Page 80 of Clive Cussler The Iron Storm
“Long Island Sound. We have maybe an hour, two tops.”
“Then it’s a good thing you brought me a real sailor, Beacon Hill,” Grimm said with good-natured gruffness and backhanded Joe playfully in the chest.
“Funny.” Bell shook Joe Marchetti’s hand. “Been a while. How are you?”
“Grateful Helen wants a long engagement.”
Marchetti had classic Italian looks with olive skin, dark hair and eyes. He was just a couple years out of Annapolis, but still looked young enough to be a midshipman. Bell knew his youth and slim build hid a sharp, penetrating mind and a fierce competitiveness that was beginning a meteoric rise within the Navy’s ranks. He was the first from his class to be promoted to lieutenant junior grade.
Grimm already had the engines fired while Grey cast off the lines.
“Thanks again for agreeing to come with me,” Bell told Marchetti. “Your help will be invaluable. Did you get everything?”
The engine’s rumble deepened as Grimm backed the fishing boat out of her slip and into the East River. The river wasn’t really a river at all, but a part of Long Island Sound that wrapped around the western tip of the island close to Manhattan. There was no current, but it did experience the ebb and flow of the tides. The tide was flowing out, which gave them another bit of speed, while at the same time slowing theSaarland.
“Bombs, weapons, clothes, ladder, the lot,” Joe assured him.
“Good, because—”
The boom hit them just then, a concussive burst of noise that while distant rattled their chests. It was followed a moment later by a scream that seemed to be tearing the atmosphere apart. It was a scream that ended with another distant blast that rose above the buildings of New York in a cloud of white smoke and black, sooty dust.
Not that he could have moved any faster, but Bell cursed himself for already being too late.
41
Archie Abbott and James Dashwoodwere sitting in a conference room inside the Van Dorn headquarters. Archie was sipping a coffee. James was cleaning his Colt pistol. Hanna was on the couch thumbing through a magazine from the waiting room. They were all three bored.
Then came the sound like a sharp thunderclap followed by the unmistakable noise of an explosion.
Abbott and Dashwood looked to each other and said at the same time, “Penn Station.”
All three leapt to their feet and rushed for the exit. They were outside in a handful of seconds. One of the agency’s highly tuned Ford Model Ts sat at the curb. A pair of agents had been assigned to fire up the car at the first sign of trouble or if they saw Archie and his party rushing out of the Knickerbocker. The engine was running by the time they reached it. One agent held the door for Archie, while the other opened the rear door for Hanna.
They were away from the curb long before the cloud of dust thrown into the air by the blast began to resettle back on the ground. They raced past pedestrians who continued to stand still, unsure of what had just happened. Closer to the epicenter, they encountered crowds of panicked people running from the explosion. Traffic became a snarled mess.
Archie and James shared another look that conveyed they were thinking the same thing. If the streets were already this jammed, Balka Rath and Hanna’s brother, Hanzi Muntean, would get entangled in traffic and would be unable to do their job.
“They’ll be a couple blocks further out than we thought,” James said.
“Yeah,” Archie drawled. “My bet is Hanzi will stay with the truck, while Balka scouts the scene on foot and runs back with the necessary adjustments.”
Before they encountered full gridlock, Archie steered the car down an alley, nosing aside several trash cans in his bid to find a clear street. The next block was far less pandemonium, though faces were etched with concern and people were still fast-walking away from the explosion.
Archie parked the Ford in a dedicated loading zone. “Stay here with Hanna. I’m going to get over to where the shell hit and see if I get lucky.”
He made sure his pistol was secured in a holster under his jacket and the Ford’s key remained in the ignition. On the sidewalk, Abbott was like a salmon swimming against the spawn. Everyone was moving west while he bulled his way east. He was well above average in height and he’d been a boxer and knew how to twist and torque to keep himself protected. Despite the throngs of people he knifed through, he bumped into no one.
He finally reached the area where the big naval shell had plowed into the city. For the most part, they’d been lucky. The shell had hit the street just four blocks from Penn Station—a remarkedly accurate opening shot. The crater it left continued to billow noxious smoke as did the remains of two cars that had been blown more than forty feet when the warhead detonated. Clear-thinking pedestrians were giving aid to the injured. Others had taken the time to drape the bodies pulled from the cars with rumble seat lap robes or overcoats. Archie counted five dead and assumed that number would climb as the most grievously wounded succumbed.
What he didn’t see was anyone matching Balka Rath’s description in the area. Nor anyone making note of where the shell had slammed into the street. He continued scanning the crowd for another two minutes on the off chance Rath had been farther from the blast and would just now show up.
At last, Archie had to cede defeat, and he rushed back to the car.
“We were too late,” he announced. “The shell hit north and east of the station right in the middle of the street. I saw five dead.”
Hanna gave a small choking gasp and Dashwood muttered a quiet oath. He said, “We now know the target, so I think we should get closer to the station.”
“Agreed,” Archie said. He opened the car’s rear door. “Are you up for this, Hanna?”
