20

While Bell was not a man to give in to panic, the past little incident notwithstanding, he had to admit his current predicament was more than a little unsettling. He took stock of the things he could control. He had enough water to last him a week or more, though it probably was teeming with parasites. He had no food, but that wouldn’t be a problem for a while. He stripped out of his wet clothes and laid them out on the tank above the waterline. His body couldn’t generate enough heat to dry his clothes. It was best to let them air-dry.

Then came the realization that sent his heart back into overdrive. Water and food meant nothing if he couldn’t get air. He had no idea how long he’d been out, but there was only a finite amount of oxygen in the tank and no way to dispense with the excess carbon dioxide.

He allowed himself two deep, calming breaths and then regulated his breathing by allowing himself small sips of air only. He knew his only hope was a quick rescue.

Had anyone seen the accident? Would they come to investigate? Even if a survey team came out to assess the damage, the tank was somehow buried. They wouldn’t be able to reach him until it was dug up, and that could take weeks. He had hours at most.

Bell popped the magazine out of the .45 and offered a silent apology to John Moses Browning because he was going to use the pistol’s butt like a hammer against the tank’s interior. It hit with a dull thud. Not the sound he needed. There was a narrow flange around the filler cap. He rapped it with the gun and it delivered a satisfying chime.

For some reason the only song that came to mind was the popular rag “Sailing Down the Chesapeake Bay,” and so that’s what he tapped out again and again, pausing only after two hours to get into his still-damp clothes. They weren’t perfect, yet he soon felt warmer.

He switched arms regularly and tapped out the tune again and again. A hundred times, five hundred? He didn’t know, but he could tell the air was growing more fouled. His mind grew fuzzy, and while he couldn’t see anything save Stygian darkness, he felt his optic nerves constricting as if his vision were fading.

He didn’t know he’d nodded off until he woke with a start after just a couple seconds. He hit his gun against the flange. He couldn’t remember the tune he’d been playing, so he began tapping in Morse code. Dot-dot-dot. Dash-dash-dash. Dot-dot-dot.

S.O.S.

It was never an abbreviation for anything, merely a Morse phrase that was easy to remember and transmit, but many believed it stood for “Save Our Ship” or “Save Our Souls.” For Bell, it was a plea to whoever was out there.

Search Out Survivor.

He blacked out several more times, yet as soon as he yanked himself back to consciousness he’d begin tapping again, though any semblance of code was soon lost. He could no longer remain upright enough to reach the flange, so he lay on his side, just above the murky water, and tapped the Colt’s butt against the tank wall, a sound that grew weaker and weaker until it went silent altogether.

---

Isaac Bell awoke in Heaven. The light was painfully bright, and the creature hovering over him was too beautiful to be anything other than an angel. He could open his eyes just a fraction of an inch. This particular seraph had cascading blond hair, eyes as bright and sharp as colored glass, and such a look of worry that tiny wrinkles had formed between her brows. He immediately believed it was the power of her concern that brought him back from the abyss.

He wished, though, that he’d returned in a better state. His head pounded, and his body felt like he’d gone twenty rounds with the current bare-knuckle-boxing champ. Surely he should be at peace.

Maybe this wasn’t Heaven. It couldn’t be. He hurt too damned much. But the angel . . .

He drifted off again before the angel realized he’d awakened.

The next time Bell clawed his way to consciousness it was dark, but he could see the moon’s glow through a gauzy curtain. He was thirsty and sore yet somehow knew he was safe. He was in a bed, the sheets were crisp and the blanket smelled of detergent. The pillow beneath his head was like a cloud, and that thought brought memories of the angel. While he wanted to get up and search for her, struggling to turn his body even a little was too much and he gave up the idea and let sleep envelop him once more.

When he came back the third time, it was early morning. The light was soft, and the angel was there once again, dabbing his head with a cool compress, her hair tamed in a ponytail that snaked down over her shoulder and almost brushed the bed.

She saw he was awake and cried out his name as he croaked hers.

“Isaac.”

“Marion.”

“I’ve been so worried,” she said as joyous tears welled up in her deep green eyes. She leaned over to kiss his face, and he could taste the salt on her lips.

“I don’t understand.” And he didn’t. Marion should be in Los Angeles. And then a sickening thought rushed in on him so hard and fast that he levered himself upright and grabbed her arm. “How long was I out?”

In their relationship, it was Isaac who usually had all the answers, so for a moment Marion delighted in having information he did not. But she couldn’t let his questions go unanswered for too long. That would just be cruel.

“Not even a day, my dear.” She handed him a glass of water, which he drank sparingly despite his obvious thirst.

Then he almost spit it out. Bell was defined by logic. It was the underpinning of his life, yet right now nothing made sense, and he felt suspended back between wakefulness and sleep. “What? How is that possible? What the devil is going on here?”

“Easy, Isaac. I came to Panama with you, remember? You promised me a getaway at the Hotel Del, but then you had to come here, and I joined you.”

Bell took some more water and looked around. It was clear he was in the private room of a hospital, maybe the big one on Ancon Hill. The gauzy veil he’d noted the night before was mosquito netting that had been draped around his bed. It was pulled back now, and Marion sat in a straight-backed chair at his side.

Out the window he could see the serrated fronds of some palm trees.

“Right,” he finally said, recalling the voyage and their room at the Central overlooking the unnaturally green lawn.

“Felix Ramirez found me last night having dinner with the Webbs when word reached the city that you’d been rescued from an avalanche. He stayed with us all night and only left earlier this morning because of his work at the hotel. He said he would try to come by later.”

“Wait. An avalanche? I was in an avalanche?”

“That’s what they told me.”

“I don’t remember that at all.” He pointedly touched the gauze-swathed lump on his forehead. “I don’t remember much at all, actually. What happened?”

“I’ll let someone involved tell you all about it. Give me a moment.”

She rose. She was wearing an all-white outfit that was open at the throat and with wide sleeves so she wouldn’t overheat in the tropical climate.

Bell stared out the window as the sun slowly crept over the distant hills. He tried yet couldn’t recall details of the day before. While his brain rarely failed him, all he could recollect was eating breakfast alone and driving for a bit. He didn’t know his destination. Marion related that Felix had said he had a meeting, but he couldn’t remember where or with whom. He didn’t know if he’d kept the appointment. And he certainly didn’t remember any avalanche.

Bell felt an icy panic grip his stomach. His mind was everything. What if . . .

Two men came into the room with Marion. One was Sam Westbrook, the young railroad scheduler, and the other was a doctor, judging by the white lab coat and stethoscope coiled in one of its pockets.

“Mr. Bell,” Sam said earnestly, his panama hat held in his hands in front of him. “Boy, is it good to see you. That sure was something.”

“Just a moment,” the doctor said. He was a ginger with a thick beard who looked like he knew his way around a gymnasium. “Mr. Bell, I’m Dr. Hamby. How are you feeling?”

“Beat up but okay.”

The doctor stepped between Bell and the window and peered closely into his eyes. Bell held still while Hamby moved his head to the side, allowing the light of the rising sun to strike Isaac in the face. Both pupils contracted at the same time and the same amount.

Bell winced and turned away quickly.

“Good. Very good,” Hamby said and moved back toward the door. “Sorry about that, but it’s the most accurate way to tell if you’re concussed. How’s your memory?”

“He doesn’t remember the crash,” Marion answered for her husband. “Is that common?”

“Actually, yes,” the doctor reassured her. “There’s a French psychologist by the name of Théodule Ribot who’s written on the subject. It’s called retrograde amnesia, meaning one forgets things on a gradient from newest memories to oldest. Oftentimes, the victim of a trauma doesn’t remember the trauma itself and sometimes bits and pieces of its immediate aftermath. Does that sound like what you’re experiencing?”

“I . . . I think so,” Bell said. “I remember being in a tank of some sort. It was utterly black in there. But I don’t remember an avalanche or . . . Wait. The tank was mounted on the truck you let me use, Sam.”

“That’s right. Colonel Goethals granted you carte blanche within the zone, and I got you a truck, one of the surplus water carriers.”

“What happened to me?”

Before Sam could tell the story, Dr. Hamby said, “I’ve got rounds right now. I’ll come check on you later for a more thorough exam. As I understand it, retrograde amnesia is usually temporary. In a day or two it all should come back, though, if it doesn’t, there’s no real danger.”

“Thank you, Doctor.”

“Rest now. And consider yourself the luckiest man in Panama.”

“Hello, all,” Tats Macalister greeted the room cheerfully as he slid past Hamby.

The Englishman wore riding breeches and a gaily striped muslin shirt stained with sweat around the collar and under the arms despite the early-morning hour. His eyes swept the room and immediately returned to Marion. “Felix told me you were up all night. If I may be so bold, you don’t look it at all.”

“Thanks, Tats,” Marion replied to the flattery. “You’re an accomplished liar.”

Macalister greeted Sam by name and shook his hand before angling his face toward Bell, still lying on the bed. Tats’s smile now touched his eyes. “I shudder to think the premiums you pay for life insurance, Isaac.”

“While it’s a group thing for all Van Dorn agents, I do think Joe had to get a special rider so I can be covered too.”

“I would have come last night, but I was engaged with some engineers from General Electric who thought us limeys don’t know how to play poker. I’m glad you’re okay.” Tats looked quickly to Marion. “He is okay?”

“Yes. Just sore, with a nasty bump on his head, and a little amnesia.”

“Amnesia? Awful, old sport. What do you remember?”

“Almost nothing. Sam was about to fill in some details.”

“By all means continue.”

Marion slid off the chair and perched herself on the bed so that she could rest a protective hand on Isaac’s leg. Sam remained standing, and Tats turned Marion’s chair around so he could rest his wrists on its back as he sat astride.

“The doctor wasn’t wrong,” Westbrook said to start his tale. “Isaac, you are the luckiest man in all of Panama. There was a survey crew working the far side of the cut opposite of where you went off the road and down into the canal. You are also the unluckiest, because as you went over the edge, you triggered a string of explosives likely planted last spring when we were working that section. Sometimes when we have a large shot, some of the dynamite doesn’t go off. Maybe a fuse gets cut. We don’t realize explosives have been left behind at the time, then it all goes off weeks or months later.”

He added grimly, “Usually, when some poor sod is working right above it.”

“I drove over the edge of the canal and right on top of an old string of dynamite?”

Sam nodded. “One of the men on the crew said it looked like the truck slid a little sideways off the road and tipped on its side before tobogganing down to the bottom of the canal. Seconds later, the charges went off, and a big chunk of the slope came down after you. They saw you dive into the water tank just before it was hit and then they lost sight of the truck.

“It turned out the avalanche carried you another eighty or so feet from where you’d first came to rest, though they didn’t know it at the time. All they saw was the wall of mud hit you and then you had simply vanished. When the avalanche finally settled, there was nothing to see, just a new field of mud and rock blocking half the channel. It’ll take months to dig all that slop out again.”

“How did you find me before my air ran out?”

“Near thing. You were as gray as a corpse, and just as stiff, when you were pulled free. The survey crew, having seen everything that happened, knew you were down there. While one of them took their truck to bring help, the other three slogged their way across the new landslide and started looking around, hoping to see part of the truck sticking out of the ground. They could estimate where the truck finally ended up but couldn’t find anything.

“An hour or so later, a crew of about fifty men arrived in a convoy. I was part of it because when I heard it was a water truck that went over, I figured it had to be you. You would have been on the road from Gamboa about then.”

“Gamboa?”

“Yeah, you had a meeting with Courtney Talbot in the morning.”

Bell shook his head, frustration furrowing his brow. He didn’t remember meeting with Court.

A concerned look came over Marion. “Maybe we should do this later, Isaac. You need to rest.”

“No, I’m fine.” But he knew he wasn’t fine. Not being able to rely on his wits was a disorienting shock that he could neither comprehend nor accept. At length he said, “You’re right, but let’s hear the rest of the story first.”

“And then straight to sleep.”

“Yes, Nurse Bell.”

“Mr. Westbrook, please keep it brief.”

“Yes, ma’am. Like I said, there were fifty of us, mostly islanders used to heavy shovel work. They hammered metal rods into the ground to try to locate the truck, but it was no use. There were so many boulders in the dirt that the rods either couldn’t penetrate very deeply or were deflected. Finally, it was a man who’d dropped his tobacco pouch who heard you first.”

“You heard me? Was I shouting?”

“No. You were tapping with something metal inside the tank. He’d been standing right on top of you, yet with all the banging and hollering and general hubbub of our rescue efforts no one heard it.”

A split-second flash of clarity raced across the synapses of Bell’s brain. “My .45? Where’s my pistol?”

“Your stuff is in the bottom drawer of the nightstand,” Marion said as she leaned forward to open it.

Some hospital staffer had laundered the clothes and folded them neatly. Bell’s boots were next to the wooden stand and they’d been cleaned too. Sandwiched between his shirt and pants were his undergarments and holster. She handed him the weapon, and Bell examined it. The magazine was missing. He assumed it had been removed and put in the holster. The butt plate at the bottom end of the grip showed numerous scratches where he’d tapped it repeatedly against the flange around the tank’s filler cap.

He showed the others. “This is what I used. I remember that now.”

“See,” Marion said, beaming. She’d noticed her husband’s disquiet over the retrograde amnesia. “It’s already coming back.”

“The funniest part is, you were tapping out a song, and one of the workers knew it. Pretty soon, he’d taught all the others the lyrics. Darnedest sight I’ll ever see is fifty men, stripped to their waist, in the rain, digging into the muck and mud and singing ‘Sailing Down the Chesapeake Bay’ over and over again.” He then sang in a surprisingly good voice, “‘Come on, Nancy, put your best dress on. Come on, Nancy, ’fore the steamboat’s gone.’”

Isaac and Marion joined him, though Tats Macalister stayed quiet, as he’d never heard the tune.

“‘Everything is lovely on the Chesapeake Bay. All aboard for Baltimore, and if we’re late they’ll all be sore.’”

Bell laughed for the first time since regaining consciousness.

“The men swear you kept perfect time for the first hour, though by then a lot of them were joking about you taking requests because the song had become repetitive.” Westbrook turned a little somber. “The jokes dried up when the tune trailed off, and you started tapping out Morse code. I told them that S.O.S. was a dire call for assistance, and, damn, if those men didn’t double their pace. I don’t think if we’d laid track and gotten a steam shovel on-site that more dirt would have been moved.

“We figured out the orientation of the tank as we excavated around it by noting where the mounting brackets had been torn free from the truck. We concentrated where we knew the filler cap would be. The men tore into the ground like savages, and when they came across a boulder that they could wrest out by hand, a few would act as riggers to secure it to ropes, the rest would pull it out like they were draft horses.

“You had become more than someone needing to be rescued, you became an inspiration in a fight they refused to lose. The softer you tapped your gun against the tank, the harder they worked because they knew you were dying and they were failing. In the end it was only a couple minutes after you stopped tapping that we could wrench open the tank and get a man inside to pull you out.”

“I had no idea,” Bell breathed. Everyone had been moved by the story, but him most of all since it was his life that they saved.

Marion clutched her husband’s hand. “We must do something for those men.”

Sam looked suddenly uncomfortable.

“What is it?”

“Once we got you out of the tank, I drove you straight here. The workers scattered. I’m sorry to say I don’t know who any of them were, and there’s no real way to track them down.”

“That’s the canal in a nutshell,” Tats Macalister said. “A heroic task undertaken by faceless men whose effort will be remembered but whose names were never known.”

“I’ll ask around, if you like,” Sam offered.

“Please do,” Bell said and tried to stifle a yawn.

“That’s our signal to go,” Macalister said, straightening up from his chair.

He and Westbrook shook Bell’s hand—Tats looked away at the last moment as if a little overcome by emotion at Bell’s survival—and bade their good-byes to Marion.

“I like them,” she said when they were alone. “Sam has been a real sweetie since he learned I was your wife. And that Tats Macalister—boy, could I make him a matinee idol in no time.”

Bell remained silent, his mind elsewhere.

“Stop thinking about what all those men did for you,” Marion said ardently. “You don’t need to feel that you owe them. They did it because they wanted to and because it was the right thing. You do the right thing all the time and never expect any kind of acknowledgment. You’re not in their debt, so quit brooding.”

He chuckled. “You can read me like a book.”

“One I am particularly fond of, so please stop trying to destroy it. Seriously, you could have died out there.”

“I think that was the intention.”

Her concern deepened. “Do you remember something?”

“No, but you know me and how well I drive. There’s no way I lost control on my own.”

“You were on an unfamiliar road in the middle of a storm in a truck you’ve never driven,” she pointed out. “Even you can make a mistake.”

“But I’m also on the trail of a violent insurgent group whose moneyman I killed a couple days before. I can well imagine they’d like their revenge.”

“Why such an elaborate trap?”

“If there were witnesses, it’s easier to explain away a road accident than standing over a dead body with a smoking gun in your hand.”

“But it could still just be an accident,” Marion persisted.

“Until my memory resolves itself, I have to be extra-careful and assume the worst, otherwise I’m leaving myself vulnerable.” Bell tried to lean over to reach into the nightstand, but the rush of blood to his head made him almost lose consciousness again. He flopped back onto the pillows. His face had turned the color of old ash.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“The magazine of my .45 should be in my holster.”

“I don’t think—” Marion stopped when she saw the determined look in her husband’s eye. She got up and perused the holster in the drawer, then handed him the loaded magazine.

He slipped it into the magazine well, quietly racked the slide, and then thumbed down the hammer. He slid the gun under his pillow. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Can I ask another favor?”

She smiled. “Of course.”

“Leave Panama.”

The smile vanished.

“You heard me, Marion. You shouldn’t be here. It’s too dangerous, and I’m in no condition to protect you.”

“I don’t need your protect—”

He cut her off. “You do. You’re a target now because you’re my wife. That makes you leverage. I can’t continue my investigation knowing you could be kidnapped or worse. You’re a distraction. A lovely, beautiful, wonderful distraction. And one I can’t afford.”

Her face bore a mask of utter frustration. He’d laid out a logical argument that she could not refute. Marion took another tack. “Let’s both get out of here. You’re in no shape to continue investigating. You hardly remember the past twenty-four hours. What can you hope to accomplish?”

“I can’t let some two dozen men die without getting justice,” he said.

She watched him for a moment. “This is your way to balance the scales, isn’t it?”

He didn’t reply.

“Don’t you see that it doesn’t, Isaac? Finding the killers will make no difference to the men who dug you out. It won’t repay the debt you feel you owe them.”

“There’s also Roosevelt’s visit, and the attack in California,” he said, then added, “You know I can’t leave this alone.”

“I do. Your dedication is one of the things I love most about you, but . . .”

“But there’s a price to pay. And you’re the one who pays it the most.”

“It’s okay.” Her smile was a little wan. “If I wanted a worry-free life, I would have married an accountant.”

Guilt rippled across Bell’s face. He loved Marion desperately and knew he caused her anguish with every case he took and every madman, anarchist, or murderer he chased down. It wasn’t that she didn’t know and understand his job before they married, yet he could tell that she worried more now as they both recalculated their mortality.

“I know that I know something,” he said at last. “I just don’t know what I know. Does that make sense?”

“It does,” Marion said, her voice softened by concern. “I also see that it’s killing you.”

“There’s a hole in my memory, a black void I don’t know how to fill.” Coming from Bell, this was an admission of doubt and weakness. “I’ve never experienced anything like it, Marion. It’s like my brain has let me down. Or I’ve let myself down. Or something.”

“Don’t torture yourself like this. You’ve been injured. It will take time to heal.”

“What if it doesn’t?” he asked. “What if the blow caused permanent harm? As you’ve so often pointed out, I live by my wits. Right now, I feel like a half-wit.”

Her grip on his hand tightened, but she said nothing.

“I’m not sure how well I can look after myself here in Panama and I’m certain I can’t protect us both. I also know I can’t leave. I have to see this through to the end.”

“For your sake, I’ll go,” Marion said. “Me being here puts too much on your plate. You need to focus on yourself and the case. I accept that. I don’t like it, but I accept it.”

Relief washed over him, and the somber cast in his eyes brightened. He kissed her as tenderly as he ever had. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I was talking with some nurses last night when you were still unconscious. A few of them are at the end of their contract and are steaming back to San Francisco the day after tomorrow. I should be able to book passage on the same ship.”

“Perfect.”

“What are you going to do once you’re cleared to leave here?”

“I was told I was driving back from Gamboa after meeting Court Talbot. I don’t remember our get-together, but I have a vague image in my mind of a boat heading off into the mist. I think Talbot’s out hunting the Viboras on Lake Gatun. I need to talk to him about our meeting and, hopefully, jog loose whatever it was I understood before the crash.”

“Sounds to me like you’re thinking straight.”

“Thanks. In the meantime, I’ll see to it that Dr. Hamby thinks it’s a good idea to have another bed dragged in here until you’re safely out of the country.”

Her cheeks pinked and her eyes narrowed knowingly. “If we put extra pillows under the blanket, it’ll look like I’m actually using it.”