Harry Harrison - A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!

“Your navvies good workers, Meestair Washington, work very hard and need to eat very much. Feed them you must, beeg meals, beeg money. I joost happen to have many tons of canned hams, such good hams you would not believe and I have a sample here in pocket to prove you.” Something slapped the table wetly and Gus could not help noticing the piece of meat on a cloth napkin that had suddenly appeared at his elbow. He ignored it as well as he had ignored its owner, yet the man persisted. “See how fine, my, good pig from the mountains of the Balkans, eat, eat, you will enjoy. I have these hams to sell for special price for you, oh good price and under the table for you a certain commission, gold most suitable, yike !”

The speaker had terminated his conversation in this unusual manner because Sapper Cornplanter had appeared silently behind him and had lifted him suddenly by trouser seat and nape of neck and had hurled him bodily into the street where he instantly vanished. With his fingertips Gus sent the portion of meat after its master where it disappeared into the maw of one of the long-legged island dogs who roamed the pavement.

“More tons of concrete cut with sand?” Sapper asked, still standing but pouring himself a glass of wine for his services.

“Not this time. From the little I heard before you terminated the conversation it was either a stolen shipment of meat, or tainted, or some such. They never stop trying, do they?”

Sapper grunted a monosyllabic answer and faded from sight inside the cafe. Gus sipped at his wine. The entrepreneurs would never believe that he could not be bribed, it was their lifetime of experience that everyone had their price, everyone was accessible, so they persisted in trying with him. He had long since stopped trying to talk to them so arranged that one of his men was always nearby when he was in public and that a certain gesture of his hand, apparently meaningless in itself, carried the information that once again a conversation never begun was due to be terminated.

He forgot about this matter at once, so common had it become, and had more wine while the gentle tropical evening drew on apace. When he was refreshed and cooled he made his leisurely way through the still streaming crowd to the Terra Nostra Hotel where he kept a room at the best hotel on the island, which was by no means an extravagant claim, as well as being hideously overcrowded as were all hotels and restaurants since the tunnel had located here. The manager, bowing with pleasure, for his custom was greatly respected, handed over the package the messenger had brought, and Gus went up to his room to do some work on the papers before partaking of the late dinner so favored by the islanders.

When he unlocked the door he saw that the room was dark, that the chambermaid had neglected once again to turn on the light. This was a normal occurrence and he thought little of it as he closed the door and groped for the switch and threw it. Nothing happened. The electricity must be off again, he thought, the coal-fired generating plant was hideously inefficient. Yet the lights had been on in the lobby. Puzzling over this, he had just turned back to the door when the sudden glare of an electric torch burned into his eyes, the first intimation he had had that he was not alone in the room. Whoever his secret visitor might be, he was certainly here for no good end, that was Gus’s instant thought, and he turned to hurl himself at the light source. He was stayed from attacking by the silent appearance of a man’s hand in the beam, a hand clutching a nickel-plated and very efficient-looking revolver.

“You’are here to rob me?” said Gus, coolly.

“Not exactly,” the secret visitor answered in what were obviously American tones. “Let us say I wished first to see who you were, then to make sure you were alone, and lastly the gun, if you will excuse its presence, to ensure you did nothing hasty in this darkened room as, I believe, you were starting to do.”

“Here is my wallet, take it and leave. I have nothing else of value to you in the room.”

“Thank you, no,” said the voice in the darkness, a hint of laughter to the words. “You misconstrue my presence” There was a rattle and a clatter at the lighting fixture, though the torch stayed steadily on Gus all the time, and the lights finally came on.

The nocturnal visitor was a man in his middle thirties garbed in the almost traditional dress of the American tourist abroad, colorful, beaded Indian shirt, peaked fisherman’s cap with a green plastic visor that was studded all over with badges and patches indicating places he had been, knee-length shorts, and sturdy, hobnailed boots. Around his neck was slung his camera and ancillary photographic apparatus and from his belt there hung the required wire recorder that lectured him day and night on what he was seeing. His face was cheerful enough when he smiled, as he was doing now, but it hinted that in repose the icy blue eyes were stern, the wide jaw set, the broken, hooked, sharp nose might resemble the predatory bill of a hawk.

Gus examined the man slowly and carefully, standing motionless under the ready threat of the revolver, looking for an opportunity to turn the tables. That this would not be necessary was proven an instant later when the stranger touched the bottom of his wire recorder so that the case fell open and a secret compartment was disclosed. Into this opening he pushed the gun while, at the same time, he removed a smaller object. The leather case sealed again with a click as, still smiling, he passed over the extracted metal shield.

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Captain Washington. My name is Richard Tracy and I am manager of the New York office of Pinkerton’s. That is my shield you have in your hand and I was instructed, as further identification, to give you this note.”

The sturdy envelope was closed with sealing wax, with Sir Winthorp’s seal upon it, and showed no signs of being tampered with. Inside was a brief note in Rockefeller’s own hand which Gus recognized at once. The message was succinct.

This will introduce R. Tracy, Esq., whom I have retained privately. He is to be trusted absolutely in the matter to hand. W. Rockefeller.

“Do you know the contents of this letter?”

“Just the gist of it, that I am conducting an investigation and only you are to know about it. I was advised to inform you that Sir Winthorp has engaged me personally, out of his own private funds, and that you are the only other person who knows of my existence.”

“I suppose you wouldn’t care to tell me just what it is you are investigating?”

“Just getting to that, sir. Sabotage it is, a very nasty business indeed. I can cite instances you know of, and still more that you don’t.”

“Such as the mysterious lack of fuel in the helithopter in Canada?”

“True enough. And the cut cable on the tunnel section of the last part to the Grand Banks Station, the collapsing shed in the rail yard, and many others. I have been here on the island for a little time now and have made an investigation in depth. There is a strong organization that is actively operating against the success of this tunnel. They are well financed and ruthless and will stop at nothing.”

“But, who is doing this—and why?”

“At this stage I could only guess, and guessing is a thing I prefer not to do, being a man of facts and facts alone. Perhaps that is one of the things we will soon discover, for I have approached you now for your aid. I and my operatives have been investigating here for some months…”

“I had no idea!”

“Nor should you have, for my men are of the best. You have seen some of them working on the tunnel, I’ll wager, because I have managed to get them into a number of places. And now one of them, he is called Billygoat because he is as ugly and nasty as one, has been approached by the saboteurs and has agreed to aid them. That is where I need your help. You must supply me with a place to commit willful and expensive sabotage so that Billygoat will be admitted to their ranks. Once I know who they are we can swoop and grab the lot.”