“Ah, yes. They want the Americans out of their country, as well as the thirty thousand or so Caribbean islanders working as laborers all along the canal’s forty-mile length. ‘Panama for the Panamanians’ is their motto.”
“What kind of insurgency is it?” Bell asked. “Are they targeting civilians?”
“No. They want to win over the hearts of the people, so they are raiding depots belonging to the Canal Authority for supplies that they turn over to villagers and distribute throughout Panama City on the Pacific Coast and Colón on the Atlantic side. That is why the people no longer fear the Vipers but are starting to see them as heroes.
“Few outside Panama realize that the average Panamanian’s life has not improved since the canal was first begun. Labor comes from Barbados and Jamaica, and all the skilled workers hail from the United States. The locals get nothing. They don’t even sell to the Americans because the Canal Authority limits its workers to commissaries and dining halls they themselves operate. Panama will soon have a path between the seas, as they say, but it has done little for people’s lot. Many feel like they’re second class in their own land. Therefore, a group of insurrectionists distributing stolen food and fuel are well regarded by the local poor.”
“Is that all they’ve been doing?” Bell asked. “Playing Robin Hood?”
“No,” Talbot admitted. “They have begun sabotaging machinery, the big steam-powered excavators and rail lines mostly. The Authority has instituted twenty-four-hour guards in the Culebra Cut, where most of the steam shovels are deployed, and extra sentries along the railroad.” He leaned forward to emphasize his next point. “That said, several workers have been injured as a result of their sabotage, and I feel, at best, that this is emboldening them. There are rumors swirling around Panama City that they have something large planned, something that will galvanize the people and garner international support.”
“Do they have outside backing now?” Densmore asked.
“Not yet, but I have heard whispers that trade unionists from Europe have been seen in Panama City, so it might be only a matter of time.”
Elizabeth raised a finger. “May I ask something, Uncle Bill?” He nodded, and she continued. “Why don’t the people building the canal hire more security?”
Bell suggested, “The Army could get involved. Hell, send in the Marines. It wouldn’t be the first time in that part of the world.”
“That’s what we most want to avoid,” Talbot said. “Insurgencies are fragile at the early stages, but also so malleable that a crushing force causes them to disperse and then re-form once the Army has moved on. You don’t stop them but actually make them stronger. I saw it myself in the Philippines. The war with Spain ended quickly enough, and we took possession of the islands, but ever since we’ve been fighting the Moro insurgents. That’s fifteen years of fighting, and there is no end in sight. We’ve lost at least five thousand American soldiers. Who knows how many civilians have died. I’ve heard upward of a million, when you factor in famine and disease.”
Densmore wiped his mouth and tossed the soiled napkin on the empty plate in front of him. He nodded to the waiter to take away his place setting. “We can’t have that sort of thing on our doorstep, nor can we afford postponing the completion of the canal. We are too heavily invested.”
“Precisely,” Talbot said brightly. “I want permission from the Canal Authority to lead a small band of local fighters to hunt down Viboras Rojas. I have the men. I just need the consent. Senator, George Goethals just doesn’t understand that a war is looming over the horizon, one he can’t win but one I can snuff out now. Please contact him and get him to agree to my—”
From outside the large dining room came a sharp shout, and then the closed wooden doors shuddered as a man was thrown against them. A second later, five heavily armed men burst into the cavernous chamber, and the gunfire they unleashed was a hurricane of lead and flame.
4
Renny Hart’s cry was all the warning Bell needed. Even as the gunmen were rushing into the room, he was getting to his feet and sliding the .45 Colt from its holster. In the next fraction of a second, before one of the shooters could trigger off a hail of .303 rounds from the Lewis machine gun slung over his shoulder, Bell recognized he was outgunned. Fighting a pitched battle was out of the question. His priority shifted to protecting the Senator’s life.
Chivalry may dictate that he protect Elizabeth Densmore, but he knew she wasn’t the intended target. William Densmore was the most important person in the room, and Bell knew he had to save his life.
Bell left his pistol in its holster and squatted so he could ram the heels of his hands against the underside of the table.
The Lewis gun erupted, blasting out a tongue of flame and a stitching string of rounds that shattered glass and splintered wood. The weapon filled the room with such a din that even Elizabeth’s shrieks of terror were drowned out.
Using the muscles of his legs, Bell heaved the table up on its side. Plates and cutlery and stemware tumbled to the floor as he flipped it vertically so that it presented a heavy shield between the gunmen and their intended target. The waiter fell flat. Court Talbot was struggling to pull a snub-nosed revolver from inside his bush jacket because young Miss Densmore was clambering all over him. She held on to one of his arms while her other arm wrapped around his head. She continued to scream like a steam whistle.
William Densmore had fallen over backward and had gone so red that Bell was legitimately concerned he’d have a heart attack and save the gunmen, doubtlessly members of Viboras Rojas, the trouble.
The shooters were rushing forward and would quickly outflank their position. The table was more than tall enough for Bell to stand behind. The windows were close, but to reach them they’d have to run a dozen feet in plain sight of the shooters. They’d be cut down long before they’d make it.
The table was resting on its edge and two of its four legs. The other two legs were at head height. Bell shoved one of the legs as hard as he could, and the entire table rotated a quarter turn. Talbot understood what was happening even if he couldn’t disentangle himself from Elizabeth’s clutches.
The party hiding behind it realized their protective cover was lurching away from them and shuffled on the floor to keep it between them and the shooters.
Bell pushed at the leg now just in front of him, and the table turned another quarter revolution, prompting the party to move again. The waiter stood. He was a big, strapping kid who looked like he could play football for Cal. As soon as Bell flipped the table another partial turn, he was in position to hit the next leg and keep the table rolling across the dining room. All the while, the gunmen continued to rush at them and fire. Their aim was atrocious, thankfully, but rounds still slapped the table, and shards of decorative woodwork rained down from the ceiling.
Their table crashed into another one already set for the next morning’s breakfast. The table twisted enough that the party was momentarily exposed. Bell pulled his Colt free from its holster and fired one-handed while yanking Senator Densmore to his feet.
His aim was far superior to the Panamanians’, especially the machine gunner. Every time he yanked the Lewis gun’s trigger, the barrel rose and pulled to the left. Bell put him down with two rounds to the torso and spiraled another shooter to the hardwood floor with a fatal wound to the throat. Bell ducked back behind cover.
“You’re armed?” Courtney Talbot asked incredulously.
A moment later, another of the terrorists had taken up the Lewis gun and let fly. The bullets pounding against the table sounded like it was taking blows from a hammer, but it held. Not even the powerful .303 round could penetrate the stout wood.
Bell fired blindly around the table and dragged a near-catatonic Densmore through one of the shattered windows. Densmore tripped at the last second and pulled Bell to the sidewalk just as a bullet screamed past his ear. Shards of broken
glass crunched beneath their tangled bodies.
Bell had seconds. He got Densmore up.
“Run,” he shouted to the others, and provided covering fire so they could make their escape through another window. Elizabeth was sandwiched between Talbot and the waiter as they vanished into the night.
The sun was fully set, but there were plenty of lights around the Hotel Del. The midway of Tent City blazed like a carnival, and the raucous toots of a steam calliope carried on the gentle breeze. The air Bell drew into his lungs was sultry and salt-laced. Next to him, the Senator puffed like an asthmatic in full distress. Near to where they stood was a bellhop station. It was unmanned, but a gleaming brass luggage trolley was tucked against the building’s flank. Rather than explain his plan, Bell shoved Senator Densmore in the chest so he fell backward onto the trolley. Bell kept his pistol in his hand and threw his weight behind the cart. They began rolling down the hill and away from the hotel, accelerating with each passing second.
“Have you lost your mind?” Densmore bellowed in a panic. “Leave me be, you fool.”
“Kindly shut up, Senator. I’m saving your life.” Bell chanced a look behind them as they gathered more and more speed. They were almost past the smokestacks of the hotel’s dedicated power plant. The gunmen were just now leaping through the broken window more than a hundred feet back. One of them had taken up the Lewis gun from his dead comrade and swapped out the platter-like magazine.
Like all the best hunters, the shooters looked for movement more than anything else and immediately focused on the glimmering brass cart rolling down the hill toward the marina. The streets were full of revelers—couples and families out to enjoy the distractions offered by Tent City. The stream of fire from the Lewis gun would cut through them like a scythe through winter wheat.
The luggage cart was wobbly and awkward. Bell had to keep running behind it in order to prevent Densmore’s bulk from accelerating it past a point of no return and crashing. Still, he managed to pull his right hand back enough to point his Model 1911 into the air and fire off the last two bullets in the gun.
People who’d originally thought the hurtling luggage cart with two men aboard was some sort of lark suddenly burst into a panic at the whip-crack report of gunfire. Women screamed, and the men began herding them away from the marina. The groundswell of fear that spread through the crowd likely saved lives.
But Bell taking his right hand off the trolley for the barest of seconds had disastrous results for him and Densmore. The cart listed just a bit. Despite its swiveling casters, it was going too fast and was too unevenly loaded to remain upright.
It flipped onto its side, Bell jumping free just as it fell to the roadway. He hit the ground with his shoulder and allowed momentum to flip him over several times. Senator Densmore stayed with the cart, as it scraped along the pavement, before he rolled clear, his body absorbing the impact with its sloshing waves of fat.
Bell got to his hands and knees, giving himself a second for his senses to clear. He shook his head from side to side and got to his feet. Densmore was on the ground a few feet away, moaning. Bell limped over to the Senator, reaching for a spare magazine. He ejected his spent clip, letting it fall to the ground, and slapped home a fresh one. He racked the slide to seat a fat brass cartridge in the chamber, all the while walking faster and faster. Densmore levered himself onto his backside just as Bell reached him. Bell didn’t slow. He dipped and rammed his left arm under the Senator’s armpit and hauled the large man from the ground and propelled him forward.
“Unhand me this instant.”
“We’re not out of the woods yet, sir,” Bell told him. “These Red Vipers are a persistent lot.”
The Queen Anne–style boathouse was packed with people enjoying a private party. None of them had heard the shots or seen the cart crash in the parking lot. The waters around the building were thick with boats. Mostly they were single-masted day sailers or large steam yachts, but there were a number of wooden-hulled speedboats.
The air suddenly exploded as the Lewis gun opened up in a roar of fire and smoke and lead. Bell threw Densmore flat just as they’d stepped onto the pier. The shooter had opened fire from two hundred feet away and let the gun’s bolt cycle until it was out of ammo. Like before, this man couldn’t control the heavy weapon, and rounds ricocheted off lamposts and the ground and streaked harmlessly into the night air. But some people in the crowd were hit.
Bell fired two hasty return shots before dragging Densmore to his feet once again. He’d noted that the other two gunmen were rushing forward while the machine gunner had been left behind to change ammo drums.
“Stay low,” the Van Dorn detective cautioned.
Densmore nodded. The Senator was getting over his initial shock.
The throngs of revelers around them had erupted into a mindless mob of screaming and shouting and manic motion. To escape the deadly fire, people surged in ragtag shoals, like frightened fish first sensing a hunting shark. Many ended up falling into the water, while others were pushed to the ground. Bell saw several citizens risk their lives to save those who’d fallen, while others were reaching for life preservers and boat hooks to help those who’d tumbled into the bay. Most others had started running in whatever direction got them away from the carnage left in the wake of the deadly burst of automatic fire.
Bell’s eye passed over the array of boats pulled fast to the long pier and spotted the one he wanted. It was a mahogany-hulled runabout with an open cockpit that had just arrived, driven by a dapperly dressed man who was handing over a mooring line to a uniformed dock attendant. Another employee had already helped his stunning companion out of the boat and onto the dock.
The party had all frozen at the sound of the Lewis gun chewing through its drum of .303 rounds, and Bell seized the opportunity. He pushed the Senator into the boat’s rear bench seat, just in front of the engine housing, and jumped in after him. The owner swiveled to protest the unauthorized boarders.
Bell showed him the ugly profile of his Colt automatic. “Need to borrow your boat.”
The man went ashen but quickly scrambled out of his prized harbor cruiser. Bell ignored everything but getting away from the charging gunmen. As soon as he was in the driver’s seat, he reversed the boat away from the pier, slipping the nose around with barely enough room. As soon as the bow was clear, he rammed the T-shaped throttle lever to the stops. The burbling engine changed beat in an instant and snarled like a predatory cat, a rooster tail of water thrown up by its prop dousing the people on the dock with spray as thick as custard.
Bell couldn’t hear the crack of the guns over the roar of the runabout’s unmuffled engine, but he saw the gunwale at his elbow partially shredded by bullets. Two holes were punched through the windscreen, leaving a spiderweb of cracks that grew and merged as the sleek craft accelerated into Glorietta Bay. It was only sheer luck that saved him from a bullet to the back of the skull.
Moments later, he estimated their speed at better than twenty knots. Bell felt a measure of relief and finally looked behind him to ask the Senator if he was okay. Densmore was sitting up on the leather bench seat and he looked ruffled and foul-tempered but unhurt. Bell didn’t bother asking. He saw another boat rocket away from the marina at that moment, and while it was far too dark to tell, years of experience told him the three Panamanians had reached their own motor launch.
Bell had unwittingly led himself and the Senator along the gunmen’s own preplanned escape route, and now the pursuit was about to continue across the waters off San Diego.
He swapped out his .45’s magazine, reseating the one with two missing rounds into his shoulder holster. His jacket flapped distractingly around his torso, so he shrugged out of it and stuffed it behind the back of his seat. Densmore clambered into the seat to Bell’s left.
“You are a madman, I tell you,” he shouted over the wind.
“You’re we
lcome, but don’t thank me yet. They’re chasing us.”
Densmore looked incredulous. “Thank you? You nearly got me killed.”
“You’d be dead right now if it weren’t for me, Senator. They were there to assassinate you.”
He closed his slack-jawed mouth. It was clear that such a thought hadn’t occurred to him. “I, ah . . . Umm . . . I assumed they were after Major Talbot because of his activities in Panama.”
“Talbot’s nothing,” Bell said, checking over his shoulder the gunmen’s progress. They were definitely gaining. “Killing a Senator in his home state would give Viboras Rojas credibility in Panama and, more importantly, gain the interest of foreign powers who aren’t too enthusiastic about the United States controlling something as strategic as a trans-isthmus canal.”
“I hadn’t considered that,” the politician admitted. After a minute or so he asked, “What now?”
They had just swung out of Glorietta Bay and were racing across the calm waters of San Diego Bay proper. The city was a yellow glow against the darkness surrounding them. Overhead, the stars shone bright because the moon was but a mere sliver no bigger than an ironic smile.
Off to their right, the two warships were lit with strings of lights running from bow to stern and up to the tops of their towering radio masts.
Bell looked back. The gunmen were in a wooden cabin cruiser much larger than the runabout he’d commandeered. A spotlight attached to the right of the boat’s cockpit sent out a probing finger of illumination that quickly found the thick, boiling wake of Bell’s craft and soon followed the luminescent path to the runabout. Bell turned away before the light hit his eyes and ruined his night vision. It was painfully clear that he and the Senator wouldn’t be able to outrun them.
“Okay, then,” he muttered to himself. “Out-think them.”
The Panamanians were forty yards back when the machine gunner triggered off a seconds-long blast that stitched the harbor with dozens of tiny geysers. He tried to zero in on the runabout, but his boat was bobbing across the wake. Bell cut some quick zigzags to throw off the gunner’s aim even more.
The Saboteurs Page 4