Blood of the Reich

by William Dietrich

  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

  Your 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 t
he 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.

  “When Hood lived up here, this was the State Bank of Concrete,” Barrow explained. “He left a will and a safety deposit box for his heirs, but guess what? No heirs. Until you. And a mystery seventy-plus years unsolved. Until now.” He grinned and went up to a teller. “Mr. Dunnigan, please.”

  “I’ll see if he’s available.”

  “Tell him Mr. Barrow and Ms. Pickett-Hood are here to see him. He’s expecting us.” Jake stood tall like it was his birthday, glancing around impatiently. Rominy studied him again. Her companion, she admitted, was intriguing, smart, and a bit of a stud. He was built like a fitness freak, and his eyes seemed lit with blue fire. Certainly more interesting than another evening home with Netflix and Häagen-Dazs. Instead of savior or kidnapper, Jake was making himself, she realized, a partner.

  Curiosity kept her with him. And it was reassuring he’d taken her somewhere dull, like a bank.

  “I still don’t get what I’m supposed to do here,” she whispered.

  “Inherit, remember?” he whispered back.

  Mr. Dunnigan was a balding, portly bank vice president in a white no-iron synthetic shirt and JCPenney sport coat, who reigned behind a Formica desk of faux oak. He picked up a stack of manila folders and took them into an adjacent small conference room with wooden table and hard chairs, looking at Rominy as if she were a ghost. Which she supposed she was in a way, if what Barrow claimed was true. The missing heir of Benjamin Hood! Who?

  “Congratulations, Mr. Barrow,” the banker began, dropping the folders with a thump. “As you know, I was skeptical of your research.”

  “You sound like my editors.”

  “The DNA test, however, convinced me.”

  “DNA?” Rominy asked.

  “Yes, Miss, it’s been so long since Mr. Hood’s death and his family history is so truncated—goodness, such tragedy—that a mere genealogical table wasn’t going to convince me an heir still existed. That’s when Mr. Barrow suggested the use of DNA evidence, which is surprisingly quick and affordable. We had a rather gruesome relic . . .” He paused, looking at Barrow.

  “A finger.” The reporter shrugged. “It must have meant something, because Hood kept it in his safety deposit box after he lost it from his hand.”

  “He was attached to it,” Dunnigan said, smiling. Apparently, bankers in Concrete possessed quite the wit.

  “Wait a minute,” Rominy said. “You matched my DNA to his?”

  “Yes, dear. An impossibility for earlier generations, but science marches on.”

  “But how did you get my DNA?”

  Dunnigan looked surprised at the question and turned to Jake. He in turn looked uncomfortable.

  “How did you get my DNA, Barrow?” Rominy asked again.

  He cleared his throat. “Saliva.”

  “Saliva? When?”

  “I got it off a Starbucks cup. I fished it out after you left a store.”

  “Are you joking? When was this?”

  “A week ago.”

  “You’ve been following me to get my saliva?”

  “To let you inherit, Rominy,” he said patiently, as if she was a little dense.

  “That’s illegal. Isn’t it?”

  “My bank cannot condone anything improper,” Dunnigan added.

  “Of course it’s legal,” Barrow said blandly. He turned to the banker. “My newspaper’s lawyers checked this out. As long as you’re not taking samples from a person’s body without permission—like clipping their hair—it passes the test. We’ve done this before. It’s fine, so long as it’s from discarded organic material.”

  Dunnigan frowned, then shrugged.

  “Discarded like a Starbucks cup,” Rominy said.

  “Yes.”

  “That’s sick.”

  “Do you think you would have let me run a swab inside your mouth?”

  “Maybe, if you’d ever explained yourself in a normal way.”

  “I had to be sure or you would have run like a rabbit. ‘Hi there, you might be due a missing inheritance so do you mind if a run a Q-tip?’ It sounds like molestation. You would have dumped espresso down my pants and been furious if it wasn’t a match. So I did something that didn’t disturb you one iota, and we compared Hood’s finger to the saliva you left on the cup.”

  “That’s disgusting.”

  “Maybe so, but because of it you’re sitting in a bank about to get a look into Benjamin Hood’s safety deposit box. How many times do I have to tell you I’m trying to help you?”

  “You’re trying to help yourself.” She closed her eyes, momentarily wishing she could will this day away. But when she opened them they were both still looking at her with troubled and not unkind expressions. There was sympathy there. And Jake did have that compelling little scar. She sighed. “The DNA shows this Hood character and I are related?”

  “Yes,” Dunnigan said, visibly relieved she wasn’t going to throw a fit.

  “What happened to all the other desce
ndants? After three generations, there should be a zillion of them by now.”

  “Only children after mysterious accidents to their mothers,” Jake said. “A drowning, a car crash. Nobody ever put it all together because of the changes of names and growing fear of even discussing the Hood relationship, I’m guessing. Nobody put it together until I did. And I realized there was one final survivor: a survivor because she was left in a campground, adopted by strangers, a girl who knew nothing of her own past.”

  Had her real parents been protecting her? Had they known they were about to die? Were they being chased? “And you think this was somehow the work of Nazi fanatics, leftovers from World War II, who didn’t want whatever my great-grandpa found ever getting out?”

  “Possibly.” Jake glanced at the banker, and then shrugged. “Or the American government.”

  “The Americans? But Great-grandpa was American.”

  “He left a hero, a government agent, and came home a dropout. Why, we don’t know. That’s the mystery I’m trying to unravel. I thought we had more time until that bomb went off.”

  “What bomb?” Dunnigan looked alarmed.

  “Watch the news tonight, Mr. Dunnigan. But don’t worry, we’re well past them. Don’t call the press and they won’t call you. But let’s not linger, shall we? What if reporters find the same paper trail I did and trace Rominy up here? Or cops do? Or Nazis?”

  “Exactly.” Now the banker was brisk. “Let’s get the pretty lady on her way.” He took the folders and began spreading papers out on the table as if dealing cards, suddenly in a hurry to have them gone. “Here are the genealogical tables Mr. Barrow assembled, birth certificates, address reports, news clippings, and the DNA testing documentation. It’s been quite an exercise in investigation, because Benjamin Hood was apparently quite the recluse. We never saw him; he was a complete hermit. He was represented by a woman; possibly your great-grandmother. But we have the will, the bank records, and information on the Cascade River property.” He glanced at Rominy. “Are you a fan of compound interest, Ms. Hood?”