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“Where can he go now that he’s exposed?”
“Anywhere they’ll take him in. But not before he commits a final crime to benefit the nation that will protect a criminal.”
“Using those torpedoes,” said Archie.
“Against what?” wondered Bell.
TED WHITMARK WAS WAITING in the Van Dorn reception room when Bell got back to the Knickerbocker. He was holding his hat on his knees and could not meet Bell’s eye as he asked, “Is there someplace private we can talk, Mr. Bell?”
“Come on in,” Bell said, noting that Whitmark’s Harvard College tie was askew, his shoes scuffed, and his trousers in need of a pressing. He led him to his desk and moved a chair alongside so they could sit close and not be overheard. Whitmark sat, worrying his hands, gnawing his lip.
“How is Dorothy?” Bell asked to put him at ease.
“Well… she’s one of the things I want to talk about. But I’ll get to the main event first, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.”
“You see, I, uh, I play cards. Often…”
“You gamble.”
“Yes. I gamble. And sometimes I gamble too much. I’ll hit a losing streak and,
before I know it, I’m in over my head. All I’m trying to do is win back some of my losses, but sometimes it only gets worse.”
“Are you in a losing streak at the moment?” Bell asked.
“It looks that way. Yes, you could say that.” Again he fell silent.
“Can I assume that Dorothy is upset with this?”
“Well, yes, but that’s the least of it. I’ve been something of a fool. I’ve done several really stupid things. I thought I’d learned my lesson in San Francisco.”
“What happened in San Francisco?”
“I dodged a bullet out there, thanks to you.”
“What do you mean?” Bell asked, suddenly alert to a situation more serious than he had assumed.
“I mean when you stopped that cart from blowing up the Mare Island magazine, you saved my life. There would have been lot of innocent folks killed, and they would have been on my head.”
“Explain,” Bell said tersely.
“I gave them the pass and paperwork to get into the Mare Island Naval Shipyard.”
“Why?”
“I owed so much money. They were going to kill me.”
“Who?”
“Well, Commodore Tommy Thompson at first. Here in New York. Then he sold my debt to a guy who had a casino in the Barbary Coast and I lost more out there and he was going to kill me. He said they’d do it slow. But all I had to do to get out of it was give him one of my wagon passes and my company invoices and show ’em the ropes and everything. I know what you’re thinking, that I allowed a saboteur onto the base, but I didn’t realize that was what they wanted. I thought it was about them landing a big contract. I thought they were doing it for the money.”
“You hoped they were doing it for the money,” Isaac Bell retorted coldly.
Ted Whitmark hung his head. When he finally looked up again, he had tears in his eyes. “That’s what I hoped this time, too. But I’m scared it isn’t, and something tells me this time will be worse.”
The intercommunicating phone on Bell’s desk rang. He snatched it up. “What?”
