Blood of the Reich

11

Hong Kong, China

September 28, 1938

B enjamin Grayson Hood traveled more miles in nine days than Raeder’s expedition had sailed and marched in nine weeks. Hood’s first three thousand miles were by train from New York to San Francisco by way of Chicago, aboard the gleaming California Zephyr. Then by seaplane more than eight thousand miles across the Pacific. The Martin 130 China Clipper flown by Pan American averaged an astonishing 163 mph, hopping to Pearl Harbor, Midway, Wake Island, Guam, Manila, and Hong Kong. Each was an oasis of calm and safety, far removed from the aggression of the Japanese Empire in China.

Hood’s ticket for this race against the Germans had cost a staggering $1,600, or as much as two new cars. But then he’d had a private cabin with bunk, washstand, and the finest cuisine the airline could conjure. He relished the shrimp and steak while he could, and didn’t turn down the company of one Edith Warnecke, either. She was a pretty and bored thirty-five-year-old double divorcee traveling to meet her newest husband in Singapore. Edith smelled Hood’s money and pedigree; Hood, opportunity. She liked red wine, chocolate, and sex, and rode the American adventurer ragged three miles above the Pacific, moaning like another propeller.

He was willing to oblige since the days ahead would be privation enough. And yet the amusement was oddly unsatisfying. Edith was an unhappy woman, looking for distraction. Ben realized (somewhat to his own surprise) that he was increasingly dissatisfied with distraction. Life should mean something, and not just society outings, specimen expeditions, and museum tolerance of his stooping to be a scientist. Sex should mean something, someday. After the Clipper skidded down on its pontoons into Hong Kong harbor, he stepped out on the dock, annoyed with his own conduct. Since the Tibet scandal he’d been embroiled in four years before, he’d been marking time. Now, he thought, his time had come.

Mrs. Warnecke, sensing his mood, stalked off without a good-bye to drink by herself until the next flight to Singapore.

What am I doing here? Hood said to himself as he watched the minuet of the junks traversing the harbor. It certainly wasn’t to fulfill some secret mission for Duncan Hale as errand boy for Uncle Sam. It was to complete what he’d long suspected was unfinished, his business with Kurt Raeder and Keyuri Lin.

Astonishing that Raeder had dared return.

Somewhere, in central Asia, was what he’d backed away from before: the test of being a man.

Hood had arrived at the edge of chaos. One couldn’t tell that in Hong Kong itself, with its stately British warships, regal banks and ministries, and bustling streets where coolies pulled rickshaws at a steady trot and Chinese women of high fashion minced in narrow silk dresses slit just high enough, to the knee, to make maneuverability possible. Sampans choked the quay and liners gleamed like mammoth wedding cakes, their stacks pumping out energetic streams of smoke. All this played out against a beautiful backdrop of steep green hills as extravagant and improbable as an opera set.

Beyond, however, was the mainland. Shanghai and Nanking had fallen to the Japanese the year before. Nipponese warplanes had sunk the American gunboat Panay in the Yangtze River in December, creating a diplomatic uproar. While the beleaguered Chinese army had won an impressive victory at Shantung this spring, now the Imperial Army was counterattacking toward Hankow. Their warplanes, rising sun on the wing, ranged like raptors. Munitions destined for Chiang Kai-shek were safely stacked on Hong Kong wharves under British protection. But once they were on railroads to the mainland, they ran a gauntlet of air raids.

The British trader Sir Arthur Readings explained all this when Hood called on him in the imperial oasis of Hong Kong called Happy Valley, site of the colony’s racetrack. Since British Intelligence had been alerted of Hood’s mission and agreed to help, Hood had been instructed by Duncan Hale to go to Readings for advice. Sir Arthur knew finance, good liquor, and China.

“Ordinarily, old chap, you’d pull up here and call the journey done,” Readings said when the two met for whiskey and dinner at his club. Apparently Sir Arthur did secret work for his empire beyond his shipping and sweatshops, and that work included liaison with mysterious agencies from the United States.

“It’s not like ’34 when you were here before,” Sir Arthur went on. “I know China was a bit of a scrimmage then, but it’s full-scale war now, millions killed, and the Japs are bombing the Kowloon-Canton Railway. I’m not sure whoever sent you entirely realizes what the situation is. Can’t blame Washington, tucked as it is on the other side of the world.”

I can, Hood thought to himself. “You said, ‘Ordinarily’?”

“Quite. The truth is, we live in perilous times and I’m told your mission could have real importance. You’re in for a bit of a romp. Accordingly, I have an idea. Just enough to get you killed, I suspect.”

“I’m not sure that will rattle my employers. Though I am cheap labor; paid my own way, mostly. A patriotic cog to counter the deficits of the New Deal.”

“By God, you won’t see a British lord doing that. That’s bloody marvelous, or bloody insane. So you’re English in one way; a bit balmy, are you?”

“My country is counting on it. So I’ve got to get to Tibet, and crossing China is the quickest way.”

“That’s like saying crossing the battlefield of Waterloo is the quickest way to Brussels. It’s sheer havoc out there, man. Chiang’s generals are at each other’s throats, the Nips have seized most of the coast and industry, and the Communists have created a bandit state of some sort up in the northwest. This Mao character won’t stand and fight, but he yaps and snaps like a little terrier. The only way Chiang has slowed the Japanese is to break the dikes on the Yellow and Yangtze rivers, flooding a thousand towns. Might as well go to the moon.”

“Arthur, if it was up to me I’d take your ‘ordinarily’ advice and board the Clipper back to Hawaii, finding another high-class tart to while away the monotony.”

“Another? You had one on the way here?”

“More interesting than looking at the ocean.”

The Englishman shook his head. “You Yanks always manage to make things a lark, don’t you? But then I wish I still looked like you.” Arthur was bald, sixty pounds overweight, and red as an apple. “And you’ve got a hankering to see the Roof of the World again?”

“Something like that. It appears the Nazis are trying to beat us to it.”

“Nazis! Good lord, they seem to be everywhere, don’t they? And which Nazis this time? The German military mission has abandoned the Chinese. Their new Japanese friends made them do it. Everyone’s choosing up sides, trading this dance partner for that one.”

“This Nazi is different. Old partner of mine named Raeder, an explorer and scientist on his way to Tibet. Capable, but perhaps too capable. I’m to catch up to him and find out what he’s up to.”

“Dominating the world, I imagine. That seems to be the German obsession these days.” Sir Arthur sniffed, glancing at his own empire’s clubs and racetrack. It was hard to imagine such established opulence ever being threatened. “Well, if you want to chase after Jerry, more power to you. Just take gold coin for bribes, ammunition to shoot your way through, and a good quart of scotch, because you’re not going to find any in Tibet. Worst cuisine in the world, I hear.”

“And some of the most glorious country. Their valleys are higher than the crest of our Rockies.”

“All the more reason not to go there, if you ask me. Dreadful climb. But say, here’s my idea. Have an eye for the ladies, do you?”

“Just the normal male appreciation.”

“Have you heard of Beth Calloway?”

“A looker?”

“A flier, though I hear she doesn’t look bad, either. A regular Amelia Earhart, this girl. A tomboy, what you Yanks might call an oddball. She showed up to shoot down Japanese, and while the Chinese won’t let a woman do that, Madame Chiang put her to work doing other things for the Chinese air force.”

“What things?”

“The male mercenaries monopolize the fighter and bomber planes, so they put Beth to work as an instructor. She also scouts airways and airfields to India and Burma, now that the Japanese are clamping off the Chinese coast. She’s flown over more of Asia than any woman, and more than any man, probably.”

“Really?” Hood sat straighter. “Tibet?”

“No idea, but you can spend three months walking there and being waylaid by bandits and warlords, or three days flying. I’m thinking you might be able to hire this girl away for a week or two, if Madame Chiang thought you were on the generalissimo’s side. I could write a persuasive letter. Jolly romp to go with a comely aviatrix, no? You can drop in on these Nazis while they’re still sweating uphill.”

“You think she’ll take me there?”

“The truth is, she’s done some timely jobs for the Crown here and there and we’ve had some contact,” Sir Arthur said. “She’s earned a penny or two doing it. I’ve also had some correspondence from your Mr., er, Hale, and he, too, suggested her.” The merchant sipped his drink. “Everybody wants to speed you on your way, it seems.”

“Reassuring.” Hood slugged his whiskey.

“Calloway has certain flair. If you can get to the new Chinese capital of Hankow alive, you can’t miss her. As often as not, she’s got cowboy boots and a Colt. 45. Bowie knife, too, I imagine. Lovely girl.” He smiled. “Resourceful.”

“You make it so enticing.”

“Better than the rogue Genghis Khans you’ll otherwise meet, I assure you. Just keep your head low when the Nips strafe. And never trust the Jerries.”