The Saboteurs

by Clive Cussler

  There was an extra gap where one of the trucks, out of rotation, had been driven off.

  “Hey,” Bell called out to get the mechanic’s attention.

  “What?”

  “Where’s the truck that should be parked fifth from the end?”

  The man scratched at the back of his head. “Don’t know. It was there a little while ago.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yup.”

  Bell looked out across the jobsite. Now that he was concentrating on finding a particular truck, he saw trucks everywhere. Some were parked and seemingly abandoned while others were trundling along to whatever task needed to be done. If the truck they sought had been moved from the garage, the explosives were going to be in play. There were several thousand men clambering over and around the massive lock, and he knew that was the most likely target. From where he stood, he could see several trucks parked along the lock’s length.

  A sense of foreboding gripped him.

  “We need to clear the site immediately,” he told Westbrook. “There can’t be much time.”

  The engineer thought for a moment. “There’s a signal siren that goes off at—”

  The explosion was a catastrophic roar that could be felt at the very base of the brain. It overwhelmed the senses so that the men standing even as far away as they were felt dizzy and disorientated. Next came the shock wave. Bell reflexively turned his back to the blast, but it still felt like he’d taken a half dozen simultaneous hits from baseball bats. He was driven to his knees as he noted the sky going dark. He turned to look over his shoulder. The explosion had gouged a great crater next to the wall of one of the locks, and the mass of pulverized material had been lofted a hundred feet or more into the sky, momentarily blotting out the sun.

  And then it all began to fall back to earth in a hailstorm the likes of which no one had ever seen. At the epicenter, larger pieces of rock and chunks of concrete fell like boulders, while across a great swath of the work zone clots of gravel fell from the sky and hit like the pricks from a swarm of stinging wasps. Bell curled himself in a ball, with his hands wrapped around his head, like he was about to be raked by salt from a shotgun.

  No sooner had the sky cleared of debris than he was on his feet and running to where the truck had exploded almost directly beneath one of the towering gantry cranes. As he sprinted, he watched in horror as the crane’s support structure buckled and began to collapse. High up on the lock’s rim, a full bucket of cement had been dangling over a group of workers ready to dump it into a form. The multi-ton crucible slammed down on the edge of the concrete structure so hard that the liquid cement erupted from the bucket like it was lava from a volcano. Two of the men were spared, but three others were hit with hundreds of pounds of mud-like concrete and sent hurtling off the eighty-foot-high perch. Their shouts stopped short when they hit the bottom of the lock.

  The crane continued to fall as if its steel frame had turned to rubber. The empty cement bucket was yanked off the top of the lock by the crane’s plummeting and whipsawed toward the ground, where it struck a locomotive pulling a trainload of fresh wooden planks.

  The locomotive’s boiler was solidly built and could sustain two hundred and fifty pounds per square inch of steam pressure, but it wasn’t designed to take such a crushing blow. The boiler split and erupted in a scalding plume of superheated steam that consumed the engineer and his brakeman, plus a handful of poor souls caught nearby, before the cloud curled heavenward and dissipated.

  The main body of the crane struck the ground and crumpled under the weight of its heavy wheels and cogs and drums of braided cable. The long boom landed last, folding like paper as it slammed into the earth.

  Around the smoking crater, vehicles and equipment had been tossed aside. Several wooden storage sheds were blown flat and set ablaze. Bodies and parts of bodies littered the landscape. Bell knew the death toll would be in the dozens.

  Bell wasn’t running to offer aid or to help rescue anyone who’d been trapped. That duty would have to fall on others. His was a more deadly pursuit. He’d observed the driver of the explosives-laden truck moments before the blast. Something must have gone wrong because the man hadn’t gotten far enough from the detonation.

  Bell raced into the swirling clouds of dust, past men who were covered head to toe in fine powder and whose eyes were those of the haunted. The moaning and cries were the stuff of nightmares, and he witnessed every dreadful permutation of what high explosives could do to the human body.

  He was still fifty yards from his target and sprinting hard when the truck driver raised himself up off the ground and shook his head to clear it. It was Bell’s bad luck that the man possessed the feral instincts of a sewer rat because as he zeroed in on Bell charging at him he instinctively knew he was in trouble and took off running in the opposite direction.

  Bell didn’t really see the man’s face, but he could see that he was young and in shape, for he moved like a thoroughbred, or, more aptly, a steeplechaser. He leapt over any obstacle that got in his way, using his arms for additional leverage. It was almost like he had springs instead of muscles. Bell was having a hard time keeping up, as he had to duck and juke and weave, while his quarry seemed to just glide through the chaos he’d created.

  11

  The saboteur raced up a flight of stairs hanging on the outside flank of the lock and then leapt off the platform to a towering assembly of wooden scaffolding that rose to the top of the chamber wall.

  Bell paused to see if he had a shot with his .45, realized he didn’t, and kept after the man. He was breathing heavily in the humid air, and he had to flick sweat from his eyes every few seconds. The driver climbed with the agility of a monkey, while Bell struggled. The top of the lock was some eighty-five feet above the ground, and Bell and the driver climbed all the way up, hand over hand, with feet scrabbling for purchase.

  By the time Bell reached the top, his target was running along the lock’s great length. Even before Bell was fully to his feet, he pulled the black Colt from its shoulder holster and braced himself in a two-handed shooting stance that gave him far more stability than the one-handed style still popular with law enforcement and the military.

  He cycled through the seven rounds in the magazine in three seconds, but the range had grown extreme, and he had zero control over his breathing or the pounding of his heart. It would have been just as effective to throw the bullets at the bomber.

  He started running again, changing out the magazine as he went. The top of the lock was wide enough yet littered with construction materials, forcing Bell to weave precariously close to the dizzying edges at times. The lock chamber below him was like the longest, widest, deepest swimming pool in the world, only it hadn’t yet been filled. Work was still being done on its concrete floor. For safety’s sake, the big holes in the floor that allowed water into the chamber had been fitted with temporary covers.

  The bomber ran with the understanding his life was on the line. There would be no slowing, no stopping, no attention paid to sore legs or burning lungs. He had to escape if he wanted to live. Behind him, Bell ran with enough confidence in himself that he wouldn’t give up until he had his man in irons or dead. He could block out any amount of discomfort by keeping that singular goal his entire focus.

  They ran almost the complete length of the Pedro Miguel Lock. It looked like the bomber was going to run to the end of the tailing that stretched from the lock out some distance from the chamber. It dipped down in a gentle drop, and at the very end of the structure was more scaffolding that he could climb down.

  At the last second, the man veered sharply right and took the chase out onto one of the massive steel doors, a towering slab of metal that weighed over seven hundred tons. The doors usually met at an angle to each other to help them stave off the tremendous weight of water they were designed to withstand.

  They were currently ajar
. That was a relative term, given that each leaf of the mitered gate was sixty-five feet wide.

  The bomber didn’t hesitate. In fact, he lengthened his stride, hit his mark, and sailed eighty feet above the lock’s floor below. He landed on the far gate awkwardly enough that he fell and almost rolled off the edge before catching himself and jumping back onto his feet and continuing. He didn’t waste the effort to look back.

  Bell raced on, and as he drew closer to the end of the gate, he saw the gap between it and its mate seeming to grow wider and wider. He was at that crucial split second when his mind had to derail his instinctual need for self-preservation and forced himself to jump over the yawning abyss.

  He didn’t make it.

  At least, not all the way. The space between the doors was far wider than Bell had ever jumped. Instead of clearing the far edge, he slammed into it just below his ribs, exploding every molecule of air from his lungs. His pistol crushed against his chest like a full-body punch. He struggled for grip, his hands spread flat against the hot metal, while the toes of his boot found a row of rivets no thicker than suit buttons.

  He could feel the void sucking at his heels.

  His hands began to slide down, leaving trails of sweat on the black steel. A little moan of effort escaped his lips as he curled his toes in hopes of gaining a better hold on the nubbin-like rivets. Still sliding, if only by millimeters, Bell was certain his last mistake had been a fatal one. He thought of Marion’s beautiful face and how he would never see her again.

  One boot slipped from its rivet at the same time the heel of his hand touched a rough seam in the metal door, a bump no thicker than twenty sheets of paper. He dug his fingers into the seam, curling them so tight that the tendons in his arms raised the skin like the cable stays of a suspension bridge. He didn’t panic. He moved his second hand forward and dug in with his fingers and slowly found his foothold once again.

  By inches, he pulled himself up until he could shift his body weight enough to roll onto the mitered gate. As much as his body needed to rest, to reinflate his lungs properly and to discharge the adrenaline overload that had shocked his nervous system, he ignored it all and got to his feet. He’d lost precious seconds.

  The bomber was already running farther back on the center pier of the lock that separated the two great chambers and had a seventy-yard advantage. He was almost at another set of scaffolding that would take him down to the open chamber floor.

  Bell started after him again, each breath a stab of agony. He’d broken ribs before and knew the feeling and, thankfully, this wasn’t that. But his pace was off.

  The bomber reached the staging and started down without a moment’s hesitation. If he reached the bottom with too much of a head start, Bell felt certain he’d lose him in the anonymity of the rescuers hard at work down below.

  Next to the scaffolding was an area with benches covered with tools, and a pulley for hauling things up from below. When Bell reached it and looked over the edge, the bomber was nothing more than a shifting shadow lost in the latticework.

  He was going to lose the man if he didn’t think of something quick. At the base of the wall was a large bucket used to raise tools and materials up to the top. Bell hoped to use it as a counterweight, but it was filled with bags of portland cement, several hundred pounds’ worth, and far too heavy for his purposes. They used horses, he realized, as power to hoist.

  Instead of holding on to the rope and letting gravity do the work, Bell snatched up a pair of heavy iron tongs, like riveters use to hold hot bolts while they’re being pounded into place. The jaws of the tongs closed in a circular shape just slightly larger around than the hemp rope. Had they clamped tight, Bell’s plan would have been dashed.

  He got a firm grip on both handles and stepped off the concrete wall. Gravity should have sent him plummeting to his death, but his weight and the width of the tongs’s jaws meant the rope had to kink sharply as he fell, the friction of metal against the rope slowing his descent to a manageable speed. Still, it was a harrowing drop from the heights of the lock.

  The landing was brutal, but he had gained on his man. The bomber was running hard again and ducked out through the opening in the gates they’d leapt from moments before. Bell gave chase.

  From the ground level, the doors looked like the enormous portal to some pagan temple, and once again Bell was staggered by the scale of the canal. When he made it through the open gate, he saw the construction site spread out before him. A pair of locomotives sat, huffing steam, on a siding, while a truck raced up the hill away from the site, likely on a mission to bring additional help.

  What Bell didn’t see was his quarry. He knew he had been close enough that the man couldn’t have escaped. There was only one place he could go. Bell rounded the front of the lock and encountered an eighteen-foot culvert, big enough to serve as a railroad tunnel, that ran the length of the lock. It was one of the conduits used to fill the massive locks with water.

  The far opening was a thousand feet distant and looked as small and pale as a wafer. Bell drew his pistol again and started jogging. The light faded quickly yet he could hear the bomber running ahead of him and could just discern his loping figure in silhouette.

  “Stop,” Bell shouted and fired a single bullet down the tunnel but well above the fugitive.

  The man kept going. Bell went after him yet again. He raced past an inky black tunnel below that ran across the lock’s chamber. Though it was smaller than the main pipe, Bell could have ridden through it on horseback.

  Deeper into the concrete structure, the light faded further. Bell could no longer see the bomber’s silhouette. He had moved closer to the side of the culvert to mask his location.

  Bell passed another dark tunnel crossing below and then a third. He was almost past the fourth when he noticed something different. A bit of light filtered down the shaft from one of the well openings embedded in the floor of the lock. He had a snap decision to make and he’d either be right or the madman would escape. He turned and ran down the side tunnel, trusting his instincts. Cornered rats always take the first way out.

  Over the sound of his ragged breathing and the echoing slap of his rubber boots on the tunnel floor, he could hear the bomber running ahead of him. Bell passed under three of the covered round holes in the ceiling, each the size of a large dining room table. It was up ahead, at the fifth and final one, that Bell saw the bomber. He was halfway up a ladder left behind by workers.

  Bell would never catch him. The distance was too great. He’d be up on the surface in seconds and he’d haul the ladder up after himself. That would be it.

  Bell stopped, raised his pistol so that its weight rested in his left hand and was guided by his right. The shots came in one thunderous tattoo and were painfully loud in the confined tunnel.

  No sooner had the man’s legs vanished up the tunnel than the ladder was drawn up too.

  Bell had failed. By the time he cut back across the width of the lock chamber and made it out the main culvert, the bomber would have vanished. Still, he wouldn’t call it fate or bad luck and just succumb to defeat. He ran, as best he could, back out of the giant’s maze of piping and conduits. His muscles felt rubbery, his body ached, and he was thoroughly exhausted, but he pushed on at an anemic pace. He didn’t stop until he reached daylight.

  The scene was as it had been just moments earlier. The trains were there, and a different truck was driving toward the construction zone. Some of the men in the distance moved like walking corpses, while others ran about with frantic haste. Bell saw no one running, or even walking, inside the empty lock. The bomber had either climbed out of the chamber on some scaffolding or just run out the up-channel gates.

  He looked more carefully and saw something that caught his eye. He loaded his last magazine into the butt of his .45 and took off at a pained trot.

  The driver was barely ten feet from the open hole
he’d climbed up through and lay in a lake of congealing blood. Bell understood what had happened as he drew nearer. He’d hit the man in the femoral artery high up his inner thigh. Another round had made a ruin of his face by piercing one of his cheeks. Adrenaline and fear had given him the strength to raise the ladder from the culvert, but the staggering blood loss meant he could go no farther.

  Such was the nature of the jungle that flies were already starting to buzz around the body.

  12

  Bell found Court Talbot in the thick of the rescue work. The scene was like something out of the blackest reaches of Hell. Dead men lay everywhere, while the injured cried out in pain. The air remained fouled by the smell of sulfur, and in odd places were bloodstains where men had been standing when they were blown out of existence. Doctors had yet to arrive, but the Army veteran had seen enough injuries over his military career to triage the most grievous.

  “Did you get him?”

  “Yes,” Bell reported. “He’s in the far lock chamber. I want you to verify something about him.”

  Talbot held up his hands. They were bloody to the wrist. “Little busy right now.”

  “Where’s Westbrook?”

  “He went to the telegraph office at the train station to organize transport out of here and to alert the big hospital at Ancon.”

  The patient Talbot was working on had a deep gash in his right leg. Talbot was trying to fit the injured man with a tourniquet, but he was writhing in such pain that he couldn’t form a proper knot in the strip of cloth torn from a dead man’s shirt. Bell pressed his weight down on the man’s knees. He screamed, but it allowed Talbot to fix the binding and stanch the blood.