It was hours more before Tom had a chance to get back to 300 Mulberry Street. He'd gone back to the bridge office yet again, this time to check out the man named Sullivan. He learned that Sullivan was a rigger, or at least had been. He learned too that he was most often seen in the company of a man named Lincoln.
“That's them, Eli,” Tom said. “Knew all along there had to be more in on this.”
“Yeah, and now they've got a wagonload of explosives.”
“Yeah.” Tom's shoulders sagged. The addresses they got for the two proved no more fruitful than the rest. Tom and Eli were beat by the time they got back to headquarters. When he got back to his desk he found a telegram had come from Charles C. Martin that outlined a second bridge inspection he'd carried out at Washington's orders. Not so much as one bolt was out of place. Martin and a small team of engineers and foremen had gone over the bridge from top to bottom just the day before. It was obvious from the tone of the note that the Roeblings were satisfied and would follow Hughes and Martha to Newport. At least that little ruse had gone well; the press had dutifully reported their departure the day after the bridge opened. They'd kept a low profile at the house. As far as anyone knew, they were sunning themselves in Rhode Island. But in two days they would be really leaving; as far as Tom could see, there was no reason to stay. The bridge had been inspected, the bridge police alerted, descriptions of the suspects posted. He'd had a talk with the captain in charge of the bridge police late in the day as well. Tom had tried to convince the man of the need to step up patrols. The captain's overconfident response did nothing for Tom's peace of mind.
“We've got things well in hand here, Detective,” the captain had assured him rather smugly. “All due respect to your Chief Byrnes. Got his telegram a while ago,” the man said, referring to the message Tom had urged the chief to send. “Don't need you city cops telling me how to run my show.
My
men're keeping a sharp watch. Don't you worry, Braddock. Nobody's blowin' up
my
bridge.”
Tom had left, uncertain of how much good he'd done. The bridge wasn't his jurisdiction. The best he could do was make sure they were on alert. The rest was up to them.
I
t had been a long, long day, made longer by the constant, grinding unease in his gut. Tom kept replaying the chase in his mind, thinking if he'd only been
quicker or had made it to the warehouse a few minutes sooner ⦠. His thoughts churned into the evening. He ate a late meal with Mary, Mike, and Patricia, hardly hearing the conversation around him. Mike was still bubbling about the circus, and said he couldn't wait to tell his friends. He had brought his box with him when they came to Mary's, and he opened it before them all to show the ticket stubs inside. It reminded Tom of the clipping that still resided in his pocket, now so tattered it was hardly readable. He brought it out, opening it on the kitchen table while the others talked. Bending close, he read it again. The article gave him some small hope. The trains wouldn't be running for maybe two months yet. There was still time. But why then were Sullivan and Lincoln fetching explosives today?
Someone mentioned the bridge, and it brought Tom's attention back to the conversation.
“What?” he asked absently.
“I was saying,” Mary said, “that I think it would be wonderful to go out on the bridge tomorrow. I haven't been yet, and I hear it's just fantastic. It will be open to everyone, even the roadways.”
“Mmm, yeah, it's nice,” Tom murmured.
“And since
you won't take me
,” Mary huffed, trying to break through Tom's preoccupation, “I'll just have to go myself, me and Chelsea, that is.”
Tom finally got the point. “Oh ⦠. yeah. I'm sorry, Mary. You know I'd like to, but this case ⦠you know how it's been. And with Pat and Charlie off the case, there's justâ”
Mary stopped him with an upheld hand. “Tom. It's okay. I do understand, really. I was just trying to get your attention. You've been like a mad scientist lately, mumbling to yourself, shutting everyone out. You're preoccupied. But I understand, really. I know it's important.” She cast a quick glance at Mike and Patricia. “We'll have plenty of time to stroll the bridge when this is all behind us.”
Tom smiled, as if seeing the day already. “Have I been mumbling?” he asked with a concerned frown. “I haven't
mumbled
, have I?”
M
uch later, Tom lay listening to Mary snore lightly. He finally drifted into a fitful, exhausted sleep around 3:00 A.M. The border between the waking world and the dreaming was almost seamless. He was running up the promenade. Mary was there, at the center of the span. She held Mike's hand and they waved to him. It was a sparkling day, the sun pouring down like honey. Crowds jammed the promenade, human cattle. They jabbered and laughed.
He bounced off them and was not noticed. He pushed them and was not rebuked. They existed only to slow him. Mary waved in the golden sunlight. Mike held a flag and waved it too. An impossibly tall Uncle Sam on stilts, a fugitive from the circus, sprouted from the promenade, waving flags in both hands. Suddenly they all had flags, waving them in slow hands.
He needed to get to Mary. It was the most important thing he'd ever do. Her smile, so radiant it shamed the sun, washed over him. It somehow made his fear grow stronger. Looking to his left, he recoiled to see Terrence Bucklin beside him. Bucklin looked at him, his dead eyes imploring. He said nothingâhe didn't have to. A flash and a rolling thud, like a drumroll, shook him, rattling the boards of the promenade. The cattle-people gaped. Flags drooped. The bridge dropped in a drunken, sickening swoop. The roadway twisted, the broad ribbon dropped on one side, as the wires snapped and sprang like whips. Mary and Mike were thrown from the bridge, disappearing before his eyes. The world erupted in screams. The cattle stampeded, suddenly swift and wild, clawing, trampling, crushing ⦠Tom woke, breathing hard, clutching the sheets to steady himself. He wiped the vision from his eyes, his hand coming away damp. It was 4:45 A.M., Memorial Day, 1883. The explosives had been set nearly an hour before.
E
verything had gone well at the start. The wagon and carriage were loaded, the carriage taken across on the ferry with the captain, Matt, and Justice. The wagon with Jacobs, Sullivan, and Lebeau waited on Park Row, just across from the
Tribune
. They kept careful watch, but they knew well enough when to set off. They were set to go at two-thirty, or whenever the patrol was seen clearing the landward side of the tower. At two-twenty-four, the cop was spotted heading down the promenade back toward New York. Jacobs clicked to his team, snapping the reins on the horses' backs. After paying the dime toll, he urged his team into a trot up the gentle slope. They were the only vehicle on the bridge, and the cop glanced at them idly as they passed. The noise of the team's hooves on the wood-block roadbed echoed in the dark. One carriage was seen to go in the opposite direction, disappearing toward New York, but that was all. Within two minutes, they had reached center span. Forty seconds after that, after working like madmen, their cargo was sitting on the railroad tracks and Jacobs was clicking his team into motion. As he left, the carriage pulled to a stop on the opposite roadway. In an even shorter time, it was empty and on its way.
Like the well-trained soldiers they were, the four sprang to their assignments.
Pat and Justice strapped on packs and climbed up the trusses onto the empty promenade. Within another two minutes they had climbed their assigned cables far enough so they were out of the lamps' glow. By the time Pat reached the top, he was breathing hard. He and Jus had trained for this, so he wasn't winded. Pat took off his pack, heavy with Rendrock explosives, blasting caps, and wire. After tying the pack to the main cable handrail, he went to work. In preparation for this part of the assignment, he and Justice had tied charges together, so they'd be easier to attach to the big bar where the stays were anchored. He pulled the explosives out of his pack in bundles of three, with coiled strands of wire hanging from each. One end of the wire had wrapped the charges, the hanging coil Pat would use to wrap around the bar, and tie the charges in place. Though Matt and Earl were using big slabs of clay to hold their charges in place, Pat and Jus didn't feel it was right for the stays. They worked with silent efficiency. Within fifteen minutes they had set their explosives in place, wrapping the extra wire around and around the bar, just where the stays were attached. Bundles of three sticks each were tied behind the bar, wedged between the stone of the tower and the ends of the stays. Others were fitted between the stays where they radiated out from the anchoring bar. Pat started on the upper stays without pausing. Lying on his belly on the big main cable, he packed his explosives in around the stay-cables, being sure to leave his leads hanging clear. Pat had thought it all through, doing the work as though his life depended on it. Every connection was tight and clean. He ran his lead wire down the main cable handrail, looping it as he went, to a point about eight feet above the promenade. From there he took the wire down one of the supports for the wire handrails and under the main cable. From that point, it traveled down one of the suspenders. They had taken the precaution of dipping their spools of wire in the paint used on the bridge. It had been easy to steal a half-used can. The wire was nearly invisible.
He ran back to center span, playing out wire as he went. Justice wasn't far behind. They met at the middle, sweating and out of breath.
“Everything set, partner?”
“Good as it's ever gonna get, Pat. Worry how it'll look in daylight though. You think someone might notice the charges?”
Pat glanced up. Even though he knew they were there, it was impossible to distinguish in the dark. “Don't think so, Jus.” Pat played out a bit more wire, then snipped it clean. “Same color as the bridge. From this distance ⦠don't think anyone could tell.”
Lincoln shrugged. “Suppose. Can't do nothin' about it anyway,” he said, taking a deep breath. “Ready to do the other stays?”
As the two had clambered down the trusses to the train tracks, they heard
voices from off toward the New York tower. Dropping down, they called softly to Matt and Earl, who were about twenty feet to either side of them, setting charges on the roadway beams.
“Get back under the promenade, someone's comin',” Pat called in a hoarse whisper. Silently each man slipped like a ghost beneath the cover of the promenade. They balanced on the roadway beams, nine and five-eighths inches wide and with nothing but air to the river.
Voices approached above their heads. Footsteps rattled and squeaked the decking. They were drunk, whoever they were. The talk was loud and boisterous. The footsteps pounded in uneven staggers.
“You'd break yer neck, you fuckin' fool!” one voice said.
“That's for damn sure, Bob. You wouldn't be sayin' that if not for the pints. If the fall didn't kill ye, the water, an' the currents would.”
“Ach! This fuckin' bridge ain't so high. Could be done, I tell yez. The man what does it's gonna be famous too ⦠mark me words.”
“Sure that's the beer talkin', Odium. Ye're a crazy bastard, but not that crazy.”
“Nah, Gil, here's how I'd do it ⦔ the one called Odlum said as they passed out of earshot.
They all looked at Sullivan for the okay to get moving again.
“Ain't enough money in the whole damn city could make me jump off here,” Jus said, looking down at the oily black water.
They'd lost valuable time and were behind schedule now by at least five minutes. After checking for traffic on the roadway and promenade, Pat and Justice sprinted across and scrambled up the upstream cables as far as they could. Again they swung down from the main cable, close to the granite of the tower and down the bar, where the stays were anchored. They worked steadily, the height and their precarious positions not hampering them as much as the darkness. Up there the lights from the promenade below cast only a feeble glow. It was like flying among the stars. Pat had to stop for a moment to savor the feeling. It would be his last time in the cables, just as it was his first time up there at night. The stars were bright in the blue-black sky. He craned his neck, scanning the heavens. The stars wheeled above his head. Could God somehow see what he was about? He believed it was so. The heavens seemed hopelessly cold and lonely without that small comfort. He hoped that God could see the choice he'd made.
J
acobs looked at his watch for the sixth or seventh time. It was almost three.
“Just about the halfway point,” he whispered to his idle team. He stretched
his shoulders to ease the muscles in his back, groaning in the process. “Little bastards,” he cursed. He was so sore he could hardly move, and he had so many small cuts on him his shirt looked polka-dotted with blood. The bruise on his back was the size of a melon, and he'd been pissing blood since last night. He grumbled to himself once more, then glanced at the bridge and was astonished to see a cop, striding up the approach, heading toward New York.
“Christ!” He whipped his team, setting them off at almost a run. He slowed and flipped his toll to the sleepy-eyed collector, slapping the reins, urging the team on. He passed the cop just before the Brooklyn tower and tried to get as much speed as he could without being too conspicuous. “Shit! Not supposed to be a patrol for another thirty minutes!” Jacobs pulled into the left lane, closest to the trusses over the train tracks. They blocked the view from the promenade at that angle. As he neared the center, he slowed to nearly a stop. At first he couldn't see anyone, but he whistled and Matt's and Earl's hands popped up from behind the upstream main cable. Jacobs pointed back toward Brooklyn and called “Cop!” then drove off.