Before Bell could recover his balance, the German swung the shovel with the gritted-teeth determination of a long-ball hitter determined to turn a soft pitch into a home run.
Chapter 24
THE LAUNCHING PLATFORM HAD BEGUN TO SHAKE WITHOUT warning.
The crowd fell silent.
It suddenly felt as if after three years of building, growing heavier every day as tons of steel were bolted and riveted to tons of steel, the battleship Michigan refused to wait a moment longer. No one had touched the electric button that would activate the rams that would release the triggers. But she had moved anyway. An inch. Then another.
Now! the Assistant Secretary of the Navy cried shrilly to his daughter.
The girl, more alert than he, was already swinging the bottle.
Glass smashed. Champagne bubbled through the crocheted mesh, and the girl sang out in golden tones, I christen thee Michigan!
The hundreds of onlookers on the launching platform cheered. Thousands more on the shore, too far away to see the bottle break or the slow movement of the hull, were alerted by the voices of those on the platform and cheered, too. Tugboats and steamers tooted in the river. On the train tracks behind the shed, a locomotive engineer tied down his whistle. And slowly, very slowly, the battleship began to pick up speed.
UNDER THE SHIP, the German's shovel smashed Bell's gun out of his hand and caromed off his shoulder. Bell was already thrown off balance by the falling timber. The shovel sent him pinwheeling.
The German jumped back to the wheelbarrow and plunged his hands into its gelatinous cargo, confirming what Bell had seen from the stairs. He had been shoveling tallow onto the ways not only to appear to be innocently performing his job but to expose what he had hidden under the tallow. With a glad cry he pulled out a tightly banded pack of dynamite sticks.
Bell leaped to his feet. He saw no fuse to detonate the explosive, no powdered string to light, which meant that the German must have rigged a percussion cap to detonate on contact when the saboteur smashed it against the cradle. The German's face was churning into a mask of insane triumph as he ran at the cradle holding the dynamite aloft, and Isaac Bell recognized the cold-eyed fearlessness of a fanatic willing to die to set off his bomb.
With every shore and block removed, Michigan was balanced precariously as she started down the ways. An explosion would derail the cradle and spill the 16,000-ton battleship on its side, crushing the launching platform and sweeping hundreds to their deaths.
Bell tackled the German. He brought the man down. But the madness that propelled the German to fearlessly face death gave him the strength to wrest free from the detective. The slowly sliding ship still had not left the shed nor reached the water's edge. The German stood up and ran full tilt at its cradle.
Bell had no idea where his Browning had fallen. His hat had disappeared and with it his derringer. He pulled his knife from his boot, propped erect on one knee, and threw it with a smooth overhand motion. The razor-sharp steel pieced the back of the German's neck. He stopped in his tracks and reached back as if to swat a fly. Grievously wounded, he buckled at the knees. Yet he staggered toward the ship, raising his bomb. But Isaac Bell's knife had cost him more than a few precious seconds. By stopping for an instant, he remained directly in the downward path of another falling timber. It hit the German squarely, crushing his head.
The dynamite fell from his upstretched hand. Isaac Bell was already diving for it. He caught it in both hands before the percussion cap hit the ground and drew it gently to his chest as the long red hull hurtled past.
The ground shook. The drag chains thundered. Smoke poured from the cradle. Michigan accelerated out of the shed into the sunlit water, trailing the acrid scent of burning tallow fired by friction and billowing the river into clouds of spray that the sunshine pierced with rainbows.
WHILE EVERY EYE IN CAMDEN locked on the floating ship, Isaac Bell seized the dead German and stuffed him in the wheelbarrow. The detective who had checked the saboteur's pass came running up, trailed by others. Bell said, Get this man in the back door of the morgue before anyone sees him. Shipbuilders are superstitious. We don't want to spoil their party.
While they covered the body with scrap wood, Bell found his gun and put his hat on his head. A detective handed him his knife, which he sheathed in his boot. I'm supposed to take my girl to the luncheon. How do I look?
Like somebody ironed your suit with a shovel.
They took out handkerchiefs and brushed his coat and trousers. You ever consider wearing a darker outfit for days like this?
Marion took one look when Bell entered the pavilion and asked in a low voice, Are you all right?
Tip-top.
You missed the launching.
Not entirely, said Bell. How did you get along with Yamamoto Kenta?
Mr. Yamamoto, said Marion Morgan, is a phony.
Chapter 25
I LAID A TRAP, AND HE WALKED RIGHT INTO IT-ISAAC! HE did not know about Ashiyuki Utamaro's Exile Scrolls.
You've got me there. What are Ashiyuki Utamaro's Exile Scrolls?
Ashiyuki Utamaro was a famous Japanese woodblock printmaker during the later Edo period. Woodblock artists operate large, complex shops where employees and acolytes do much of the work, tracing, carving, and inking after the master draws the image. They don't do calligraphy scrolls.
Why does it matter that Mr. Yamamoto didn't know about something that doesn't exist?
Because Ashiyuki Utamaro's Exile Scrolls do exist. But they were made secretly, so only real scholars know
