The Bootlegger by Clive Cussler (novels in english TXT) 📗

Looters were battering open shops and running from them with bread and milk and beer and coats and hats. Now it was the police who were erecting barricades, stringing barbed wire across the larger streets. She pressed into a doorway to wait for an armored car to creep past on an intersecting street. The men inside flung open their hatches and stood in the open, no longer afraid. It passed from her view.

An empty bottle smashed at her feet. Two looters lurched toward her. Before she could move, they had cornered her in the doorway. They were drunk, reeking of schnapps.

One grabbed her from behind, the other reached for her legs. She kicked out, knowing her only chance was to get to her gun before they found it. He caught her ankles. The man behind squeezed tighter. She went limp.

“Right,” he laughed. “Might as well enjoy it.”

He let go of her arms to turn her toward him and as he bent and pressed his reeking mouth to hers, she reached under her skirt with both hands, pulled her Mann, and cocked the slide. She shot the one who was holding her ankles first. He fell backwards with an expression of surprise. The other, oblivious because of gunfire ringing in the streets, kept trying to kiss her. She twisted the gun between them and pulled the trigger and he dropped to the cobbles, wounded, though not mortally, by the small-caliber gun.

Before Pauline could move ten feet, steel-helmeted cops stopped her and saw the gun she was trying to hide in her skirt. They shouted that she was under arrest.

“They tried to rape me,” she protested. “I had to protect myself.”

“Death is the penalty for weapons.”

“I have a license.” She showed them her genuine Ausweiskarte and a Van Dorn business card. She took the time they read her papers to calm herself.

“What in the name of God are you doing in Hamburg in the middle of a riot, Fräulein Privatdetektive?”

Pauline affected the confident manner of a Prussian aristocrat. “The Van Dorn Detective Agency intends to establish a field office in Germany’s second-largest city.”

“Take my advice. Wait until we’ve exterminated the rabble.”

She aimed a curt nod in the direction of the looters she had shot. “I would appreciate it if you accept these two as my contribution to the effort and escort me to Central Station.”

Startled by her audacity, the police officer looked down at the woman. She was small and slight and uncommonly pretty. But she had a field marshal’s icy eyes. He returned her pistol, offered his arm, and walked her to the station.

The telephones were working. She reached Richter by long distance. Germany had the most highly developed telephone system in Europe and the connection was so clear he could have been across the table in the Prater Garten.

“Hamburg? Are you all right? We have reports of heavy fighting.”

“It’s over,” she said.

“How bad was it?”

“Worse than even you could imagine. How is it in Berlin?”

“Quiet as a tomb. The Comintern got their signals crossed. They called off the Berlin and Bremen attacks. The fools in Hamburg were left in the lurch.”

“Who is Marat Zolner?”

She listened to the lines. They made the faintest hissing sound of falling water. Finally, Richter asked, “How did you find out about Zolner?”

“Johann Kozlov was his right-hand man.”

“I did not know that.”

“Didn’t I tell you I would bring you information?”

“Very good information,” Richter admitted.

“Now it’s your turn. Where is Marat Zolner?”

•   •   •

“FELLOW HERE to see you, Mr. Van Dorn,” said Isaac Bell.

Van Dorn’s haggard face lit with a weak smile. The boy was standing in the doorway in civilian clothes, fidgeting with his hat. “Seaman Somers! Come on in, son. Don’t let that nurse dragon scare you. Come by the bed where I can see you. Dorothy! This boy saved my life.”

“Are you getting better, sir?”

“Tip-top,” Van Dorn lied. “Have they made you captain yet?”

Somers hung his head. “They discharged me.”

“What?” The outraged eruption set him coughing, and the rib-racking cough turned him pale with pain. When he finally caught his breath, he waved the nurse aside and demanded of Bell, “Isaac? What’s going on?”

Bell explained how Somers had run afoul of the Coast Guard brass.

“That’s outrageous. They should have struck a medal . . . So you need a job?”

“Yes, sir, I do. But who would hire me being discharged?”

“Who will hire you? I’ll hire you. Starting here and now you’re a Van Dorn Apprentice Detective. Isaac, make it so!”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Van Dorn,” said Bell, not at all surprised by the turn of events, having engineered it. He didn’t doubt that young Somers had the requisite courage, daring, and enterprise to become a Van Dorn.

As for the Boss, he suddenly sounded invigorated.

“Welcome aboard, Somers. Of course we’ll have to clear it with your parents.”

“I’m an orphan, sir. I never knew my father. My mother died of tubercular trouble, working in the mill.”

“Kiss of death?” asked Van Dorn.

“Yes, sir.” To save money, mill owners held on to the old shuttles that required threading the eye with a suction of breath.

“Who will you start him under, Isaac?”

“Grady Forrer.”

“Research?”

“It’s clear talking to him that Asa’s read every magazine printed. He’ll get a good start with Grady, and we’ll move him around from there.”

Bell turned to a noise at the door. A Van Dorn messenger was knocking softly. “Mr. Bell? Cable from Germany.”

KOZLOV COMMUNIST FIGHTER BERLIN UPRISING.

RIGHT HAND TO COMINTERN AGENT MARAT ZOLNER,

ALIAS DMITRI SMIRNOFF,

ALIAS DIMA SMIRNOV.

ZOLNER ESCAPED GOVERNMENT DEATH SENTENCE.

SINCE KOZLOV IS DEAD I AM TRACING MARAT ZOLNER.

A name at last.

•   •   •

ISAAC BELL raced back to the St. Regis and burst into the Van Dorn offices, calling out for Grady Forrer. The Research man lumbered up to Bell’s desk in the middle of the bull pen. Under one massive arm was a cardboard file folder, bulging to capacity.

“Russia again,” said Bell. “Pauline found another Bolshevik connection. Find out everything you can about a Comintern agent named Marat Zolner. And I want a full report on the