As the transportation hub of Georgia, Atlanta was slowly rising from the ashes of General Sherman's great fire.
Construction sites were everywhere; the sounds of hammers and saws rose and fell without cease.
On a corner of Peachtree Street stood a pharmacy that looked spotlessly clean.
A sign reading "Smith's Pharmacy" hung by the door.
The owner was a mild-mannered, bespectacled middle-aged man everyone called "Professor Smith."
Usually genial, he often treated the poor free of charge.
Few knew he was the Ku Klux Klan's strategist in Atlanta.
Not only did he plan attacks, he used his position as a pharmacist to prepare poisons and dump them into the wells of Black neighborhoods that refused to cooperate with whites.
Three o'clock in the afternoon.
There weren't many customers; Smith was grinding powder behind the counter.
The bell over the door rang.
A man in a dark overcoat walked in.
Tall, wide-brimmed hat, black suitcase in hand.
"Good afternoon, sir."
Smith looked up with a professional smile.
"What seems to be the trouble?"
"I'm feeling a bit off."
The visitor reached the counter and removed his hat, revealing a scarred face.
"The air in here's stale… smells like dead rats."
Smith froze, pestle stopping mid-grind.
"Sir, we keep a clean shop. If you're here to make trouble—"
"I'm here to buy medicine!"
The man cut him off, setting the suitcase on the counter.
"I hear you stock a miracle cure for 'meddling' and 'racial hatred'."
Smith's expression changed; his hand crept toward the shotgun beneath the counter.
"Sir, I don't know what you mean."
"Oh, but you do." He flipped the case open.
Inside lay no money—only photographs.
Black children lay in hospital beds, foam on their lips.
Last week's poisoning incident, south side.
"Those kids died."
The man's voice stayed flat.
"Autopsy showed arsenic—purity found only in your shop in all of Atlanta."
"Who are you?" Smith's finger found the trigger.
"Federal Special Agent Silas Flynn."
Before the words faded, Smith jerked the gun up.
Flynn was faster.
He slammed the suitcase forward; its weight smashed into Smith's chest, sending him sprawling.
The shotgun boomed, shattering the ceiling lamp.
Flynn vaulted the counter, seized Smith by the throat, and pinned him against the shelves.
"Cough…!"
Smith's glasses flew; he thrashed wildly.
"Easy, pal."
Flynn's other hand drew a dagger, pressing the tip to Smith's eyeball.
"My hands aren't too steady."
Outside, Borg burst in with several agents, slammed the door, and flipped the sign to "Closed."
"Turn the place inside out," Flynn ordered.
They charged into the back and soon dragged out several crates.
Arsenic powder, strychnine, a dozen crisp white Klan robes.
"Well, well—case closed, Boss."
Borg kicked a crate, half-smirking.
"Looks like our boy's a real poison pusher."
Flynn stared at Smith with disgust.
"You're a doctor—you're supposed to save lives, not end them with poison."
"Those niggers aren't people!"
Smith flushed, stubborn to the last.
"They're animals! They steal our jobs, they—"
Smack!
Flynn's backhand cut the tirade short.
He actually agreed—so did most men at Felix's companies.
Not a single Black face among the regular payroll.
To the Boss, they were just expendable stock.
But… they still belonged to the company.
"From now on those Blacks are Mr. Argyle' labor force," Flynn said coldly.
"Poison one and you burn a cotton acre belonging to Argyle—that's commercial sabotage."
"Take him in?" Borg scratched his head.
"No need."
Flynn eyed the rows of bottles and got an idea.
"He loves poison—let him taste his own."
He lifted a jar of fine white powder—pure arsenic.
"The same batch you gave those kids?" He pried Smith's mouth open.
"No! Please—!"
Smith thrashed, tears and snot everywhere.
"I've got money! Gold bars under the counter—take them all—"
"Idiot. Kill you and the gold's still ours."
Flynn poured the powder in, chased it with water, clamped a hand over Smith's mouth until he swallowed.
Minutes later.
Smith lay twitching, foaming, eyes glazing over.
Flynn stood watching the last breath rattle out.
"Clean it up," he said, straightening his collar.
"Stage it as suicide—guilt drove the good pharmacist to drink his own poison."
The agents went to work.
They arranged the scene like a depressive's final hour, even planted a forged note.
They'd grown good at this—real professionals.
Half an hour later Flynn stepped back into the sunlight.
The street was bright and busy; no one knew the pharmacist inside was now a corpse.
He took out his notebook and crossed off "Smith".
Eight names left on the list.
"To the station," he told Borg.
"Next stop—Montgomery, Alabama."
"Boss, if we keep killing like this…" Borg hesitated.
"Atlanta's a big city—people will notice."
"That's the beauty of big cities,"
Flynn said, climbing into the carriage.
"News travels fast."
"The Boss wants everyone to know the broom… sweeps clean."
Spring of 1866 was near.
As names vanished from the list, Klan influence across the South shrank.
Night riders who once ruled the darkness found the night had become their grave.
A new order was being forged—in terror and blood.
And the name stamped on that order was Argyle.
New York, top floor of the Empire Bank Building.
In the conference room of the Argyle Executive Committee, the radiator gave off a faint gurgle.
Both sides of the long mahogany table were packed with people—the princes of this loose yet ironclad commercial States.
William Coleman, president of Lex Steel, slammed a thick technical report onto the table; the impact sent ripples through the coffee in the cup beside it.
"No… this won't do."
Coleman's voice was loud, roughened by years on the shop floor.
"That Bessemer converter is a picky monster. The New Jersey mill started trial runs last week, and the scrap rate topped thirty percent. One reason only: coke."
He looked across at Miller.
"Sir, the coal Saineng Mining Company delivered is too high in sulfur. Sulfur makes steel brittle. If we lay rails with that steel, trains will snap and Vanderbilt and Gould will trample our doorstep with lawyers."
Miller sat turning a pencil sharpener in his hand; he had just returned from the West, his face weather-worn by wind and sand.
"Coleman, don't shout at me," Miller said, sharpening a pencil.
"The Appalachian mines are just that quality; we've screened as best we can. The good anthracite is all in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, and the owners there hold their price like bulldogs."
"Then go buy it."
Felix sat at the head of the long table. He wasn't looking at the report but at the map on the wall.
Pennsylvania was crisscrossed by black lines—railroads and canals.
"Problem isn't buying the mines, Boss," Miller said, stopping at Felix's words.
"It's hauling. That's Reading Railroad country. They control every ounce of freight from the pits to Philadelphia. If we buy the mines, they'll jack the rates till coal costs more than gold dust in New Jersey."
Felix rose and walked to the map.
"Reading Railroad…" he murmured.
In this era, owning a rail line meant owning the pricing power over every resource along it.
Reading Railroad ruled the anthracite fields; it hauled coal and, through subsidiaries, owned the mines outright.
"That's the bottleneck."
Felix turned to Coleman and Miller.
"If Lex Steel is to expand and turn out the best rails and armor plate in America, we break that bottleneck."
"We can't stay beholden forever."
"What's the play, Boss?"
Tom Hayes, president of Patriot Investment Company, adjusted his glasses.
"Buy Reading Railroad? That'll take serious cash—and the Pennsylvania legislature will scream antitrust."
"No need to buy the railroad."
Felix traced a line on the map.
"We have the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. Its mainline doesn't cross Schuylkill County, but it has a few abandoned spurs nearby."
"Charles."
Felix looked to Charles Reeves, president of the Mississippi and Eastern Railroad Company; though Reeves mainly ran the West, he was the rail expert present.
"Can we build a connector?" Felix asked.
"Run it from our mainline like a straw straight into Reading's gut."
Reeves stepped up and studied the map.
"Rough country—nothing but mountains. But give me explosives and crews… six months," he estimated. "Six months to lay the track."
"Too slow," Felix shook his head.
"Three months." He raised three fingers.
"Before spring ends I want trains of anthracite rolling into New Jersey mills."
"That takes money," Hayes reminded. "A lot of it."
"Then provide it." Felix returned to his chair.
"Tell George—Empire Bank president—to ready a million in cash reserves."
"Miller." Felix eyed his longest-serving lieutenant.
"Go to Pennsylvania yourself. Take your geologists and your checkbook."
"Buy the three best anthracite pits in the Schuylkill Valley. Ignore Reading Railroad threats and local union headaches."
"Only when we own the mines do we have leverage to negotiate—or haul the coal out on our own rails."
"What if the owners won't sell?" Miller stuck the freshly sharpened pencil into the table.
"Then audit their books, check their land deeds," Felix said evenly.
"Or have our 'special inspectors' see how safe their mines are. Nobody in this business is clean."
"Coleman." Felix turned to the steelworks chief.
"Adjust your process. Until the good coal arrives, produce ordinary construction steel. New York's real-estate market is reviving—they need rebar. Keep the furnaces lit."
"Yes, sir." Coleman nodded.
The meeting lasted two hours.
When the princes had gone, only Felix and Frost remained.
Frost gathered the papers.
"Boss, Pennsylvania's restless. There's a group called the Molly Maguires—Irish miners, a secret society. They fight owners with assassinations and dynamite…"
"I know." Felix moved to the window and watched the snow. "Oppress Irishmen long enough and they push back."
"Will Miller be safe over there?"
"Miller's Irish too—and he knows powder better than those miners." Felix wasn't worried.
"Besides, we're not going to oppress them. We're going to raise their wages."
"Raise wages?" Frost blinked.
"Yes." Felix turned, a sly smile tugging at his mouth.
"To buy mines under Reading Railroad's nose—or poach their workers—dollars beat guns."
"While other owners squeeze labor, Saineng Mining will be the miners' 'friend.' Provided they behave."
"Speaking of which—how's Anna Clark?"
"Miss Anna's adapting fast," Frost replied. "She's putting in ten-hour days at the foundation. Mrs. Catherine says she has a nose for figures—she already caught two purchase leaks we'd missed."
"Good." Felix nodded.
"There's a charity dinner next week for Southern orphanages. Put Anna in charge. It'll be her formal debut in New York society."
"Let her learn that in this city, knowing numbers isn't enough—you have to make the rich open their purses and smile while doing it."
Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania.
There was none of New York's glamour here—only coal dust in the air and the acrid stench of sulfur. Black mountains loomed over the river valley like colossal graves, steam-powered hoists thundering day and night.
The Black Stone Mine office was a rickety wooden shack.
The owner, Hans Jaeger, was a German immigrant—broad-shouldered, beard thick as wire.
Right now he sat by the stove, a glass of cheap beer in hand, eyeing the stranger across from him with open suspicion.
Miller sat opposite him, a heavy coat smeared with coal dust, boots caked in mud. Behind him stood two hulking guards—elite men from Vanguard Security.
'I've told you, sir: this mine is not for sale,' Jaeger growled.
'You must understand—this is the mine my father left me. It doesn't earn much, but it feeds my family. You big New York sharks think you can swallow us whole? Impossible.'
'Mr. Jaeger, that's neither interesting nor sincere.'
Miller raised an eyebrow and laid a document on the grease-stained table.
'After all, I hear you owe Reading Railroad three thousand dollars in freight charges. And last month your No. 3 shaft caved in—two miners dead, compensation still unpaid.'
'That's because those bloodsuckers at Reading jacked up the freight!' Jaeger slammed the table.
'They gobble every cent of profit! Where was I supposed to find timber for supports? Money for damages?'
'Which is why I bring you new hope, don't I?' Miller kept his tone gentle.
'Sonne Mining Company is willing to pay fifty thousand dollars for full ownership of Black Stone Mine. A good deal for you.'
'Fifty? Are you certain, Mr. Miller?'
Jaeger was puzzled; the offer topped market price. He'd expected these New Yorkers to low-ball.
'Of course. We're not bandits. And we'll assume every debt—railway, workers—everything. You stay on as mine manager with a salary, provided you follow our rules.'
Jaeger's eyes wavered.
He stared dazedly out at the dilapidated sheds—his struggling legacy, his shackles.
'And if I refuse?' he tested.
'Then you won't survive the winter.' Miller gestured toward the door, blunt.
'Reading's lawyers will likely file for your bankruptcy next week. The bank will auction your mine for maybe five thousand, and you'll be thrown out with nothing.'
'Is that a threat?'
'Not at all—just facts.' Miller rose and walked to the window.
'Jaeger, look at those miners. They're hungry, furious. I hear the Molly Maguires have marked you. They painted a coffin on your door, didn't they?'
Jaeger's face went white; it was every mine owner's nightmare here.
'How do you know?'
'That's irrelevant.' Miller turned.
'Know this: Sonne Mining has experience with such troubles. We bring money—and order. We'll pay full wages, install new support timber, even build a bathhouse.
'When life improves, they won't want to hang you from a tree. So—decision?'
Jaeger drained his beer in silence, swallowing a bitter fruit, or perhaps its antidote.
'Cash?' he asked.
'Argyle Bank cashier's check, payable on demand.'
'All right—you win. Done.' Jaeger thrust out a calloused hand.
Miller clasped it.
When the deal closed, Miller stepped outside. The wind was cold, laced with snow.
'Sir, this place is a mess,' a guard muttered.
'Spotted a few Irishmen watching us—hostile looks.'
'They're sizing up the new owners.' Miller adjusted his collar.
'Post a notice: Sonne Mining takes over Black Stone. Daily pay rises ten cents. Ship fresh steam pumps from Vanguard—drain No. 2 shaft.
'Let everyone know: follow Argyle, and you'll eat well.'
Days later.
With Black Stone and two nearby mines changing hands, Sonne Mining had driven a spike into Reading Railroad's heartland.
But the move had not escaped Reading's eye.
Philadelphia—Reading Railroad headquarters.
President Franklin Gowen scowled at the report on his desk.
'Argyle's people?' he sneered.
'That New York plutocrat stretches his arm too far. Does he think buying mines gets the coal out?'
'Issue the order,' he told his secretary.
'All capacity on the Schuylkill line is tight. Starting now, only our coal moves—everything else delayed or charged double freight.
'I'll strand his coal at the pit mouth to rot.'
Word raced back to Black Stone.
Jaeger rushed to Miller: 'Mr. Miller, Reading refuses us cars. The stockpile's full—if we can't ship, we shut down!'
Miller, supervising installation of a new hoist, showed no alarm.
'Let them block us.' He wiped grease from his hands. 'The Boss foresaw this.'
He pointed across the valley.
There, a large crew worked in the snow, explosions echoing as dynamite blasted rock.
'What's that?' Jaeger asked.
'Our road.' Miller gazed into the distance. 'Mr. Reeves's rail commando. They're linking a Pennsylvania Railroad spur—only ten miles, enough to bypass Reading's chokehold.'
'But that takes time—what do we do meanwhile?'
'That's why we build a coking plant.' Miller indicated an empty patch beside the mine.
'Before the rails connect, we turn coal into coke—smaller, higher value. If trains won't haul it, bank wagons will. Or sleds.
'Argyle's furnaces will never go cold for want of a few railcars.'
On this black land, a quiet war over energy and transport was escalating.
And it was only a small episode in the vast machinery Felix Argyle had set in motion.