Bell studied the Englishman’s face for a full minute. Then he leaned closer, and said, “Commander, it is now clear to me that behind a façade of amiable bumbling, you are extremely well informed about your fellow spies. In fact, I suspect you know more about them than the ships you’re supposed to be spying on.”

“Welcome to the world of espionage, Mr. Bell,” the Englishman replied cynically. “May I be the first to congratulate you on your very recent arrival.”

“What Germans?” Bell demanded harshly.

“Well, I can’t tell you with any precision, but-”

“You don’t believe for one second that the Germans are paying Yamamoto Kenta to spy for them,” Bell cut in. “Whom do you really suspect?”

Abbington-Westlake shook his head, visibly dismayed. “No one I have heard of-none of the regulars one bumps into… It’s as if the Black Knight galloped out of the ether and threw his gauntlet on King Arthur’s Roundtable.”

“A freelance,” mused Bell.

28

A FREELANCE INDEED, MR. BELL. YOU’VE HIT THE NAIL on the head. But the possibility of a freelance merely raises the larger question.” Abbington-Westlake’s round face brightened with relief that he had so intrigued Bell that the tall detective would let him go. “Whom does the freelance serve?”

“Are freelances commonly used in the spy game?” Bell asked.

“One employs all available resources.”

“Have you ever worked as a freelance?”

Abbington-Westlake smiled disdainfully. “The Royal Navy hires freelances. We don’t work for them.”

“I mean you personally-if you need money.”

“I work for His Majesty’s Navy. I am not a mercenary.” He stood up. “And now, Mr. Bell, if you will excuse me, I believe I have paid you for your photograph in equal coin. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” said Bell.

“Good day, sir.”

“Before you go, Commander?”

“What is it?”

“I have been dealing with you in my capacity as a private investigator. As an American, however, let me warn you that if I ever again see or hear of you taking photographs of the Brooklyn Navy Yard, or any other shipyard in my country, I will throw your camera off the bridge and you after it.”

ISAAC BELL HURRIED UPSTAIRS to the Van Dorn office. A big case kept getting bigger and wider. If Abbington-Westlake was telling the truth-and Bell bet he was-then Yamamoto Kenta was not the head of the spy ring attacking Hull 44 but only another of its many agents. Like the German, and the hired killer Weeks, and whoever threw the young fire-control expert off the cliff. Who was the freelance? And whom did he serve?

Bell knew he was at a crossroads. He had to decide whether to arrest Yamamoto and squeeze what information they could out of him or continue following him in the hope that the Japanese spy would lead them higher up the chain of deceit. There was risk in waiting. How long would it take a seasoned professional like Yamamoto to catch the scent of his stalkers and go to ground?

As Bell strode into the back room, the man on the telephones said, “Here he is right now, sir, just walked in,” and handed him the middle one. “The boss.”

“Where?”

“Washington.”

“Yamamoto just hopped the train to New York,” Van Dorn said without preamble. “Coming your way.”

“Alone?”

“Not if you count three of our men in the same car. And others watching every station the Congressional Limited stops at.”

“I’ll watch the railroad ferry. See who he’s come to meet.”

YAMAMOTO KENTA HAD a choice of three different Pennsylvania Railroad ferries to cross the river from the Jersey City Exchange Place Terminal to Manhattan Island. After disembarking from the Congressional Limited into the enormous glass-ceilinged train shed, he could take a boat to 23rd Street, another to Desbrosses Street near Greenwich Village, or one that would land all the way downtown at Cortlandt Street. There was even a boat to Brooklyn, and another went up the East River to the Bronx. The ferry he chose would depend upon the actions of the Van Dorns following him.

He had spotted two detectives in his railcar. And he suspected that an older man dressed as an Anglican priest had shadowed him several days earlier disguised in the uniform of a Washington, D.C., streetcar conductor. He had considered jumping off the train early at Philadelphia and dodging the Van Dorns watching the platform. But with so many alternatives awaiting him in New York, he saw no need to inconvenience himself by breaking the journey early.

It was after midnight, and the crowd rushing from the train shed was thin, providing less cover then he would have liked. Still, the advantage was his. The detectives did not realize that he knew they had been following him for a week. A thin smile played upon his lips. A natural aptitude for spying? Or simply experience. He’d been at the game before many of the shadows trailing him had been born.

As always, he traveled light, carrying only a small valise. The Black Ocean Society had limitless cash reserves; he could buy extra clothing when he need it instead of carrying it when a situation like this one demanded he move quickly. His gabardine raincoat was of a tan hue, so pale as to be almost white. His hat was of a similar distinctive color, a finely woven Panama with a dark band.

At the juncture of the train platform and the arrival hall, he saw the Anglican priest forge ahead and signal a tall man whom Yamamoto had last seen in Camden, New Jersey. Frantic research back in Washington-sparked by his discovery that he was being followed-led him to believe that the Van Dorn was the fabled Isaac Bell. Bell had worn a white suit and broad-brimmed hat at the Michigan launching. Tonight he was attired like a deckhand in a snug sweater, with a knit watch cap covering his striking golden hair. Yamamoto smiled to himself. Two could play that game.

Swept along by the torrent of passengers and trunk-trundling porters, Yamamoto followed the signs from the arrival hall into the ferry house. A row of ferries waited in their slips-magnificent Tuscan red, smoke-belching, two-deck double-ender behemoths big as dreadnoughts and named for great American cities: Cincinnati, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Chicago. Engines ahead, propellers pushing them tight to their piers, they offered the Japanese spy additional choices of which deck to travel on.

Teams of draft horses, iron shoes clattering, were pulling freight wagons aboard the lower vehicles decks, vast open spaces they shared with autos and trucks. Foot passengers could ride beside them, separated by the bulkheads of flanking passenger cabins that ran the length of the boat. The main cabins were above. As a first-class passenger, Yamamoto could enjoy the brief river crossing in a private cabin. There was one cordoned off for gentlemen, another for ladies. Or he could stand in the open air where the salty harbor wind would disperse the smoke and cinders.

He chose a ferry not for its destination but for the fact that its deckhands were already closing its scissor gate, blocking any more passengers from boarding.

“Not so fast, Chinkboy!” a burly deckhand shouted in his face.

Yamamoto already had ten dollars in his hand. The man’s eyes widened at his good fortune, and he reached for it, shouting, “Step lively, sir. Step lively.”

Yamamoto slid past him and moved deeper into the boat, heading for the stairs to the upper deck at a rapid clip.

The whistle blew a sharp tenor note. The deck stopped shuddering as the screws holding her in place stopped turning. Then the enormous boat shook from stem to stern as the screws reversed to drive her out of her slip.

Yamamoto reached the ornamentally carved wooden staircase that swept upward in a graceful curve. For the first time, he looked back, a quick glance over his shoulder. He saw Isaac Bell running full speed to the edge of the slip. At the edge, the detective launched himself in the air in an attempt to broad-jump the rapidly widening gap. The Japanese spy waited to confirm that Bell had fallen in the churning water.