“Ooh,” cried Juliet, her eyes shining. “That must be an exciting job.”
Bell made a dismissive gesture. “Not as much as you would think. A lot of it is just waiting and watching for your target to do something stupid so you can prove your case.”
“Ha,” Talbot said, braying. “I’ve known you a week, and you’ve thwarted an assassination attempt and brought a mad bomber to heel.”
Bell laughed. “Let’s just say this hasn’t been a typical week. What about you, Lord Macalister? Why are you here?”
He shot Talbot a scowl. “I’m afraid Lord Macalister is my father and eventually to be my eldest brother. Court continues to believe he has a sense of humor because we’re all too kind to tell him otherwise. As I will not be a lord, and since our family had to give up their serfs eons ago, and thus our unlimited wealth, I must make my way in this world in any manner I can. There are always opportunities at the beginning of any great enterprise, and currently there is none greater than the canal.”
Bell noted that Macalister’s response wasn’t really an answer. He asked the same of the Argentine, Acosta.
Felix Ramirez answered instead. “I am sorry, Mr. Bell. Señor Acosta speaks very little English. He is a civil engineer here to learn dam-building techniques to take back to his native country. They have tremendous hydroelectric potential in the highlands.”
“Ahh.”
Macalister addressed Court Talbot. “Did the old man give you the okay?”
“He did right after they hit the crane at Pedro Miguel.”
“Awful business, that,” the Englishman said. “More than two dozen dead, and for what? Do they really think at this late stage that you Yanks are going to stop work, pull up stakes, and bugger off back to America?”
“We would never,” Juliet said with patriotic fervor. “Right, Whit?”
“Absolutely.” As if he would ever disagree with his wife. “The more someone pushes us, the harder we push back.”
“We are a proud people and have not had a hand in our destiny for a long time.” This from Felix Ramirez.
“Surely you do not agree with these”—the businessman from Switzerland, Leibinger-Holte, struggled to find the right word—“monsters?”
“No, of course not,” Ramirez said quickly. “But there are those who believe that Panama should be for Panamanians.”
“Was that the belief before there was a canal?” Marion asked.
While it could have been a provocative question, Ramirez was too smooth to rise to the bait. “It was a much quieter aspiration back then, Mrs. Bell. However, the belief that we are different than those living on the other side of the Darién Gap is as old as the country itself.”
A waiter arrived with more drinks and the bowls of stew for Marion and Bell.
Tats then asked Talbot, “How will you proceed from here?”
The veteran soldier said nothing for the few seconds it took for the waiter to finish his delivery and retreat. “Can’t be too careful.”
Felix laughed. “You think the waiter could be an agent for Viboras Rojas?”
Talbot said, “I actually think anyone can be. They managed to pull off a sophisticated attack here and in California. That means they have connections inside and outside the zone. And Tats, as to my plans, surely you know I can’t discuss them with anyone outside my squad.”
Bell and Court Talbot exchanged a brief look. They hadn’t forgotten that the Red Vipers had possessed advanced knowledge of the meeting in San Diego. The leak had to have come from here rather than Senator Densmore’s office. That meant one of his troopers was talking to someone he shouldn’t.
Bell believed there was a very real possibility that Talbot’s driver, Rinaldo, had inadvertently passed information to his brother, not knowing he was Viboras Rojas.
Unfortunately, Talbot had given Rinaldo permission to travel north to break the news of Raul’s death to his parents before Bell could stop him. It would be telling if Rinaldo returned or if he ran. Even if he did come back to the city, a likely sign of innocence, Bell had every intention of interrogating him.
“Good luck to you, Herr Talbot.” Ernst Leibinger-Holte raised his glass. “To a successful hunt.”
“Hear! Hear!” the others echoed.
Bell asked the Swiss about his interest in Panama.
“Business, Herr Bell. I represent a firm that specializes in precision gauges and electric control systems. We had hoped to sell some of our wares to the Canal Authority, but they are using American-made products almost exclusively. I am now working with representatives from the national railroad. There is interest in what we manufacture.”
“And you, Mr. Webb?” Tats Macalister asked. “Surely you didn’t take your lovely wife on such a tedious business trip?”
The man looked sheepish because that’s exactly what had happened. “Jules’s father’s company made all the glass insulators for the power lines coming from the hydro works at Gatun. There was a problem with a few batches, and they sent me down to sort it all out. Jules isn’t the sort of woman to say no to an adventure and decided to come along.”
“Good for you, Juliet,” Marion said. “It’s the same for me. Isaac didn’t want me along because he thinks there’s some danger, and I reminded him of the danger he’d be in if he didn’t change his mind.”
The table laughed at Bell’s expense, not knowing the tale wasn’t exactly true.
Leibinger-Holte asked Whit, “Herr Webb, have you solved your insulator problem?”
“Days ago,” Juliet answered for her husband. “My clever boy. He noticed the trains down here rattle far more than the ones back home. There wasn’t enough cushioning material in our packing crates to handle the extra shaking, and a lot of the insulators chipped and cracked.”
“Ach, and you now return to America?”
“Yes,” Juliet said, allowing defeat to creep into her voice, “but this has been ever so much fun, and I really don’t want to go back home.”
It was the way she said that last line that made Bell realize that what she really wanted was to not have the kind of life a wealthy father had mapped out
