Clive Cussler - The Assassin

The assassin swept binoculars from the biggest naphtha tank across the city and up the tank-covered hill to the top of the tallest Standard Oil fire company tower, then back down the slope, over the rooftops, and back to the naphtha tank, which the red duck marked for a bull’s-eye.

The heat had intensified and the humidity had thickened. Old-timers were comparing it to the deadly temperatures of ’96, even the heat wave of ’92 that killed thousands in the seaboard cities. It was stifling inside the widow’s walk, and the heat shimmered so violently from the tanks that everything seemed to be in motion. It would take every ounce of the assassin’s skill to calculate how it would bend the flight of a bullet.

“Would you consider disappearing instead?”

“I have disappeared. I don’t like it.”

“What if I were to shoot Rockefeller?”

“No! Do not kill him. I want him to see this destroyed.”

“He’ll build again.”

“He’ll be too late. I invested in refineries at Philadelphia and Delaware and Boston and Texas. When I’ve blown Constable Hook off the map, I’ll control seaboard production. I want him to see that, too.”

This was startling information. It was also deeply disconcerting, for to be surprised was to admit a severe lapse in the sharp awareness that made a hunter a hunter instead of prey. Bill Matters was reinventing himself. But this hadn’t happened yesterday; he’d been reinventing all along.

“You’re like Rockefeller,” the assassin marveled.

Bill Matters laughed. “Master of the unexpected.”

“Then you’ll disappear?”

“To Europe… in style.”

“May I come with you?”

“Of course,” Matters said without hesitation. “I’ll keep you busy. I’m not retiring, only starting over.”

Movement in the street below caught the assassin’s eye. A strong man in overalls was rolling a wooden spool of copper cable. He disappeared below the overhang of the roof as he rolled it into the alley that led to the back of the saloon.

Matters asked, “What the devil is that?”

“Copper wire.”

“I can see that. Where’s he taking it?”

“The cellar.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s for me.”

Bill Matters looked hard at his assassin. “Now what game are you playing?”

“The unexpected. Just like Rockefeller. Or should I say, just like you.”

“What game?”

“Fast and loose.”

“With whom?”

“Isaac Bell.”

Heat lightning flickered repeatedly under a sullen midnight sky.

Gun in hand, Isaac Bell approached Bill Matters’ private railcar on foot. It was parked on a remote Saw Mill River valley siding of the Putnam Division twenty miles from New York City and less than ten from John D. Rockefeller’s Pocantico Hills estate.

Bell ignored the sweat burning his eyes and mosquitos whining around his ears. He walked on the wooden crossties so as not to crunch on the railbed ballast. But the flashes from distant storms threatened to give him away.

Van Dorn Research had traced the telephone number Bell had found at the assassin’s gunsmith to the private car platform at Pittsburgh’s Union Station. The Pittsburgh field office had learned that the telephone in Bill Matters’ car had been connected twice in the past six months to that platform. Wally Kisley and Mack Fulton had known which New York Central Railroad dispatchers to bribe to nail down its current location in Westchester County.

The detectives assigned to stand watch from a distance thought they had seen one figure enter the car hours ago just after dark. They had seen no one leave. Research procured Pullman Palace Car Company blueprints of the car’s floor plan. Bell memorized them, ordered the detectives out of sight, and went in alone.

He saw a sliver of light shine through the curtains as he drew close. A chimney stack broke the smooth roof line silhouette marking the galley and dining room in the front of the car. Those windows were dark, as were the windows in the rear.

At fifty feet away, he heard music. At twenty, he could distinguish the words of the hit song “Come Take a Trip in my Airship” playing on a gramophone.

The tenor Billy Murray was starting the last chorus. Bell sprinted forward to take advantage of the cover before the cylinder ran out.

He climbed onto the rear platform.

He opened the door. The music got louder.

He was inside, back pressed to the door as he closed it quietly. This was the rear parlor, where the plush velvet seats could be converted to beds. He glided forward, toward the light, which was filtered by a curtain. The music was coming from the middle section, which the Pullman Company had configured for Matters as an office.

Suddenly a figure pushed through the curtain.

Bell slammed his arms around it in a vise grip.

A shriek brought Edna Matters bursting into the parlor with her .410 shotgun.

She saw Bell and lowered the gun.

“Thank God, it’s you.”

It was Nellie in Bell’s arms. He could feel her heart pounding fearfully. He let go. She gathered herself with repeated deep breaths.

“Hello, Isaac. We figured you’d show up. You could have knocked.”

“Our father is not here and we don’t know where he is,” said Edna.

“Would you tell me if you did?”

“No, Isaac. We would not.”

Nellie said, “Not until you understand that all he did was blow up in anger. Thanks to you, he didn’t kill Rockefeller. You saved him from committing a terrible crime in a grip of rage. No damage was done. We are grateful to you for that. But does he deserve jail, considering all he suffered?”

“What happens next time when I’m not there to stop him?”

“It won’t happen again.”

“Will his anger evaporate? I don’t think so.”

“He’ll get over it. He’s not a cold-blooded killer.”

Isaac Bell said, “He prepared a killing field. He opened the gangway connectors. He lured Rockefeller out there. He planned ahead of time how he would kill him. Any jury will call that premeditated murder.”

“It’s Rockefeller’s fault for cheating the poor man,” Nellie shot back.

“Father must have had a nervous breakdown,” said Edna. “It all comes back to Rockefeller driving him mad.”

“I’m sorry, Edna, Nellie, but what he did in Germany was much worse than ‘blowing up in anger.’”

“Would you accept him being placed in an asylum?”

“ Locked in an asylum.”

“Where they would treat him,” Nellie said eagerly. “With doctors. And medicine.”

“Maybe lawyers could convince a judge and jury to see it that way,” said Bell, “particularly if he were to turn himself in. Do you know where he is?”

They shook their heads, and Nellie said, “No. We honestly don’t know.”

“Has he been here?”

“We don’t think so,” said Nellie.

“What do you mean?”

“There’s nothing of his in the car. We searched every closet and cabinet. Nothing.”

“How do you happen to be here?”

“We’re using Father’s car for headquarters,” said Nellie.

“Headquarters?”

“For the New Woman’s Flyover. Don’t you remember? I chartered a locomotive to move us to North Tarrytown in the morning.” And suddenly she was talking a mile a minute. The balloons, she said, were arriving from near and far. They were gathering in a hayfield she had rented from the owner of the Sleepy Hollow Roadhouse.