Night Probe! (Dirk Pitt 6)

"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 fin

e."

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.