Clive Cussler - The Striker

The shipbuilder looked uncomfortable. Bearer bonds were, in theory, negotiable as ready cash and a lot less cumbersome, but the holder had to hope that they were neither forgeries nor issued by an entity no longer in business.

“Would the issuing agent happen to have a branch office here in Cincinnati?”

Clay would prefer not to appear in that office, but he had no choice. “Thibodeau & Marzen have a branch in Cincinnati. Why don’t we go there now? They’ll guarantee the good faith of the issuer, and you can get the bonds locked up safely in your bank.”

“Would Thibodeau & Marzen redeem them immediately?”

“I don’t see why not. If you prefer to cash in, they will accommodate you.”

Mary Higgins walked fast from her Ross Street rooming house, down Fourth Avenue and across Smithfield, toward the waterfront. She was easy to track in the red scarf Isaac Bell had seen her buy from a peddler in New York. Even without it, how could he miss her erect carriage and determined stride?

In a factory town like Pittsburgh, workingman’s clothing was the simplest disguise, and Wish Clarke always said, Keep it simple . To shadow Mary, Bell donned overcoat, overalls, and boots, and covered his distinctive blond hair with a knitted watch cap.

Archie Abbott trailed Bell, alternately hanging behind and sprinting to catch up when he signaled. The streets were crowded with men and women pouring out of offices and banks and hurrying home from work, and Bell was teaching Archie what Wish Clarke had taught him: Alternating their profile between one figure and two made them less conspicuous when Mary peered over her shoulder, which she did repeatedly as they neared the river.

She crossed First Avenue into a district of small factories and machine shops.

“So far, she’s headed for the same place,” said Archie.

The soot-blacked trusses of the Smithfield Street Bridge spread graceful curves against the grimy sky. Instead of boarding a trolley to cross the Monongahela on the bridge or walking the footpath, Mary Higgins followed a street that circled alongside its stone piers and down to the riverbank.

“Just like yesterday,” Archie whispered in his ear. “Now, watch.”

Barges were rafted ten deep into the channel and appeared to extend down the shore as far as the bridge at the Point — the tip of Pittsburgh where the Mon joined the Allegheny. They were empty, riding high on the water. Across the river, all but the lowest reaches of Mount Washington and the Duquesne Heights were lost in smoke. The sun had disappeared, and night was settling in quickly.

Mary Higgins took another look around.

“Down,” said Bell, and they ducked behind a wooden staircase that ran up the side of a building. When they raised their heads, Mary had climbed a ladder onto a barge and was walking on planks laid barge to barge toward the middle of the river.

“She has amazing balance,” said Archie.

“Her father was a tug captain. They lived on the boat.”

“I thought it was those long, long legs.”

Bell gave his friend a cold, dark look, and Archie shut up.

Mary crossed ten rows of barges and stepped down onto a workboat moored at the edge of the fleet. “Was that boat there yesterday?” Bell asked.

“Right there. That’s where she went.”

“How long did she stay on it?”

“An hour and four minutes.”

Bell nodded approvingly. Mack and Wally were teaching Archie to be precise in observation and report.

“Were these same barges here?”

“Yes.”

“How can you be sure? They all look alike.”

“You see the barge right smack in the middle with the white cookhouse sitting on it?” The apprentice detective indicated a painted shack with a stovepipe poking through the roof. “Exactly where it was yesterday.”

Bell thought it strange that on such a busy river the empty barges had not been moved. He would expect them to be swarming with deckhands preparing for towboats to push them back up the Monongahela to move the coal being mined by scab labor. Even as he watched, a tow of empties bustled up the river from the harbor pool between the Point and Davis Island Dam, and an oversize towboat was pushing a loaded fleet of Amalgamated Coal’s big Ohio River barges downstream.

“I tried to get closer,” said Archie. “A watchman spotted me halfway across, and I thought I better run for it.”

“I’ll take a shot at it,” Bell said. “Give me a whistle if you see the watchman.”

He crossed the barges several rows down from the route Mary had taken, loping gunnel to gunnel as his eyes adjusted to the failing light. At the outside row, he drew close to the workboat, keeping an eye peeled for Mary and its crew. Its decks were empty. A thin wisp of smoke curled from its stack, indicating that steam was being kept up, but the boat wasn’t going anywhere immediately. He smelled coffee.

Bell stayed on the barge and worked his way alongside the boat. A round port was open, spilling light from the cabin, and he could hear voices. He eased closer silently until he was perched beside the cabin. Mary was talking. She sounded angry.

“How much longer are we going to just sit here?”

“Until he gets back.”

“We should at least move the barges upstream. They’re too far downriver to sink here. There’s only one bridge below us.”

“Like I said, miss,” a man answered, “we’re not going anywhere without the boss’s say-so.”

“Where is Mr. Claggart?”

“Didn’t say.”

“Did he say when he would return?”

“Nope.”

“Then I think we should begin on our own.”

“Sister,” another man interrupted with a smirk in his voice, “ we ain’t beginning nothing without the boss.”

“But there’s more rain forecast. The water’s rising. Soon it will be too deep. We can’t just sit here doing nothing.”

“Nothing?” said the smirker. “I’m not doing nothing. I might have a drink. In fact, maybe I’ll have one right now.”

Bell heard the pop of a cork pulled from a bottle.

Mary said, “You wouldn’t dare in front of Mr. Claggart.”

“Like you say, Mr. Claggart ain’t here— Hey!”

Bell heard a bottle smash.

“What the hell do you—” the smirker roared angrily.

Bell started to go to Mary’s defense, then ducked as the cabin door flew open and she stalked out and climbed onto the nearest barge. Inside, he heard the first man shouting, “Are you nuts? Let her go! If you touch her, Claggart’ll kill you… Miss! Miss!”

A head popped out the door. Bell glimpsed the slick hair and pinchback vest worn by a cardsharper or a racetrack tout. “He’ll be back in two or three days. I wasn’t supposed to tell you, but come back then. Don’t you worry, we’ll start sinking them the second he’s here.”

Mary threw an icy “After you move them upriver” over her shoulder and kept going.

Bell pressed his face to the porthole. The second man, the smirker, was staring morosely at the broken bottle at his feet. He looked like a saloon bouncer who had seen better days. The gambler stepped back inside and shut the door. “That is one angry woman.”

“I wouldn’t want to be in Claggart’s shoes when he gets back.”

“He can handle her.”

“Not if he changes his mind about sinking them barges.”

“You can bet your bottom dollar he won’t change his mind.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“He’s got a big plan. The barges are just a small piece of it.”

“Does she know that?”

“No.”

Mack and Wally set up shop in separate waterfront saloons near the Smithfield Bridge. Nowhere near as drunk as they looked, the detectives quickly made names for themselves as exceedingly generous, treating Monongahela towboat pilots and captains to round after round. Archie Abbott acted as runner, shuttling between them to exchange information and passing it on to Isaac Bell, who was glued to the front door of Mary Higgins’s rooming house.