The Titanic Secret (Isaac Bell 11)

Bell was shocked and saddened. He had no idea these men had lost so much. They’d lost everything, in fact.

Rather than giving in to gloom, Fyrie said rather agreeably, “It’s a good thing this tub’s insured for double her value and that we were able to convert our whale oil to gold kroner before the Norwegians threw us into impound.” He looked to Bell. “I guess this is when we shift away from whaling. Like we talked that night when we first hit the pack ice.”

“Double insurance?” Bell asked.

“The man from Lloyd’s insisted two years ago when we sailed to Antarctica. They never figured we’d survive to collect it if we had a claim. They also never reduced the coverage once we got back, and I wasn’t going to remind them of their mistake. We’ll put a little aside for Petr’s parents, since he wasn’t married, and the rest should set us up nicely with a couple of trawlers. And an idea I have for a fish-processing ship at sea.”

“Or . . .” Ivar said with a raised eyebrow as though he had a better idea.

“Forget it, old friend. We’re not going to dredge the coast of Africa looking for diamonds. We’re sailors of the blue water, not coastal flat wallowers playing in the mud.”

28

It was a three-and-a-half-day journey from where they sank the French vessel to the Port of Aberdeen on Scotland’s northeast coast. Bell wasn’t concerned that the saboteur would strike again. He’d gambled that his allies were close enough to see the smoke from the fire he’d set below the harpoon gun and that they’d reach the whaler before flames consumed the ship. With the Lorient destroyed, the man had no means of escape until they reached land, so Bell was sure the Société des Mines’s agent would play nice until then.

With the ice far behind them and the weather pleasant enough, for the far North Atlantic, Bell had more time to resolve which of the Coloradans was his man. He had to be honest and say that little distinguished the remaining eight miners from one another apart from a few superficial attributes like size and build.

At the best of times, they were mostly taciturn and unsmiling. None were married or had children, and, apart from Brewster, none were educated beyond a functional level of literacy and some math. They knew little, other than mining for gold and silver, but all agreed that signing on to Brewster’s crazy scheme would net them more money than they ever could among the slag heaps and mine shafts of their native Rocky Mountains.

Add the horrific experiences on Novaya Zemlya, the acute food poisoning they’d all suffered, and it made for this truly sullen group.

Bell observed and interacted, asked questions and doled out answers, but as they entered their last night before reaching port, he admitted defeat. He was no closer to identifying the perpetrator than when he started. His frustration was like ash on his tongue. He could have forgiven himself had his adversary been a trained operative, an agent provocateur of some sort who’d been schooled in the arts of espionage, but that wasn’t the case. He’d been foiled by a rough-hewn laborer with no tradecraft or experience.

He called a meeting of all the miners prior to dinner in the mess. Fifteen minutes before addressing

the men, he stopped at Joshua Brewster’s cabin to outline his plans. Brewster hadn’t left his room much except to take a little food around noon each day. He had always been a slightly built man, but his countenance now was that of a skeleton. All spare flesh had been melted off his frame. His cheeks were sunken and cadaverous, and the bones of his hands looked like they were about to erupt from under his skin. His eyes were haunted by demons that drew closer and closer each day.

Bell felt certain that if Brewster’s health didn’t turn the corner soon, he’d be dead in a fortnight.

“What is it?” he rasped when Bell entered his cabin. The room smelled of unwashed clothing and fever.

“I’ve decided to leave you all in Aberdeen, as I’d first suggested.”

The haunted look turned instantly to one of rage. “Like hell you will.”

“Be reasonable, Brewster. We land in Scotland tomorrow, and I haven’t been able to determine which one of your men is a murderer and saboteur. I can only safely eliminate you and Vern Hall from my suspects list because of your cabin location.”

“You’re the detective. Figure it out. I am not letting the byzanium out of my sight until I hand it over to Colonel Patmore in Washington, D.C. Vern’ll demand coming along too. Hell, they all will.” His defiance softened, and he spoke candidly, raw emotion barely in check. “You don’t understand what it means to us. We left our hearts and souls back in that mine. It broke us, Mr. Bell. I can admit that to you. It broke every man jack of us. Delivering the ore is going to be our final act. Our reward. Knowing it’s in safe hands means more to me than whatever miserable time I have left on earth.”

Bell took a breath. Foster Gly and Yves Massard were doubtless expecting their agents on the Lorient to have successfully hijacked the precious ore and be on the way to Paris, so there was little chance of violent reception in England, yet Bell wasn’t taking any chances. He wanted armed guards to accompany the byzanium until it set sail for the States. It would have been better if he could go straight to the authorities and request help, but of course that was impossible.

He could just imagine the diplomatic implications of American miners transporting illegally obtained Russian minerals that they’d stolen from the French company that hired them in the first place. And then he considered that they arrived on a ship that had been snatched out of impound due to a dispute between Iceland and Norway. He wasn’t sure if there was enough of them to go around for all interested parties getting the proverbial pound of flesh. It was best to keep everything in-house, so to speak.

His plan was to hold the ore on the ship until he could cable Joel Wallace at the Van Dorn office in London. It was a small operation, but Wallace would have locals he could hire, men he trusted with odd jobs. He would order Wallace and a few English cohorts to travel up to Aberdeen and rendezvous in the harbor. Then they, with maybe Brewster and Hall, would escort the byzanium by rail to Southampton.

Bell hadn’t yet made arrangements to ship the ore back to the States, but that was an easy enough task. Freighters and liners crisscrossed the Atlantic with the frequency of New York taxis cutting through Central Park. He lamented the loss of the wireless set, as some of these details could have been handled while they were still at sea. For his part, Bell had a promise to keep, so he already had tickets for the trip home.

He was certain Brewster wasn’t the murderer, and neither was Vernon Hall. Other than the fact both men should be in a hospital and not traveling the length of the British Isles, there was no real downside to them coming along again. If they were healthy enough, the two could even accompany the crates of ore on the journey back to America if they didn’t entrust them to a freight forwarder, as was the custom with such cargo.

His decision wasn’t a difficult one. “Fine. You and Vernon can come with us. I get it, I understand the sacrifice your men made. But one of the others didn’t bust his gut in that mine—for glory or whatever you promised to pay him. He was there to collect whatever the French promised him too. And it’s clear he’ll stop at nothing to get what he wants. So the rest of your men remain in Aberdeen. Agreed?”

Brewster stroked the bridge of his nose with a bony finger in a nervous gesture. “They won’t like it none.”

“I don’t care. They stay behind or you all stay behind. Those are the choices.”

“What do I tell them?”

“Nothing!” Bell snapped with more ire than he’d intended. “We don’t tip our hand until the last second. When we dock, I’ll have Captain Fyrie make up some story about a quarantine—no one leaves the ship. Only when my people arrive from London do we transfer the ore crates to a truck and eventually the railroad. If we can, we’ll sneak off the ship at night, and they’ll be none the wiser. If not, I’ll tell your men there isn’t enough room to transport them. It doesn’t matter, so long as they remain here. I’m sure Fyrie and his crew can keep them until our train’s out of the station.”