Dragon in the Snow

by Forrest Dylan Bryant

  WHO IS THE BLACK DRAGON?

  —

  September, 1936 — When a famous adventurer goes missing, humble pulp-fiction writer Sid Friedman finds himself snared in a web of exotic intrigue... and otherworldly terror. With a rallying cry of “What would Doc Savage do,” Sid and his band of improbable heroes follow a trail of evil from the concrete canyons of New York to the hidden peaks of a fabled land. But with each step, they fall deeper into the clutches of the greatest fiend since Fu Manchu himself!

  DRAGON IN THE SNOW

  DRAGON IN THE SNOW

  Revised eBook Edition

  ISBN: 978-0-9846984-1-7

  Copyright © 2009, 2011 by Forrest Dylan Bryant. All rights reserved.

  Frontispiece illustration copyright © 2009 by J. Robinson Wheeler

  Illustration following the Epilogue copyright © 2010 by Gary Escobedo

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Doc Savage is a registered trademark of Advance Magazine Publishers Inc. / The Condé Nast Publications. The Doc Savage character does not appear in this book.

  For Lisa

  (thanks for the fireboat)

  —

  In memory of

  Lester Dent

  and Sax Rohmer

  NOTE TO THE READER

  This story is set in the mid-1930s and follows a narrative style inspired by the pulp magazines of the day. In order to maintain the proper atmosphere and perspective for this period, archaic spellings and language have been employed in several instances, and some characters may exhibit attitudes or stereotypes that would be frowned upon today. These have been kept to a minimum, and are included solely for purposes of verisimilitude.

  Chapter I

  TERROR IN THE PACIFIC

  —

  NINE DAYS OUT from Shanghai, the tramp steamer Golden Star dragged itself across the vast Pacific Ocean, a nondescript hulk crawling sluggishly through the water like an enormous black beetle. The ship was heading from Shanghai to the Golden Gate of San Francisco, but nobody seemed to be in any hurry about it. Without any set itinerary, the Golden Star picked up odd cargoes in a variety of ports. Mock Chinese antiquities were a specialty, delivered quietly to the United States for sale to the gullible rich in various disreputable shops. But the vessel’s captain also catered to the vices of the poor. If you were to head to the rear of the cargo hold, and carefully remove a certain panel from a certain oily-looking wall, you would find a second room holding opium by the pound on an eastern trip, or barrels of rotgut liquor heading west.

  The crewmen cared little for the contents of either hold. Some of them were petty criminals with small stashes of their own hidden amongst their creaky bunks. A few had been literally “Shanghaied” — these hapless souls had fallen asleep after a bender in a dingy tavern or a hazy night in one of Ning Li’s infamous “parlors” only to wake up lost, confused, and pressed into difficult service under the captain’s unforgiving eye. But most of the crew were simple sailors like Hsieh Bing-Fang, wharf rats who had wandered to the port as children to see the bustle of incoming boats and maybe hustle a coin or two, only to find themselves signing up for duty as teenagers because, well, why not?

  Hsieh had completed his evening chores on the quarterdeck and now hung over the railing near the stern of the ship, allowing himself a rare moment of reflection as he stared at the setting sun. From somewhere behind him came the muffled but raucous sounds of gambling, merging with the churning splash of the Golden Star’s wake below. As he drifted into reverie, watching the sun’s yellow-orange disc creep downward toward the flat line of the western Pacific, Hsieh was unaware of the eerie green glow rising far off to the north, over his right shoulder. He failed to note the strange airborne shape that had separated from the distant horizon and was now rapidly approaching his ship. It looked like nothing more than a wispy, unnatural cloud at first. But it soon resolved into an image to chill the blood.

  The sailor heard it before he saw it: a high, screeching noise like a hundred sets of fingernails raked against a hundred chalkboards. He wheeled, startled, and beheld a flying spectre straight from Hell. Its wings glowed bright green, like jade lit from within, beating heavily against the deepening red sky. The thing’s mouth burned with white flame, as did its eyes — terrible eyes that seemed to pierce into Hsieh’s very soul. He screamed, but it was too late. The eyes flared briefly, sending a stream of flame towards the deck, and Hsieh’s body evaporated in an instant, leaving only an enigmatic swirl of dark smoke hanging in the evening air.

  Below decks, the rest of the men ceased their games and rushed to the hatches to investigate the terrible sound. But before they could get topside, a score of black figures dropped as if from nowhere, snarling and howling like demons. The men froze with fear. It was the last thing any of them would ever see.

  Minutes later, the Golden Star was abandoned. Her engines continued to churn in a gross mockery of life, but no trace of the crew remained on her decks or in the water. The cargo hold had been ripped to shreds, strewn with the shrapnel of faux-Ming vases and gaudy scraps of torn silk, overhung by fading traces of the macabre dark smoke. The destruction had been thorough. But the secret panel remained in place at the hold’s rear, and the rough bundles behind it lay undisturbed. Outside, a bizarre green glow receded to the west, disappearing into the last rays of the setting sun.

  * * *

  For two weeks the Golden Star drifted, until it was finally found floating aimlessly near the Leeward Islands, some miles west of Hawaii. Towed to Honolulu, the ghost ship caused a sensation in the local press, and many sailors from the nearby U.S. Naval base at Pearl Harbor dropped by to have a look. But few of them paid any attention the gaunt Asiatic man who spent a solid hour standing on the wharf, scrutinizing the ship. The Western Union clerk didn’t bat an eyelash when that same man sent a terse telegram to Shanghai soon afterward. And if anyone thought it odd when he boarded a Pan American clipper to the mainland the next morning, with no baggage save a thick canvas bundle gripped tightly under his arm, they said nothing of it.

  * * *

  It was some days before the San Francisco papers picked up the story, and longer still before a small item appeared in the New York Reporter, buried beneath yet another article about the saber rattling from Germany. It was filler, inserted to keep the ads of competing department stores at a respectful distance. But within a matter of weeks, that scanty dispatch would send a shock wave halfway around the globe.

  The reverberations began with a young writer named Sidney Friedman — Sid to all save his mother — who sat in the slanting afternoon light of a Greenwich Village bar with the late edition of the New York Reporter spread before him like a royal feast. Cloaked by thick coke-bottle glasses, Sid’s straining eyes grew wide as he read the item about the ghost ship. When he reached the end of the column, Sid grunted slightly, inclined his head closer to the paper, and began reading it again.

  Sid was about twenty-five years old, lean and a bit on the short side, with unruly hair that never knew a hat and a lopsided bow tie that gave him a distracted, bookish air. But a keen observer would have detected the fluid movements and toned muscles of an amateur boxer hiding under Sid’s slightly rumpled shirt, a secret prowess developed from years growing up in rough neighborhoods and many hours of sparring at the YMHA. As he read the brief notice a third time, Sid’s shoulders became tense, his mind racing with the possibilities. What had really happened to this strange vessel, the Golden Star? And why? And, most importantly, could he use it in a story before some othe
r writer beat him to it?

  Like Hsieh Bing-Fang, Sid had wandered into his career as a teenager. Raised on the adventure stories of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells, young Sid had found his true love and eventual calling in the “pulp” story magazines hawked from every corner newsstand and drugstore in New York. Once a week Sid picked up the latest issues, poring over the adventures of the Shadow and Doc Savage, thrilling to exotic science fiction tales and gripping the pages of the horror pulps with white knuckles. He didn’t go in much for the spicier magazines, those lurid sheaves of sex and crime that hovered in the topmost racks like leering vultures. But he knew their contents intimately, for those rags were the only ones with editors willing to take a chance on an unproven writer like Sid Friedman.

  On this particular afternoon, Sid was celebrating. Weird Excitement had just published his latest story, “Sky Vixens of Venus,” a ten-thousand word epic written under Sid’s pen name of Jackson Stone. It had the magic formula of ray guns, heaving bosoms and bondage that was Weird Excitement’s trademark, and the editor was so happy with it he’d ordered up a full series. Sid had dropped off the manuscript for “Sky Vixens of Mars” on the way to the tavern, and a rough outline to “Sky Vixens of Jupiter” was already sitting on the kitchen table in his apartment. Sid figured he could keep the ball rolling for two months beyond that. “Sky Vixens of Saturn” was a no-brainer, but Sid figured “Sky Vixens of Uranus” would be a tough sell, even for Weird Excitement. And “Sky Vixens of Neptune” sounded more like a title for Weird Sea Stories, whose editor had already blacklisted Sid for writing too much “weird” and not enough “sea.” So he’d have to skip straight to “Sky Vixens of Pluto,” and that would be the end of it, unless somebody found another planet.

  This was, incidentally, exactly why Sid was less than successful as a pulp writer. Pluto was still hot stuff in the popular imagination; the mysterious new world had been discovered only six years prior, in 1930. If Sid had started with “Sky Vixens of Pluto,” or better yet something with a more kid-friendly angle, like “Sky Soldiers of Pluto,” he could have sold that to Amazing Stories and been on his way to respectability. But Sid thought small. He did not see greatness in his future. Not yet.

  “Some story, huh?” asked the bartender, sidling up to Sid as he wiped down the bar with a dingy towel.

  “Incredible,” Sid agreed.

  “I always said that batty Baron was askin’ for it and I guess he finally got it,” the barman muttered.

  Baron? Sid glanced up, confused at first. Then he saw the paper’s banner headline, stretched across five columns in massive type:

  BARON DE ROTHBURG MISSING IN HIMALAYAS

  Of course. All of New York was abuzz over the disappearance of one of the city’s best known, most eccentric, and wealthiest characters. On any other day, Sid would be enthralled too. But there was something about that ghost ship... by God, there was a story there, and Sid was resolved to find it, write it, and sell it for a penny a word.

  Sid sat lost in thought for a while, and eventually ordered a second Snappy Cola. The bartender considered pointing out that his was an establishment for serious drinking and not a soda fountain, but when he looked around the nearly-empty tavern he thought better of it. He settled for a momentary glare and a pointed grunt, handing over the bottle as if under duress.

  Just then a big bear of a man plopped down next to Sid and gave the bartender a quick hand signal, which the latter correctly and relievedly decoded as scotch on the rocks. The new arrival was a study in browns: scuffed brown shoes propped up a well-worn brown suit, and the ensemble was topped off with a newish but slightly dented brown Homburg hat.

  The bear-man turned to Sid and spoke, his voice rumbling like a subway train. “How about dat Baron, huh? I’d sure like a piece o’ dat case.”

  * * *

  Detective Sergeant Harold “Hank” Martin was the sort of man who seemed to know everybody in New York: every cop, cabbie and news agent in the city was his close personal friend. Hank was on a first-name basis with a sizable portion of the city’s underworld too, so when the daily routine of police duty began to annoy him, it was only natural that Hank would turn those connections into a new line of work. Now he was Hank Martin, private dick. He was a big man, well over six feet tall and built like a professional wrestler. He had thick, bushy eyebrows and dark brown hair that looked like a cheap toupee, or perhaps a small woodland creature glued to the top of his beefy head. But as with Sid Friedman, there was more to Hank than met the eye. Equally handy with a gun or with his massive fists, Hank was also smart enough and experienced enough to get what he wanted by more subtle means... most of the time, anyway.

  When not on a case, Hank’s headquarters was a little bar in Greenwich Village frequented by newspaper reporters, jazz musicians, and other unsavory characters. It was a good place to lie low, and a better place to pick up information. But when Hank Martin sat down next to Sid Friedman and began to discuss the disappearance of “dat Baron,” it was merely small talk to pass the time. Neither man could know that their idle conversation would soon take them to the far corners of the world, and deep into the very maw of fear.

  Chapter II

  AN UNEXPECTED DELIVERY

  —

  AS HIS CONVERSATION with the detective grew more animated, Sid forgot about the ghost ship in Hawaii. The real-life exploits of the missing Baron de Rothburg could almost have sustained a pulp magazine by themselves. Scion of an unimaginably wealthy Dutch banking empire, Baron Franz de Rothburg had foresworn finance to pursue a dual life as worldwide adventurer and New York playboy. He was recognized as a leading expert in Egyptology, a famous mountaineer who had mastered every peak save Everest itself, a fearless deep-sea explorer, and carefree host of the swankiest parties on Fifth Avenue. A friend and valued confidant of President Roosevelt, he was also rumored to be bankrolling anti-fascist movements in Europe as well as secret projects for the Army.

  But now he was missing and presumed dead, lost somewhere in the remote heights of the Himalaya Mountains. This was all the press really knew, but that didn’t stop them from filling column after column with florid prose about the man known variously as “the Batty Baron,” “Fearless Franz” and “Bags Fifth Ave.,” the latter short for “moneybags.” If he was truly deceased, then all of his fortune — from the East Side mansion to the private museum to a gargantuan trust fund immune even from the Great Depression — would become the property of his only daughter, the Baroness Angelica de Rothburg. The young Baroness was something of a public mystery: she was known to have tagged along on nearly all of her father’s adventures, beginning at the tender age of four. While other girls her age were playing with dolls, little Angelica de Rothburg was spelunking tombs in the Valley of the Kings. But she avoided the spotlight as much her father sought it. No American reporter had ever managed to interview her, and there was no way they would get near her now, distraught as she must be.

  At the Greenwich Village bar, Sid was gesticulating wildly, always a sure sign that he was hot on the trail of a new story idea.

  “You can’t be serious,” he said. “The man vanished at twenty thousand feet!” His hand shot up as if to indicate the height. “It was probably an avalanche. What could a flatfoot like you do about that?”

  Hank was impassive, but arched a hairy eyebrow at his interlocutor.

  “Trust me, kid. There’s always an angle for a guy like me. I don’t care if he was kidnapped by yer sky hussies or whatever ya call ’em, them Rothburgs...” — he pronounced it rot-boigs — “...could use a guy who knows what’s what. Like mebbe the ol’ man’s got a warehouse full of spare gold or somethin’ the kid don’t know about. I could find it for her. And just think of the payoff...” Hank let out a low whistle as a dreamy smile drifted onto his face, while visions of loose cash, fine scotch and sophisticated women floated in his brain.

  The two men had been joined at the bar by Sid’s girlfriend, Rosie Esterhaszy. Rosie was a little younger tha
n Sid, a perky, no-nonsense blonde with a sturdy figure and a broad Brooklyn accent. She and Sid had been an item for years, although neither was inclined to tie the knot. She had just gotten off work at St. Vincent’s hospital up the street and came down to toast Sid on his publishing coup. Now she eyed Hank with a mixture of admiration and pity.

  “Nothin’ doin’,” she said flatly. Rosie could easily have been mistaken for Hank’s younger sister, they were so similar in voice and manner. “The day a class dame like that Angelica de Rothburg comes to you for help, I’ll eat this hat.” She pointed at the peaked white cap hanging perilously over her left ear.

  “I didn’t say she would, I said she oughta,” grumbled Hank, brought rudely back to earth by Rosie’s smirk. “Dat is, if she was smart. But society dames ain’t exactly known for their deep thoughts.” His face brightened again as he sensed an opportunity to launch into one of his many cop stories. “Why I remember one time on the force, this dizzy dame from Park Avenue comes into my station, see? And she’s holdin’ this feed bag, like you put on a horse. So she says...”

  “Pardon me, Mr. Martin?”

  The three friends whirled. Nobody had seen the speaker come in and approach the bar. He was a Negro, perhaps fifty years old, wearing a crisp black uniform with a starched white shirt and a freshly brushed cap on his head. Hank’s eyes gleamed with recognition.

  “Hey... Sonny Hampton! I ain’t seen you for years. Still drivin’ that hack up in Harlem? You ain’t in trouble, are you?”

  “No sir, I have another position now.” The man spoke in a ringing baritone voice, as crisply starched as his shirt. “And my employer has need of your services.” He paused, looking at Hank’s companions. Hank waved, it’s all right. Reassured, Hampton lowered his voice a little and said, “Your particular discretion would be appreciated. No police.”