Dragonfire

by Ted Bell

  Hawke saw Blinker Godfrey give him an approving nod and said to Fleming: “Yes. Yes, there will most definitely be a ghost at the throttles of the locomotives when they roar inside Berlin Hauptbahnhof at full bore. Let me paint a quick picture for you in very broad strokes. Admiral Godfrey and I have all the necessary support documents, maps, et cetera, in a file in my private office. I’ll share it with you first thing tomorrow morning. Then we can discuss Operation Phantom Locomotive in great detail.”

  Godfrey interrupted, saying, “Well, Ian, let me interject here. I don’t think you’ll find what we now have in mind is nearly so complicated nor even as inherently risky as Commander Hawke’s Operation Skyhook. But if successful, Phantom will yield enormous dividends at a moment critical to national morale, to turning the tide in our war effort and in the hearts and minds on the home front. And as an added enticement, it’s sure to drive the jackboot boys in Berlin straight up the Reichstag walls!”

  “You have my full attention, Admiral,” Fleming said, leaning forward so as not to miss one word, he was so keen on it. “I must say I do rather like that code name. Operation Phantom Locomotive does have a nice ring to it.”

  “I agree. Now let me tell you about the plan. Broad strokes, as I say, but Hawke and his squad of fifteen intend to do a night drop deep into Germany, the countryside, perhaps within a radius of fifty miles outside of Berlin.

  “Once safely on the ground, the team will split up. Each saboteur will have been assigned a specific primary German railway station at the end of the Berlin trunk line, and that is his sole target. Each of the fifteen individual stations targeted is located on one of those primary trunk rail lines into and out of Berlin. That will be important.

  “Each man will be equipped with the necessary weapons and ammo, as well as tools, satchels of high explosive devices, and sufficient food and water for the amount of time he will require. I believe a maximum window of twelve hours, operating only at night, will suffice to accomplish what’s necessary. As soon as a man’s work is complete, and the driverless locomotives are speeding toward Berlin, he will immediately begin to make his way back to the barn at the drop location and wait with the others until exfiltration by means not yet determined. Understood?”

  “Question,” Fleming said. “How do the assault team members get to and from their targets, especially traveling such distances at night in unknown enemy countryside?”

  “Good question, Fleming!” Blinker said. “I was going to ask you about that. I had rather a good idea. Do you still have your full network of British sympathizers and Nazi Resistance operating under cover inside Germany?”

  “The Edelweiss Pirates? Couldn’t live without them, sir. Literally.”

  “Good to hear it. As I recall, you’ve kitted them all out as motorcycle couriers, the Deutschesbund Courier and Post Patrol, I believe they’re called. Sten guns and frag grenades in their saddlebags.”

  “Or,” Fleming said, “monster explosive devices in the saddlebags! Yes, we’re intact. All word-perfect German-born citizens with flawless papers and an encyclopedic knowledge of German history, culture, and terrain.”

  “Perfect!” Godfrey said. “Look here, Ian, here’s what Commander Hawke and I intend. Looking at aerial photos of possible landing zones, we’ve seen one LZ with a huge barn in a vast field, abandoned, near primary roads. I’d like you to have your lads, en masse, sneak their motorcycles inside that barn under cover of darkness and await our arrival at the drop site. Phantom team members, given maps of their targets and wearing appropriate Postal Courier uniforms, will then use their bikes to get to their targets with the explosive devices quickly and undercover. Upon completion of the mission, they make their way back to the waiting aircraft, while Fleming’s C and P Patrol riders return home before dawn. What say you, Fleming?”

  “It’s perfect, sir.”

  “Brilliant, sir!” Hawke added, not to be outshone by his new rival.

  “Once in situ at his assigned station, each operative will scout his particular rail yard under cover of darkness and locate a suitable locomotive waiting on a siding. That is, one that is scheduled to depart that night for Berlin but has not yet been coupled with a train. He will then board the detached locomotive and place his explosives wherever Fleming expects they will do the most collateral damage.”

  “And then?” Fleming said, his curiosity getting the better of him. “What happens?”

  “Ian, calm down. You’ll hear all the Phantom details in good time. But I asked you and Hawke here for a very specific reason. Commander Hawke, a question I’ve been nursing. That is, who on your team will be responsible for designing and implementing the explosive devices to be used in the attacks? Have you designated someone for that purpose?”

  “Yes, sir. Lieutenant Stauffenberg, who was my number two on Skyhook. He’s had a bit of sabotage experience, I understand. Apparently managed to blow up a bakery truck in front of the Berlin opera house on an opening night when Herr Hitler himself was in attendance.”

  “A bit of sabotage experience, you say, Blackie? Small-scale hit-and-run operations? Ian, this is where you come into the picture. We’re going to send at least fifteen massive steam locomotives packed to the gunwales with high explosives, all hurtling along in excess of eighty to ninety miles per hour, right into the beating heart of Berlin with no one at the controls! Thoughts?”

  Fleming thought a second. “Hmm. No timers. Impact detonators, obviously. I’ll need to get a look at similarly designed locomotives before I can speculate on the design components and ideal placement of the explosive devices inside the locomotives. . . .”

  “Thanks, Ian. Blackie, by way of background, let me tell you a little bit about Commander Fleming’s 30AU, his assault unit.”

  “I call it my ‘Indecent Assault Unit,’” Fleming said with a smile. “We’re a very rowdy and destructive bunch of lads. . . .”

  Blinker looked at Hawke. “Ian, behind his back, is called ‘the Detonator.’ There is not a more experienced man in the art of high explosives, nor a more seasoned saboteur in all of Britain. Remember the massive Rhine Valley bridge that stood in the heart of Germany for centuries? It’s now a pile of rubble. The hydroelectric plants and dams at Remagen? Gone, thanks to Fleming here. . . .

  “Is that right?” Hawke said. He suddenly saw exactly where this was going. “Ian, could I implore you to hop aboard the Phantom train? I’m sorry I didn’t think of asking you myself. I was overwhelmed with sheer logistics. And I just was not aware of all your vast experience in modern demolition stratagems. . . . I really had no idea you were so active out in the field.”

  “Bringing young Ian into the picture? Yes, by all means. That would be my job, Hawke,” Godfrey said. “Yours is to think these insane schemes of yours up out of thin air. Mine is to bring you back in touch with reality to ensure that they are executed perfectly. Et voilà, Monsieur Fleming?”

  “I’m in,” Fleming said. “When and where do we start training for this epic adventure?”

  “Immediately. I’ve been scouting rail yards in the north of Scotland. Found the perfect one near the town of Dundee. There’s a huge warehouse out in the rail yard built right over the tracks, open at both ends, where, out of sight, we can do all the demolition design and fabrication in complete secrecy. There’s an old abandoned railway hotel, the Highlander, across the street from the yard. Holes in the floors, dust everywhere, and inundated with mice, but it will serve. That’s where everyone will be housed for the duration of the training.”

  “Sounds ideal, sir,” Hawke said. “Always rather fond of mice myself.”

  “It is ideal,” Godfrey said. “Oh, Ian, just for fun, tell Hawke about your chocolate bombs.”

  “Admiral, with respect, I don’t think he could care less.”

  “Ian, with respect, I think I could not care more,” Hawke said. “Chocolate bombs? Surely, you’re joking.�
��

  “Just an idea I had. Two wafer-thin pieces of steel with a film of nitro in between. Coated with best Swiss chocolate. Break off a corner and the cotton fuse ignites the explosive. A thought I had about smuggling these things into the Reichstag or the Eagle’s Nest to assassinate Herr Hitler or Goebbels or any of them. No success yet, but we keep trying.”

  Hawke laughed out loud. “My God, that is insanely brilliant, my dear Ian.”

  Fleming reached out his hand to Hawke, and Blackie shook it warmly, saying, “Well, Fleming, it looks like we’re going to be partners in crime for this show. The Fleming and Hawke Show. I’m sure I can learn a lot from you.”

  Ian smiled and said, “As can I from you, Blackie, as can I!”

  “I’ll drink to that,” Godfrey said, all smiles that his secret plot to bring Fleming aboard the Operation Phantom Locomotive seemed to have succeeded. He raised his glass and said, “A toast, gentlemen. To our wives and girlfriends! May they never meet!”

  It got a laugh as it always did.

  And so it began, what would prove to be one of the most fortuitous meetings and collaborations in the storied history of British espionage and sabotage during World War Two.

  Fleming. And Hawke. Known in the Navy as code names “Falcon” and “Raptor.” Birds of prey, in other words!

  Together at last.

  And primed to kill half the Nazi hierarchy in the Reichstag Building in the heart of Berlin. Or, at the very least, blow Herr Hitler the hell out of his bloody bed in the midnight hour!

  CHAPTER 44

  Dragonfire Club, the Bahamas

  Present Day

  Alex Hawke and Stokely Jones spent the rest of that week exploring, just your basic recon. They were doing a complete reconnaissance of the entirety of the Dragonfire complex. Every island, every nook and cranny of every island. Stokely took the Wally’s helm early each morning, and Hawke, using a Leica camera left over from the fifties that his late grandfather had bequeathed to him, a Minox B Subminiature camera, shot literally hundreds of pictures.

  The tiny espionage camera, shaped like a small but elongated cigarette lighter, could be easily concealed in the palm of an agent’s hand; it had first been conceived in Latvia in 1922. And it was finally invented and produced in 1936 by a Baltic German named Walter Zapp. It was the camera of choice on both sides of the Iron Curtain during the whole of the Cold War.

  On these sun-filled Bahamian days, Hawke, wearing only his ivory white silk shirt and a navy blue Vilebrequin bathing suit, would pretend to be sunning himself on the bow of the Wally boat, while surreptitiously snapping away at anything that caught his interest. The morning after their submerged visit to the Chinese sub pen, Hawke had called his old comrade and friend, Patrick Brickhouse Kelly, director of the CIA, known to his friends as Brick.

  Upon hearing Hawke’s report of Chinese naval operations being conducted in secrecy just a hop, skip, and jump from the east coast of Florida, Brick suddenly went utterly and completely silent.

  “Brick? Are you still with me?”

  “Yeah, barely. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Alex! I mean, seriously? The fucking Chinese are actually operating Shine-class subs out of the fucking Bahamas? Utterly beyond the pale. The president’s going to pitch a total shit fit.”

  “But they are. Three of them, in fact. Two of them were berthed inside when we swam inside. One, I assume, was off on patrol of our Eastern Seaboard.”

  “And you’ve got something to prove all this? You actually got inside the damn sub pen?”

  “I did. Stoke and I. As soon as we ring off, I’m going to e-mail you photographic proof via my encrypted iPad.”

  “Christ,” Brick said. “Have you any idea how serious this is? Their new subs carry the new JL-Three nuclear missiles. Range of nearly six thousand miles. And because they’re new subs, unlike land-based ICBMs, Chinese subs can sail close enough to the American mainland to put all U.S. cities well within their range.”

  “So, it’s even worse than I thought. . . .”

  “It most certainly is. Doesn’t get any worse, my friend. And you two are the only ones down there who have any inkling about this? You and Stokely? Say yes, Alex.”

  “Yes.”

  “What in hell are you doing down there, anyway?”

  “I’m here investigating the disappearance of my godson, Henry. Prince Henry, actually, the Queen’s favorite grandson. There’s massive security all over the place. Including a pair of Chinese Navy missile frigates patrolling the coastline. They’re painted in a generic grey camo to disguise them, but that’s what they are, all right. Now I understand why they’re operating in these pacific waters. ‘Pacific’ as in calm, of course. Not the ocean.”

  “Of course.” Brick sighed, knowing Hawke would never tire of trying his patience with what he thought were humorous asides. “You know what you’re sitting on, right, Alex?”

  “Yes. A keg of dynamite. Laced with C-4 and nitroglycerin. The next Cuban Missile Crisis multiplied to the tenth power.”

  “Exactly. As soon as I receive your transmission, I’m going directly to the president and the Joint Chiefs. Do you two require any backup down there?”

  “Not now, Brick. But maybe later. You remember the Tang brothers that I told you about? The twins who rule the vast criminal underworld? The duo behind that black ops massacre that went south in Hong Kong two years ago, remember?”

  “Breathes there a soul who does not?”

  “The Tangs built this place. The Dragonfire Club. They run it as an ultraexclusive resort. Six wholly individual Bahamian islands connected by a monorail and a launch service. Hotel is by invitation only. Gambling, girls, whatever. But what it really is, I believe, is a cover story. What it really is, is the worldwide HQ of their international criminal network, which is one of the reasons, in addition to their jobs as landlords for the Chinese Navy, that they have fortified this island to within an inch of its life. The security here is like nothing I’ve ever encountered before, trust me.”

  Brick said, “I’m looking at it on Google Earth right now. Impressive.”

  “Very,” Hawke said, matter-of-factly. “A billionaire’s playground on an epic scale.”

  “Okay. Talk to me. What’s your cover down there?”

  “Chairman and CEO of Hawke Industries, LLC, based in London, with offices in New York, Miami, L.A., Paris, Tokyo, and Madrid. A worldwide consortium of very important companies and up to their ears in very important people. Including the boss.”

  Only his old pal Hawke could get a laugh out of Brickhouse Kelly at a moment like this. But laugh he did.

  “They buy that? They don’t make you for a spook? Hell, Alex, they’re looking for a new Bond now that Daniel Craig has abandoned ship. You could have that role if you wanted a new career. I’m only half kidding. Listen to me. I don’t want you getting sideways with these people. Especially since you and Mr. Jones are down there all by your lonesomes. If you need a few heavily armed babysitters, say the word, and they’ll be down on the next thing smoking out of Joint Base Andrews.”

  “So far, so good right now. But you never know, Brick. If I feel like I’m about to get in over my head down here, you’ll be the first to know about it. Meanwhile, I need a favor.”

  “Name it and claim it, buddy.”

  “I need you to run a name through the international criminal database at Langley. Ready?”

  “Aim, fire.”

  “It’s a woman. Her name is Zhang Tang. In her thirties, born in Shanghai. She’s the younger sister of the twins. She’s fancies herself the head honcho down here at Dragonfire Bay. Queen-bee sort of thing. Runs the joint in their absence. I’d love to know whose side she’s on.”

  Brick said, “Has to be her family, right? There’s no way she could not know what the boys are up to.”

  “Yeah. I think so, too. I’d still like
whatever dossier your guys can put together on her. I think she could prove useful when we blow the lid on this. Tell me, is the secretary of state still in Beijing negotiating the trade agreement, or trade disagreement as some people in Parliament have come to call it?”

  “No, he’s back in town.”

  “He’s going to have his work cut out for him when this fit hits the shan.”

  “Have you met him, the new guy at State? Name is Jon Adler. Fulbright scholar, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Harvard, Kennedy fellow, the whole nine yards.”

  “Know his name, that’s all. What the hell do you think the president is going to do with this hot potato, Brick?”

  “The subs? Same thing as Kennedy did with the Soviets back in October of nineteen sixty-two. Call them out on it. Go public and go big. Give a slide presentation at the UN Security Council. Show your photos. Get the Navy to set up a naval blockade in the South China Sea. No maritime travel in or out of the Chinese mainland. Then I’m going to bring our Atlantic Fleet to bear in the Bahamas. Encircle the entire complex of islands. Give the Chinese forty-eight hours to withdraw all three subs from this hemisphere. Noncompliance with the deadline results in saturation bombing of the islands once all the civilians have evacuated. That’s what I’d do, anyway.”

  “Sounds about right, Brick.”

  “Right. Too bad they had to pull this stunt. We were finally getting somewhere with all that shuttle diplomacy. Put an end to their decades of horrific trade abuses.”

  “Yeah, well. As I’ve said to you many times, any problem you can solve with money is not really a problem.”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “Stay safe, Hawke.”

  “That’s me. Mr. Safe and Sound. You, too, Brick.”