The Spy (Isaac Bell 3)

“What if it wasn’t sabotage? What if it was a robbery? Stay there until you discover what they took.”

He walked Archie to the train at Grand Central and returned to the office, deep in thought. Abbington-Westlake had confirmed his suspicions. The spy was first and foremost a gangster. But he couldn’t be Commodore Tommy. The Gopher had lived and fought within the narrow confines of Hell’s Kitchen his whole life. The answer must lie with Louis Loh. He could be the tong. He could even be the spy. Perhaps that was what he had noticed was different about Louis: he acted like he had a purpose. It was time to put the question to him.

Bell collected Louis Loh from the Brooklyn Navy Yard brig late at night and handcuffed his wrists behind his back.

Loh’s first surprise came when instead of putting him in a truck or an auto, Bell walked him toward the river. They waited at the water’s edge. Hull 44 loomed behind them. The wind carried the sounds of ship engines, slatting sails, whistles, and horns. Blacked out but for running lights, Lowell Falconer’s turbine yacht Dyname approached in near silence.

Deckhands guided Bell and his prisoner aboard without speaking a word. The yacht backed into the river and headed downstream. It went under the Brooklyn Bridge and passed the Battery and picked up speed on the Upper Bay.

“If you’re planning to throw me overboard,” Louis Loh said, “remember I know how to swim.”

“Wearing those manacles?”

“I assumed you would remove them, being above torture.”

The helmsman increased speed to thirty knots. Bell took Loh into the darkened cabin, where they sat in silence sheltered from the wind and spray. Dyname crossed the Lower Bay. Bell saw the lightship flash by the porthole. When Dyname’s bow rose to the first Atlantic comber, Louis Loh asked, “Where are you taking me?”

“To sea.”

“How far to sea?”

“About fifty miles.”

“That will take all night.”

“Not on this ship.”

The helmsman opened her up. An hour passed. The turbines slowed, and the yacht settled down. Suddenly it bumped hard against something and stopped. Bell took Louis’s arm, checked that he hadn’t jimmied open the cuffs, and led him out on deck. Silent deckhands helped them onto the wooden deck of a barge. Then Dyname wheeled about and raced off. In minutes, all to be seen of her was the fiery discharge from her stack, and soon she vanished into the night.

“Now what?” asked Louis Loh. Creamy whitecaps shone in the starlight. The barge rolled with the movement of the sea.

“Now we climb.”

“Climb? Climb what?”

“This mast.”

Bell directed Louis’s gaze up the cage mast. The airy structure rose so high that its swaying top seemed to brush the stars. “What is this? Where are we?”

“We’re on a target barge anchored in the U.S. Navy Atlantic Firing Range. Test engineers have erected on the barge this one-hundred-twenty-five-foot cage mast, the latest development in dreadnought spotting masts.”

Bell climbed two rungs, unlocked Louis’s right cuff, and locked it around his own ankle.

“Ready? Here we go.”

“Where?”

“Up these ladders. When I raise my leg, you raise your arm.”

“Why?”

“There’s a test scheduled for dawn to see how the cage mast fares in battle conditions when bombarded by 12-inch guns. Any spy worth his salt would give his eyeteeth to watch. Let’s go.”

It was long climb to the spotting top, but neither man was breathing hard when they reached the platform. “You are in excellent condition, Louis.” Bell removed the cuff from his ankle and locked it to the tubing that formed the mast.

“Now what?”

“Wait for dawn.”