Clive Cussler - The Assassin

“What happened?”

“I never heard back.”

“But it’s interesting,” said Bell. “That he doesn’t seem to hold your writing against your father. I understand he is a member of the inner circle.”

“My father is a valuable man, and JDR appreciates valuable men.”

“Even valuable men whose daughters are a thorn in his side? He can’t love your articles. You’ve exposed all sorts of behavior, both underhanded and outright illegal.”

Edna asked, “Doesn’t his willingness not to hold me against my father speak rather highly of Mr. Rockefeller?”

Wally Kisley hurried up, grease-smudged and reeking of smoke. He tipped his derby to Edna. “Isaac, when you have a moment…”

Bell said, “Be right there. Come along, Archie.”

They followed Wally toward the tank that had exploded first.

“Extraordinary!” said Archie. “A journalist who doesn’t reek of booze and cigars.”

“Hands off,” said Bell. “I saw her first.”

“If I weren’t almost engaged to a couple of ladies due to inherit steel mills, I would give you a run for your money.”

Bell said, “Keep in mind the sooner we arrest the marksman who shot Spike Hopewell, the sooner you can go back to catching your jewel thief.”

“What does that have to do with Miss E. M. Hock?”

“It means go find witnesses. I’ll deal with Wally.”

Archie made a beeline for the caboose saloon. Bell caught up with Wally Kisley at a heap of ash and warped metal where the crude storage tank had folded up like a crumpled paper bag.

Wally said, “It blew when you were down by the creek, right?”

Bell pointed. “Past that bend.”

“By any chance did you hear a second shot fired?”

“Not down there.”

“How about behind you? Back at the oil field.”

“I heard something. I don’t know if it was a shot.”

“Could it have been?”

“It could have been. There was a heck of a racket all at once. Why?”

“I found this,” said Wally. He was holding an oddly shaped, rounded piece of cast iron by a square bracket attached to the top. “Careful, it’s still hot. Take my glove.” He passed Bell his left glove and Bell held the metal in it.

“Heavy.”

He examined it closely. It was six inches high. On one side, the entire surface was pocked with minute indentations, as if a blacksmith had peened it with a hammer. “It’s shaped like an upside-down duck.”

“I thought the same thing, at first.”

Bell upended it and held it with the bracket under it. “It is a duck.”

“Shaped like a duck.”

“You know what this is?” said Bell.

“You tell me.”

Bell had apprenticed under Wally and his ofttimes partner, Mack Fulton, years ago, and one of the many things he had learned from the veteran investigators was not to voice an opinion until a second brain had an opportunity to observe without being influenced by the first.

“It’s a knockdown target. A shooting gallery duck.”

Wally nodded. “That bracket attaches to the target rail. The duck hinges down when a bullet hits it.”

“Where’d you find it?”

“Thirty feet from the first tank that blew.”

“What do you think?”

“The racket you heard right before the explosion could have included a rifle shot, a bullet smashing into this duck, and a blasting cap.”

“So while I was chasing the sniper on the horse, another marksman detonated the explosive that ignited the fire.”

“That’s my read. He shot the duck, which jarred a blasting cap.”

“Or,” said Bell, “the man I chased led me on a wild-goose chase while the real assassin stayed put to set the fire.”

“High marks for a sense of humor,” said Wally Kisley. “Using a shooting gallery duck for a target.”

“I’m not laughing,” said Isaac Bell. “But I will give them high marks for the nerve it took to set up the duck, the cap, and the dynamite right under everyone’s noses. I wonder why nobody noticed.”

“Oil fever. Too busy getting rich.”

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.”