Dragonfire

by Ted Bell

  “Nothing, really. He was in Washington for meetings as a representative of Chiang Kai-shek, pleading for more and faster American aid. Seems the two of them have concocted some insane scheme or other. Wanted me to lend a hand. I politely declined. The old boy’s not playing with a full deck, I fear. He’s got only three cards left to play, and they’re all jokers.”

  “Sounds awful,” Hawke said.

  “Oh, it was a good deal worse than that,” Tiger replied.

  It was only then that Tiger recalled the well-oiled pistol now locked in his desk drawer in the library at Sevenoaks. A wave of despair washed over him. While Hawke was going off to fight, what was that old bastard, his father, doing?

  Plotting the assassination of the heroic Roosevelt with Chiang, that’s what. Biting his tongue nearly hard enough to make it bleed, Tiger simply said: “The old man’s recently gone way round the bend, Blackie. Capable of literally anything.”

  “I’m so sorry you have to deal with that, buddy,” Hawke said. “If there’s anything I can do to help, just say the word, and listen, I’ve got to tell you something. I might not make the fishing trip. Winston wants me back in London, pronto.”

  “What’s up? He tell you?”

  Hawke lowered his voice. “Another mission. An idea I’ve been playing around with finally caught his attention after the salubrious ending of the last one. He and Admiral Godfrey and his number two, Commander Ian Fleming, want to ramp up immediately and—”

  “Hey, excuse me, Blackie. I’ve got to make a trip to the loo. Be right back.”

  He needed air.

  The Chinese ambassador arose and walked quickly past the restrooms down the hall, and then down the wine red carpeted stairs, through the smoky, crowded, and somewhat rowdy tavern room, past the packed horseshoe bar, past the maître d’s station, and straight out the door into the snowy street.

  He needed a cigarette and a few moments to be alone with his turbulent emotions, and the sick feeling at the pit of his stomach whenever he thought about that fucking gun from his old man, locked away in the library drawer where he wouldn’t have to look at it. That awful dinner. Painfully, he was reminded of the nightmarish position he’d been put in because of his father and the generalissimo.

  If ever he really did have to fire that gun, he hoped it would be to put a bullet into his father’s head.

  And certainly not the head of the heroic American president, for whom he’d come to feel not only abiding respect, but, even, yes, something akin to love, as a son to a father. He could never bring himself to admit it, but he’d lately come very close to thinking of FDR as his father figure. Certainly a far more fathomable choice than the wily old fiend he’d been conceived by.

  President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a man he could emulate. Someone whose leadership and wisdom he could revere who could provide a moral compass and a cherished confidante with whom he could share his innermost thoughts. . . . Oh, well.

  “This is what you get by being born the devil’s spawn,” Tony Chow had said to him one day back in his childhood. Tiger had never forgotten or forgiven the sting of those cruel words.

  And now the late Tony Chow, alone with his memories at the bottom of a bottomless lake, knew he should have been far more careful in picking his enemies.

  “Oh, fuck it,” Tiger said aloud, tired of all this crap.

  He flicked the cigarette butt to the sidewalk and ground it out with the toe of one of his mirror-polished brogues.

  Then he pasted a perpetually wry smile on his face and walked back into the warm glow of the George Town Club to be with his friends, old and new.

  He was, after all, a man of the moment. An important cog among the many interwoven gears of the Washington war machine. He was, after all, now in the very thick of things, at the very nexus of Roosevelt and Churchill’s vast war machinations. He found himself at the center of a British-American sabotage operation, which would give the Nazis pure unbridled hell right on their doorstep. He was suddenly far more than a mere bureaucrat. He was a functioning warrior, doing his part to help America. He personified America’s great ally, China, in the supreme struggle of the age, to win the world war for the Allies and safekeep civilization.

  Tiger suddenly realized he was also somewhat jealous of his new friend Hawke. He knew he himself would be behind a desk for the remainder of the war. While Hawke would be dangling beneath a parachute canopy on a starry night, looking down at the muted lights of Berlin. Leaping into danger behind enemy lines, wreaking holy hell and havoc against his enemies.

  Hell with it. He would just have to find some way or other to become more relevant to the cause, starting with getting word to his friend Mike Lotus, U.S. Secret Service. He’d tell him of rumors emanating from Beijing, that Chinese agents might attempt an assassination of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In response, he was sure that the Secret Service would redouble their layers of protect.

  One thing was certain.

  He would sleep a whole lot easier.

  CHAPTER 41

  Number 10 Downing, London

  February 1942

  One week after the George Town Club dinner, as it happened, Winston Churchill did indeed give Hawke a top priority ultimatum. A wire delivered to his office appeared that afternoon informing him that a Royal Air Force transport plane was on the ground at a secret U.S. Army Air Corps landing strip in the Maryland countryside, ready to ferry him back across the Atlantic. Tonight. An unmarked government car would be at a secret RAF airstrip to deliver him unto Churchill at Number 10.

  The prime minister was expecting him tomorrow promptly at 10 A.M.

  And despite his misgivings about jumping into another critical mission so soon after Skyhook, and despite that the new mission had been his idea all along, he packed his rucksack and took a taxi out to the field in Maryland. No sooner was he aboard, seated all alone behind the cockpit in the cold in a canvas sling chair, than they were airborne. It was hellishly chilly in the cavernous fuselage of the empty transport plane, the air reeking of oil and petrol. Huddled under his paper-thin Army blanket, he smoked and slept when he was able and awoke when the big plane touched down on English soil. And then to Number 10 he went.

  “Enter, nephew!” a voice boomed from the cloud of steam rising from the big white porcelain bathtub. The cool white tiled walls were bathed in the sheen of condensation. “There’s champagne over on the table, Blackie.”

  Hawke, startled and trying to imagine the sober, dignified Roosevelt entertaining company in his bathtub with an offer of chilled champagne, found the glass of champagne releasing a bubbly stream to the surface. A bottle of Pol Roger stood in a silver ice bucket beside the glass. He took a seat on the white wooden stool and, thankfully, swallowed the icy bubbly in one draft. Another? Perhaps not.

  Hawke saw only the merest suggestion of a pair of chubby pink hands waving about inside the clouds of rising steam, and then he saw Churchill emerge from the mist, leaning forward in his tub, a genuine smile on his round, cherubic pink face, and examining his young nephew, just arrived from Washington.

  The prime minister raised his empty wineglass and Hawke leaned forward with the icy champers and filled his glass. Hawke, desperate for a cigarette, found himself wondering if a prime minister who received visitors in his bath and offered them champagne would also allow them to smoke as well.

  Probably not.

  “Good ho!” Churchill said, and collapsed back into the steamy veils, sloshing a goodly bit of soapy water over the rim of the big white tub. “I do hope you’re being properly looked after, Commander! Suitable lodgings on the top floor, I trust?”

  “Doing well, thank you, doing well,” Hawke said, grateful for the first warm glow of champagne hitting the system.

  At that moment, Churchill, in all his roly-poly naked pink glory, arose from the tub, stuck out his hand, and deadpanned, “Towel, if you
please, nephew!”

  Seeing the look of shock on the young officer’s face, the old fellow said, “Let it never be said that the prime minister of Britain has anything to hide from his nephew nor anyone else for that matter!”

  Hawke averted his eyes and handed him the fluffy terry towel.

  Toweling off in the steamy bathroom, Churchill said, “Listen, Horatio Hawke, there’s to be a reception in your honor at the noon hour. Down in the main reception room. Commander Fleming has organized a drinks party for DNI staff, Wild Bill Donovan, OSS, the usual suspects. At my suggestion, Admiral Godfrey wants you and Fleming to meet. Thinks you and Fleming might be a rather lethal combination going forward. This mission you call, so mysteriously, ‘Phantom Locomotive.’ I want the four of us to discuss it in some detail as the day wears on. Admiral Godfrey has some ideas for you. I think you will find him terribly helpful.”

  “Of course, Uncle. I need all the help I can get.”

  “Good, good! I think you and Fleming should get along splendidly. Two peas in a pod, as the saying goes . . . birds of a feather and all that, both intellectually challenged but devastatingly attractive and catnip for the ladies!” Winston stared at his nephew, waiting for a reaction.

  Hawke realized his leg had been pulled, smiled at his uncle, and said, “Good one, Uncle! You had me there for a moment.”

  “My pleasure. You’ve met young Fleming, I understand.”

  “Ian was in my class at Eton, and again at Dartmouth Naval College, although we were never close. A rather moody boy. Bit of a loner is my memory. Haven’t seen him since, actually.”

  “Well, he’s performed brilliantly over at DNI. Godfrey’s second-in-command and head of his own commando sabotage unit, 30AU. Assault Unit Thirty or, as Ian calls it, ‘Indecent Assault Unit Thirty.’ Now, I’ve ordered breakfast for you up in my private dining room. They’re waiting for you now. I’ll see you at Fleming’s party promptly at noon.”

  CHAPTER 42

  Number 10 Downing Street, London

  February 1942

  Fleming, tasked by Churchill himself with hosting the Naval Intelligence event honoring Hawke, was glad to finally escape from all the guffaws, backslapping, hale and hearties, and happily made his way to a quiet corner of the large, high-ceilinged room. There, waited a comfy leather sofa and two armchairs flanking a crackling fire. He loathed small talk and did not suffer well the endless stream of Winston’s off-color jokes that everyone in HM government seemed to find so amusing. He was quite content to be known as a chap with no sense of humor and to sit and observe the invitees, see who was talking, or sleeping, with whom and who was not. That sort of intel was usually helpful in the hothouse environment that was Whitehall at war.

  And here at last, Fleming saw, entered the man of the hour, following through the wide doorway on the coattails of Admiral Godfrey. Ian watched him closely as he smiled and shook hands and played every bit the handsome war hero in a charming fashion such as Olivier himself could not have outshone on the silver screen.

  Commander Ian Fleming, who was number two to Admiral Blinker Godfrey, the head of DNI, at Whitehall, was sitting back in his chair, watching with some amusement as the man of the hour, this dashing young hero, Commander Hawke, greeted Churchill and his wife, Clementine, and other assorted brass hats, all eager to shake hands with the man who’d delivered the ultimate prize, the Nazi Kriegsmarine’s 3-rotor decoder along with all the relevant codebooks. It was, by all accounts, one of the more spectacular individual feats of the war.

  From across the crowded room, Admiral Godfrey caught Fleming’s eye, nodded, and began wading through the mob with Hawke still on his heels toward Fleming’s ringside seat by the fire.

  Fleming was actually of two minds about this fellow he was about to see for the first time since Eton and college. Hawke’s reputation was now burnished gold. But still, Fleming himself had done a lot of similar wet work behind enemy lines. He was also the creator and inspiration for 30 Assault Team (known as 30AU), also known as “Ian’s Red Indians,” a crack team of commandos who’d penetrated enemy territory many times to perpetrate saboatage and gather vital intelligence and feed it back to Whitehall.

  Neither he himself, nor his team, had received, nor should they have received, half the internal recognition as had Hawke’s Operation Skyhook. It was not chagrin Fleming was feeling. Just the mildest traces of envy, perhaps.

  Hawke’s operation had been, from the get-go, a spectacularly conceived and brilliantly executed blow against the Nazis’ naval forces. Still top secret and surely to remain so forever, enough had leaked out around the edges for one to imagine its brilliance.

  Fleming, educated at Eton and Dartmouth, came from a very old, rich, and successful Scottish banking family, and he was not, by nature, one prone to the pangs of jealousy. But this young man, Lord Hawke, filthy rich, titled, popular with the other sex, good-looking enough to find himself frequently on the cover of the society gossip rags, rather had a tendency to get under one’s skin at times.

  Fleming stuck another cigarette into his tortoiseshell cigarette holder, clenched it between his teeth at a rather jaunty angle, and sat back to enjoy the show. Hawke was the golden boy now, the hero behind the encoder purloined at great risk of life and limb from the Nazis. He noticed Hawke catching his eye as he began working his way over toward him. Hawke arrived and extended his hand and Ian stood, then shook it rather firmly, just for good measure.

  Godfrey said, “Well, here you are, Fleming. Did you not invite yourself to your own fling, or are you just in a grouchy mood? Say hello to Commander Hawke, won’t you? He tells me you two were at school together. Not, he says, that you’d remember him at all. . . .”

  “Commander Hawke,” Fleming said warmly, “I am honored to finally meet you officially, sir. I’ve followed your DNI career since the beginning and congratulate you on your countless and enormous contributions to the fight. Blinker tells me you’ve got some excellent new bunker-busting ideas for us with which to beleaguer the Nazis anew.”

  “Well, for you to judge, of course, but, I must say, Winston is frightfully keen about the idea.”

  “As am I, as am I,” Godfrey said. “Time is getting short, and I thought we three might have a bit of a quiet chat about the scheme. Winston was supposed to join us, but he seems otherwise engaged with the First Sea Lord. This corner is private enough if we keep our voices down. Fleming, would you mind terribly ordering whiskey for us? You recall where the bar is, I’m fairly certain.”

  Ian stood and excused himself, heading once more into the fray.

  * * *

  —

  This Hawke fellow seemed a genuine enough chap, Ian perceived, someone whose thoughts and deeds were not guided by guile or conceit. There was a fleeting innocence in his compelling blue eyes that spoke well of his character. A good, honest fellow, that was Fleming’s first impression. A born warrior with a spine of steel. A man’s man to be sure, the kind of fellow whose company Fleming himself most enjoyed. The kind of man, Ian was fond of saying, “Whom men would wish to stand him a drink, whilst women much preferred him horizontal.”

  While Fleming fulfilled his obligations, Godfrey got his pipe going, looked up at Hawke, and said, “Brilliant chap, Fleming. Nerves of steel and a frightfully colorful imagination. Should anything untoward befall me, he is the next man up. Just so you know.”

  “He was quite the sportsman at school. Cricket, rugby, tennis, golf. Amazing athlete. He’s obviously taken good care of himself,” Hawke said. “I understand he’s just bought a home in Jamaica. Calls it Goldeneye. He says that after the war is over, he’s going there to write the great British spy novel. Says he’s got enough stories from his 30AU actions behind German lines to write fifty bloody novels if he wants to.”

  “Yes, so he told me. His brother, Peter, is a very successful author, and Fleming is very competitive with him. He also showed
me the Jamaica pictures. Lovely water views. But back to business. We three all the share the twin burdens of fate and victory here, don’t we? I’m looking forward to hearing Fleming’s take on your new scheme. He can bring a lot to the party, as you know. Ah, here he is now, bearing gifts . . . a brimming bottle of Haig Pinch and three crystal glasses fit for kings.”

  CHAPTER 43

  Number 10 Downing Street, London

  February 1942

  Once Ian had returned and poured the drinks all round, the three men sat back and savored the odd sip or two until Fleming, expelling a plume of blue smoke, said, “So, tell me about the new scheme you two have cooked up, won’t you, Hawke? Apparently your latest brainstorm has got old Winston walking into meetings singing, ‘Over there, over there!’ at the top his lungs. I’m exceedingly curious, to be honest.”

  “Well,” Hawke said, “it’s rather a curious thing, to be honest. Came to me in a dream, as these things have a way of doing. Where would you like to start?”

  “What’s your primary objective, for starters?”

  Hawke looked at him, smiled, and said, “Well. What we intend, Commander Fleming, is nothing less than to dismantle Germany’s entire primary railway system in a single devastating blow.”

  Fleming tried to hide his reaction to this staggering statement. “Good grief,” Fleming said, “is that all? Can we not sink the German Navy at the same blow? Ground the Luftwaffe? Corner the sauerkraut market? Kidnap the semi-beautiful Fraulein Eva Braun and hold her for a king’s ransom?”

  Hawke laughed, slapping his knee in the bargain.

  “It is a rather tall order, I admit, Commander Fleming. It’s sabotage, plain and simple, as no one knows better than you. But not so plain and not so simple, as I’ll explain.”

  “Good Lord,” Fleming said, gathering his wits, “you do think big, Commander Hawke! I’ll give you that. The code name you’ve given the operation certainly piqued my curiosity, Blackie. Do you mind if I call you Blackie? I’m happy to be known as Ian. . . . So, tell me, Operation Phantom Locomotive? Sounds very dramatic, I must say. Please elaborate . . . a ghost-in-the-machine type of thing, what?”