Clive Cussler - The Striker

Bell weighed the value of confronting her to find out what exactly the talk of sinking barges meant. What did “too far downriver” mean? And “only one bridge”? Or would he learn more by waiting until “Mr. Claggart” returned? Waiting meant he would have to move in a flash to stop whatever they were up to. In the meantime, as he watched and waited, he tried to imagine what they thought they would accomplish by sinking barges.

Mack Fulton spelled him so he could catch some sleep.

Back in four hours, he found Wally Kisley there, too. Wally had just come from the Allegheny County sheriff’s office. He had bad news about Jim Higgins.

Isaac Bell went looking for the union man.

The Van Dorn Protective Services agents reported that Higgins had gone missing.

We’re real sorry, Mr. Bell. We turned our backs for one second, and he lit out like a rocket.”

Mike Flannery and Terry Fein had promoted him to “Mr. Bell,” he noted wryly, now that they had bungled the job of protecting a client being stalked by the Pinkertons, the Coal and Iron Police, and possibly an assassin hired by the Coal Trust to keep Higgins from testifying for the attorney general. Flattery would come next.

“Where did you see him last?”

“Amalgamated Coal Terminal.”

“What the heck was he doing up there?”

The Amalgamated transfer operation was three miles upriver from the Golden Triangle, Pittsburgh’s business district, where Higgins and the Strike Committee had rented their union hall in a storefront under an old warehouse. It was fully seven miles downriver from the tent city where the Monongahela march had ground to a halt in a trolley park, shuttered since summer ended, on the outskirts of McKeesport.

“We don’t know, Mr. Bell. We went with him twice yesterday. He just stands and stares at it.”

“Why don’t you look for him there?”

“He’ll dodge us if he sees us coming,” said Mike.

Terry explained, “When the march ran into trouble, he blamed us for getting in his way.”

“When all we’re trying do is make sure no one shoots the poor devil or shoves a knife in his ribs.”

“But he’s always rattling on about what a fine fellow you are, Mr. Bell, and we thought maybe if he saw you coming, he wouldn’t run.”

Well-rehearsed flattery. “O.K., Mike, you watch his room. Terry, you watch the union hall. I’ll go out and look for him.”

“Try the toast rack.”

The toast-rack trolley — an open-sided electric streetcar that Bell rode out from the Golden Triangle — ran on tracks that paralleled those of the Amalgamated Coal trains. Passing Amalgamated from the inland side, the trolley offered views of locomotives pushing empties under the tipple and snaking them out full, and occasional distant glimpses of the barge wharves that ringed the Point. The operation seemed to Bell to be mechanically perfect, as if each barge and railroad was a minute cog in an immense and smooth-running wheel. He jumped down when he saw Jim Higgins standing at a trolley stop with his hands in his pockets.

“How you getting on, pardner?”

“Not good, Isaac. Not good at all.”

“What’s wrong?”

“The mineowners armed every bum with a gun. Then they let the jailbirds out and gave them ax handles. They’re blocking the march, and the hotheads are yelling, ‘Let the working people take guns and shoot down the dogs who shoot them!’”

Bell said, “If they do, the governor will call up militia with rifles and Gatling guns.”

“I know that. In fact, he’s already put them on alert. But the hotheads are talking each other out of the good sense to be afraid.”

“Mike and Terry told me you gave ’em the slip.”

“I need solitude to think.”

“They also told me you find something attractive about this Amalgamated operation.”

“It’s about as up-to-date as can be,” Higgins answered vaguely. He glanced away from the tall detective’s probing gaze and changed the subject. “Somehow, I’ve got to convince the Strike Committee to stand up to the hotheads.”

“I’m afraid I’ve got bad news on that score,” said Bell.

“Now what?”

“The Strike Committee was just rousted onto a special train headed for Morgantown, West Virginia.”

“What?”

“The Allegheny County sheriff extradited them to stand trial for the murder of Black Jack Gleason.”

Jim Higgins’s shoulders sagged. “They didn’t blow up Gleason’s yacht.”

“I’m sure they didn’t,” said Bell, “since they were in Chicago at the time. But proving that will take months.”

Higgins looked around for a place to sit, saw none, and stared helplessly at Isaac Bell. “Now it’s all on me,” he said. “But they’ve got me blocked at every turn.”

“Maybe Mary can help.”

Higgins shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Do you know what she’s up to?” Bell asked bluntly.

“She’s gone her own way.”

Bell asked, “Is she in danger?”

“If I believed in God, I’d say, God knows.” Jim Higgins lifted his eyes to the giant tipple. Suddenly, to Bell’s astonishment, he straightened his shoulders and stood tall. A thin smile crossed his face, expressing, Isaac Bell thought, a sad farewell to hope or a final good-bye to illusions.

“Whoever built this tipple knows his business. He’s got himself the center of coal distribution, east, west, north, and south.”

“It’s efficient,” said Bell. “I hear he’s putting the smaller coal yards out of business.”

“This point of land would have made a beautiful park.”

“I beg pardon, Jim?”

“Water on three sides, the way the river snakes around it. Just a short trolley ride from town. Imagine a great big Ferris wheel where the tipple is. Picnic grounds. Swimming pool. Carousel. Baseball diamonds. A racecourse. You could hold revival meetings. And Chautauqua assemblies.”

Isaac Bell looked up at the coal smoke matting the sky. “You would need a lot of imagination.”

“But imagine our tent city here instead of down in McKeesport. Winter’s coming. If we could occupy this place, we could shut it down. Industry’s furnaces will starve for fuel, and city dwellers freeze in their homes.”

“You sound like your sister,” said Bell.

“Maybe they’ll listen to us then…” He turned eagerly to Bell. “We wouldn’t have to shut it down. Once we were here and could shut it down, they would see our position and have to bargain. If we could threaten that shutdown, we’d settle a fair agreement and all go back to work.”

“That could happen,” Bell said neutrally. An Army general might see a certain raw genius to Higgins’s idea: Surrounded by water on three sides, the Amalgamated Coal Terminal’s point of land would be easier than most encampments to defend. A Navy admiral would see a trap, sitting ducks exposed to gunfire on three sides.

“But how do I move ten thousand miners from McKeesport to here with strikebreakers, company cops, and militia blocking the way?”

Bell was mindful of his orders not to take sides but concerned that Jim Higgins was turning a blind eye to the danger. He asked, “Would the men leave their families behind?”

Jim Higgins shook his head. “No… But, Isaac, this must be done. I have to find a way to move them here.”

“The risks are enormous. Women. Children.”

“It’s more risky leaving them where they are. The camp is a shambles at McKeesport. It’s just a trolley park. A bunch of picnic tables, a swimming hole, and some shuttered-up amusement rides. You know, for working people to ride out on Sunday and have fun in good weather.”

Bell nodded. All around the country, trolley companies were building parks at the ends of their lines to get paying passengers on their day off. “But how did the marchers get in?”