“I expect nothing less,” Goethals replied, appearing from behind the boiler. He saw Bell and Sam Westbrook standing at the base of the ladder. The Colonel spun so he could back down the iron rungs. They shook hands. “Bell, I’m glad you’re here. Did you find anything?”
“Nothing definitive, but I have my theories. We should talk back in your office. First, I need a word with your engineer. What’s his name?”
“Jack Scully. Be quick about it. Looks like rain’s coming. The Donkey can’t handle the ground down here when it rains.”
“It’ll only take a second.”
Bell climbed up onto the Bucyrus steam shovel and moved aft to where Scully and his assistant were on their hands and knees, peering into the guts of the blown boiler.
“Mr. Scully?”
“Who’s asking?” the man barked without climbing out of the boiler’s tank.
“My name is Bell. I’m a Van Dorn detective working with the Colonel on the whole Red Viper mess.” Bell could hear Scully and his aide talking, their voices muffled yet echoing inside the hollow cylinder. He was being ignored. “Sir?”
“I heard you. You haven’t said anything I give two bits about.”
“It’s just that I want to ask that you not jump to any conclusions as you determine the cause of the explosion.”
Bell had just poked a hornet’s nest with a very short stick. Scully scrambled from the boiler and rushed over so he was standing just a foot from Bell’s face. While Bell had seven inches on the engineer, that didn’t slow him one bit. His face was as flushed red as a boiled lobster. “Listen here, mister whoever the hell you are, the cause is sabotage. Those snake bastards destroyed one of my machines. I’ll find out how, don’t you worry none about that, but I tell you, here and now, that this was no accident.”
Bell opened his mouth to speak.
“You even think about saying this was our fault, that our maintenance wasn’t good enough, that she blew because of negligence, I will knock your block off.” Scully raised a fist so that it was under Bell’s nose. His hand was the size of a sledgehammer and looked just as hard.
“I’ll be with Colonel Goethals,” Bell drawled, unconcerned by the threat. “We’ll be at his office waiting for your report.”
Goethals was sitting in the Donkey’s cab next to Sam, so once Bell’d cranked the engine to life, he climbed onto the rear deck and took a seat with the doctor and his orderlies, plus the two wounded islanders. The five bodies were laid out on the floor between the last rows of seats, each swathed in a white sheet the orderlies had brought. No one talked during the long drive to Ancon Hospital. The engine was too loud, and the mood too dark, for conversation.
Bell sat alone with his thoughts after the others had been dropped off and the bodies removed so they could be taken to the morgue. The upcoming conversation with Goethals was critical. Bell’s arguments had to be irrefutable if he was going to convince the Colonel of the truth. The problem was, he had no evidence to present, nothing tangible. It was all conjecture, supposition, the very thing he wouldn’t tolerate from the witnesses back at the Culebra Cut.
Goethals was a practical man, a West Point graduate who was one of the finest civil engineers in the country. He didn’t build the canal using guesses and instinct. It took facts to build something like that, accurate maps, engineered schematics, detailed plans.
Isaac Bell had just one thing going for him and that was unshakable confidence that he was right.
He and Sam waited for two hours outside Goethals’s office as he made arrangements with a string of assistants and secretaries who paraded in and out of his inner sanctum as their boss dealt with this latest setback. Sam didn’t have a role to play, and should probably get back to his own job, but Bell was glad his friend stayed on. Bell used the time to compose a quick cable to the Van Dorn office in New York, asking for any known information on Otto Dreissen. Before handing the note over to Sam to send, he added a footnote, “Ask A. O. Girard.”
As the last secretary left, Bell heard Goethals say, “While we can replace the ruined machine with one of those we idled earlier this year, it was the hardest-working digging crew in the cut those bastards killed.”
“Yes, Colonel.”
“Send in Westbrook and the investigator.”
“Yes, Colonel.” The man opened the door and, gesturing, beckoned Sam and Bell.
A pall of stale cigarette smoke as thick as a London fog hung in the office. The windows were open, and a ceiling fan whirled high up near the ceiling, but neither made any headway with the rank cloud. Goethals was a chain-smoker, and the stress had upped his intake to the point his glass ashtray was overflowing, and it had been emptied just that morning.
“Sit down, you two,” Goethals greeted them without looking up from the folder on his desk. “Damn. These are recruiting figures for getting workers from Jamaica and Barbados. Down eight percent from last month, which was down four from the previous.” He looked up. “This is before the Red Vipers targeted the lock at Pedro Miguel and today’s attack. The zone will look like a ghost town in a few months.”
“Once we flood the cut and start working off dredges, we won’t need as much labor,” Sam said, trying to be optimistic.
Goethals ignored him. “What do you think, Bell? You said you had some theories about how they took out one of our excavators. Let’s hear it.”
“Your engineer, Jack Scully—I provoked him earlier by asking him to keep an open mind about what caused the explosion. He took it as a bold accusation that his negligence killed those men.”
“Not a wise thing to do, Bell. Jack Scully is quick to temper and lets his fists do their fair share of the talking.”
“I could tell that just by looking at him,” Bell agreed. “I needed him mad at someone other than the Red Vipers, so he stays focused on where the evidence leads him and not the preconceived notion that everyone currently has about what happened out there.”
Colonel Goethals looked at him warily. “What are you saying?”
Bell caught and kept his eye. “I am saying that Viboras Rojas didn’t attack that machine. If he’s as good as he looks, Scully will find that it was a tragic accident, plain and simple.”
“And how can you be so certain? Are you suddenly an expert on rail-mounted steam shovels?” His voice oozed wary sarcasm.
“No, Colonel. I’m an expert on people and their motivations. The Viboras didn’t hit the excavator because that organization doesn’t exist. And determing the explosion was an accident will be my proof.”
Smoke jetted from Goethals’s nostrils in a dismissive snort. “You claim to have recovered your faculties, Bell. I say you hit your head harder than you let on. What do you mean they don’t exist? I’ve got plenty of acts of sabotage, as well as dozens of dead men, that says otherwise.” Goethals crushed out the cigarette and turned his attention to Sam Westbrook. “You buy this nonsense? I thought you had a better head on your shoulders.”
“First I’ve heard of it. Isaac told me a connection to some German guy, but not this.”
“Explain yourself, Bell,” Goethals demanded, “and don’t waste my time doing it.”
“I’m not saying attacks didn’t take place, Colonel,” Bell replied, “but they weren’t carried out by a nativist insurrection whose goal is the overthrow of the government and, subsequently, to nationalize your canal. Viboras Rojas was fabricated by Court Talbot for the sole purpose of gaining him unrestricted and unsupervised access to Lake Gatun.”
Goethals looked at him for a long moment, lit another cigarette, and said, “I’ve heard enough. Get out. Both of you.”
“No, Colonel. You have to listen to me. Talbot and his men are the Red Vipers. I know this because of the identity of the bomber at Pedro Miguel.”
“Raul Morales,” Sam interjected, in case Colonel Goethals had forgotten. “Talbot’s driver’s
brother.”
“No. It wasn’t Raul,” Bell countered. “It really was the driver. Rinaldo.”
Goethals asked, “How can you be so sure?”
“That was the biggest thing I forgot when I had amnesia. Rinaldo is Talbot’s most trusted man, right? They are always together. For the sake of argument, let’s say Talbot was behind the Red Vipers. He would want his best and most trusted operative, Rinaldo, to carry out their most destructive act yet, one so heinous you would have to let him pursue the Viboras onto the lake.”
Goethals remained silent, doubtful.
Bell plowed on. “What he didn’t expect is me tracking and killing the bomber after the explosion. Right away, he had to distance himself from his driver, and so he told us it wasn’t Rinaldo but a brother named Raul. Do you recall in the lock chamber how Talbot pointed out that the corpse was missing the same finger as his driver?”
“I do,” Sam said. “You found it down in the tunnels under the lock.”
“Talbot had more than enough time to get to the body and shoot off the pinkie and toss it in the tunnel.”
“Why?”
“Because Rinaldo isn’t missing a finger, his brother Raul is. Rinaldo always wore these nice kidskin driving gloves, so I never saw whether it was one way or the other. We all just took Talbot’s word for it that Rinaldo was a finger short, and finding the body with the severed finger felt like proof the bomber was Raul and not Rinaldo. Talbot thought through and executed his plan while we were working on rescuing any survivors. He acted fast, lied cleverly, and fooled everyone.”
“But now you claim you weren’t fooled at all?” Goethals asked, one bushy eyebrow cocked.
“I was, at the time,” Bell conceded. “It was later, when I interviewed Morales on the boat in Gamboa, that I figured everything out. Even though I’d seen Rinaldo Morales on only two brief occasions, I have made my living on my powers of observation. The man Court Talbot presented as his driver was an impostor. Talbot claimed they were a year apart. He lied. Rinaldo and Raul were fraternal twins and closely matched to be sure, but I could tell right away that it wasn’t Rinaldo. The fact Talbot was peddling this charade was proof he was the mastermind behind the Viboras and all their attacks. I was going to come straight here after my meeting with him to tell you, Colonel, when they ambushed me on the road and almost killed me.”
“Any physical evidence of all this?”
“None, but I know what I saw.”
Goethals looked far from convinced but he hadn’t sent Bell packing. “You said earlier that Talbot wanted access to Lake Gatun. Why?”
“I don’t know that yet. I do know he has the only workboat on the lake, and that you hadn’t allowed him to leave Gamboa since the Chagres River was dammed up. And this isn’t really about Courtney Talbot either, Colonel. There’s another angle—well, two really—that I haven’t mentioned. I believe Talbot is just hired muscle working for a German industrialist named Otto Dreissen. The company he owns is called Essenwerks, and they have their finger in a lot of different pies.”
“I’ve met him at a couple receptions in the city,” Goethals said. “Typical cold fish Teutonic type.”
“He’s the one bankrolling this.”
When Goethals was about to ask the obvious question, Bell stopped him with a raised hand.
“I don’t know what he’s after, but it comes down to getting Talbot’s boat away from Gamboa and out on the broad lake. I do know that Dreissen is involved because I followed someone who tried to kill me out to his house on the coast road.”
George Washington Goethals was Army through and through, a West Point graduate and a man who governed by rules and regulations. Bell’s instincts told him that if he revealed he’d broken into Dreissen’s house, this interview would be over, so he lied.
“Armed with the address, I learned Dreissen’s name from a British expat here named Macalister. While I knew nothing of the man or his company, I was looking at that time into a possible European agent being behind the Viboras, and this man fit the bill. I cabled my office in New York for a biographical and business dossier.
“I believe the scheme played out like this. Dreissen wants access to Lake Gatun, for some unknown reason. Court Talbot has the only workboat on the lake, Dreissen hires him. You won’t just give him permission, so Dreissen and Talbot invent a fake insurgency that only Talbot can destroy. They create a backstory, a narrative, that is elaborate enough to begin taking on a life of its own. Remember, Talbot is well versed in guerrilla tactics because of his time in the Philippines fighting the Moro uprising. When the low-level stuff like robbing depots and derailing trains doesn’t get your attention in the way Talbot wants, he ups the stakes.”
“The business in California?”
“Yes, sir. Talbot went after your old West Point roommate, Senator Densmore. The plan was to have it look like the Viboras assassinated him, goading you on to the point where you would let Talbot out on the lake to hunt them down. The whole thing was a setup from the beginning, and had I known Spanish, I would have picked up on it sooner. Did you know Talbot has a nickname with some of the locals?”
“I didn’t.”
Sam Westbrook provided the name as he was familiar with Talbot’s legend. “He’s called Ojo Muerto, ‘Dead Eye.’ He’s a crack shot, with a pistol or rifle.”
Bell continued, “When we were attacked at the Hotel Del, Talbot didn’t expect me or Senator Densmore’s niece to be in on the meeting. I believe the original plan was for Talbot to murder the Senator while the gunman shot up the dining room to make it look like a brutal terrorist assault that he miraculously survives. The gunmen vanish into the night, and Talbot returns to Panama to exact your vengeance on your friend’s killers.
“It didn’t work as intended, obviously, but I noted that after the attack much of the Panamanians’ initial fire had been aimed well above our heads. They weren’t aiming at us initially because they didn’t want to hit their boss, Talbot, who spent much of the battle in the clutches of the Senator’s terrified niece and could do little until he’d disentangled from her. It wasn’t until I nailed a couple of them that they started to defend themselves and fire at me. The interesting thing is, the only shot that came near the Senator was fired just as he tripped going out the window. Had he not, it would have killed him. Dead Eye Talbot had a pistol in his hand, and the niece and the waiter had turned away. I believe he took that shot, only he missed. After that, the Panamanians tried to complete the busted mission by gunning for me and the Senator.”
The look on Goethals’s face told Bell he remained skeptical.
Bell knew he had one last chance to convince the Colonel or he was going to be shut out entirely, and Marion’s life would be all but forfeited. “I know what I’ve presented to you seems convoluted and contrived, but my conclusions are based on known facts and solid observation.
“Viboras Rojas acts like no other insurgency in history, and the fact it has no named leader is unprecedented. Its stated goal of stopping the canal’s construction and nationalizing it once it’s completed are farcical. Neither thing could ever happen. Yet even though it has no source of income, it somehow supports a small guerrilla army in the field.
“These three things alone make their very existence suspicious. What makes more sense is, they are an army of mercenaries hired to do a specific job under the guise of a nativist uprising because that makes them look more legitimate. The fact that Court Talbot is so hard-pressed about going after them makes me think of Shakespeare’s lady who doth protest too much. He wants unfettered access to the Canal Zone for reasons other than those he professes. Otto Dreissen is involved, I’ve seen it with my own eyes, and he likely is the financier and ultimate beneficiary of their plot.”
“Or,” Goethals said slowly, “a decorated war hero is lending a hand to a project of vital national importance by stopping a gang of murderous thoug
h, yes, delusional thugs from preying on its company and workers.”
“Sir, I—”
“Save it. I know Talbot a bit. The man’s a patriot. Bill Densmore vouches for him. That’s good enough, in my book. I don’t know you, Bell, but I do know you’ve taken a pretty bad crack to the skull and I don’t think you’re squared away just yet. Check yourself back into the hospital. Rest for a few days. Jack Scully is going to come back with evidence of sabotage, and you’ll come to realize the real truth. You can’t tell the difference between one Panamanian brother and the other because, as you said, you’d met only one of them briefly. That’s what your story hinges on, the misidentification of a stranger . . . Sam, take Mr. Bell back to Ancon and see that he gets a quiet room.”
“Yes, Colonel.”
“And one more thing, Bell. On my way from Gatun to the cut, I stopped in Gamboa. Court Talbot was back for supplies. He told me he’d engaged the Viboras on an inlet on the lake’s western side and showed me the bodies of the two men they’d killed, along with a couple guns and ten pounds of dynamite. I let you spin your tale out of respect for what you did at the Hotel Del and here at Pedro Miguel, but that’s enough of that. You need help.”
Isaac Bell was not used to being ignored, patronized even. He wasn’t mad, at least not yet. He was shocked. He had laid out everything as simply and logically as he could and yet Goethals didn’t believe him. It was a strange experience, coming so closely after his amnesia, that Bell felt the first worms of doubt creep into his mind.
He remembered feeling certain that Court Talbot was trying to pass off Raul Morales as his driver Rinaldo. What if that wasn’t it? What if he was certain about something else, and his mind was playing tricks on him? What if the damage to his brain caused by his tumble inside the water truck’s tank was far worse than he’d imagined? The implications sent a bolt of cold terror through his heart.
Just then, someone knocked on Goethals’s door, and Isaac about jumped out of his seat, he’d been so wrapped in his own, desperate thoughts.
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