The Saboteurs by Clive Cussler (top 10 best books of all time .TXT) 📗

“Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know if you fully understand that I’ve been shot, but it takes more than one bullet to kill a Bull Moose.”

1

Buenos Aires

Winter 1913

A vast armada of freighters lined the city’s busy waterfront, tucked in bow to stern like a wartime convoy. Over them stood the massive grain silos, multi-storied wooden structures with movable spouts from which cascades of golden wheat thundered into their holds. Farther down the quay, special refrigerated ships were being loaded with great slabs of pampas-bred beef destined for homes and restaurants across the breadth of Europe. Other ships were being unloaded with goods from Europe and North America, mostly manufactured items that Argentina couldn’t produce herself.

Otto Dreissen hadn’t been back in BA, as almost everyone called the Argentine capital, in six months, and it seemed the port was even more hectic than before. Steam tugs were at the ready to tow out a laden ship the instant its holds were filled so another waiting vessel could take its place. Stevedores and longshoremen swarmed like an army of ants, trundling bound bundles of native wool up gangways or swinging barrels of vegetable oils in cargo nets up to the ships where waiting hands were ready to guide the cargo belowdecks.

His steamship passed what had to have been a mile of busy docks before reaching the passenger pier, its horn finally blaring a welcoming blast. There were only a handful of well-wishers waiting on the dock. Like so many ships arriving in South America, the Hamburg Süd-Amerika Line’s venerable São Paulo was mostly transporting immigrants hoping to find a better life far from the strict social confines of their home countries. Here in Argentina, most were Spaniards or Italians, while Brazil to the north had always been popular with the Portuguese.

Dreissen hadn’t made the full transatlantic crossing himself. He normally based out of Panama and had just concluded some business in Brazil and boarded the ship when it put in for coal at Belém on the Amazon River’s southern bank. It had been a short cruise for him and his majordomo/bodyguard, Heinz Kohl.

Kohl stood a step behind Dreissen at the top of the gangplank, with a porter waiting behind him with a large, monogrammed steamer trunk on a wheeled handcart. Down on the dock idled a yellow Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost, courtesy of the Plaza Hotel. It was a beautiful summer day, so the luxury car’s leather top was down. The driver stood by the vehicle, in gray livery with his peaked cap under his arm, and remained as motionless as a soldier at attention.

The gangway was soon lashed into place, and the ship’s first officer was on hand to wish the first-class passengers well. The immigrants in steerage would be let out through a lower hatchway, but only after the better-heeled passengers had disembarked.

“Good to have you aboard, Herr Dreissen,” the blond senior officer said. The gold piping on his tropical white uniform gleamed like jewelry.

“I haven’t sailed aboard the São Paulo since just after the turn of the century. You do her a credit. She’s in great shape.”

“Our government agrees, Herr Dreissen. They’ve agreed to purchase her from the line.”

“Then I am glad to have enjoyed a final trip on the old girl. Good day.”

Dreissen was the first down the gangway and was settled in the Rolls by the time Kohl and the porter had fitted the trunk onto the rack over the rear bumper. It was a short ride to the Plaza Hotel on Calle Florida, but with so much of the streets ripped up for the construction of South America’s first subway, it took far longer than normal. They had to detour all the way around San Martín Square and approach the nine-story, Second Empire–style hotel from the side.

The manager himself waited at the entrance and greeted Dreissen with a warm smile and handshake. Like so much of BA, the Plaza Hotel and its staff wanted to make all their European guests feel right at home. The fact that the Argentines chose to copy the Old World more than the American model was a deliberate snub to their neighbors far to the north. Animosity toward the United States dated back to the founding of the nation and the implementation of the Monroe Doctrine a few years later.

“Welcome back, Herr Dreissen. I have your usual suite waiting for you.”

Dreissen responded in fluent Spanish, “You’re looking prosperous, Raoul.”

The hotelier rubbed his expanding belly with a grin. “These are good times for Argentina, so why shouldn’t I grow with our nation?”

A guest of Otto Dreissen’s status needn’t bother with formalities like check-in. The manager had the suite’s key in his pocket, and porters were already swarming over the rear of the hotel’s limousine to secure the trunk. Kohl watched the scene and scanned the bustling sidewalks for potential threats.

“If I may be so bold and to ask what brings you to BA, Herr Dreissen?” Raoul asked.

“The verdammt British got the concession to supply subway cars to the first lines being built, but we want to build the carriages and engines for the line the Lacroze Company is planning. I have meetings with their senior staff in two days.”

The Argentinian frowned. “The English have a near monopoly on all things railroad-related here. I wish you luck.”

They took the brass elevator to the top floor, and Raoul opened the suite’s heavy door. The windows looked out over the busy streets, but the view was obscured by smoke belching from a steam shovel chewing away at the street for the new underground. Dreissen noted the bottle of champagne chilling in a silver bucket and a bottle of Napoléon cognac on a tray with a cut-crystal snifter.

“Anything else for you, Herr Dreissen?” the manager asked as Kohl and the porter maneuvered the large trunk into the suite. Kohl immediately set about unpacking his master’s things.

Dreissen popped the top of the Pol Roger