Clive Cussler - The Wrecker

“What do you want, Malone?”

“So you’re going to stand on the cowcatcher, are you? You don’t even know enough to call the engine Pilot by its proper name, and you’re going to spot what’s wrong on the rails before it blows you to kingdom come? Cowcatcher, for the love of God … But I’ll give you one thing: you got guts.”

The foreman thrust a callused hand at Bell.

“Put ‘er there! I’ll ride with you.”

The two men shook hands for all to see. Then Malone raised his voice, which carried like a steamship horn.

“Any man here says Mike Malone won’t know trouble when he sees it?”

None did.

“Any of youse wants to live with his mother?”

With a roar of laughter and a thousand cheers, the workmen jumped aboard the train and crowded into the wooden benches.

Bell and Malone climbed down and mounted the wedge-shaped pilot. There was room to stand on either side, hanging into a rail just under the locomotive’s headlamp. The engineer, conductor, and fire-man came up front for orders.

“How fast you want to go?” the engineer asked.

“Ask the expert,” said Bell.

“Keep her under ten miles a hour,” said Malone.

“Ten?” the engineer protested. “It’ll take two hours to get to the tunnel.”

“You prefer a shortcut over a cliff?”

The train crew trooped back to the cab.

Malone said, “Keep that pistol handy, mister.” Then he grinned at Bell. “Just remember, if we hit a mine or jump a loose rail, we’ll be the first to experience the consequences.”

“The thought had occurred to me,” Bell said drily. “But, fact is, I’ve had every foot of this line scoured for the past two days. Handcar, on foot, horse patrol.”

“We’ll see,” said Malone, grin fading.

“Would you like these?” asked Bell, offering his Carl Zeiss binoculars.

“No thanks,” said Malone. “I’ve been inspecting track with these eyes for twenty years. Today’s not the day to learn something new.”

Bell slung the binoculars strap over his head so he could drop the glasses and draw his pistol to fire a warning shot.

“Twenty years? You’re the man to tell me, Malone. What should I look for?”

“Missing spikes that hold the rails to the ties. Missing fishplates that join the rails. Breaks in the rails. Signs of digging in the ballast in case the bastard mined it. The roadbed’s newly laid. It should look smooth, no dips, no humps. Look for loose rock on the ties. And whenever we round a bend in the road, look extra hard ‘cause the saboteur knows that around the bend is where the engineer will never see it in time to stop.”

Bell raised the binoculars to his eyes. He was acutely aware that he had persuaded the thousand men behind him to risk their lives. As Malone had observed, he and Bell, riding in front, would take the brunt of an attack. But only at first. A derailment would tumble them all to their deaths.

THE TRACKS HUGGED THE EDGE OF THE MOUNTAIN ON A NARROW cut. To the left rose sheer rock, scarred by drills and dynamite. To the right was air. The drop-off varied from mere yards to a quarter of a mile. Where canyon floors were visible from the tracks, Bell saw treetops, fallen boulders, and raging rivers swollen by the rain.

He scanned the tracks a hundred feet ahead. His binoculars had modern Porro prisms that intensified the light. He could see the offset spike heads clearly, eight driven into each tie. The chocolate-brown squared timbers flowed under him with numbing regularity.

“How many ties per mile?” he asked Malone.

“Two thousand seven hundred,” answered the foreman. “Give or take.”

Brown tie after brown tie after brown tie. Eight spikes in each. Each spike securely embedded in the wood. Fishplates holding each joint, half hidden by the bulge of the rail. The ballast, sharp-edged crushed stone, glistened in the rain. Bell watched for dips in the smooth surface. He watched for loose stone. He watched for loose bolts, missing spikes, breaks in the gleaming rails.

“Stop!” shouted Malone.

Bell triggered his Browning. The sharp crack of the gunshot resounded off the rock wall and echoed across the canyons. But the engine kept rolling.

“Fire!” Malone shouted. “Again!”

Bell was already squeezing the trigger. The drop was steep along this bend in the road, the canyon floor below littered with boulders. As Bell’s second shot rang out, the brake shoes struck with a bang and a hiss, and the locomotive slid to a halt on screeching wheels. Bell hit the ground running. Malone was right behind him.

“There!” said Malone.

Twenty feet ahead of the train, they stopped and stared at an almost imperceptible bulge in the ballast. Whereas the freshly laid crushed stone presented a smooth, flat incline from the ties to the edge of the cliff, here was a gentle bump that rose a few inches higher.

“Don’t get too close!” Malone warned. “Looks like they’ve been digging here. See how it didn’t settle like the original?”

Bell walked straight to the bulge and stepped onto it.

“Look out!”

“The Wrecker,” said Bell, “would make absolutely certain that nothing less than the weight of a locomotive would detonate a mine.”

“You seem mighty sure of that.”

“I am,” said Bell. “He’s too smart to waste his powder on a handcar.”

He knelt down on a tie and looked closely. He passed his hand over the crushed stone.

“But what I don’t see are any signs of recent digging. These stones have been sitting awhile. See the coal dust undisturbed?”

Malone stepped closer reluctantly. Then he knelt beside Bell, scratching his head. He ran his fingers over the coal dust crusting in the rain. He picked up some chunks of ballast and examined them. Abruptly, he rose.

“Shoddy work, not explosives,” he said. “I know exactly who was in charge of laying this section and he is going to hear from me. Sorry, Mr. Bell. False alarm.”

“Better safe than sorry.”

By then, the train crew had disembarked. Behind them, fifty workmen gawked, and others were piling off the cars.

“Everyone back on the train!” Malone roared.

Bell took the engineer aside.

“Why didn’t you stop?”

“You caught me by surprise. Took me a moment to act.”

“Stay alert!” Bell retorted coldly. “You’ve got men’s lives in your hands.”

They got everyone back on the train and rolling again.

The ties slid by. Squared timber after squared timber. Eight spikes, four on each rail. Fishplates securing the rails. Sharp-edged crushed ballast glistened in the wet. Bell watched for more bumps in the flat surface, disturbed stone, missing bolts, absent spikes, cracks in the rails. Tie after tie after tie.

For seventeen miles, the train trundled slowly. Bell began to hope against hope that his precautions had paid off. The patrols and constant inspections had ensured the line was safe. Only three miles to go and then the men could return to work, boring the vital Tunnel 13.

Suddenly, as they rounded a sharp curve that rimmed the deepest canyon on the route, something unusual caught Bell’s eye. He couldn’t pinpoint what it was at first. For an instant, it barely penetrated.

“Malone!” he said in a whipcrack voice, “Look! What’s wrong?”

The red-faced man beside him leaned forward, squinted, his face a mask of concentration.

“I don’t see nothing.”

Bell raked the tracks with his binoculars. Bracing his feet on the pilot, he held the glasses with one hand and drew his pistol with the other.

The ballast was smooth. No spikes were missing. The ties …

In seventeen miles, the work train had crossed fifty thousand ties. Each of the fifty thousand was a chocolate-brown color, the wood darkened by preservatives absorbed in creosoting. Now, only a few yards ahead of the locomotive, Bell saw a wooden tie that was colored yellowish white-the shade of freshly milled mountain hemlock that had not been creosoted.