Page 35 of Clive Cussler The Iron Storm (An Isaac Bell Adventure #15)

I saac Bell was in position to the left of the door when he heard Liam Holmes and who he now considered their captor, Karl Rath, approach a few minutes after locking him in the dim room.

“He will need a long time to heal,” Rath was saying as he approached the door, “but my man knows what he’s doing.”

“Can’t thank you enough,” Holmes said.

Bell imagined the polite Englishman wanting to shake Rath’s hand once again.

The door was pulled open from the other side.

With just his fingertips, Bell reached around and pressed the cover he’d torn from the matchbook he’d stolen back in Karl Rath’s office over the strike plate protecting the hole in the frame for the latch.

He used his own blood as an adhesive that he got by rubbing two knuckles raw against a poorly smoothed section of the room’s concrete floor.

The trick was to let the blood congeal for a few moments.

The move was lightning fast and he had already stepped a pace away and had crouched down when Holmes came into the room.

The pilot didn’t see him as he studied his comrades asleep on their cots.

Rath closed the door. Bell had to be quick.

He dropped flat to the floor and worked his fingertips into the slight gap between the floor and the door.

Rath would sense something wasn’t right when he closed the door, and so when he inevitably tugged on the outer handle, Bell had such a tight grip on the bottom of the door that the guerrilla leader was certain his charges were locked in their cage until he was ready to send them on their mission.

Holmes finally noticed Bell sprawled on the floor at the base of the door, his face contorted with the effort to keep it closed against Rath’s not inconsequential tug.

To his credit, he said nothing until Rath gave up and his footsteps receded from their room and Bell let out a breath as he shook feeling back into his fingertips.

Bell got to his feet and motioned for Holmes to follow him away from the door. Their ensuing conversation took place slowly as each man had to turn his head to present an ear so they could whisper at the lowest level possible.

“There’s no handle on our side of the door so we’re locked in.”

“Why on earth?”

“Not sure, but I intend to find out. I put a piece of cardboard against the frame to keep the latch from engaging. In a few hours I am going out to reconnoiter. I don’t trust Rath.”

“What about our mission? The flight?”

“Not sure yet. He has another agenda. Money, I assume. My guess is they are smugglers.”

Holmes nodded in agreement. “People have been getting rich off wars since Hannibal came over the Alps. Elephant food can’t be cheap. Are you coming back?”

“I’m not leaving you guys in the lurch. Better we stick together. I’ll only take a quick look around. It’ll be fine. Get some sleep.”

They each took a cot. Bell was exhausted, drained down to near the bottom of his reserves.

This was supposed to have been a quick fact-finding tour for President Wilson, a few days, a week at most. For the hundredth time, he wondered what Marion was going through.

She was used to him heading off into danger, but not inured to it.

He could only hope that Churchill had given her what updates he could.

Marion was the type who’d rather know he was missing over enemy lines than know nothing at all.

It was her faith in him. So long as he was missing, she believed that he would find a way to be found.

As much as he wanted all the sleep he could get, he mentally gave himself three hours before he’d awaken. Marion’s face was the last thing on his mind when he succumbed to his exhaustion.

One hundred and seventy-eight minutes later, Bell’s cold blue eyes snapped open as if he’d heard a pair of cymbals crash.

He remained utterly motionless, reaching out with his hearing to discern the slightest noise.

He heard his British cellmates breathing and snoring, and making small movements as they twitched through whatever visions haunted their dreams. Beyond the room’s lathe-and-plaster walls he heard nothing.

No conversations, no footfalls, not even settling noises.

A building this old had done all the settling it ever would.

He got off the cot as silently as he could.

He’d earlier removed his boots and he left them standing at the side of his bed so he could pad silently in thick wool socks to the door.

It opened without a sound and he peeled his telltale matchbook cover from where he’d pressed it against the frame.

There were only a few lights still on and just a bit of moonlight streaming through the building’s clerestory windows. For Bell, it was enough.

He headed out, keeping low and slow. At the next of the buildings the men had built inside the warehouse, he could hear men sleeping.

Judging by the size of the structure and the volume of snoring, he guessed well over twenty.

It was far more than he’d seen on their rescue and made him wonder what else Rath had in the works.

He moved on.

The next space he checked turned out to be a communal bathroom with multiple stalls and showers. The size led Bell to double his estimate of Rath’s force. It appeared he’d assembled a small army.

The next open-topped building within the warehouse was laid out like a classroom, with rows of wooden desks facing a lectern.

He scanned the floor for any lost papers to give him an idea of what was being taught.

They’d been swept clean, but he found a scrap of paper with writing on it crumpled in a wastebasket.

It was too dark to read, so he folded it and put it in his pocket.

He turned to leave and nearly bumped into one of Rath’s men.

He had obviously just gotten out of bed, as he wore only a pair of white drawers.

He had a large tattoo of a compass rose on his chest and several more smaller ones on his arms that were too indistinct to decipher.

He said something to Bell in Rath’s language.

It sounded Eastern European to his ear, but he couldn’t be more precise than that.

Without knowing the language, Bell still knew what he’d been asked. “I’m looking for the bathroom. Er, toilet.” He made a universal pantomime that all men would understand.

The man’s suspicion faded and he beckoned Bell to follow him to the big washroom. When they’d finished up, the man escorted the American detective back to his room and made certain the door was locked behind him with a firm rattle of its handle.

Bell was chagrined. He’d barely begun his investigation and yet he’d been caught flat-footed by some guy on nature’s call.

He felt like a rank amateur. And worse, he knew nothing more about Karl Rath or what exactly he was doing.

The size of this place, the number of guerrillas he guessed the man had under him, and the fact they had a large classroom did not equal a small band of partisans interested in ending the war.

His first guess about smuggling could still be true, but again the number of men stationed here would indicate some other goal.

Bell wished Archie or James Dashwood or even old man Van Dorn himself were around to spitball ideas and theories.

In detective work, it was too tempting to listen to your opinions echo in your head when it came to a favorite hypothesis.

Working with a tried-and-tested team was essential.

He hoped to have the time to springboard some things past Liam Holmes.

The man had a good head on his shoulders, but he doubted they’d get a chance to talk.

Lying down on his cot once again, Bell heard a guard’s footsteps approach their little building and come to a stop just outside the door. The man had been quiet, but not overly so, and Bell didn’t know if his presence was a warning or just a precaution.

Yes, nothing was quite what it seemed.