The Chase
Clive Cussler
THE CHASE
DIRK PITT® ADVENTURES BY CLIVE CUSSLER
Treasure of Khan
Black Wind
Trojan Odyssey
Valhalla Rising
Atlantis Found
Flood Tide
Shock Wave
Inca Gold
Sahara
Dragon
Treasure
Cyclops
Deep Six
Pacific Vortex
Night Probe
Vixen 03
Raise the Titanic
Iceberg
The Mediterranean Caper
KURT AUSTIN ADVENTURES BY CLIVE CUSSLER WITH PAUL KEMPRECOS
The Navigator
Polar Shift
Lost City
White Death
Fire Ice
Blue Gold
Serpent
OREGON FILES ADVENTURES BY CLIVE CUSSLER WITH CRAIG DIRGO
Skeleton Coast
Dark Watch
Sacred Stone
Golden Buddha
NONFICTION BY CLIVE CUSSLER AND CRAIG DIRGO
The Sea Hunters II
Clive Cussler and Dirk
Pitt Revealed
The Sea Hunters
THE CHASE
CLIVE CUSSLER
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
NEW YORK
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Publishers Since 1838
Published by the Penguin Group
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Copyright © 2007 by Sandecker, RLLLP
Endpaper map and illustrations by Richard Dahlquist
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cussler, Clive.
The chase / Clive Cussler.
p. cm.
ISBN: 1-4295-6646-9
1. Bank robberies—Fiction. 2. California—History—1850–1950—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3553.U75C47 2007 2007017291
813'.54—dc22
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
To Teri, Dirk, and Dana
No father was blessed with more-loving children
THE CHASE
Contents
GHOST FROM THE PAST
THE BUTCHER BANDIT
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
THE CHASE QUICKENS
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
UP FROM THE DEPTHS
GHOST FROM THE PAST
APRIL 15, 1950
FLATHEAD LAKE, MONTANA
IT ROSE FROM THE DEPTHS LIKE AN EVIL MONSTER in a Mesozoic sea. A coat of green slime covered the cab and boiler while gray-brown silt from the lake bottom slid and fell off the eighty-one-inch drive wheels and splashed into the cold waters of the lake. Ascending slowly above the surface, the old steam locomotive hung for a moment from the cables of a huge crane mounted on a wooden barge. Still visible under the dripping muck, beneath the open side window of its cab, was the number 3025.
Built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 3025 rolled out of the factory on April 10th of 1904. The “Pacific” class was a common large-sized, high-drive-wheeled steam engine that could pull ten steel passenger cars long distances at speeds up to ninety miles an hour. She was known as a 4-6-2 because of her four-wheeled truck in the front, just behind the cowcatcher, the six massive drive wheels below the boiler, and the two small wheels mounted beneath the cab.
The crew on the barge watched in awe as the crane operator orchestrated his levers and gently lowered old 3025 onto the main deck, its weight settling the barge three inches deeper in the water. She sat there almost a minute before the six men overcame their wonderment and detached the cables.
“She’s in remarkably good shape for sitting underwater for almost fifty years,” murmured the salvage superintendent of the battered old barge that was nearly as ancient as the locomotive. Since the nineteen twenties, it had been used for dredging operations on the lake and surrounding tributaries.
Bob Kaufman was a big, friendly man, ready with a laugh at the slightest hint of something jovial. With a face ruddy from long hours spent in the sun, he had been working on the barge for twenty-seven years. Now seventy-five, he could have retired long ago, but as long as the dredging company kept him on he was going to keep working. Sitting at home and working jigsaw puzzles was not his idea of the good life. He studied the man standing beside him, who was, as close as he could figure, slightly older.
“What do you think?” Kaufman asked.
The man turned, tall and still lean in his late seventies, hair full and silver. His face was as weathered as buckskin. He stared at the locomotive thoughtfully through eyes yet to rely on glasses. They gleamed blue with a tinge of lavender. A large silver mustache covered his upper lip as if it had been planted there many years ago. It matched his eyebrows, which had become bushy with age. He lifted an expensive
Panama hat off his head and dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief.
He walked over to the salvaged locomotive, now sitting solidly on the deck, and focused his attention on the cab. Water and muck poured down its ladders and spilled across the deck of the barge.
“Despite the grime,” he said finally, “she’s still aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Only a question of time before a railroad museum comes up with the funds to restore her for display.”
“Lucky a local fisherman lost his outboard engine and dragged the bottom to find it or the locomotive might have been down there another half century.”
“Yes, it was a stroke of luck,” the tall, silver-haired man said slowly.
Kaufman stepped over and ran a hand over one of the big drive wheels. A sentimental expression crossed his face. “My daddy was an engineer with the Union Pacific,” he said quietly. “He always said the Pacific-type locomotive was the finest he ever drove. He used to let me sit in the cab when he brought a train into the yard. The Pacific class was used mostly to haul passenger cars because it was so fast.”
A team of divers, wearing suits of canvas sandwiched between layers of rubber, stood on a platform as it was raised from beneath the surface of the cold water. They wore the Mark V brass hard hat, large weight belts around their chests, and diving boots with canvas tops, brass toes, and lead soles that weighed thirty-six pounds. Altogether, the divers wore one hundred fifty pounds of equipment. They tugged at their umbilical cords, leading to the surface-supplied diving air pump, as the platform was raised and swung down to the deck. They were no sooner aboard than another team climbed down ladders and stood on the platform as it descended into the waters of the lake, still icy from the long Montana winter.
The tall man watched silently, looking out of place among the barge’s crew in their grease-stained work clothes and overalls. He wore neatly pressed brown slacks with an expensive cashmere knit sweater under a cashmere jacket. His shoes were highly polished and had amazingly kept their shine on the oil-soaked deck, amid the rusting cables.
He eyed the heavy layers of silt on the steps leading to the cab and turned to Kaufman. “Let’s get a ladder over here so we can climb into the cab.”
Kaufman gave an order to a nearby barge crewman and a ladder soon appeared and was propped against the lip of the cab’s floor behind the engineer’s seat. The superintendent went up first, followed by the elderly observer. Water dripped in sheets from the roof while dissolved coal merged with the silt flowing through the open door of the firebox onto the metal floor.
At first, it looked like the cab was empty. The maze of valves, pipes, and levers mounted over the boiler was coated with layers of ooze and the tentacles of green weed growing from it. The muck on the floor of the cab was ankle-deep, but the tall, quiet observer did not seem to notice it coming over the tops of his shoes. He knelt down and studied three humps that rose from the ooze like small hills.
“The engineer and fireman,” he announced.
“You sure?”
He nodded. “I’m sure. The engineer was Leigh Hunt. He had a wife and two children, both grown now to middle age. The fireman was Robert Carr. He was going to be married after the run.”
“Who was the third man?”
“Name was Abner Weed. A tough customer. He forced Hunt and Carr to operate the engine with a gun in their backs.”
“They don’t look pretty,” Kaufman muttered, repelled by what he saw. “I’m surprised they didn’t turn into skeletons.”
“There would be nothing left of them if they died in salt water, but the cold, fresh water of Flathead Lake preserved them. What you see is the adipose tissue in which fat is stored. It breaks down over time when immersed, giving the body a waxy, soapy look called saponification.”
“We’ll have to call the sheriff and get a coroner out here.”
“Will that delay the operation?” asked the stranger.
Kaufman shook his head. “No, it shouldn’t slow things down any. As soon as the team of relief divers attach the lift cables, we’ll bring up the coal tender.”
“It’s important that I see what’s in the attached car.”
“You will.” Kaufman looked at the man, trying in vain to read his thoughts. “Better we tackle the tender first to simplify matters. If we concentrate on the car before it has been uncoupled from the tender, it might prove disastrous. It may not be as heavy as the locomotive, but unless we’re very careful it might break into pieces. It’s a far trickier operation. Besides, the front end of the baggage car is half buried under the tender.”
“It’s not a baggage car. It’s a boxcar, or freight car.”
“How could you know that?”
The observer ignored the question. “Raise the coal tender first. You’re in charge.”
Kaufman stared down at the ugly lumps that had once been humans. “How did they get here? How could a train come to be lost in the middle of the lake all these years?”
The tall man gazed out over the calm blue lake. “Forty-four years ago, there was a ferry that carried railcars loaded with lumber back and forth across the lake.”
“It sure is strange,” said Kaufman slowly. “Newspapers and the Southern Pacific officials reported that the train was stolen. As I recall, the date was April 21, 1906.”
The old man smiled. “A cover-up by the company. The train wasn’t stolen. A railroad dispatcher was bribed to charter the engine.”
“Must have been something valuable in the freight car to kill for,” said Kaufman. “Like a shipment of gold.”
The old man nodded. “Rumors circulated that the train was carrying gold. If the truth be known, it was not gold but hard cash.”
“Forty-four years,” Kaufman said slowly. “A long time for a train to go missing. Maybe the money is still inside the car.”
“Perhaps,” said the tall man, looking toward the horizon at a vision only he could see. “Just perhaps we’ll find the answers when we get inside.”
THE BUTCHER BANDIT
1
JANUARY 10, 1906 BISBEE, ARIZONA
ANYONE SEEING AN OLD DERELICT SOT SLOWLY SWAYING down Moon Avenue in Bisbee that afternoon would have mistaken him for what he was not, a man who had grown old before his time working the mines that ran through the mineral-rich mountains under the town. His shirt was grubby and he smelled unwashed. One suspender held up torn and ragged pants that were stuffed into scuffed and worn boots that should been thrown in the trash gully behind the town long ago.
Snarled and greasy hair straggled to his shoulders and merged with an uncut beard that hung halfway down his protruding stomach. He looked through eyes so dark brown they were nearly black. There was no expression in them; they seemed cold and almost evil. A pair of work gloves covered the hands that had never held a shovel or a pick.
Under one arm, he carried an old gunnysack that appeared empty. Almost whimsically, the dirty burlap had DOUGLAS FEED & GRAIN COMPANY, OMAHA, NEBRASKA stenciled on it.
The old man took a minute and parked on a bench at the corner of Moon Avenue and Tombstone Canyon Road. Behind him was a saloon, mostly empty because it was the middle of the day and its usual patrons were hard at work in the mines. The people walking and shopping in the little mining town paid him no more than a quick, disgusted glance. Whenever they passed, he pulled a whiskey bottle from a pant pocket and drank heavily before recapping it and putting it back. No one could have known it was not whiskey but tea.
It was warm for June; he guessed the temperature to be in the high nineties. He sat back and looked up and down the streets as a trolley car passed, pulled by an aging horse. Electric-motored trolleys had yet to come to Bisbee. Most of the vehicles on the streets were still horse-drawn wagons and buggies. The town had only a handful of automobiles and delivery trucks, and none were in evidence.
He knew enough about the town to know that it was founded in 1880 and named after Judge DeWitt Bisbee, one of the moneymen behind the Copper Queen Mine. A good-
sized community, its population of twenty thousand made it the largest city between San Francisco and St. Louis. Despite the many miners’ families that lived in modest little wooden buildings, the main economy was based around saloons and a small army of shady ladies.
The man’s head nodded to his chest; he looked like a drunk who had dozed off. But it was an act. He was conscious of every movement around him. Occasionally, he glanced across the street at the Bisbee National Bank. He watched with interest, through half-closed eyes, as a truck with chain drive and solid-tired wheels rattled up to the bank. There was only one guard, who got out of the truck and carried a large bag of newly printed bills inside. A few minutes later, he was helped by the bank’s teller to lug a heavy chest through the door and onto the truck.
The man knew that it was a shipment of gold, a piece of the three million ounces that had been produced at the local mines. But gold was not what piqued his interest. It was too heavy and too risky for one man to dispose of. It was the cash that brought him to Bisbee, not the prized yellow metal.
He watched as the truck moved away and two men, whom he had identified as security guards at the giant Phelps Dodge Mining Company, walked out of the bank. They had delivered the cash to pay the mining company payroll the following day. He smiled to himself, knowing the assets of the Bisbee National Bank had risen to a new level.
