The Titanic Secret (Isaac Bell 11)

Bell thanked the guard and headed out. It was growing steadily darker and colder. He flipped up the jacket collar and crammed his hands into its pockets.

He found the bar at the very end of the main commercial street, closest to the waterfront. As promised, the sign over the front door showed a dog with fox-like ears and a bright yellow coat. The establishment wasn’t exactly a wharf dive, but it wasn’t much better. Before he mounted the steps up to a wooden porch that ran the width of the building, he noticed a group of men loitering up the street in the light cast by a flickering gas lamp. What piqued his interest was that they shared none of the laughter-filled banter of comrades out on the town for some fun. They stood in a tight circle, hunched against the cold, and with no obvious purpose for idling outdoors on a chilly night.

Bell’s natural suspicion went into overdrive.

The long winter was coming to a close and the whaling season would start soon enough. The locals had been patient with the slow grind of justice’s wheels over the past months. Now that they were getting ready to leave port again, it was possible some sought extra-judicial retribution against Ragnar Fyrie for poaching whales in their waters.

There were five men clustered around the gas lamp. Bell had no idea how many it took to crew a modern whaling ship, but his estimate was for far more than that and that this lot down the street was likely waiting for reinforcements.

The two quickest ways for men to become friends, Bell had learned over the years, was to either get drunk together or have each other’s back in a fight. He’d planned on the former to hire Fyrie for the mission to Novaya Zemlya, but now it looked like it was going to be the latter. He had his .45 holstered at the small of his back, praying it wouldn’t be needed. He had his stiletto boot knife at his ankle, and knowing he’d be spending time near the dockyards, he carried brass knuckles in his coat pocket.

Bell climbed up onto the porch and let himself into the bar. The interior was dim, and the air was so full of tobacco smoke, it reminded him of being downwind of a wildfire in Southern California. Under the haze, like the afternotes of a particularly foul wine, lingered the smell of spilled liquor, sweaty men, and the reek of whale oil. Few of the patrons, all male, shot him even a passing glance before turning back to their solo drinks or crowded tables. The floors were bare wood covered with a layer of sawdust so infused with alcohol that some spots were as slick as an ice rink. The plank and plaster ceiling was virtually black with a century’s worth of soot.

He scanned the room quickly, making assessments each time his eyes flicked from group to group and person to person. One table stood out immediately. It sat in the far corner, and the men at it all had their backs to the wall, an inconvenient arrangement for conversation but one that was easy to defend.

Ragnar Fyrie had been described to Bell as handsome, blond, younger than expected, and someone who has that certain something.

There was a total of eight men at the table, with Fyrie at the center. He sensed Bell’s scrutiny and returned the look with a hint of detached curiosity. Bell had taken the temperature of the room. There was no open hostility toward Fyrie and his men, and there was no love either. Approaching the Icelandic whalers wouldn’t get Isaac a shiv in the back, but it wouldn’t likely gain him any friends.

Bell strode over and stood before Fyrie, holding the man’s steady gaze. The two of them were handsome and blond-haired, yet whereas Bell’s looks were classically masculine, Fyrie had a delicacy to his features that didn?

??t jibe with the clichéd image of a salt-toughened seaman. He was already forty, and apart from just a crinkle around his blue eyes, his face was as unlined as a youth’s. Bell pictured him at the helm of a sleek yacht out of some wealthy East Coast enclave like Providence or Hyannis Port.

“English?” Isaac asked.

A twitch of a smile lifted the corner of his mouth and made his eyes brighten. “Icelandic, actually, but I suspect you know that. And, yes, I speak English.” With his Norse accent, his voice had a lyric quality that didn’t conform to the stereotype but somehow managed to convey strength and elicit respect.

“There are five men waiting up the street who I can only guess are looking for a fight. I call it seven minutes before they come through that door.”

Fyrie nodded as if this news wasn’t unexpected. “It was bound to happen. They’re off a local boat called the Isbjørn—that means ‘polar bear.’ They had a terrible season last year and blame us. Thanks for letting me know. What’s your interest?”

“My name is Isaac Bell, Captain, and I need you and your crew healthy enough so I can hire you for a particular job.”

18

Ragnar Fyrie used a foot to push out a chair on Bell’s side of the round table. Bell sat and accepted a mug of beer poured from a half-finished pitcher. The beer was room temperature but richly flavored. “Mr. Bell, apart from the fight we’re about to have against a larger crew, there is the problem of my ship impounded and my crew on—let’s call it precautionary probation. How can we possibly help you and your, ah, particular job?”

Bell liked Fyrie’s style. As described, he was charming yet distant, and he had a certain quality—a sangfroid, perhaps, or just a devil-may-care attitude—that he wore well.

“Are you familiar with the M Line?”

The captain nodded. “Black Jack McCallister. Not personally but by reputation. They’re a good outfit. Fast ships on the North Atlantic route. Well-trained crews.”

“Their chief engineer and I have come up with a plan to get your ship clear of the harbor without raising suspicion.”

“If only that were true,” Fyrie said with an overly dramatic sigh before turning very serious. “Did your plan factor in that the Hvalur Batur is guarded twenty-four hours a day, that her bunkers were emptied of all her coal, and there isn’t a tug within sixty miles that’s powerful enough to move her? Oh, and that she and her crew, including yours truly, are the subjects of intense international negotiations, with jail time, or at least a massive fine, as the inevitable outcome?”

Bell took a slow, deliberate sip of beer. “Didn’t know about the guard, actually, but that’s an easy fix.”

Fyrie paused, studying the detective for a moment, before laughing aloud. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“About this? Absolutely.”

“Okay. Tell me your plan and I will consider your particular job.”

That was as far as the conversation went. The bar door opened. Bell didn’t need to turn around to know the crew of the rival whaling boat had entered the room. He knew by how grim Fyrie’s crew started to look. As for the captain himself, it seemed the more men entered the bar, the more he reveled in the challenge.

Bell didn’t need to understand the words that went back and forth between the opposing captains. He’d heard such confrontations many times before and there was little variation in the verbal lead-up to an all-out fight. So universal was the theme that it was almost a scripted set piece. The only thing he hadn’t expected was that the crew from the Norwegian whaler Isbjørn was led by a black-bearded captain who stood a solid six feet six inches.