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 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 Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England Copyright© 2009 by Sandecker, RLLLP Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cussler, Clive. The wrecker / Clive Cussler and Justin Scott. p. cm. eISBN : 978-1-101-15148-8 1. Private investigators—Fiction. 2. Sabotage—Fiction. 3. Railroad trains—Fiction. 4. West (U.S.)—History—20th century—Fiction. I. Scott, Justin. II. Title. PS3553.U75W 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 In ternet 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. http://us.penguingroup.com UNFINISHED BUSINESS DECEMBER 12, 1934 GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN ABOVE THE SNOW LINE, THE GERMAN ALPS TORE AT THE SKY like the jaws of an ancient flesh eater. Storm clouds grazed the wind-swept peaks, and the jagged rock appeared to move, as if the beast were awakening. Two men, neither young, both strong, watched from the balcony of a ski hotel with quickening anticipation. Hans Grandzau was a guide whose weathered face was as craggy as the mountaintops. He carried in his head sixty years of traversing the wintery slopes. Last night, he had promised that the wind would shift east. Bitter Siberian cold would whirl wet air from the Mediterranean into blinding snow. The man to whom Hans had promised snow was a tall American whose blond hair and mustache were edged with silver. He wore a tweed Norfolk suit, a warm fedora on his head, and a Yale University scarf adorned with the shield of Branford College. His dress was typical of a well-to-do tourist who had come to the Alps for winter sport. But his eyes were fastened with a glacial-blue intensity on an isolated stone castle ten miles across the rugged valley. The castle had dominated its remote glen for a thousand years. It was nearly buried by the winter snows and mostly hidden by the shadow of the peaks that soared above it. Miles below the castle, too long and steep a climb to be undertaken lightly, was a village. The American watched a pillar of smoke creep toward it. He was too far away to see the locomotive venting it, but he knew that it marked the route of the railroad that crossed the border to Innsbruck. Full circle, he thought grimly. Twenty-seven years ago, the crime had started by a railroad in the mountains. Tonight it would end, one way or another, by a railroad in the mountains. “Are you sure you are up to this?” asked the guide. “The ascents are steep. The wind will cut like a saber.” “I’m fit as you are, old man.” To assure Hans, he explained that he had prepared by bivouack ing for a month with Norwegian ski troops, having arranged informal attachment to a United States Army unit dispatched to hone the skills of mountain warfare. “I was not aware that American troops exercise in Norway,” the German said stiffly. The American’s blue eyes turned slightly violet with the hint of a smile. “Just in case we have to come back over here to straighten out another war.” Hans returned an opaque grin. The American knew he was a proud veteran of the Alpenkorps, Germany’s elite mountain division formed by Kaiser Wilhelm in the 1914—1918 World War. But he was no friend of the Nazis, who had recently seized control of the German
