Dragonfire

by Ted Bell

  “Merry, Merry Christmas, Mr. President,” he said, striding in, hiding his face behind the big gift. “I cannot tell you how honored I am to be here with you and in such a beautiful part of the world. Now I know why you spend as much time as possible down here.”

  “Tiger, could you possibly put that giant Christmas present down. I can’t see your face!”

  “Oh, sure! Sorry! Afraid I got a little carried away with my present,” he said, placing the package on the floor under the Christmas tree.

  He loved the fact that FDR had had the Lionel HO gauge model train set up so he could watch it race around the base of the tree with its whistle tooting and smoke pouring from its stack!

  “Merry Christmas, Tiger, my friend,” FDR said, putting his hand out. “Cannot tell you how delighted I am to have you here in Georgia. I felt badly that it was such a last-minute invitation! I sincerely hope I didn’t interrupt any well-laid plans, old fellow! Sit down! Sit down! Take the other leather armchair closest to the fire. Let me get you a cocktail! I’m sure the sun is well past the yardarm somewhere in the British Empire. We’ll drink to your friend Hawke, shall we? I understand from Eleanor that he and Miss Woolworth have announced their engagement.”

  “Indeed, he has, and indeed, we shall, sir,” Tiger said.

  “Good, good, I hate to drink alone. Don’t you?”

  “To be honest, Mr. President, I only drink when I’m alone or with somebody. . . .”

  FDR eyed him for a moment and then broke out into his braying laughter. “Sorry . . . ahem . . . sorry, but that’s funniest drinking joke I’ve ever heard. Where did you pick that up?”

  “One of my flatmates at Oxford. Never passed up a chance to use it, either.”

  Roosevelt reached up and took a silver bell from the tabletop. He shook it three times and then called out, “Jarvis! Jarvis, are you out there lurking about? We need cocktails in here. Urgent! Tiger, perhaps you’d rather have a splash of champagne?”

  “No, no, but thanks. I’ll just have—”

  “Oh, here you are at last, Jarvis. The ambassador would like a cocktail. . . . Tiger?”

  “Yes, I’d like a nice Jack Daniel’s bourbon on the rocks with a dash of bitters, please.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Scotch, please,” the president said. “There’s an open bottle of Cutty Sark over on the drinks table, Jarvis.”

  The drinks served, they raised their glasses, and Roosevelt said, “To that brave warrior Blackie Hawke, may God keep him safe over there, rattling Hitler’s cage with that naval officer chap of Churchill’s, Ian Fleming.”

  “To Blackie Hawke, may he come home safely once more!” Tiger said, taking a sip. “And to our wives and girlfriends, and never the twain shall meet!”

  It was an old joke, to be sure, but the president, who loved a good joke and out of sheer kindness, managed a believable laugh.

  The president sipped his whiskey and enjoyed his cigarettes, cajoling the ambassador to tell him tales of his childhood days in China. Tiger, who’d long realized that a guest always had to sing for his supper, didn’t disappoint with his stories of childhood pranks and games.

  They were called to supper around three. On the large mahogany sideboard in the dining room, in the flickering golden light of the three massive sterling silver candelabra, and beneath an epic oil painting of the Battle of Yorktown, they saw Jarvis carving away at a delectable-looking ham. Mable was there, too, spooning up epic portions of spinach soufflé and au gratin potatoes festooned with parsley.

  After the repast, FDR said, “Heavens, tell Cook that was delicious, Mable! But if I have just one more bite, I fear I shall burst my silver buttons! What about you, Tiger? Do you have any spare room for pudding?”

  “Is it rude to ask what it is, sir?”

  “Hardly. Fool if you don’t, my dear boy. Plum pudding with brandied butter, or hard sauce, as we Johnnie Rebs say down here in the good ole southland.”

  “Perfect.”

  “Jarvis,” FDR said, “the ambassador here is going to have the plum pudding with hard sauce. Could you serve dessert in the library? Then I shall have my glass of port and sit and stare at my beautiful Tannenbaum.”

  Tiger said, “Tannenbaum? Is that what you said, Tannenbaum? Not familiar with the term. . . .”

  “Yes,” the president said with a glint in his eye and a small wisp of a smile that instantly conveyed to Tiger that the man was having him on.

  “And what, pray tell,” Tiger said, “is a Tannenbaum?”

  “Someone told me you had a fine English education. I think it was your father, in fact. Cambridge, Oxford, all those la-di-da oh-so-British schools. Was I misinformed?”

  “Guilty as charged, Mr. President. So, Tannenbaum. It sounds German. Is it? Because if it is, I’ve yet to learn that guttural language. To my ear, it always sounds as if they’re shouting curses at one another. But I’m sure that Herr Hitler will one day have us all yelling at one other.”

  “Not if Winston and I have a say in the matter, he won’t. In the meantime, Tannenbaum, as dear Winston informed me on the telephone last evening, is Nazi-speak for Christmas tree. A song or something. Right now that madman is probably by the tree, singing it to his little mistress, Eva Braun.”

  “Aha! Good one! May I ask you a question, Mr. President?”

  “Sure. As long as it’s not too personal,” he replied with a smile.

  “Well. I’ve long been curious about something. Why is it that your dear friend and ally, Churchill, always pronounces the word ‘Nazi’ as ‘Nar-zi’ in all the newsreels at the picture show?”

  Roosevelt burst out laughing.

  “Why? I’ll tell you exactly why. Because he has it on the highest authority that every time Hitler sees those newsreels, Churchill’s obviously deliberate mispronunciation of the word drives him stark raving mad! He throws things at the screen and shouts at his staff to fucking do something about it! Of course, they can do nothing and this is, of course, a source of never-ending delight to the prime minister!”

  “Marvelous, sir! Absolutely marvelous.”

  “Yes, quite. One second. Oh, Jarvis, a word if you don’t mind! Oh, yes, please serve the dessert and throw a couple of logs onto the fire, will you, please? The ambassador here has a limited constitution and always appears to be shivering in this house.”

  Tiger found himself wishing this magic day would never end. Sitting there by the crackling fireside, with the icy snow beating against the windowpanes, and the cold winter winds howling round the eaves and down the chimney, the music turned low, just loud enough to provide good cheer in the background, and the company of this truly magnificent man whom he’d come to worship . . . it was all—how to say it?—it was a sense of utter peace and friendship and belonging such as he had never before experienced.

  Magic. If that were not too strong a word.

  And yet? And yet there was something amiss, something almost but not quite beyond his mental grasp. There was a steady undercurrent flowing along beneath all the peace and fellowship and good cheer. Something hiding in each of the unopened Christmas presents of red and green and silver and gold. . . .

  Something inside of him, too, a dark place in his mind that made him afraid of what horror might lie buried inside his mind, or even inside one of those many boxes. Something that, once revealed, could destroy it all in a heartbeat.

  * * *

  —

  He knocked back his glass of aged port, got up, and went to the drinks table to pour himself another. He was not going to let anything intrude into this peaceful scene. He’d keep his demons walled up within the confines of his mind until the danger had passed. And then he’d take whatever action was necessary to be rid of his father and his horrible curse forever.

  Feeling a bit better, he leaned back against the cushions and started counting the nu
mber of ornaments on the tree, the beautiful tree.

  Norwegian spruce, the president had told him. Fifteen feet high and scraping the ceiling, lush green and perfectly shaped. Decorated with silvery tinsel and countless vintage ornaments of gold and silver, red and green. And the garlands of tiny American flags winding their way up the tree to the glorious gold-and-silver angel that perched atop the highest bough.

  And so, happily content, the two them remained right where they were. They sat there in the glow of candlelight from the lit tapers on the tree into the wee small hours. Ever jovial and convivial, they gladly sipped their whiskey, talked their talk, and joked their old and oft-told jokes.

  There was a word for moments like this, Tiger was thinking, as the president embarked on a story about Blackie Hawke, a guest at Number 10, sipping champagne with a pink and quite nude Churchill in the loo, while in the midst of his nightly bath.

  The word rested on the tip of his tongue for a moment, then leapt up into his brain.

  Cozy.

  Tiger believed that in his later years he would always look back on these few precious hours and days as among the happiest of his lifetime.

  But the next day, sadly, would be an entirely different story.

  CHAPTER 69

  Little White House, Warm Springs, Georgia

  February 1942

  The butler, Jarvis, stuck his head inside Tiger’s room and said that they would not be serving breakfast in the dining room that morning. The president had awakened with a terrible headache, a dry mouth, and a stomach in open revolt against the flood of whiskey and port wine and God knew what else.

  Tiger, out of sheer need for survival, had learned the hard lesson of pacing himself. And after all, who was to say how much a man could or should imbibe?

  The president, just before turning in, had told Tiger that it was the most enjoyable evening he’d had in months.

  Tiger had readily agreed. He felt that his relationship with the American president, while very strong, had deepened since he’d arrived. And then, in the throes of tossing and turning, the dreaded migraine came, like a harbinger of the nightmare voice again, in his brain, not in his ears. His father’s voice:

  “You will put a bullet in Roosevelt’s head, my son. It is your solemn duty to His Excellency.”

  Tiger swore and snapped back into the moment.

  After setting his travel alarm for noon, he fell fast asleep, thinking, as he drifted off, that he’d draw a steaming hot bath and just soak for a while before dressing and reporting for duty as ordered beneath the tree.

  What was that infernal sound splitting his brain in two? Ah. Of course, the alarm clock. He swung his long legs out of the bed and stood on the old hooked rug, peering at the pure white brightness streaming into the room. He could hardly credit it.

  A blizzard was raging outside when he’d finally gone to bed. And now this: clear blue skies, sun sparkling on the freshly fallen snow, wind way down to a breeze. In short, this crystal-clear white “Christmas” morning would salve a lot of what was ailing his friend. Overworked, battling his crippling illness, frequently confronting life and death global issues of such spectral enormity, Roosevelt was amazing in that he had the capacity to deal with those issues.

  And yet he did.

  That was Tiger’s president, the man who cared about tipping porters at Union Station, despite the crushing weight of the world on his shoulders.

  Tiger walked over and had a good look out the windows and saw a beautiful blue automobile coming up the drive.

  A big, powerful car, a Packard convertible. And not just any old Packard, oh, no. This majestic and gleaming dark blue beast was the 1938 V12 Convertible Coupe, Model 1607. The bee’s knees was what the motoring press had called it upon its debut at the Detroit Auto Show a few years ago. And it surely was. The trunk was full to bursting with presents meant for President Roosevelt that Jarvis had collected from the post office and the railway station in town. Once they were all unloaded and carried inside, Jarvis returned the blue Packard to the heated garages down the hill.

  It was quite a scene in the library when Tiger arrived that morning. The entire household staff was in there, as well as the two stalwart Secret Service agents, everyone sipping hot cider and gathered round the tree, round the president. FDR performed his traditional role as White House Santa and also, apparently, also did so down here in Georgia. Fala, his Scottie, was puddled at his feet with yesterday’s ham bone for company.

  Suddenly the president’s big booming voice sounded, magisterial in the small room.

  “Oh! I see the Chinese ambassador has honored us with his presence. I believe this is for you, Tiger,” he said, and handed him a small book-shaped package. “Whatever do you think it might be, Tiger, old sport? A tie? A comb or a pair of polka dot socks? Ice skates? Sam Snead Golf clubs? No? What, then, my friend?”

  Tiger laughed. “Gee whiz, Mr. President, I have no idea. But definitely not golf clubs. May I open it?”

  “Of course. By all means, do so. I’m desperate to see what that monstrosity of yours under the tree is, so get on with it!”

  Tiger ripped away the paper and looked at it.

  It was, he knew, the one book the president had long prized above all others: Rewards and Fairies by Rudyard Kipling, wherein the poem “If” could be found. Tiger had read that poem at Cambridge, and he’d loved it so much, he’d committed it to memory. Most especially he loved the stanzas that read:

  If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

  If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

  “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

  And treat those two impostors just the same . . .

  Yours is the earth and everything that’s in it,

  And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

  Tiger bent to pick up FDR’s present from ’neath the tree and handed it to the seated president. He said: “Merry Christmas, sir. May Almighty God aid, comfort, defend, and protect our two great nations from overwhelming peril in the days and weeks and months and years to come.”

  “Fine sentiments indeed, sir,” Roosevelt said, smiling up at his friend, “eloquently delivered. Now, what is this monstrous gift you’ve brought?”

  FDR untied the red ribbon and began snatching away, as was his wont when opening presents, and tossing the crumpled paper atop the large pile steadily growing at his side until all was revealed. A huge stuffed Scottie! The spitting image of Roosevelt’s beloved hound writ large! He leaned forward and placed the gift on the carpet at his feet and beside his dog.

  “Why, bless my soul. It’s you, Fala! Look here! It’s the spitting image, indeed, wouldn’t you agree, Fala?”

  Upon hearing his name spoken aloud by his master, the sleeping dog awoke and happily began licking the large stuffed animal’s mirror image face.

  “Well, Mr. Ambassador, I’d say your delightful present has already brought much joy into this house! Fala and I both thank you from the bottom of our conjoined hearts! We shall treasure it for all time.”

  * * *

  —

  After the all and sundry gifts had been opened and admired, after all the fancy wrapping papers had become so much ash and gone up the chimney like so much smoke, after the all the egg nog spiked with Southern Comfort whiskey had been imbibed, and all the last savory bits of turkey with apple-raisin stuffing had been enjoyed, washed down with all the fine Château Margaux, the president announced to Tiger that he’d had his beautiful blue Packard convertible washed and fueled, and it was time for Tiger to get behind the wheel and take the two of them tearing about the rural countryside until it got too dark to see.

  “What do you think?” the president said. “Sounds smashing, does it not? Hot stuff in the chill air!”

  Tiger agreed. “Oh, indeed it does, sir! It sounds like he
aven to me. The air is so clear and bright and refreshing. Yes, sir, a ride in the country in the brisk country air! Just what the doctor ordered, Mr. President!” It’s cold, sir. I’m just going to my room to get something. My Navy peacoat, I think.”

  Then he stood there in the hallway, stock still, staring at the closed bedroom door, unable to remember what he’d returned here for. And there was another problem.

  The sudden and overwhelming specter of darkness.

  Evil was lurking everywhere; darkness was falling inside his mind, pushing out the light. He saw a thin pale hand with long skinny fingers beckoning to him; it was bedecked with jeweled rings and bracelets like the ones that Tingling Ma, the famous Mandarin warrior, had worn in his childhood history books.

  He heard himself say again the words “Sounds like heaven to me!” Then, a deep shudder, along with a profound surge of dark emotions that felt a good deal more like Hell than Heaven, rushed through him. He pulled the door open and stepped inside, gripped with fear of the unknown.

  He shook it off, that feeling, and pulled his U.S. Navy peacoat from a hangar in his closet and shouldered into it. It was old and worn, a gift from Blackie Hawke when Tiger had said he admired it. He turned and started to leave the room and then froze in place. He’d forgotten something else, but what? Ah, yes. He went to his dresser and pulled open the top drawer. His fingers touched the heavy Colt revolver and froze. Staring at his oddly mournful eyes in the mirror above his dresser, he slipped the ivory-handled pistol into the jacket’s inside pocket.

  He did not know it yet. But he was a powerless man walking, going through the motions, inside a preordained and deadly dream.

  CHAPTER 70

  Little White House, Warm Springs, Georgia

  February 1942

  The Chinese ambassador volunteered to go down the hill to fetch the Packard from the garages there. He desperately needed some cold fresh air to clear the miasma that clouded his mind. He got a jolt when he hit the ignition button and the massive V12 engine exploded into life. Cheered for some unknown reason, he smiled and pumped the accelerator a couple of times just to get the revs up. It was deafening inside the small wooden building.