The Thief (22 page)

“I can’t see!” cried the fat man, stumbling back into the corridor. The tall detective slammed into the fat man. Both lost their footing, and the pair went down in a tangle. Bell somersaulted off and rolled to his feet. The fat man grabbed his ankle in a surprisingly strong grip.

Bell wrenched himself loose and ran to the head of the car and through the vestibules into the next car. At the far end, flame from the spirit stove for brewing tea in that car’s porter’s closet illuminated a broad-shouldered, long-armed silhouette running past. That porter, too, lay on the floor, either out cold or dead. The tall detective raised his gun and did not waste time ordering the Acrobat to stop.

Bell aimed for his legs and squeezed the trigger.

Just as the weapon’s firing pin descended on the rim of the cartridge, detonating the charge within, Isaac Bell jerked the gun upward with all his might. A woman in a dressing gown that glowed white in the starlight had stepped out of her stateroom. She screamed and Bell saw her sleeping cap fly from her head.

“Are you all right?” an aghast Isaac Bell cried. This was his nightmare: an innocent had stepped into his line of fire. He ran to her, feeling his way along the row of stateroom doors. Then he felt a stinging sensation in his hand—wooden splinters his bullet had gouged from her door—and he realized with enormous relief that no woman shot in the head could keep screaming that loudly. He confirmed that she was unhurt, guided her gently back to her berth, then charged after the Acrobat.

U
NLIKE
I
SAAC
B
ELL, THE
G
ERMAN
was not slowed by confused and frightened passengers blundering out of their staterooms yelling for porters and demanding explanations. He smashed through them, knocking bodies to the floor and shattering glass as he pushed others through the windows. The derailment had extinguished the lights, so no one could see him—although at the moment his own wife would not recognize his face, so contorted was it by rage. Twice now Isaac Bell had upended an intricately planned and precisely executed operation.

He ran toward the head of the train, and when he reached the mail car whose couplers had parted, he jumped to the ballast and ran past the express cars and the tender. He heard Isaac Bell pound after him. Seizing a golden opportunity to put a stop to Bell’s interference once and for all, the German climbed the side of the helper locomotive.

Out of nowhere, a brakeman grabbed his ankle.

The German laid him flat with a kick so powerful the man’s neck broke. But the impact caused him to lose his own balance. He started to fall backwards. Reacting coolly, with a cat’s economy of motion, he flipped his left hand forward. Launched from the gauntlet buckled to his wrist, the weighted end of the wire he had used to strangle the express messenger whirled around a handrail.

I
SAAC
B
ELL SAW THE ACROBAT JUMP ONTO THE
cylinder rod that connected the piston to the drive wheels of the helper engine, and he saw the shadow of a trainman who tried to stop him fall to the ground. For a second, Bell thought the Acrobat himself was falling off. Instead, his arm shot up in a peculiar overhead motion. Suddenly he appeared to fly from the connecting rod up past the wheel fender to a handrail above it. He gripped the rail and flipped backwards. The simian silhouette blurred the stars atop the big helper engine, and then he was gone, disappearing like smoke.

Bell scrambled after him. The locomotive was festooned with handholds and steps so workmen could reach every part that had to be oiled, greased, cleaned, and adjusted. The fender above the Pacific’s seven-foot-high drive wheels formed a ledge alongside the boiler. He jumped onto the connecting rod, hauled himself on the ledge, stood up, and reached for the handrail. Only after he had locked both hands on it and was clenching his arms to pull himself up did he see the shadow of a boot cannonballing at his face. The Acrobat had not fled, but was waiting on top.

Bell whipped his head back and sideways, as if slipping a punch.

The boot whizzed past his ear and smashed into his shoulder. The Acrobat wore boots with india rubber soles and heels, Bell realized. A kick that hard with leather soles would have shattered bone.

The impact threw him off the locomotive. He fell backwards, tucking into a ball to protect his head. Tucking, twisting, he fought to regain his equilibrium in the air. If he could somehow land on the steeply angled side of the track bed instead of the flat top, he might survive the fall. The star-speckled sky spun circles like a black-and-white kaleidoscope. The dark ground rushed at his face. He hit the lip between flat and slope and skidded down the slope into a dry ditch.

Bell sprawled there, the stars still spinning. He heard a drumming noise, like hoofbeats. He wondered if he had cracked his skull again. But he hadn’t. His head, in fact, was about the only part of him that wasn’t going to hurt for a week. Scrambling to his feet, ignoring sharp pains in his shoulders and both knees, he heard the sound fade in the distance. Hoofbeats, of course. He had seen horses in starlight. And horses were the fastest way out of rough country.

He climbed up the embankment and came face-to-face with Clyde Lynds.

“Are you O.K., Mr. Bell?”

“I told you to stay inside and lock the door.”

“They’re gone. They rode away on horses.”

“Happen to catch a look at any faces?”

“No. But… Uh…”

“But what?” Bell demanded sharply, hoping for some clue.

“One of the horses had no rider,” Lynds said, looking around fearfully at the passengers clustered beside the derailed train. “Maybe he’s still here…”

“No, Clyde. That empty saddle was reserved for you.”

“M
ISTER, IF YOU’LL GET OFF
that locomotive,” bellowed a redheaded giant of a railroad wreck master, “we can put this train back together.”

First light found Isaac Bell poring over the Golden State’s helper locomotive with a magnifying glass. A wreck train had finally steamed up the grade from Deming, while out of the west another had just arrived from Lordsburg. Between them, the two were preparing to hoist the Limited back on the tracks, piece by piece.

“I’ll just be a minute,” Bell called down.

“Get off my train!” roared the giant, clambering up the locomotive onto the drive wheel fender.

Bell turned with a smile and thrust out his hand. “Mike Malone. I would recognize that Irish brogue in a thunderstorm.”

“Well, I’ll be damned. Isaac Bell. Put ’er there.”

They shook hands—two tall men, one lean as a rail, the other with limbs thick as chestnut crossties.

“What are you doing here?”

“Escort job,” Bell answered cryptically. He had known Mike since they had come within inches of being blown to smithereens by dynamite ingeniously hidden under Osgood Hennessy’s Southern Pacific Railroad tracks.

“Under guise,” he added, encouraging Mike to refrain from asking what Bell’s magnifying glass had to do with an escort job—not to mention the express messenger found strangled in his car and the Rolls-Royce auto chained to a broken rail.

Malone winked. “Mum’s the word.”

Bell showed him a groove rubbed in the handrail. “What do you think made this mark?”

The wreck master ran his calloused finger over it. “Hacksaw?”

“How about a braided cable?”

Malone shrugged mighty shoulders. “Could be.”

“Wouldn’t happen to have a small cutting pliers on that wreck train I could borrow?”

“Linesman’s pliers do you?”

“Long as they’re sharp as the devil and small enough to slip up my sleeve.”

“Never seen them that small. I’ll have my toolmaker run ’em up for you. Where should I send them?”

“Los Angeles.”

I
SAAC
B
ELL WAS SURE THAT THE
intention of the attack was to kidnap Clyde Lynds, not injure him. But it had come close to succeeding, and Clyde was terrified. The bravado and smart-aleck talk had been frightened out of him. His eyes were darting everywhere, seeking solace, finding fear.

Bell had no intention of walking away from the Krieg investigation. But the detective felt honor bound to ask the young scientist whether he would rather take the safe course and sell his machine to Thomas Edison so the Germans would stop plaguing him. “You’d be free of this mess in a flash.”

Clyde asked if Bell was abandoning him.

“Absolutely not. But I am saying that the attack came close, and the next might succeed, even though the Van Dorn Agency—and I in particular—will lay our lives on the line to protect you.”

“Why? What do you care? It could be years before Van Dorn sees any money out of Talking Pictures.”

To Isaac Bell, the innocent were sacred and must always be protected. But to answer Clyde, he only laughed. “I already told you. Marion hopes that your invention will help her make ever-better moving pictures. That’s good enough for me.”

“If you say so,” Clyde said, his eyes still darting, “I guess it’s good enough for me, too.”

“Are you sure, Clyde? I can’t
guarantee
your safety. I can only guarantee that I will do whatever is required to keep you alive, but I can’t guarantee we will succeed. The Acrobat is no slouch.”

Clyde conjured a brave smile. “What about Van Dorn’s motto, ‘We never give up. Never!’”

“Oh, we’ll get him in the end,” Bell smiled back.

“Lot of good that will do me if he gets me first.”

“That’s why I’m asking if you’re sure.”

Clyde took a deep breath. “I’m sure.”

“Good man.”