The Golden Gates

by C. R. Kliewer

  The Golden Gates

  * * *

  C.R. Kliewer

  In Memory of Ray Kelley

  Copyright 2013 by Christina Kliewer

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States

  ISBN-13:

  ISBN-10:

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form unless written permission is granted from the author or publisher. No electronic reproductions, information storage, or retrieval systems may be used or applied to any part of this book without written permission.

  Original and modified cover art by Kasia and CoverDesignStudio.com

  Due to the variable conditions, materials, and individual skills, the publisher, author, editor, translator, transcriber, and/or designer disclaim any liability for loss or injury resulting from the use or interpretation of any information presented in this publication. No liability is assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

  Contents

  A Bad Year for Goodyear

  An Angel on an Iron Horse

  Eggs Benedict and Country Ham

  The Eight-Legged Devil

  Ye Old Burro

  The Brown Tail

  Parting is No Sweet Sorrow

  Standard Operating Procedure

  If the Eye Offends Thee

  Bacon, Butter, and Bitching for Breakfast

  Gin on the Rocks Ahead

  Hello Nurse!

  Duck, Duck, Goosefeathers

  A Damn Good Broad

  Hess Shoots a Valentine

  A German Among Pigeons

  Breakfast in the Galley

  Botany, Biology, and Geology

  The Moustache Gets Some News

  Chess Anyone?

  The Wolf, the Lioness, and the Rat

  Eva’s Blasphemy

  The Sound of Silence

  The Elephant on Starboard

  Body of Water

  One Hotcake Short of a Stack

  Mr. O’Connell Misses His Mark

  A Room Full of Smoke

  A Pocket Full of Lies

  Rags and Niches

  Death by Deception

  A Closed Case Reopened

  One Fish, Two Fish, Dead Fish, Tunafish

  Blackbird

  Message in a Bottle

  A Red Herring

  The ‘Stache Has Its Say

  How to Trap a Rat

  The Final Play

  Lights Out

  Death and Taxes

  Last Call

  Prologue

  * * *

  I. The Devil in the Dark

  No Man’s Land

  France, 1918

  100 meter.

  That was all. What was left between him and the small one-story farmhouse outside of Verdun.

  The lights in the house burned dim. Dark shadows played at the drapes inside and lurked about the corners of the exterior. One standing there under the window. One crouching at the northeast end. Two near the barn. A tiny yellow light flickered and burned from within one of those shadows, briefly igniting two glass orbs and singeing the silhouette of a grimy, whiskered jawline before disappearing, leaving behind an orange glowing speck that shifted eerily about in the surrounding void.

  A muffled curse. The shadow is swiftly joined by another. The orange speck drops to the ground and vanishes.

  Recent rains had turned the ground to slick tar. Trees, stripped of their living parts, stood bare, broken, black, and dead. He had lost his boots in order to move more easily, but his mud caked feet still produced a thwuck sound each time he pulled one free of the black sludge to move it forward. The occasional dried stick and thorn tore into his soles. His breath came slow and shallow, an icy cloud scarcely illuminated by the light of the waxing moon.

  80 meter.

  The shadows near the house were becoming more defined. Whispers began to punctuate the air around him. Englisch? He fought the urge to move more quickly, even the urge to lift his hand to scratch his nose or wipe away the muddy sweat dripping down the forehead into his eyes, breathing now more difficult as the need to suppress sound grew with each meter gained.

  60 meter.

  45 meter.

  30 meter.

  25 meter.

  *

  Jack looked up from his post at the corner of the house to see two shining specks of light in the small black mass just fifty yards away from where he stood. There could be no doubt, the mass was getting closer. And now it had eyes.

  He lifted his Springfield rifle shouting at the undefined form, demanding that it identify itself immediately. The silent, frozen response was all the evidence he needed. He aimed and shot into the core of the negative space, the dark form emitting a faint shriek before it crumpled to the ground. Others on watch that night quickly joined Jack, flicking on their torches and illuminating the spot where the mass fell. Rifle still raised, Jack proceeded cautiously towards the body lying face down in the mud. As he approached, he noted the gray enemy uniform now ragged and sullied with the filth of war. One of the other soldiers stepped forward turning the surprisingly small bulk over using the blunt toe of his boot. From cracked lips strained a hoarse cry. “Ich übergebe!” I surrender.

  The blood drained from Jack’s face as he looked into that of his quarry. Shit! He’s just a kid!

  II. The Devil in the Duster

  No Man’s Land

  Oklahoma, 1932

  Anna watched him through the window as he slowly walked up the drive. From care-worn shoulders drooped a sweaty, button-up shirt over heavy arms and thick hands. His arms swayed back and forth slightly, as if the winds swirling around them were flowing through the branches of an old and dying oak instead of the limbs of a hearty middle-aged man. The color of his shirt was the color of his hair, which was the color of his hat, his pants, his boots. All were the color of the lifeless plain around him, which had no color at all. The only discernible shade of real color, from this distance anyway, was the deep red-brown of his skin; sunbaked leather that looked as if it had been lightly dusted with the flour she and Mama had used for breads and pies when times were better and she was younger, much younger. As he came nearer, she began to discern the down-turned corners of his mouth and the furrowed, wrinkled brow that just a few years earlier had been a smooth plane framed by rich, dark, unmanageable curls that he once tried to tame with a bit of Murray’s hair wax but were now matted with the same grime that covered everything else in Oklahoma’s panhandle. Climbing the steps of the wooden porch, his face lifted and he spied her watching him through the paned glass. Immediately, his eyes began to sparkle a familiar sky blue, creasing at the corners in deep laugh lines. The down-curve of his mouth straightened from its thoughtful frown into a crooked smile, reflecting the joy that lit his eyes in seeing her, his little girl, all grown up and home again. She smiled and waved gaily in return, trying to mirror the emotion that lit his face, while her own heart and stomach continued to sink.

  She knew what was on his mind. It was on hers as well. Mama, who at one time had healthy curves, was now grown thin and sallow. Her younger brother, barely six, already knew what it was to be hungry, and the farm, once prosperous with flowing fields of wheat, was parched with drought.

  As he walked in the door, he gave her a squeeze of greeting then walked into the kitchen to kiss her mother, the first thing he always did when he came home. If it was a field day, and nine times out of ten it was, he was filthy, and Mama would frequently chide him for messing up her pristine dress and for leaving a dark smudge on her cheek where the stubble of his jaw rubbed against hers. But these days she just smiled as he came near, wrapping her thin arms around his neck, much of the usual banter dried up with the rain.

  A
nna watched through the doorway at the scene that so often made her smile subconsciously. Today, fully conscious, she clenched her jaw, determined to keep her chin from trembling. She had made up her mind. They would not like it, but she would convince them. She tried to consider every other possible option and was left wanting. If she was to help, and she meant to help, there was no other option. What was more, she really wanted to do this.

  Her green eyes steeled gray as she turned away and looked back out the front window. As she surveyed the bleak land before her, she noticed a small dark cloud hovering close to the horizon. For a brief moment, hope lifted the heavy heart inside her chest. Rain. But then, to her horror, she realized this was no rain cloud forming in the bright sky above. Rather, it grew from the ground upwards, soon looming over the land before it like a great black wall, and it was approaching the small farmhouse with furious speed.

  1

  A Bad Year for Goodyear

  * * *

  Karl Arnstein was seriously disturbed. No, he wasn’t crazy. That much he knew. But unless he was mistaken, something was seriously wrong.

  He had always been a meticulous person. Always knew the location of his keys. Always remembered his wife’s birthday. Always remembered where he catalogued the most updated plans for the latest dirigible. He knew that he had left the plans for the USS Macon rolled up in a tube on the first shelf to the right in his office at Goodyear-Zeppelin. So where did they go?

  His first thought? Damn Competitors! Wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the guys down at ABB. They’d done something like this before, trying to pass someone else’s work off as their own, and due to recent construction on the USS Akron, the rate at which the company grew did not afford him the luxury of being involved in the hiring process for all the new jobs the project created, a process he insisted upon completely overseeing in the very beginning. He used to know every single person on site by name, but now it was becoming increasingly difficult to tell the difference between stranger and employee. One man can only do so much. And even though G-Z was now safely under contract with the U. S. Navy, it wasn’t necessarily safe from corporate infiltration by other firms trying to benefit from his structurally superior design, or those just wanting to just piss him off by putting them behind schedule.

  Could be communists, was his second thought. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had tried to sabotage the company. Emigrating from Germany and coming from a German engineering and design firm didn’t exactly score points with some of the locals, even if he was technically a Czechoslovakian Jew by birth and an American citizen going on two years now.

  Fortunately, the missing plans weren’t much of a loss. Copies were kept in several places by several people, and the modifications he made last night were few and easily added in. They would be able to continue on schedule without much of a hitch, but that didn’t alleviate the frustration and personal violation of someone coming in and rifling through your private papers, not to mention the added inconvenience of having to inform the Navy of the breech. But with all the discomfort he felt now, it would have been nothing compared to what he would have suffered had he known the real fate of the plans; that it wasn’t the competition or even local fanatics who were responsible for their disappearance, but someone far more deadly.

  *

  While Arnstein was scratching his head in Ohio, the plans themselves were making their way to California, land of rising (and falling) stars. Now, why would self-respecting naval airship plans be making their way to the glamour capital of the United States? Connections of course! Through connections, plans can find luxurious travel accommodations to Canada, fly back across the North American continent to Toronto, and continue their journey over the Atlantic to a currently stripped and crushed country trying to rebuild itself after a lost war. A country that surrendered its right to even own airships beyond commercial purposes, and certainly not airships outfitted with F9C Sparrowhawk fighter planes. A nation grasping for hope and finding it in a burgeoning nationalist party headed by a new charismatic leader with patriotic dreams of an ideal society and private ambitions of absolute power and human destruction, whose hands were to be the final destination of the plans’ long and secret expedition.

  Sitting snug in their tube, they rocked gently back and forth, keeping time with the motion of the train oblivious, as inanimate objects usually are, to what was going on around them, tucked safely away in a private sleeping compartment along with their caretaker who never let them out of his sight. It was his first assignment. He was nervous. Jittery. And he had something to prove. He had not the professional expertise of a seasoned runner, but as a common sneak thief, he met the criteria for the job: Cheap. Greedy. Trustworthy (to a point of course). Skillful enough to find his way around a lightly secured area. Smart enough not to ask questions beyond what was needed to complete his task, and thick enough not to realize how treacherous the game was that he’d been commissioned to play. He had made his way quite easily onto the Goodyear Airdock. Nice suit (perk of the job). Right carriage. Didn’t have to say a word. Just pretend like he should be there. Locate Arnstein’s office, lift the plans, and accompany them to California (which he was now in the process of doing).

  *

  Under the midmorning sun of the next day, the plans’ chaperone, referred to from here on as Anonymous Man A, passed the said documents in their tube to Anonymous Man B. Anonymous Man B, being a mere office clerk, was completely unaware of the traitorous material he held in his grasp and possessed them for less than 35 seconds, for upon receipt he went immediately to the office of Anonymous Man C and deposited them on C’s desk without another thought (He would have given them directly to C, but C was out on an early lunch break to a well-known watering hole of the rich and trendy).

  When Anonymous Man C finally did return to his office, he was a little taken aback by the promptness of delivery. Since late was what was fashionable and expected in the city these days, he wasn’t expecting the package to be dropped until at least 1:30. If he had been a religious man like he was in his youth, he would have done three Hail Mary’s for his ass being spared, for unlike Anonymous Man A who was unaware of the risks, and Anonymous Man B who was unaware of the prize, only Anonymous Man C knew he was working for D, and D was not known for his divine mercy when it came to brodies made by his staff. It wasn’t that C was afraid of losing face or rank in the organization. Far from it! He was more afraid of being found on a well-run beach, eyes gouged out, and burnt to an unrecognizable crisp.

  With disaster being divinely diverted (whether he wished to acknowledge it or not), C would start to make his way down to the docks at 3:00 that afternoon, plans in hand. When he got there he would pass them off to the next chum who found that there existed a price high enough to risk experiencing hell before experiencing death.

  2

  An Angel on an Iron Horse

  * * *

  Forster had been watching the relentless scenery roll by for the past 9 hours and 23 minutes. There wasn’t much else he could do. He'd already read the paper he had bought that morning enough times to be able to quote the article on the bottom of page four verbatim. Breakfast and lunch had been about as bland and colorless as the view outside the window, and sleep in the berth was next to impossible while the train rattled along its steel tracks. So now he was sitting in the observation car looking bloodshot and bleary-eyed at the flat, monotonous land sliding by while his thoughts rambled much like the occasional Russian thistle across the otherwise barren Midwestern Plains.

  When he boarded the train yesterday in Chicago, the ebon locomotive pulled out of the newly built Merchandise Mart station, steam billowing from its engine and trailing behind blending in with the various shades of gray that made up the forming skyline of the Windy City. The grand skyscrapers popping up everywhere were tall, elegant, architectural wonders in their own right. The Tribune Tower. The North Michigan Building. London Guarantee. Steel. Stone. Granite. Gray. He liked Chicago, but often wish
ed that the colors hadn’t been so dull. His recent stint in Miami had given him an appreciation for vibrancy. So much so that when he returned to Chicago, he joked with the out-of town customers, telling them that the Windy City was like living in one of those Hollywood films. Style. Glamour. Action. Drama. All in black and white and shades of gray. He had lived in the city for nearly four and half years now, the longest he’d ever spent in one place, but it had never felt like home. Nothing felt like home. Nothing felt like home because the word had no meaning to him. Home didn’t exist.

  Despite the last half decade of monochrome city life, he was not prepared for the pallid monotony of the Plains. Drought and what was becoming known as black blizzards had stripped the land of its famous amber waves leaving a vast pale landscape in its stead. It was like looking at one of Salvador Dali’s bizarre, surrealist paintings with bits and pieces of fencepost, dugout, and farm equipment poking through in places where the fine dust had gathered into large dunes. He was sure at some point, if he was patient, he would see a melted clock drooping on a rusted half-buried windmill somewhere out there. It’s hot enough. Even the sky was painted in broad strokes of the same pale hue.

  He’d read about the dust storms in the Chicago Daily Illustrated, but they had seemed unreal and irrelevant compared to current struggles that people faced in the city and the eastern states beyond. Back page news. The farm belt states had seemed like a foreign country on some forgotten continent a half a world away. Even now, it was hard to believe that this desert was the heart of America.