Early February 1867, Paris.
The cold wind by the Seine River couldn't dissipate the city's glamour. The Tuileries Palace was brightly lit, where Napoleon III was hosting a private dinner.
Peter Jenkins, as an "important industrial representative from America," was fortunate enough to be among the attendees.
Although his seat was towards the back, this itself represented an acknowledgment that the Argyle Family's name could now open the doors of European royalty.
Inside the banquet hall, everything was resplendent.
Women wore enormous hoop skirts, and men's chests were adorned with medals.
Jenkins was cutting the veal on his plate, while Otto, the arms broker with a Prussian background, leaned in and whispered to him.
"Peter, have you heard the news?"
Otto's fork made a slight scraping sound on the plate.
"About that castle your Boss is building in New York."
"I've heard it a hundred times, Otto."
Jenkins helplessly wiped his mouth.
"The whole of Paris is talking about it. Yesterday, a fallen baroness even asked me if Mr. Argyle needed a butler; she said she'd be willing to go to America."
"No, I'm not talking about that." Otto shook his head mysteriously.
"I mean, the architectural community in Berlin is also discussing it. That designer named Hunt seems to have ordered a batch of special steel from Europe. The Krupp company told me that steel plates of that specification are usually used for warship armor."
Jenkins' hand paused.
"Warship armor? To build a house?"
"Yes." A hint of awe flashed in Otto's eyes.
"Your Boss seems to be guarding against something. Is he burying something underground? Gold? Or even more terrifying weapons?"
Jenkins recalled Felix's deep, bottomless eyes.
"I don't know, Otto. And I don't want to know." Jenkins took a sip of red wine. "The Boss always has his reasons for doing things. Maybe he just thinks New York's public order isn't very good."
"Public order so bad it needs warship armor?" Otto scoffed.
"Come on. But this has made Chancellor Bismarck even more interested. A person who values his own safety so much usually understands the value of weapons."
"Oh, right…" Otto changed the subject.
"When can Mr. Miller send over the blueprints for those breech-loading steel cannons? The Prussian engineers are already impatient."
"Soon." Jenkins replied perfunctorily.
"You know, the winds and waves on the Atlantic Ocean have been a bit rough lately, delaying shipping schedules."
In reality, that was Felix's strategy.
He was deliberately delaying, to play Prussia and France against each other for a better price.
Just then, an attendant in a court uniform walked over, holding a silver tray.
"Mr. Jenkins, an urgent telegram for you. From New York."
Several gazes in the banquet hall turned towards him. Receiving an urgent telegram on such an occasion usually meant something important.
Jenkins excused himself and went to a side room to open the envelope.
The telegram was short, sent by Frost:
"Boss will launch Universal Department Store in March. Requires huge quantities of French silk, perfume, and the latest fashion. Also, need to recruit a batch of etiquette ladies and senior tailors who understand French. Regardless of price, handle it quickly."
Jenkins looked at the telegram, a smile appearing at the corner of his mouth.
The Boss intended to directly replicate Paris's Champs-Élysées on New York's Fifth Avenue.
"What? Bad news?"
Otto followed, craning his neck.
"No, it's good news." Jenkins put away the telegram.
"Otto, do you know any silk merchants in Lyon? And perfume manufacturers in Grasse?"
"I know a few, why?"
"Notify them."
Jenkins adjusted his swallow-tailed coat, a domineering air of wealth in his eyes.
"Mr. Argyle is going on a shopping spree. Tell them to bring out all their best inventory; we want as much as they have."
"And, help me find some tailors. The best kind."
"What are you going to do?"
"We're going to open the eyes of those bumpkins in New York." Jenkins said with a smile, "Tell them what true living is."
...Meanwhile, New York, Long Island.
Although it was still winter, the construction site at Argyle Manor was bustling with activity.
Thousands of workers swarmed like ants in the enormous foundation pit. Steam pile drivers roared deafeningly, driving huge pine piles into the ground.
Arthur Hamilton, wearing a mud-splattered trench coat and a hard hat, holding his thick notebook, stood at the edge of the cliff, overseeing Hunt like a foreman.
"Mr. Hunt, the foundation progress is three days behind." Hamilton pointed to his watch.
"According to the contract, if you cannot complete the concrete pouring for the underground utility tunnel by the end of the month, I will have to deduct 5% of your design fee."
Hunt's beard trembled with anger.
"What do you know! That's art! The angle of that curved pipe must be precise, otherwise it will affect the steam flow rate!" Hunt waved the blueprints.
"And the weather has been too cold recently, so the cement is drying slowly!"
"Then add heat." Hamilton said coldly.
"The Boss gave you so much money, not for you to complain about the weather. Buy coal, fire up the boilers, cover the construction site. In short, I only care about progress."
"You soulless lawyer!" Hunt cursed. "This is architectural rape!"
"I am serving Mr. Argyle." Hamilton was unmoved.
"And, I remind you, Mr. Miller's security team is right nearby. If you don't want them to 'assist' you with construction, you'd best do as I say."
Hunt glanced at the black-clad men patrolling with guns nearby and swallowed.
"Alright, alright! I'll add heat."
Hamilton nodded, crossing an item off his notebook.
He turned, looking at the turbulent sea in the distance.
Behind him, the behemoth known as Argyle Manor was slowly transforming from blueprints into reality under this forceful execution.
And further away, in Manhattan's Lower East Side, dozens of shell companies were silently gnawing away at the land like termites.
In the prime location of Fifth Avenue, a huge building bearing the sign "Universal Department Store" had also removed its scaffolding, revealing its luxurious Baroque facade.
The tentacles of the Argyle Empire were comprehensively enveloping this era from underground, from the sea, and from across the Atlantic.
But amidst this seemingly invincible expansion, a discordant note appeared.
That afternoon, Felix was reviewing a report on European cotton futures in his office.
"Incorrect."
Felix frowned.
"This quote… why is there a five-minute difference from the London Exchange's closing price?"
He looked up at Frost.
"Was this sent by Western Union Telegraph Company?"
"Yes, Boss."
"Five minutes." Felix's finger tapped lightly on the desk; the sound was soft, yet it made one's heart pound.
"In the financial market, five minutes is enough to make a million dollars evaporate. It's also enough to make a fool a millionaire, or a genius bankrupt."
"Someone is tampering with my time."
Felix stood up and walked to the window, looking at the dense telegraph lines outside.
"Flynn."
From the shadows, the intelligence chief appeared silently.
"Investigate. I want to know where these five minutes went. Were they stolen by God, or by someone else?"
"If it's the latter…" Felix's eyes instantly became colder than the chilling wind outside.
"Then make him spit out everything he swallowed, principal and interest."
February 12, 1867, New York.
A cold rain mixed with sleet was lashing Manhattan.
Raindrops, like countless tiny pebbles, clattered against the floor-to-ceiling windows on the top floor of the Empire Bank Building.
Inside the office, the anthracite coal in the fireplace burned brightly, radiating heat, but it could not dispel the chill in Felix's eyes.
He sat behind a large mahogany desk, clutching two white telegraph ticker tapes that looked like shed snakeskins.
"Flynn."
Felix's voice was very soft.
A man wearing a gray trench coat and a bowler hat stepped out of the shadows. He had a common face that would immediately vanish in a crowd—the best disguise for an intelligence director.
"I'm here, Boss."
"It seems there is a leak in my business empire."
Felix pushed the two ticker tapes to the edge of the desk, tapping them heavily with his finger.
"The one on the left is the closing price of cotton futures sent by our agent in London, with a timestamp of 2:30 PM London time. The one on the right is what we received in New York, and the timestamp is also 2:30 PM."
"Sounds perfect, doesn't it?" Felix sneered.
"But the problem is, Hayes's trader at the exchange told me that just five minutes before we received this message, someone on the market had already begun a large-scale sell-off of cotton contracts."
Flynn stepped forward and picked up the ticker tapes to examine them closely.
"The transmission speed of the Atlantic undersea cable is fixed," Flynn said in a low voice.
"Unless God Himself let someone cut the line, this five-minute time difference couldn't have appeared out of nowhere."
"God doesn't trade futures, Flynn."
Felix stood up and walked to the window, looking out at the gray sky.
"Someone is squeezing my throat. Not much, just for five minutes. But those five minutes cost the Patriot Investment Company a hundred thousand dollars in lost profits today."
"A hundred thousand dollars," Flynn repeated the figure. "That's enough to buy many lives."
"The money is a minor matter, though it still pains me." Felix turned around, his eyes burning like torches.
"What's important is the right to information. If our eyes are slower than others, then we aren't far from death."
"Whether it's an equipment failure at Western Union Telegraph Company, an operator's itchy finger, or someone putting a lock on that copper wire."
"I want to know whose hand this is."
Felix took a box of cigars from the drawer, but instead of lighting one, he snapped it in half.
"Go investigate, find this ghost. Whoever it is, I want them to know that stealing Argyle's time is more expensive than stealing from a bank vault."
"Understood."
Flynn carefully folded the two ticker tapes and placed them in his inner pocket. Without another word, he lowered the brim of his hat and turned to vanish into the shadows outside the door... An hour later, 145 Broadway, the headquarters of the Western Union Telegraph Company.
This building was the information heart of America at the time. Countless copper wires of varying thickness converged here like black blood vessels from all directions, passing through heavy brick walls to connect with the tireless machines inside.
The lobby was a cacophony of voices, filled with that anxious noise: the "didi" of brass telegraph keys, the rustle of ticker tapes being spat out, and the running footsteps of newsboys and messengers.
The air was thick with the smell of heated paper, ozone, and something called "impatience."
Flynn didn't go directly to the counter.
Like a down-and-out broker waiting for business, he stood behind a marble pillar in a corner of the lobby, pretending to read a damp newspaper.
His gaze scanned the half-open oak door at the end of the lobby.
That was the "Core Operating Room," accessible only to senior operators and supervisors.
"Boss, I found it."
A young boy wearing a shoeshine apron sidled up to Flynn's leg, shoe brush in hand, pretending to polish Flynn's boots, which weren't even dirty.
This was one of Flynn's "Sparrows," specialized in gathering trivial intelligence on the streets.
"There are forty operators behind that door. But only the four people in the glass room at the very back are responsible for the Atlantic line and the Wall Street major accounts line."
The boy muttered quickly with his head down, his brush moving rapidly.
"One of them is a foreman named Simon, who has been very flush lately. He used to smoke cheap two-cent tobacco, but this week I've seen him smoking Cuban Havana cigars. And..."
The boy paused and looked up at Flynn.
"And lately, after work, he never goes straight home. Instead, he goes to an underground gambling den on Bowery Street called 'The Golden Spur'."
"Well done."
Flynn calmly pulled a silver coin from his pocket and flicked it into the boy's toolbox.
"Keep an eye on that glass room. I want to know what time Simon gets off work and which door he leaves through."
"Understood."
The boy tapped the heel of the boot to signal he was finished, then picked up his box and vanished into the crowd.
Flynn remained standing there.
His gaze pierced through the crowd and the translucent glass, catching a glimpse of the scene inside.
Four operators were wearing headphones, fully focused on their work. One of them, a balding middle-aged man, indeed had a thick cigar resting on the edge of his desk.
Whenever the machine spat out a ticker tape, he didn't immediately hand it to the messenger like the others. Instead, he would pick it up, glance at it, and then... there was an extremely subtle pause.
He would press the tape under his elbow and only bring it out after a short while.
The movement was very practiced; if one didn't look closely, it would be impossible to notice.
Flynn checked his pocket watch.
It was 4:00 PM. Half an hour before the London market closed. It was the peak of the final data transmissions.
"Di-di-di..."
The sounds inside the glass room grew more hurried.
The man named Simon made that move again.
He pressed his left hand on the ticker tape that had just come out, while his right hand reached for something under the desk.
Flynn's pupils contracted slightly.
Was there another transmitter under the desk?
No, that would be too obvious.
Flynn shifted his angle, using a passing gentleman as cover to observe more closely.
Simon's right hand was tapping his thigh. No, next to his thigh. There was a wire hanging down, connected to a portable telegraph key, cleverly hidden between his trouser leg and the chair.
He was sending messages blindly.
While suppressing the actual telegram, he was using one hand by his leg to transmit the content to another unknown receiver.
It seemed this was the secret of those "five minutes."
This was information "front-running."
Flynn took a deep breath, the excitement of a hunter discovering his prey making his blood run hot.
"Caught you, little mouse."
However, Flynn didn't rush in; that was a job for the police.
Besides, rushing in would only catch a small fry, and his Boss wanted the entire operation uprooted.
He had to follow this line to find the receiving end.
At six in the evening, the bell for the shift change rang.
Simon stretched, carefully placed his unfinished cigar into a metal box, put on his overcoat, and walked out of the operations room.
He looked somewhat exhausted, but his eyes flickered with a feverish intensity—the look unique to a gambler.
Flynn lowered the brim of his hat and followed him.
The rain was still falling, making the streets of Manhattan muddy and treacherous.
Simon didn't call for a carriage. Instead, he walked south along Broadway before turning into the labyrinthine alleys of the slums.
He walked quickly and looked back from time to time, clearly possessing some awareness of counter-surveillance.
But before a master tracker like Flynn, his clumsy maneuvers were laughable. Flynn was like a ghost, always staying in the shadows out of Simon's line of sight, his footsteps perfectly masked by the sound of the rain.
Finally, Simon stopped in front of a semi-basement door with a rusting iron sign hanging above it.
"The Golden Spur Bar."
Simon looked left and right, then pushed the door open and slipped inside.
The air inside the Golden Spur was thick enough to suffocate.
This was the other side of Lower New York, filled with the smell of cheap tobacco, sour beer, sweat, and the fermented stench of desperation mixed with greed.
Gas lamps flickered dimly, stretching everyone's shadows into distorted shapes.
Flynn walked down the steps, his leather boots making a dull thud on the floor covered in sawdust and peanut shells. He didn't stop in the front hall, which was just a place for drunks to braw.
He headed straight for an iron door deep within the bar.
Two burly, scarred-faced bodyguards stood at the door, their waistlines bulging—they were clearly armed.
"New face?"
One of the bodyguards blocked Flynn, eyeing his modest but clean clothes with an unfriendly gaze.
"Looking for someone."
Flynn's voice was calm, devoid of any emotion.
"Only gamblers are welcome here, not troublemakers."
The bodyguard reached out, intending to shove Flynn.
Flynn didn't move. He simply tilted his head up slightly, and a cold glint flashed from his eyes hidden beneath the hat brim—the look of someone who had killed, someone who had seen blood.
The bodyguard's hand stopped mid-air, frozen by an instinctive fear.
Flynn pulled a gold coin from his pocket and flicked it gently into the air.
The coin traced a golden arc through the air and landed accurately in the bodyguard's jacket pocket.
"I'm here to give away money."
The bodyguard swallowed hard and stepped aside to let him pass.
Flynn pushed open the iron door.
An even louder wave of noise hit him square in the face.
This was the gambling den, where Faro and roulette were the main attractions. Dozens of tables were surrounded by red-eyed gamblers, with the shouts of dealers and the clatter of chips rising and falling.
Standing in the shadows, Flynn's gaze was like lightning as he quickly locked onto the balding figure.
Simon was sitting at a Faro table with a pile of colorful chips in front of him. He had taken off his coat, his tie hung loosely around his neck, and he had that cigar back in his mouth. His face bore a sickly flush.
"Bet on the Jack! All of it!"
Simon bellowed, pushing a stack of chips forward.
It seemed he was having a lucky day, or rather, the illicit gains from selling information had given him the confidence to squander.
Flynn was in no hurry to approach.
He beckoned a waiter carrying a tray and gave him a dollar.
"Send a bottle of good wine to that gentleman. Tell him... it's from an old friend."
"Certainly, sir."
The waiter walked over with a bottle of Bordeaux.
Simon had just won a hand and was excitedly counting his chips when he looked at the wine with some surprise.
He turned his head and followed the waiter's gesture toward the corner.
In the shadows, Flynn raised an empty glass and gave him a slight smile.
There was no warmth in that smile, only a chill that made Simon's spine tingle.
Simon sobered up instantly.
He didn't know this man.
But after twenty years at Western Union dealing with all sorts of commercial secrets, he had a nearly instinctive intuition.
This person was here for him, and he didn't come with good intentions.
He subconsciously clutched his pocket, which contained the money he had just won and the envelope the contact had given him earlier today.
Simon wanted to stand up and leave, but he found his legs felt weak.
Flynn walked over. His pace wasn't fast, but every step seemed to land on the beat of Simon's heart.
"Good evening, Mr. Simon."
Flynn reached the gambling table and rested a hand on the back of Simon's chair, leaning down like an old friend.
"Having a lucky streak? It seems that five-minute time difference is indeed quite valuable."
"Five... five minutes?"
Simon's face turned deathly pale instantly, and the cigar in his hand dropped to the floor.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Simon feigned composure, trying to push Flynn's hand away.
"I don't know you. I'm leaving."
"Don't be in such a hurry to leave."
Flynn's hand clamped down on his shoulder like an iron vice.
"This hand hasn't even been played out yet."
The surrounding gamblers were all focused on their games; no one noticed the anomaly over here.
Flynn pulled a slip of paper from his pocket—a copy of the problematic telegram from the afternoon.
He placed the paper gently on the pile of chips in front of Simon.
"London time, two-thirty. New York time, two-thirty-five," Flynn read in a low voice.
"Simon, do you think God went for a cup of coffee during those five minutes?"
Simon's defenses began to crumble.
It seemed he had been exposed.
"It... it wasn't me..." Simon's voice trembled.
"I'm just... just a worker."
"Shh." Flynn put a finger to his lips. "It's too noisy here. Why don't we find somewhere else to talk? About your two daughters, and that house in Brooklyn with the unpaid mortgage."
At the mention of his family, Simon slumped completely into his chair.
A few minutes later, inside a black carriage in the alley behind the bar.
Simon huddled in the corner like a frightened quail. Flynn sat opposite him, toyed with a delicate folding knife in his hand.
"Speak. Where is the receiving end? Who told you to do this?"
Simon took a deep breath, seemingly weighing the pros and cons.
"If I don't say anything..."
"If you don't say anything."
Flynn interrupted him, using the tip of the knife to gently clean his fingernails.
"Tomorrow morning, there will be one more unidentified floating corpse in the East River. And your family will receive a notice saying you ran off with stolen funds."
"Don't! I'll talk! I'll talk!" Simon broke down.
"A man called 'The Cripple' approached me."
"'The Cripple'?" Flynn raised an eyebrow.
"Yes. He's a middleman on Wall Street, used to be a lawyer, I think. About forty years old, with a limp in his left leg, uses a cane. The most obvious feature is... a section of the pinky on his left hand is missing."
"A lawyer with a missing finger." Flynn searched his memory for this characteristic. "What is his name?"
"I don't know his real name. On the streets, they call him 'Saul'. He gave me five hundred dollars and promised me a fifty-dollar commission for every important piece of news."
"Where did he tell you to send the messages?"
"A private line code: G-7." Simon swallowed hard.
"It's a secret line specifically installed. As long as I press that portable key under the table, the signal is diverted through the building's backup lines."
"G-7..." Flynn mulled over the code.
"Besides you, who else is involved?"
"Two other brothers on the night shift. We take turns. We've been doing it for two months now."
"Where does this Saul usually hang out?"
"He hangs around several cafes near Wall Street. But on Tuesday and Friday nights, he goes to the third floor of 44 Broad Street. It seems to be a private office for a big player."
"44 Broad Street." Flynn noted the address.
He put away his folding knife and took a stack of bills from his pocket—it was five hundred dollars.
"Take it." Flynn tossed the money into Simon's lap.
Simon was stunned. "This..."
"This is your bonus. And it's also your hush money," Flynn said coldly.
"Starting tomorrow, continue going to work as if nothing happened. Whatever The Cripple tells you to do, you do it."
"Huh?" Simon was dumbfounded.
"But," Flynn stared into his eyes, "when he asks for news, you must send it to me first. I will tell you what to send to that cripple."
"Do you understand? Double agent."
Simon looked at the money in his lap, then at Flynn's expressionless face. He knew he had no choice.
"Understood... sir."
"Very well." Flynn tapped on the carriage wall. "Take him home."
The carriage started moving.
Simon looked at the grey figure standing in the rain, feeling as if he had just made a deal with the devil.
Flynn stood at the entrance of the alley and lit a cigarette.
"Line G-7. Saul, The Cripple with a missing finger. 44 Broad Street."
He organized these clues amidst the smoke.
44 Broad Street—that seemed to be Daniel Drew's secret stronghold. That old speculator, known as the 'Wall Street Undertaker', was famous for his insidiousness and cunning.
"It seems it's Drew," Flynn muttered to himself.
But he always felt something was off.
While Drew was greedy, his methods were usually crude, preferring the game of watered stocks.
This kind of meticulously designed technical theft—establishing a dedicated secret line and infiltrating Western Union's interior—required a more thorough layout and a deeper technical background.
Furthermore, that 'Cripple Saul'... Flynn suddenly remembered an old file.
A few years ago, in a chemical plant explosion case in Delaware, a lawyer had his license revoked for suspected destruction of evidence. That person's characteristics also seemed to include a missing finger.
Delaware.
Flynn threw away the cigarette butt and stepped on it.
"Interesting."
He didn't immediately tell Felix his conjecture.
As the head of intelligence, he only provided established facts, not guesses.
For now, he had to first help his Boss send that greedy Drew to hell... By the time he returned to Williams Mansion, it was already late at night.
Felix was still in his office, reading an urgent telegram from Anna Clark in Washington.
"Boss." Flynn walked in.
"I've found it. It's a private line with the code G-7. The middleman is a lawyer with a missing finger named Saul. The terminal leads to 44 Broad Street, Daniel Drew's office."
"Drew?"
Felix put down the telegram, a trace of disdainful smile appearing at the corner of his mouth.
"That old fraud? Since when did he learn to play with this kind of high technology?"
"Maybe someone is behind him," Flynn added cautiously.
"Regardless of who is behind him, since he's reached out his hand, we'll chop it off."
Felix stood up and walked to the map.
"Is Hayes ready on his end?"
"Ready," Flynn replied.
"We have quietly absorbed 15% of Western Union's floating shares. As soon as the timing is right, we can make our move."
"Good."
Felix picked up a pen and wrote a line of words on a piece of paper.
"Tomorrow, have that Simon send a message to Drew."
"The content is: A massive fire has broken out at the London vault, and gold reserves are heavily damaged. Gold prices are about to skyrocket."
Flynn looked at the line, his eyes lighting up.
"Boss, this is fake."
"No, this is bait for the greedy," Felix smiled.
"Upon hearing this news, Drew will use that five-minute time difference to frantically buy gold. And we... will sell gold to him at the peak."
"And those five minutes will be the most expensive five minutes of his life."
...Early morning.
The fog on Wall Street had not yet dissipated. Last night's rain had formed countless small puddles on the road, reflecting the anxious faces of the speculators rushing to the exchange.
44 Broad Street, third floor.
The curtains here were tightly closed, leaving only a small gap. The room was filled with the heavy smell of coffee and cigars.
Daniel Drew, the famous 'Short King' of Wall Street, was currently sitting on the sofa, clutching the paper tape spitting out from the coffin-like stock ticker.
He looked somewhat haggard, with puffy bags under his eyes.
Recently, he had been squeezed breathless by Gould in the struggle for the chairmanship of the Erie Railroad and urgently needed a big win to recoup his losses.
Beside him stood Saul, the man known as 'The Cripple'.
This man wore a black tailcoat and a leather glove on his left hand to hide his missing pinky finger.
"How is it? Still no movement?" Drew asked irritably.
"Don't be anxious, Boss," Saul's voice was cold.
"The informant over there said something big is happening in London today. We must wait."
"Is that G-7 line reliable?" Drew was somewhat paranoid.
"Lately, that Argyle bunch seems to have noticed something."
"Absolutely reliable," Saul said confidently.
"This is the latest technical equipment I managed to get from Delaware, and I even bribed that foreman named Simon. Even if Argyle racks his brain, he won't imagine we'd tap the line right under his nose."
Just then, the special telegraph machine in the corner suddenly emitted a rapid 'beep beep' sound.
The sound was exceptionally piercing in the quiet room.
Saul's eyes lit up, and he immediately lunged over, skillfully pulling out the paper tape and translating the Morse code on it.
As each word was translated, Saul's hands began to tremble, and a look of wild joy appeared on his face.
"Boss, it's here! Big news!"
"What?"
Drew sprang up from the sofa, his movements as agile as a man much younger than sixty.
"Extra urgent! London news: A major fire occurred at the Bank of England vault last night. A large amount of gold reserves may have been melted or stolen. It is expected that London gold prices will skyrocket by 20% at the opening!"