Detective Isaac Bell travels the early-twentieth-century American railways, driven by a sense of justice and a determination to stop a new mastermind reigning terror on a crucial express line in this #1 New York Times -bestselling series. A year of financial panic and labor unrest, 1907 sees train wrecks, fires, and explosions sabotage the Southern Pacific Railroad’s Cascades express line. Desperate for help the railroad hires the fabled Van Dorn Detective Agency. Van Dorn’s best man, Isaac Bell, quickly discovers a mysterious saboteur haunting the hobo jungles of the West. Known only as the Wrecker, he recruits vulnerable accomplices from the down-and-out to attack the railroad, and then kills them afterward. The Wrecker traverses the vast spaces of the American West as if he had wings, striking wherever he pleases, causing untold damage and loss of human life. Who is he? What does he want? Is he a striker? An anarchist? A revolutionary determined to displace the “privileged few”? A criminal mastermind engineering some as yet unexplained scheme? Whoever he is, whatever his motives, the Wrecker knows how to create maximum havoc, and Bell senses that he is far from done—that, in fact, the Wrecker is building up to a grand act unlike anything he has committed before. If Bell doesn’t stop him in time, more than a railroad could be at risk—it could be the future of the entire country. Clive Cussler is the author of more than fifty books in five bestselling series, including Dirk Pitt, NUMA Files, Oregon Files, Isaac Bell, and Fargo. His life nearly parallels that of his hero Dirk Pitt. Whether searching for lost aircraft or leading expeditions to find famous shipwrecks, he and his NUMA crew of volunteers have discovered more than seventy-five lost ships of historic significance, including the long-lost Confederate submarine Hunley , which was raised in 2000 with much press publicity. Like Pitt, Cussler collects classic automobiles. His collection features more than eighty examples of custom coachwork. Cussler lives in Arizona and Colorado. Justin Scott is the author of thirty-one novels, including The Shipkiller and Normandie Triangle ; the Ben Abbott detective series; six thrillers under his pen name Paul Garrison; and his coauthorship with Cussler of The Wrecker , The Spy , The Race , The Thief , The Striker , The Bootlegger , The Assassin , The Gangster, and The Cutthroat . Scott lives in Connecticut. Table of Contents Title Page Copyright Page UNFINISHED BUSINESS THE PROLETARIAT’S ARTILLERY Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 THE FAVORED FEW Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 THE BRIDGE Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Chapter 53 Chapter 54 Chapter 55 Chapter 56 Chapter 57 Chapter 58 Chapter 59 UNFINISHED BUSINESS An Excerpt from THE ASSASSIN DIRK PITT® ADVENTURES BY CLIVE CUSSLER Arctic Drift (WITH DIRK CUSSLER) Treasure of Khan (WITH DIRK CUSSLER) Black Wind (WITH DIRK CUSSLER) Trojan Odyssey Valhalla Rising Atlantis Found Flood Tide Shock Wave Inca Gold Sahara Dragon Treasure Cyclops Deep Six Pacific Vortex Night Probe Vixen 03 Raise the Titanic! Iceberg The Mediterranean Caper KURT AUSTIN ADVENTURES BY CLIVE CUSSLER WITH PAUL KEMPRECOS Medusa The Navigator Polar Shift Lost City White Death Fire Ice Blue Gold Serpent OREGON FILES ADVENTURES BY CLIVE CUSSLER WITH JACK DU BRUL Corsair Skeleton Coast Plague Ship Dark Watch WITH CRAIG DIRGO Golden Buddha Sacred Stone FARGO ADVENTURES BY CLIVE CUSSLER WITH GRANT BLACKWOOD Spartan Gold OTHER FICTION BY CLIVE CUSSLER The Chase NONFICTION BY CLIVE CUSSLER AND CRAIG DIRGO The Sea Hunters The Sea Hunters II Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt Revealed G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS NEW YORK Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd,11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India Penguin