The Titanic Secret (Isaac Bell 11)

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Bell’s mind was reeling even as his body took a boot to the ribs. But Massard was prepared and had executed the move with total surprise. He recovered quickly and went berserk, kicking and shouting about his brother. It was all Bell could do to protect himself from the savage attack. Remaining curled up on the floor wasn’t an option. Massard wasn’t going to stop until Bell was battered beyond recognition. Bell launched himself from the floor, taking a kick to the stomach that drove the air from his lungs, but he was free of the initial onslaught.

“He was my twin,” Massard screamed. “And you killed him.”

Bell was unable to go for his gun as Massard charged him again. Bell had to bring up both hands to ward off the next punishing round of blows.

“Gly killed him,” Bell said as they were chest to chest, grappling to get an advantage and room enough to throw an effective punch. “He was weak, Massard. He wasn’t like you.”

“But he was still my brother.”

“He surrendered to me outside the Little Angel Mine. I had my gun drawn on him, and he just quit. Gly couldn’t risk him talking, so he shot him at long range in the back. It’s true. You know your brother and you know Gly. I didn’t kill him.”

“Foss did it?”

Bell had hoped the revelation would take some of the fight o

ut of the Frenchman, and for a second it looked like it would work.

“No!” Massard screeched. Instead, it sent him into an even greater rage.

Bell had perhaps perpetrated a heinous act against Massard’s family or he’d borne witness to its greatest betrayal. For either crime, Bell had to be destroyed. Spittle flew from Massard’s lips like a rabid animal’s, his eyes glazed with hatred, as he tried to get at Bell with fingers curled into claws.

Massard managed to hook a foot around the back of Bell’s leg and trip him and he fell. The Frenchman tried to dive onto his prone form, but Bell levered his legs at the last second and landed the soles of his boots against Massard’s chest.

“In case you went looking for it,” Bell snarled as he had Massard defenseless for a moment, “Marc’s widow did have the money. I made sure she hid it.”

Massard wasn’t a small man, but Bell’s legs were strong, and when he uncoiled them with an immense grunt of exertion, Massard was thrown across the cab. His head and torso flew out the open window, but his legs caught on the sill, and he flipped in the air as he fell. He landed so that his head and chest hit the rail a fraction of a second before the locomotive tender’s leading wheel cut across him as cleanly as a guillotine.

Bell was left panting.

Massard wanted revenge against the wrong man for his brother’s death. Bell didn’t want vengeance, but he had more than enough reasons to see the real murderer, Foster Gly, dead.

Thirty minutes later, the train reached the outskirts of Glasgow. Bell let it ease slowly past tall brick factories and warehouses until it was approaching a spur off the main line. He stopped and ran ahead to lever the switch to the secondary branch. By the time he got back to the locomotive, the boxcar door had been rolled open and four owl-eyed men were peering out.

“What’s happening, Bell?” Brewster called.

“I’ll explain in a minute.” He pointed up the track to the switching lever. “Someone throw that back to the main line after we’re clear.”

He climbed up into the cab while Charlie Widney jumped down from the boxcar and ran ahead to wait by the switch. Once the stolen train was safely on the spur, Widney muscled the lever to its original position and trotted after the slow-moving train.

Bell drove the locomotive as deep into the industrial park as he could. The engine’s front bumpers finally kissed buffer stops at the end of the line, and he opened valves to vent steam from the boiler. He was exhausted from the twin duties of driving the engine and feeding its boilers. His hands were raw with split blisters, his clothes were stained through with sweat and shimmered with ingrained coal dust.

He climbed down for a final time. The Coloradans got out of the boxcar but protectively stayed close to it. Bell joined them. His throat was raw with thirst.

“Where’s Vern and the others?” the impish Irishman, Warner O’Deming, asked.

“Vern Hall’s badly injured. Head wound. He’s unconscious. Caldwell and Coulter are dead. Johnny’s body is in the cab. Alvin either fell or was most likely thrown from the train.”

That sobering statement ended any bit of satisfaction they felt for putting the French opponents behind them once and for all. Bell’s next statement left them rethinking everything they thought they knew. “Either Vern or Johnny killed Alvin and is likely the murderer of Jake Hobart too.”

In the silence that followed, a train whistle could be heard in the distance coming from the direction of Aberdeen. The rail authorities were in pursuit of the stolen engine and boxcar and were gaining on their quarry.

Bell said, “That’s our cue to keep moving. We can talk about all of this when we’re very far from here. Walt, Warry, go find us some transportation. There’s bound to be some trucks around here. Make sure they’ve got fuel. Charlie, give me a hand. We’ll put Johnny’s body in the boxcar with Tom Price’s and get ready to transfer Vern to the truck.”

The men went into motion, leaving Josh Brewster standing alone, his eyes glazed and his mouth working but no words coming from his lips. The very idea that his best friend could have betrayed them all was too horrible to contemplate. His mind had gone blank.

Seeing him so utterly distraught, Bell muttered as he walked past on his way to the locomotive, “Circumstance points to young Johnny Caldwell, not Vern Hall. I’ll explain later.”