Текст книги "The Assassin"

Автор книги: Clive Cussler

Соавторы: Justin Scott
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Текущая страница: 4 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

5

Midnight was warmed by a slight breeze as a crescent moon inched toward the west. The assassin sat on a large barrel that had been cut into a chair in front of the switching office of the railroad freight yard. The interior was dark and empty since no trains were due to leave or arrive until late the next morning.

The assassin lit a Ramón Allones Havana cigar and retrieved from a coat pocket a leather pouch that contained a gold medal, a fifty-dollar bill, and a letter on heavy stock. The touch of wind dissipated an attempt at blowing a self-satisfied smoke ring.

The medal was as heavy as a double eagle gold piece. And the center was fashioned like a target, with concentric rings and a single dot in the precise center of the bull’s-eye. It hung from a red ribbon that was attached to a gold bar pin engraved “Rifle Sharpshooter.”

The fifty-dollar treasury note would have been just another bill of paper money except when you turned it over you saw that the president had signed the back—as if, the assassin often thought, the busy president had suddenly shouted, “Wait! Bring that back. I’ll sign it for that fine young soldier.”

It had to be Roosevelt’s signature because it matched his signature on the commendation letter that the president had typed, as he was known to do with personal letters, on White House letterhead. The assassin read it by the light of a globe above the switching office door for perhaps the hundredth time:

THE WHITE HOUSE

Washington

October 1, 1902

I have just been informed that you have won the President’s Match for the military championship of the United States of America. I wish to congratulate you in person . . .

The assassin skipped some folderol about honoring the regiment and the value of volunteer soldiers—as if their eyes had sighted the targets and their fingers caressed the trigger. Fat chance. Then came the best part.

I congratulate you and your possession of the qualities of perseverance and determination—

A sound of footsteps on gravel interrupted all thought. Quickly, everything went back into the leather pouch and was returned to the coat pocket.

“Why here?” Bill Matters grunted. “We could have met in the comfort of my private car.”

“Too ostentatious,” said the assassin. “I have always preferred a life of simplicity.” Before Matters could reply, the assassin motioned to another barrel chair with the cigar. “I admit they’d be more comfortable with seat cushions.”

Even in the dark Matters showed his anger. “Why in blazes—why in the face of all good sense—did you shoot Hopewell when the detective was with him?”

The assassin made no apology and offered no regret but retorted loftily, “To paraphrase the corrupt Tammany Haller Senator Plunkitt, I saw my shot and I took it.”

Bill Matters felt his heart pounding with rage. “All my kowtowing to those sanctimonious sons of bitches and you blithely undermine my whole scheme.”

“I got away clean. The detective never came close to me.”

“You brought a squad of Van Dorns to the state.”

“We’re done in this state.”

“We’re done when I say we’re done.”

Matters was deeply troubled. His killer, who was vital to his plan, operated in a world and a frame of mind beyond his control, much less his understanding: efficient as a well-oiled machine, with gun in hand, but possessed off the killing field by a reckless faith that nothing could ever go wrong, that fortune would never turn nor consequences catch up.

“I’m surprised by your disappointment.” There was a pause to exhale a cloud of cigar smoke. “I naturally thought you would celebrate your old friend’s departure.”

“Van Dorn detectives have a saying: ‘We never give up!’”

To Matters’ disgust, this drew another, even colder response. “Never? I have a saying, too: ‘Never get too close to me.’ If he does, I will kill him.” The assassin flicked an ash from the cigar. “Who’s next?”

“There’s a fellow giving me trouble in Texas.”

“Who?”

“C. C. Gustafson.”

“Ah!”

The killer nodded in vigorous agreement, admiring Bill Matters’ cunning. C. C. Gustafson was not merely a newspaper publisher and a thorn in Matters’ side but a vocal foe of Standard Oil and a firebrand instigator beloved by the reformers hell-bent on driving the trust out of Texas.

Matters said, “With a crackerjack Van Dorn private detective on the case—thanks to you—we’ve got to throw off suspicion.”

Nothing in the murderer’s expression indicated the minutest acceptance of blame. In fact, it looked as if the murder of Spike Hopewell under the nose of a Van Dorn had been completely forgotten while Matters’ inclusive “we” had kindled delight.

“May I offer you a fine cigar?”

Matters simply shook his head no.

“Brilliant! Public outrage expects the worst of Standard Oil. They’ll blame Gustafson’s killing on the bogeyman everyone loves to hate.”

“Can you do it?”

“Can I do it?” The assassin accepted the assignment with a dramatic flourish: “You may consider Mr. C. C. Gustafson’s presses stopped.”

Matters did not doubt they’d be stopped. A bullet through the head would take care of that. But what bothered him the most was how near was his private assassin to flying out of control.

6

Isaac Bell went looking for the coroner in Independence, the Montgomery County seat, not far from the Indian Territory border. The courthouse clerk directed him to the coroner’s undertaking parlor. A plumber repairing the refrigerating plant told Bell to try the jailhouse. Dr. McGrade was visiting the jailer in his apartment above the cells. They were drinking whiskey in tea cups and invited Bell to join them.

Like most Kansans Bell had met, Dr. McGrade was fully aware of the Corporations Commission investigation and hugely in favor of any action that reined in Standard Oil. Bell explained his connection.

“Glad to help you, Detective, but I’m not sure how. Didn’t the Bourbon County coroner conduct the autopsy on Mr. Hopewell?”

“I’ve already spoken with him. I’m curious about the death of Albert Hill.”

“The refinery fellow,” Dr. McGrade told the jailer, “who drowned in the still.”

The jailer sipped and nodded. “Down in Coffeyville.”

Bell asked, “When you examined Mr. Hill’s body, did you see any signs of bullet wounds?”

“Bullet wounds? You must be joking.”

“I am not joking. Did you see any bullet wounds?”

“Why don’t you read my report from the inquest.”

“I already have, at the courthouse.”

“Well, heck, then you know Mr. Hill tumbled into a still of boiling oil. By the time someone noticed and fished him out, about all that was left was his skeleton and belt buckle. The rest of him dissolved . . .” He paused for a broad wink. “Now, this wasn’t in my report: His belt buckle looked fine.”

“How about his bones? Were any broken?”

“Fractured femur. Long knitted. Must have busted his leg when he was a kid.”

“No holes in his skull?”

“Just the ones God put there for us all to see and hear and breathe and eat and whatnot.”

“And no damage to the vertebrae in his neck?”

“That I can’t say for sure.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t understand what this has to do with the Corporations Commission . . .”

Bell saw no reason not to take the coroner and the jailer into his confidence. If the word got around, someone might come to him with more information about Albert Hill. He said, “Seeing as how Mr. Hopewell was shot while I was discussing the commission investigation with him, I am interested in running down the truth about the deaths of other independent oil men.”

“O.K. I get your point.”

“Why can’t you say for sure whether the vertebrae in Mr. Hill’s neck suffered damage?”

“I didn’t find all of them. The discs and cartilage between them must have dissolved and the bones scattered.”

“That wasn’t in your report.”

“It did not seem pertinent to the cause of death.”

“Did that happen to the vertebrae in his spine?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did his thoracic and lumbar vertebrae separate and ‘scatter’ the way you’re assuming his cervical vertebrae did?”

The doctor fell silent. Then he said, “Now that you ask, no. The spine was intact. As was most of the neck.”

“Most?”

“Two vertebrae were attached to the skull. Four were still connected to the spine—the thoracic vertebrae.”

“How many cervical vertebrae are there in the human skeleton? Seven?”

“Seven.”

“So we’re missing only one.”

The doctor nodded. “One. Down in the bottom of the still. Dissolved by now, of course. Distilled into fuel oil, or kerosene or gasoline, even lubricants.”

“But . . .”

“But what, Mr. Bell?”

“Doesn’t it make you curious?”

“About what?”

“You say two cervical vertebrae were still attached to the skull. So the missing vertebra would be cervical number three, wouldn’t it?”

“Three it was.”

“Wouldn’t you love to get a gander at cervical two and cervical four?”

“Not really.”

“I would.”

“Why?”

“Let’s assume that instead of the disc cartilage dissolving, something knocked cervical three clean out of Mr. Hill’s vertebral column.”

“Like what?” asked the coroner, then answered his own question. “. . . Like a bullet.”

“You’re right,” said Isaac Bell. “It could have been a bullet . . . Aren’t you tempted to have a look?”

“The man’s already buried in the ground.”

Bell said, “I’d still be tempted to have a look.”

“I’m strictly against disinterring bodies. It’s just a mess of a job.”

“But this poor fellow was just a heap of bones.”

Dr. McGrade nodded. “That’s true. Those bones looked polished like he’d passed a hundred years ago.”

“Good point,” said Bell. “Why don’t we have a look?”

“I can lend you shovels,” said the jailer.

–

The coroner at Fort Scott, a railroad town where several lines converged, was a powerfully built young doctor with a chip on his shoulder.

Isaac Bell asked, “Did you see any bullet wounds?”

“Of course not.”

“Why do you say ‘of course not’?”

“Read my testimony to the coroner’s jury.”

“I have read it.”

“Then you know that Reed Riggs was mangled beyond recognition after falling off a railroad platform under a locomotive.”

“Yes. But—”

“But what?”

“Nothing in your written report indicates that you did any more than write down what the railroad police told you—that Mr. Riggs fell under the locomotive that rolled over him.”

“What are you implying?”

“I am not implying,” said Isaac Bell, “I am saying forthrightly and clearly—to your face, Doctor—that you did not examine Mr. Riggs’ body.”

“It was a mutilated heap of flesh and bone. He fell under a locomotive. What do you expect?”

“I expect a public official who is paid to determine the cause of a citizen’s death to look beyond the obvious.”

“Now, listen to me, Mr. Private Detective.”

“No, Doctor, you listen to me! I want you to look at that body again.”

“It’s been buried two weeks.”

“Dig it up!”

The coroner rose to his feet. He was nearly as tall as Isaac Bell and forty pounds heavier. “I’ll give you fair warning, mister, get lost while you still can. I paid my way through medical school with money I won in the prize ring.”

Isaac shrugged out of his coat and removed his hat. “As we have no gloves, I presume you’ll accommodate me with bare knuckles?”

–

“What did you do to your hand?” asked Archie Abbott.

“Cut it shaving,” said Bell. “What do you think of that water tank?”

They were pacing Fort Scott’s St. Louis–San Francisco Railway station platform where refiner Reed Riggs had fallen to his death. “Possible,” said Archie, imagining a rifle shot from the top of a tank in the Frisco train yard to where they stood on the platform. “I also like that signal tower. In fact, I like it better. Good angle from the roof.”

“Except how did he climb up there without the dispatchers noticing?”

“Climbed up in the dark while a train rumbled by.”

“How’d he get down?”

“Waited for night.”

“But what if he missed his shot and someone noticed him? He would be trapped with no escape.”

“You’re sure that Riggs was shot?”

“No,” said Bell, “not positive. There’s definitely a hole in his skull. In a piece of the temporal bone, which wasn’t shattered. But it could have been pierced by something other than a bullet. Banged against a railroad spike or a chunk of gravel.”

“What did the coroner think?”

“He was inclined to agree with my assessment.”

–

Bell and Archie took the train down to Coffeyville, a booming refinery town just above the Kansas–Indian Territory border. They located Albert Hill’s refinery and the tank in which Hill had died while repairing the agitator.

They looked for sight lines. They climbed to the roof of the boiler house, four hundred yards’ distance, then to the roof of the barrel house. Both offered uninterrupted shots at the tank. The barrel house had its own freight siding to receive the lumber trains that delivered wood for the staves.

“Rides in and out,” said Archie.

“I’d go for the boiler house,” said Bell. “They’d never hear a shot over the roar of the furnaces.”

“If there was a shot.”

“I told you,” said Bell. “Albert Hill’s number two cervical vertebra appeared to have been nicked.”

Archie said, “Based on how he killed Spike Hopewell, the assassin is capable of hitting both Hill and Riggs. But he’s one lucky assassin that no one saw him. Or coolly deliberate in choosing his moment.”

Isaac Bell disagreed. “That may be true of Albert Hill. But when Riggs was shot, the timing was dictated by the approach of the locomotive. In both cases, the shots were fired by a marksman as calculating and accurate as the killer who shot Spike Hopewell.”

“If there were shots fired at all,” said Archie, and Wally Kisley agreed, saying, “There could have been shots, and shots would explain how the victims happened to fall, but they could have just as easily fallen as Spike Hopewell suggested to Isaac: one drunk, one overcome by fumes.”

Bell said, “I have Grady Forrer looking into their backgrounds.” Forrer was head of Van Dorn Research.

–

Isaac Bell went looking for Edna Matters Hock and found her loading her tent onto her buckboard. He gave her a hand. “Where you headed?”

“Pittsburgh.”

“In a wagon?”

“Pittsburgh, Kansas.”

“I was going to ask could you print me that aerial photograph your sister snapped, but you’ve packed your Kodak machine . . .”

“Actually, I made an extra. I thought you’d ask to see it.”

She had it in an envelope. She handed it to Bell. “Oh, there’s a second photograph that Nellie took before the fire. So you have a before the fire and an after.”

“She flew over before?”

“By coincidence. She was hoping to address a convention in Fort Scott, but the wind changed and the balloon drifted over here. I hope the pictures help.”

Bell thanked her warmly. “Speaking of coincidence,” he told her, “my father served as an intelligence officer in the Civil War and he tried to take balloon daguerreotypes of Confederate fortifications.”

“I’ve never seen an aerial of the Civil War.”

“He said that the swaying motion blurred the pictures. When the wind settled down, a rebel shot the camera out of his hands.”

“Quite a different war story.”

“Actually,” Bell smiled, “he rarely talked about the war. The very few times he did, he told a humorous tale, like the balloon.”

“I really must go.”

He helped her onto the wagon. “It was a pleasure meeting you. I hope to see you again.”

Edna Matters Hock gave him a long look with her gray-green eyes. “I would like that, Mr. Bell. Let us hope it happens.”

“Where are you going next?”

“After Pittsburgh, I’m not sure.”

“If I were to wire the paper sometime, perhaps they could put us in touch.”

“I’ll tell them to,” she said.

They shook hands. “Oh, please say good-bye to Mr. Abbott.”

Bell promised he would. Edna spoke to the mule and it trotted off.

Bell took the photographs to Wally Kisley. Wally gave a low whistle.

“Fascinating. I’ve never had a look like this before.”

The photograph Nellie Matters had snapped after the fire looked like raindrops on a mud puddle. All that was left of the storage tanks were circular pockmarks in the ground. The brick furnaces of the refinery stood like ruined castles. The steel pots were warped, staved in, or completely flattened. The remains of the derricks looked like bones scattered by wild animals.

The picture she had taken before the fire was shrouded in smoke, but Spike’s refinery still looked almost as orderly as an architect’s blueprint. What stood out was the logic of Hopewell’s design to efficiently move the crude oil through the process of brewing gasoline.

“Now you see, Isaac, they couldn’t have picked a better tank to blow. Look at this.”

“But their target was the gasoline tank. Why didn’t they blow it first off?”

“Couldn’t get to it. Out in the open like it was, in plain sight, there’s no way to lay the explosives and set up the target duck. But look here. They could not have chosen a tank better positioned for the first explosion to start things rolling. Someone knows his business.”

–

Ice-eyed Mack Fulton, an expert on safecrackers, arrived from New York dressed in funereal black. He had news for Archie Abbott. “Jewel thief the New York cops are calling the Fifth Avenue Flier sounds a lot to me like your Laurence Rosania, in that he’s got an eye for top quality and beauty.”

That caught Archie’s interest because Rosania was known to leave ugly pieces behind regardless of value. They compared notes. Like the discriminating Rosania, Mack’s Fifth Avenue Flier robbed safes on mansions’ upper floors.

“New York cops think he’s scaling walls, but I’m wondering if he’s talking his way upstairs, romancing the ladies and charming the gents, like your guy.”

“How’d he get there so fast?” asked Archie. A recent robbery in New York had taken place less than a day after a Rosania-sounding job in Chicago.

“20th Century Limited?”

“If he’s pulled off half the jobs we think, he can afford it.”

“He gets to play the New York and Chicago fences off each other, too. Bargain up the price. That reminds me, Isaac. I brought you a note from Grady Forrer.”

Bell tore open the envelope from Research.

But to his disappointment, Forrer had not discovered any special connections between Spike Hopewell, Albert Hill, and Reed Riggs—no mutual partners, no known feuds. All they had in common was being independent oil men. Even if all of them were shot, the shootings were not related on a personal level.

“O.K.,” said Bell. “The only fact I know for sure is that Spike Hopewell was shot. Two questions, gents. By whom? And why?”

Archie said, “Hopewell had an enemy who hated him enough to kill and just happened to be a crack shot at seven hundred yards.”

“Or,” said Mack Fulton, “Hopewell had an enemy who hated him enough to hire someone to kill him who happened to be a crack shot at seven hundred yards.”

“Or,” said Wally Kisley, “Hopewell had an enemy who hated him enough to hire a professional assassin to kill him whose weapon of choice was a rifle with an effective range of over seven hundred yards.”

Bell said, “I’m betting on Wally’s professional.”

“That’s because a professional makes it more likely that your other two victims were actually shot. But, oh boy, Isaac, you’re talking about amazing shooting.”

“For the moment, let’s agree they were shot. Who’s the mastermind?”

“All three independent oil men were battling Standard Oil.”

“Was Hopewell a Congregationalist by any chance?” Wally Kisley asked. He grinned at Mack Fulton. The joke-cracking partners were known in the Van Dorn Agency as “Weber & Fields,” for the vaudeville comedians.

“Presbyterian.”

“Too bad,” said Wally. “We could have arrested Rockefeller if he was.”

The newspapers were full of stories about a Congregationalist Convocation in Boston that had turned down a million-dollar donation by John D. Rockefeller because Rockefeller’s money was “tainted.”

“That money sure is tainted,” chorused Wally and Mack. “’Tain’t yours! ’Tain’t mine!”

“Listen close,” said Bell, grinning. “The last words Hopewell said to me was that he had what he called tricks up his sleeve to build his tidewater pipe line. Wally and Mack, talk to everyone in Kansas who knew him. Find out his plan.”

“You got it, Isaac.”

“Archie? Run down Big Pete Straub. Find out where he was when Spike was shot. Find out if maybe I winged him with my Winchester. But watch yourself.”

“Thank you, Mother. But I think I can handle him.”

“That’s your call,” Bell shot back firmly, “if he’s alone. But if he’s running with a bunch, get ahold of Wally and Mack before you brace him. I’ll be back soon as I can.”

“Where you going, Isaac?”

“Washington, D.C.”

“But you don’t have anything to report.”

“I’m not going to report.”

“Then what are you going for?”

“To shake up the Boss.”