Page 85 of Clive Cussler The Iron Storm
Rath was waiting just behind the curtain with a balisong knife, which he thrust at Archie with a lightning strike. Had the detective been standing upright, the blow would have split his ribs and pierced his heart in a fatal blow. Instead, the stiletto-like blade sank to its hilt into Arch’s well-developed trapezius muscle. Archie’s shock atthe sudden explosion of pain down his right arm made him drop his gun.
Since Rath hadn’t expected his pursuer to be hunched over and his attack not lethal, he hesitated at pulling the knife and correcting his aim. It was a fatal mistake. Archie caught his dropped pistol with his left hand, raised the barrel slightly, and put one of the big .45 bullets into Balka’s heart. Rath had a moment to stare into the eyes of the man who’d shot him. He saw nothing but determined satisfaction.
Archie had seen the glint of a blade in Rath’s hand when he raced through the curtain, though he was certain it hadn’t been there seconds earlier. Rath’s only hope of winning the fight was an ambush as quickly as possible. Since Archie couldn’t slow his pursuit, he’d protected himself as best as possible and ran in hunched over like an old man.
He left Rath where he’d fallen and staggered back to the Ford almost a full block away. Blood was soon snaking down his arm and dripping from his fingers.
“What have you done to Hanzi?” Hanna screamed at him. She’d gotten herself out of the car and was standing over her brother with her bad arm cradled in her good, her face gone pale and glossy with perspiration. “You’ve killed him.”
Arch Abbott left the knife embedded in his flesh and slowly lowered himself to the curb. Through the pain, he managed to say, “No, but he won’t be sitting down comfortably anytime soon.”
“You don’t move, mister,” said a portly man looming over Archie. He wore a grocer’s apron and was brandishing a wooden truncheon.
“It’s okay, I’m with Van Dorn,” Archie said, showing the would-be hero his empty palms. “Those two jokers are connected to the explosions near Penn Station.”
“Really?” said the grocer, lowering the baton.
“Just proving the Van Dorns always get their man,” Archie called up to James Dashwood who remained in the front seat of the demolished Ford. “You doing all right up there?”
“Big piece of glass is stuck where it shouldn’t be and I don’t want to move until there’s a doctor or two hovering over me. You?”
“About the same, but mine’s some sort of floppy-handled knife.”
“What about Rath?”
“He took his to the heart from my .45 so he’s not coming back from that one.”
“Where’d you wing Hanna’s brother?”
“Keister.”
“Nice.” James paused for a moment. Despite leaving the shard in place, he was still losing blood. When a wave of nausea passed, he asked, “Do you think this is the end of it? Karl Rath’s spotter is dead. There will be no more radioed instructions.”
Beat cops blowing whistles were starting to show up. Ambulances wouldn’t be too far behind.
Archie answered James’s question. “I think when enough time has passed and Rath still hasn’t heard from his brother, he’s going to fire at random to do the maximum amount of damage he can.”
“I was afraid you were going to say that.”
“It’s up to Isaac and Joe now. All we can do is hope.”
—
Bell was never one toslink out of a situation, but he knew discretion was the better part of valor in this instance. He turned as soon as he heard the group of approaching men. He found a ladder to the next deck and climbed. Now above the main deck, where presumably there was no need for Rath to have any ofhis men, Bell ran aft. The rooms he passed served functions he didn’t understand, presumably to do with aiming and firing the main guns or perhaps damage control.
He found a door to the outside and opened it. He found himself on an observation platform just aft of the bridge, near one of the ship’s countless tertiary artillery installations. He looked up toward the bridge and saw that his arrival had caught the attention of two men standing on the wraparound bridge wing just above the forward turret. Bell recognized Karl Rath instantly, but it took the anarchist a long second to realize the man he’d sent to his death aboard the Zeppelin-Staaken aircraft had not only survived the flight but had somehow managed to follow him across the Atlantic.
The range was too great for the shotgun and before Bell had time to draw his pistol, Rath and his companion opened fire with pistols of their own. Bell just managed to duck through the door when the bullets arrived in an angry swarm.
“I will kill you myself,” Rath shouted down to Bell, his voice like the bellow of an enraged animal.
Pesha Orsos, Rath’s childhood friend asked, “Who was that?”
“The man from back in Belgium, Isaac Bell,” Rath said, feeding additional bullets into his revolver while keeping one eye trained on the platform below. “Listen, Pesha, we’ve waited long enough for my brother to radio in. Something must have happened to him. Get back to your station and fire at will on the city. Aim as best you can from this range, but fire quickly. We may not destroy their landmarks but thirty quarter-ton shells raining down on New York will still get our desired results.”
Another of Rath’s men ran out onto the platform. He was winded. “We found it, no problem.”
“A bomb?”
