“Rather tight spot I’m in, eh?” Tats said with a pained smile and that charming accent of his.
Bell said nothing.
“How did you know it was me? No way you recognized me. I planted those reeds for just such an event.”
“I knew it was you because you were the only person I told that Marion was leaving the day she did. Felix and Jorge Nuñez knew she was leaving, but not when. You relayed that information to Dreissen and he sent the airship out to kidnap her from the Spatminster.”
“That all?”
“No. There was something from the night we met. Court Talbot had asked if you were returning from Colón. But he said ‘from the Colon’ and then laughed it off as a language mix-up. It wasn’t that at all. He screwed up his homophones. You hadn’t been in Colón, the city. You’d been on the Cologne, the airship. I saw a file labeled that in Dreissen’s office, which made me remember the incident even if I didn’t understand its significance.”
“I hadn’t thought anyone had noticed. You are good, Detective Bell.”
“Let’s cut to it,” Bell said sharply. “Court Talbot’s dead. Otto Dreissen too. The airship blew up over the Caribbean, and your bombs failed to crack the dam or kill President Roosevelt. It’s done, so stop playing at being the English fop. Dreissen confirmed you are military intelligence. He called it Sektion IIIb. How about it? Are you going to come clean?”
Macalister coughed, and fresh blood bubbled at his lips. “No. I am not. For all you know, I’m an English anarchist who wants to see the world burn. Whatever Dreissen told you is hearsay.”
Roosevelt moved over so that he was standing above the prostrate spy, his great head silhouetted by the sun so that Macalister had to blink and squint to see the man properly. “How about Milwaukee?” he asked. “Are you going to deny it was a German plot to keep me from a third term?”
“I am,” Tats said, mustering the last of his reserves. “But I will say the Fatherland is much better positioned with Wilson in the White House. You are a bit of a loose cannon, Mr. Roosevelt.”
TR grunted. “At least tell us your name. I will see to it that you get a proper burial.”
He chuckled, and a little more blood spilled from his damaged lung. “Let’s keep it ‘Lord Benedict Hamilton Macalister.’ Sounds so much better than my own name, you know. Bell, you bested me. Well played, old man, well played indeed.”
Bell said, “It was never a game. I wasn’t playing.”
The German spy didn’t hear him. He was dead.
Roosevelt and the guard helped Bell back to his feet. He’d gone pale under his tan, and fresh sweat oozed from his pores. The pain was evident in his eyes.
“We need to get you to the hospital over at Ancon,” the guard told him.
“And I will come with you,” TR said. “I can delay my departure for Brazil for a day. Least I can do for the man who saved my life.”
“Actually, Uncle Ted, can I ask another favor instead?”
“Of course, my boy. Anything.”
From that day until her very last, one of Marion Bell’s favorite stories was of the time she was rescued from Panama’s “fever coast” by none other than the original Rough Rider himself, Teddy Roosevelt.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Clive Cussler was the author of more than eighty books in five bestselling series, including Dirk Pitt®, NUMA® Files, Oregon® Files, Isaac Bell®, and Sam and Remi Fargo®. His life nearly paralleled that of his hero Dirk Pitt. Whether searching for lost aircraft or leading expeditions to find famous shipwrecks, he and his NUMA crew of volunteers discovered and surveyed more than seventy-five lost ships of historic significance, including the long-lost Civil War submarine Hunley, which was raised in 2000 with much publicity. Like Pitt, Cussler collected classic automobiles. His collection featured more than one hundred examples of custom coachwork. Cussler passed away in February 2020.
Jack Du Brul is the author of the Philip Mercer series, most recently The Lightning Stones, and is the coauthor with Cussler of the Oregon Files novels Dark Watch, Skeleton Coast, Plague Ship, Corsair, The Silent Sea, and The Jungle, and the Isaac Bell novel The Titanic Secret. He lives in Virginia.
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