“It was five years after the war. Before I went into business with Chuy. April 1923. I was flying a charter route between Greece and Cairo. She was my charter—said she was an Egyptology student out of Virginia, trying to hook up with some Spanish expedition. Her one-day charter turned into four weeks traveling along the North African coast together. We fell in all hell’s kind of love.”
Deitel thought he knew the rest.
“And she wanted you to marry her. To give up your life as the winged soldier of fortune trekking around the world, so you could raise sheep, cotton, and fat children in Virginia. Ja?”
Rucker spat.
“Close enough. Except it was me who wanted her to give up trekking around the world and settle down on a little ranch down near Cabo. Me giving tinseltown tourists flybys of the movie star homes in the Cabo Madera Hills.”
“And?”
“She said yes. So we were engaged for a whole, glorious week. We barely left our hotel room in Casablanca.”
“And then? The suspense has me on the pins and on the needles.”
“She stole my plane and flew to Tangiers. Left a goodbye note. ‘Dear Fox, so long and thanks for all the hummus and romance. You’re a sweet boy but I’m not that kind of girl.’ ”
Deitel didn’t say anything.
“Found later she was working for the CSA’s foreign service. Just using me as cover for her mission,” Rucker said.
Deitel kept looking straight ahead. Finally the corner of his mouth twittered. And that was all it took to unleash his laugh. He nearly fell over.
“I am so shooting you as soon as we get out of here,” Rucker said.
“Oh. I’m sorry,” Deitel said, wiping a tear from his eye. “That is terrible, but, what is the English?”
“Creepifying? Horrificsome?”
“Is that English?” Deitel asked. “I think I mean ironic. Anyway, it’s just it was exactly what I didn’t expect to hear. How is it that she is in Texas now?”
“The CSA ain’t got the same problems the Union States do, but they got their problems all the same,” he said. “Especially for a woman who isn’t content with just running a household or teaching Sunday school, I reckon.”
Rucker patted all his pockets looking for the cigar he knew he didn’t have.
Deitel just grinned.
“You know, only the Germans would have a word for taking pleasure in the misery of other folks,” Rucker said. “Anyway, something happened, so she told the CSA to go to hell because she was going to Texas. That’s all I know.”
“You have since spoken?”
Rucker growled again.
“I told you I’d tell you about how she’s my ex. Now you have to shut the hell up.”
They passed a nicer section of brownstones at 72nd and Madison. Deitel noticed the marked improvement in the architecture this side of Park Avenue.
And despite his initial take on the Big Apple, he could sense there was a vibrancy to this city straining beneath the surface.
In better times—perhaps a better reality—he could envision this place with electricity in the air.
“Okay, Doc,” Rucker said. “We’re coming up on Fifth Avenue. Time to put your war paint on.”
“It was never explained why it was so crucial we meet your ex-fiancée this morning, rather than tonight or even tomorrow. Or why she couldn’t have just come to us,” Deitel said.
“Yeah, see, here’s the thing about that. Her assignment was to the Morgan Museum of Natural History in New York City. It’s one of her actual specialties, but it just so happens the Morgan Museum is located right next to National Security Service headquarters. The museum shares space with the NSS decryption and analysis branch,” Rucker said. “So all it would take is a little stealth and a little more leg thrown to the right clerk, and she’d know what the NSS knew before they knew it.”
Deitel was a little scandalized. And a little impressed.
“But apparently she’s off the reservation and on the warpath,” Rucker said.
He explained to the doctor how just six months before, the assistant Union States ambassador to Austin had been caught having inappropriate relations with a grammar school girl. As if there was some sort of appropriate relationship for an eight-year-old girl and a fifty-three-year-old man. The outrage had been reported widely in the Freehold’s newspapers.
Of course, diplomatic immunity meant the man couldn’t be touched, but he was immediately shipped home, where, Union diplomats promised, he would be properly prosecuted.
“And yet today,” Rucker said, “in what’s sure to be a well-attended brunch ceremony on account of the concurrent display of national treasures from Hawaii on loan to the Morgan Museum, that very same assistant ambassador is being named full ambassador to the Kingdom of Hawaii.”
Deitel’s nonresponse told Rucker he didn’t see the connection. They were well into Central Park now.
“She’s going to blow her cover and kill the miserable bastard,” Rucker said. “It’s a family matter.”
“Oh good. For a minute there I was worried this was going to become normal,” Deitel said. “And we are to . . . what exactly?”
“Get into the ceremony. Protect her cover. Get her out. Escape from New York.” Rucker ticked them off on four fingers.
Then he pointed to the great opening of the trail ahead, just beyond several hundred yards of manicured lawn cut right into the heart of the park. There it was. Nestled in front of Turtle Pond. A stunning work of neoclassical and early Georgian design. A knockoff, sure, but a good one, right down to the columns on the front and the expansive West Wing.
“Oh, and the ceremony is being held at Hamilton House. Where President Kennedy lives. In about—hmm, thirty minutes. Did I forget to mention that?” Rucker asked.
Deitel stopped in his tracks. His head shook slightly.
“Herr Rucker, what are you going to do?”
Rucker grabbed Deitel’s sleeve and tugged him along.
“I don’t know. Let’s find out.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Hamilton House
New York City
Union States of America
The party on the lawn of the Hamilton House was no more than a minor state fête to mark the opening of diplomatic ties between the Union States of America and the Kingdom of Hawaii, but President Joseph Kennedy never let the opportunity for a formal affair go asking. It was important for the president of the original—the true—American nation to maintain the nation’s imposing, lavish image on the world stage. And the American workers, President Kennedy assured his worried chief of staff, wanted to see their leader in a prosperous light in the newspapers and newsreels, if only to give them a brief respite from their simple, workaday existence.
The chief of staff’s interjection regarding the irony of mentioning the “working man” when the unemployment rate was pushing towards the twenty-five percent mark was sounded in vain. Kennedy knew he had the support of the simple man on the street who took pride in his Real American heritage and saw Kennedy as the embodiment of the once—and future—American manifest destiny and preeminence. Kennedy could connect with the workers—truly empathize with them—in a way that most of the tone-deaf congressmen and political bureau chiefs could only watch with envy.
Besides, Kennedy reminded his chief of staff, the vice president was working right now with Congress and the political bureau to establish a whole panoply of new work programs to stimulate restoration and recovery—the National Recovery Act, the Workers Progress Administration, and so on.
The people, Kennedy knew, really believed that his administration was hard at work for them. Those people also wanted to see the glory of the Progressive Party’s National Greatness mandate in action. They wanted to see the True America on the rise again. Sometimes that meant speaking with his sleeves rolled up and harsh words for the regressives and bankers who were holding the Union States down. Sometimes that meant just being a host on the world stage.
Thus the front lawn of Hamilton House was a maze of Hawaiian statuary art, white linen tables laden with prime rib, omelet chef stations, imported fruits, fresh shellfish of all types, champagne fountains, pastries and sweet delicacies of all manner, and larger-than-life ice sculptures. Diplomats, party members, state industrialists, donors, office holders, and senior officials from across the government were resplendent in their formal daywear or state uniforms. The Hamilton House’s colored porters and servants in white jackets and gloves ensured no glass ever fell below half empty, and that every guest had anything his heart desired. Uniformed and plainclothes FSB guards patrolled the Hamilton House grounds.
Despite the difficulty and importance of his duties, the chief of staff was like most of the men and more than a few of the women in that he couldn’t help but be distracted by one guest in particular.
Modern women’s fashion in the North dictated loose, straight designs that emphasized a boyish flatness. What’s more, current styles ran to fair skin and short, coiled, asymmetrical hair. This woman, however, drew attention both because of how she moved and because she was exactly what no one expected. She was clad in a clingy embroidered black silk dress with a fringe panel draped over her arm and a deep V-shaped neckline that emphasized her athletic and well-rounded figure. She topped her ensemble with a velvet and felt wrap that staved off the spring morning chill. Her long blond hair was coiled into a chignon.
The chief of staff saw her laughing gaily at what was undoubtedly a blue joke being told by Leonard Horichi, the man of the hour, soon to be the Union’s chargé d’affaires to the Hawaiian Kingdom. She seemed to have a more than passing interest in the man even though he was a bit of a toad and despite the recent unpleasantness in Austin.
At least this diplomatic posting would get Horichi far from New York, and in an envied posting no less, which would please his family. No accounting for taste, of course, the chief of staff mused as he watched the woman fawning over the future ambassador. Power, he knew, was the greatest aphrodisiac. That had to explain it.
Far away from the party at the east gate, the line of horse-drawn carriages and motorcars stretched well into the wooded path on the west side of Central Park. The neglected tall grass provided decent cover as the two interlopers studied Hamilton House from afar. The wall surrounding the executive mansion was twelve feet tall, and topped with barbed wire.
Rucker had noted that the main gate on the south side of Hamilton House was the primary focus of FSB security efforts, as that was where most of the ordinary citizens had gathered either to get a distant look or stage small protests. That was why he and the doctor were crouched in the brush off the entry path to the east gate. Rucker was looking for just the right mark.
When Deitel said it seemed unprofessional for an operative to blow cover to exact revenge for an unrelated offense, no matter how ghastly the offense, he just ignored the German. The ambassador-to-be had molested an adolescent and walked away unpunished. How could anything outweigh that?
Rucker tried to tell Deitel that there was something personal to it; the little girl was the agent’s cousin. It was a blood feud, plain and simple. But they were talking in different languages even when they both spoke English. He let it slide and ignored the fussy German doctor.
“It looks impossible,” Deitel said. “Security is as tight as anything I’ve seen at the Führer’s rallies.”
Rucker didn’t say a word. He’d been like this for the past ten minutes.
“That one should work. Yeah, that one should do nicely,” he whispered to himself.
Deitel was pretty sure Rucker wasn’t talking to him.
“What one will do nicely for what?”
Rucker pointed though the underbrush to a carriage edging its way forward in line, just about to make a turn that would obscure it from the motorcars and carriages behind it.
“What, you are going to shoot the passengers and take their place?” Deitel said, a little horrified at the thought of such cold-blooded murder.
Rucker’s expression said he was as shocked at the idea as Deitel.
“What is it with you expecting me to shoot everyone?” he asked. “You’ve known me for twenty-four hours and the only person I’ve had the slightest inkling to shoot is you. Just stay behind me and stay out of sight.” He was a little mad at Deitel and a little mad about the fact that he knew very well he made his living employing violence here and there, despite all his pretensions.
Rucker sidled through the brush and opened the carriage door. After a few moments of whispered conversation, he climbed into the carriage and pulled Deitel along. Deitel found himself sitting across from two men in formal daywear who were in the process of stripping. As was Rucker.
“Um, Herr Rucker, I . . . um . . . I’m not—”
“Shut up and get your clothes off.”
Falschemenn? Deitel thought. No? Something else.
Moments later the two men from the carriage casually stepped out dressed in Rucker’s and Deitel’s worker clothes. In the carriage, Deitel and Rucker were pulling on borrowed day coats and white ties, Deitel only noticing on close inspection that these outfits weren’t exactly Seville Row quality.
“You paid them?” he asked.
“Why not? I’m not a thief. Not the kind who steals from people anyway. I needed their carriage and clothes,” Rucker said. “I could tell they’d probably respond to some real gold money. More than that one-side scrip the U.S. Treasury is churning out at all hours.”
“How could you tell . . . oh, the clothing and the rented carriage, nicht wahr?”
Rucker tapped his nose.
“So they were what?” Deitel asked. “Social climbers? Seeking to make contacts with industrialists or politicians?”
“Who cares?” Rucker said, handing Deitel one of the engraved invitation cards. “Let’s just hope these are for real.”
The East Wing of Hamilton House loomed ahead.
“It’s so big. Larger than Versailles. Imposing. Intimidating,” Deitel said.
“That’s the idea, I think. Now play it smooth, and follow my lead,” Rucker said, tucking some kind of device into his top hat.
At the East Gate to Hamilton House, the social coordinator took their invitations and asked for their names so they could be announced. He looked at Deitel first.
There was a long, awkward pause that got only more awkward with each passing second. Just as Rucker feared, Deitel froze. Maybe it was the machine-pistol-toting guards. Maybe it was the sight of the German diplomatic contingent just ahead, replete in their dove gray dress uniforms with their plainclothes SS bodyguards in tow.
Rucker took Deitel’s hand in his own, leaned forward to the social coordinator and said in his best Dutch accent, “Untersecretary to the Niederlanden Ambassador, Kirkenn Vandorhoeven, and . . . um . . . friend.”
The social coordinator noted Deitel’s hand in Rucker’s hand.
“And your name, sir?”
Deitel still didn’t speak.
“Mein freund is, sadly, how do you say, deaf and mute. Janos Wladyslau.”
The coordinator made a notation.
“Very well, then. Have a lovely time,” he said, motioning them through the velvet ropes and up the red carpet to the lawn proper.
Rucker took Deitel’s arm and half marched him down the carpet.
“Just, wow,” he said to the doctor, once out of earshot of the gate. “How did you do that? You were so cool and calm. It was flawless. You’re a superspy, aren’t you?”
The sarcasm in Rucker’s voice was thicker than the pancake makeup on some of the older lady guests.
“Shut up, Rucker. Let’s go find your ex-wife.”
“Ex-fiancée.”
“Of course.”
Rucker and Deitel were almost too late. While Deitel was asking an omelet chef if he knew how to make breakfast tacos, Rucker was scanning the crowd.
Deitel put a hand on Rucker’s shoulder, about to ask him something.
“Hand. Hand!” Rucker hissed, brushing Deitel’s paw away.
Just across the lawn the Hawaiian delegation—replete in their native garb—were seating themselves and trying to enjoy what passed for seafood in this cold, deathly climate. They were listening to a diamond-draped elderly Manhattan socialite give her opinion of the merits of national socialism versus state socialism. The ambassador noted that the lines on her face were etched by a lifetime of sneering disapproval. The poor woman wasn’t ugly because she had bad genes; it was the ugliness of bad character.
“Well, darling, from what I read in Gotham magazine,” Mrs. Vanderbilt was saying, “the German leader champions the rights of the workers, and he regards capitalist society as brutal and unjust. Although he has his eccentricities, he deplores the selfishness and exploitive capitalism in countries like France, Brazil, and Texas. He seeks a third way between communism and the anarchy of the free market, something which provides stability and proper place for everyone. In this regard, he has emulated some of the steps taken by Vice President Roosevelt’s New Society agenda, taking large-scale economic decision-making out of private hands and putting it in the hands of central planning agencies answerable to the political establishment, and which protects the people from risk . . . Oh me? No, my grandfather established a trust fund for me.”
One of the aides motioned to the ambassador, who was looking for any excuse to get away from this woman. Could he pretend to be brain-damaged? he wondered. Start thrusting his hips in her direction and jabbering nonsense? He saw the aide trying to get his attention. He finally excused himself by telling the elderly New York socialite that she should “piss off”—an American idiom he particularly enjoyed.
“Anolani,” the aide said. “That man over there. Does he look familiar?”
The corpulent ambassador nodded. He’d never forget the blond-haired devil. The Hawaiian ambassador switched to Olelo, their native language.
“I wonder what the Fox is doing here, among the Yanks?” Anolani asked his assistant.
Black Sun Reich: The Spear of Destiny: Part One of Three Page 11
