The Chase
THE CHASE
DIRK PITT® ADVENTURES BY CLIVE CUSSLER
Treasure of Khan
Black Wind
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
The Navigator
Polar Shift
Lost City
White Death
Fire Ice
Blue Gold
Serpent
OREGON FILES ADVENTURES BY CLIVE CUSSLER WITH CRAIG DIRGO
Skeleton Coast
Dark Watch
Sacred Stone
Golden Buddha
NONFICTION BY CLIVE CUSSLER AND CRAIG DIRGO
The Sea Hunters II
Clive Cussler and Dirk
Pitt Revealed
The Sea Hunters
THE CHASE
CLIVE CUSSLER
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
NEW YORK
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Publishers Since 1838
Published by the Penguin Group
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Copyright © 2007 by Sandecker, RLLLP
Endpaper map and illustrations by Richard Dahlquist
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cussler, Clive.
The chase / Clive Cussler.
p. cm.
ISBN: 1-4295-6650-7
1. Bank robberies—Fiction. 2. California—History—1850–1950—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3553.U75C4720072007017291
813'.54—dc22
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
To Teri, Dirk, and Dana
No father was blessed with more-loving children
THE CHASE
Contents
GHOST FROM THE PAST
THE BUTCHER BANDIT
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
THE CHASE QUICKENS
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
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
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
UP FROM THE DEPTHS
GHOST FROM THE PAST
APRIL 15, 1950
FLATHEAD LAKE, MONTANA
IT ROSE FROM THE DEPTHS LIKE AN EVIL MONSTER in a Mesozoic sea. A coat of green slime covered the cab and boiler while gray-brown silt from the lake bottom slid and fell off the eighty-one-inch drive wheels and splashed into the cold waters of the lake. Ascending slowly above the surface, the old steam locomotive hung for a moment from the cables of a huge crane mounted on a wooden barge. Still visible under the dripping muck, beneath the open side window of its cab, was the number 3025.
Built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 3025 rolled out of the factory on April 10th of 1904. The “Pacific” class was a common large-sized, high-drive-wheeled steam engine that could pull ten steel passenger cars long distances at speeds up to ninety miles an hour. She was known as a 4-6-2 because of her four-wheeled truck in the front, just behind the cowcatcher, the six massive drive wheels below the boiler, and the two small wheels mounted beneath the cab.
The crew on the barge watched in awe as the crane operator orchestrated his levers and gently lowered old 3025 onto the main deck, its weight settling the barge three inches deeper in the water. She sat there almost a minute before the six men overcame their wonderment and detached the cables.
“She’s in remarkably good shape for sitting underwater for almost fifty years,” murmured the salvage superintendent of the battered old barge that was nearly as ancient as the locomotive. Since the nineteen twenties, it had been used for dredging operations on the lake and surrounding tributaries.
Bob Kaufman was a big, friendly man, ready with a laugh at the slightest hint of something jovial. With a face ruddy from long hours spent in the sun, he had been working on the barge for twenty-seven years. Now seventy-five, he could have retired long ago, but as long as the dredging company kept him on he was going to keep working. Sitting at home and working jigsaw puzzles was not his idea of the good life. He studied the man standing beside him, who was, as close as he could figure, slightly older.
“What do you think?” Kaufman asked.
The man turned, tall and still lean in his late seventies, hair full and silver. His face was as weathered as buckskin. He stared at