The Bomb Squad Read online

  THE BOMB SQUAD

  CLASH OF THE PATRIOTS

  BOOK ONE

  NEIL PERRY GORDON

  Copyright © 2020 Neil Perry Gordon. All Rights Reserved

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form, or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical, methods without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  To my son Samuel, whose inner strength and leadership qualities, inspired this novel.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One—Black Tom Island

  Chapter Two—Ellis Island

  Chapter Three—It’s All Gone

  Chapter Four—German Spies

  Chapter Five—The Harmonie Club

  Chapter Six—The Document

  Chapter Seven—Hoboken

  Chapter Eight—Dr. Hermann Weber

  Chapter Nine—Bowling

  Chapter Ten—Germania Bank

  Chapter Eleven—Harold & Caitlin

  Chapter Twelve—The Brit

  Chapter Thirteen—The Baby & The Cigar

  Chapter Fourteen—The Team

  Chapter Fifteen—The Mayor of Hell’s Kitchen

  Chapter Sixteen—The First Meeting

  Chapter Seventeen—The Bar Mitzvah

  Chapter Eighteen—Trouble at the Docks

  Chapter Nineteen—Heart Attack

  Chapter Twenty—A Cold Day in Hell’s Kitchen

  Chapter Twenty-One—Back to Work

  Chapter Twenty-Two—Maria

  Chapter Twenty-Three—Mickey Scars

  Chapter Twenty-Four—It’s the Irish

  Chapter Twenty-Five—Bank Business

  Chapter Twenty-Six—The Magician

  Chapter Twenty-Seven—Problem Solving

  Chapter Twenty-Eight—War Surprise

  Chapter Twenty-Nine—Ellis Island Prison

  Chapter Thirty—Maria Meets the Parents

  Chapter Thirty-One—Harold’s Epiphany

  Chapter Thirty-Two—Max’s Mistake

  Chapter Thirty-Three—The Note

  Chapter Thirty-Four—Max and the Rat

  Chapter Thirty-Five—The Kidnappers

  Chapter Thirty-Six—Shoot Out

  Chapter Thirty-Seven—Taking Care of Walter

  Chapter Thirty-Eight—Maria’s Secret

  Chapter Thirty-Nine—Second Thoughts

  Chapter Forty—The Plan

  Chapter Forty-One—A Brilliant Idea

  Chapter Forty-Two—Anything for her Son

  Chapter Forty-Three—The Planning Committee

  Chapter Forty-Four—The SS Saint Paul

  Chapter Forty-Five—Meeting Morgan

  Chapter Forty-Six—The Storm

  Chapter Forty-Seven—Caitlin in Boston

  Chapter Forty-Eight—Crazy Kaiser

  Chapter Forty-Nine—The American Patriot

  Chapter Fifty—Gibraltar

  Chapter Fifty-One—Harold Takes Aim

  Chapter Fifty-Two—The Vespuccis

  Chapter Fifty-Three—On the Run

  Chapter Fifty-Four—The Fish

  Chapter Fifty-Five—Ellie & Michael

  Chapter Fifty-Six—The Baroness

  Chapter Fifty-Seven—Betrayal

  Chapter Fifty-Eight—The Proposal

  Chapter Fifty-Nine—The Crown Prince

  Chapter Sixty—The Halberstadt

  Chapter Sixty-One—The Old Lady and The Sea

  Chapter Sixty-Two—Touchdown

  Chapter Sixty-Three—The Port of Amsterdam

  Chapter Sixty-Four—Cologne

  Chapter Sixty-Five—The Berlin Palace

  Chapter Sixty-Six—Frau Zeller

  Chapter Sixty-Seven—The Crown Prince

  Chapter Sixty-Eight—The Café

  Chapter Sixty-Nine—The Kaiser

  Chapter Seventy—The School for Boys

  Chapter Seventy-One—The Ratskeller

  Chapter Seventy-Two—The Abduction

  Chapter Seventy-Three—Private Time

  Chapter Seventy-Four—The Mayor of Dusseldorf

  Chapter Seventy-Five—To Cologne

  Chapter Seventy-Six—The Court Order

  Chapter Seventy-Seven—The Reunion

  Chapter Seventy-Eight—Prisoners

  Chapter Seventy-Nine—Harold’s Plan

  Chapter Eighty—Prisoners of War

  Chapter Eighty-One—Family Reunion

  Chapter Eighty-Two—To Amsterdam

  Chapter Eighty-Three—The North Sea

  Chapter Eighty-Four—Harbour Main Port

  Chapter Eighty-Five—Return to The City

  Chapter Eighty-Six—Nom Wah Tea Parlor

  Chapter Eighty-Seven—Karl Schwartz

  Chapter Eighty-Eight—Yonah Schimmel’s

  Chapter Eighty-Nine—The Meeting

  Chapter Ninety—The Five-Twelve

  Chapter Ninety-One—Treason

  Chapter Ninety-Two—The Bomb Squad

  About the Author

  CHAPTER ONE—BLACK TOM ISLAND

  The explosion shook Max Rothman awake. He propped himself up to a seated position, rubbed the crust from his eyes and tried to make out the strange visual effects coming from his bedroom window. Where once lived two solid windowpanes was now an array of moonlit shards, desperately clinging to a rattled frame. Scattered across the floorboards lay a delicate carpet of glass, sparkling like a starlit sky.

  Max tossed off his summer blanket and reached for his slippers, which were luckily tucked away under his bed, free from the fragments. He slipped them on, stepped gingerly toward the window, and looked down. Broken glass decorated the entire sidewalk, while the windows across the street remained intact.

  “It must have been a big one,” he muttered to himself.

  Voices flooded the hallway as apartment doors swung open, and Max heard through the thin walls, his neighbors discussing the myriad events that could have shaken them awake.

  He dressed quickly and headed out of his apartment, down the stairwell and onto the sidewalk. Glass crunched underfoot and lodged itself into the soles of Max’s shoes.

  Along his hurried ten-minute walk from his apartment to the precinct, he saw the extent of the damage. It appeared that only the buildings with west-facing windows were blown out. This was the first clue, in what would end up being just a scant number of clues, that Max would uncover during the investigation.

  Max knew the buzz of activity at the steps of the precinct was only a prelude to an intense scene inside. The last time something like this happened was nearly two years ago on the Fourth of July, when a plot by anarchists to blow up John D. Rockefeller’s Tarrytown mansion, was prevented when their explosives went off prematurely in an apartment building on Lexington Avenue. But Max knew that this explosion, whatever the cause, was on a significantly larger scale than the Lex-Ave bombing, as it was called.

  “Good morning, Max, the captain’s looking for you,” said the desk sergeant.

  “Thanks, Billy,” replied Max as he made his way through the pool of desks, populated with detectives interviewing nervous residents reacting to the dramatic events of the early morning hours.

  “Good morning, Captain,” Max said, entering the stale-aired, smoke-choked office. Max often wondered why the captain didn’t have an office with windows open to the street.

  “Morning, Rothman, take a seat,” responded Captain John Gilroy, his lips opened just enough to mouth the words around a lit cigar-butt pinched between his tobacco-stained teeth.

  “What’s happening?” Max asked.

  “There’s been an explosion over
in Jersey City.”

  “Jersey City?” Max said, pointing with a fully extended arm to emphasize the distance from New York’s Lower East Side.

  The captain nodded. “It’s a big one. From what I hear someone blew up the munitions depot on Black Tom Island.”

  “Do we know who did it?”

  The captain took a puff of his cigar from the left side of his jaw and let it linger a while before he exhaled the smoke out through a small opening between his lips on the opposite side. “We’re thinking the Germans.”

  Max’s eyebrows shot up. “The Germans, really?”

  “Apparently a huge cache of American armaments was being staged there for a shipment to Russia.”

  “That’s something,” Max said.

  “It is, and guess what, you’ve been requested by the commissioner to lead the investigation.”

  Max shook his head, lifted his palms outward and asked, “Me, why me? It’s not in our jurisdiction.”

  “The commissioner himself requested that you handle the case. Looks like you made a name for yourself after the Lex-Ave investigation.”

  Max shook his head. “Come on, Captain, you know that was not much of an investigation. Those knuckleheads left enough breadcrumbs. Anyone could have figured it out.”

  The captain slapped his hands together. “Well, now you’ll have a challenge worthy of the renowned Detective Max Rothman.”

  Max put his hands on his knees and pushed himself up to his feet when the captain lifted his palm and gestured for Max to sit back down. “There’s one more thing, Rothman.”

  Max lowered himself back into the hard wooden chair.

  “I have assigned you a partner. He’s waiting for you out there,” he said, jerking his thumb through the open slats of the blinds. “His name’s Patrick Kelly.”

  Max shook his head and held out his palms. “Come on, Captain. I don’t need a partner.”

  The captain wagged a finger at him and said, “You will on this one. Detective Kelly has developed a reputation for squeezing information from nefarious, influential individuals who are reluctant to share their knowledge with law enforcement—if you know what I mean.”

  Max nodded and said with a chuckle, “That sounds helpful.”

  The captain ran his fingers through the curls of his red beard and said, “Listen, Max, I’m not sure who’s behind all this, but if this has something to do with the war in Europe, this could be America’s wake-up call.”

  Max stood up and tried to muster a smile, but instead offered an awkward grimace. “Okay, Captain. Let me go meet my new partner.”

  Sitting at the chair alongside his desk was a blond-haired man, wearing a navy suit jacket, picking at something stuck to his pants.

  “You must be Detective Kelly,” Max said.

  Patrick looked up, brushed off his brown slacks, and stood up.

  “And you must be Detective Rothman,” Patrick replied, extending his hand with a smile that lit up his face.

  The men shook hands, and Max gestured for Patrick to sit back down.

  “So, it looks like we will be partners,” Max said.

  Patrick cocked his head to the side and said, “I hope that’s okay with you.”

  Max shrugged. “I haven’t had a partner in two years.”

  “I heard it was the Krauts that blew up Black Tom Island,” said Patrick, changing the subject.

  “That’s what the captain thinks,” Max said.

  Max didn’t like this new derogatory term for the Germans. Especially considering he was born in Berlin. But with war raging in Europe the past two years, he understood the need for feeble-mind men to casually toss around insults. But to come from the mouth of a detective, especially of Irish descent, surprised him. He was sure that Patrick wouldn’t appreciate being called a Mick.

  Max grabbed the receiver on his desk phone and said, “Let’s call Harbor Patrol and ask if they’ll give us a ride over to Black Tom Island.”

  CHAPTER TWO—ELLIS ISLAND

  Dr. Harold Schwartz spotted Caitlin Ryan the moment he stood at the podium. She seemed to be poised to anticipate his eye contact because she responded instantly with her bright alluring smile that never failed to connect with him. But this public display of affection was something that he needed to discourage. The last thing he wanted was to get caught cheating on his wife again.

  Quickly looking away, Harold scanned the group of newly sworn-in Public Health Service Officers for the United States Immigration Service at Ellis Island. Only five men were present. The low number of inductees was because of the meager flow of immigrants since the outbreak of war in Europe. Steamships crossing the Atlantic were limited, because many of the ocean liners came from countries at war, and consequently had been converted into cargo transports or hospital ships.

  Leaning against the back wall were several of the nurses, including Caitlin, who would assist the new doctors, whose eyes were now glued upon him, all eager to learn the ropes from their new boss—the administrator of Ellis Island Hospital, Dr. Schwartz.

  “Good morning,” Harold began, studying the men, and hopefully avoiding catching Caitlin’s distracting stare. “You are now officers of the United States Immigration Service and responsible for medically screening the immigrants as they arrive from all corners of the globe.”

  A smattering of applause interrupted Harold.

  Harold nodded, offered a feeble smile and continued, “The mission of a PBS Medical Officer is to prevent the entrance of disease into our nation. But in a broader sense, our goal is to exclude entry to those who would not make good American citizens. We have classified our diagnosis into two groups: Class A includes individuals with a contagious disease or with a mental condition such as insanity or epilepsy. Class B includes diseases and conditions that would render an immigrant likely to become a public charge, which means to include individuals with disabilities or a lack of economic resources. Now you may ask how we could manage such a mandate when so many immigrants move through our facility every day, even though these days it’s not as challenging as it once was.”

  Harold scanned the audience, whose nods acknowledged the validity of his last statement. He raised a hand to signal to a man off to the side of the room, poised by a blackboard who, upon Harold’s command, wheeled it toward the podium.

  “Ah, thank you, Frank,” said Harold. “To be clear, we do not examine every person entering the United States. Those traveling in first or second-class accommodations are quickly examined on board, when the steamship enters the harbor and admitted entry without passing through our facility.

  “Those in steerage, however, are taken to Ellis Island by barge, where they are directed here for processing. Over the years we have established a system of medically examining thousands of immigrants quickly while they are on, what we simply call, the line.”

  Harold turned his back, picked up a piece of chalk and wrote large letters in three rows on the blackboard. When he finished, he faced the audience and said, “As the men, women, and children make their way through the line, we station PBS officers every few yards to observe and provide what we call the physician’s gaze. If a condition is visually apparent, we write a letter in chalk on the back shoulder of the immigrants’ garment.”

  A hand rose in the audience and the owner asked, “What do these letters mean?”

  Harold held up his hand, and said, “I was just about to get to that.”

  He drew an X and said, “X refers to a suspected mental defect. An X with a circle around it means there’s reason to believe that there are signs of mental disease. C is a suspicion of conjunctivitis. CT is for trachoma. E is an eye condition. F is for an ailment upon the face, and F+ shows something is wrong with the feet. H refers to the heart. L is lameness and N is a condition with the neck. P is lungs and Pg is pregnancy. S is senility and Sc is the scalp.”

  “Excuse me, sir,” a voice called out from the audience.

  Harold looked out to see a young doctor with a rais
ed hand. “Yes, what is it?”

  “Many diseases are not so obvious at a quick glance. People could easily conceal their ailments.”

  Harold nodded. “This is true, but after doing this a while we’ve seen all the tricks and know what to look for. We can’t identify every individual with a disease, but we can flag about fifteen to twenty percent of arrivals who are turned off the line. We separate these individuals from their family and redirect to holding cells for further examination.”

  The same doctor followed up with another question. “How do you determine if someone has a mental defect?”

  “We have developed a series of tests that require manipulation of cubes, assembly of puzzles, or interpreting events depicted in photographs. Eventually, when all mental and physical exams are passed, the immigrant receives a medical certificate which allows them entry.”

  “What about those that don’t pass?” asked the same doctor.

  Harold pursed his lips and said, “What’s your name, sir?”

  The man stood up and said, “My name is Dr. Hermann Weber.”

  “Why is it, Dr. Weber, that you seem to be the only one with questions?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” he said, looking around at the glaring faces staring back at him.

  “Very well, Dr. Weber.” Harold sighed. “We admit those with treatable conditions to the Ellis Island Hospital where they are cared for until they recover and then released into the general population. For those patients that are determined too sick for treatment or are incurable, we return them to their country of origin.”

  Harold saw Caitlin walking toward him as he was speaking to a few of the lingering new medical officers asking questions. He excused himself and grabbed Caitlin by the arm and tugged her down a hallway out of view.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he said, squeezing her arm tightly.

  Caitlin tried to pull away. “You’re hurting me, Harold,” she said, grimacing.

  “What’s so important that you need to be here?”

  “I need to talk to you,” she insisted.

  “This is not a good time, Caitlin. We shouldn’t be seen together. You know people will talk.”