Clive Cussler's "The Chase" Trivia Quiz

Answer: No

In the beginning of the book, there was a barge with a crane. On the barge was an elderly man who was observing the operation. As the operation went on, the crane pulls a locomotive out of the water and sets it down on the deck of the barge. The train number was 3025 and it was an old Baldwin Pacific 4-6-2.

The numbers meant the number of wheels on the locomotive. The train had four wheels in the front behind the cow catcher, six drive wheels and two dolly wheels under the cab. The locomotive had been under the lake for nearly fifty years.

The observer said that he was more interested in what was in the still-submerged boxcar.

Answer: 1906

The story actually starts in June of 1905, but the bulk of the book takes place in 1906. The book starts off in Bisbee Arizona with a man disguised as a drunk robbing and killing three people in its bank. The robber is known as the Butcher Bandit and he kills everyone inside so as to not be discovered.

Answer: 3

In Bisbee, Arizona, the bandit killed three people. He first knocked a woman unconscious before holding the manager and teller hostage in the office. After he was done taking all the paper currency from the vault, he shot the manager and teller and then on his way out shot the woman. However, when he left, he accidentally left behind a shell casing around where he killed the woman.

Answer: 40

Up to this point, the bandit had killed 38 men and women and two children. The bandit didn't care about human life as long as he was able to get away with the crime and not get caught.

Answer: Van Dorn Detective Agency

Isaac Bell was Van Dorn's best man in crime fighting. He was said to be notorious for nearly catching Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. He was also quick to draw his Derringer pistol and could fire off a shot quicker than the other man. He met up with Joseph Van Dorn (founder of the agency) and Colonel Dansler to discuss the best way to catch the Butcher Bandit.

Answer: Denver

While on the case, Van Dorn assigned Bell to the Denver branch. The Denver branch was commanded by Nicholas Alexander who despised Isaac Bell. Van Dorn felt it better to place Bell in Denver so that it was right in the middle of where the robberies took place.

Answer: Brown Palace Hotel

While in Denver, Bell stayed at the Brown Palace Hotel. It was one of the more exclusive hotels in the area and very expensive. However, Bell came from a wealthy family and could afford the prices and services that they offered.

Answer: No

At the Van Dorn branch in Denver, Alexander wanted Bell in a normal, doorless office. However, Bell defiantly took up shop in the department's conference room. Since Alexander hated everything about Bell, he was not pleased that Bell was mainly taking over the show from him and going against his wishes to use the conference room as a command post.

Answer: Nicholas Alexander

The head of the Denver branch of the Van Dorn Detective Agency was Nicholas Alexander. Alexander was noted for only giving sparse expenses for his men in the field and insisting they live in cheap hotels and eat cheap food. He was not thrilled with Joseph Van Dorn for sending Bell to him. He tried to intimidate Bell quite a few times, but Bell was not to be ruffled.

Answer: Rose Mantega

Bell was heading to his suite when a woman identified him on the elevator. He was certain she had to be a spy for someone and figured it was for the Butcher Bandit. He snuck his way into a charity function which she was attending and got as much information as he could.

She seemed to know his whole background. He later snuck into the Country Club where she and Alexander were found to be enjoying dinner together. Bell also assumed that she must've been working as a spy in the Van Dorn Detective Agency and wired Van Dorn to check out the name of Rose Mantega.

Answer: No

Mantega told Bell that she lived in Los Angeles and that her family owned a ranch near the town. Bell had Van Dorn check this name and story out and Van Dorn said that his agent in the Los Angeles bureau had said that there was no such name or ranch as described by this Rose Mantega. Bell started to get suspicious and tracked her as well as the bandit.

Answer: Jackie Ruggles

Bell decided to put himself, Arthur Curtis and Glen Irvine on this case. When asked, Bell said that he was going to make his first stop in Ryolite Nevada. He met with the sheriff who later came to Bell with the name of Jackie Ruggles. Jackie was a 10-year-old boy who lived in the run-down section of town. Bell was also told by the sheriff that Rogans had a sweet tooth for gumdrops. Bell bought a bag of gumdrops to persuade the boy into telling him what he needed to know. Rogans said the robber was missing the little finger on the left hand. Finally, there was a lead as to the identity of the robber.

Answer: boxcar

In almost each of the cases, the bandit used a boxcar which he bought and furnished. This was set up inside like a luxury suite in a hotel. At first, the bandit had the name of the O'Brien Furniture Company, Denver, on the sides as a ruse to repel law enforcement from his trail.

He later repainted the car and put Southern Pacific and changed the serial number of the car to #16455. However, Bell was not deceived and figured it out pretty quick.

Answer: Glen Irvine

Bell sends Glen Irvine to start in Bowsman, Montana. Irvine was to go to some of these towns where the robberies took place and see if they recorded any of the serial numbers from the bills. The bank in Bowsman, however, had closed up shortly afterwards because the bank was unable to pay back its customers.

Answer: both of these

Bell went to Ryolite and then on to Bisbee, Arizona. In Bisbee, he met up with some poker players in a local bar and discovered that the former mayor of Bisbee remembered that the bandit had short red hair and drove a motorcycle. However, this person wasn't trusted and was thought to just blow things out of proportion. Bell took the lead seriously though.

Then, while visiting the current sheriff, the sheriff showed him a bullet which was found by a little boy who was playing on the floor of the bank and found a .38 caliber bullet under the carpet of the bank.

Another lead for Bell to follow.

Answer: Elkhorn

Irvine did manage to find some of the serial numbers in Elkhorn. Most of the serial numbers were from bills which were $50 and above in the currency. After some futile searching, they found three of the stolen bills. One of them landed in the Cromwell National Bank in San Francisco.

Answer: Butcher Bandit

Since no one knew the identity of the robber and because of the gruesome nature of the killings, a newspaper reporter started to name the robber the Butcher Bandit. Jacob Cromwell was actually the Butcher Bandit and he had said to his sister Margaret that he hated that name. He would've preferred "Stylish Spirit" instead. Margaret would actually be "Rose Mantega".

Answer: Salt Lake City

The bandit decided on Salt Lake City for his next hit. He claimed to the bank manager that he was the head of the Hudson National Bank in New York and that he was depositing $500,000 in the bank to start other banks in Reno and Pheonix. The man had a stylish cane that was actually a gun.

Answer: Eliah Ruskin

The bandit went under the name of Eliah Ruskin. He struck up a friendship with the manager and decided to hit the bank during its quiet time around 1:30 in the afternoon. At this point, Salt Lake City had never had a bank robbery before and had felt too safe. That was before Cromwell, now Ruskin, robbed it.

Answer: $475,000

The bandit ordered the bank manager to fill out a bank draft for $475,000. After stealing $243,000, the bandit had well over $750,000 to put in his bank. Under Federal law, the Salt Lake Bank & Trust HAD to honor the bank draft and pay the money. Investigators in Salt Lake, however, figured out that they were scammed when they opened the case supposedly containing the $500,000.

It only contained $20,000 in currencies. The rest of the case was filled with banded up newspaper.