Clive Cussler dp-6

by Night Probe!

  "Not even a rivet," Pitt answered. "We're closing the project down."

  "That's a shame," Magee said sincerely. "I was rooting for your success. I guess the train wasn't meant to be found."

  "Not in the river at any rate."

  "More coffee, anyone?" Annie came around with-the pot.

  "I'll take some," said Pitt. "Thank you."

  "You were saying." Magee probed.

  "Do you own one of those little motorcars that railroad gangs ride on when they repair track?" Pitt asked, changing the subject.

  "I have an eighty-year-old handcar that moves on muscle power."

  "May I borrow it along with your phantom train gear?"

  "When do you want to use it?"

  "Now."

  "On a stormy night like this?"

  "Especially on a stormy night like this."

  Giordino took up his station on the platform bordering the tracks. In one hand he held a large flashlight. The wind had died down to ten miles an hour, and by keeping to the corner of the depot he was sheltered from the sweeping rain.

  Chase was not so lucky. He stood huddled atop the handcar a quarter of a mile up the track. For perhaps the tenth time he dried off the battery terminals and checked the wires leading to the locomotive headlamp and sound speakers that were jury rigged on the front of the handcar.

  Pitt stepped to the doorway and made a signal with his hand. Giordino acknowledged it and then jumped down onto the track bed and blinked his flashlight into the darkness.

  "About damned time," Chase mumbled to himself as he pushed the battery switch and began pumping the hand levers.

  The headlamp's beam glinted on the wet rails and the whistle shriek was swept ahead by a following gust of wind. Pitt hesitated, timing in his mind the advance of the handcar. Satisfied that Chase was approaching at a good clip, he reentered the office and absorbed the warmth from the stove. "We're rolling," he said briefly.

  "What do you hope to learn by recreating the robbery?" asked Magee.

  "I'll know better in a few minutes," Pitt replied evasively.

  "I think it's exciting," Annie bubbled.

  "Annie, you act out the role of Hiram Meechum, the telegrapher, while I play the station agent, Sam Harding," Pitt instructed. "Mr. Magee, you're the authority. I'll leave it to you to take the part of Clement Massey and lead us through the events step by step."

  "I'll try," Magee said. "But it's impossible to reconstruct the exact dialogue and movements of seventy-five years ago."

  "We won't need a perfect performance," Pitt grinned. "A simple run-through will do fine."

  Magee shrugged. "Okay…... let's see, Meechum was seated at the table in front of the chessboard. Harding had just taken a call from the dispatcher in Albany, so he was standing near the phone when Massey entered."

  He walked to the doorway and turned around, holding out his hand in simulation of a gun. The locomotive sounds drew nearer and mingled with the occasional boom of thunder. He stood there a few seconds listening, and then he nodded his head. "This is a holdup," he said. Annie looked at Pitt, unsure of what to do or say.

  "After the surprise wore off," said Pitt, "the railroad men must have put up an argument."

  "Yes, when I interviewed Sam Harding he said they tried to tell Massey there was no money in the depot, but he wouldn't listen. He insisted that one of them open the safe."

  "They hesitated," Pitt conjectured.

  "In the beginning," said Magee, his voice taking on a hollow tone. "Then Harding agreed, but only if he could flag the train first. Massey refused, claiming it was a trick. He became impatient and fired a bullet through Meechum's chessboard."

  Annie hesitated, a blank look on her face. Then, carried away by her imagination, she swept the board off the table and scattered the chess pieces over the floor.

  "Harding begged, tried to explain that the bridge was out. Massey would have none of it."

  The headlamp beam on the handcar flashed through the window. Pitt could see that Magee's eyes were looking into another time. "Then what happened?" Pitt prompted.

  "Meechum grabbed a lantern and made an attempt to reach the platform and stop the train. Massey shot him in the hip." Pitt turned. "Annie, if you please?"

  Annie rose from her chair, made a few steps toward the door and eased down in a reclining position on the floor.

  The handcar was only a hundred yards away now. Pitt could read the dates on the calendar hanging on the wall from the headlamp. "The door?" Pitt snapped. "Open or closed." Magee paused, trying to think. "Quickly, quickly!" Pitt urged. "Massey had kicked it closed."

  Pitt pushed the door shut. "Next move?"

  "Open that damned safe! Yes, Massey's very words, according to Harding."

  Pitt hurried over and knelt in front of the old iron safe.

  Five seconds later the handcar, with Chase pumping up a sweat, rolled by on the track outside, the bass of the speakers reverberating throughout the old wooden building. Giordino stood and swung the flashlight at the windows in a wide circular motion, making it seem to those inside that the beam was flickering past the window glass in the wake of the handcar. The only sound missing was the clack of the steel coach wheels.

  A shiver crept up Magee's spine and gripped him all the way to the scalp. He felt as if he had touched the past, a past he had never truly known.

  Annie lifted herself from the floor and put her arms around his waist. She looked up into his face, her expression strangely penetrating. "It was so real," Magee murmured. "All so damn real."

  "That's because our reenactment was the way it happened back in nineteen fourteen," said Pitt.

  Magee turned and stared at Pitt. "But there was the real Manhattan Limited then."

  Pitt shook his head. "There was no Manhattan Limited then."

  "You're wrong. Harding and Meechum saw it."

  "They were tricked," Pitt said quietly.

  "That can't be…..." Magee began, then stopped, his eyes wide in un comprehension He started over. "That can't be…... they were experienced railroad men…... they couldn't be fooled."

  "Meechum was lying wounded on the floor. The door was closed. Harding was bent over the safe, his back to the tracks. All they saw were lights. All they heard were sounds. Sounds from an old gramophone recording of a passing train."

  "But the bridge…... it collapsed under the weight of the train. That couldn't be faked."

  "Massey blew the bridge in sections. He knew one big bang would have alerted half the valley. So he detonated small charges of black powder at key structure points, coinciding the blasts with the thunderclaps, until the center span finally gave way and dropped in the river."

  Magee, still puzzled, said nothing.

  "The robbery of the station was only a sham, a cover-up. Massey had bigger things on his mind than a measly eighteen dollars. He was after a two-million-dollar gold-coin shipment carried on the Manhattan Limited."

  "Why go to all the trouble?" Magee asked doubtfully. "He could have simply stopped the train, held it up and made off with the coins."

  "That's how Hollywood might have filmed it," said Pitt. "But in real life there's always a catch. The coins in question were twenty-dollar pieces called St. Gaudens. They each weighed close to one ounce. Simple arithmetic tells us that it took a hundred thousand coins to make two million dollars. Then allow sixteen ounces to a pound, do a little dividing and you come up with a shipment weighing over three tons. Not exactly a bundle a few men could unload and haul away before railroad officials figured the cause of the train's delay and sent a posse charging down the tracks."

  "All right," said Giordino. "I'll bite and ask the question on everyone's mind. If the train didn't pass through here and take a dive in the Hudson, where did it go?"

  "I think Massey took over the locomotive, diverted the train from the main track and hid it where it remains to this day."

  If Pitt had claimed to be a visitor from Venus or the reincarnation of Napoleon Bonapart
e, his words couldn't have received a more dubious reception. Magee looked downright apathetic. Only Annie had a thoughtful expression.

  "In some respects, Mr. Pitt's theory isn't as farfetched as it sounds," she said.

  Magee stared at her as if she was an errant child. "Not one passenger or crewman who survived to tell the tale, or a robber confessing on a deathbed, not even a corpse to point a finger? Not a fragment from an entire train come to light after all these years…... not possible."

  "It would have to be the greatest vanishing act of all time," added Chase.

  Pitt did not look as though he was listening to the conversation. He suddenly turned to Magee. "How far is Albany from here?"

  "About twenty-five miles. Why do you ask?"

  "The last time anyone saw the Manhattan Limited up close was when it left the Albany station."

  "But surely you can't really believe."

  "People believe what they want to believe," said Pitt. "Myths, ghosts, religion and the supernatural. My belief is that a cold, tangible entity has simply been misplaced for three quarters of a century in a place where nobody thought to look."

  Magee sighed. "What are your plans?"

  Pitt looked surprised at the question. "I'm going to eyeball every inch of the deserted track bed between here and Albany," he said grimly, "until I find the remains of an old rail spur that leads to nowhere."

  The telephone rang at 11:15 p.m. Sandecker laid aside the book he was reading in bed and answered.

  "Sandecker."

  "Pitt again."

  The admiral pushed himself to a sitting position and cleared his mind. "Where are you calling from this time?"

  "Albany. Something has come up."

  "Another problem with the salvage project?"

  "I called it off."

  Sandecker took a deep breath. "Do you mind telling me why?"

  "We were looking in the wrong place."

  "Oh, Christ," he groaned. "That tears it. Damn. No doubt at all?"

  "Not in my mind."

  "Hang on."

  Sandecker picked out a cigar from a humidor on the bedside table and lit it. Even though the trade embargo with Cuba had been lifted in 1985, he still preferred the milder flavor and looser wrap of a Honduras over the Havana. He always felt that a good cigar kept the world at bay. He blew out a rolling cloud and came back on the line. "Dirk."

  "Still here."

  "What do I tell the President?"

  There was silence. Then Pitt spoke slowly and distinctly. "Tell him the odds have dropped from a million to one to a thousand to one."

  "You found something?"

  "I didn't say that."

  "Then what are you working on?"

  "Nothing more than a gut feeling."

  "What do you need from me?" asked Sandecker.

  "Please get ahold of Heidi Milligan. She's staying at the Gramercy Park Hotel in New York. Ask her to dig into old railroad archives for any maps that show New York Quebec Northern Railroad tracks, sidings aivd spurs between Albany and the Deauville-Hudson bridge during the years eighteen eighty to nineteen fourteen."

  "Okay, I'll take care of it. Got her number?"

  "You'll have to get it from information."

  Sandecker took a long puff on the cigar. "How does it look for Monday?"

  "Grim. You can't rush these things."

  "The President needs that treaty copy."

  "Why?"

  "Don't you know?"

  "Moon clammed up when I asked."

  "The President is speaking before the House of Commons and the Senate of the Canadian Parliament. His speech centers around a plea for merging our two countries into one. Alan Mercier let me in on it this morning. Since Quebec went independent, the Maritime Provinces have been considering statehood. The President is hoping to talk the Western Provinces into joining too. That's where a signed copy of the North American Treaty comes in. Not to coerce or threaten, but to eliminate the red-tape jungle of the transition and stonewall any objections and interference from the United Kingdom. His pitch for a unified North America is only fifty-eight hours away. You get the action?"

  "Yes…..." Pitt said sullenly. "I've got it now. And while you're at it, thank the President and his little group for letting me know at the last minute."

  "Would it have mattered otherwise?"

  "No, I guess not."

  "Where can Heidi get in touch with you?"

  "I'll keep the De Soto moored at the bridge site as a command post. All calls can be relayed from there." There was nothing more to say. So Sandecker simply said, "Good luck."

  "Thanks," Pitt came back. And then the line went dead.

  Sandecker had the number of Heidi's hotel in less than a minute. He dialed direct and waited for the connection.

  "Good evening, Gramercy Park Hotel," a sleepy female voice answered.

  "Commander Milligan's room, please."

  A pause. "Yes, room three sixty-seven. I'll ring."

  "Hello," a man answered.

  "Is this Commander Milligan's room?" Sandecker demanded impatiently.

  "No, sir, this is the assistant manager. The commander is out for the evening."

  "Any idea when she'll return?"

  "No sir, she didn't stop at the desk when she left."

  "You must have a photographic memory," said Sandecker suspiciously.

  "Sir?"

  "Do you recognize all your guests when they pass through the lobby?"

  "When they're very attractive ladies who stand six feet tall and wear a cast on one leg, I do."

  "I see."

  "May I give her a message?"

  Sandecker thought a moment. "No message. I'll call again later."

  "One minute, sir. I think she passed by and entered the elevator while we've been talking. If you'll hold on, I'll have the switchboard ring her room and transfer your call."

  In room 367 Brian Shaw laid down the receiver and walked into the bathroom. Heidi lay in the tub, covered by a blanket of bubbles, her cast-enclosed leg propped awkwardly on the edge of the tub. Her hair was covered by a plastic shower cap and she lazily held an empty glass in one hand.

  "Venus, born of the foam and the sea." Shaw laughed. "I wish I had a picture of this."

  "I can't reach the champagne," she said, pointing to a magnum of Tattinger brut reserve vintage in an ice bucket perched on the washbasin. He nodded and filled her glass. Then he poured the remainder of the chilled champagne over her breasts.

  She yelped and tried to splash him, but he ducked nimbly back through the doorway. "I owe you for that," she shouted.

  "Before you declare war, you've got a call."

  "Who is it?"

  "I didn't ask. Sounds like another dirty old man." He nodded at a wall phone mounted between the tub and the commode. "You can take it here. I'll hang up the extension."

  As soon as her voice came on the line, Shaw clicked the connection and then kept his ear pressed to the receiver. When Heidi and Sandecker finished their conversation, he waited for her to hang up. She didn't.

  Smart girl, he thought. She didn't trust him.

  After ten seconds he finally heard the disconnect as she placed the handset in its cradle. Then he dialed the hotel switchboard.

  "May I help you?"

  "Yes, could you ring room three sixty-seven in a minute and ask for Brian Shaw? Please don't say who you are."

  "Nothing else?"

  "When Shaw himself answers, just punch off the connection. "Yes, sir."

  Shaw returned to the bathroom and peered around the door. "Truce?"

  Heidi looked up and smiled. "How'd you like it if I did that to you?"

  "The sensation wouldn't be the same. I'm not built like you. "Now I'll reek of champagne."

  "Sounds delicious." The phones in the suite jangled.

  "Probably for you," he said casually.

  She reached over and answered, then held the handset toward him. "They asked for Brian Shaw. Perhaps you'd like to take
it in the other room."

  "I have no secrets," he said, grinning slyly.

  He muttered through a one-sided conversation and then hung up. He made an angered expression.

  "Damn, that was the consulate. I have to meet with someone."

  "At this time of night?" she asked.

  He leaned down and kissed her toes that protruded from the end of the cast. "Revel in anticipation. I'll be back in two hours.

  The curator of the Long Island Railroad Museum was an elderly retired accountant who nourished a lifelong passion for the iron horse. He walked yawning through the relics on display while grumbling incessantly about being abruptly awakened in the dead of night to open the building for an FBI agent.

  He came to an antique door whose glass was etched with an elk standing on a mountain, looking down on a diamond stacked locomotive puffing a great billow of smoke as it rounded a sharp curve. He fished around with a large ring until he found the right key. Then he unlocked the door, swung it open and switched on the lights.

  He paused and stuck out an arm, blodking Shaw's way. "Are you sure you're an FBI man?"

  Shaw sighed at the stupid wording of the question and produced a hastily forged ID card for the third time. He waited patiently for the curator to read the fine print again.

  "I assure you, Mr. Rheinhold."

  "Rheingold. Like the beer."

  "Sorry, but I assure you the bureau wouldn't have put you to all this bother if the matter wasn't most urgent."

  Rheingold looked up at him. "Can you tell me what this is all about?"

  "Afraid not."

  "An Amtrak scandal. I bet you're investigating an Amtrak scandal."

  "I can't say."

  "A train robbery maybe. Must be pretty confidential. I haven't seen any mention on the six o'clock news."

  "Might I ask if we can get on with it," Shaw said impatiently. "I'm in a bit of a rush."

  "Okay, just asking," Rheingold said, disappointed.

  He led the way down an aisle bordered by high shelves crammed with bound volumes on railroading, most of them long out of print. He stopped at the end of one bookcase containing large portfolios, peered through the bottom lenses of his bifocals and read the titles aloud.

  "Let's see, track layouts for the New Haven Hartford, the Lake Shore Michigan Southern, Boston Albany…... ah, here it is, the New York Quebec Northern." He carried the portfolio over to a table and untied the strings on the cover. "Great railroad in its day. Over two thousand miles of track. Ran a crack express called the Manhattan Limited. Any particular section of the track you're interested in?"