Night Probe! (Dirk Pitt 6)

Pitt set aside the teacup. "Then my search ends here."

"No, Mr. Pitt," said Le Mat, "not here." Pitt looked at him, saying nothing. "Down there," Le Mat went on, nodding toward the deck. "The Empress of Ireland lies beneath us." He pointed out a cabin window.

"There floats her marker."

Fifty feet off the port side of the boat an orange buoy rose and fell gently on the icy river, its line stretching through the dark waters to the silent wreck below.

Pitt swung his rented minicar off the state thruway and entered a narrow paved road adjoining the Hudson River shortly after sunset. He passed a stone marker designating a Revolutionary War site and was tempted to stop and stretch his legs, but decided to press on to his destination before it became dark. The scenic river was beautiful in the fading light, the fields that dipped to the water's edge glistened under a late winter snowfall.

He stopped for gas at a small station below the town of Coxsackie. The attendant, an elderly man in faded coveralls, stayed inside the office, his feet propped on a metal stool in front of a wood burning stove. Pitt filled the tank and entered. The attendant peered around him at the pump. "Looks like twenty dollars even," he said.

Pitt handed him the cash. "How much further to Wacketshire?"

His eyes squinted in suspicion as they studied Pitt like probes. "Wacketshire? It ain't been called that in years. Fact of the matter is, the town don't exist no more."

"A ghost town in upstate New York? I'd have thought the southwest desert a more likely place."

"No joke, mister

. When the railroad line was torn up back in '49, Wacketshire gave up and died. Most of the buildings were burned down by vandals. Nobody lives there anymore except some fella who makes statues."

"Is anything left of the old track bed?" Pitt asked.

"Most of it's gone," said the old man, his expression turning wistful. "Damned shame, too." Then he shrugged. "At least we didn't have to see them smelly diesels come through here. The last train over the old line was pulled by steam."

"Perhaps steam will return someday."

"I'll never live to see it." The attendant looked at Pitt with growing respect. "How come you're interested in a deserted railroad?"

"I'm a train nut," Pitt lied without hesitation. He seemed to be getting quite good at it lately. "My special interest is the classic trains. At the moment I'm researching the Manhattan Limited of the New York & Quebec Northern system."

"That's the one that fell through the Deauville Bridge. Killed a hundred people, you know."

"Yes," Pitt said evenly, "I know."

The old man turned and gazed out the window. "The Manhattan Limited is special," he said. "You can always tell when it comes down the line. It has a sound all its own."

Pitt wasn't sure he heard right. The attendant was speaking in the present tense. "You must be talking about a different train."

"No, sir. I've watched the old Manhattan Limited come hootin' and clankin' down the track, whistle a-blowin', headlight a-glowin', just like it did the night it went in the river."

The old-timer spoke of seeing the phantom train as nonchalantly as if he were describing the weather.

It was dusk when Pitt stopped his car at a small turnout in the road. A cold wind was rolling in from the north, and he zipped an old leather driving jacket to his neck and turned up the collar. He slipped a knit ski cap over his head and stepped out of the car, locking the doors.

The colors in the western sky were altering from orange to a blue-purple as he trudged across a frozen field toward the river, his boots crunching on a four-inch layer of snow. He realized that he had forgotten his gloves, but rather than return to the car and lose minutes of the ebbing daylight, he jammed his hands deeper in his pockets.

After a quarter of a mile he reached a belt of hickory trees and low shrubs. He picked his way around the frozen branches, which sprouted strange growths of ice crystals, and came to a high embankment.

The slopes were steep and he had to use his hands to claw his way up the wind-glazed slippery surface to the top.

At last, his fingers frozen numb, he stood on the long abandoned track bed. It was badly eroded in places and covered by tangles of dead and ice-stiffened weeds protruding from the snow. The once busy railroad was only a distant memory.

In the dimming light Pitt's eyes picked out the telltale relics of the past. A few rotting crossties half buried in the ground, an occasional rusty spike, scattered rock from the track ballast. The telegraph poles still stood, stretching off into infinity like a line of straggling, battle-weary soldiers. Their weathered crossbeams were still bolted in place.

Pitt took his bearings and began trudging along a slight curve that led up the grade to the empty bridge crossing. The air was sharp and tingled his nostrils. His breath formed shapeless mists that quickly vanished. A rabbit darted in front of him and leaped down the embankment.

Dusk had deepened to night. He no longer cast a shadow when he stopped and stared down at the icy river 150 feet below. The stone abutment of the Deltuville-Hudson bridge seemed to lead to nowhere.