The Titanic Secret (Isaac Bell 11)

“No.”

Fifteen minutes later, the five men were around a table at the corner pub, pints of good English beer at hand. The air was ripe with smoke, and the room buzzed with good cheer. The fire in the stone hearth was cherry red and crackled with warmth. Bell allowed himself to relax just a notch or two.

“So tell us,” Brewster said impatiently.

“Johnny Caldwell was in love with a woman he couldn’t have.”

“What’s that mean?” Walter Schmidt asked.

“He carried her picture. She could have almost passed, but she’s a Chinese girl, Walt, and while we live in an increasingly progressive society, that’s something a lot of people won’t understand or tolerate.” Bell let that sink in for a second. “I think someone in Paris discovered her picture and, knowing the social situation in America, explained to Johnny that there would be no legal barriers for him and his girl if they moved to France. I think they offered to set the young couple up in company housing with a company job. Johnny saw this as his chance to live happily ever after with the girl he loved.”

“And the price?” Charlie Widney asked, although they all understood what it was.

“Betrayal,” Bell said flatly. “He had to act as their agent in your midst, reporting back by radio when you were finished clearing that mountain out of its byzanium ore. That’s why the Lorient was so close by when we snuck you off Novaya Zemlya. They’d been waiting for Johnny’s message from the island that the job was completed. Because Joshua disabled the radio he’d found after Jake Hobart’s murder—a murder Johnny committed, by the way, because Jake had discovered the secret transceiver—Johnny bided his time and used the one on the Hvalur Batur.”

“Wait. What? Jake was murdered?” O’Deming cried before the others could raise the point.

“It’s true, fellas,” Brewster said. “Stabbed through the ear, he was. No doubt at all. I knew but said nothing, hoping I could catch the killer. I hope you can forgive me for not telling you all.”

“Joshua told me about the murder the night I heard footsteps outside my cabin on the ship and confirmed with Arn Bjørnson that one of you guys had spent time in the wireless room. I checked myself, and the set still retained some residual heat.”

“What’s that mean?” Warry O’Deming said.

“It’s proof someone used the radio on the whaler,” Charlie told him. “And that Johnny was willing to kill to keep everything a secret.”

“I’m just guessing here, but I don’t think Johnny planned to kill Jake Hobart. I believe he panicked.”

“Jake and Johnny were real close,” Joshua Brewster said. “Jake was showing the boy how to be a blaster, like an apprenticeship. Hell of a thing killing your mentor.”

“That bothered me most,” Bell admitted. “In talking with you all, I knew how tight those two were, so it had to have really eaten at John’s conscience to do what he did. But back on the train outside of Aberdeen, it was different. He must have seen we were escaping from the French and he was losing his chance at happiness with his girl. He saw his opportunity when I went back to unhook the cars. He threw Alvin out of the cab and then turned on Vern Hall. Vernon gave better than he got and he’s alive while Johnny’s dead.”

“Awful,” Walt Schmidt said.

“The truly

awful part is, Gly would have likely killed Johnny the first chance he got, only the lad was too naïve to know it.”

“What happens now, Mr. Bell?” O’Deming asked, wiping the foam mustache from his upper lip and setting his pint back on the table.

“We make our way to Southampton, where there’s space aboard a freighter bound for New York, and somehow we find a way to put this mess behind us.”

Brewster suddenly laughed in a tittering falsetto that was completely unlike him. “It’s only the past we can put behind us, Bell. This will never be our past. This will always be our present. We can’t escape it, you see, because we chose it in the first place.” He looked at his remaining men. “We made a pact with the devil. We wanted that ore and we made a deal with him for the stones and now we have to live up to the bargain. Right?”

He covered his face with his hands and rested his head on the table. His voice was a hoarse croak. “We all have to pay the price.”

Bell caught the embarrassed eyes of each remaining man. They knew all too well into what depths of madness the leader had sunk. They finished their beers in silence and went back to the hotel, Brewster walking like an automaton supported by Charlie and Bell.

36

Bell woke late the following morning and was immediately annoyed. Knowing his level of exhaustion, he’d left word with the hotel owner to wake him at seven. It was almost eight-thirty. They’d lost precious time.

Charlie Widney was asleep in the other bed. Bell called his name to wake him and dressed quickly. The inn was quiet. He knocked on the door for the room Schmidt and O’Deming shared and went down the stairs to rouse Brewster.

“Let’s go. We’ve all overslept.”

“What time is it?”

“Eight-thirty.” Bell checked on Vernon Hall. He looked a little better this morning yet remained unresponsive.