Clive Cussler: The Striker

The founder’s grandson stormed out. But the others, Bell noticed, murmured compromisingly, and looked relieved when one of their number steered the conversation toward the Pirates’ winning streak.

“There you are, Isaac.”

Joseph Van Dorn enveloped Bell’s big hand in a manicured ham-size paw and shook it firmly. He was tall, broad in the chest, broader in the belly, and light on his feet, a balding man in his forties who might have passed for a sea captain who had prospered in the China Trade or a blacksmith who had invented a tool that made him rich. He appeared convivial, with a ready smile that could brighten his hooded eyes. Red burnsides cascading to an even redder beard gave the impression of a man more hail-fellow-well-met than the scourge of the underworld, and many a confined criminal was still wondering how he got confused.

The founder and chief investigator of the Van Dorn Detective Agency was not impressed by much, nor easily nonplussed, but, taking in the lavish club and the wealthy members, he asked in a low voice that carried no farther than Isaac Bell’s ears, “How’d you wangle your way in here?”

“My school friend Kenny Bloom’s father put in a word.”

“Do they know you’re a detective?”

“No, sir. I’m using the Dagget front.”

“Well done. You can learn a lot in a place like this. Now, what’s all this ‘urgent report’ about?”

Bell had spoken with the dining room captain and reserved a table in a quiet corner. He hurried Van Dorn to it. But before he could say a word about the unlikely nature of union sabotage, Van Dorn said, “You won’t believe this, Isaac. I just met the President.”

“Black Jack?”

“Not Gleason. The President !”

“Beg pardon, sir?”

“ Of the United States! TR himself. Big as life. Shook my hand— Littler fellow than you’d think. But full of fire. Shook my hand, big as life.”

“Well, that’s wonderful, sir. Now, what I found in the mine—”

“The Van Dorn Detective Agency has snagged a plum job. Prince Henry’s coming. German Prince Henry of Prussia. Coming to visit America. And we’re one of the outfits the Secret Service is hiring to help protect him. That’s why Teddy asked me to the White House. I’ll tell you this, Isaac, long as the Van Dorns keep Prince Henry unscathed by anarchist assassins, we’ll be in the catbird seat.”

Bell said, “Congratulations, sir. That is wonderful news.”

He was fully aware of Van Dorn’s dream of expanding the Van Dorn Detective Agency from its Chicago base into a crack transcontinental outfit with field offices in every city and even, one day, the capitals of Europe. The Prince Henry job had come from working at it “eight days in the week, thirteen months in the year,” and the Boss was understandably excited.

“Report quickly, Isaac. I’m meeting with Pittsburgh’s police chief in an hour. They’ll be giving Prince Henry a big testimonial dinner right here in this club.”

Bell had to shift Van Dorn’s attention to get permission to investigate the accident for the sake of justice even though the agency was originally hired by the coal company. He said, “The proud Van Dorn motto — We never give up! Never! — is based on principles.”

“Of course it is. We never ignore crime. We never abandon innocents.”

“The first thing you taught me, sir. We were in Chicago, in Jimmy Armstrong’s Saloon, and you said, ‘The innocent are sacred and…’”

The younger man paused expectantly.

Joseph Van Dorn was obliged to complete the creed he drilled into his detectives: “… and it is the duty of the strong to protect them.”

“The boys killed in the mining accident were innocent, sir. The union man Jim Higgins is innocent of the murder charge. And the runaway train was not an accident.”

Van Dorn’s eyes gleamed, and Bell knew he had his attention. “Can you pinpoint the saboteurs who caused it?”

“It was not a saboteur.”

“What?”

“Not in the sense you mean. It was not union sabotage.”

“Then who?”

“Not a saboteur. A provocateur .”

“What the devil are you talking about? Are you mincing words? Sabotage is sabotage.”

“No it isn’t, sir. Not in the way you mean.”

“Stop telling me what I mean and tell me what you mean.”

“The broken chain that caused the accident was deliberately fractured, a fracture very likely caused, I believe, by a provocateur.”

“To what purpose?” Van Dorn demanded.

“To perpetrate a larger crime.”

“What larger crime?”

“I don’t know,” Bell admitted. “Although there have been incidents in labor disputes when provocateurs were employed by owners to fabricate excuses to arrest unionists. But I don’t think it is that.”

Van Dorn sat back and crossed his arms over his mighty chest. “I’m relieved to hear your logic. Wrecking his own coal mine is a mighty expensive method for Black Jack Gleason to arrest unionists.”

“I know. Which is why I wonder—”

“Where were you when he sabotaged the mine train? Didn’t I send you there to prevent such attacks?”

Isaac Bell said, “I’m sorry I let you down, sir.”

Van Dorn stared hard at him for a full twenty seconds. Finally, he spoke. “We’ll get to that later. What did you see?”

Bell reported what stoked his suspicions: the suicidal effect of underground sabotage; the mysterious chisel mark he found on the broken link; and the fact that by arresting Higgins, the coal company had undercut the union effort.

Joseph Van Dorn stared at Isaac Bell.

Bell met his gaze coolly. The Boss was a very ambitious man, but he was an honest man and a responsible man.

“Against my better judgment,” Van Dorn said at last, “I will give you permission to investigate this vague idea for one week. One week only.”

“Thank you, sir. May I draw on men to help me?”

“I can’t spare anyone to help you. This Prince Henry tour requires every hand. You’re on your own.”

There was a sudden ruckus on the far side of the richly decorated dining room. Black Jack Gleason’s party were swaggering in and sitting down for lunch. Gleason pounded his fist on the table and vowed in a loud voice, “I will destroy the mining unions once and for all.”

The older mineowners counseled caution, noting that in Pennsylvania the union was strong: Winter is coming, we can’t afford a strike.

“The nation won’t put up with millions freezing in their homes.”

“It’s already cost the anthracite operators two million to pay, feed, lodge, and arm five thousand Coal and Iron Police with revolvers and breech-loading-magazine rifles. Heck, if we increase the miners’ pay ten cents a day, it would cost less than five thousand armed policemen.”

Gleason hit the tablecloth again. Silver jumped. Waiters sprang to rescue crystal. “Gentlemen, I will say it again. I will destroy the mining unions once and for all.”

“But mightn’t we do better to give the miners a small raise and nip it in the bud?” asked an owner.

“Before that damned dictator President Roosevelt horns in,” warned another. “He’ll demand we recognize the union.”

Van Dorn said to Bell, “The fellows around TR told me that he would love nothing more than to settle a strike.”

Black Jack Gleason laughed at compromise. “If they strike, I’ll break their strike like I broke every strike before,” he boasted.

Bell said to Van Dorn, “I heard him in the bar. He wants a strike if it will hurt his competitors.”

“Hard man,” said Van Dorn. “But very capable.” His manner toward Bell softened slightly. He himself was a hard man, but not the sort to hide his warm feelings for a young employee he admired. Isaac Bell had been his personal apprentice after graduating from Yale and was the immigrant Irishman’s favorite protégé.