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

Sand blown across the bay rattled the windowpanes like hail.

“Let’s get to the real question,” said Wish. “Who’s the assassin shooting for?”

Bell said, “You know how they call Standard Oil the octopus?”

“Aptly,” said Wish.

“I’m thinking our mastermind is more like a shark. Hanging around this monster-size octopus, thinking if he can just sink his teeth into one or two arms, he’ll have himself the meal of a lifetime. He’s shifting the blame for his crimes to the Standard. If he can pull it off, he reckons to pick up some pieces. If it really goes his way, he figures he’ll control the second-biggest trust in oil.”

Wish nodded. “I’d call that basis for a mighty strong hunch.”

“He could be inside the company or an outsider, an oil man, or a railroad man, or in coal or steel. Even a corporation lawyer.”

“A valuable man,” said Wish, “a man on his way up . . . Say, where are you going? Have another.”

Bell had stood up and was reaching for money. “My ‘boss,’ Mr. Rockefeller, is waiting for me to confirm that Detective Aloysius Clarke is no longer a Van Dorn but a freelance bodyguard for Nellie Matters and E. M. Hock, who are traveling together for safety. And that Detective Clarke gave no hint to me that either knows that Mr. Rockefeller is in Baku.”

“Rockefeller? Never heard of him,” grinned Wish. He glanced at the bottle they were sharing. His gaze shifted to Bell’s arm in his sling. “Hold on,” he said, “I’ll walk you back.”

“Stay there. I’m O.K.”

“In the event you get in a gunfight of such duration that you have to reload, I would never forgive myself if I didn’t give your one hand a hand.”

Outside, the sharp north wind that had cleared the sky of smoke earlier was blowing a gale. The stars had disappeared again, obscured now by the sand that the harsh gusts were sucking into the air. The harbor lights were barely visible. A caustic blast rattled pebbles against walls.

“Look there!”

A graceful three-masted, gaff-rigged schooner struggled alongside an oil berth, sails furled, decks rippling with dark figures crowding to get off. The moment it landed, gangs of Tatars armed with rifles jumped onto the pier and ran toward the city.

Wish Clarke said, “If the city blows?”

“We evacuate.”

The sand-swirled sky over the oil fields across the bay was abruptly aglow.

Within the city itself, small-arms fire crackled.

They hurried up Vokzalnaya toward the railroad station. The gunfire got louder, pistol and rifle shots punctuated all of a sudden by the heavier churning of Army machine guns. Looking back, Bell saw the sky over the bay getting redder. A glow ahead marked mansions set afire in the Armenian district.

They broke into a run toward the hotel district.

“We’ll grab the ladies at your place,” said Bell, “then Mr. R. at mine.”

“Then what? Land or sea?”

“Whichever we can get to,” said Isaac Bell.

25

Isaac Bell telephoned John D. Rockefeller from the Astoria Hotel’s lobby.

“Pack one bag and wear your warmest coat. We’re running for it.”

“Is this logical?”

“Imperative,” said Bell.

“I have to send cables.”

“Quickly.”

Upstairs, he and Wish found Edna Matters with a carpetbag and her typewriter already at the door, and a large-scale map of the lands bordering the Caspian and Black Seas spread out on her bed.

“Where’s Nellie?”

“On the roof.”

“What’s she doing on the roof?” asked Wish.

“It’s the nearest thing to a balloon,” said Edna. “She’s checking the lay of the land.”

“Go get her, Wish.”

Bell turned to Edna’s map, which he had already been reviewing in his mind. The train to Tiflis and Batum and a Black Sea steamer would whisk them to Constantinople in four days. But it was too easy to stop a train where outlaws were the only law.

Edna traced the Caspian Sea route north to Astrakhan and up the Volga River. “Tsaritsyn steamers connect with the Moscow train.”

Bell said, “I don’t fancy getting trapped in the middle of a Russian revolution, if that’s what’s brewing.”

“No one I’ve interviewed knows what will happen next,” said Edna.

“Least of all, the Russians.”

“Poor Father. I’m worried sick about him banished to Moscow.”

Bell went to the window and looked down at the street. A trolley had stopped on its tracks. People lugging bags streamed off it and hurried toward the railroad station. He craned his head to try to see the station, but the angle was wrong. The sky looked red. Shadows leaped, thrown by muzzle flashes. Guns crackled and people ran in every direction. For whatever reason Rockefeller had sent Matters to Moscow, he was better off than they were at the moment.

Nellie burst into the room, color high, eyes bright.

Wish Clarke was right behind her, his expression grim. “Big gunfight on Millionnaya and a riot at the train station,” he reported. “Nellie spotted a way across Vokzalnaya if we want the harbor.”

“We want it,” said Bell. “Let’s go.”

—

The Hotel de l’Europe was guarded by nervous plainclothes police. Europeans paced the lobby shouting at frightened staff. The hotel pianist began playing a Schubert serenade as if, Isaac Bell thought fleetingly, he hoped to help the world right itself. Bell ran to get his carpetbag. Rockefeller’s suite, adjoining his room, was empty. Bell searched it and ran back down to the lobby. Wish was standing on the stairs, where he could watch the doors. Edna and Nellie stood behind him. Both women were eerily calm.

“Did you see Rockefeller?”

“No.”

“There!” said Edna.

The oil magnate was exiting the hotel manager’s office. He looked like he was headed to a garden party in his dandy’s costume, but Edna had seen through the wig disguise in a flash. Bell saw her beautiful face harden. Her lips were pressed tightly, dots of color flushed on her cheekbones, and her eyes settled on Rockefeller with an intensity stoked by hatred.

He glanced at Nellie. Every trace of the big smile usually ready on her lips had extinguished like a burning coal plunged in cold water. The color of her eyes, like Edna’s,