The Wrecker (Isaac Bell 2)

“These coffer dams look like those collar plates. Could coffer dams deflect flow?”

“Of course!” Mowery snapped. “But the point-”

The old engineer’s voice trailed off midsentence. He stared. Then his eyes began to gleam. He pushed his walking stick aside and snapped up a pencil.

Isaac Bell shoved a fresh sheet of paper toward him.

Mowery scribbled frantically.

“Look here, Osgood! To the devil with short-term. We’ll build the caissons straight off. Shape their coffer dams to function as flow deflectors, too. Better than collar plates, when you think about it.”

“How long?” asked Hennessy.

“At least two weeks, round-the-clock, to put the coffer dams in place. Maybe three.”

“Weather’s getting worse.”

“I’ll need every hand you can spare.”

“I’ve got a thousand in the yard with nothing to do.”

“We’ll riprap here and here, harden the bank.”

“Just pray we don’t get a flood.”

“Extend this spur deflector . . .”

Neither the bridge builder nor the railroad president noticed when Isaac Bell and Lillian Hennessy retreated silently from what had blossomed into a full-fledged engineering conference.

“Nice work, Lillian,” Bell said. “You stirred them up.”

“I realized I had better insure my financial future if I’m going to be courted by a penniless detective.”

“Would you like that?”

“I think I would, Isaac.”

“More than a candidate for president.”

“Something tells me it would be more exciting.”

“In that case, I’ve got good news for you: I’ve wired Archie to come take over for me.”

“Archie’s coming here?” She seized Bell’s hands in hers. “Oh, Isaac, thank you. That’s wonderful.”

Bell’s golden mustache fanned open with his first carefree smile since they discovered the catastrophe of the sabotaged piers.

“You must promise not to distract him too much. We still haven’t caught the Wrecker.”

“But if Archie is taking over here, where are you going?”

“Wall Street.”

43

ISAAC BELL RACED ACROSS THE CONTINENT IN FOUR AND A HALF days. He took limited flyers when he could and chartered specials when the trains ran slow. He made the final eighteen-hour dash on the Broadway Limited, proudly named for the broad, four-tracked roadbed between Chicago and New York.

On the ferry to Manhattan, he saw how quickly Jersey City and the railroads were repairing the damage from the Wrecker’s dynamite explosion. The station roof was already replaced, and a new pier was rising where less than three weeks ago he had seen the blackened stumps of pilings submerged by the tide. The wrecked ships were gone, and while many windows were still covered with raw boards many more gleamed with new glass. The sight filled him with hope at first, reminding him that back in the Oregon Cascades Hennessy and Mowery were driving round-the-clock work gangs to save the Cascade Canyon Bridge. But, he admitted soberly, their task was vastly more difficult, if not downright impossible. The bridge’s very foundations were sabotaged. And the Wrecker was still at large, determined to wreak more damage.