Clive Cussler The Sea Wolves by Jack Du Brul

Author:Jack Du Brul [Brul, Jack Du]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Action & Adventure, Thrillers, Suspense, Crime
ISBN: 9780593421987
Google: yCxeEAAAQBAJ
Amazon: B09S3JPDH6
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
Published: 2022-11-08T06:00:00+00:00

20

Bell met Archie for drinks at the Yale Club near Grand Central. Archie always joked about being in the lion’s den, seeing that he was a Princeton man, but admitted the food was good and the service excellent. As always, the atmosphere was one of muted elegance.

They ordered martinis as soon as they got to the bar.

“How’d it go?” Bell asked while the barman made their drinks.

“I think it’s a total bust,” Archie said. “That guy looks like he has one foot in the grave already.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think he has cancer and he’s not long for this world. He’s a tall Irish fellow, but so thin it doesn’t look like he’d eaten for a month. He had that look—you know the look—that says he knows his number is about up.”

“What about the dead guy at Flat Point?”

“Thank you for not telling me his name, by the way. Connell said it was Bill Sherman, and I said I wasn’t sure because I had taken over the investigation and hadn’t been properly briefed.”

“Did he buy it?”

“You insult me, sir,” Archie said with mock outrage as he set down his glass. “I am a consummate liar, Olympic contender quality, in point of fact. Of course he believed me. Seriously, I can’t picture Connell overpowering a toddler, much less a grown man who hauls forty pounds of kerosene up a hundred steps ten times a night. Guy also has a bum wing.”

Bell thought back to Ralph Pryor’s size and strength. He doubted the lighthouse service was home to many weak men. The job was just too physically taxing.

“He could still be our guy if the spy’s running him. You said he’s Irish. There are factions in Ireland that want to see an end to British rule. I’ve heard some are pretty radical. Could be a motive for helping the Germans,” Bell said. “Maybe the spy killed Sherman.”

“I don’t know,” Archie said, unconvinced.

“To further muddy the waters of this case,” Bell went on, “Joe left word for me at the office that he still doesn’t know how the Germans manage sending a message reliably across the Atlantic. He mentioned something about newly invented vacuum tubes.”

“Like a Eureka vacuum cleaner?”

“The message said tubes, not cleaners, and I don’t see how a domestic cleaning machine could transmit radio signals.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Archie said impishly. “They’re getting pretty fancy. My staff has one with a light on it to better clean dark corners.”

Bell chuckled tonelessly and took another sip of his drink. “It could be time to admit that Joe Marchetti might be wrong about this whole thing and that the Germans aren’t marking specific ships, but are just getting lucky with the vessels they sink. By now just about every ship leaving New York bound for Britain is carrying war matériel of some form or another. They’re all targets.”

“You seemed pretty convinced the kid was right not that long ago.”

“I know, and now I have to consider my judgment was clouded because I’d convinced myself the spymaster who died in New Haven wasn’t acting alone.

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