His head and shoulders emerged first, to be immediately baptized in the full fury of the storm. The broken guardrail of the bridge loomed tantalizingly close, but his searching fingers could not quite make contact. He could feel the cab moving against his body, tilting and sliding, well beyond the point of no return. With a desperate heave, he thrust himself at the guard rail.
The taxi cleared the bridge with agonizing slowness, but just as Dodge’s fingers grazed the molded concrete, it cleared the last obstacle and was suddenly free. After the torturous ordeal of surmounting that obstruction, the final plunge seemed almost graceful.
Dodge’s fingertips burned across the wet masonry as an unseen but irresistible force pulled him down. He felt a sharp pain in his leg and in that bloated instant of time knew with amazing clarity that a shard of glass from the broken window had snagged his pant leg. His best efforts to escape the doomed taxi had been for naught.
The pain suddenly intensified, but in that same moment, Dodge felt a hand clamp around his wrist to arrest his fall. The glass tooth biting into his leg wasn’t strong enough to endure the grip that held him back from the abyss and it snapped in two. An inch long sliver remained with Dodge, the tip of it firmly lodged in the flesh of his calf, while the rest of the glass, along with the taxi itself, plunged into the tempest.
In the panic induced distortion of that single moment in time, Dodge got past the absurdity of his salvation and quickly turned his efforts to escaping the still immediate threat of a deadly fall into the river. The grip that had snared his wrist had most certainly stayed the Reaper’s hand, but he wasn’t clear of the old man’s scythe by a long shot. With his free hand, he clawed for a handhold on the concrete and in an extraordinary burst of strength, pulled himself up to chest level on the bridge deck.
Through eyes streaked with rain, he could only distinguish the barest outline of his benefactor; a man, but he had surmised as much, of about the same age and build as himself, wearing a sodden trench coat and a battered fedora that concealed most of his face in shadow. Only the fellow’s mouth was visible beneath the curve of the hat brim, teeth clenched in a snarl of exertion. Yet, as victory in the war with gravity became gradually more apparent, that grimace softened into a triumphant smile.
Dodge collapsed in relief as soon as his knees cleared the brink. He rolled onto his back, exposing his face to the downpour and relished the sensation of solidity beneath him, only peripherally aware of his savior kneeling beside him.
"That was a close one, Mr. Dalton."
"Call me Dodge…" His eyes flew open and he sat up, gripping the lapels of the man’s coat and pulling him close. "How the devil did you know my name?"
The man did not resist. "Easy there, Mr. Dalton. I’m one of the good guys." He held up what appeared to be a wallet that opened to reveal a glinting object shaped like a shield. "I’ve been following you from the newspaper office."
"You called my name," Dodge said, recalling the voice he had heard just before embarking on the ill-fated taxi ride.
"That’s right, but I was just a few seconds too late to stop this from happening." He gestured to an idling Studebaker Model II sedan parked a few paces away. "Let’s get out of the rain and I’ll explain everything."
Dodge searched the other man’s face for any hint of deception. Given the preceding events, he wasn’t about to make the same mistake twice, but the other man’s expression was earnest and his badge had indeed read Department of Justice. "I didn’t catch your name."
"Special Agent Fuller — Tom Fuller, Mr. Dalton. I appreciate your hesitance, but think about it; if I wanted to hurt you, I would have simply let you fall into the river."
Dodge nodded slowly and got to his feet. "All right Agent Fuller, it’s your show."
"Good. It’s going to be a long night. I wish I could tell you it’s over, but I’m afraid this is only the beginning. "
Using a rudimentary first aid kit, Dodge stanched the flow of blood from the gash in his leg as Fuller pulled away from the damaged guardrail and continued toward Brooklyn. "I’ll call in the wreck as soon as we can get to a phone," the agent explained. "But right now we’ve got more urgent concerns."
"So you keep saying." Dodge winced as he probed the now bandaged wound. The copious flow of blood was manageable, but would require sutures to heal properly; fortunately, he was on good terms with a certain red-haired doctor.
"It’s no exaggeration. I would have thought you’d have realized that when they tried to kill you."
"You haven’t told me exactly who ‘they’ are."
It was Special Agent Fuller’s turn for a suspicious glance and he regarded Dodge silently for an uncomfortable interval that ended only when Dodge averted his stare, looking through the windshield to remind the G-man that they were in a moving automobile. Fuller gave a heavy sigh. "I had hoped you would be able to shed some light on that, actually."
"Sorry to disappoint you, but until about fifteen minutes ago, everything was dandy." Even as he said it, Dodge realized the falsity of his statement. He thought about the yellow telegram in his pocket, now likely a wad of indistinguishable pulp, from Prof. Pendleton. Urgent I see you… "But I can tell you this; the guy driving that taxi was no taxi driver. It was King Donnelly, but something tells me that you already knew that. Care to tell me why the next Babe Ruth just tried to drive me off the Brooklyn Bridge?"
"Roger ‘King’ Donnelly." Fuller sighed, evincing no surprise. "You recognized him?"
"Among other things, I’m a sportswriter. I’ve interviewed him three times."
"Mr. Dalton, I can only tell you what I know, which is precious little. I’d start at the beginning, but I’m not even sure if I know what that is. You’re right about one thing. It’s no surprise to me that Donnelly was driving that taxi. He’s one of them; the passengers from Flight 19."
"The plane that had to put down in mid-ocean? What does that have to do with anything?"
Fuller steered the car onto a side street, the first of a series of turns that put them back on the bridge bound for Manhattan. When he finally spoke, it was with the reluctance of one who was loath to reveal a secret. "The official version of those events isn’t quite the whole story.
"Flight 19 missed its arrival time in New York by almost a full day, but as near as anyone can tell, it never put down. Everything from the fuel gauges to the onboard chronometers reads exactly like the plane was right on schedule."
"Right on schedule? I don’t follow."
"The plane seems to have…" Fuller faltered as if recognizing that there was no way to explain the situation without sounding like a madman. "The plane and everyone on it lost twenty hours. According to the flight crew, it was as sudden as someone throwing a switch."
"That’s ridiculous." The words were out of his mouth before Dodge could think about them; he knew too well that there were mysteries at work in the world that could not be easily explained. Denial was the natural human response to anything that challenged the foundation of one’s reality.
"That’s not all. During the…lapse…one of the passengers vanished. In fact, he disappeared even from the memories of those aboard the plane. The travel agents in Bermuda confirm that he boarded, but he never made it New York."
Dodge bit back another denial. "Who?"
"Inspector Ian Winston, an Interpol agent. As I said, it’s difficult to know where to begin. Interpol received a tip that someone aboard that aircraft was an international criminal, some kind of agent provocateur, bent upon a mission of sabotage. The identity of the miscreant remains unknown, but certain details about his scheme have emerged, specifically the target, which is why I happened to be looking for you tonight."