“Thanks for the advice,” said Bell.
“What advice?”
Bell whipped the automatic from his shoulder holster and pressed the muzzle to her forehead.
“What are doing?”
“Francesca, reach into your blouse with two fingers.”
“What are you talking about, Isaac?”
“Lift out of your corset the steak knife you palmed at dinner.”
“What if I don’t?”
“I will blow your brains out,” said Bell.
“You’d be doing me a favor. Quicker than hanging. And a lot quicker than being locked in the bug house.”
Bell slid the muzzle down her nose and chin and neck and touched it to her shoulder. “This won’t kill you, but wherever you end up—bug house, prison, even escape—you’ll never use this arm again.”
The knife rang on the concrete.
“You look like a wreck,” said Archie Abbott when Isaac Bell finally stumbled into the Van Dorn field office.
Bell shook sleet off his coat and hat and warmed his hands over a radiator. “I feel like I’ve been up a week with that woman. She would not shut up.”
“Did she tell you anything useful?”
“How Branco will attempt to kill TR.”
“How does she know?”
“She was his apprentice. She knows how he operates. It won’t be a sniper or a bomb. It will be up close.”
38
They reported to the White House early in the morning. The President was exercising on a rowing machine. Van Dorn did the talking. When he had laid out the threat in succinct detail, he concluded, “For your own safety, Mr. President, and the good of the nation, I recommend curtailing your public appearances. And avoid al together any in the vicinity of the Catskill Aqueduct.”
“The aqueduct is the great enterprise of our age,” said President Roosevelt, “and I worked like a nailer to start it up when I was Governor. The very least I can do as President is lend my name and presence to the good men who took over the job. They’ll be at it for years, so celebrating the Storm King Siphon Tunnel is vital for morale.”
“Would you have the history books forever link the Catskill Aqueduct to your assassination?”
“Better than the history books saying, ‘TR turned tail and ran.’”
“I seem to have failed,” said Van Dorn, “in my effort to explain the danger.”
President Roosevelt hopped off his machine. “I grant you that J. B. Culp’s tendencies toward evil are indisputable. Culp is the greatest practitioner of rampant greed in the nation. His underhanded deals rend a terrible gulf between the wealthy few and the millions who struggle to put a meal on the table. Unchecked, his abuses will drive labor to revolution. He is as dangerous as the beast in the jungle and as sly as the serpent. But you have not a shred of evidence that he would attempt to assassinate me.”
“Nor do I have any doubt,” said Van Dorn.
“You have hearsay. The man is not a killer.”
“Culp won’t pull the trigger himself,” said Isaac Bell.
The President glanced at Van Dorn, who conf
irmed it with a grave nod.