“Well, I’ll be…” said Bell, half aloud.

He shoved open the cabin door and strode inside.

Farley Kent jumped. The Navy captain did not, but merely regarded the tall detective with an expectant gaze.

“Welcome aboard, Mr. Bell. When I learned the terrible news from Camden, I hoped you’d find your way here.”

“What is Hull 44?”

“Better to ask why Hull 44,” answered Captain Lowell Falconer, the Hero of Santiago.

He offered a hand that had lost two fingers to shell splinters.

Bell closed it in his. “It is an honor to make your acquaintance, sir.”

Captain Falconer spoke into the voice pipe. “Cast off.”

13

FEET POUNDED ON DECK. A LIEUTENANT APPEARED AT the door, and Falconer engaged him in urgent conversation. “Farley,” he called. “You might as well get back to your loft.” The architect left without a word. Falconer said, “Please wait here, Bell. I won’t be a minute.” He stepped outside with his lieutenant.

Bell had seen the Reuterdahl painting of the Great White Fleet on the cover of Collier’s magazine last January. The fleet lay anchored in the harbor of Rio de Janeiro. A native boat was rowing toward the bright white hull of the anchored flagship Connecticut, waving an advertisement that read:

American Drinks. SQUARE DEAL at JS Guvidor

Smoke and shadow in a dark corner of the sunny harbor scene obscured the sleek gray hull of a German cruiser.

The deck moved under Bell’s feet. The yacht began backing out of her slip into the East River. When she engaged her propellers ahead and wheeled downstream, Bell felt no vibrations, nor even the faintest throbbing of the engines. Captain Falconer stepped back into the cabin, and Bell gave his host a curious glance. “I’ve never been on such a smooth-running steam yacht.”

Falconer grinned proudly. “Turbines,” he said. “Three of them, linked to nine screw propellers.”

He pointed at another painting, one which Bell had not seen from the porthole. It depicted Turbinia, the famous experimental turbine-powered vessel Alasdair MacDonald’s mentor had raced through an international gathering of naval fleets at Spitshead, England, to dramatize turbine speed.

“Charles Parsons left nothing to chance. In the event that something went wrong with Turbinia, he built two turbine racers. This one’s named Dyname. Do you remember your Greek?”

“The result of forces acting together.”

“Very good! Dyname is actually Turbinia’s big sister, a trifle beamier, modeled after the torpedo boats of the nineties. I had her refitted as a yacht and converted her boilers to oil, which opened up a lot of space in the former coal bunkers. Poor Alasdair used her as a test craft and modified the turbines. Thanks to him, even though she’s beamier than Turbinia, she burns less fuel and goes faster.”

“How fast?”

Falconer laid an affectionate hand on Dyname’s varnished mahogany and grinned. “You would not believe me if I told you.”

The tall detective grinned back. “I wouldn’t mind a trick at the helm.”

“Wait ’til we’re out of congested waters. I don’t dare open her up in the harbor.”

The yacht steamed down the East River into the Upper Bay and increased her speed dramatically. “Quite a clip,” said Bell.

Falconer chuckled, “We rein her in until we reach the open sea.”

The lights of Manhattan Island faded astern. A steward appeared bearing covered dishes and spread them on the table. Captain Falconer bid Bell sit across from him.

Bell stood where he was, and asked, “What is Hull 44?”

“Please join me for supper, and while we head to sea I will tell you the secret of why Hull 44.”

Falconer began by echoing Alasdair MacDonald’s lament. “It’s ten years since Germany started building a modern Navy. The same year we captured the Philippine Islands and annexed the Kingdom of Hawaii. Today, the Germans have dreadnought battleships. The British have dreadnought battleships, and the Japanese are building, and buying, dreadnought battleships. So when the U.S. Navy embarks on distant service to defend America’s new territories in the Pacific, we will be outclassed and outgunned by the Germans and the British and the Empire of Japan.”

Brimming with such zeal that he left his beefsteak untouched, Captain Falconer regaled Isaac Bell with the dream behind Hull 44. “The dreadnaught race teaches that change is always preceded by a universal conviction that there is nothing new under the sun. Before the British launched HMS Dreadnaught, two facts about battleships were engraved in stone. They took many years to build and they had to be armed with a great variety of guns to defend themselves. HMS Dreadnaught is an all-big-guns ship, and they built her in a single year, which changed the world forever.

“Hull 44 is my response. America’s response.

“I recruited the best brains in the fighting-ship business. I told them to do their damnedest! Men like Artie Langner, the ‘Gunner,’ and Alasdair, whom you met.”

“And saw die,” Bell interrupted grimly.

“Artists, every one of them. But like all artists, they’re misfits. Bohemians, eccentrics, if not plain loony. Not the sort that get along in the regular Navy. But thanks to my misfit geniuses hatching new ideas and refining old ones, Hull 44 will be a dreadnought battleship like none that sail the seas-an American engineering marvel that will overwhelm the British Dreadnought and the German Nassau and Posen, and the worst Japan can throw at her-Why are you shaking your head, Mr. Bell?”

“That’s too big a deal to keep secret. You’re obviously a wealthy man, but no individual is rich enough to launch his own dreadnought. Where do you get your funds for Hull 44? Surely someone high up must know.”

Captain Falconer answered obliquely. “Eleven years ago I had the privilege of advising an Assistant Secretary of the Navy.”

“Bully!” Bell smiled his understanding. That explained Lowell Falconer’s independence. Today, that Assistant Secretary of the Navy was none other than the nation’s fiercest champion of a strong Navy-President Theodore Roosevelt.

“The President believes that our Navy should be footloose. Let the Army defend ports and harbors-we’ll even build them the guns. But the Navy must fight at sea.”

“From what I’ve seen of the Navy,” said Bell, “first you will have to fight the Navy. And to win that fight you would have to be as clever as Machiavelli.”

“Oh, but I am,” Falconer smiled. “Though I prefer the word ‘devious’ to clever.”

“Are you still a serving officer?”

“I am, officially, Special Inspector of Target Practice.”

“A wonderfully vague title,” Bell remarked.

“I know how to outfox bureaucrats,” Falconer shot back. “I know my way around Congress,” he continued with a cynical smile and raised his maimed hand for Bell to see. “What politician dares deny a war hero?”

Then he explained in detail how he had planted a cadre of l ike-minded younger officers in the key bureaus of Ordnance and Construction. Together, they were angling to overhaul the entire dreadnought-building system.

“Are we as far behind as Alasdair MacDonald claimed?”

“Yes. We launch Michigan next month, but she’s no prize. Delaware, North Dakota, Utah, Florida, Arkansas, and Wyoming, first-class dreadnoughts, are stuck on the drawing boards. But that’s not entirely a bad thing. Advancements in naval warfare pile up so quickly that the later we launch our battleships, the more modern they will be. We’ve already learned the shortcomings of the Great White Fleet, long before it reaches San Francisco. First thing we’ll fix when they sail home is to paint them gray so enemy gunners can’t spot them so easily.

“Paint will be the easy part. Before we can turn our new knowledge into fighting ships, we have to convince the Navy Board of Construction and Congress. The Navy Board of Construction hates change, and Congress hates expense.”