Blood of the Reich (11 page)

Hood’s ticket for this race against the Germans had cost a staggering $1,600, or as much as two new cars. But then he’d had a private cabin with bunk, washstand, and the finest cuisine the airline could conjure. He relished the shrimp and steak while he could, and didn’t turn down the company of one Edith Warnecke, either. She was a pretty and bored thirty-five-year-old double divorcée traveling to meet her newest husband in Singapore. Edith smelled Hood’s money and pedigree; Hood, opportunity. She liked red wine, chocolate, and sex, and rode the American adventurer ragged three miles above the Pacific, moaning like another propeller.

He was willing to oblige since the days ahead would be privation enough. And yet the amusement was oddly unsatisfying. Edith was an unhappy woman, looking for distraction. Ben realized (somewhat to his own surprise) that he was increasingly dissatisfied with distraction. Life should
mean
something, and not just society outings, specimen expeditions, and museum tolerance of his stooping to be a scientist.
Sex
should mean something, someday. After the
Clipper
skidded down on its pontoons into Hong Kong harbor, he stepped out on the dock, annoyed with his own conduct. Since the Tibet scandal he’d been embroiled in four years before, he’d been marking time. Now, he thought, his time had come.

Mrs. Warnecke, sensing his mood, stalked off without a good-bye to drink by herself until the next flight to Singapore.

What am I doing here?
Hood said to himself as he watched the minuet of the junks traversing the harbor. It certainly wasn’t to fulfill some secret mission for Duncan Hale as errand boy for Uncle Sam. It was to complete what he’d long suspected was unfinished, his business with Kurt Raeder and Keyuri Lin.

Astonishing that Raeder had dared return.

Somewhere, in central Asia, was what he’d backed away from before: the test of being a man.

Hood had arrived at the edge of chaos. One couldn’t tell that in Hong Kong itself, with its stately British warships, regal banks and ministries, and bustling streets where coolies pulled rickshaws at a steady trot and Chinese women of high fashion minced in narrow silk dresses slit just high enough, to the knee, to make maneuverability possible. Sampans choked the quay and liners gleamed like mammoth wedding cakes, their stacks pumping out energetic streams of smoke. All this played out against a beautiful backdrop of steep green hills as extravagant and improbable as an opera set.

Beyond, however, was the mainland. Shanghai and Nanking had fallen to the Japanese the year before. Nipponese warplanes had sunk the American gunboat
Panay
in the Yangtze River in December, creating a diplomatic uproar. While the beleaguered Chinese army had won an impressive victory at Shantung this spring, now the Imperial Army was counterattacking toward Hankow. Their warplanes, rising sun on the wing, ranged like raptors. Munitions destined for Chiang Kai-shek were safely stacked on Hong Kong wharves under British protection. But once they were on railroads to the mainland, they ran a gauntlet of air raids.

The British trader Sir Arthur Readings explained all this when Hood called on him in the imperial oasis of Hong Kong called Happy Valley, site of the colony’s racetrack. Since British Intelligence had been alerted of Hood’s mission and agreed to help, Hood had been instructed by Duncan Hale to go to Readings for advice. Sir Arthur knew finance, good liquor, and China.

“Ordinarily, old chap, you’d pull up here and call the journey done,” Readings said when the two met for whiskey and dinner at his club. Apparently Sir Arthur did secret work for his empire beyond his shipping and sweatshops, and that work included liaison with mysterious agencies from the United States.

“It’s not like ’34 when you were here before,” Sir Arthur went on. “I know China was a bit of a scrimmage then, but it’s full-scale war now, millions killed, and the Japs are bombing the Kowloon-Canton Railway. I’m not sure whoever sent you entirely realizes what the situation is. Can’t blame Washington, tucked as it is on the other side of the world.”

I can
, Hood thought to himself. “You said, ‘Ordinarily’?”

“Quite. The truth is, we live in perilous times and I’m told your mission could have real importance. You’re in for a bit of a romp. Accordingly, I have an idea. Just enough to get you killed, I suspect.”

“I’m not sure that will rattle my employers. Though I am cheap labor; paid my own way, mostly. A patriotic cog to counter the deficits of the New Deal.”

“By God, you won’t see a British lord doing that. That’s bloody marvelous, or bloody insane. So you’re English in one way; a bit balmy, are you?”

“My country is counting on it. So I’ve got to get to Tibet, and crossing China is the quickest way.”

“That’s like saying crossing the battlefield of Waterloo is the quickest way to Brussels. It’s sheer havoc out there, man. Chiang’s generals are at each other’s throats, the Nips have seized most of the coast and industry, and the Communists have created a bandit state of some sort up in the northwest. This Mao character won’t stand and fight, but he yaps and snaps like a little terrier. The only way Chiang has slowed the Japanese is to break the dikes on the Yellow and Yangtze rivers, flooding a thousand towns. Might as well go to the moon.”

“Arthur, if it was up to me I’d take your ‘ordinarily’ advice and board the
Clipper
back to Hawaii, finding another high-class tart to while away the monotony.”

“Another? You had one on the way here?”

“More interesting than looking at the ocean.”

The Englishman shook his head. “You Yanks always manage to make things a lark, don’t you? But then I wish I still looked like you.” Arthur was bald, sixty pounds overweight, and red as an apple. “And you’ve got a hankering to see the Roof of the World again?”

“Something like that. It appears the Nazis are trying to beat us to it.”

“Nazis! Good lord, they seem to be everywhere, don’t they? And which Nazis this time? The German military mission has abandoned the Chinese. Their new Japanese friends made them do it. Everyone’s choosing up sides, trading this dance partner for that one.”

“This Nazi is different. Old partner of mine named Raeder, an explorer and scientist on his way to Tibet. Capable, but perhaps too capable. I’m to catch up to him and find out what he’s up to.”

“Dominating the world, I imagine. That seems to be the German obsession these days.” Sir Arthur sniffed, glancing at his own empire’s clubs and racetrack. It was hard to imagine such established opulence ever being threatened. “Well, if you want to chase after Jerry, more power to you. Just take gold coin for bribes, ammunition to shoot your way through, and a good quart of scotch, because you’re not going to find any in Tibet. Worst cuisine in the world, I hear.”

“And some of the most glorious country. Their valleys are higher than the crest of our Rockies.”

“All the more reason not to go there, if you ask me. Dreadful climb. But say, here’s my idea. Have an eye for the ladies, do you?”

“Just the normal male appreciation.”

“Have you heard of Beth Calloway?”

“A looker?”

“A flier, though I hear she doesn’t look bad, either. A regular Amelia Earhart, this girl. A tomboy, what you Yanks might call an oddball. She showed up to shoot down Japanese, and while the Chinese won’t let a woman do that, Madame Chiang put her to work doing other things for the Chinese air force.”

“What things?”

“The male mercenaries monopolize the fighter and bomber planes, so they put Beth to work as an instructor. She also scouts airways and airfields to India and Burma, now that the Japanese are clamping off the Chinese coast. She’s flown over more of Asia than any woman, and more than any man, probably.”

“Really?” Hood sat straighter. “Tibet?”

“No idea, but you can spend three months walking there and being waylaid by bandits and warlords, or three days flying. I’m thinking you might be able to hire this girl away for a week or two, if Madame Chiang thought you were on the generalissimo’s side. I could write a persuasive letter. Jolly romp to go with a comely aviatrix, no? You can drop in on these Nazis while they’re still sweating uphill.”

“You think she’ll take me there?”

“The truth is, she’s done some timely jobs for the Crown here and there and we’ve had some contact,” Sir Arthur said. “She’s earned a penny or two doing it. I’ve also had some correspondence from your Mr., er, Hale, and he, too, suggested her.” The merchant sipped his drink. “Everybody wants to speed you on your way, it seems.”

“Reassuring.” Hood slugged his whiskey.

“Calloway has certain flair. If you can get to the new Chinese capital of Hankow alive, you can’t miss her. As often as not, she’s got cowboy boots and a Colt .45. Bowie knife, too, I imagine. Lovely girl.” He smiled. “Resourceful.”

“You make it so enticing.”

“Better than the rogue Genghis Khans you’ll otherwise meet, I assure you. Just keep your head low when the Nips strafe. And never trust the Jerries.”

12

Summit Bank, Concrete, United States

September 4, Present Day

Y
our descent from Benjamin Hood is on your mother’s side,” Barrow said as they continued driving up the Skagit Valley, Rominy purposefully numbed after emptying more than half the wine bottle. She was an occasion-only drinker, but had decided this qualified as an occasion, even if she’d been slightly embarrassed at having a third glass in front of Jake. “If the records are correct, your grandmother, Hood’s daughter, was an only child. When she married she lost her maiden name, and the chain of descent continues through your mother, who also took her husband’s name. It’s no surprise, given the circumstances, that you haven’t heard of Benjamin Hood.”

“So how have
you
heard of him?”

“It started as a historical feature story on a local figure everyone has forgotten. Tibet explorer moves to rural Washington and dies in unappreciated obscurity, that kind of thing. But then I began digging up these enigmatic documents suggesting that Ben Hood hadn’t just gone to Tibet, he’d found or seen something there that other people wanted. Federal government people. But access to his old place is barred by some nutty Dotty Crockett type upriver, and the only person with right of entry is an heir. Which, I eventually figured out, is
you
.”

“What did Hood find or see?”

“That’s unclear, but the Nazis were after it, too. So I think, wow, this is the kind of yarn I could sell to
American Heritage
or
Smithsonian
, or maybe get a book contract, once it ran in the paper. Nice Depression-era mystery. But then there were odd clicks on my phone, and I found a bug on my desk.”

“Bug?”

“Listening device.” He waved his hand as if this was an everyday irritation. “I realized some other folks were looking into this story, too, but not just to make a freelance fee out of it. Either they want what Hood found or they want to make sure no one else ever gets it. It turns out there were Nazis in Tibet, too, and suddenly I’m being shadowed by skinhead goons. I realized I’d better find you and figure out just what exactly is going on.”

“I have no idea what’s going on.”

“But you have the genealogy to find out.”

“I didn’t ask to be dragged into this!”

“Of course not, but you’re key. Which is why you’re in danger. And it was dumb luck I learned enough to warn you. And there
is
an inheritance, apparently. You can thank me later.”

“After my knees heal.” She felt truculent about being caught up in something without being asked first. It wasn’t fair.

“That wasn’t planned. Before we could be properly introduced, ‘boom’! And, well, here we are.”

“Here we are
where
?”

“Concrete.” Once more he turned the pickup off the main highway, driving them past some gigantic dull-gray concrete silos that, in faded red letters, indeed announced Concrete. “Guess what they made in this place? It built some big dams upriver.”

“Benjamin Hood lived in Concrete?”

“Nah, he’s up on the Cascade River, which is where we have to go. But he did his banking here, and that’s where you come in.”

Rominy looked out at a rain-stained, pocket-sized town punched into more of the valley’s lush forest. She’d heard of it but never been here.

Barrow turned onto Main Street. “This burg is actually modestly famous, because De Niro and DiCaprio made
This Boy’s Life
here. The Tobias Wolff memoir? Wolff lived up in the Seattle City Light company towns, Newhalem and Diablo, but he came down here for high school. Hollywood, baby.”

They parked. Downtown was a block-long clump of architecturally uninspired buildings about as charming as a gas station and as typically American as baseball and Barbie. Tavern, hardware store, Laundromat, food bank—unsurprising, since there was no sign of money—and, more heartening, a surviving movie theater. Many of the time-warp buildings were built (as she should have guessed) of painted concrete. There were old lodge halls for the American Legion and Eagles and an eight-foot carved wooden bear, incongruously rearing under a gazebo built to keep the rain off. Summit Bank had a reader board displaying the temperature (67 degrees) and a sign,
SINCE 1914
. Inside was utilitarian as a post office. Paneling painted white, forest green carpet, and the kind of fluorescent lighting that gives off the warmth of Greenland’s ice cap. The clerks, however, smiled. A vault door gave a peek toward safety deposit boxes.