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

And outdone you, for that matter, Clay. You could not have planned it better.”

“They exceeded my expectations,” Clay admitted. “Even my imagination. But I will take full credit for creating the atmosphere that stimulated them.”

“Credit granted. What’s next?”

“Exploding steamboats and burning union halls.”

“In that order?”

“Simultaneous.”

Congdon eyed the younger man closely. “I don’t mind telling you that you’re doing an excellent job.”

“I was hoping you would say that.”

Of course you were, thought Congdon, saying only, “You deserve it.”

He checked the gilded clock on the wall and opened the louvers of the rosewood shutters. The railcar’s window overlooked the train yard and the sidings that snaked into the private platforms.

“Is there any more archetypical symbol of rampant capitalism than the special train?” he asked.

“None. Yachts pale by them.”

“Have you considered having the vicious strikers wreck a special?”

Clay sat straighter, alert as a terrier.

Congdon said, “The governor would have no choice but to call out the militia and hang strikers from lampposts.”

“Do you have a particular one in mind?”

“You see through me as if I were made of glass.” Congdon smiled, thinking, as Clay lit up like limelight, My oh my, does that make you preen. “Any special would do.”

As he spoke a locomotive glided into view, drawing a beautiful train of four cars painted in Reading Railroad green livery, with the yellow trim done in gold as befitted the president of the line.

“Look! Here comes one now.”

“That looks like R. Kenneth Bloom’s,” said Clay.

“I believe it is.”

“Two birds with one stone?”

“What do you mean by that?” Congdon demanded.

“President Bloom has been resisting your takeover of his Reading Line.”

“You presume too much, Clay. Be careful.”

“Forgive me,” Clay said contritely. “I’ve been up several days. I’m not thinking clearly.”

“Get some sleep,” said Congdon. And then, to put Clay deeper in his thrall, he warmed up a friendly smile and said, “Three birds, actually.”

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Congdon?”

“It so happens that young Bloom, who’s been goading his father to fight back and has given him spine where there was only jelly, is making a quick round-trip to Cincinnati. Four hours out, a secret meeting at the Queen City Club with some bankers, and four hours back. He’ll have a guest on board. A friend of the family asked to ride along. His name is Isaac Bell.”

Henry Clay was both delighted and astonished. “How do you know that?”

“Bloom’s resistance forced me to employ spies.”

Clay surged to his feet, sleep forgotten. “Three birds. A triple play.”

40

ISAAC BELL COULD NOT FIND MARY HIGGINS. A NEW RENTER had moved into her room, and the landlady had no forwarding address.

He went next to the tent city, riding the Second Avenue trolley to the end of the line where the strikers had torn up the tracks. The expressions on the sullen Pittsburgh cops observing from a block away told Bell that they feared the obvious: The coal miners defending the tent city included Army veterans of the Spanish and Philippines wars, military men who knew their business.

They had installed an iron gate that was only wide enough to admit one man at time. Bell showed a pass signed by Jim Higgins. Only then was he allowed through. And while approaching and entering, he was under the watchful gaze of strategically posted riflemen. Lookouts were stationed on top of the coal tipple with views of the city in three directions. Any movement of cops or militia would be spotted a mile away before they reached the gates. And in the shallows beside the riverbank, the strikers had sunk the barges that had floated them there, creating a crude breakwater like a crenellated castle wall, which would make it difficult to land police launches.

Two thousand tents pitched in neat rows with straight walks between them further conveyed the atmosphere of a military camp. By contrast, well-dressed women of means from Pittsburgh’s churches and charities swept by in long skirts, directing the placement of kitchen tents and water taps. The ladies’ presence, Bell thought, must be constraining the cops as much as the miners’ riflemen. Not to mention the city fathers who were their husbands, and it was amusing to imagine how many Pittsburgh bigwigs were sleeping at their clubs until the strike was settled. But despite strong defenses and capable administration and charity, the coal miners’ tent city had a precariousness, which was expressed by one stern matron whom Bell overheard:

“This is all well and good until it snows.”

He found a harried Jim Higgins directing the operation from under a tent’s open canvas fly. Mary’s brother said he had not seen her since the night they took her barges. He had no idea where she was. He admitted that he was worried, and he asked Bell to pass on the message, if he found her, that he could use her help desperately.

As Bell was leaving to head back downtown, he looked up and suddenly had to smile. A painter with a sense of humor was changing one word of the Amalgamated Coal Terminal sign on top of the tipple to read

AMALGAMATED COAL MINERS

•   •   •

THE DOWNTOWN union hall was deserted but for an elderly functionary left in charge. He had not seen Mary Higgins nor had he heard anything about her.

Bell found Mike and Terry in the back, sitting around a cookstove, drinking coffee.

“I’ll give you a choice, boys. Now that Jim Higgins is holed up in Amalgamated, you can go back to Chicago as Protective Services, agents or you can work for my squad.”

“Is it O.K. with Mr. Hancock and Mr. Van Dorn?”

“I’ll clear it with them,” said Bell. He would pay them out of his own pocket if he had to. He could use the manpower.

“What do you want us to do?”

“Find out where that big black boat went. I have a feeling you should start looking at McKeesport. But wherever it went, I want to know who they are and where they