“The Kaiser and his Ministers believed that even with three men in the race for President, Roosevelt would win, and that he would continue raising America’s profile among the nations of the world. They already have the world’s largest economy but lack the diplomatic clout to assert their dominance. Our leaders speculated that the United States would take a world leadership role and eclipse Great Britain and Germany if he was returned to the White House for a third term.”
“What did they do?”
“They sent a doctor well versed in suggestive hypnotism and pharmacology from Germany to New York. My brother, who put him up, used his contacts to find a suitable candidate, someone weak-willed and easily manipulated. The man they found was Bavarian by birth and had once been a saloonkeeper in the city before selling his property and immersing himself in Christian fundamentalism, which has grown popular in America. He’d become a traveling preacher, who’d often wander at night, muttering to himself. He happened to be in New York City at the time and was taken to a secure facility outside the city on September fifth, roughly a month after Roosevelt began his campaign.
“The man’s name was John Flammang Schrank,” Dreissen continued. “Over the course of the next two weeks, the doctor kept him in a near-constant state of hypnosis using multiple techniques including drugs. They shaped an already disturbed man by feeding him new delusions to occupy his mind. While the drugs were doing that, the doctor was making him forget he was under any kind of care.
“By the time they were done, Schrank believed that Roosevelt was trying to establish a monarchy in America by running for a third time. The doctor also convinced Schrank that Roosevelt was responsible for William McKinley’s assassination in 1901, which resulted in Roosevelt becoming President in the first place.”
Dreissen’s guest knew enough about recent history to realize where the story was heading and couldn’t believe his nation had a hand in it.
“They stayed with Schrank as he stalked the President while he was on the campaign trail. They monitored his mental state and fed him more drugs and more sessions under hypnosis if he showed signs of wavering. My brother told me that it really wasn’t necessary. By this point, Schrank was delusional and believed himself on a sacred mission to protect the United States from what he called a ‘third termer’ and to avenge the spirit of President McKinley.”
“Schrank caught up to Roosevelt in the city of Milwaukee, if I remember right.”
“Yes. In the state of Wisconsin, in what they call the Midwest. As you know the assassination attempt failed. The bullet hit Roosevelt in the chest but had to pass through his fifty-page speech and eyeglasses case first. It punctured his muscles yet not his chest cavity. Schrank never got off a second shot because Roosevelt’s security detail was so quick. Roosevelt famously went on with the speech, and later doctors determined that it was safer to leave the bullet lodged in his chest than remove it.”
“What happened to Schrank?”
“He was declared insane following a series of hearings and sessions with a lunacy commission. He was committed to an insane asylum, probably for life.”
“Mein Gott.” The guest was taken aback by the casual cruelty of using an already unbalanced man and warping him into an assassin and then leaving him abandoned in an asylum.
Dreissen mistook his expression for one of admiration. “The best part is, even if Schrank somehow recalls the sessions with our doctor, no one will believe him. They will assume it’s just a new delusion that further proves his original diagnosis. Our doctor was on his way back to Germany days after the shooting, and Schrank never knew he’d been held in the basement of my brother’s country house.”
When his guest didn’t speak, Dreissen deduced the truth and said, “For the greater glory of das Vaterland, it is nothing to us to sacrifice the freedom of a simpleton. When the war with France finally comes, Germans must be willing to sacrifice all, even their lives, to ensure our nation’s future. Don’t be so squeamish. Now, let’s get breakfast, and I’ll explain what I think should happen.”
The men rose and loaded plates at the buffet. There was enough food to feed a dozen, but it had been laid out for just the two of them. Neither paid the monumental waste the least notice.
“Nothing has changed since that last assassination attempt. Roosevelt remains wildly popular, and if he is the Republican nominee, he will certainly win the Presidency once again, something no one in Berlin wants to see. He’s vulnerable here. Viboras Rojas have already demonstrated they’re willing to go after American politicians, so it makes perfect sense they will try here.”
“Why is he coming, then?”
“Ego, my friend. He thinks he is bulletproof, for one. More important than that, I think he wants to see his canal. I have no doubt that he will insist on ascending the Gatun Locks and cruising on Lake Gatun, now that it is high enough to float in a shallow-draft boat. He can’t resist. This is his crowning achievement, more than the trophy hunting or charging up San Juan Hill in Cuba. The Panama Canal is the most transformative engineering feat in history, and he will not be able to resist seeing it with his own eyes now that it’s almost completed. A man like Roosevelt can’t resist, dangers be damned.
“I am going to cable Berlin through my brother’s offices in New York and get approval to kill him, but we need to step up our timeline immediately if we are to have a chance at him.”
“Do we tell the others this?”
“No,” Dreissen replied forcefully. “This is for us alone. We will say that the engineers reconsidered and believe we need a second string of explosives to be successful. We will lay the first row now and the second after the excitement of Roosevelt’s brief visit has died down.”
His visitor nodded.
Dreissen went on, “We’re only pushing up our timetable by a couple weeks. Our recent deployments of the Cologne have been great successes. Though the crew would like more practice, they’ll follow orders.”
“Of course.”
“We had better start moving material into position. Not tonight or tomorrow, let’s plan for the following night. I’ll radio my people and let them know. So much of this is weather dependent. We have to make only six trips, but we need near-windless nights to make them.”
“We will just have to hope for the best. Have they found a suitable spot?”
“Yes, it’s perfect,” Dreissen assured him. “It’s close enough to the dam yet still remote, with hills—well, islands now, I suppose—to protect it on two sides so no one will see what we’re doing.”
“Excellent,” the visitor said as he finished his meal. “There is one more thing we need to discuss. Isaac Bell.”
“Bell?”
“The Van Dorn detective.”
“Right. The man with the nine lives of a cat.”
“That’s the one,” the visitor agreed grimly. “I had the chance to speak with him last night. He has absolutely no idea what is going on down here, but his instincts and intuition are uncanny.”
“He worries you?”
“Yes. My impression of him is that he is skeptical of everybody and everything until he’s proved to himself that things really are as they seem. There are so many moving parts of our operation that I’m concerned we overlooked some minor detail, something no one else would think to question.”
“Except Bell would question it, ja?”
“He already has. And he’s not satisfied with the answers he’s being given.”
“And you think we should eliminate him?”
The visitor nodded. “I didn’t think his survival of the attack in California would prove to be of any consequence, yet no one imagined he’d come nosing around here in Panama. I fear he could find some lead, that one detail we neglected, and expose our operation.”
“Do you propose we kill him and pin the blame on the Viboras?”
“The Viboras wou
ldn’t know his identity or reason for being here. They have no reason to kill him.”
“But he is an investigator. Wouldn’t they be concerned he’d find out information about them?”
“If he was getting close to unmasking them, certainly. But he has only just arrived. He hasn’t learned anything about them to get himself killed. I think it better that Isaac Bell should meet with an accident. Panama is a dangerous place. It will be easy enough to see him die in an automobile crash or something equally mundane.”
“Can you arrange it?”
The visitor slung an arm over the back of his chair in a relaxed pose. “It’s already done.”
16
Because it was the weekend, and Rinaldo Morales wasn’t expected back from his home village until Monday, Bell had some time on his hands. Marion’s knowledge of Spanish made things easier, but she didn’t have any knowledge of the local politics that Bell needed if he was going to understand Viboras Rojas. He hired Jorge Nuñez, a retired teacher whom the Webbs had hired through the hotel as a guide to the city. Marion was spending the day shopping and sightseeing with Juliet Webb. Bell felt certain the Viboras would lay low after such a spectacular assault and was comfortable leaving his wife for a few hours.
“At first, people thought the Viboras were a joke,” the bespectacled academic said. His face was nut brown and deeply wrinkled, and he barely reached to Bell’s shoulder. His straw hat was more like an Old West Stetson than a panama, while the cane he used was just some gnarled root. “Who could possibly stand up to the Americans? Their power is undeniable. We just need to look at how they transformed our country to realize they are an unstoppable force.”
“But then?”
Bell and Nuñez were strolling along Panama City’s streets with no real destination in mind. When they walked past some building of significance, Jorge would briefly explain its history and then they would move on. The day was hot and humid, as they all were, but at least there was no rain.
“They had some success in their attacks and grew bolder. When they derailed a supply train and managed to steal some canned food that they gave away, people started taking them to heart. The story of Robin Hood was on everyone’s lips, though I don’t recall ever hearing it before Viboras Rojas.”
“So, they have a propaganda wing?”
“I don’t think I understand what that means,” Nuñez said.
“It means they made certain the people knew who had provided the food and taught them context by way of a well-known legend. This is the hallmark of a very well-organized force. I voiced my concerns to Court Talbot. Do you know him?”
Nuñez nodded quickly. “Ojo Muerto? Everyone in Panama knows the Major.”
“I think there is a professional behind this group, someone well versed in how revolutions are supposed to work.”
Nuñez seemed to take exception to this. “Do you think so little of my people that we need an outsider to tell us how to fight? That we are incapable of helping ourselves? Remember, we cast off Bogotá’s shackles just ten years ago.”
Bell held up a hand in a defusing gesture. “I mean no disrespect, Señor Nuñez. Talbot told me that the Viboras are motivated by Marxist doctrine. That’s an economic system for an industrialized country with a strong class structure, not an agrarian society where the majority of the people are subsistence farmers. Communism is a very Europe-specific ideal. The chance that someone here is well versed enough without outside tutelage doesn’t seem likely. You were an educator, surely you understand that the brightest pupil still needs a teacher to reach his full potential, yes?”
The older man couldn’t fault Bell’s logic, as it appealed to his very core. “I can see why you’d reach that conclusion. Go on.”
“I guess my question is, have you heard any rumors about some Europeans backing the Viboras or even just a group of foreigners in the country with no real reason to be here?”
“Not that I’ve heard. Almost all the white people here work on the canal in some form or another. We sometimes get missionaries trying to spread Christianity among the indigenous peoples. I suppose that could be a cover story for Bolshevik agitators.”
“Is there any way to track them?”
“Not once they clear customs.”
“Would you know anyone who could get me a list of foreign nationals visiting Panama in the last, say, three months?”
“I know people in the government, so I can ask around, but it’s doubtful they will share anything without some kind of legal precedent.”
Bell reconsidered. “On second thought, don’t bother. There would be too many names, and any of them could be an alias. I would need an army of investigators to back-check each and every one.”
“No doubt for the best.”
“What about the leadership of Viboras Rojas? What do you know about its head?”
“Nothing. And no one else does either. They’ve never said who he is, though the people call him Tío. That is Spanish for ‘Uncle.’”
“Usually, these kinds of things are started by someone with charismatic charm and a vision. The central figure is key, like Lenin or Simón Bolívar.”
“Maybe maintaining their secrecy is the key,” Nuñez countered.
“I don’t know. Movements like this are ultimately about the power to control other people’s lives. It takes a certain type of personality to want that, and all the autocrats throughout the ages had one thing in common—massive egos. They liked to wield their power on a personal level. They didn’t hide in the shadows.”
What concerned Bell was that the leader of the Vipers would finally show himself in some spectacular fashion, some unifying act that would generate a spontaneous uprising. During dinner the night before, Talbot had shown proper discretion to not ask about the search for the missing dynamite. There was no sense in fanning the flames of rumor over the explosives’ whereabouts, but their eventual use was very much on Bell’s mind. Blowing up the crane had been an act to slow the canal’s construction, a tactical attack in a way. What Bell feared now was a strategic move, something bold and unexpected.
He wished Archie Abbott was along for this particular ride. Abbott was another Van Dorn agent and Bell’s closest friend. At times like this, he liked to have another investigator he could bounce ideas off of without jeopardizing security. While he doubted Jorge Nuñez was a risk, Bell made it a habit to keep his own counsel around all but a select handful of people.
“Perhaps,” Nuñez said after a couple minutes of walking in silence, “the Vipers’ leader will show himself when the time is right, build anticipation first, make the people long for his presence.”
“I was thinking along those lines myself. Only I have no idea when that will be. It’s no secret that Colonel Goethals requested a Marine division for additional security. Once they’re here, the Vipers will have a much harder time striking. They have to act before then. They also must know that Major Talbot has permission to hunt them down, meaning the smart play is to lie low.”
“A tricky balance.”
“Exactly,” Bell agreed. “To succeed with their plan, they are going to need perfect timing.” He then added, with some recrimination, “I don’t understand their strategy, the escalations, their goals. I understand nothing, really.”
“I can tell that is a situation you find most displeasing, my friend.”
“You have no idea. But I find motivation in frustration. And now I have to add President Roosevelt’s visit to the mix.”
“What will be your next step?”
“What I always do, Señor Nuñez, keep poking around the problem until I find that one thread that doesn’t fit and tug on it so the whole ball of yarn comes unwound.”
The Panamanian teacher nodded. “I can tell by the tone of your voice that you are deadly serious.”
“Criminals always make mistakes. It’s because they’re
human. Investigators joke about how there can’t be a perfect crime so long as there is a victim, because once you identify him, you can trace back what was done to him and by whom. Viboras Rojas has yet to leave any overt clues in their wake of destruction, but that doesn’t mean they won’t.”
“And you will find them?”
“We have a saying about how Van Dorn agents always get their man, always. None of us has ever failed. And I certainly don’t intend to be the first.”
* * *
The following day was Sunday, a day reserved for prayer and contemplation, but nothing was more sacred in Panama than the completion of the canal. The work never slowed.
Bell was surprised to find Felix Ramirez at a corner booth in the dining room when it opened for breakfast. A cheroot smoldered in a cut-glass ashtray at his elbow, and strewn across the tables were dozens of ledger pages and loose receipts. He sipped from a tiny cup of espresso produced by the domed La Pavoni coffeemaker behind the bar.
“Morning.”
“Ah, Señor Bell. Good morning. Join me, please.” He swept the papers into a neat pile and set it aside.
“Thank you.” Bell slid into the booth opposite Ramirez, setting his panama hat on the table next to Ramirez’s. Rather than a tie, Ramirez wore a yellow-patterned cravat tucked into his collar.
“Where is your wife?”
“Still asleep,” Bell said and then pointed to the tiny cup in front of the Panamanian. “Is that actual espresso?”
“You know about espresso?”
“I’ve had it in Europe. I can’t find anyone in the States willing to buy one of the machines. Devilishly expensive things.”
“I know.”
Bell cocked his head, putting together subtle clues from the night before. “Wait, do you own the hotel?”
“Not own, exactly,” Felix replied vaguely, “but I have an interest in it, thanks to a card game some months back. My first order of business was ordering an espresso machine. I lived in Rome two years ago and fell in love with strong, bitter coffee.”
The Saboteurs Page 14