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

discovered that Comintern agents had chartered the twelve-thousand-ton tanker Sandra T. Congdon and loaded it with two-hundred-proof pure grain alcohol. The tanker had sailed from Bremerhaven bound for Nassau, The Bahamas.

Bell whistled in amazement.

“What?” Van Dorn growled into his phone.

“Proof,” said Bell. “A shipload of two hundred proof.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Proof that Marat Zolner is not only still operating in New York but expanding. The Comintern is gearing up to supply Rum Row on a whole new scale.”

He read Pauline’s cable aloud to Van Dorn.

They discussed its ramifications. Possession of grain alcohol was a not to be missed opportunity to dilute genuine liquor. Such a big ship could carry well over a hundred thousand barrels—five hundred railroad tank cars—easily stretched to fifty million bottles.

“Enough liquor,” said Van Dorn, “to plaster the adult population of the East Coast through the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.”

“And pour a hundred million dollars into the Comintern’s treasury.”

“That is fifty times the federal budget for enforcement of Prohibition,” said Van Dorn. “Good for Pauline. Will you send her to Nassau as she asked?”

“Absolutely.”

“Even long-distance, I can hear a gleam in your eye, Isaac. Just don’t forget that Zolner has proved himself a mastermind. And he’s got the entire Comintern on his side.”

“I’m not sure about that,” said Bell. “I have a hunch he’s a one-man show.”

“They’re making a great success of getting away with every crime in the book,” Van Dorn countered drily.

“But nothing that he’s built so far can last without him. When we stop Zolner, we stop the Comintern.”

“Nothing’s stopped him yet.”

“The way to stop him is to use against him the one thing I admire about him,” said Bell.

“Admire?” Van Dorn’s explosion of indignation spiraled into a coughing fit.

Bell listened to the wracking cough, praying for it to ease, but it knocked Joe breathless. Bell waited, gripping the phone. The doctors had warned there’d be setbacks, and he’d just set one off.

A woman spoke into the phone. “Mr. Van Dorn will telephone you back when he is able.”

“Marion?”

“Isaac!”

“Is he O.K.?”

“I don’t know. I just walked in. Here’s a nurse . . . And a doctor . . . They’ve got him . . .” She lowered her voice. “Oh, the poor man. It breaks your heart. He’s better one moment, then falls back. They’ve got him now, Isaac. Don’t worry. How are you?”

“Tip-top,” Bell lied, gingerly rubbing his itching stitches. He pictured her lighting up Joe’s room in a smart suit and hat. “And how are you?”

“They gave me another movie. I’m having fun filming all day and missing you at dinner.”

“How about after dinner?”

“Worse. The New York papers said there was a shooting in Detroit.”

“It’s the national pastime out here. Bigger than baseball.”

“This one sounded like a war.”

“I will tell you all about it when I see you.”

“Can’t wait. Here’s Joe . . . He claims he’s ‘tip-top.’ Where do you suppose he learned that expression? Good-bye, darling. So lovely to hear your voice.”

Van Dorn did not sound much recovered. He took a few shallow breaths and wheezed, “How could you possibly admire a murdering, thieving, treacherous, bomb-throwing, godless Bolshevik who slaughters innocents?”

“He leads from the front. In the thick of the fight. He is no coward.”

“Neither is Satan.”

“It’s his Achilles’ heel. I’ll find him where the lead is flying. And that’s where I’ll finish him.”

Van Dorn fell silent.

Had the long-distance connection broken? Or something worse? “Are you O.K., Joe?”

“I was just wondering if a villain weren’t a villain, would he be a hero’s best friend?”

Isaac Bell was in no mood for philosophy. “I would not be one bit surprised that Marat Zolner manned the Lewis gun that shot you. And I have absolutely no doubt he was there when Harry Warren was killed and personally loaded his body—dead or dying—into that wagon.”

“All right,” Van Dorn whispered. “I know what you’re saying. What’s your next move?”

“Drive Zolner out of Detroit.”

“How?”

“Find out who Zolner installed in place of Rosenthal. Question his girlfriend, Fern Hawley. Send Pauline to Nassau to throw a monkey wrench in whatever he’s up to with that tanker. And find that whisky tunnel, because if the Comintern doesn’t own it already, it will soon. When they do, they will be so rich it could be impossible to stop them.”

•   •   •

PAULINE’S CABLE HAD ENDED:

REQUEST ASSIGNMENT NASSAU.

LIQUOR IMPORT-EXPORT GUISE,

WHISKY AGENT FOR GLASGOW DISTILLERY.

EAR TO GROUND.

During the war, Bell recalled, she had smuggled a downed Scottish flier out of Germany. The pilot’s grandfather had founded a distillery. Bell cabled back.

GO NASSAU SOONEST.

The reply he received was not from Germany but from France, where Archie Abbott remained in temporary command of the Van Dorn field office.

YOUR CABLE FORWARDED PARIS.

I’M COVERING FOR BERLIN.

PAULINE SAILED YESTERDAY,

SS AQUITANIA,

CONNECTING NASSAU.

Isaac Bell laughed. So much for “request.”

“Fräulein Moxie” was off to the races—Cunard express liner Aquitania from Le Havre to New York; Havana Special, overnight train to Miami, Florida; and the new flying-boat service to Nassau. Pauline would be across the Atlantic and in The Bahamas in seven or eight days. While a war-weary, ten-knot tanker was still on the high seas, she would have time before it landed to establish a business front in Nassau with a Market Street import-export office under a shingle that read:

PAULINE GRANDZAU

LICENSED TO SELL

WHOLESALE SPIRITS & LIQUORS

•   •   •

THE WOLVERINE, the express train that connected with the 20th Century in Buffalo, brought photographs of Fern Hawley that Van Dorn Research had clipped from the New York society pages. That the one shot of the heiress gallivanting included Prince André doubled Bell’s suspicion that the Russian and Marat Zolner were the same man. His picture was out of focus, blurred by motion. It looked to Bell as if, caught by surprise climbing out of a limousine, he was trying to turn his face from the camera.

Bell wired Grady Forrer.

PRINCE ANDRE CAMERA SHY.

SHOW PICTURE TO LYNCH & HARDING MARINE.

Bell armed his detectives with Fern’s photographs and sent them to query desk clerks and managers at Detroit’s top hotels. In none of the fancier places where he would expect her to stay was the