The Assassin (Isaac Bell 8)

The brakeman ran alongside, spotted them again. His face lit with a triumphant grin. He was carrying something and he thrust it at them. It quivered like something alive. For a second Bell thought it was an animal or a baby. Wish Clarke recognized it for what it was and held on tight. “Gracias, amigo!” he called to the Georgian.

He held it up for the rest to see. “Wineskin!”

Down from the mountains at last, the oil train raced west, stopping only once for fuel and water. The day dawned bright and sunny. The air grew humid as the train descended toward the river delta from which had been carved the harbor of Batum. Wish, who had put a sizable dent in the wineskin, thrust it at Rockefeller. “Have a snort?”

“I don’t drink.”

“You’ll love it,” said Wish. “They sealed the skin with naphtha. The wine tastes like oil.”

Bell leaned out from the tank car to look ahead. He spotted the Black Sea.

—

The Constantinople steamer blew its whistle as Bell herded his people out of their phaetons.

“There’s Father,” cried Nellie.

Bill Matters was on the dock, heading for the gangway. When he saw his daughters, his grim features melted in a smile of relief and he scooped Edna and Nellie into his big arms like they were little girls.

“How did you make out in Moscow?” Rockefeller greeted him.

Matters’ expression hardened. “I was doing fine until they suddenly clammed up. Next day, they refused to see me at all. I pressed an official I had given a lot of money to. He claimed they were angry. They told him they had been betrayed—by you, Mr. Rockefeller.”

“How?”

“They wouldn’t tell me. Any idea why?”

“None at all,” said Rockefeller.

“What did you do?”

“Nothing. Don’t you understand? They threw dust in your eyes.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You gave up. You left Moscow too soon.”

“Do you want me to go back?”

“Wait until the disturbances settle down. For now, we’re going home.”

31

At Budapest, Isaac Bell surprised the party and he hoped the assassin, if he were nearby, by unexpectedly transferring everyone onto the Orient Express’s new section to Berlin.

“Berlin? You’re taking us the long way to Paris,” complained Rockefeller, who had insisted again on carrying his own bags to save European luggage fees when they boarded the Orient Express in Constantinople.

Bell took the heaviest from him. “We are not going to Paris. We’re joining SS Kaiser Wilhelm II at Bremen. There’s a boat train in Berlin.”

“Much better,” said Rockefeller, happily mollified. The North German Lloyd passenger liner held the Blue Riband for the fastest time across the Atlantic Ocean.

—

The boat train to Bremen steamed out of the German capital on Monday night, gathered speed through the suburbs, and highballed into the dark at sixty miles an hour.

Isaac Bell, Wish Clarke, Edna and Nellie Matters, and John D. Rockefeller gathered in the dining room that occupied the front half of

the observation car. They were studying menus and discussing, longingly, the prospect of soon eating American food again when Bill Matters burst into the car. He stormed past the club chairs and stopped short at their tables. His eyes were wild, his jaw clenched.