Even so, the file was an immense help. It gave Henry the focus he needed for his next move. If he could eliminate the personnel and seize the assets on this list, the McKinley family would be effectively crippled.
"Who gets B-level clearance in the black market?" Henry asked. "And what does it take to get A or S?"
Drummond gave a wry smile. "I don't know the specifics. The market makes its own internal assessments. My friend owns over thirty saloons in the neighboring cities, commands a private force of nearly three hundred elite gunmen, and controls the moonshine market in several of the state's major hubs."
"If I hadn't done him a major favor in the past," Drummond added, "he never would have agreed to get this for me."
Henry's expression softened. "How much do I owe you for this?"
"Three thousand for the intel, plus a six-hundred-dollar commission. With your fifty percent discount, that's three hundred. A total of three thousand, three hundred dollars," Drummond said slowly.
Henry's face darkened. This kind of exclusive business was a damn racket. Three thousand dollars was a fortune, the equivalent of over a million in his past life, for a piece of information that could be sold over and over again.
"Don't think of it as expensive," Drummond said, reading his thoughts. "Without B-level clearance, you couldn't get any information on the McKinley family at all."
Considering the difficulty of gathering intelligence in this era, Henry nodded. "Fine. How do I pay you?"
"We'll just deduct it from your share of the saloon's profits," Drummond said, having already thought it through. This was his way of tying his own fate to Henry's.
That sat much better with Henry. Since he hadn't actually received any money from the saloon yet, it didn't feel like he was paying out of his own pocket.
"You've done well," Henry said with a nod. "I'll remember this."
"Happy to be of service, Sheriff," Drummond replied. "Your satisfaction is all that matters. If you need anything else, you know where to find me." With a slight bow, he left the room.
Henry went over the file again. The McKinleys were a sprawling clan, with talented members in both politics and business. The Denver patriarch, Brendan, was just one leader of their Midwest branch, and even he was constrained by a council of six elders.
It's almost like the Roman Empire, he thought. These great families had a system for breeding and educating their offspring.
The silver mine managed by Sean at Dwyer Manor had an estimated reserve of eighty million ounces, producing about 2.4 million ounces of silver a year. It was a medium-to-large-sized operation. With the price of silver at $1.12 an ounce, plus the value of the copper deposits, the mine generated an annual revenue of around four million dollars. Even at a conservative 25% profit margin, that was a million dollars a year, clean.
The mine had been in operation for twelve years and had another twenty years of life left in it.
Henry thought about the ten-thousand-dollar bounty on his head. It was one percent of this mine's annual profit. The thought was so insulting it made him want to "release" Sean and Brendan on the spot.
But killing them was the easy part. Seizing the mine was another matter entirely. This was an operation with an annual profit equivalent to over one hundred million dollars in his past life. Unraveling the web of shell corporations and shareholders that owned it would be a nightmare. If he tried to take it by force, he'd be facing a host of unknown enemies.
However, disrupting their operations, or even better, intercepting their shipments… that was a different story. 2.4 million ounces was only about 68 tons of silver. He could fit the entire year's output in his storage space with room to spare.
But the mine was guarded by an entire company of two hundred private cavalry, and was likely fortified with trenches, traps, Gatling guns, and maybe even howitzers. This was a completely different challenge from ambushing their riders in the open field.
It all came down to intelligence.
Henry swore to himself that he would build his own intelligence network—newspapers, detective agencies, whatever it took. Controlling the flow of information and the secrets of the powerful would be essential for his future plans, especially his goal of helping the Chinese immigrants.
For now, he couldn't just kill Sean. He needed to squeeze him for more information about the gold mine and the McKinley family.
There was, of course, one private, national-level intelligence organization in America: the legendary Pinkerton Detective Agency.
Founded by a Scotsman, Allan Pinkerton, the agency had risen to fame after thwarting an assassination attempt on president-elect Abraham Lincoln. During the Civil War, they had served as Lincoln's personal security detail. After the war, when the Army took over presidential security, Lincoln was assassinated.
The Pinkertons had grown into a massive organization. In 1871, they had accepted a fifty-thousand-dollar-a-year contract from the Department of Justice to hunt down and prosecute federal criminals. They now had over a thousand active agents and ten thousand reservists, almost all of them military veterans. Their symbol was an unblinking eye, with the motto, "We Never Sleep."
In his past life, playing Red Dead Redemption 2, Henry had been relentlessly hounded by the Pinkertons. Their well-dressed, well-spoken agents were an unstoppable force in the game's narrative, constantly forcing the player to flee, to move their camp, to abandon their plans.
Now, he coveted their intelligence-gathering capabilities. He even suspected the black market's information network was somehow connected to them. To gather such detailed information in this era required immense resources. There couldn't be that many private organizations with that kind of reach. The fifty-thousand-dollar government contract was a pittance; its true value was the legitimacy it provided, the public authority it gave them to serve their private, wealthy clients and crush their competition.
The Pinkertons primarily worked for the government and the great capitalists—the railroad, mining, and steel companies. It was inevitable that, sooner or later, he would come into conflict with them.
From the files in the Sheriff's office, he had learned that the Pinkertons were currently in a relentless pursuit of the infamous train-robbing brothers, Jesse and Frank James. A few years ago, the agency had even firebombed the James family's home, crippling their mother and killing their youngest half-brother.
In this world, just as in the game, the Pinkertons were a force that operated without restraint.