“I’d say we’re just in time.”
They raced up the last few switchbacks of stairs. On the platform at the top of the mast, a sailor monitored the thick hose that was pumping water into the Cologne’s ballast tanks. Bell flipped his .45 and clipped the man behind the ear with its grip. His skull had to be extra-thick because rather than collapse into unconsciousness, he clutched the wound with one hand and sprung to his feet to confront Bell.
Bell struck at him again, harder this time, but the sailor blocked the swing with an arm. Bell threw a straight left that flattened the man’s nose and caused blood to flow. The sailor was dazed, and so Bell finished him with a strong kick between the legs. When the man doubled over, Bell gave him another rap on the back of the head with the butt of the Colt automatic.
The men coming up from below were only a few landings away. Bell turned to the airship’s entrance hatch as another figure emerged from the craft’s interior. The light was streaky with shadows, so no one saw any faces, but the newcomer recognized the prisoner and assumed the man with her was helping her escape. Heinz Kohl lunged for Bell, swinging with a left cross from what looked like too far away.
Bell had recognized the bodyguard’s tactic and ducked back quickly enough that the man’s leather-gloved wooden fist missed his nose by an inch. Kohl was so used to landing his first blow that he was hyperextended. Bell slid in and fired two rabbit punches to the kidneys before dodging as Kohl swung his prosthetic arm like a club. Bell popped back up, hitting Dreissen’s bodyguard with a straight right to the nose, but the old brawler was ready and bowed his head so that Bell’s fist ended up caroming harmlessly off the man’s forehead.
Kohl swung again. Bell trapped the artificial limb between his chest and arm and turned sharply, yanking Kohl off balance enough for Bell to loop a length of the chain railing ringing the platform once around Kohl’s wrist and kick him on the outside of the knee hard enough to collapse him to the deck. One more kick sent him off the platform and dangling above the deck by the straps holding his once deadly arm to his shoulder.
He pointed Marion to the hatch. “Go.”
There was a small vestibule just inside the airship, and a flight of stairs that would lead down to the keel and allow access to the gondolas. On the wall above the hatch was a large, red-painted lever held in place with a brass pin. Bell pulled the pin and heaved down on the lever, using all the weight of his body. The locking mechanism that held the airship to the mast slid free, and the great ship immediately began to rise. The filling hose ripped from its mount in a spray of water. Bell had to grab a handhold on a bulkhead close by and wrap an arm around Marion to keep them steady as the ship arrowed into the sky.
Wind blasted through the open hatch.
“It wasn’t like this before,” Marion said, her voice an octave higher than normal. “What’s happening?”
“Not enough ballast water. The captain needs to vent hydrogen to get us neutrally buoyant.”
Bell shifted to give Marion access to the handhold. He then pulled the hatch closed.
“What the hell have you done?” Otto Dreissen bellowed as he charged up the stairs.
The .45 felt like it leapt into Isaac’s hand, and the German brought himself up short.
Dreissen sneered, then said, “Fire that thing in here, and the last thing you see is your wife turned into a human torch.”
“Then I advise you don’t do anything stupid to make me want to pull the trigger.”
The airship lurched hard as it continued to rocket heavenward. Metal struts creaked and moaned at the unprecedented strain they were under. All three were forced to remain where they stood, clutching to railings to keep from being tossed around. Bell felt like he was back in the tanker truck as it was being overwhelmed by the avalanche.
“How are you even here?” Dreissen demanded.
Bell had to practically shout over the metallic protests the ship made as it climbed higher still. He couldn’t understand why the Captain hadn’t vented more gas to slow its perilous rise. “I had a plane. I followed the airship back from its ill-fated rendezvous with Court Talbot out on Lake Gatun.”
Marion gave a little choked gasp at hearing Talbot was involved in this plot.
Dreissen absorbed that news and asked, “Ill-fated? What happened to Talbot and his men?”
“I didn’t realize the fire I set on their boat would cause one of the two underwater mines you’d delivered to explode. Whatever it is you’re up to is finished, Dreissen. You lost your bombs.”
“On the contrary, those last two explosives were an extra bit of insurance. Talbot and his crew made multiple runs every night, ferrying my mines from their jungle camp. They’ve already wired and submerged enough mines to suit my purposes.”
Bell hadn’t expected that, though he should have. He’d forgotten that while he’d lost days battling amnesia, Talbot and company had been hard at work. “At the Gatun Dam?”
Dreissen smiled because he knew he’d just rattled the Van Dorn investigator. He paused as if contemplating not answering, but decided that at this juncture there was no harm in gloating. “Near enough that the shock wave generated by the detonation will collapse it. The lifeblood of the Panama Canal, the water of the Chagres River, will once again rejoin the Atlantic Ocean. My engineers estimate it will take a year to
