Page 54 of Clive Cussler The Iron Storm (An Isaac Bell Adventure #15)

T he fishing boat tied to the pier amid dozens of other craft was larger than the one that had ferried Bell from France to the Netherlands, but not much.

She was a ketch-rigged motor sailer, meaning she had a main mast amidships, and a shorter mizzenmast toward her blunt stern, as well as a gasoline-fueled engine for when the wind was lacking.

She was older, but appeared in good order, a working boat rather than a rich man’s toy.

What had grabbed Bell’s attention was the Stars and Stripes hanging from her jack staff.

As far as he could tell, she was the only American boat in Ponta Delgada.

A man in a black watch cap and farmer-style overalls over a wool shirt was seated near the transom repairing a section of netting. His hands were blunt, but quick.

“Ahoy,” Bell called to get the sailor’s attention.

The man looked up and squinted. The sun was directly behind Bell. He moved to his right so as not to blind the man.

“What can I do you for?”

“Gloucester?” Bell thought he recognized the man’s accent.

“Close. Ipswich.”

“Boston. Isaac Bell.”

“Beacon Hill?”

“I won’t deny it.”

“And I won’t hold it against you. Vernon Grimm.”

“Any chance you’re returning to the States soon?”

“I’m the master of the Alice N. , but we’re on a charter now, so I go where my client says.”

“Is he around?”

“Yup.”

Grimm set aside the net and tools and got to his feet.

He ambled across the stern to the boat’s cabin.

He opened the door and called out a man’s name in a muffled voice.

Grimm was back at his task by the time a second man emerged from inside the fishing vessel.

He appeared to be about a decade older than Bell and wore blue denim jeans and a corduroy shirt.

He had a well-worn cowboy hat perched on his head.

He wasn’t particularly tall, but he had a lean strength about him.

His eyebrows were full and his face long with a strong jaw.

“Good morning,” Bell said. “Sorry to bother you. My name is Isaac Bell. I’m a detective with the Van Dorn Agency and have been recently marooned here thanks to a German battleship.”

The stranger looked impressed. “You were on that destroyer?”

“In a manner of speaking, I’m the reason she came out here, Mr….”

“Oh, sorry.” He crossed the deck and stretched his hand up so Bell could shake it from where he stood on the quay. “Zane Grey.”

Such was his nature that very little surprised Isaac Bell, but meeting the famous author on a speck of land in the middle of the Atlantic wasn’t something he’d ever expected.

“ Riders of the Purple Sage ,” he blurted.

“I don’t read much fiction myself, but my wife absolutely loved that book.

She’s a movie director and she’s often mentioned adapting it for film.

I’m pretty sure she read the sequel, too. ”

“ The Rainbow Trail ,” Grey said as if he were a father naming one of his children.

“I don’t picture you out at sea, Mr. Grey. On a horseback in some desert canyon, yes, but not way out here.”

“Please call me Zane. My passion, above baseball or writing, is fishing. I fish wherever and whenever I can. Grimm’s taking me out for bluefin tuna this time, and in these waters lurk some real monsters. Five hundred pounds and up. Do you fish?”

“As a kid. I grew up in Boston, so we were always around water, but I have to admit it was never my thing.”

“I imagine as a Van Dorn you get all the excitement you need.” Grey stepped back and made a sweeping gesture with his arm. “Come aboard. I have coffee on. And I was about to rustle up some lunch if you don’t mind fried tuna steak sandwiches.”

“Thanks. I can always use more coffee and I’m absolutely starving.”

The lounge of the Alice N. was worn but tidy, with a small functional galley and a hallway leading forward to where Bell could see doors for four tiny cabins. He accepted a mug of black coffee from a battered percolator on the stove.

Grey got busy making lunch for them. “I assume you’re here for a reason.”

“I am,” Bell told him. “I need to get to New York as fast as possible. I am convinced that the men who stole that battleship are planning on bombarding the city. I’ve already learned this morning that they arrived here two days ago, that many of them spoke German, and people saw a few wearing German naval uniforms. They want to make us think it’s a German attack and force the United States to declare war on the Central Powers. ”

Grey looked skeptical. “Sounds a bit far-fetched.”

“I would agree with you if they hadn’t already tried to get the Dutch into the war by planting false evidence that a German invasion of the Netherlands was imminent.

I have firsthand knowledge of this because myself and a British pilot were the ones ferrying the fake invasion plans.

Sowing discord is their stock-in-trade.”

“Who are they?”

“Their leader is a man named Karl Rath. A real nasty piece of work who would make a great villain for one of your books. He kills people as easily as you and I would swat a mosquito. Rath and his men, they’re anarchists.

They want to see the world destroy itself, eliminating all structures of governance in the process.

They then expect to rise to power in the ashes that remain.

Roping us into the war means more chaos, more destruction spreading farther and wider.

They want to make this a true world war.

“Now, you must be aware that the transatlantic cables to the Azores were damaged in a storm. Had they not, I could get warning to our government and relax here for a few days. My only option is to chase after them and you’re my best shot.”

“Not so sure about that. The Alice N. is a fine vessel and all, but you won’t see her in next year’s America’s Cup.”

“Here’s the thing, the battleship is severely underpowered.

She’s slow. It’s why the Germans opted to sell her prior to the war.

She can’t keep up with the rest of their fleet.

She has a maximum speed of fifteen knots, but far less than that if they need to conserve fuel, which they no doubt have to do.

Maybe this boat can’t catch and pass her, but we can keep pace and arrive in New York not long after. ”

Grey handed Bell a plate with his food. His face was unreadable. They ate a couple of bites of their tuna sandwiches in silence.

“You’re not pulling my leg.” It was a statement more than a question.

Bell said, “You have to head back to the States eventually, right? All I’m asking is you cut short your trip. When we reach the city I will hand you a check so you can charter this boat all summer long if you’d like.”

The two men stared at each other, one confident in what he knew and deduced and the other asking himself if his instincts were right. The author finally put his food down and said “Okay” to himself. He was at the door in seconds.

“Grimm, when’s Caleb due back?”

“Anytime now, I suppose.”

“All right, good. Soon as he’s here and we get the provisions aboard, move us over to the fueling bowser and top off the tanks. We’re heading to New York as fast as this old girl can carry us.”

The grizzled master looked like he’d been gut-punched. He thought he had another two weeks’ charter. “What’s the problem, Zane? Fish are still running and the price we’re getting per pound is practically paying for your charter.”

“It’s not that. It’s the battleship that sank the British destroyer and snuck on out of here this morning. This man is a Van Dorn detective who says they’re headed to New York in order to shell the city. They could potentially kill hundreds. Thousands, even.”

“The hell, you say.”

“Just make ready.”

“We could use an extra hand if you want us there quickly.”

“I can sail,” Bell told him.

Grimm scowled. “We aren’t day sailing out to P-town, Beacon Hill.”

“I’ve seen my share of nor’easters, Captain Grimm, and I’m not a man who can’t back up his boasts. I’ll be crew enough for you.”

Grimm’s eyes flicked over to his paying customer. “Zane, your charter, your call.”

Grey didn’t hesitate. “He’s a Van Dorn man. Most-trustworthy detectives in the country, by all measure. If Isaac says he can sail, I’ll take him at his word.”

Fifteen minutes later, the Alice N. ’s mate, Caleb, arrived seated next to the driver of a one-horse flatbed wagon. He was about twenty-five, tall and lanky, with a chin so weak it was practically nonexistent. He wore a Boston Red Sox cap, in honor of their World Series win the year prior.

With all four men pitching in to unload crates of food, ice blocks, and gallon tins of fresh water, it took only minutes before the taciturn and unhelpful driver was off again.

Grimm fired the fishing boat’s engine and ordered Caleb to cast off the lines.

He spun the boat to head deeper into the marina in order to tie up next to the fuel pumping station.

While they puttered across the water, and passed more fishing boats, Caleb, Bell, and Grey set about stowing all the provisions.

The ice and perishables went into a cold storage locker installed under a hatch in the main salon’s floor.

Grey and Caleb had a system for where everything went, so while they stocked shelves, Bell lugged it all in from the deck.

The fueling station consisted of a five-hundred-gallon tank set on a wooden frame several feet above a cement pier and a hand-operated suction pump.

The tank had a narrow graduated-glass window to mark how many gallons had been pumped.

A Portuguese boy of no more than twelve with a grubby Greek fisherman’s cap covering a mop of unruly hair worked the pump, his skinny arms showing remarkable stamina.

Grimm had a wooden stick he could push to the bottom of the Alice N .

’s fuel tank to check its level. After thirty minutes, in which the kid’s pace never slackened, he was satisfied the tank was full.

He paid the kid’s father, who’d sat on a chair and watched the whole process from under a slouch hat, with a hefty handful of silver coins from various nations’ mints.

A dozen small boats still puttered around the remains of the Mastiff .

She’d sunk lower into the harbor as more trapped air escaped from the deep reaches of her hull.

Bell could see Lieutenant Awbrey, the ranking survivor, directing salvage teams trying to save anything they could before the ship fully sank to the bottom.

Bell tried to catch his eye, but the Welshman never looked over.

As they motored past the coastal city’s seawall and into open water, Bell reflected that he couldn’t have done any better. Just six and a half hours had passed since Karl Rath had sunk the Mastiff and stranded him in the Azores, and here he was, already in full pursuit.

Captain Grimm kept the motor running for the first couple of hours of the journey.

The engine was small and so they barely cracked seven knots.

Bell tried not to keep recalculating how much farther ahead the Saarland sailed with each passing hour.

It did him no good to agonize over it, but agonize he did.

As the sun dipped lower toward the horizon, the winds picked up.

They worked as a team to hoist the main sail, followed soon by the jib out over the little boat’s prow, and finally a mizzen sail over her stern.

The difference was immediate and dramatic.

A bow wave curled off the hull in a long-running V, while the ship heeled to port and accelerated to eleven knots at least.

“She’s quicker than you let on,” Bell said to Grey and Grimm as all three stood in the small enclosed cockpit under the mizzenmast.

“I think old Alice is showing off for you, Bell,” Grimm said, still unconvinced that Bell was a sailor despite the ease he showed putting up the sails. “She’s at her top speed straight out of the gate like she’s giving her favors to a man in a hurry.”

Bell felt his first glimmer of hope.