"Does the big boss, Mike, know you framed Robert?"
"Yes. Mike ordered it. Someone wanted Robert's business."
"Who do you report to at headquarters? Where does Mike live?"
"I report to Mike. He lives on the third floor of an apartment building behind the Phoenix Brothers Hotel in the Five Points. You can see it from the hotel. It's guarded by dozens of gunmen, day and night."
"Where are the headquarters' vault and armory?"
Solow hesitated for a fraction of a second, and the tip of the blade pricked his neck.
"The vault is on the third floor," he gasped. "There are armories on every floor, but the main one is on the third."
"Good. Now, where is your vault?"
Solow glanced at the large safe in the corner of the office.
"The combination?"
"You have to guarantee my safe…"
Henry withdrew the rapier from the back of Solow's skull and stored it away. He had only needed to confirm what he'd already learned from the black market files. He looted Solow's body, then began to search the office. After a dozen minutes, finding nothing else, he stored the large safe and left the room.
He went to the third floor. The doors were all open. He moved from room to room, and where he found a sleeping outlaw, he ended their life with a single, silent thrust of his rapier. In less than five minutes, the sixteen men on the third and fourth floors were all dead.
He went down to the first floor. In the first room, four men were playing cards while a fifth watched.
A rapier appeared in each of Henry's hands. He lunged. With his enhanced physique and LV 2 Agility, his movements were a blur. In less than a second, all five men had a hole in their throat. Another second, and they each had a second hole in their heart. They died without making a sound.
He moved to the next room, and then the next.
In less than thirty seconds, all twenty-three men on the first floor had been silently eliminated.
He walked to the front door. "Hey, you four," he called out to the guards outside. "The boss wants to see you in his office."
The four thugs were confused, but seeing the man was unarmed, and being inside their own headquarters, they saw no threat.
The moment they stepped through the door, they were met by the long, fast, and merciless blades of the twin rapiers.
Henry stored their bodies and went down to the basement. Three more guards were playing cards at a table. He dispatched them with a volley of throwing knives.
He found the keys to the armory on one of the bodies. Inside, he found a cache of weapons, including 1,280 large throwing knives. He took the knives, the guns, and twenty 10-liter cans of kerosene.
He then walked to the prison section at the back of the basement. He unlocked the door. Inside, a lone figure was tied to an iron post, his body a canvas of bruises and dried blood.
"Robert?" Henry asked.
The man looked up.
"Your daughter sent me. What is her name, and how old is she?"
"Rachel Murphy," the man rasped, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. "She's eighteen."
Henry walked forward and cut his ropes. "Can you walk? Can you ride?"
"Yes. Thank you."
"Then come with me."
He led the grateful and overjoyed Robert back to the armory. "Change into a fresh set of clothes."
A moment later, Robert emerged, dressed in a clean shirt and jeans, a flat cap pulled low over his bruised face. Henry led him up and out of the building.
Less than fifteen minutes had passed since he had first arrived.
He untied his quarter horse from the post outside and then went to the nearby stable. He found a saddled brown mare and led it out.
"Mr. Robert, you'll ride this horse. I'll take you as far as the edge of the Upper East Side, and from there you will go to the Astor House hotel. I've arranged a room for Rachel there."
"Thank you. I am forever in your debt. May I know who you are?"
"Of course. I am Henry. Ask Rachel. She will tell you everything." He paused. "I'm now going to the Whyos headquarters to have a talk with their leader, Mike. I'm told he's the one who ordered this. Do you have anything to say about that?"
"I don't know. I've never even met the man. You've saved my life. That is more than enough."
"Alright. Mount up. We're leaving now."
At the Astor House hotel, Alice and Rachel were reading the newspaper articles about Henry.
"It's just unbelievable," Rachel said, letting out a long breath. "Is he really that powerful?"
"What you saw in the cave," Alice said, "the way he moved… those outlaws were like puppets in his hands." She paused, then asked, "Did you even see how he moved, when he first attacked?"