Page 56 of Clive Cussler The Iron Storm
“Yes, I was just there. A rather unsubtle case of arson. But surely Rath gave you some idea of his intentions. All those men? How many did he have and what were they training for?”
“There were forty-five men in total,” she said, very sure of herself. “He said it was the bare minimum, but he never told me for what. They did, ah,callisthenie.” She pantomimed someone lifting weights over their head.
“Calisthenics.”
“Yes, that. They had classroom instructions, too, but I do not know what they were taught.”
Bell said, “I saw one of the men on the night I stayed in the warehouse. He had a tattoo on his chest that made me think he was a sailor. Did anyone else have sailor’s tattoos?”
Her eyes lit up for the first time as if she were happy to be of some use. “Yes, many of them did. They liked to show them off to me when Karl wasn’t around. Some were very, ah, risqué. Nude women and mermaids with big…” Another pantomime.
“I get the idea.”
“That helps me remember now. When Karl left, he said he was going on a voyage, one that would start a new world.”
Bell arched a brow at the comment. Her information was further proof he was on the right track about Rath’s preparations, though not his exact plan.
“What did he mean by start a new world?”
Magdalena shrugged. “I can’t say for certain. Karl was angry and bitter over the murder of his parents. They were killed by the Hungarian police, apparently over some business dispute. Their farm and lands were taken as a result.”
“Karl is from Hungary?”
“No, further east, high in the Carpathian Mountains where there are no real borders. He and his brother became brigands. But they only attacked and robbed aristocrats. Karl hates royalty. He espoused that all of Europe’s crowned heads be decapitated at war’s end, most especially the Hapsburg monarchy.”
“He wants a new world order without dynastic rule.”
“It is more than that. I overheard many conversations where he discussed subverting troops to march against their own governments, then to destroy the banks and other institutions.” She looked away a moment with a hardened stare. “Karl lives to destroy, but thinks he can rise from the ashes of the ruination like a phoenix, to rule all. He is very forceful. Maybe he can do it.”
“Not while I’m breathing,” Bell replied. But he knew history’s cold lessons. Revolutions needed a guiding figure to lead the masses after the destruction ended. Amid the chaos and confusion, the rise of autocratic rule was an all-too-common aftermath.
He shook away the thought, as there was another thread he needed to tug. “Rath’s brother. Did you ever meet him?”
“Yes,” she said, and the melancholy returned. “Balka.”
“Why did Balka go to New York?”
“Karl sent him to live in America. I don’t know why, but it had to be for something important, because he was more like a father to Balka than a brother. He raised him from the time their parents were killed.”
“He was here with Karl and the others?”
“Yes, for a time. They had a radio in the warehouse that Balka operated. He was always practicing on it with another man before he departed.”
“What is Balka like? Big like Karl?”
“No. He is thin and delicate and beautiful. You are a handsome man. Balka is different. He is beautiful, like a woman, but he is still all man. Do you know what I mean?”
“I think so,” Bell assured her.
“He is who every girl believes she loves, but also who their mothers and grandmothers desire as well.”
“Got it.”
“But he is only beautiful on the outside. Inside he is rotting. He has no soul, only cruelty. In that, he is like Karl. He cares only for himself.”
“It sounds like he hurt you.”
“No,” she denied quickly. “I was Karl’s woman by the time Balka arrived in town.”
