Clive Cussler - The Assassin

Suddenly the headlamp disappeared.

For a second, Matters was baffled. Then the train whistle gave a strangely hollow, muffled shriek, and he realized that the locomotive had entered a tunnel. The car he was clinging to would be next into the narrow opening after smashing him against the stonework that rimmed it. He heard a crash. His stateroom door flew open. Isaac Bell blasted through it, revolver in hand, eyes locked on the window.

In the most decisive move of his entire life, Bill Matters dropped off the train.

Isaac Bell thrust head and shoulders and gun out the stateroom window and looked behind the train. The night was black, the spill of window light negligible, and he could not see where Matters had landed. The train whistle sounded oddly muffled. Bell started to turn his head toward it when he sensed something immense hurtling at him. He shoved back inside Matters’ stateroom, and the next second saw smoke-blackened masonry inches from the window.

The boat train screeched to a stop inside a tunnel.

Bell bolted from the stateroom and out the back of the sleeper car, past shaken passengers in pajamas and dressing gowns, through the last car, and jumped off the back of the train onto the crossties. A brakeman was running frantically with a red lantern to alert the next train that the boat train was blocking the tracks.

Bell followed him out the tunnel and along the railbed, searching for Matters and fully expecting to find his body smashed against a tree. Instead, one hundred yards from the tunnel portal he found a break in the forest. It looked like a meadow, but at that moment the clouds parted and he saw moonlight gleam on water.

“Good-bye,” said Edna. “We’ll see you in New York.”

“Good-bye?” asked Bell. “We’re on the same ship.”

“We’re sailing Second Class. You’re in First.”

“No. Stay with me. I’ll pay the difference.”

“We will not sit in the same dining room as that man,” said Nellie, turning away without another word to walk briskly to the Second Class gangway.

Edna said, “We can barely stand to be on the same ship. But it’s the fastest way home. I’ve promised a full report to the Sun , and Nellie has got to take command of the New Woman’s Flyover before a certain suffra gette tries to steal it. Apparently, Amanda Faire’s husband bought her a balloon.” She lowered her voice, though her sister was far beyond earshot. “Nellie is so distraught about Father. I’ve got to get her home and busy.”

Bell said, “I hope you understand that I’m terribly sorry about your father.”

“You cannot be as sorry as we are,” said Edna. “We’ve lived in fear of this day and now it has happened.”

“You expected him to attack Mr. Rockefeller?”

“We expected him to hurt himself . Since the day Rockefeller broke up his business and stole the pieces. We expected him to kill himself. What you call an attack, Isaac, had exactly the same effect.”

“It is highly likely,” said Bell, “that your father is still alive.”

The German police had dragged the pond beside the tracks and searched the forest with hunting dogs and found no body. They had visited every farm within twenty miles and canvassed doctors and hospitals. Bill Matters had thoroughly disappeared.

“Good-bye.” Edna started after her sister, then turned back and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you, Isaac.”

“What for?”

“Engineering my job on the Sun .”

“They weren’t supposed to tell you.”

“No one had to tell me. I figured it out on my own. Very flattering.”

“The Sun was lucky to send you to Baku.”

“I meant flattering that you wanted me to come along.”

“Last stop,” said Isaac Bell.

Tugboats jetting clouds of coal smoke were working the Kaiser Wilhelm against North German Lloyd’s Hoboken pier.

“Not precisely,” said John D. Rockefeller. “We still have the train to Cleveland.”

“ My last stop,” said Bell. He took a letter from his traveling suit and handed it to Rockefeller. “Here is my resignation.”

“Resignation? I am dismayed. Why are you quitting?”

“Standards.”

“Standards? What standards?”

“You had no need to rob Bill Matters. I will not condone his crimes, but you mistreated him badly and for no purpose other than beating him.”

Rockefeller’s lips tightened in a flat line. He looked away, gazing at the harbor, then he looked Bell in the eye. “When I was a boy, my father sharped us to make us strong. He taught us how to trade by taking us again and again. Every time I was soft, he took advantage and beat me in every deal until I learned how to win. It made me sharp.”

“It made you a bully.”

“It’s a habit,” said Rockefeller. “A habit that served me well.”

Bell appeared to change the subject. “I understand your father is still alive.”

A look of genuine affection warmed Rockefeller’s cold face. “Ninety and going strong.”

“Men live long in your family.”

“The lord has blessed us with many years.”

“Many years to break bad habits.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You’ve been allotted more years than most to break habits you should break,” said Isaac Bell.

Rockefeller bridled. “I am using my years for philanthropy — for all the good it’s done me. They still think I’m a monster.”

“They think you’re a bully. And they’re right. But if you ask me, you’ve made a good start with philanthropy. I’d keep at it.”

“Would you, now? You are not familiar with business affairs, Mr. Bell. You’re like certain writers, theorists, socialists, and anarchists — so ready to determine how best they can appropriate the possessions of others.”

“Good-bye, Mr. Rockefeller.”

“You can’t leave me defenseless. You took a job and signed a contract to protect me. What if Matters surfaces and tries to kill me?”

“I’ve assigned Wish Clarke to escort you home to Cleveland. There, your bodyguards will be provided by Van Dorn Protective Services.”

“Van Dorn? Are you going back to Van Dorn?”

“I never left.”

“What? You never left Van Dorn’s employ?”

“Never.”

“You’re still working up the Corporations Commission case! You tricked me.”

The trace of a smile moderated Bell’s stern features. “You are not familiar with detective affairs, Mr. Rockefeller. It’s my job to trick suspects. In fact… you could call it a habit.”

Rockefeller’s eyes flickered as if he were trying to recall how much information he had given away. But when he spoke, all he said was, “How long will these guards protect me?”

“Until you feel safe.”

“How will I ever feel safe from that murderer?”

“You will feel safe when he is hanged.”

“What makes you so sure he will be?”

“Another Van Dorn habit. We never give up.”

True to form, John D. Rockefeller did the unexpected. He laughed. “That’s a good one.” He thrust out his hand. “I prefer friendships founded on business. I’m glad we’ve done business, Mr. Bell.”

The grim atmosphere in the Van Dorn Detective Agency’s New York field office reminded Isaac Bell of the night riots broke out in Baku. “Himself” was back in town, Joseph Van Dorn, hulking like a bad-tempered sphinx in the back of the bull pen where Bell, who had just raced from the ferry pier, had summoned his assassin squad to bring him up to date.

Archie Abbott looked miserable and was sporting a black eye. The anxious glances he kept shooting at Van Dorn told Bell that Archie had learned nothing about the Army deserter who won the President’s Medal.