The Striker by Clive Cussler (scary books to read txt) 📗

Morgan, consolidator of General Electric and lender of gold to the U.S. Treasury; and the lamp oil magnate John D. Rockefeller—received similar treatment, portrayed as sharks and alligators and rampaging grizzly bears.

In contrast on the Society pages, Congdon and Hennessy and Rockefeller assumed human form in staff-artist sketches, Congdon with young brides on his arm, Rockefeller attending his Fifth Avenue church, the widowed Hennessy escorting a pretty daughter of thirteen. Much attention was paid to Congdon’s art collection, much more to Hennessy’s private train.

Black Jack Gleason’s obituaries touted the coal combine he had put together, mansions he had built in West Virginia, and the shooting estate he had bought in Ireland. Bell read an editorial written before his death that lauded Gleason’s oft-stated opinion that labor organizers were “vampires that fatten on the honest labor of the coal miners of the country.”

The New York World charged Gleason with exacting tribute from the people by illegally banding the Coal Trust into “the most powerful, grasping and grinding trusts in existence, beyond any question, not even second to J. P. Morgan’s Great Fuel Octopus that limits supply and fixes prices.” A Nebraska paper excoriated Gleason as “a coal baron who got fat on the honest labor of the coal miners, and rich through overcharging the coal consumers of the country.”

Grady Forrer arrived with a pot of coffee.

“You’ve been here all night.”

“Grady, you know many things.”

“I know how to find many things.”

“Have you ever seen amber-colored eyes?”

“They are unusual,” said Grady. “Very rare. And amber is something of a misnomer. I would describe them as solid yellow or gold. Except in sunlight they will likely appear coppery, even orange. Why do you ask?”

“My provocateur might have them. Or might not.”

Grady looked troubled. “Based on the enmity already existing between labor and owners, you wouldn’t necessarily need a provocateur to provoke a war in the coalfields.”

“I would only agree that you would not need a provocateur to merely foment violence in the coalfields. There’s plenty of bitterness for that. But you would need a provocateur to set off a real, ongoing war.”

“To what purpose?!” roared a voice in Bell’s ear.

“Mr. Van Dorn!” cried Grady Forrer. The telegrapher, the telephonist, the typist shot to their feet, and the file boys froze in their tracks.

Isaac Bell stood up and offered his hand.

“Good morning, sir,” he greeted Van Dorn and answered the Boss with the main thought on his mind. “To the purpose of drawing attention.”

Joseph Van Dorn said, “Come with me!”

Bell winked reassuringly at Grady Forrer and glided alongside Van Dorn, confident he had discovered the answer.

Van Dorn’s private office was fitted out with up-to-date telephones, speaking tubes, and its own telegraph key. He sat at a mahogany desk and indicated a tufted leather chair for Bell.

“Whose attention?”

“The President’s, the Congress’s, and, most important, the nation’s.”

Van Dorn nodded. “I’ve been watching Prince Henry operate and I’ve been thinking along the same lines you are. By the time the Prince completes his tour, half the continent will be in love with him and all things German—despite his brother the Kaiser’s dismal record as a bloodthirsty despot. It’s a new world, Isaac. If you get in the newspapers, people will love you as long as the reporters spell your name right.”

“Or hate you,” said Bell.

“Tell me who wants to be loved.”

“They all do. But I don’t see the union having the talent for it.”

“How can you say that? The papers are on their side. The front pages are full of cartoons of tycoons in top hats abusing workingmen.”

“Not all,” said Bell. “Half I saw in the train stations depicted fresh-faced soldiers set upon by unshaven mobs. The same with those I read last night.”

“So it could be either side, could it not?”

Bell hesitated.

Van Dorn said, “Let me remind you that taking sides is no way to keep a clear eye.”

“But the unionists aren’t capable of a precision attack like the one I saw on the Monongahela. The timing was exquisite—two vessels dynamited within ten minutes and the barge fleet set adrift at the right moment to do the most damage. The union fellows I’ve encountered are brave men, but not all that practical, nor disciplined. Nor, frankly, trained in the dark arts. What I saw demanded military precision by someone who’s devoted his life to destruction.”

“How many men do you reckon it took to blow up the two vessels and set the barges adrift?”

“No more than three.”

“Only three?”

“It could have been one.”

“Impossible. One could not be in all three places at once.”

Bell said, “He wouldn’t have to be. The yacht and the steamboat both burned coal in sizable furnaces. A knowledgeable saboteur could have hidden dynamite and detonators fashioned to look like large chunks of coal in their bunkers.”

“But what would persuade the fireman—who was bound to die in the explosion—to shovel it into the furnace at just the right moment?”

Isaac Bell said, “I went aboard two of the steamboats that were clearing the channel. I took a good look at their boilers and I talked to their firemen.”

Joseph Van Dorn sat back in his chair and smiled. “Did you? What did you learn?”

“The coal is shifted in wheelbarrows from bunker to bunker, closer and closer to the furnace, in a logical manner. And the steamboats burn it at a consistent rate, depending on the speed they’re making and the current.”

“To calculate the timing, your provocateur must know all about steamboats, perhaps been employed on them.”

“No, sir. I figured it out, and I’m only a detective.”

Van Dorn looked out his window, cogitated in silence, then mused, “He sounds like quite an operator . . . Quite an operator . . . Provided he exists . . . But ‘fashioning’ dynamite and detonators to look like coal could be rather more difficult than you suggest.”

“Wally Kisley reckons that the runaway mine train was sabotaged with a so-called hollow or shaped charge. May I ask are you aware—”

“I know what a shaped charge is, thank you. Though, admittedly, the average farmer dynamiting stumps does not.”

“Nor the average coal miner