5

A pinnace sent from the Maryland towed the runabout through a narrow gap in the leeward side of the torpedo netting, and the commandeered boat was tied to the stairs that had been lowered from the battlewagon’s main deck. Bell had voluntarily surrendered his pistol to the jumpy ensign in charge of the towboat, confident that he’d get it back once this affair was sorted out.

Densmore wisely held his tongue until they reached the ship and were confronted by the captain and first officer. Other members of the crew crowded around the deck in the shadow of the forward turret, with its enormous eight-inch guns.

The ensign handed Bell’s .45 to the first mate butt-first. “This was on ’im. The fat bloke’s unarmed, Commander.”

Bell held out his hand to the taciturn skipper. The man was unusually tall, with a hatchet face and a prominent Adam’s apple. The captain made no move to shake the proffered hand.

Bell withdrew it with an awkward smile. “My name is Isaac Bell. I’m a detective with the Van Dorn Agency. This gentleman is Senator William Densmore of California, and we just escaped an assassination attempt at the Hotel del Coronado.”

The captain’s gaze remained unmoved. He finally drew air through his nostrils. “What you did is put my ship and crew in jeopardy and for that I will see you arrested and sent to the Navy brig in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.”

“See here,” Densmore said. He reached for his wallet. “It’s true. I am Senator Densmore, and those men were trying to kill us.”

He withdrew his congressional identification card from his billfold and held it up for the captain. The man’s eyes widened slightly. He asked, “And what were you doing out in the harbor so late?”

Bell spoke for them. “We were ambushed at the Hotel del Coronado, and once we fled the grounds, I commandeered a boat, not realizing the assassins had one of their own. It was how they planned to escape. They were faster than us, so outrunning them wasn’t an option. I recalled seeing your nets being deployed earlier this evening, a detail our pursuers didn’t know about, so I lured them into hitting them.”

“That’s how it happened, Captain,” Densmore said.

“And for the record,” Bell added, “I set my trap so their boat would tear itself apart in front of your ship, rather than straight into your side, to minimize any risk to vessel or crew.”

A sailor approached the party but stopped a respectful distance away. The first officer turned, and the two spoke for a second, while the captain continued to look from Bell to Densmore and back again. Bell thought he’d make a formidable poker opponent.

“What is it?” the captain asked when the mate returned to his side.

“Wireless message from the San Diego police requesting our assistance. There was an attack at the Hotel Del tonight, and Senator Densmore is missing. The explosion was noted from shore, and they wanted to know if we have any information.”

“Very well,” the captain said. He looked back at Isaac. “It appears, Mr. Bell, the civilian authorities have already been alerted to the disturbing events of this evening, and I’m inclined to let them have jurisdiction in the matter. Ensign Armstrong?”

The seaman stepped forward from the crowd of sailors. “Captain?”

“Tow Mr. Bell’s boat back to The Del, and see that he and the Senator are presented to the lead investigator at the hotel.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Bell said, “Sir, if I may be so bold, there are going to be a number of injured people back at the hotel and pier. I’m not sure how long it will take civilian medical services to arrive. I believe it would be prudent to send your ship’s surgeon and as many corpsmen as you can spare.”

The captain considered Bell’s suggestion for only a moment. “XO, round up Sawbones and his staff.”

“Aye, sir.”

“My weapon, Captain?” Bell asked before the first officer disappeared with it.

“XO?”

The man handed it to the captain, who handed it to the young ensign.

“It will be given to the lead investigator when Ensign Armstrong hands you over.”

Bell considered the offer. “Fair enough.”

Forty minutes later, the pinnace, with the shot-up runabout in tow, rounded the headland into Glorietta Bay. The marina building was bathed in light from a half dozen cars pulled around it so their headlamps could add much-needed illumination. As the distance narrowed, police could be heard coordinating the crowds to allow a pair of Cunningham motorized ambulances sent by special ferry to approach. They would take to the hospital those most injured in the attack and subsequent stampede.

To Bell’s immeasurable relief, he’d later learn that none of the injuries were more severe than broken bones or bumps and bruises, and only six people had non-life-threatening bullet wounds.

As the pinnace drew closer still, a shrill shout rose from a man in the crowd on the pier. “That’s my boat.”

Bell recognized the foppish owner, in his straw boater and striped knickerbocker pants, as he jumped up and down in place and pointed at the craft following meekly in the Navy boat’s wake. The elegant woman with him seemed bored.

The man then spotted Bell, leaning on the pinnace’s gunwale, and he yelled again. “And there’s the thief. Police. I need the police. That’s the man who stole my boat. The blond man. And the fat one too. He’s the accomplice.”

By the time the pinnace was secured to the dock, two police officers from San Diego’s legendary motorcycle squad were waiting. The owner’s outrage reached a fevered pitch when he saw the sorry state of his beloved motor launch and demanded that Bell be hanged for his crime. Ensign Armstrong interceded before Bell and Senator Densmore were clapped in irons. He explained to the cops that he was delivering the two men to the lead investigator and asked who that might be.

While the Navy doctor and his four assistants waded into the crowd in search of patients, and the excitable boatman ranted in increasingly shrill tones, Armstrong and another sailor led Bell and Densmore through the shell-shocked crowds and up the gentle hill they had rocketed down on a luggage cart a short time earlier.

The lobby was full of guests, milling about, most still dressed for the parties that had been interrupted. Waiters ghosted through the throng with trays of whiskey for the gentlemen and lemonade for the ladies, though more than a couple availed themselves of the stronger drink. Uniformed police and detectives in suits were taking statements from anyone who might have been a witness. Bell grabbed two cut-crystal tumblers off a silver tray and handed one to the Senator. The man grunted his thanks.

Bell looked anxiously for Renny Hart but didn’t spot the young Van Dorn detective. He guessed where most of the police action was taking place and pointed to the dining room doors. “The chief will be in there,” Bell told Armstrong. “That’s where the attack started.”

The young sailor was overwhelmed by The Del’s opulence, but more so by the amount of décolletage on display. “Oh, right.”

The vaulted space showed the sheer violence of the attack. Two of the chandeliers had been shattered. Their frosted-glass globes now lay in powdery splinters on the floor like newly fallen snow. Angry bullet holes had chewed up much of the intricate woodwork, leaving raw white scars in the walls and ceiling where chunks of once ornate wood had been savaged by the Lewis gun. On the floor were two shroud-covered corpses. From one, blood had leached through the white cloth and appeared black in the dim lighting.

“Uncle Bill.” Elizabeth Densmore was seated at a table with several other men, including Major Talbot and the young waiter. She launched herself from her chair and shouted his name again.

He hugged her tightly. “Are you all right, my dear?”

“Yes, I’m fine. Major Talbot and Beau led me to safety. I’ve already told Mom and Dad I’m okay, and everything. The police are just finishing taking our statements, and then Beau and I are going to take a walk along the beach. My nerves are frazzled.”

“Beau, huh?” Densmore said questioningly. He’d been through this with his own now married daughters.

San Diego’s current police chief was Jefferson “Keno” Wilson. He was tall, six foot three, and lankily built. His eyes were a lighter shade of blue than his uniform, and he sported a walrus mustache above his dimpled chin. He had jug ears and long, tapered fingers, and was known as a fair lawman for suspect and victim alike.

Bell went straight to him. At this point, he didn’t offer to shake hands. “My name is Isaac Bell. I’m a detective with the Van Dorn Agency. I’d like to know the status of my man Renny Hart?”

Wilson’s eyes narrowed. Bell wasn’t sure if he was annoyed by the question or approved of him checking the status of a fellow agent before everything else. “Hotel doc checked on him. He has a concussion, but his skull didn’t crack.” Wilson’s voice retained a trace of a Texas accent, from the time he lived there as a boy. “He was out cold for just a couple minutes, tops. Staff took him upstairs to a room. Probably asleep now.”

Bell was physically relieved. “I thought the worst when I heard him get slammed into the doors.” He held out a hand, and Wilson shook it. “And that’s Senator Densmore. This is Ensign Armstrong from the USS Maryland.”

The young naval officer offered his hand. “Ensign Frank Armstrong. Like Mr. Bell said, from the cruiser Maryland, sir. We rescued these men after the boat chasing them struck our anti-torpedo netting and exploded. My captain asked that they be delivered to you and that I give you the sidearm Mr. Bell carried at the time of his rescue.”

“That’s fine, son,” Wilson drawled. “Always best to tell a lawman that you’ve got a gun before you show him.”

Armstrong handed it to the chief of police, who inspected it closely. “Can’t say I much like the look of these,” he remarked and cocked a hip. Holstered there was a beautiful Colt .45 revolver with inlaid ivory grips. He gave the automatic back to Bell. Bell rammed it into his holster and resettled his rumpled and ripped suit coat.

The young seaman said, “I’m under orders to help the medical staff we brought ashore.”

“Okay, then,” Wilson drawled. “Have at it, son.”

Armstrong looked like he wanted to salute but wasn’t sure if that was appropriate. He finally touched two fingers to his forehead and then strode from the dining hall, his subordinate in tow.

Bell looked over to Talbot and Beau, the waiter. “You guys all right? Sorry for abandoning you like that, but we were so outgunned that I thought my only chance of saving the Senator was through the window.”

Talbot had an unreadable look on his face. “Who are you really? And why are you carrying one of the new .45 automatics? You’re not some Republican Party hack looking in on a strategy meeting.”

“I never said I was. That was your assumption. I’m the senior investigator for the Van Dorn Agency. I was hired by the Republican Party to listen to your assessment of the situation in Panama for them.”

“What for?” Talbot asked bluntly.

“I’m not at liberty to say. In fact, the only reason you know who hired me is that the Senator already disclosed it when we first sat down. Is there a problem, Major Talbot?”

The man gave a little shudder as if to shrug off some emotion or feeling. “I’m sorry. Everything happened so fast, and I knew my .38 didn’t stand a chance against those guys, and all of a sudden you let loose with that hand cannon of yours. I don’t know, it shook me, is all.” Talbot held out a hand to shake. “I’m not used to owing people my life, Mr. Bell, but I owe you mine. Thank you. Thank you on behalf of all of us.”

“Hear! Hear!” Densmore said.

Beau chimed in his thanks as well. “When you took off down the hill, I led the Major and Elizabeth around the corner to a service entrance that goes down into the cellar.”

“Good thinking.”

“So how about it, Bell?” Chief Wilson invited. “I’ve heard their version of what happened. What did you see and hear?”

Bell laid it all out, surprising Talbot that he’d posted a guard in secret outside the dining room. It was Renny Hart’s warning that gave him the time to be ready to defend the group even as the shooters were bursting into the room.

“That alone saved all our lives,” Bell concluded. “After we leapt through the window, I loaded the Senator onto a luggage cart, and we more or less rolled to the marina. We swiped some dandy’s motorboat, and I thought we were home free. Turns out there was a sixth member of the hit squad—their getaway driver. He was waiting for his companions in a boat that was larger and faster than ours, so they continued to press their attack across San Diego Bay.”

“How’d you escape?” Wilson asked. “There was mention of an explosion.”

“Yes. I recalled on my ferry ride here that the Navy was deploying heavy-gauge netting around their ships. They’re called anti-torpedo nets. From the surface, all you really see are hundreds of bobbing corks, but strung between them is a thick steel cable from which nets dangle into the depths. While they were chasing us, I ran for the big cruiser and took a long dogleg around her bow to avoid the netting. The other driver didn’t know it was there and thought he could cut me off and finish the job. Their boat hit the wire at full speed and came apart like it had been dynamited.”

“Well done,” Talbot said admiringly.

Bell gave a self-deprecating shrug. “There’s no heroism in saving your own skin.” He turned his attention back to Keno Wilson. “May I inquire about your investigation?”

“Nothing to tell so far. Five Hispanic men ran down the main stairs and, upon encountering your fella, Hart, they knocked him senseless with the butt of the machine gun, which Major Talbot identified as a Hotchkiss, and proceeded—”

“It was a Lewis,” Bell corrected.

“You’re right,” Talbot said, shaking his head. “I got that wrong. Sorry, Chief Wilson. Bell’s right, it was a Lewis gun, not a Hotchkiss. I’ve been a civilian too long to keep up with modern firearms.”

“Either way, it’s a poor choice of weapons for an assassination,” Bell said and waved a hand toward all the mangled joinery. “The gunman couldn’t control it.”

“If I had to guess,” Wilson said, “I’d think their plan was to burst in here and take you entirely by surprise. The machine gun would keep you pinned down while the other four with revolvers approached and killed the Senator and most likely the rest of you too. Turns out two of the gunmen died in this room. Major Talbot said that was your handiwork.”

Bell nodded. “It was.”

“Justified, by the way,” Wilson told him. “I won’t be bringing up charges.”

“Thank you.”

“That don’t mean I want you leaving town anytime soon. There are a lot of questions that need answering.”

Bell said, “I believe I can answer one of those questions tonight.”

“And that is?”

“How did they sneak a four-foot-long machine gun into a busy hotel without anyone noticing?”

“How?”

“Two of them brought it in in pieces and assembled it in their room upstairs.”

“What two men?”

Bell didn’t answer Talbot’s question. “We need a manager to unlock their room.”

“Whose?”

“You’ll see.” Talbot stuck close to Bell and the police chief while Densmore was content to sit and let a waiter bring him another whiskey. Elizabeth and Beau had vanished on their walk. On the way out of the dining room, Bell paused to pull the shroud back from one of the dead men’s faces. Even in the chaos of the brutal assault he’d thought he’d recognized one of the shooters. Now he was certain.

On Wilson’s authority, the night duty manager led them up to the second floor just down the hallway from Bell’s room.

“Do you know the names of these guests?” Bell asked the manager when they were clustered outside the door.

“Brothers, Mr. Bell. From Mexico. They were here to work on some mosaics for the buildings of the Panama–California Exposition opening next year. I don’t recall their names.”

“Doesn’t matter. They’re aliases,” Bell said and rapped his knuckles on the door hard enough to rattle it in its frame. He shot a look to Wilson. “One of the supposed brothers is dead on the floor in the dining hall.”

“The body you looked at?”

Bell nodded. “I saw him come out of the lavatory earlier today and enter this room. The other brother is dead next to him or on the bottom of the bay.”

When no one answered the door, Bell gestured for the manager to open it. Bell pressed the button to turn on the lights. The room was a mess. The bedding had been removed from the two queen-size mattresses and left on the floor. It appeared that’s where the two men preferred to sleep. There were dozens of dirty dishes stacked on the credenza and on the nightstands. But the windows had been left open, so at least the air smelled fresh.

In one corner were wooden packing crates, ostensibly for their mosaic tile.

“It nagged at me earlier,” Bell said. “I used one of the lavatories when I arrived. The man in there before me left it a sodden mess. I remember thinking at the time that it looked like he’d never used a public washroom. Turns out I was right. He hadn’t, nor did he know enough to let room service take away the dirty dishes.”

“Rural boys not used to the city,” Wilson said.

“They weren’t Mexican artisans,” Bell concluded, “but Panamanian peasants turned anarchists sent here on a mission. This is likely the first time either man had ever stayed in a hotel.”

Bell crossed over to the wooden crates. Inside was nothing but packing hay. There were no tile cutters or mortaring tools of any kind. One of the crates, he noted, was long enough to accommodate the Lewis gun’s barrel. Bell got down on the floor to peer under the beds. He felt around their legs and came out with a wad of cotton. It was stained and smelled of cosmoline, the waxy corrosion inhibitor used to protect their weapons in tropical environments.

He gave it to Wilson. “Not a smoking gun, exactly, but close enough.”

“So, these two smuggled in the weapons,” Court Talbot stated.

“Right. The other four came to Coronado on their boat and linked up in here just before the assault.” Bell paused. He’d thought of something. “Chief, you’ll want to check with law enforcement from surrounding towns for a stolen boat. About thirty feet long, wooden rather than steel, with a big cockpit, and she was fast. They didn’t come from Panama in it, so they had to have stolen it. Could have swiped it in northern Mexico, I suppose. Anyway, once the men were together, and their getaway driver was in position at the marina, the guns were passed out and then all five raced downstairs for the ambush.”

“That’s good to know the details and all,” Court Talbot pointed out, “but does it really help? They’re dead now, and, like you said, whatever names they used to check in to the hotel are obviously aliases.”

“It raises a troubling point,” Bell told him, and made sure Chief Wilson was paying attention. “I had my agent make discreet inquiries about hotel guests earlier today. He spoke with all of them who made their reservations after the Senator’s meeting time and place became public knowledge.”

“Meaning?”

“This room was reserved before anyone could possibly know you were to brief Senator Densmore. Viboras Rojas knew about our conference in advance.”

“Wait. What?”

“How is that possible?” Wilson asked.

“I do not know,” Bell answered. “But I am damned sure going to find out.”