Henry had no other business in the manor. He walked out the main gate, summoned a quarter horse, and rode for the Pinkerton headquarters in the downtown Loop district.
He still had about fifteen cubic meters of storage space left. It was enough, but just in case, he stopped in a secluded patch of woods and spent the next half hour opening the three safes he had taken from the black market, transferring their contents directly into his space.
It was just before 1 AM when he arrived.
The Loop was the heart of the city, home to the municipal government, the banks, and the great cultural institutions. The Pinkerton headquarters was a four-story building, its stone facade a stark and imposing presence. Like the New York branch, it had a large, fortified guardhouse out front. But unlike the wooden structures of the frontier, everything here was built of stone and iron, a lesson learned from the Great Fire that had consumed the city nine years earlier.
Henry preferred the city. There were fewer dogs.
The building and the guardhouse were brightly lit by two dozen gas lamps. Four guards patrolled the perimeter.
He knew from the files that the building was empty at night, except for a ten-man patrol on both the third and fourth floors. The guardhouse served as a barracks for the thirty-two men who worked the night shift.
He changed into a pair of cloth shoes, pulled on his mask, and waited. The moment the two guards nearest him turned their backs, he activated his Super Reflexes and charged. He could now cover over twelve meters in a single second.
In less than half a second, he was within twenty-five meters. He slowed, his hands a blur, and a volley of small, 6-inch throwing knives flew from his sleeves. When his talent faded, all four of the sentries had two knives in their throats. He closed the distance and, with a single, clean thrust of his rapier to each of their hearts, finished the job.
He stored the four bodies, then locked the doors to the guardhouse from the outside.
He walked to the main entrance of the headquarters and, with his universal keys, picked the lock in just over a minute. He slipped inside, closing the door behind him, and went straight to the warehouse on the ground floor.
He picked the lock and went inside. The warehouse was a small armory, with a hundred or so rifles and pistols, a few boxes of ammunition, and, most importantly, 680 pounds of TNT and a hundred detonators.
He took all of it, then doused the entire ground floor with the 800 liters of kerosene he found in the warehouse. He did the same on the second floor. He also left the three empty black market safes in the second-floor warehouse.
He went to the third floor. An iron gate blocked the stairs. He knew there were guards on the other side.
He took out one of his custom Sharps rifles and fired a .50-170 round into the lock. The massive bullet dented the heavy iron, but did not break it. He fired again with another Sharps, and then again, five shots in total, until the lock was shattered.
He threw the body of one of the dead sentries at the gate, and it swung open.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
The guards inside opened fire, shredding the corpse.
Henry's own twin revolvers answered, and two of the guards went down. He charged forward, using another body as a shield, and in a hail of lead and thunderous explosions of gunfire, he cleared the landing, killing the four guards who had been waiting in ambush.
He heard more footsteps approaching, and his enhanced senses painted a perfect picture in his mind of the six men who were charging toward him.
He met them at the top of the stairs, and in two seconds of brutal, close-quarters combat, all six were dead, a bullet through each of their brows.
For the first time, he was fighting a true urban battle, and he found that his talents gave him an almost god-like advantage. His two-second precognition, combined with his enhanced hearing and smell, allowed him to know exactly where his enemies were, and exactly what they were going to do, before they even did it. The moment they stepped out from cover was the moment they died.