Clive Cussler - The Spy

“Why the whole charade on the train?” he demanded. “It doesn’t make sense.”

More silence ensured. Bell asked, “How’s little Eddie doing?” “Still touch and go.”

“Tell him I’ll get up there soon as I can for a visit.”

“Doubt he’ll know you’re in the room.”

Harry Warren said, “That’s another weird thing, as far as I’m concerned. Why would the Gophers go out on a limb to fire up Van Dorns against them?”

“They’re stupid,” a detective answered, and everyone laughed.

“But not that stupid. Like Isaac says about Louis Loh crossing the continent. Beating up the kid didn’t make sense. The gangs don’t pick fights outside their circle.”

Isaac Bell said, “You told me it was strange that the Iceman went to Camden.”

Harry nodded vigorously. “Gophers don’t leave home.”

“And you said that Gophers don’t send warning messages or take revenge that will bring down the wrath of outsiders. Is it possible that the spy paid them to take revenge, just like he paid killers to go to Camden?”

“Who the hell knows how spies think?”

“I know someone who does,” said Bell.

COMMANDER ABBINGTON-WESTLAKE sauntered out of the Harvard Club, where he had wrangled a free honorary membership, and signaled for a cab with a languid wave. A red Darracq gasoline taxi zipped past a man hailing it outside the New York Yacht Club and stopped for the portly Englishman.

“Hey, that’s my cab!”

“Apparently not,” Abbington-Westlake drawled as he stepped into the Darracq. “Smartly now, driver, before that disgruntled yachtsman catches up.”

The cab sped off. Abbington-Westlake gave an upper Fifth Avenue address and settled in for the ride. At 59th, the cab suddenly swerved into Central Park. He rapped his stick on the window.

“No, no, no, I’m not some tourist you take around the park. If I wanted to drive out of my way through the park, I would have instructed you to go out of the way through the park. Return to Fifth Avenue immediately!”

The driver slammed on the brakes, throwing Abbington-Westlake off his seat. When he recovered, he found himself glaring into the cold eyes of a grim-visaged Isaac Bell.

“I warn you, Bell, I have friends who will come to my aid.”

“I will not deliver a well-deserved punch in your nose for selling me down the river to Yamamoto Kenta if you answer a question.”

“Was that you who killed Yamamoto?” the English spy asked f earfully.

“He died in Washington. I was in New York.”

“Did you order his death?”

“I am not one of you,” said Bell.

“What is your question?”

“Whoever this freelance spy is, I believe he is acting strangely. Look at this.”

He showed Abbington-Westlake the note. “He left this on the body of my detective. Why would he do such a thing?”

The Englishman read it in a glance. “Appears to be sending you a message.”

“Would you?”

“One does not indulge in childish exercises.”

“Would you kill my man for revenge?”

“One does not indulge in the luxury of revenge.”

“Would you do it as a threat? Believing it would stop me?”

“He should have killed you, that would put a stop to it.”

“Would you?”

Abbington-Westlake smiled. “I would suggest that successful spies are invisible spies. Ideally, one copies a secret plan rather than stealing it so one’s enemy never knows that his secret was stolen. Similarly, if an enemy must die, it should seem to be an accident. Falling debris at a work site might crush a man without raising suspicion. A hatpin piercing his brain is a red flag.”

“The hatpin was not in the newspapers,” Bell said coldly.

“One reads between the lines,” the Englishman retorted. “As I told you at the Knickerbocker, welcome to the world of espionage, Mr. Bell. You’ve learned a lot already. You know in your gut that the freelance spy is not first and foremost a spy.”

“He doesn’t think like a spy,” said Bell. “He thinks like a gangster.”

“Then who better to catch a gangster than a detective? Good day, sir. May I wish you happy hunting?” He climbed out of the cab and walked toward Fifth Avenue.

Bell hurried back to the Hotel Knickerbocker and corralled Archie Abbott.

“Get up to the Newport Torpedo Factory.”

“The Boston boys are already-”

“I want you. I’m getting a strange feeling about that attack.”

“What kind of feeling?”

“What if it wasn’t sabotage? What if it was a robbery? Stay there until you discover what they took.”

He walked Archie to the train at Grand Central and returned to the office, deep in thought. Abbington-Westlake had confirmed his suspicions. The spy was first and foremost a gangster. But he couldn’t be Commodore Tommy. The Gopher had lived and fought within the narrow confines of Hell’s Kitchen his whole life. The answer must lie with Louis Loh. He could be the tong. He could even be the spy. Perhaps that was what he had noticed was different about Louis: he acted like he had a purpose. It was time to put the question to him.

Bell collected Louis Loh from the Brooklyn Navy Yard brig late at night and handcuffed his wrists behind his back.

Loh’s first surprise came when instead of putting him in a truck or an auto, Bell walked him toward the river. They waited at the water’s edge. Hull 44 loomed behind them. The wind carried the sounds of ship engines, slatting sails, whistles, and horns. Blacked out but for running lights, Lowell Falconer’s turbine yacht Dyname approached in near silence.

Deckhands guided Bell and his prisoner aboard without speaking a word. The yacht backed into the river and headed downstream. It went under the Brooklyn Bridge and passed the Battery and picked up speed on the Upper Bay.

“If you’re planning to throw me overboard,” Louis Loh said, “remember I know how to swim.”

“Wearing those manacles?”

“I assumed you would remove them, being above torture.”

The helmsman increased speed to thirty knots. Bell took Loh into the darkened cabin, where they sat in silence sheltered from the wind and spray. Dyname crossed the Lower Bay. Bell saw the lightship flash by the porthole. When Dyname’s bow rose to the first Atlantic comber, Louis Loh asked, “Where are you taking me?”

“To sea.”

“How far to sea?”

“About fifty miles.”

“That will take all night.”

“Not on this ship.”

The helmsman opened her up. An hour passed. The turbines slowed, and the yacht settled down. Suddenly it bumped hard against something and stopped. Bell took Louis’s arm, checked that he hadn’t jimmied open the cuffs, and led him out on deck. Silent deckhands helped them onto the wooden deck of a barge. Then Dyname wheeled about and raced off. In minutes, all to be seen of her was the fiery discharge from her stack, and soon she vanished into the night.

“Now what?” asked Louis Loh. Creamy whitecaps shone in the starlight. The barge rolled with the movement of the sea.

“Now we climb.”

“Climb? Climb what?”

“This mast.”

Bell directed Louis’s gaze up the cage mast. The airy structure rose so high that its swaying top seemed to brush the stars. “What is this? Where are we?”

“We’re on a target barge anchored in the U.S. Navy Atlantic Firing Range. Test engineers have erected on the barge this one-hundred-twenty-five-foot cage mast, the latest development in dreadnought spotting masts.”

Bell climbed two rungs, unlocked Louis’s right cuff, and locked it around his own ankle.

“Ready? Here we go.”