The cold wind across the wilderness whistled through the stationary train.
Carrying a lantern, the conductor of Freight Special No. 73, accompanied by several armed guards, hurried from the rear carriages to the front.
When they saw the tragic state of the Black Rock Ridge Water Station, which looked as though it had been bombed by artillery shells, and old Jeb sitting limply by the ruins shivering from the cold, everyone's face turned iron-blue.
"This is neither an accident nor a routine attack by indians."
The conductor squatted down, sniffed the lingering smell of explosives on the ground, and said through gritted teeth.
"High-purity industrial explosives were used. This is premeditated sabotage, and it is aimed at the company!"
"What should we do now, Conductor? There are two more freight trains heading in this direction. Without water, everyone will be stuck dead on this line." A guard asked anxiously.
"Go to the end of the train immediately to set up the portable telegraph transmitter, and use the telegraph lines along the route to send a top-level emergency telegram to the San Francisco branch!" The conductor stood up, his eyes fierce.
"Tell them that the railway artery has been severed, and we have been attacked by professionals!"
...
Meanwhile, in the top-floor suite of the most luxurious Palace Hotel in downtown San Francisco.
Nathaniel Cobb was leaning comfortably against the sofa, swirling a glass of top-tier red wine from Bordeaux, France, in his hand. At his feet lay two call girls in silk pajamas, obediently massaging his legs.
The room door was pushed open, and a trusted subordinate walked in quickly.
"Boss, a secret signal came from Elias. The job in Nevada was done beautifully. All three key water stations are written off. At least five Metropolitan freight special trains are paralyzed in the desert. They won't be able to fix the railway for ten days or half a month."
Cobb smiled with satisfaction, draining the red wine in his glass in one gulp.
"Well done. Tell Elias to take the brothers and hide out for a bit, and I will wire the final payment to their anonymous accounts on time."
Cobb stood up and walked to the huge floor-to-ceiling windows.
Overlooking from here, more than half of San Francisco was in full view.
The distant port area was pitch black, the strike was still ongoing, and the Argyle Pier, which used to be brightly lit all night, now looked like a dead, silent cemetery.
"The docks are paralyzed, and the railways are broken. Felix Argyle, this is the price of your over-rapid expansion. In America, no one can eat all the meat into their own mouth. The funds provided by those lords at Barings Bank were well spent."
Cobb turned around, picked up a pre-drafted telegram from the table, and handed it to his subordinate.
"Go, use our private line to send this battle report to Mr. Sterling in London. Tell them that the noose of the West Coast has been slipped around Argyle's neck, and let them go all out in the Far East."
However, Cobb's arrogant confidence did not last long.
He severely underestimated the foundation of a financial oligarch capable of integrating North America's industry in just a decade, and he also underestimated the intelligence network of the Argyle Family lurking in the dark.
Just a few hours after Cobb popped champagne to celebrate his victory.
In the basement of an extremely ordinary-looking brick building on the edge of San Francisco Chinatown.
This was the secret stronghold of the Argyle Family's West Coast Intelligence Department branch.
There were no windows in the room, and soundproof felt hung on all four walls. Over a dozen latest Morse telegraph machines were running frantically, their ticking weaving into a dense net.
Branch head Victor Sullivan was standing in front of a table covered with maps.
He was a veteran who had once served as a senior agent at the Pinkerton Detective Agency. Later, after Pinkerton was dealt with, he was poached by Timmy with high pay and extremely harsh loyalty tests into the Argyle Family.
Sullivan's eyes were bloodshot from exhaustion, and his tie was pulled loose and sloppy.
"Director, the source of the port strike has been investigated and figured out."
An intelligence agent walked over quickly and handed the document to Sullivan.
"The leader is Garrick, an Italian labor union boss from the Beach District. Our informant inside the union reports that Garrick suddenly received a sum of money from an unknown source a few days ago. He used this money to bribe the thugs under him and also covered the bail for all arrested workers."
Sullivan took the document and glanced over it quickly.
"That idiot Garrick only knows wine and women. If no one had thrown money at him behind his back, he wouldn't have had the guts to touch the Metropolitan docks. Trace the money downwards!"
"We are already tracing it."
Another agent in charge of financial intelligence raised his head.
"Garrick's money-laundering channel is very crude; he used bearer cashier's checks from Wells Fargo. Using our internal connections within Wells Fargo, we traced the origin of those cashier's checks."
The agent handed over a slip of paper with account information copied on it.
"The funds came from a shell company named 'Maple Leaf Trading' in Montreal, Canada. With the cooperation of our eastern intelligence network, we further traced the parent account of this shell company..." The agent swallowed a mouthful of saliva.
"The ultimate source of funds points to the City of London—it's Barings Bank."
Sullivan's eyes instantly narrowed.
"So it's the Brits. They suffered losses in New York, so they've reached their hands into the West."
Just then, the basement door was pushed open, and the communications liaison rushed in, holding the urgent telegram sent from the Nevada desert.
"Director, something happened. The railway has been bombed! Three water stations including Black Rock Ridge have been completely destroyed, and our freight special trains are paralyzed in the desert!"
Sullivan snatched the telegram fiercely, his gaze scanning the paper rapidly, his face turning so gloomy that water was about to drip from it.
The strike severed maritime transport, and the bombed railway severed land transport.
These two heavy punches hit the lifeline of the Argyle Family on the West Coast almost simultaneously.
This was definitely not an operation that street punks like Garrick could plan out.
There must be a professional manipulator hiding in some corner of San Francisco directing all of this.
"Wire the New York headquarters immediately. Report everything that happened here, including the fund flow of Barings Bank, to the boss!" Sullivan gave the order through gritted teeth.
"Yes!"
Time ticked by minute by minute.
The atmosphere in the basement was so oppressive that it made people breathless.
Sullivan stared at the location of San Francisco on the map, his brain running at high speed.
He knew that if this incident was not quelled quickly, his career in the Intelligence Department would be over. Before the boss's fury descended, he had to drag out that ghost hiding in the dark.
"Go check all unfamiliar faces who checked into high-end hotels in San Francisco over the past few days. Especially those guys who spend money like water and carry out-of-town accents. Since the other party came with huge funds to commit sabotage, they would definitely never stay in the slums!" Sullivan shouted at his subordinates.
Just as the intelligence network spread across San Francisco like a huge spider web.
The special telegraph machine that had been silent suddenly rang.
This telegraph machine used the highest-level top-secret codebook of the Argyle Family, which would only be activated at major moments.
The communications officer immediately put on the headset, his fingers rapidly recording the series of varying lengths of symbols on the paper tape.
As the codes were deciphered one by one, the communications officer's face turned unusually pale. He even hesitated to hand that slip of paper to Sullivan.
"What's going on? What did headquarters say?" Sullivan strode over and snatched the slip of paper.
On the slip of paper were only the exact words of Felix Argyle, the big boss at the New York headquarters.
That was a red order with no room for maneuver.
["Deploy all armed forces, find out the identity of the agent. No need to capture alive; sever the head, box it up, and send it to Barings Bank in London. Whoever dares to block, deal with it directly."]
Looking at those few lines of words on the slip of paper, Sullivan felt a cold chill rush from the soles of his feet straight to his brain, but what followed was a fanatical and bloodthirsty impulse.
The boss did not scold them for their dereliction of duty, but instead issued a direct order.
"What are you all standing there dazed for?!"
Sullivan turned around and roared at all the intelligence officers and field agents in the basement.
"The boss's order has been issued. This is a red order; wake up all action squads in California. Have the armory bring out all the Gatlings!"
A fierce light flashed in Sullivan's eyes.
"Turn San Francisco upside down for me. Even if that ghost is hiding in hell, you must dig him out for me and chop off his head!"
With Sullivan's roar, the Argyle Family's massive violent machine on the West Coast finally awoke completely, baring its sharpest fangs.
A bloody purge was about to unfold in the thick fog of San Francisco.
The thick fog in the San Francisco port was even more viscous than usual, carrying a nauseating sea stench and the scent of rotting fish entrails.
Outside the deep-water dock of the Metropolitan Trading Company, over a hundred Italian-American dockworkers were still gathered in the open space between the pier and the warehouses.
They continuously overturned carts filled with cargo, smashed piles of wooden crates to pieces, and even ignited several iron drums filled with asphalt to keep warm.
Garrick stood on an overturned giant wooden barrel, holding a bottle of cheap rum in his hand.
Just a few days ago, he was still cringing and bowing to the foreman for a meager hourly wage, but now, that huge sum of money from a mysterious person had completely inflated his ego.
"Fellows! Did you see those two large ships parked in the bay?"
Garrick pointed at the forced-to-anchor cargo ships and roared loudly.
"Those are the cash transport ships of the Argyle Family. They want to use those cheap laborers with braids to steal our bread. Today, we will continue to let them know that in this port, the rules are set by the Italian union!"
The crowd below burst into a burst of fanatical cheers.
"That's right! If they don't agree to our conditions, they won't even be able to unload a single rusted iron nail!"
"Garrick, you are a true leader. We listen to you!"
While drinking, these workers wantonly mocked the company employees who were hiding in the warehouse area and dared not come out.
In their view, the law cannot punish the masses. No matter how wealthy the capitalist was, facing hundreds of angry workers, there was no other way except to obediently pay money and compromise.
But they forgot.
What they were facing was not traditional businessmen who only knew how to crunch numbers in the office, but a capital meat grinder that had crushed the nobles of the British Empire.
Three blocks away from the dock, in the basement of the West Coast intelligence branch of the Argyle Family.
Victor Sullivan folded the telegram paper printed with Felix Argyle's red order, stuffed it into his jacket pocket, pushed open the heavy iron door of the basement, and strode into the outer courtyard.
In the courtyard stood two hundred fully armed private security guards neatly.
All of them wore identical dark thick woolen coats, holding the latest repeating rifles produced by Vanguard Military Industry in their hands.
At the very front of the team, four heavy carriages pulled by black horses parked there.
The carriages were covered with heavy rainproof canvas.
Sullivan walked up to the team without making any impassioned pre-battle mobilization.
"The boss's order has been issued. Clear the docks and restore shipping." Sullivan's voice was as cold as ice.
"The opponents are thugs who took black money. No negotiation or warning is needed. Kill anyone who obstructs on the spot."
Security captain Vass nodded. He was a veteran who crawled out of the dead pile of the Civil War, and the muscles on his face were as hard as rock.
"Pull back the canvas." Vass turned around and gave the order.
Several security guards stepped forward and violently ripped off the canvas on the carriage.
Four brand-new Gatling rotary machine guns were exposed in the air. The barrels flashed with a chilling metallic luster in the dim light. The golden bullet belts coiled beside the ammunition feeder.
"Set off."
Sullivan waved his hand.
The wheels rolled over the slate road, emitting a muffled roar.
The two-hundred-man team, like an emotionless ghost phalanx, advanced toward the dock area under the cover of thick fog.
At this time on the dock, Garrick was hugging a drunken worker, loudly boasting about how he planned to pressure the City Hall to demand that all those Chinese laborers be driven out of San Francisco.
"Rumble..."
The heavy sound of wheels came from deep within the thick fog.
At first, the workers thought it was those blind freight carriages wanting to come and pull goods.
"Go a few people and smash those carriages for me, and tell them that the port will continue to strike today."
Garrick waved his hand impatiently.
A dozen Italian workers holding iron bars and wrenches walked cursing toward the direction where the sound came from.
The thick fog gradually parted to form a passageway.
Vass walked at the very front of the team, expressionlessly raising his right hand as he looked at the thugs walking towards them.
"Ready."
The four carriages stopped simultaneously.
The security guards quickly aimed the muzzles of the Gatling Gun at the dense crowd ahead.
The rest of the riflemen dispersed on both sides of the carriages, holding their rifles level.
Those dozen workers saw the brass barrels aimed at them in the thick fog, and their footsteps instantly froze.
"Oh God... What is that thing?"
An iron bar in a worker's hand dropped to the ground, making a crisp sound.
Garrick also sensed something was wrong.
He pushed the people around him away, staring wide-eyed at the silent and cold army ahead.
"What do you want to do?!"
Although Garrick felt his hair standing on end inside, relying on having thousands of workers behind him, he still forcefully maintained his morale and roared.
"This is the union's turf! If you dare to shoot randomly, the San Francisco police will arrest all of you and send you to the gallows."
"Idiot..."
Vass looked at Garrick as if looking at a corpse, and was even too lazy to answer this stupid question.
In the dictionary of the Argyle Family, blocking the flow of funds is equivalent to declaring war.
Vass's right hand swung down fiercely.
"Fire."
The shooter standing behind the Gatling Gun unhesitatingly cranked the handle.
"Da da da da da da!!!"
The deafening gunfire instantly tore through the thick fog of the San Francisco port.
The four Gatling Guns, with a terrifying rate of fire of hundreds of rounds per minute, poured dense bullet rain like the Grim Reaper's sickle into the dense crowd.
Those dozen workers rushing at the very front didn't even have time to scream before they were cut in half by large-caliber bullets, severed limbs and broken arms flying in mid-air accompanied by blood mist.
Brass bullet casings fell onto the slate road like a waterfall, making crisp and dense clanging sounds.
"Ah!!!"
"Help! They really fired!"
Hundreds of thugs who were arrogant just moments ago instantly collapsed in front of the purest killing machine of the industrial era.
Human flesh and blood appeared so ridiculous and fragile in the dense metal storm.
Bullets ruthlessly penetrated wooden barrels and tore apart human bodies.
Fresh blood quickly dyed the ground of the dock red, flowing down the drainage ditch into the bay.
Garrick was knocked down into a pool of blood by the person who fell beside him.
Covering his ear grazed by a stray bullet, he watched helplessly as his fellow workers fell in large numbers like wheat being cut down.
Fear completely destroyed his sanity.
"Don't shoot! We surrender! We're leaving the dock!"
Garrick lay on the ground, wailing heart-rendingly.
But Vass did not order to stop.
The handle of the Gatling Gun was still turning frantically.
In the intervals of the machine gun strafing, the riflemen calmly fired single shots, blowing the heads off one by one those who tried to organize resistance or pick up weapons.
The slaughter lasted for a full five minutes.
When Vass finally raised his hand to signal a cessation of fire, there was not a single person left standing in the entire open space in front of the pier.
The thick smell of gunpowder smoke covered up the sea stench, and hundreds of corpses and mortally wounded people lay sprawling on the ground.
The remaining people had long been scared out of their wits, abandoning their companions and fleeing like madmen into the slums of the beach area.
Stepping on sticky fresh blood, Vass walked in front of Garrick.
Garrick, who had managed to escape immediate death, was covered in muddy water and blood plasma, shivering as he curled up on the ground.
"Speak, who gave you the money?"
Vass pulled out the revolver at his waist and pressed it against the back of Garrick's head.
"No~ Please, I don't know! I really don't know!" Garrick cried out in a breakdown.
"It was someone named Cobb who gave me a box of gold and asked me to lead people to block the dock. The money is all in the secret compartment under my bed, I'll give it all to you!"
"Cobb?"
Vass repeated the name.
"Please, I beg you~ I've said it all! Let me go..." Garrick pleaded.
"Bang!"
Vass pulled the trigger without hesitation.
Garrick's head exploded like a ripe watermelon, ending his greedy and foolish life.
Sullivan walked over from the back of the team, his face showing no emotional fluctuation looking at the corpses all over the ground.
"Have people throw these corpses into the sea, and by the way, have workers wash the ground clean. Also notify David that the dock is safe. Have those laborers go to work immediately and unload the cargo of those two ships in the bay for me."
Sullivan turned his head to look at Vass.
"And that guy named Cobb, he seems to be the agent behind the scenes. Send the brothers out to search and capture. As long as he's in San Francisco, even if he's an ant, he must be crushed to death."