And could the guy shoot! He could kill people Straub couldn’t even see. Sure, he had a telescope, but it was more than the powerful glass, more like something out of a magic show. When his bullet left the gun, it traveled sure as a flier on the rails, a certain connection between his trigger finger and his target’s head.
The assassin gestured for Big Pete to fire first. His eyes were empty, his rifle steady.
This was the first time Big Pete had fired alongside the marksman. In the past he had covered the escape route to throw off pursuit, if there was any, and draw fire as he had when the Van Dorns chased him in Hopewell, Kansas. But here in Southeast Texas, in the boomtown of Humble, they were crouching side by side on a flat roof behind the false front of a tall saloon. Planning step-by-step as always, the assassin had chosen shooting holes in the curlicue-carved top of the ornate front.
Straub’s job was to fire first to break a window. His hands were steady, but he could feel his palms getting wet. He was a decent shot. The bolt action Springfield ’03 was a good weapon. And his target was fully two feet square.
C. C. Gustafson—editor of the Humble Clarion, who’d been making a career of criticizing Standard Oil practices in Texas and provoking the legislature to expel the trust from the state—was standing behind the window setting type.
Big Pete aimed at the blood-red dot of his bow tie.
“Don’t try to hit him,” whispered the assassin.
“I know,” said Straub. “Just break the glass.” How had the assassin known where he was aiming? The guy missed nothing. Straub shifted the rifle and sighted dead center in the window. He heard the assassin take a shallow breath and hold it.
“Now!”
Big Pete squeezed his trigger.
The Springfield boomed.
Glass flew.
The editor looked up, wasted a half breath staring, then tried to dive behind the press.
The assassin’s Savage gave a sharp crack. The editor tumbled backward. Then, to Straub’s surprise, the assassin fired again. Next second, they were running, crouched, across the roof, then down the ladder to the alley behind the saloon.
“Good shot!” Straub exulted.
“Missed,” said the assassin, his voice emotionless.
A man stepped around the corner. He had unbuttoned his fly as if about to urinate on the wall. Squinting around for the source of the gunshots, he saw two men running toward him with rifles.
“Kill him,” said the assassin.
Straub broke his neck.
The assassin gestured.
Straub slung the body over his shoulder and they ran, following the escape route they had rehearsed. After they had put distance between them and the saloon, the assassin gestured to drop the dead man beside a rain barrel on top of Straub’s Springfield.
—
Grady Forrer of Van Dorn Research sent Isaac Bell a telegram to alert him to a shooting in far-off Texas that might possibly pertain to his investigation. Bell had known Forrer since Joseph Van Dorn had hired him to establish the Research Department and trusted his judgment. He immediately wired Texas Walt Hatfield, the formidable Van Dorn detective—a former Ranger, raised by the Comanche—who operated as a one-man field office for the biggest state in the Union.
REPORT EDITOR SHOOTING HUMBLE
OIL?
8
Bill Matters read and reread a dozen newspaper reports about a transatlantic cable John D. Rockefeller had sent from Cannes, France, to his Fifth Avenue Baptist Church Sunday school class. The New York and Cleveland papers had published the cable back in January when he was abroad, and it had been printed and reprinted through the spring as paper after paper used the great man’s wisdom to inspire the devout and fill space.
“Delightful breezes. I enjoy watching the fishermen with their nets on the beach, and gazing upon the sun rising over the beautiful Mediterranean Sea. The days pass pleasantly and profitably.”
It was an open secret at Standard Oil headquarters that publicists scheming to furbish up Rockefeller’s reputation planted stories in the newspapers. But Matters suspected there was much more to this cable than polishing the public image of a greedy tycoon into a glowing example of the pleasant old age everyone looked forward to. A deep feeling gnawed his gut that Rockefeller had transmitted coded messages to his elderly partners about a secret deal he was negotiating overseas under the cloak of a retiree traveling around Europe.
Whatever the pirate was up to, Matters wanted in on it.