The Spy (Isaac Bell 3)

22

THE SPY SUMMONED HIS GERMAN AG

ENT WITH A CRYPTIC note left at his Camden rooming house. They met in Philadelphia in a watchman’s shack on a barge tied to the west bank of the Delaware directly across the busy river from the shipyard. Through an ever-moving scrim of tugboats, lighters, ships, ferries, and coal smoke they could see the stern of the Michigan thrusting her propellers out the back of the shed that covered her ways. The river was only a half mile wide, and they could hear the steady drumbeat of carpenters pounding wooden wedges.

The ship workers had built a gigantic wooden cradle big enough to carry the 16,000-ton ship down greased rails from her building place on land to her home in the water. Now they were raising the cradle up to her by driving wedges under it. When the wedges pressed the cradle tightly against the hull, they would continue hammering them until the cradle lifted the ship off her building blocks.

The German was glum.

The spy said, “Listen. What do you hear?”

“They’re hammering the wedges.”

The spy had earlier passed close by in a steam launch to observe the scene under the hull, which was painted with a dull red undercoat. The “hammers” were actually rams, long poles tipped with heavy heads.

“The wedges are thin,” he said. “How much does each blow raise the cradle?”

“You’d need a micrometer to measure.”

“How many wedges?”

“Gott in Himmel, who knows. Hundreds.”

“A thousand?”

“Could be.”

“Could any one wedge raise the cradle under the ship?”

“Impossible.”

“Could any one wedge lift the cradle and the ship off her blocks.”

“Impossible.”

“Every German must do his part, Hans. If one fails, we all fail.”

Hans stared at him with a strange look of detachment. “I am not a simpleton, mein Herr. I understand the principle. It is not the doing that troubles me, but the consequences.”

The spy said, “I know you’re not a simpleton. I am merely trying to help.”

“Thank you, mein Herr.”

“Do the detectives frighten you?” he asked, even though he doubted they did.

“No. I can avoid them until the last moment. The pass you had made for me will throw them off. By the time any realize what I am up to, it will be too late to stop me.”

“Do you fear that you will not escape with your life?”

“I would be amazed if I did. Fortunately, I have settled that question in my own mind. That is not what troubles me.”

“Then we are back to the same basic question, Hans. Would you have American warships sink German warships?”

“Maybe it is the waiting that is killing me. No matter where I go I hear them hitting the wedges. Like the ticking clock. Ticktock. Ticktock. Ticking for innocent men who don’t know yet that they will die. It’s driving me crazy-What is this?”

The spy was pushing money into his hand. He tried to jerk back. “I don’t want money.”

The spy seized his wrist in an astonishingly powerful grip. “Recreation. Find a girl. She’ll make the night go faster.” He stood up abruptly.