The Assassin by Clive Cussler (epub ebook reader .txt) 📕

was stretching the limits of a friendship that had started in a collegiate boxing ring. He signaled Archie to shut his trap before it turned into a rematch and spoke before the fool made it worse.

“Ready when you are, Isaac.”

Bell said, “First question: Did the same criminals do the shooting and set the fires?

“Archie, I want witnesses. Someone must have seen the sniper either climb up that derrick or climb down. Carrying a rifle, maybe disguised as a tool. Someone must have seen his damned horse.

“Wally, I want you to look for any sort of delayed detonation: clockworks or a slow fuse. It’s likely a team of men attacked, though a timing device would allow one man to first prime an explosive, then pick up his rifle. But crack marksmen are specialists. Would such a sniper also know how to rig a timing device?”

“Any oil driller or refinery hand can turn firebug,” said Wally. “It’s the nature of refineries to explode. Lightning bolts blow them up regularly.”

“I paced the distance from the derrick where I saw the killer to where Spike was shot. Nearly seven hundred yards. How many common arsonists could shoot so accurately at extreme range? Such marksmanship would take a top-notch sniper, not the sort to dirty his hands and risk capture setting fires. Snipers prefer to operate far removed.”

“A delayed detonator can be far removed,” said Archie. “Time instead of distance.”

“Witnesses,” said Bell. “Find witnesses.”

Kisley interrupted whatever answer Archie was about to utter. “Fire’s cooling down. Isaac, can you point me toward the first tank to catch fire?”

—

Isaac Bell traced the rapid click-click-click of a typewriter to a wall tent pitched beside the burned-out ruins of Hope-Hell. It stood next to a buckboard wagon. The mule was out of its traces, grazing on a patch of grass that had escaped the fire. He rapped his knuckles on the tent pole.

“E. M. Hock?”

The typewriter kept going.

Bell ducked his head to pass through the canvas flaps and was astonished to see a woman hunched over the portable machine. She was typing in such a deep state of concentration that he doubted she had any idea he was five feet behind her. She had silky chestnut hair cut so short that Bell could see the graceful line of the nape of her neck. A pale shirtwaist with a high neck snugged close to her long, elegant back.

The tent contained a folding cot with a bedroll, a Kodak developing machine on the card table behind her, and a stack of typing paper. A straw hat was perched on the bedroll as if tossed there as she rushed to the typewriter. Bell read the top sheet of paper:

SPECIAL TO THE OIL CITY DERRICK.

NEW YORK PAPERS PLEASE COPY

Hopewell Field,

Kansas

A mysterious fire swept the Hopewell tract of buildings, tanks, stills, and derricks, devastated the hamlet of Kent, and destroyed the shack-and-canvas boomtown that serviced the fields. The average loss equals $3,000 a well. Most were ruined by tubing dropping into them. Fewer than six of one hundred wells survive with derricks and pump houses standing. The independents are wiped out. Only those drillers who were backed, secretly, by subsidiaries of Standard Oil can afford to rebuild their ruined engines, burnt derricks, and melted pipe.

Bell asked, “How many wildcatters were backed by Standard Oil?”

“Put that down,” she called over her shoulder. “It’s not ready to be read.”

“I’m looking for E. M. Hock.”

“She’s busy,” said the woman and kept typing.

“I sometimes suspected that the mysterious E. M. Hock was a she.”

“What aroused your suspicion?”

“A higher than usual degree of horse sense in her reporting and a distinct shortage of bombast. What’s the E. M. stand for?”

“Edna Matters.”

“Why keep it secret?”

“To derail expectations. Who are you?”

“Isaac Bell. Van Dorn Detective Agency.”

She turned around, looked him over with severe gray-green eyes softened only slightly by the boyish cut of her hair. “Are you the private detective who just happened to be with Mr. Hopewell when he was shot?”

Her ears, thought Bell, were exquisite, and he was struck forcibly by how attractive a woman could be with the shortest hair he had ever seen.

“We’re investigating for the Corporations Commission.”

“Do you know anything about oil?”

“I’m an expert.”

A dark eyebrow rose skeptically. “Expert? How? Did you work in the oil fields?”

“No, Miss Matters.”

“Did you study chemical engineering?”

“No.”

“Then how’d you become an expert?”

“I read your articles.”

She turned away, poised her fingers over the typewriter keys, and stared at the sheet of paper in the machine. She banged away at the keys. A smile quirked the corner of her mouth and she stopped typing.

“O.K., we have something in common, Mr. Bell: Private detectives flatter their subjects as shamelessly as newspaper reporters to make them talk.”

“I sincerely meant to compliment E. M. Hock’s History of the Under- and Heavy-handed Oil Monopoly. You’re a wonderful wordsmith, and you seem to be in command of your facts.”

“Thank you.”

“Besides, I would not bore a beautiful woman by flattering her good looks, which she must hear every day.”

“Mr. Bell, do me the courtesy of leaving my ‘womanliness’ out of this conversation.”

That would be like discussing the nature of daylight without mentioning the sun—a concept Isaac Bell kept to himself in the interest of garnering evidence from a savvy newspaper reporter sent to cover the fire.

—

“Are you by any chance related to Bill Matters?”

“He’s my father.”

“Would that explain your sympathy for the independents?”

“Sympathy. Not bias. I believe that the independent business man gives American enterprise spine. Independents are brave, bravery is the foundation of innovation, innovation breeds success. That said,” she added with a thin smile, “I have no doubt that the vast majority of independents given half the chance would be as hard-nosed as Mr. Rockefeller.”

“That distinction shines through the articles,” said Bell.

“You do seem to want something from me, sir.”

Isaac Bell grinned. “I look forward to discussing that ‘something’ when I’m finished investigating murder, arson, and corporate lawbreaking. In the meantime, may I ask, do I understand correctly that your father was in partnership with