Page 64 of Clive Cussler The Iron Storm (An Isaac Bell Adventure #15)

B ell was never one to slink out of a situation, but he knew discretion was the better part of valor in this instance.

He turned as soon as he heard the group of approaching men.

He found a ladder to the next deck and climbed.

Now above the main deck, where presumably there was no need for Rath to have any of his men, Bell ran aft.

The rooms he passed served functions he didn’t understand, presumably to do with aiming and firing the main guns or perhaps damage control.

He found a door to the outside and opened it.

He found himself on an observation platform just aft of the bridge, near one of the ship’s countless tertiary artillery installations.

He looked up toward the bridge and saw that his arrival had caught the attention of two men standing on the wraparound bridge wing just above the forward turret.

Bell recognized Karl Rath instantly, but it took the anarchist a long second to realize the man he’d sent to his death aboard the Zeppelin-Staaken aircraft had not only survived the flight but had somehow managed to follow him across the Atlantic.

The range was too great for the shotgun and before Bell had time to draw his pistol, Rath and his companion opened fire with pistols of their own. Bell just managed to duck through the door when the bullets arrived in an angry swarm.

“I will kill you myself,” Rath shouted down to Bell, his voice like the bellow of an enraged animal.

Pesha Orsos, Rath’s childhood friend asked, “Who was that?”

“The man from back in Belgium, Isaac Bell,” Rath said, feeding additional bullets into his revolver while keeping one eye trained on the platform below.

“Listen, Pesha, we’ve waited long enough for my brother to radio in.

Something must have happened to him. Get back to your station and fire at will on the city.

Aim as best you can from this range, but fire quickly.

We may not destroy their landmarks but thirty quarter-ton shells raining down on New York will still get our desired results. ”

Another of Rath’s men ran out onto the platform. He was winded. “We found it, no problem.”

“A bomb?”

“A small one in the powder magazine where Pesha said it would be. It was easily disabled. I had the parts thrown over the side just to be sure.”

“This man Bell is not as smart as he thinks he is,” Rath said. “Good job, Pesha.”

Rath’s confidant beamed. “As soon as I got word that there was an intruder aboard, I knew right where they were heading and why. The powder magazine is the only place that a bomb small enough for one person to carry would do any good.”

“Bravo. Go now. I will make certain the lifeboats are ready to launch. How long will it take to fire the remaining rounds?”

“Twenty minutes.”

“Perfect. When you’re done, we will motor over to the Connecticut side of the Sound and make our escape.

” Rath handed his pistol to the new arrival and said, “Stay here and watch that gun platform down there. The American may still be just inside the door. If you see him shoot him. I’ll get others to hunt him from inside the ship. ”

“Yes, sir.”

—

O ne of the bullets had grazed the outside of Bell’s calf.

The bleeding wasn’t so bad, but it hurt like he’d been burned with the long edge of a fireplace poker.

His shotgun had fared even worse from the quick encounter.

When he’d leapt back through the door he had slammed the weapon into the frame and managed to knock the magazine out of alignment.

He couldn’t pull it free and couldn’t trust that it would feed new rounds into the receiver.

Without a second thought, he left the expensive weapon behind.

His Browning pistol had gotten him out of a great many scrapes in the past and he trusted it wouldn’t fail him this time.

Bell saw that he was leaving a trail of blood spatters in his wake. He took another moment to tie a bandage he carried in one of his suit’s numerous pockets around his leg to staunch the flow.

He descended the ladder he’d climbed earlier and ran aft as hard as he could.

He wanted to put distance between himself and where Rath knew he’d been.

He was also aware of the ticking timer on the primary bomb in the magazine.

There was about ten minutes to go, and it would be a stupid death to be killed by his own detonation.

Bell dropped down another deck, noticing a small placard affixed to a wall at a juncture in the corridor.

The universal pictogram told him that there was a lifeboat station at the end of the branching passageway.

Joe would already be back aboard the Alice N.

with orders to leave five minutes before their time bomb went off, no matter what.

Bell had too many men searching for him between his location and the chain locker, so returning there was no longer an option.

Escaping on the lifeboat was his best hope.

At the end of the corridor was another watertight door.

On the other side he found an alcove overlooking the water with a thirty-foot lifeboat hanging on steel davits.

The lifeboat wasn’t matte gray like the rest of the ship, but had been painted white with a gaudy red stripe along its hull.

Part of the bow had been decked over and a fake cockpit installed to make it look like a rich man’s toy rather than a piece of naval equipment.

Bell climbed a small ladder to reach the lifeboat’s gunwale.

He noted the craft’s actual controls were in the aft at a small stand-up console with just a wheel, an engine RPM gauge, a throttle, and a starter button for the motor.

To save himself time, he went to the console and pressed the starter.

Since the anarchists had taken the time to disguise the boat, his assumption that they’d made certain it worked was correct.

The two-cylinder motor buried deep in the boat’s hull came to life and the brass screw whirred like an electric fan.

Bell was backing down the ladder when a pair of arms encircled him from behind and ripped him from the rungs.

He was tackled in a takedown that sent him crashing to the deck with the other man on his chest. The speed and violence of the attack left him stunned and gave his opponent the chance to grab the sides of his head and prepare to dash the back of his skull into the metal decking until it cracked open.

Bell caught sight of the man’s eye patch and knew his opponent. Even fighting for his life, part of Bell’s mind deduced that Karl Rath must have followed Bell onto the platform, hiding in the lifeboat recess while he was on the boat.

As his head was yanked up, Bell tightened his stomach and did the fastest sit-up of his life.

His forehead collided with Karl Rath’s nose.

The blow lacked the power to break it, but it watered the man’s eyes and made blood rain from his nostrils.

It was enough of a distraction for Bell to lever up a knee and push the bigger man off of him.

As Bell scrambled to get to his feet, his left hand lay flat on the deck for an instant. Rath was only partially to his feet but still had the leverage to slam the heel of his boot down on the back of Bell’s hand with the force to break bones.

The Saarland ’s main gun fired just then, a great roar of smoke and flame belching from the barrel in the wake of another high explosive shell aimed at the city.

The sound drowned out Bell’s own roar of pain.

In all his years of boxing and working as a detective he’d never had a broken hand and so he never knew the agony or the feeling of vulnerability that came when one of his arms was suddenly useless.

Rath sensed the fight was all but over and let Bell get to his feet, his left arm dangling, his hand already swelling.

“You found the bomb on the airplane.” It was more statement than question.

“After I killed your suicidal sacrifice,” Bell said over the sound of the idling lifeboat motor.

He then went for the Browning behind his back.

He moved as fast as he could, but the pain from his mangled hand slowed everything he did.

The pistol came out and was coming around when Rath barreled into him again and yanked it free.

He tossed the gun through the railing under the lifeboat’s keel.

He smiled at Bell’s helplessness. “How did you know about the Admiral Lisboa and our plans here?”

“You’ve been as subtle as a bull, Rath. Figuring out your plan took less deductive power than catching a toddler in a lie.”

Rath rushed in and threw a right cross that grazed Bell’s chin because it had been so telegraphed.

Bell countered with a right to Rath’s body that felt like he’d punched a truck tire.

The motion sent fresh waves of pain radiating from his broken left hand.

He closed his eyes in agony for less than a second.

It was a moment of weakness that Rath saw and exploited.

He landed two punches, a right-left combo that staggered Bell back into the underhull of the hanging lifeboat.

He likely would have reeled all the way to the railing if not for the boat.

Bell moved forward and stepped to Rath’s left. The one-eyed man immediately turned to protect his blind side.

“You left clues all over the place, Rath,” Bell said, moving again to get the exact same response from Rath.

The anarchist always moved to keep an opponent to his right, so he had a clear view with his mono vision.

“And you told too much to Magdalena. I bet you didn’t know that jilted girlfriends are a detective’s best source of information. ”

“I will deal with her when I get back to Europe,” Rath said dismissively. Then a wry, knowing smile spread across his face. “Besides, it doesn’t matter. My men found your bomb in the magazine, Bell. They took it apart and tossed the remains into the water. You’ve failed.”