Dragonfire

by Ted Bell

  Tyger Tyger, burning bright,

  In the forests of the night;

  What immortal hand or eye,

  Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

  In what distant deeps or skies,

  Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

  On what wings dare he aspire?

  What the hand, dare seize the fire?

  He stepped outside into a snow-white wonderland. The little town of Washington, completely covered under a mantle of pure white snow lit by early-morning light, was captivating. The trees on the grounds of the Chinese Embassy shifted and swayed in breezes that sent soft flutterings of snow falling to the ground below. It was, Tiger thought, enchanting. For the first time, he realized that his new home was to be this exquisitely beautiful metropolis. Home to magnificent monuments, wide boulevards, neoclassical architecture (by far his favorite period), great stone mansions with sweeping lawns rising up to greet them . . . it was, well, what it was, was perfect.

  CHAPTER 6

  Bermuda

  Present Day

  Sigrid Kissl pressed forward, her chin stretched over the steering wheel, putting her nose against the cold windshield of the old Bentley as she raced to the side of her lover. The wipers could scarcely keep up with the curtains of rain that thrashed Bermuda’s Coast Road. It was a dark night, anyway, neither moon nor stars, only the weak Lucas beams of her lover’s ancient grey saloon piercing the veils of tears beyond.

  “Bugger all!” she shouted, banging her right fist on the leather-covered dash. “Seriously!”

  She turned up the windscreen defroster, hoping to reduce the fog that kept threatening to cloud her view of the rain-slick road snaking along the coast. She’d waited at the table as long as she could, not wanting to be rude, only jumping to her feet halfway through dessert, startling the other guests and saying to her hostess, Lady Mars: “Sorry, darling! I have to go. Something’s terribly wrong. I could see it in his eyes. I can feel it! Please excuse me and—”

  “Go, my sweet,” Lady Mars said to her. “Go to him. He’s all that counts, anyway. . . .”

  And here she was, a woman on a mission. She had never felt comfortable in this role. She always felt she was either letting her beautiful lover down or right on the verge of doing so. Not that he demanded so much, no. At least not intellectually. He was a patient soul when it came to her, in the kitchen and on the golf course. Everywhere, that is, except in bed. Oh, yes, he was an ardent companion in that arena, a man who gave much, but demanded much in return.

  “Christ!” she heard herself scream.

  She hit the brakes and turned the wheel over hard in an attempt to avoid the big coconut palm that had just come down less than a hundred feet in front of her. She was nearing the crux of the bend and threatening to go off the road and down onto the rocks and into the crashing sea.

  Somehow, she got the old grey Bentley under control and back onto the macadam. She was close now; she could see the black humpback of Teakettle Cottage standing out to sea, braving the roar of waves rolling ashore and the lashings of wind and rain.

  As she crested the hill, she saw flashing red and blue lights at the bottom, pulled up just outside the hidden drive up to the cottage. Two or three Bermuda Police Service cruisers were blocking the coast road in both directions. . . . There was yellow crime scene tape festooning the banana plants, stretched across the entrance to the sandy lane that wound its way up the hill through the thick jungle of vegetation.

  She rolled down the hill and pulled off on the verge. A young officer turned to look at her, shining his powerful flashlight on her face.

  He tapped on the window, and she wound it down halfway.

  “Sorry, madam. Police action. Crime scene. This road is closed. You’ll have to turn around and head back the other way.”

  Crime scene? she thought. Crime scene?

  “Sorry, Officer, but this is m-my home. I think my . . . my, uh . . . my companion might be in grave danger. I have to go to him.”

  “Let me see some identification, please. Proof of residency.”

  “Yes, yes. Of course. It’s right here in my purse. . . . Here you go. . . .”

  He shone the light on her Bermuda driver’s license, noting the address on the South Shore Road. “All right, Miss Kissl. You may proceed on foot up the drive. The police are probably wrapping this scene up by now, and you can—”

  Wrapping it up? She’d come as quickly as she possibly could, hadn’t she? Hadn’t she?

  She leapt from the Bentley, whipped off her high-heeled shoes, and brushed her way past the young officer, racing barefoot up the sandy lane to save her man.

  * * *

  —

  There were two ambulances and two or three more police vehicles, lights still flashing red and blue, parked in the drive nearest the front entranceway. Yellow crime scene tape up here, too, draped across the front door, and, God, someone draped in blood-soaked sheets was about to be loaded into the rear of the ambulance. Alex? She dashed up the final stretch of wet sand. There was so much blood. . . .

  “Alex! Alex! Oh, my darling! What did . . . ? What happened . . . ? What’s going on?”

  One of the two EMS medics turned and said, “This is Mr. Grenville, ma’am. . . . We need to get him to the ER right now! Please step back. . . .”

  “Oh, dear God, Pelham. My poor, poor Pelham. . . .”

  She took his hand.

  “You’re going to be all right, darling Pelham. Do you hear me? Everything is going to be . . .”

  It was clear that Pelham was unconscious. Or was it? Was he . . . Could he be?

  Sigrid grabbed the medic by his sleeve.

  “Where is Lord Hawke? En route to hospital? Inside? Where?”

  “Lord Hawke is receiving emergency medical treatment inside the house, Miss Kissl. We need to stabilize him before we can—”

  She ran for the opened front door, ignoring the policeman standing guard outside and tearing at the yellow crime scene tape, moaning and sobbing, near hysteria.

  The policeman took her by the upper right arm and guided her off the front walk and out onto the grass and the gardens beyond.

  “All right, please calm down. They’re coming out with him now.”

  Seconds later, two EMS medics emerged from the cottage, a man on a blood-soaked stretcher between them.

  “We’ve got a code red,” the man shouted. “Everyone out of the way. Code red!”

  She turned to the policeman, wiping the tears from her eyes. “Is he still alive?”

  “Ma’am, we found him in very bad shape. I’m sure these guys are doing everything humanly possible to save him and—”

  “Alex!” she cried, seeing the stretcher surrounded by medics racing him frantically toward the waiting ambulance. “Alex, my darling man! I love you!”

  “Please try to calm down, miss.”

  “Did you catch the man who did this, Officer?”

  “I’m afraid not. We searched the house in its entirety as well as the gardens and down on the beach. Nothing.”

  “Oh, my God . . . Can I go with him in the ambulance?”

  “No room with all those EMS techs working on him. Sorry.”

  “That’s all right. I’ll drive my own car. I can’t spend the next twenty-four or so hours in this evening gown. . . . I’ll just go inside and change and get a few things he might need during his stay. Are there still police inside?”

  “No. We’re done here until tomorrow first light. We’ll be back with forensics and crime scene boys. . . . Hold on, miss. Here they come with the stretcher! Get back!”

  And in wink of an eye, her lover was loaded inside, and the ambulance, lights flashing and sirens wailing, fishtailed around in the sandy drive and disappeared down into the green jungle below.

  * * *

  —
<
br />   Only one cop remained, pulling the front door shut. Sigrid put on her most alluring posture and addressed him.

  “I am Alex Hawke’s personal assistant. May I please go inside? I need to change and get some of Lord Hawke’s prescription medications before I go to the hospital. I won’t be ten minutes.”

  “No worries, ma’am. Forensics is all done here. I’m headed back to the station. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “Yes. And . . . thank you for everything.”

  “All right, then. Just one question. Does the victim have any enemies here on Bermuda? Anyone wishing to do him harm?”

  “Well, obviously he does, doesn’t he, for God’s sake? Look at him!”

  “Anyone you know, is what I meant, ma’am.”

  “No. No one I know. He has enemies in every corner of the world.”

  “Well. I’d hurry up then, if you want to get to the hospital . . . in time.”

  Sigrid raced to the front door, pulled it open, and stepped inside. The house was cold and as dark as a tomb. She made her way through the front room, feeling her way along the pieces of furniture. Their bedroom faced the sea, at the end of a hallway leading away from the circular bar that opened onto the beach below.

  She suddenly felt a cold, wet wind blowing in from the sea. Had she left the door open? She didn’t think so. Maybe one of the seaward French doors? She thought not because Alex was always so careful to—

  A searing white light suddenly stopped her in her tracks, left her staggering and blinded.

  “What?” she cried. “What the hell is that?”

  “So you’re Sigrid,” a bizarre voice, barely a whisper but audible. “Your Instagram pictures don’t lie, baby. I see what his lordship sees in you, honey. Come over here and let ole Shit get a closer look at you. . . . I wanna smell you, baby. I wanna lick you.”

  “Leave me alone! There are police out there! Get out now, or I’ll scream. . . .”

  “I love to hear a woman scream,” he said. “You jes’ go ahead and let ’er rip, baby. . . . Give it yer best shot.”

  “I’m warning you. . . .”

  “Go ahead and scream, woman, afore you make me mad. Do something to you I’ll regret . . .”

  Sigrid gathered her strength and screamed as loudly as she ever had in her entire life. “Help! Help meeeee. . . .”

  She knew the cops had all gone. But he didn’t, and maybe it would be enough to—

  A rough hand had her by the throat, coming from behind, squeezing her larynx. . . .

  “All righty, all righty,” he said. “That was a good one. You going to behave, little lady? I don’t want to hurt you none. . . .”

  She squirmed and hiked her tight black skirt up. Then she kicked her right heel upward and behind her as hard as she could, hoping to catch his knee or, better yet, his groin . . . but she didn’t catch either.

  “Ah, honey. You don’t want to hurt ole Shit, now, do you? He’s going to take care of you tonight. Maybe give you a hot bath, tuck you in bed, right? Give you a nice back rub maybe. I will warn you though, baby face. You let the Big Dog out? Hell, that monster will hunt! I sincerely shit you not. . . .”

  She felt the sting of the blade at her throat. . . .

  “Just do what you’re told. You don’t . . . this ain’t going to end well for you, little lady.”

  “Please! Please don’t hurt me!”

  “Aw, baby, spare me the agony. You just remember that everybody has a breaking point. Learned that in my CIA days. Tonight, you and me? We’re going to find out what yours is. I’m gonna make you feel things no woman has ever felt. You’re gonna be down on your knees, begging for the end by the time I’m done. . . .”

  It was then that she saw the Taser in his hand.

  “Time I introduced you to my zaptastic friend.” He smiled at her as he zapped the back of her fleshy thigh with fifty thousand watts for at least fifteen seconds, until her bones became a conduction system, her nerve endings afire, her entire body shaking uncontrollably.

  He zapped her again, slightly below the curve of her ass, this time for much longer.

  The scream that then issued from her throat was at a pitch and of such rampant power and blistering intensity as to cause the countless multicolored tropical birds, hidden in the plantation of thick green banana trees outside the cottage windows, to rise up as one and flee, winging away en masse out over the breaking waves and the dark Atlantic Ocean beyond.

  Inside the little cottage by the sea, all was still. All was quiet.

  The Reaper had come and gone.

  And it had been grim.

  CHAPTER 7

  Washington, D.C.

  December 1941

  Ambassador Tang stood waiting patiently under the porte cochere. The bulbous black 1939 Cadillac limousine that had ferried him all round Georgetown last night was paused at the security gate, white smoke billowing from its exhaust. The cavernous grey felt interior of the American car, after all the diminutive Chinese government vehicles, would be a welcome change for his six-foot-plus frame.

  And the U.S. Army driver who’d been assigned to him was a pleasant surprise. He was an easygoing chap, a Southern fellow from—where was it?—Georgia. Bobby Ray, his name was. Tiger had been calling him “Mr. Ray” for most of the evening until he’d finally been informed that “Ray” was not his chauffeur’s last name, but in fact was his middle name. His last name, he said, was Beavers. And then added, somewhat mysteriously, “Bobby Ray Beavers of the Beavers of Claxton, Georgia, fruitcake capital of the world, and welcome to it.”

  He had a way of talking, Mr. Beavers did. Fruitcake? What in God’s name was that?

  The limo wound its way up the long, serpentine drive, gliding through the snow-covered ornamental trees. Tiger followed the Cadillac’s path, his nostrils flaring at the bite of the frosty air. A chill went up his spine that straightened him up, and he realized his recovery from the previous night’s debauchery was well on its way. Now he just needed a good long walk somewhere, get his heart rate up and his thoughts to settle and coalesce. . . .

  The black car pulled under the covered entry, out of the snow, and Bobby Ray Beavers swung his door open and climbed out, smiling at Tang across the snowy rooftop of the Cadillac. And then came that long, slow drawl, must have crawled all the way up from Georgia.

  “Well, good morning, suh! Sorry I’m a touch late. Damn traffic’s backed up from the Key Bridge all the way into Arlington. . . .”

  The driver made his way through the freshly fallen knee-deep snow to open the rear door for his new passenger and swung it wide.

  “We’ve got plenty of time,” Tang said, climbing inside the darkness of the rear and stretching his long legs out before him, luxuriating in the grey felt upholstery. The Americans seemed to have an appreciation for luxury that had not yet reached the shores of his homeland. He was a sensual creature, after all, and that fact boded well for his tenure here in this garden of earthly delights. He said:

  “I’d like to stop and take a walk somewhere on the way to the White House. Get some air. Get my blood flowing to my brain. Where do you suggest, Bobby Ray?”

  The chauffeur shut the door securely and went back around to his opened door. He climbed in and turned around, his arm along the top of the seat, and smiled.

  “Well, lessee. Let me think on it a spell. Place I like? Is to walk in Potomac Park, down by the Lincoln Memorial. Hardly ever anybody down there, and it’s real pretty, you know . . . exspecially in all this snow!”

  “Sounds extra special to me. Let’s go, Bobby Ray. We’ve got about an hour to kill before we’re expected. Let’s make good use of it.”

  “Yessir, Mr. Ambassador. Don’t you worry neither. I won’t spare the horses. . . .”

  * * *

  —

  Within minutes of this swift and pleasant rid
e through uncharted urban territory, the new Chinese ambassador decided that Washington was indeed one of the loveliest capital cities he’d ever visited in his life. He loved all the gleaming white monuments, the parks at every turn, each filled with elegant statuary depicting great heroes of the young country’s glorious past. He was deeply proud of his homeland’s ancient culture and modern achievements. That was China. But he felt something more akin to love for the story that was America.

  He’d studied American history while an undergraduate at Cambridge, his focus the profound effects on society and political history in the aftermath of the American Revolution. In fact, he’d written his undergraduate thesis on General George Washington. In the process of his studies, he’d met all the great man’s friends and colleagues, including, Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, Franklin, Madison, and finally, his personal favorite, the gloriously swashbuckling Marquis de Lafayette, who had saved the day at Yorktown.

  And, later, as a postdoctoral candidate at Oxford, he’d shifted his focus to the man from Illinois, Abraham Lincoln. And here, he’d at last found his one true hero.

  The ambassador leaned forward, putting a hand on the back of the front seat and peering ahead through the snow-blown windows of the big black car.

  “That’s it, isn’t it? The Lincoln Memorial?”

  “Yessiree, Mr. Ambassador. There she is all right.”

  “She? Who?”

  “Well, you know, figger of speech. Down South, land o’ cotton, is what I mean.”

  Tiger knew enough now to stop trying to decode the things Bobby Ray Beavers said. So he just said:

  “Pull over, Bobby Ray. I want to go have a look.”

  He was immediately taken aback by the majestic, templelike appearance of the edifice, one that reminded him of the Parthenon. He found his thoughts were not of classical architecture or war, but of the magnificent mind of the man picked out in marble, seated so resolutely inside the central chamber. It was, he thought, staring up at Lincoln with a shudder of emotion, with the possible exception of Michelangelo’s David in Florence, the most powerful inanimate object he’d ever encountered in his life.