAKE, MONTANA

AFTER THE COAL TENDER WAS BROUGHT UP AND SET on the barge behind the big Pacific locomotive, the divers concentrated on running the steel lift cables under the bottom of the freight car and attaching them to a cradle so it could also be raised. Despite the muck and slime, the name SOUTHERN PACIFIC was still readable across the sides of the tender.

Late in the afternoon, the director of the salvage operation, Bob Kaufman, paced the deck impatiently, as the divers were lifted from the bottom on a platform that was swung onto the barge. He looked up at the clouds, which were dark but not threatening, and lit a cigar while he waited for the brass helmet to be lifted off the dive master’s head.

As soon as it was lifted from the diver’s head, Kaufman asked, “How’s it look?”

The diver, a balding man in his early forties, nodded. “The cables are secured. You can tell the crane operator he can begin the lift.”

Kaufman waved to the man who operated the big crane that rose skyward from the deck of the salvage barge. “All cables secure!” he shouted. “Lift away!” Then Kaufman turned and spoke to the tall, older, silver-haired man standing next to him on the deck of the barge. “We’re ready to raise the freight car, Mr. Bell.”

Isaac Bell nodded. His face was calm, but there was an expression of expectancy. “All right, Mr. Kaufman. Let’s see what it looks like after all these years on the bottom of the lake.”

The crane operator engaged the lift levers, tightening the cables as the diesel engine on the crane rose from an idle to a high rpm before flattening out as it strained to hoist the freight car. The operation was not nearly as complex as bringing up the hundred-thirty-four-ton locomotive. Once the car was pulled free from the bottom, the lifting operation went smoothly.

Bell watched with an almost-morbid fascination as the freight car broke the surface of the water and was raised up high before the crane slowly swung it over the barge. Deftly coordinating the controls, the crane operator cautiously lowered the car until it settled onto the deck behind the locomotive and tender.

Gazing at the train, Bell found it hard to visualize in his mind how it looked so many years ago. He walked up to the car and wiped the lake growth away from the serial number that was barely visible through the oozing slime. The number 16455 now became distinct.

Bell looked up at the freight door. It was still as open as when he fell through it so long ago. The interior was dark because the sunlight was diminished by the clouds. Memories flooded back as he recalled that fateful day when the train rolled across the ferry and plummeted to the bottom of the lake. He dreaded what he would find inside.

Kaufman came with the ladder they had used to enter the locomotive’s cab and propped it against the open floor of the freight car. “After you, Mr. Bell.”

Bell nodded silently and slowly mounted the ladder until he was standing on the threshold of the boxcar. He stared into the darkness and listened to the water dripping throughout the freight car. He suppressed a shudder. The dampness and the smell of muck and slime seemed to reek of death, hoary and evil and infinitely ghastly.

The once-ornate furnishings and decor of the palatial car now looked like something out of a nightmare. The plush-carpeted floor was covered with sediment decorated with long slender weeds. The intricately carved bar, the leather chairs and couch, the Tiffany lamps overhead, even the paintings on the walls, looked grotesque under their coating of ooze and growth. Small fish that had not escaped as the car came out of the water were flopping on the floor.

As if delaying the inevitable, Bell sloshed through the mud and found the five leather trunks along one wall where he remembered seeing them back in 1906. He pulled a folding knife from his pocket and pried open the rusting and nearly frozen latches on the first trunk. Lifting the lid, he saw that the interior was relatively free of silt. He carefully picked up one of the bundles. The paper currency was soggy but had held its shape and consistency. The printing on the gold certificate bills still appeared distinct and well defined.

Kaufman had joined Bell and stared fascinated at the stacks of bills stuffed in the trunk. “How much do you reckon there is?”

Bell closed the lid and motioned at the other four trunks. “A wild guess? Maybe four or five million.”

“What happens to it?” asked Kaufman with a glint in his eyes.

“Goes back to the bank whose depositors were robbed of their savings.”

“Better not let my crew know about this,” said Kaufman seriously. “They may get it in their heads it’s open salvage.”

Bell smiled. “I’m certain the banking commissioners in San Francisco will be most generous in granting a reward to you and your crew.”

Kaufman was satisfied, his gaze sweping through the car. “This must have been one luxurious palace on wheels before it sank. I’ve never seen a boxcar fixed up like a private Pullman parlor car.”

“No expense was spared,” said Bell, eyeing several bottles of vintage champagne and expensive brandy that were scattered in the sediment on the floor.

Kaufman’s expression turned grim as he nodded at two misshapen mounds protruding from the floor. “These the two you were looking for?”

Bell nodded solemnly. “Jacob Cromwell, the infamous Butcher Bandit, and his sister, Margaret.”

“The Butcher Bandit,” Kaufman said softly in awe. “I always thought he’d disappeared.”

“A legend handed down through the years because the money was never recovered.”

The adipose tissue that once stored Cromwell’s fat had broken down and his body, like the corpses in the cab of the locomotive, had turned waxlike in saponification. The notorious killer looked less than something that had once been a living human being. It was as though he had melted into an indiscernible lump of brown gelatin. His body was twisted, as if he’d died writhing in terror when tons of water gushed into the freight car as it followed the locomotive down to the bottom of the lake. Bell knew better. Cromwell might have struggled to survive, but he would never have been gripped with terror. No longer was he a menacing figure. His reign of robbery and murder had ended forty-four years ago under the cold waters of Flathead Lake.

He waded through the muck to where Margaret’s body lay. Her lustrous hair was fanned out in the silt and tangled with strands from a reedlike weed. The once-lovely face looked like a sculpture an artist had left unfinished. Bell could not help but remember her beauty and vivaciousness the night they met in the elevator of the Brown Palace Hotel.

Kaufman interrupted Bell’s thoughts. “His sister?”

Bell nodded. He felt an overwhelming sense of sorrow and remorse. Her final words before he fell from the car came back to haunt him. He could never explain his feelings toward her. There was no endearing love on his part, more a fondness coated with hatred. There was no forgiving her criminal actions in league with her brother. She deserved to die as surely as he did.

“Can’t tell from the look of her now,” said Kaufman. “She might have been a beautiful woman.”

“Yes, she was that,” said Bell softly. “A beautiful woman full of life but veiled in evil.” He turned away saddened but his eyes dry of tears.