Saffire (19 page)

Goethals led me directly to the bright yellow eyesore behind the station.

Inside the railway car, with a table between us, Goethals spread blueprints on the table. “Ten thousand buckets of concrete a day.”

My hat was on the bench beside me. He was across from me.

“Crushed gravel from an island off Colón,” he continued. “Cement bags hauled from ships, thousands of gallons of water, miles of metal supports. The world has seen nothing like these locks. We made a cut into the hill on the other side for them. We pulled out five million cubic yards of dirt, and the locks will take two million cubic yards of concrete.”

“Those are just numbers.” Numbers that could never express the vastness of the concrete walls towering above us. This truly was America coming of age. Brash. Bold. Accomplishing what no other country had been able to accomplish in all of recorded history. A person had to be here to truly comprehend.

“Just numbers?”

“I hope you'll pardon a degree of loquaciousness. Normally I avoid it, but the last few days have had their impact.”

He examined my face. “Pardoned.”

“Life is messy. Numbers aren't. We can understand numbers but sometimes not comprehend them. Standing here, feeling tiny, that's the real impact this has had on me. So if there's a point to why I'm here and why you are spouting off facts like an encyclopedia, I won't be upset if you get to that point. I have a steamship sailing in less than three hours.”

“I don't like messy,” Goethals answered. “I do like numbers. There is precision in numbers.”

“You aren't holding my valise hostage—and the bank draft inside it— to deliver that kind of unsurprising statement from an army man.”

Goethals pointed out the window at the ladders that reached up the massive concrete walls to a height that spun my head, where it seemed the two parallel lines of the ladders formed a single point. “A month ago, a cable snapped. Four workers died. It wasn't an accident.”

“I trust you have your police looking into the matter. Or Mr. Miskimon.”

Goethals seemed to ignore my comment. “A week before that, a derailment at the Culebra Cut killed seven men—you might recall that your badge belonged to one of those policemen. That wasn't an accident. And ten days before that, at the Gatún Dam, dynamite triggered a landslide that killed four workers. Not an accident. What do you make of that?”

“Fifteen men died who should still be alive. If I were you, I would be angry.”

“I
am
angry. And baffled. It's unlikely that individual workers were targeted. It's too difficult to time the accidents to kill someone specific. And even if that was possible, it's not probable that all those individuals were linked to someone who might have enough of a grudge to choose to murder them like that. What does that leave?”

“The obvious. That someone is trying to slow the construction of the canal by hurting workers at random. But if you think past the obvious, it doesn't make sense. You have tens of thousands of workers.”

“Fifty thousand. It would take a war to stop the dig. Now think like a politician.”

I didn't try to hide the sour tone in my voice. “Not sure that bank draft is worth that much to me.”

He laughed. It bothered me that it felt good to have drawn laughter from him.

“When I arrived,” he said, “I divided the work into three divisions. The lock. The lake. The canal. All three were attacked, but with little impact on stopping any of those projects. I have no doubt all three attacks were linked, and, I suspect, symbolic attacks. The questions I faced were simple. Who did it? And what was the motive? But an open investigation would be disastrous. I can't tell you how much time is wasted by pandering to congressmen and senators who want to sightsee and use the excuse that they are here to ensure there is nothing fraudulent or wasted in our expenditures. You'll remember, of course, the French.”

I nodded. During their attempt to conquer the isthmus, they had squandered millions upon millions in a bribery scandal that rocked the financial world. Because of that, nothing seemed more important to the American project than accounting for every nail and hammer used. In the Senate and Congress, careers were made and destroyed on the progress of this project.

Goethals lowered his voice. “You are well aware of the extra political pressure because of Cromwell and the president's libel suit against the
World.
It's a frenzy.”

I nodded.

“Given those allegations, any suggestion of sabotage would be sensational not only in the American media but all across the world.” He waited, apparently for a comment from me.

“Thus the need for a tethered goat?”

His brows arched. “Pardon me?”

“Miskimon said he has me booked on the steamer leaving this afternoon, and I presume that is correct.”

“He is a precise man. He will not tell you something unless it is so.”

“But he is capable of withholding information as it suits him.”

“What suits him is what suits me. He does not deserve your rancor. Direct it at me.”

Despite the din of construction all around us, it seemed our conversation was taking place in a hushed office, such was the total focus of our sparring.

“Yesterday, he booked me on that steamer shortly after meeting me at the hotel,” I said. “That's where he first observed that I'd been held by the National Police. I think that gave him, and you, an answer that you needed. My purpose had been fulfilled. Using a girl's missing mother as an excuse, you sent me into Panama City to bumble around with questions to see what might happen. At our first meeting, I would have appreciated the kind of information that you waited until this morning to deliver in regard to the sabotage that troubles you.”

Goethals opened his mouth to speak. I didn't care if he was the dictator of this little American Zone in the middle of Central America—I shook my head to silence him.

“It speaks volumes, then, that you chose this morning to finally divulge confidential information that would have been more than helpful to me when you went through the charade of asking Miskimon to swear me to an oath as an enumerator. That tells me something has changed since Miskimon booked my passage. It tells me you need me again. The question is how badly do you need me?”

I reached down to my boot and pulled out the badge Miskimon had given me. I placed it on top of the blueprints between us. “I'm happy to return it before I cross the planks onto my steamer. I have no obligation to you.”

Goethals grimaced as he took the badge from me. “I'd rather not take this. Yes, we need you again.”

“Before I even consider staying, I want full disclosure. Was I a tethered goat?”

“No. I did not expect that you would draw the attention of the National Police. I am not a man of intrigue like that. Soon enough, I was going to tell you about the sabotage and then have it look like your questions about the sabotage were an extension of trying to learn about the girl's mother. As if you believed the issues were related. Miskimon had strict instructions that your investigation was to end if it looked like it might put you in danger.”

I touched my left ear. It still hurt. “I would guess, nicely enough for your conscience, that once you realized my questions drew danger from the National Police, you had your place to start and you also didn't need me anymore.”

“It wasn't the National Police. Not directly. Something else is happening, and I'm not quite sure what it is. All I know is that you are the thread to help me unravel it.”

I thought of that night in the hut and of the man with the whispered voice.
Someone with influence who wanted the police to do the dirty work.

“You'll tell me how you know this?”

“Not yet,” he answered. “But I promise I will when I can. I can also promise you that you are no longer of interest to the National Police and you are safe to resume asking questions.”

“How do you know that?” I asked, thinking of Miskimon's reference to “strong words.”

“I will not give you that answer. Either you trust me or you don't.”

“Fair enough.” Goethals did strike me as a man who placed value on trust. “If I stay, tell me what you want me to do.”

“As you discovered, workers from all areas of the canal come in on Sunday mornings to have disputes heard. Everyone knows that I send Miskimon across the Zone, week in and week out, to investigate those disputes. It's a public role that has allowed him to be discreet in questions about the accidents. All I want is for you to take his original reports and go back to each site to make it look like you have follow-up questions. I'll take care of letting the rumor spread that it is related to your questions about the girl's mother.”

“I am not an investigator. I baby-sit cattle for a livelihood.”

“What you learn matters little.” He paused, as though searching for words.

I supplied those words. “Whoever sent the National Police after me will know I'm doing this. I'll be a threat again, asking about accidents instead of a missing woman.”

“But you won't be a tethered goat. Tethered goats are unaware of why they are staked to a rope. Think of yourself as a hunting wolf. No rope. Fully aware that you are in pursuit of someone stalking you. I don't believe that person wishes to see you dead.”

“Not interested.”

“Did the color of this train car strike you as odd?”

“Incongruous.”

“It was a calculated choice. I want my presence to be known, and it motivates workers. And there are other times when my presence is not so obvious. I understand you visited the National Police yesterday after Mr. Miskimon released you from an obligation to me.”

Harry Franck had been right:
“Goethals has spies everywhere.”
“Care to tell me why?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“You were looking for a fight.”

“Why ask if you already know?” I said.

“It's important to me to know I am dealing with an honest man. I doubt I'll test you again. You did not fight. Why not?”

“I've got a daughter who depends on me. What she needs is more important than what I want.”

“Tell me what you think she needs. Keep in mind I'm a father too and love my children as fiercely as I can see you love your daughter.”

“She doesn't need a hero. She needs a father who can protect her until she can make her own way in the world.”

“I like you. I don't say that to many people.”

As with his laughter, it bothered me that I cared. “I want to begin my journey back to the Dakotas this afternoon, but I have something that might help. In Panama City, there's a man named Waldschmidt. He's playing loose and easy that he's working for the Germans. Maybe there's your link. Is that enough for you to give me my valise and send me on my way?”

I watched Goethals to see if this would be of interest to him. It told me something that he moved on without question. Trouble was, I had no idea exactly what it told me.

“The bank draft in your valise—I understand it covers all the delinquent payments outstanding on your land mortgage, but there will still be the remaining mortgage in place.”

Could it be…? Had the president made this kind of calculation, expecting that at some point I would need to be leveraged?

“What if the mortgage was completely paid?” Goethals watched me. “Would that secure your daughter's future?”

Yes. President Roosevelt was a consummate politician. He would have made that kind of calculation.

But I was a stubborn man. “She needs a father, not a ranch.”

“From what I understand, you are on the razor's edge of holding on to your ranch, even after the delinquent payments are made. Can a couple extra days in Panama be any more dangerous than being forced to head out on horseback in a blizzard because if you lose some cattle you'll lose the ranch? Have the ranch paid off, and you wouldn't need to take those kinds of chances.”