Bell opened his mouth to speak.
“You even think about saying this was our fault, that our maintenance wasn’t good enough, that she blew because of negligence, I will knock your block off.” Scully raised a fist so that it was under Bell’s nose. His hand was the size of a sledgehammer and looked just as hard.
“I’ll be with Colonel Goethals,” Bell drawled, unconcerned by the threat. “We’ll be at his office waiting for your report.”
Goethals was sitting in the Donkey’s cab next to Sam, so once Bell’d cranked the engine to life, he climbed onto the rear deck and took a seat with the doctor and his orderlies, plus the two wounded islanders. The five bodies were laid out on the floor between the last rows of seats, each swathed in a white sheet the orderlies had brought. No one talked during the long drive to Ancon Hospital. The engine was too loud, and the mood too dark, for conversation.
Bell sat alone with his thoughts after the others had been dropped off and the bodies removed so they could be taken to the morgue. The upcoming conversation with Goethals was critical. Bell’s arguments had to be irrefutable if he was going to convince the Colonel of the truth. The problem was, he had no evidence to present, nothing tangible. It was all conjecture, supposition, the very thing he wouldn’t tolerate from the witnesses back at the Culebra Cut.
Goethals was a practical man, a West Point graduate who was one of the finest civil engineers in the country. He didn’t build the canal using guesses and instinct. It took facts to build something like that, accurate maps, engineered schematics, detailed plans.
Isaac Bell had just one thing going for him and that was unshakable confidence that he was right.
He and Sam waited for two hours outside Goethals’s office as he made arrangements with a string of assistants and secretaries who paraded in and out of his inner sanctum as their boss dealt with this latest setback. Sam didn’t have a role to play, and should probably get back to his own job, but Bell was glad his friend stayed on. Bell used the time to compose a quick cable to the Van Dorn office in New York, asking for any known information on Otto Dreissen. Before handing the note over to Sam to send, he added a footnote, “Ask A. O. Girard.”
As the last secretary left, Bell heard Goethals say, “While we can replace the ruined machine with one of those we idled earlier this year, it was the hardest-working digging crew in the cut those bastards killed.”
“Yes, Colonel.”
“Send in Westbrook and the investigator.”
“Yes, Colonel.” The man opened the door and, gesturing, beckoned Sam and Bell.
A pall of stale cigarette smoke as thick as a London fog hung in the office. The windows were open, and a ceiling fan whirled high up near the ceiling, but neither made any headway with the rank cloud. Goethals was a chain-smoker, and the stress had upped his intake to the point his glass ashtray was overflowing, and it had been emptied just that morning.
“Sit down, you two,” Goethals greeted them without looking up from the folder on his desk. “Damn. These are recruiting figures for getting workers from Jamaica and Barbados. Down eight percent from last month, which was down four from the previous.” He looked up. “This is before the Red Vipers targeted the lock at Pedro Miguel and today’s attack. The zone will look like a ghost town in a few months.”
“Once we flood the cut and start working off dredges, we won’t need as much labor,” Sam said, trying to be optimistic.
Goethals ignored him. “What do you think, Bell? You said you had some theories about how they took out one of our excavators. Let’s hear it.”
“Your engineer, Jack Scully—I provoked him earlier by asking him to keep an open mind about what caused the explosion. He took it as a bold accusation that his negligence killed those men.”
“Not a wise thing to do, Bell. Jack Scully is quick to temper and lets his fists do their fair share of the talking.”
“I could tell that just by looking at him,” Bell agreed. “I needed him mad at someone other than the Red Vipers, so he stays focused on where the evidence leads him and not the preconceived notion that everyone currently has about what happened out there.”
Colonel Goethals looked at him warily. “What are you saying?”
Bell caught and kept his eye. “I am saying that Viboras Rojas didn’t attack that machine. If he’s as good as he looks, Scully will find that it was a tragic accident, plain and simple.”
“And how can you be so certain? Are you suddenly an expert on rail-mounted steam shovels?” His voice oozed wary sarcasm.
“No, Colonel. I’m an expert on people and their motivations. The Viboras didn’t hit the excavator because that organization doesn’t exist. And determing the explosion was an accident will be my proof.”
Smoke jetted from Goethals’s nostrils in a dismissive snort. “You claim to have recovered your faculties, Bell. I say you hit your head harder than you let on. What do you mean they don’t exist? I’ve got plenty of acts of sabotage, as well as dozens of dead men, that says otherwise.” Goethals crushed out the cigarette and turned his attention to Sam Westbrook. “You buy this nonsense? I thought you had a better head on your shoulders.”
“First I’ve heard of it. Isaac told me a connection to some German guy, but not this.”
“Explain yourself, Bell,” Goethals demanded, “and don’t waste my time doing it.”
“I’m not saying attacks didn’t take place, Colonel,” Bell replied, “but they weren’t carried out by a nativist insurrection whose goal is the overthrow of the
