Crimson Skies - Manchurian Gambit

by Mike Lee

  The pirate leader cursed under his breath. He couldn't tell from overhead whether the airship had slipped her moorings or not, but she still sat motionless, a stationary target bigger than a barn. Even Nesbitt's amatuers couldn't miss. Kahn calculated the angles and figured he had less than ten seconds before it was too late.

  Kahn dipped his right wing and dove, picking up speed as he raced head-on towards the two raiders. The two pilots both saw him at the same time, and staccato flashes licked out from their gun mounts, throwing a wild flurry of tracers across his path. Shells slammed into his nose and port wing, but he pressed on and placed his gunsight at a point well ahead of the enemy Warhawk. He squeezed the trigger, firing a series of short bursts. Hits burst in firecracker-like flashes across the Warhawk's nose and starboard wing, and suddenly the huge Wright R-1350 engine at the end of the wing erupted in flame. With one engine gone, the Fury's unbalanced thrust dragged the plane into a left turn, forcing it to break off its attack.

  That just left the Kestrel. The enemy bomber roared past Kahn on his port side, and shells thudded into his fuselage. The Kestrel had a light machine gun mounted on a ring behind the pilot's position, and the tail gunner hammered at the Devastator with deadly accuracy. Kahn pulled his plane into a tight loop and rolled out onto the bomber's tail, unleashing a storm of gunfire that slashed into the heavy plane's wing and tail-

  -to no avail. The raider pressed on, its armored hide weathering the Devastator's fire. Another machine-gun burst raked across the heavy fighter's nose; one round hit a metal strut on the fighter's canopy, sending splinters of plexiglass into Kahn's face. He shook his head savagely, wiping a smear of blood on his sleeve, and fired another burst. The Machiavelli was looming ever larger in his field of vision-the raider could fire at any moment.

  Kahn checked to see if he had any rockets left. There were only two, a high-explosive rocket, and a flare. He selected the HE and fired. The rocket roared off its rail and streaked towards its target, only to slide beneath the Kestrel's wing and explode harmlessly in front of the plane. The bomber drove on through the blast, but the flash of the explosion gave him an idea. He armed the flare rocket, aimed just ahead of the enemy plane, and let it fly.

  The Kestrel's pilot, intent on his target, never saw the flare until it burst right in front of him. Surprised and blinded by the actinic flash, he yanked the bomber into a steep climb-but not before releasing his load of torpedoes. A pair of the devastating weapons dropped from the Kestrel's wings and plunged towards the motionless airship. Kahn watched helplessly as the torpedoes fell in a long, almost leisurely arc-and hit the earth only scant yards from the airship. A curtain of fire and earth erupted from the half-dozen blasts, flinging wreckage high into the air-including pieces of Captain Morton's Packard.

  When the fountain of dirt and debris settled, there was only a smoking crater to mark where the car-and the money-had been.

  A cold wind raged through the open windows of the Machiavelli's observation gallery. Heavy winter clouds formed a sea of steel gray beneath the airship, lit by the glow of a silvery moon.

  Jonathan Kahn rested his hands on the icy metal of the window frame and leaned out into nothingness. The stubby cigar in his teeth flared in the fierce wind and went out; he plucked it from his lips and considered it for a long moment, then tossed it to the waiting arms of the earth, five thousand feet below.

  The door to the darkened gallery swung open and Henrietta Corbett slipped inside. She narrowed her brown eyes at the freezing wind and shivered despite the fleece-lined leather flying jacket she wore. "I should have known I'd find you down here," she said sourly, pulling her jacket's fleece collar up to cover her ears. "Things are bad enough without you trying to give yourself pneumonia."

  Kahn folded his arms and leaned against the window frame looking out at the clouds below. "I thought a little subzero cold would get me a little privacy," he growled. "Life seems full of disappointments these days."

  Hetty fished a cigarette out of her jacket pocket and a battered Austrian mountaineers' lighter. The tiny flare of light threw her angular, raw-boned features into sharp relief. She blew out a long plume of smoke and studied him with eyes that belied her eighteen years of age. "Deadeye Dugan says we're headed back to the ISA."

  Kahn shrugged. "What about it?"

  "The minute you set foot in the country Don DeCarlo is going to know about it. What are you going to do when his goons show up looking for the money?"

  The pirate leader glowered at her. "Maybe if you gave me a little peace I could figure out some kind of plan."

  "A plan?" Hetty said incredulously. "To do what, exactly? We lost three guys over Deadwood, and with Emerson's bird gone that leaves us just eight planes, and they ain't got gas enough to taxi, much less fly anywhere. Plus the zep's shot to hell. There's so many holes in the hull the ship plays the Star Spangled Banner when the wind's just right. A Manhattan cabbie in a busted autgyro could knock us right out of the sky."

  Kahn straightened to his full height and glared down at his young wingman. "There's always options, kid," he said coldly.

  Hetty stood her ground. She took a long drag on her cigarette and gave him a rueful smile. "Yeah. That's what I'm afraid of." The smile faded. "Are you thinking about cutting your losses, boss?"

  "What are you talking about?" Kahn said warily.

  "I'm talking about you hopping into a car the minute we get to Chicago and heading for greener pastures, leaving us holding the bag. That's what you did after the Crash, when you wound up owing all those investors. You did it when the Drake scam hit the skids." She folded her arms and looked him in the eye. "The question is, are you going to do it now?"

  Kahn met her stare for a long moment, saying nothing, then turned back to the open window. "How's our prisoner doing?" he asked.

  Hetty frowned. "What the hell does that have to do with anything?"

  "She's a People's Collective air ace, the commander of the Deadwood Air Militia," he said coolly. "When we get to Chicago we'll ransom her back for a hundred g's."

  "That's nuts. There's no way those Commie farmers will pay that much for one pilot."

  "Let me worry about that," Kahn said, staring out at the night. "How long 'til we get to the farm?"

  For a second Hetty just stared at him, then finally let out a tired sigh. "Eight hours. Maybe less, if the wind shifts."

  "Okay. I'm going to get some shut-eye then. Wake me when we're there." He brushed past her and headed for the door. At the doorway he glanced back. "One other thing, Hetty."

  Hetty half-turned. Moonlight framed her long face, haloed with silvery strands of cigarette smoke. "Yeah, boss?"

  "When we land, have Pete get the car ready."

  The Red Skull Legion's base wasn't much to look at-which was precisely the point. A failed dairy farm that dried up just after the crash, there was nothing left but a boarded-up farmhouse, a dilapidated barn, and a partially collapsed granary, set on twenty-five acres in the middle of an isolated valley.

  But the fields were level enough to land aircraft on, and the granary was stronger than it looked, modified to act as a mooring tower and holding fuel tanks and a pump at its base. When the pirates took to the skies they didn't waste time and energy keeping the site under guard; they just threw tarps over the machine tools in the barn, padlocked the doors, and left. A chance passerby would see just one more failed farm-another casualty of the ISA's move to massive, corporate-controlled industrial agriculture-rotting away in the Illinois countryside.

  The Machiavelli arrived at just after three in the morning, running silently down the sleeping valley on minimum power. The ground crew slid to the earth on ropes and within minutes the ship was tied up at the granary tower. By the time the zeppelin was lowered to the ground, Kahn was ready to go.

  "I still don't see the point in taking her with you," Hetty said, glaring at Angela Morton. The Collective pilot was awake, but her eyes were glassy as she still struggled to fight off the effects o
f the laudanum.

  "I want her someplace where I can keep an eye on her, instead of letting her get into mischief in the cargo hold," Kahn said. He took Morton by the arm and led her down the gangway. "Is Pete getting the car?"

  "He's supposed to be," Hetty answered darkly. Kahn was headed across the pasture in the direction of the old farmhouse. She followed doggedly in his footsteps. "Where do you plan on going at this hour of the morning?"

  "Chicago. Where else? The longer I wait, the more chance DeCarlo has to find out I'm back." Kahn reached the house and pushed the front door open. Beyond the doorway it was dark as a tomb. "If you're going to trail after me like a puppy why don't you make yourself useful and light a lamp or something?"

  Hetty pushed past Kahn and stomped inside, biting back her anger. There was a kerosene lamp sitting on a table inside the front room, beside a book of matches. She lifted the glass bowl and deftly lit the wick. The room filled with pale orange light as Kahn and Morton stepped inside. She picked up the lamp and turned to face him, her expression defiant. "I think you've got some explaining to do-"

  She froze, her eyes widening as she saw the man standing behind Kahn and Morton, hidden behind the farmhouse door.

  "I couldn't agree more," the man said in a silky Southern drawl, pushing the door closed and pressing a large Colt revolver to the back of Kahn's head.

  Chapter Four: Under the Gun

  The gunman stepped forward into the glow of the lamplight, pressing the barrel of his pistol against the back of Jonathan Kahn's shaven head. He wore a leather flying jacket that had seen years of hard use and a pair of travel-stained brown jodhpurs tucked into battered pilot's boots. His tanned face showed a wrinkle or two around the eyes and mouth, and there were streaks of gray in his hair, but his rugged, square-jawed face was strikingly handsome. A pencil-thin mustache and a pearl earring in his right ear lent him an air of roguish charm, but when he smiled at Kahn there was a hard glint in his pale green eyes.

  "When did you let yourself get so soft, Johnny-boy?" the man said in a deceptively lazy drawl. "If I'd been one of DeCarlo's thugs you'd be dead right now."

  Kahn reached into his jacket and pulled out a cigar, then leaned forward and lit it off of the lamp's flame. "If you'd been one of DeCarlo's boys you would've wanted the money first," he countered, "and while we were talking, Hetty would have bounced this lamp off your forehead."

  He turned and coolly appraised the grinning gunman. "Hello, Artemus. Still up to your old tricks, I see."

  "You know this guy?" Hetty exclaimed.

  "I should say he does," the man replied with a conspiratorial wink. The pistol flashed and twirled in his fingers, settling with a flourish into a leather holster. "I taught Johnny-boy here everything he knows. We go back a long, long ways, he and I."

  "True enough," Kahn grudgingly agreed. "Hetty, allow me to introduce Artemus Hayes: pilot, gambler, con artist and thief. A rogue for all seasons." He eyed Hayes warily. "The last I heard you'd conned an airship away from Hughes Aviation a few years back and run off to the South China Sea. So what are you doing sneaking around here in the ISA?"

  "Looking for you, of course," Hayes replied. He walked past Hetty and sat at the table. Hayes propped his feet on the tabletop and pulled a cigarette out of a silver case. A matching silver Zippo flashed and clinked, and he blew a long streamer of smoke towards the ceiling. "I've been camped out at this old shack for most of a week waiting for you to show up. You're getting slow, Johnny-boy."

  "How'd you know where to find us?" Hetty said, surprised.

  Hayes laughed. "Honey, who do you think he got this place from? He won the deed at a card game in Cincinnati back in '28, the one and only time he ever got the better of me at five card draw."

  There was a low groan from Morton, the captive People's Collective fighter pilot. Kahn glanced from her to Hayes, and growled, "Did you come all this way to catch up on old times, or is there some point to this?"

  The easygoing humor faded from Hayes' face. "Of course there's a point, Johnny-boy," he said quietly. "I'm in dire straits, old son, and I need to call in a favor. I reckon that you're just about the only man who can help me out of the fix I'm in."

  Now it was Hetty's turn to laugh. "A favor! Since when are we the Sisters of Mercy-" she stopped short at Kahn's raised hand.

  Kahn stared hard at Hayes. "What sort of favor?"

  "Well, there's something of a story behind it." He took a thoughtful drag on his cigarette. "How much do you know about what's going on in Manchuria?"

  "Where?" Hetty asked.

  "Northeast China," Kahn told her. "The Japanese invaded a few months back, and are pushing deeper into the mainland. From what I've heard on the radio, they're almost to Nanking, the Chinese capital."

  "It's a horror show," Hayes said flatly. "You can't imagine what's happening to people over there. I've seen it with my own eyes and I still can't believe it." He rubbed a hand over his face, as if to wipe the memories away. "It's gotten so bad that the Nationalists and the Communists are actually working together against the Japanese, but they're still on the ropes. If they don't get help from somewhere, soon, they're finished.

  "They managed to get an airship past the Japanese blockade a couple weeks ago and sent a delegation to the League of Nations with evidence of the atrocities in Manchuria."

  Kahn pulled out a chair and sat down, his expression thoughtful. "But something went wrong, I take it. The Japanese seized the delegates?"

  "They seized the senior delegate's daughter," Hayes replied. "They were stopped over in Manhattan, refueling before a final hop to Columbia. Snatched her right off the street after a Broadway show. They say that if her father speaks to the League, he'll never see her again."

  "Makes sense. That's what I'd do," Kahn said, half to himself. "So where do you fit into all this?"

  "The Chinese government hired me to get her out."

  Kahn's eyes went wide. "You?"

  "Hey! I've made a name for myself in Asia, thank you very much," Hayes replied indignantly. "Too much of a name, it turns out. The Japanese caught wind of what was going on and smuggled a bomb onto my zep in Hong Kong. Blew her and the whole crew to bits." He sat back and shook his head ruefully. "So I took the last of my cash, bribed my way onto a British merchant zep bound for Chicago, and here I am."

  Kahn stared at him. "You want us to help you get the girl out."

  "Not to put too fine a point on it, Johnny-boy, but yes, that's the idea."

  Hetty slapped her palms on the tabletop and leaned in until she was nose to nose with Hayes. "You're out of your damn mind," she hissed. "You think we can just waltz into the Empire State anytime we please?"

  He met her gaze evenly. "I don't know about you, honey," he said, "but I know he can...if he puts his mind to it."

  She looked to Kahn. "Then you tell him we can't do it-"

  Kahn silenced her with a look. "Where is the girl being kept?"

  A sly smile spread across Hayes' face. "The Japanese Embassy, on Park Avenue," he said. "Right in the middle of Manhattan. I figured you'd enjoy the challenge."

  "When we get her out, then what?" Kahn asked.

  Hayes shrugged. "We fly her to the Chinese embassy in Hawai'i. From everything I heard in Chicago, it sounds like you could stand to get away from things for a while anyway."

  Kahn leaned back in chair, his eyes narrowed in concentration. After a moment, he said, "Hetty, tell Dugan to take on all the fuel we've got left, and make what repairs he can to the zep in the meantime. Then tell Pete he's got some more painting to do. Looks like we're heading to the Empire State."

  Hayes beamed. "I knew I could count on you, Johnny-boy! When do we leave?"

  The pirate leader checked his watch. "In three hours."

  Now it was Hayes' turn to look shocked. "Three hours? Don't get me wrong, Johnny, but this is Manhattan we're talking about. Are you sure you aren't being too hasty?"

  Kahn shrugged, but there was a manic gleam in his eye
s. "The sooner we get the girl, the sooner you and I are even," he said. "And I pay my debts. One way or another."

  The aerotaxi dropped down out of a snowy sky and made a perfect landing on the roof of the Park Avenue Plaza hotel. The autogyro's rotors kicked up swirling clouds of ice that hung in the late-night air, causing the hotel's doorman to duck and clutch at the collar of his overcoat as he rushed out and opened the door for the taxi's passengers. Kahn and Hayes stepped out into the wintry maelstrom, gloved hands pressed to their fedoras, and headed for the edge of the roof.

  Below them Park Avenue buzzed with activity, despite being well past midnight. Revelers made their way back from Broadway, or set out from hotels and stately apartment buildings to dance the night away in jazz halls or speakeasies. Kahn rested a polished shoe on the roof's stone parapet and pulled out a cigar. Wearing a dark oilskin overcoat and wool trousers, he was the image of a captain of industry, surveying his Manhattan playground. In fact, he had eyes only for the somber gray building just across from the hotel.

  "Built like the old Federal Reserve," he growled as he studied the Japanese Embassy up close.

  The embassy building was built to ward off a small army. It was four stories tall, its walls made of massive granite slabs. The windows on the ground floor were small and the close-set frames made of bronze-colored iron, each pane barely wide enough to fit a hand through. There were no fire escapes, he noted.

  He saw a service entrance on the right side of the building and a grand main entrance that opened on a fountain bordered by a circular asphalt drive. A granite wall ten feet high, topped with decorative-but dangerous-iron spikes, surrounded the building and its grounds. The wrought-iron main gate was closed, and he could just see the outline of a guardhouse just past the gate.

  Artemus Hayes hunched his shoulders against the cold. Like Kahn, he, too, had donned a business suit. "You still haven't told me how we're getting in there," he said nervously. "More importantly, you haven't told me how the hell we're going to get out again."